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No, You Don’t Need to Write Everyday | Just to be clear, I’m not saying that writing every day is a bad thing, what I’m saying is do what is sustainable, at whatever pace that works, for you. Whatever motivates you to write consistently and intentionally for weeks, months, years; instead of feeling success at your fingertips while burning yourself to the ground in the process. Do whatever makes you write better, and hopefully, forever. And no, you don’t have to be miserable to be an artist. Be happier and healthier than that, your work, your body, and your mind will appreciate it.
Let me be real with you, there are days I could hardly get to the shower, let alone sit down (or up?) and write 500 words. On those days, I could feel my anxiety so physically like an invisible rock clinging against my chest. Sometimes, it grows legs and moves up to my throat, preventing me from raising my already-stifled voice. On those days, I don’t write despite the unbearable fear of me not working, not producing, not doing enough, not being enough. Because deep down, I know I write better when I’m well-rested; when ideas flow from my mind onto the computer’s screen without me having to think too hard about it.
Have you done something and later you exclaim with pride and excitement mixed with a little of confusion “I did that!?”?. That’s where you want to be, not grinding your words onto the page like a chore; which way of creating is gonna make you miserable at the end of the process.
So you know what? Binge that TV show. Finish the books that have been collecting dust on your slightly messy desk. Go out. Drink a cup of tea. Go hiking. Go to the gym. Go to the woods. Don’t forget to take naps because naps are the best! Do whatever you need to cope as the kids say, and keep yourself healthy, mentally and physically. Self-care is your first and foremost responsibility, cliche as it sounds. If your creative career takes a bit longer to take off, that’s okay. Because when you’re not happy, what’s the point of success? Success is the high you feel for 2 minutes (maybe a little more, or a little less, perhaps it’ll last for days if you’re lucky but eventually it’ll fade) after you achieve the very thing you’ve been trying to reach for years. Then there you are, alone yet again with your miserable self after the high subsides.
Do you want to be happy with your success, or do you want to feel dead inside because you have nothing left to give? It’s your choice to make. | https://medium.com/swlh/no-you-dont-need-to-write-everyday-4d6b721a4dd | [] | 2020-04-14 02:25:55.732000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Mental Health', 'Productivity', 'Freelancing', 'Writing'] |
Football & Friends: The Picks (NFL Week 16) | NFL Week 16
Welcome once again to Football & Friends: The Picks. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all. I hope this holiday season finds you happy, healthy, and in great spirits. My gift to you all is some fun-filled picks for Week 16 of the NFL season. We are down to the last two weeks of the season. The playoff picture is starting to shape up as well as who will get the top pick in the draft. That’s a pretty big deal too for those that won’t make the postseason. At least you have something to look forward to.
No Thursday game this week. I believe Raiders vs Chargers was the last Thursday game of the year. We do have a game on Christmas Day and another set of Saturday games. Let’s get into those picks.
Christmas Day: Vikings vs Saints
Santa
Kirk Cousins and Drew Brees
We start the week off with a Christmas Day matchup between the Vikings and Saints. Both teams are coming off losses last week. Drew Brees returned. He did throw three touchdown passes but it wasn’t enough. I can see both teams winning here. Kirk did beat the Saints in a playoff game last year. Even coming off an injury, I gotta take Brees and company to pull out the win this week.
My Pick: Saints
Drew Brees
Now let’s get to the Saturday games. We have three this week.
Saturday games Week 16
Saturday Games: Tampa Bay vs Lions
Matthew Stafford vs Tom Brady. I like the sound of that. Tampa beat the Vikings last week. The lions are coming off a loss to the Titans. Tampa has more to play for obviously. Stafford will keep the Lions in the game but I gotta go Brady and the Bucs here.
My Pick: Tampa Bay
Mike Evans
Arizona vs 49ers
49ers vs Arizona
A battle of AFC West teams here. It’s been a tough year for the 49ers. From going to the Super Bowl last year to missing the playoffs altogether this year. You just never know in the NFL. One minute you are a contender and the next you are not. I gotta go Cardinals here. They are a team on the rise and have a lot going for them right now. Arizona wins.
My Pick: Arizona
Larry Fitzgerald
Miami vs Las Vegas
Raiders vs Miami
This should be a good match up. Derrek Carr went down last game and Marcus Mariota took over. He looked really good and almost beat the Chargers. I don’t know if Carr will be able to play or not but with Mariota the Raiders still have a shot. I’m liking what I see in Miami too. They are a team to keep an eye on in the coming years. This one may be closer than you think. I’m a take Miami to pull out a close win here.
My Pick: Miami
Tua
Now let’s get into the games for Sunday.
Carolina vs Washington
WFT vs Panthers
I’ll get into the Dwayne Haskins situation at another time. Ron Rivera faces his former team with a division title on the line. It doesn’t get much better than that. You already know who I’m going with here lol. Hail to the Football Team.
My Pick: Washington
Coach Ron Rivera
Colts vs Pittsburgh
Steelers vs Colts
The Steelers have not been the same since my team beat them. I’m taking the Colts here. The Steelers better get it together.
My Pick: Colts
Phillp Rivers
Atlanta vs Kansas City
KC vs ATL
This could be a high scoring game. You have two teams with good offenses. Atlanta is no KC tho. My money is always on Mahomes. Chiefs win.
My Pick: Chiefs
Patrick Mahomes
Bears vs Jacksonville
Jaguars vs Bears
With the Jets win last week, Jacksonville is now in the number one spot for next years draft. Tanking for Trevor Lawrence lol Bears win.
My Pick: Bears
Mitch Trubisky
Bengals vs Houston
Bengals vs Houston
The Bengals actually won last week against Pittsburgh. Like I always say, division games can go either way. Can the Bengals make it two in a row? Never say never but I doubt it. I’m going with Watson and the Texans.
My Pick: Houston
Dashaun Waton
Giants vs Baltimore
Ravens vs NYG
A rematch of Super Bowl XXXV. I need the Giants to lose so Washington can take the NFC East. Go Ravens.
My Pick: Ravens
Lamar Jackson
Browns vs Jets
Jets vs Browns.
Hell must of frozen over. Pigs must be flying. The Jets won a game lol. Against a good Rams team too. With that win they are out of the spot for the top draft pick. Things can change but that’s crazy. The Browns have been rolling. Baker Mayfield has stepped his game up in recent weeks. I gotta go Browns here. No way the Jets win two in a row and mess up their draft odds even more.
My Pick: Browns
Baker Mayfield
Broncos vs Chargers
Denver vs Chargers
Another division game here. This one’s a toss up. The Chargers have the better QB in Justin Hurbert. Plus he was on my fantasy team. I’m a go Chargers to get the win here.
Justin Hurbert vs Drew Lock
My Pick: Chargers
Justin Hurbert
Eagles vs Dallas
Eagles vs Cowboys
Jalen Hurts has brought some much needed energy to the Eagles team. Even though they lost both his starts, you can see how much better the offense looks without Carson Wentz. Dallas has won two in a row. They won their last game without Ezekiel Elliot. This is another game that could go either way. Hurts is due for his first win. What better way to get that win then by beating Dallas lol.
My Pick: Eagles
Jalen Hurts
Rams vs Seattle
NFC West battle here. Seattle is coming off a win against Washington. The Rams are coming off that embarrassing loss to the Jets. I can’t trust a team that losses to the Jets. Seattle wins here.
My Pick: Seattle
DK Metcalf
Sunday Night Football: Titans vs Green Bay
Waiting all day for Sunday Night
Green Bay vs Titans
We have an excellent match up for Sunday Night with the Packers vs Titans. Aaron Rodgers has some real competition this week. The Titas are no joke, Especially with King Henry leading the way. I was one touchdown off on my Henry predictions last week. I say he has another big game of over 100 yards and at least one score. In the end, I gotta go with that bad man in Green Bay to pull out the win for his team. Go Pack Go! If the Titans win it would’n’t shock me. I’m still sticking with the Pack.
My Pick: Packers
Aaron Rodgers
Monday Night Football: Bills vs Patriots
Are you ready for some football?
Bills vs Patriots
We end the week with a division game between the Patriots and Bills. How the mighty have fallen. For the first time since 2008, the Patriots will miss the postseason. On the other hand, the Bills are building on what they did last year and takings things to the next level. They are solid on both sides of the ball. The Bills will win here. Josh Allen continues to get better each game. He is a future league MVP for sure.
Cam Newton vs Josh Allen
My Pick: Bills
Josh Allen
That’s it for the picks. I can’t believe we are down to the last two games of the year. One more week of regular season picks and then the playoffs start. I plan to bring guest back soon to help pick games. Be on the look out for that as well. As always I’ll leave my patreon page at the end of this post if you’d like to subscribe to my exclusive content.
My online shop is posted as well. A lot of awesome custom gear including the official Football & Friends gear. I take request too so if you have any ideas or need something for your team let me know. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. Happy Holidays. Have fun, stay safe, and I’ll see you next time for the final week of the season. Week 17. Enjoy the picks. | https://medium.com/@BrokenMoneyMaker/football-friends-the-picks-nfl-week-16-7c46db09fca0 | ['Chris Durham'] | 2020-12-25 06:45:53.430000+00:00 | ['Nfl Week 16 Picks', 'NFL', 'Football', 'Blogging', 'Weekly Picks'] |
3 to read: Pokemon Go & newsrooms | Who defines your startup’s success? | 3 to read: Pokemon Go & newsrooms | Who defines your startup’s success? | Why stats stink (w bad drawings)
By Matt Carroll <@MattatMIT>This week:
This week: How Pokemon Go will help usher in an era of “augmented reality” stories for newsrooms; don’t let outside expectations define your news startup’s success; and hey, let’s laugh a bit — some bad cartoons about how lyin’ stats.
Get notified via email: Send note to 3toread (at) gmail.com
“3 to read” online
Matt Carroll runs the Future of News initiative at the MIT Media Lab. | https://medium.com/3-to-read/3-to-read-pokemon-go-newsrooms-who-defines-your-startups-success-b6b8cae71dbc | ['Matt Carroll'] | 2016-07-20 12:22:57.351000+00:00 | ['Journalism', 'Startup', 'Media', 'Pokemon Go', 'Statistics'] |
M vs Microsoft: Episode 22 | Does emotional AI have the ability to identify fear?
What is happening here?
Adrienne, the woman in this image, is trapped in an abusive relationship with her husband. In this scene, she finds out her husband is a murder and is trying to sneak out of her house in the middle of the night, her husband fast asleep, in an attempt to find evidence of her husband’s crime. She wants to escape her abusive marriage and make sure her husband receives punishment for his crimes. However, suddenly, their maid, who is loyal to her husband, walks into the room Adrienne is in. Adrienne hides so as to not get caught, and is afraid of the consequences she’ll face (violence, anger, physical abuse) from her husband if she is found.
Let’s take a moment to think of what kind of emotions Adrienne could be feeling?
Since this image is captured when Adrienne is trying to hide from the maid (and thus from being discovered by her husband), her most dominant emotion may be fear — both of getting caught and of her husband finding out what she was trying to do. She likely wasn’t expecting the maid to come into the room, or she wouldn’t have had to hide, so she is also probably surprised. She may feel a small amount of anger and the loyal maid walking in the middle of her escape, as well as at her husband’s actions.
Now Let’s see how M and Microsoft interpret the emotions that Adrienne is feeling in the moment.
M detects a high level of fear (48%), which makes sense given Adrienne’s overwhelming response is to do with what will happen to her if her husband finds out she was disobeying him. M also correctly detects surprise (24%), and a small level of anger (7%). All in all, M is able to interpret an incredibly complex scenario in terms of emotional experience and provide an accurate read of Adrienne’s emotions.
On the other hand, Microsoft Azure identifies Neutral as the Primary emotion (61%), which we know cannot be the case in such an emotionally charged situation. It does detect surprise as the correct secondary emotion (27%) but incorrectly identifies fear as the tertiary emotion at only 12%.
Now that you know the context behind the situation and the two different emotional readings, it is up to you to decide what interpretation you think is most accurate.
We at Project M believe the ability of emotional artificial intelligence platforms to identify and understand negative emotions has great potential to optimize humans’ emotional well being.
Follow us on our social media and stay tuned for our next episode!
(AP)
Your LIKE means a lot to us! Follow Project M on:
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*As of March 1, 2020, the Project M team has devoted 80,000 hours to the AI platform, M. The sample input data we are using is the pure testing data that is completely new to M and Microsoft (assumed) and has never been used to train M, so this comparison is a fair trial between M and Microsoft. We appreciate Microsoft, the leader of the industry and emotional AI sector, for allowing the general public to test their testing site for identifying human emotions based on facial expressions. | https://medium.com/@projectm-info-ai/m-vs-microsoft-episode-22-a349e8fb6ffc | ['Project M'] | 2020-12-26 07:01:38.619000+00:00 | ['Microsoft', 'Biotechnology', 'Emotional Ai', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Fear'] |
Report On Digital Leadership in the Finance Industry — HSBC Holdings. | Executive Summary
The bank structure has been effectively defining the quality improvement in the structure of working. The style of working of the employees has effectively determined the growth which has necessarily created a sustainable future for the company. The effective determination of the strategic growth can be felt through the driving position that has effectively determined the market share of the bank. The overall style of digital transformation and leadership has improved the work culture of the bank. However, the opportunities of digital transformation are 24*7 availability, facilitation of better customer services, decreased expenses, fast and quick banking services. Contrarily, the drawbacks are higher expenses, the greater requirement of personal hardware, and risks for impoverished implementation activities. Behavioral theory, trait-man leadership theory, situational theory, and transactional or management theory are the conventional leadership theories and action-centered leadership is a digital leadership apt for this purpose.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction.
2. Report objectives.
3. Critical discussion of the challenges and opportunities faced by the banking sector in digital transformation.
3.1 Opportunities faced by the banking sectors in digital transformations.
3.2 Challenges faced by the banking sectors in digital transformations.
4. Critical discussion of the conventional leadership theories and models and their differences from digital leadership theories and models.
5. Critical discussion of the current digital strategy and strategic leadership style along with their approaches.
6. Conclusion.
1. Introduction
Digital leadership is an important aspect for all types of business sectors. The development of leadership within the financial industry continues to be a noteworthy challenge for almost all organizations within the world. In the UK, the banking industries have already planned to exhaust a huge amount of pounds for increasing the banking capabilities digitally. The report will discuss the challenges and opportunities for digital transformation within the banking sectors and the differences between digital leadership theories and models, conventional leadership theories, and models. Additionally, the report will also focus on the strategic leadership approaches and styles, current digital strategy of HSBC Holdings.
2. Report objectives
The objectives of the report are -
To critically evaluate the opportunities and challenges faced within the banking sector during digital transformation
To critically discuss conventional leadership theories and models and their differences from digital leadership theories and models
To critically discuss the strategic leadership style, approaches, and current digital strategy of HSBC Holdings and their impact on the success and goals of the organization
3. Critical discussion of the challenges and opportunities faced by the banking sector in digital transformation
Digital transformation within the banking sector has always been an uneven path, mainly for retail banks. As per the analysis of Tekic and Koroteev (2019), as the retail sectors are fore-fronting constantly emerging requests of the modern customers and increasing disruptions from the constantly emerging financial technologies (fintech), and conventional banks under pressure, then to innovate and adapt. The digital switch over within the banking sectors has benefitted customers through providing better customer services, instant banking services, 24–7* 7 availability, low costs, and many others. Moreover, as per the opinion of Mehdiabadi et al. (2020), the technologies of industry 4.0, such as IoT (Internet of Things), embedded computing, cyber-physical systems, and many others are also throwing huge impacts on the organization. The framework provides decentralization, virtualization, interoperability, service orientation, real-time capability, and many others.
3.1 Opportunities faced by the banking sectors in digital transformations
The customers are considered to be the most beneficial person for the incorporation of digital transformation within the banking sectors. The presence of internet connectivity and a device facilitates a customer to retrieve the details of his corresponding bank account and perform transactions from anywhere, and at any time (Ustundag and Cevikcan, 2017). It not only saves the costs and times, but also does not require the persons to visit the bank branches, and wait in front of the queues to get their work done. As per the suggestion of Sajić et al. (2017), digital switch-over within the banking sector has assured that the banking facilities will be available to all the customers for 24*7 hours. The customer can also retrieve different types of information from his or her bank account, and check their records anytime. Another positive impact of instantaneous banking services is that they would not require waiting for a longer duration. As per the opinion of Roznovsky (2021), it also resulted in decreasing operating expenses for the banks, as lower costs indicated greater amounts of profits. Moreover, the market revenue for the incorporation of digital transformation within the banking sector is continuously increasing (Refer to appendix).
Figure 1: Opportunities of digital transformation within the banking sector (Source: Influenced by Sajić et al. 2017)
For example, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) became proactive after investing in digital innovation strategies. It, not only, helped them to gain better customer behaviors, but also provide them with a platform that would gradually help in improving their services for future customers. The growth in payment volumes of the RBS systems increased by 14%, as around 5.5 million customers found it to be a secured and encouraging approach (Lauchlan, 2018).
3.2 Challenges faced by the banking sectors in digital transformations
The challenges faced by the banking sectors for digital transformation are high risks for poor implementation, greater requirements of personnel and hardware, and higher expenses for incorporating cutting-edge technologies. As the banking sector comprises risks in terms of reputations and finance, the initiatives for digital transformation need to be properly tested, planned, and modelled. As per the opinion of Aguayo and Ślusarczyk (2020), digital technologies require highly skilled professionals for integrating all the activities effectively. Otherwise, there might be susceptibilities, resulting in loss or leaks of essential information. As per the depiction of Niemand et al. (2017), highly skilled professionals working in the banking sectors are required to integrate them effectively. Additionally, the software and the hardware are also becoming outdated with time, and the businesses require restoring the inherited systems with contemporary alternatives. For banking, the requirements and the poles are considered to be much higher than before. Moreover, as per the suggestion of Swachh-Lech (2017), the installation of cutting-edge technologies within these sectors requires a huge amount of costs. However, greater expenses for enriched quality software lead to bigger safety and income. Additionally, as per the opinion of Limba et al. (2019), the banks might be more susceptible to various types of attacks, and there might also be a loss of privacy. Some bank branches might also stop existing due to the lofty usage of online banking facilities. For instance, the RBS group faced several issues in accessing software, as a result of which the customers failed to retrieve their accounts for several days. As a result of this situation, the organisation had to pay £175 million as a recompensation amount (GARP, 2021). The software that was to be updated got destroyed by the technical staff of RBS.
Figure 2: Challenges of digital transformations within the banking sectors. (Source: Influenced by Niemand et al. 2017)
4. Critical discussion of the conventional leadership theories and models and their differences from digital leadership theories and models
Leadership abilities are mainly required in the banking sectors to throw an impact over the business performance and implement the corporate strategy to develop themselves as core strategies, The conventional leadership theories are the trait man theory, behavioral theory, great man theory, the management or transactional theory and situational theory. As per the analysis of Ayman and Lauritsen (2018), the trait man theory of leadership asserts that the leadership qualities or traits can be gained easily, and do not always require to be inherited. The gap in the leadership approaches over the banking sector is increasing continuously. The capabilities of this particular organisational sector are decreasing by 2% (Deloitte Insights, 2021). 42% of the organisations quoted “leadership development” as an important activity. With the disruption of digital activities within the banking sector, the capabilities of the leaders are slowly decreasing. 67% of the individuals believe that technology will foster increased value in comparison to the human capital.
Digital disruption has the potential to reshape markets and overturn incumbents. As per the opinion of Cansoy (2019), the behavioral theory describes the behavior of human individuals through assessing the consequences within the learned associations and the individual’s environment. For instance, HSBC Holdings provides a huge range of systems and policies to assure that it controls, oversights, and manages the systems perfectly. (HSBC Group, 2021). However, as per the opinion of Khan (2017), the management or the transactional theory states that it is a part of the leadership pattern that comprises directing and motivating the followers chiefly through appealing their own interests. The transactional leadership’s capability mainly appears from the responsibility and the formal authority within the organizational domain. With the addition of more digital features within the banking branches, the professionals are expected to move one step ahead of evaluating the consumers in using the tablets or the digital screens for transferring money, paying bills, and registering for a debit card.
The situational leadership theory indicates those leaders acquiring different types of leadership abilities, as per the development and situational level of the team members. As per the opinion of Bosse et al. (2017), this pattern of leadership theory is considered to be an effective approach as it slowly needs to acquire the requirements of the team, and set a beneficial balance for the entire organization. This type of leader provides constant feedback and supervision for the gathering of information by the co-workers and improvements of new ideas, suggestions for making remarkable contributions to the project.
On the other hand, in this digital period, a leader must be confident and comfortable with the continuous evolution and change in the digital sphere. Traditional leadership is a digital leadership theory that can be integrated into this aspect. As per the opinion of Yeboah‐Assiamah et al. (2019), traditional leadership theory makes decisions without considering or utilising the superior knowledge of others for reporting them. There is a tendency that these leaders follow the outsource responsibilities and blames the model for their defective choices and decisions to others. For instance, Accenture revealed that the valuations of a bank are interrelated with digital maturity (High, 2021). The organisation also advocated that the sophisticatedly-encouraged reduction of expenses is the first step in the establishment of a bank. Contingency theory and style theories are other theories that make a digital leader successful in the upcoming trends. However, as per the opinion of Abba et al. (2018), in contingency theory, the leaders are expected to be recruited and promoted as per the organisational requirements at a specific point in time. The option remains unforeseeable and accidental over the strategic issues faced by the organisation. For example, the approach for the digital experience of RBS remains totally different. As per the opinion of Cameron (2016), it completely depends on a pyrotechnic process of learning for integrating impromptu experiences, depending on a gut feel. Additionally, unread and onerous text-based reports seemed to be quite strenuous and arduous for the staff for determining analytical patterns in evaluating clear insights of the customer’s wants and requirements.
Action-centered leadership is another digital leadership model for incorporating digital transformation by the business leaders of the financial sectors, as it renders a blueprint for managing the organization, team, or group. However, the three core responsibilities of this model are achieving a task, maintaining and building a team, and progressing and advancing the individual (Business Balls, 2021). Good leaders and managers will have good authority in the three areas of the model, and must also be able to develop productivity, team, improve quality, receive outcomes, and maintain the right balance within a team. The major functions of this type of leadership are evaluating, informing, supporting, controlling, initiating, and planning.
Figure 3: Three attributes of the action cantered leadership. (Source: Influenced by Business Balls, 2021)
However, the leadership abilities of the past required for a banking sector is not adequate for administering a financial business. When above 3,300 leaders were enquired by MIT SMR (Sloan Management Review), the most vital skill for succeeding over a digital workplace is the presence of a reframing vision, and a slightly higher rank, over a forward and distinct vision. However, as per the opinion of Hesse (2018), for increasing the digital maturity of the board of directors and the top management, it is necessary to recruit new leaders and possess numerous literacy towards self-directed learning. However, a huge number of new capabilities are also required by the banks for succeeding and pacing forward with this new digital era. As per the depiction of Manning-Ouellette and Black (2017), understanding the essentials and foundations of project management, investment, prioritization, and communication are more important for the banking leaders at the time of change, as these attributes are highly required for developing a culture among the leaders that would encapsulate digital transformation’s potential as opposed to simply providing the lip services. Incorporation of newer technologies within the financial sectors without any communication, empowerment, involvement and top-level ownership can lead to disastrous situations.
However, banking leaders possessing all the essential skills, enlightened from the incidents of the past, with a digital savviness attitude and an agile mindset would encourage to hinge and fulcrum, as and when necessary. Hence, as per the depiction of Sow and Aborbie (2018), the managers and the employees of all levels possess the necessary tools to succeed, including support and training for appropriately disrupting others. It might require the recruitment of new digital leaders within the financial sector. Hence, both digital and traditional leadership characteristics are required within a business leader for bringing high prospects within the business domain.
5. Critical discussion of the current digital strategy and strategic leadership style along with their approaches
Strategic digital leadership is the ability to structure the digital decisions of an organization, and provide high-value activities with time, not only personally, but also through managing and inspiring others within the organizational domain. As per the opinion of Sajdak (2018), the strategic leadership capabilities also indicate the potentialities of a manager for conveying and motivating others to receive a specific vision. Thus, strategic leadership capabilities are also used for applying a strategy for managing the employees.
However, HSBC is also known to beat several types of creative regional squints with digital banking prospects and the innovation scope for approaching a global scope and a mono technological platform. The organization follows a huge number of strategic and digital approaches. Through the application of common code within the networks of a bank, the organization surpassingly reduces the time required to update or initiate mobile and online applications (HSBC, 2020). Examination of features within the domestic markets also helps in generating valuable insights of the customers for improving technology, before its deployment over other markets.
Several customers all over the world have transformed the digital channels for performing banking activities. For instance, mobile payment’s value all over the world increased by 220% from April to June, in comparison to the same period of 2019 (HSBC, 2020). Additionally, the digital footings of the organization are prepared properly for assisting the customers in unparalleled pandemic challenges. Opening durations have been decreased in several markets from weeks or days to less than twenty-four hours, with the help of digital equipment, in replacing paper-based and manual processes. The in-built iCash equipment is utilizing AI (Artificial Intelligence) for assuring above 1200 ATMs (HSBC, 2020). The organization is also making it easier for several other businesses to provide different other methods of digital payment for the customers for maintaining a record of the receiving payments at one position with HSBC Omni-Collect that has further been further extended to other line markets (HSBC, 2020). Another digital platform, VisionGo has been developed for encouraging small businesses and entrepreneurs to share knowledge and drop networking activities.
The digital strategy that the bank has been following is mainly focused under certain banking channels of digital processing. The bank has recently increased its payment structure with the help of banking done through mobile in June 2020. The payment procedure has increased by almost 220% where the download of their app by corporate users increased to a rate of 155% in the beginning of 2019 (HSBC, 2021). The pandemic crisis has also digitally improved the performance of the bank. The up gradation has been done mainly in the platforms of digital banking for clients and use of “personal banking”. As argued by Ebert and Duarte (2018), the spending that the company did for the latest technology involved the spending of at least 5.8 billion US Dollars. The operations henceforth have been made more attractive for the related customers. The banking structure has been made simpler, personalized as well as safer to continue with its operations.
Figure 4: Digitally Driven Strategy of HSBC. (Source: HSBC, 2021)
The above figure shows the initiatives that the bank took amidst pandemic times to improve the condition of the digital experience of the customers. As stated by Matt et al. (2015), the improvements were done digitally through a launch that can sign in almost 50 customers digitally at a time to give documents without being present at respective branches. The technology development in the field of biometrics allowed safety as well as quick verification of identity. The service that is being provided through Voice IDs almost prevented at least fraudulent attempts of 200 billion GBP. Schuchmann and Seufert (2015) had opined that these arenas particularly proved the efficiency that the bank significantly developed. The effective procedures digitally have allowed almost 220,000 colleagues to continue with their work effectively from home.
There are many other strategies that the bank significantly developed in recent months that have improved the revenue structure. As demonstrated by Ebert and Duarte (2018), the manual as well as certain documents which are paper-based were effectively cut down to a processing method of 24 hours that was delayed by weeks. The use of artificial intelligence in “ICash Tool ‘’ has been ensuring 1200 or more ATM’s so that it does not run out of money in Hong Kong. The corporate clients who contribute at least lots of business activities involve acceptance of payments digitally. As per the views of Matt et al. (2015), this has been done through offerings of methods of “digital payments” that help in keeping a record of “incoming payments” through “HSBC Omni Collect”. The platform has expanded to almost nine markets throughout the region of “Asia-Pacific”.
Figure 5: Digital strategies/methods. (Source: Matt et al. 2015)
The bank has also developed a new procedure called “VisionGo” where the platform has been created through the development of business by entrepreneurs. The networks in the business can effectively share knowledge and innovative ideas through this particular platform. According to Schuchmann and Seufert (2015), the usage of technology that mostly involves analytics and insights using data will help in the screening of at least transactions that are worth 689 million. The screening particularly crossed accounts of 236 million where laundering of money, as well as crime, was involved.
The leadership approach of the bank includes a perfect treatment for the shareholders, customers as well as owners. The strategy of “transformational theory” that the bank has been following is providing a healthy environment for both the employees as well as communities. The main principle that it has been following is the “key business value” which has effectively determined the perfect result from the employees. The pillars which are essential to determine the approaching style of the bank include loyalty, commitments, integrity, and hard work. The style of leadership is mostly based on the outcome from the performance of the employees. Warner and Wäger (2019) had opined that the commitment that has been achieved from the members of the particular team signifies the nature of productivity. The style has been rewarding due to the achievement and support from all the respective members.
Figure 6: Style of the leadership of HSBC. (Source: Turnnidge and Côté, 2018)
The above figure shows how the company has been succeeding effectively through this style. According to Çekmecelioğlu and Özbağ (2016), the process that has been effectively applied is significantly transparent in helping the company effectively perform through proper listening as well as effective receive of feedback from the employees. The procedure has significantly increased the performance as well as day-to-day improvement of the employees.
The critical challenge that the bank has been facing due to this style of leadership has been the volatility effect that it has been facing. As argued by Warner and Wäger (2019), the resolving that is mostly done include problems of idealization as well as motivation where the market position is getting hampered along with stockholders. The leadership style that the bank is following is mostly based on the survey that it is conducting to determine the course of its action. The consideration of understanding the effective mood of the public is significantly ignored where some particular influencing methods are included. The problem of brainstorming that the style follows in order to achieve results mostly ends with the use of personality.
The work culture has been affected mostly by some of the factors internally which have determined the office issues as well as the related teamwork. Chatterjee and Kulakli (2015) had opined that the proper understanding that has been provided by the bank involves a rate of modality where the effective rate of treatments involves the bank employees as a family. The support that the employee gets through effective leadership handlings helps in providing an opportunity that grows the career structure. The style also determines the hierarchical position of the leader where the best fit of the employees is effectively determined. The leadership style has effectively determined the nature of the organizational structure that has been effectively determining the growth in the business of the bank.
6. Conclusion
The incorporation of digital transformation within the banking sector not only elevates expectations and transforms customer behavior, but also digitalizes society and the businesses within the banking sector. The opportunities of digital transformation within the banking sectors are 24*7 availability, provision for enhanced customer services, lower costs, fast and rapid banking services. Contrarily, the drawbacks of digital transformations are higher costs, high requirements for technical aspects, and greater risks for poorer implementations. However, possession of both traditional and digital leadership abilities within a leader will help in bringing success to the organization. HSBC Holdings also follows strategic leadership styles in maintaining innovative regional squints with a creative scope and higher prospects for digital banking.
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Appendix: Increasing market revenue for digital transformation | https://medium.com/@dvd25/report-on-digital-leadership-in-the-banking-sector-hsbc-holdings-45d5789e93bf | ['Vidhi Sarvaiya'] | 2021-06-17 17:53:50.334000+00:00 | ['Finance', 'Digitalization', 'Digital Leadership', 'Report'] |
Represent your Geospatial Data using Folium | Represent your Geospatial Data using Folium
Photo by Valentin Antonucci from Pexels
As a part of the Data Science community, Geospatial data is one of the most crucial kinds of data to work with. The applications are as simple as ‘Where’s my food delivery order right now?’ and as complex as ‘What is the most optimal path for the delivery guy?’
What brought me to Folium?
I was recently working on a data science problem involving a lot of gps coordinates. Obviously the very basic question — how do I represent these coordinates on a map in my jupyter notebook? And while we know that plotly, geopy and basemap get the job done, this is the first time I came across Folium and decided to give it a go!
This article is a step by step tutorial on representing your data using folium.
Introduction
Folium essentially is used for generating interactive maps for the browser (inside notebooks or on a website). It uses leaflet.js , a javascript library for interactive maps.
To put it in a one-liner: Manipulate your data in Python, then visualize it in on a Leaflet map via folium.
Step 1: Installing folium on the computer and importing the necessary packages.
!pip install folium import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from sklearn import preprocessing
import scipy ## for geospatial
import folium
import geopy
We will work with the Fire from Space: Australia dataset.
Step 2: Loading and inspecting the dataset.
df = pd.read_csv("fire_archive_M6_96619.csv")
Step 3: Finding the coordinates to begin with.
We can either pick a set of coordinates from the dataset itself or we can use geopy for this purpose. Here, we are talking about Australian wildfires so I started with Melbourne for reference.
city = "Melbourne"
# get location
locator = geopy.geocoders.Nominatim(user_agent="My app")
city = locator.geocode(city)
location = [city.latitude, city.longitude]
print(city, "
[lat, long]:", location)
Step 4: Plotting on the map.
Plotting points on a map in Folium is like building a house. You lay the base (that’s your background map) and then you add points on top of it’s surface.
We shall first lay the base.
map_ = folium.Map(location=location, tiles="cartodbpositron",
zoom_start=8)
map_
You can also play around with the tileset and zoom by referring here.
Now we plot the points on the map. We shall color-code according to the attribute ‘type’ and size it as per the ‘brightness’ of the fire. So let’s get those attributes in order first.
# create color column to correspond to type
colors = ["red","yellow","orange", "green"]
indices = sorted(list(df["type"].unique()))
df["color"] = df["type"].apply(lambda x:
colors[indices.index(x)])
## scaling the size
scaler = preprocessing.MinMaxScaler(feature_range=(3,15))
df["size"] = scaler.fit_transform(
df['brightness'].values.reshape(-1,1)).reshape(-1)
We finally add points on top of the map using folium.
df.apply(lambda row: folium.CircleMarker(
location=[row['latitude'],row['longitude']],
popup=row['type'],
color=row["color"], fill=True,
radius=row["size"]).add_to(map_), axis=1)
Finally, we move to adding a legend to the map. I used this reference for adding a legend. There are a variety of other methods but this was what I found the easiest.
legend_html = """<div style="position:fixed;
top:10px; right:10px;
border:2px solid black; z-index:9999;
font-size:14px;"> <b>"""+color+""":</b><br>"""
for i in lst_elements:
legend_html = legend_html+""" <i class="fa fa-circle
fa-1x" style="color:"""+lst_colors[lst_elements.index(i)]+"""">
</i> """+str(i)+"""<br>"""
legend_html = legend_html+"""</div>"""
map_.get_root().html.add_child(folium.Element(legend_html)) #plot
map_
Here’s the whole piece of code:
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from sklearn import preprocessing
import scipy
## for geospatial
import folium
import geopy df = pd.read_csv("fire_archive_M6_96619.csv") city = "Melbourne"
# get location
locator = geopy.geocoders.Nominatim(user_agent="My app")
city = locator.geocode(city)
location = [city.latitude, city.longitude]
print(city, "
[lat, long]:", location) map_ = folium.Map(location=location, tiles="cartodbpositron",
zoom_start=8) # create color column to correspond to type
colors = ["red","yellow","orange", "green"]
indices = sorted(list(df["type"].unique()))
df["color"] = df["type"].apply(lambda x:
colors[indices.index(x)])
## scaling the size
scaler = preprocessing.MinMaxScaler(feature_range=(3,15))
df["size"] = scaler.fit_transform(
df['brightness'].values.reshape(-1,1)).reshape(-1) df.apply(lambda row: folium.CircleMarker(
location=[row['latitude'],row['longitude']],
popup=row['type'],
color=row["color"], fill=True,
radius=row["size"]).add_to(map_), axis=1) legend_html = """<div style="position:fixed;
top:10px; right:10px;
border:2px solid black; z-index:9999;
font-size:14px;"> <b>"""+color+""":</b> <br>"""
for i in lst_elements:
legend_html = legend_html+""" <i class="fa fa-circle
fa-1x" style="color:"""+lst_colors[lst_elements.index(i)]+"""">
</i> """+str(i)+"""<br>"""
legend_html = legend_html+"""</div>"""
map_.get_root().html.add_child(folium.Element(legend_html))
#plot
map_
You can also find it on my Github. Hope this article helped. | https://towardsdatascience.com/represent-your-geospatial-data-using-folium-c2a0d8c35c5c | ['Slavvy Coelho'] | 2020-08-24 06:32:25.178000+00:00 | ['Geospatial', 'Visualization', 'GIS', 'Maps', 'Data Science'] |
B2B Fintech opportunities to consider in 2021 | Contactless payments
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
2020 saw an increase in card payments, particularly contactless payments, even for purchases that are most commonly paid for with cash — like grocery shopping. Contactless payments are pretty much what the name suggests — a way of paying for goods without needing to touch a terminal. Customers increasingly demand expediency and physical distance, and as a response, we see greater adoption of tap-to-pay systems.
Statistics show that the overall usage of contactless payments in the U.S. has increased by 150% since March 2019. Accenture listed “a strong push towards a cashless society” as the primary long-term impact of the pandemic. Even before the crisis, contactless payments — both by RFID in cards or NFC on mobile devices — were beginning to gain traction. The pandemic only accelerated it. As customers care about how they are paying, so do the merchants who want to provide them with a good experience. As a result, the somewhat sleepy business of terminals might become exciting.
Wireless terminals, with appealing designs and seamless connections to inventory and customer databases are what merchants might be looking for when they opt to update their terminals to provide a better in-store experience.
Online payments
The repeated lockdowns, together with the fear of coronavirus transmission, led to a significant change in consumer behaviour and accelerated the adoption of online shopping. In regards to e-commerce transactions, a report by Digital Commerce 360 shows that U.S. consumer spending increased by 30% ($60.42 billion) in the first six months of the year, compared to the same period of 2019. Digital payment processing companies have grown in sync with the e-commerce spike, and there is still room for growth — especially since a new audience has just discovered the convenience of online shopping.
The spike in online payments is not bringing new requirements per se, but it is putting emphasis on the more obvious ones: a good buyer experience, including fast checkout, a variety of payment methods, taking good care of returning users, and high approval rates. A good experience for payment managers, including high platform reliability and state-of-the-art reporting capabilities is also growing in importance.
AI-based Fintech solutions
Selling products globally, fierce competition, and the need for short delivery times make traditional risk management solutions obsolete. Risk management tools that cannot adapt to fraud trends in real time ultimately lead to overblocking and lost customers. Operations that require active manual review, on the other hand, are very accurate. However, not only they don’t scale, they also slow down logistics creating a poor post-purchase experience.
As more companies shift to online sales as their primary revenue channel, there is an increased demand for machine learning solutions for payment security. The holy grail in this field is achieving human accuracy with machine scalability, and combining it with a good explanation of the models’ logic on the transaction level, getting away from the infamous black box.
According to Mordor Intelligence, the global AI in the Fintech market is expected to reach USD 22.6 billion by 2025. Payment security is naturally not the sole sector seeing a rise in AI-based solutions for Fintech: data-driven customer acquisition, due diligence, and predictive analytics are among the fields where we expect to see interesting developments. If you’d like to dive deeper into the subject, here is a list of 12 AI in Fintech Use Cases compiled by Technopedia. | https://medium.com/@tseidler/b2b-fintech-opportunities-to-consider-in-2021-72d0ab2ea666 | ['Tali Seidler'] | 2021-01-11 11:22:11.118000+00:00 | ['Online Payments', 'Fintech', 'Payments', 'AI', 'Risk Management'] |
AI Powers the Growth of Intranets and Extranets | AI Powers the Growth of Intranets and Extranets
For so long, the company intranet was left unattended and somewhat neglected. Advances in the technology of the internet itself meant it was easier to look for information and resources on the world wide web rather than the company intranet.
But intranet, extranet, and enterprise collaboration tools have been growing in recent years. An industry report pegged the enterprise collaboration market to grow from USD 31.0 billion in 2019 to USD 48.1 billion by 2024. This is a Compound Annual Growth Rate on 9.2% over five years.
Growth factors behind enterprise collaboration tools.
The growth behind enterprise collaboration tools has been driven by the emergence of AI as a driving force for the improved usability of intranets and extranets.
Josh Smith, Product Manager for Google Drive comments on the success the Priority feature in Google Drive, “The intelligence that makes Priority so helpful is actually powered by your own day-to-day actions.”
Cloud services, a key force in growth.
Cloud services have also been a key force behind the emergence of third-party enterprise collaboration intranets such as Microsoft’s SharePoint and Google Drive. One report notes that the global cloud computing market size is expected to grow from USD 272 billion to USD 623 billion in the five-year cycle between 2018 and 2023. This represents a compound annual growth rate of 18%.
Reliance on the cloud has not only made widespread intranet and extranet usage more popular, but it has also removed much of the need for internal IT support in favour of cloud-hosting IT outsourcing services.
The modern intranet.
A refresher for everyone who forgot that intranets exist. The intranet is a closed-off network that is used by private members of a company. Access is restricted to approved members.
The intranet is still a requirement for most large organizations. It is good for housing documents and other company content. The intranet is also great for fostering team purpose and engagement. Its internet-powered architecture is perfect for in-group collaboration. Modern intranets can be used for telephony and message exchange.
But as employees are used to a certain level of usability and intuitiveness with the internet, they expect the same with their intranet. This is where AI is so useful, and has its mark over the future of intranets and extranets.
Future Trends of Intranets
Trends in intranets predict that several new features will take form and prominence over time:
Artificial Intelligence to the fore
AI is already beginning to perform some of the mundane work like auto-filling in of keywords and common questions. The fingerprints of ML are all over intranets in terms of voice recognition and error correction. Jason Mayes, Senior Creative Engineer at Google refers to emerging AI as, “human intelligence exhibited by machines.”
Personalized Experiences Improved
Intranets will also start to make the experience more personalized. The personalize experience will be achieved by investing efforts in learning user preferences.
In practice, the face of the intranet will become more welcoming by calling users by name, and picking up where they left off in tasks. This is the tried and tested domain of AI and ML.
Design Intuition
The holy grail for developers is to improve the user experience. Even with intranets, dwell time is important. Google Drive already uses AI for its smart reply and smart compose functions. These tools make suggestions on the next word a user might need to type.
Systems Integration
Staff members will begin to use intranets as gateways into the organizations they represent. Preferences will be tracked, and increasingly, team members will find preferences from their intranet browsing seeping into other daily applications.
Moves to Become Mobile Friendly
Normally a web offering, intranets will be more mobile friendly as organizations try to enter every waking moment of the lives of users. In the future there may no longer be a clear-cut logging off time as users may need to access the intranet on mobile devices after hours.
AI-Powered Chatbots
Chatbots are already happening and will become more common. Chatbots are intelligent and unflustered personal assistants who will never become annoyed by repeated questions. The chatbots in Microsoft Teams are tireless and eternally helpful.
Advanced Analytics
Usage statistics and analytics are already the currency of the internet. Intranets will leverage off this to learn how to provide better experiences to users.
Developers will take just as much time and effort in studying trends in intranet behavior in order to keep users engaged with the experience.
High-Powered Search Capability
Imagine not having to exit your company intranet to be able to tap into all the knowledge in your organization or even the web at large. Staff productivity will increase by eliminating the trouble of swapping between different programs.
Already, the Explore function in Google Drive makes researching and writing reports much simpler. Using powerful AI, it makes instant suggestions based on the content in the document.
Google Drive recommends helpful supporting material when it detects a user is writing an analysis, summary or proposal.
Social Integration
Intranets will seek to provide a friendly, knowing interface. Social features on intranets will continue to evolve and will not be that distant from a user’s personal life.
This social integration could come in the form of a blending of the user’s private persona and a less traditional, less serious employee profile. This will present employees as more rounded people.
The Modern Extranet
Not to be confused with the intranet, an extranet is a private network which allows partners, vendors, clients, and other stakeholders to gain access to part of an organization.
Extranets can be used in a number of ways as a service extension or value add for clients or stakeholders. Think of all the service websites we use every day for banking, travel, dining, and entertainment.
Future Trends of Extranets
Extranets have traditionally had a slightly different emphasis to intranets. Future trends in this space are:
Security
Security will become of greater importance for extranets. With the rise in remote working, intranets and enterprise collaboration tools will be subject to malicious attacks when employees use public networks and personal devices.
Companies will work ever closer with partners to ensure that access control, authentication, and encryption are taken care of. Google uses powerful AI to scan email attachments for malware. Gmail scans an incredible 300 billion attachments every week. According to the company, this smart AI eradicates 99.9% of malware threats.
There are ever-present security threats which AI is combatting on multiple fronts. Scott Young, CEO of outsourced IT company Penncomp warns of the dangers of security breaches, “Defense in depth is based on the first principle that there is no one, invincible security solution”.
Extranets Will Take Away Jobs
Market realities will force companies to move more operations and functions onto extranets. One way this could happen is to provide real-time services such as pricing or bookings. This is already happening, but will go to an even higher level. Almost every conceivable service that can be performed by a machine over a human will be introduced in the end. Time and money can be saved through extranets, and as AI becomes better at mastering mundane tasks, human jobs will be lost.
The Extranet as A Competitive Tool
The most sophisticated extranets can become invaluable to a company’s product and service offering. Extranets can establish customer loyalty if they continue to be useful and integral to clients. Over time, the best extranets will become rivals and a major part of the competitive landscape as businesses compete.
Conclusion
The much-heralded Internet of Things relies on an interconnectedness of personal and business systems. Intranets, extranets, and business collaboration tools will play their part in this interconnectedness.
AI drives experiences which adapt to the user. Adaptation to users helps them become more productive and gives users time to address other tasks. With AI underpinning more and more everyday office tools such as intranets, it is inevitable that it will become integral and irreplaceable in our lives. | https://medium.com/readwrite/ai-powers-the-growth-of-intranets-and-extranets-42981c4497d9 | [] | 2020-09-03 04:03:11.896000+00:00 | ['Extranet', 'Intranet', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Top 20 gifts for teens 2021 | What are the top 20 gifts for a teen in 2021? Coming from a teen these are some of the top items teens want for gifts. Gifts ranging from prices $2 - $1,000. | https://medium.com/@carolina1111/top-20-gifts-for-teens-2021-30094cd926eb | [] | 2020-12-26 06:22:00.188000+00:00 | ['Gift Guide', 'Teenagers', 'Gifts Ideas', 'Teens'] |
Dear Sia, You Might Be Autistic | Dear Sia, You Might Be Autistic
Undiagnosed autistic people almost always share the widespread outdated and stereotypical views of autism. It takes a diagnosis for most of us to discover what “spectrum” really means.
Sia at The Parish club, Austin, Texas, 2006.
We have a lot to learn from the Sia autism film controversy.
The wildly talented (and tormented) singer-songwriter, Sia, has faced a great deal of criticism for her upcoming movie, which cast an apparently non-autistic actor to play the role of an autistic character.
In addition to her long list of pop albums and collaborations (e.g., “Titanium” with David Guetta), Sia has written hit songs for Rihanna (“Diamonds”), Shakira (“Chasing Shadows”), Britney Spears (“Perfume”), Katy Perry (“Double Rainbow”), Beyoncé (“Pretty Hurts”), and many more.
Of note, most of the songs she’s written for others took her under 20 minutes to write. Words like “genius” and “prodigy” are frequently used to describe Sia, her work, and her tremendous creative output.
“I’ve never seen anyone write a melody and lyrics that fast,” said Greg Kurstin, producer for Adele and Paul McCartney, and Sia’s frequent collaborator. “She’ll sing it and write it and it happens in one motion, and then she’s revising. And then it’s one take. You’ve got to keep up with her, really.” (from “How Sia Saved Herself” by Hillel Aron for Rolling Stone)
Sia’s film, an upcoming musical drama called Music, was cowritten by herself and children’s author Dallas Clayton. The film stars Kate Hudson, Maddie Ziegler, and Leslie Odom Jr. After release of the film’s trailer on November 19, 2020, many autistic individuals felt that the portrayal was not realistic and that the role played by Ziegler should have gone to an autistic actor.
Some responses:
Not realistic
I’m on the spectrum and this [trailer] makes me cringe. … the majority of autistic people don’t act like [the character played by Maddie Ziegler] or the way we are ever portrayed in films. Waiting for a film that portrays autism a bit more realistic, although since we mask so much, might be too boring for people to watch. 🤣 -Victoria Rose on YouTube
Relies on myths about autism
I was diagnosed with autism at six years old. From this trailer alone, watching the brief scenes made me uncomfortable. You can clearly see how they over-exaggerated stereotypical autism traits… It would be like making a film about someone with PTSD and them having a panic attack/flashback every minute and being super dramatic through the entire film from start to finish. It would be like someone with depression in a film saying they want to die every second out loud, etc. It’s just super exaggerated and cringy. Then people are surprised when you tell them you have autism because they expect you to be dumb or silly since the majority of media over-exaggerate the most severe autism traits and symptoms and expects every person with autism to be like that. -Khan on YouTube
Plot twist?
The irony in all of this is that Sia has a long list of characteristics suggesting that she herself may be autistic, or at the very least not entirely neurotypical — the word used for those who are not autistic and do not have other neurodevelopmental differences (e.g., ADHD, Tourette’s, dyslexia, etc.).
Here are some of the characteristics that stand out, in no particular order:
People with hypermobile Ehlers Danlos are “more likely to develop autoimmune disorders [which Sia also has], conditions in which the body’s own immune system attacks parts of the body, causing damage or dysfunction to those areas. These can include conditions like psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism.” (from “Researchers have identified a relationship between Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and autism” by Emily L. Casanova for Autism Research Review International)
It could very well be that even with all of these characteristics Sia is neurotypical or non-autistic. But there are so many indications of autism (or at least neurodiversity) that many in the autism community have suspected for years that Sia is one of their own.
Many autistic adults remain undiagnosed or are not diagnosed until later in life. The reason? They mostly coast under the diagnostic “radar” because their characteristics of autism are not externally obvious.
The majority of autistic people are not obviously autistic and they do not have intellectual disability. Most of the experience of autism is internal, meaning you cannot see it. It involves characteristics like:
The ability to have intense focus on a beloved topic or activity (e.g., researching, making music, crocheting, painting, etc.),
on a beloved topic or activity (e.g., researching, making music, crocheting, painting, etc.), Marked sensory differences (either sensory sensitivity to noise, certain textures and fabrics, touch, and so on and the inability to filter out unwanted sensory stimuli; or sensory under-responsiveness , such as having higher pain tolerance or being almost numb to some stimuli),
to noise, certain textures and fabrics, touch, and so on and the inability to filter out unwanted sensory stimuli; or , such as having higher pain tolerance or being almost numb to some stimuli), Preferring a lot of alone time, often due to overstimulation or even burnout, and needing time to decompress and pursue special interests (which are often experienced as deeply satisfying and comforting), and so on.
Why is it important to point this out?
Sia, like most people, may not have a good grasp on the myriad ways that autism can present. If she is autistic and not diagnosed, then having this information could be helpful — and potentially even life-saving. Many newly diagnosed autistic women describe their adult autism diagnosis as a huge relief. Many talk about their newfound ability to have self-compassion and to look back on their lives with a far deeper understanding of themselves.
This goes for anyone else out there struggling, without answers, knowing from a young age that they were different but not quite understanding why.
For more information check out: Female Autism Phenotype | https://kristenhovet.medium.com/dear-sia-you-might-be-autistic-75ac8d0b1c9d | ['Kristen Hovet'] | 2020-11-23 02:08:40.075000+00:00 | ['Entertainment', 'Music', 'Autism', 'Culture', 'Disability'] |
[TIL-2] Immutability of an object | Recently, I got question about “what is an immutable object?”. Back then, I only knew that immutable objects meant that the object cannot be changed.
After I answered like that I got a follow up question,”so final keyword is immutable ?”. And then I said “yes I guess, but I’m not sure”
Driven by curiosity. I read sources at other websites and make my understanding make sense.
What is Immutability ?
An immutable object is an object whose internal state remains constant after it has been entirely created.
In real life project, immutable object guarantees us that it will behave in the same way during its whole lifetime. In real life project the API gives us only read-only methods, it should never include methods that change the internal state of the object.
What is the differences immutable object vs final object ?
final means that you can’t change the object’s reference to point to another reference or another object, but you can still mutate its state (e.g using setter methods). Whereas immutable means that the object’s actual value can’t be changed, but you can change its reference to another one.
or another object, but you can still mutate its state (e.g using setter methods). Whereas immutable means that the object’s actual value can’t be changed, but you can change its reference to another one. The final modifier is applicable for variable but not for objects , Whereas immutability applicable for an object but not for variables.
, Whereas immutability applicable for an object but not for variables. By declaring a reference variable as final, we won’t get any immutability nature, Even though the reference variable is final. We can perform any type of change in the corresponding Object . But we can’t perform reassignment for that variable.
. But we can’t perform reassignment for that variable. final ensures that the address of the object remains the same whereas the Immutable suggests that we can’t change the state of the object once created.
Why we should create immutable objects ?
You Know What to Expect from an Immutable. Since the state of an immutable cannot change, we know what to expect from it. We know that the state of the object is valid throughout the object’s lifetime. Nowhere in the code can the state be changed to potentially introduce inconsistencies that may lead to runtime errors.
An Immutable Is a Gatekeeper for Valid State. If implemented correctly, an immutable object validates the state it is constructed with and only lets itself be instantiated if the state is valid. This means that no one can create an instance of an immutable in an invalid state. This goes back to the first reason: we can not only expect the immutable object to have the same state through its lifetime, but also a valid state. No more null-checks or other validations strewn across the codebase. All those validations take place within the immutable object.
If we’re working with concurrent threads that access the same objects, it’s best if those objects are immutable. This way, we cannot introduce any bugs that arise from accidentally modifying the state of an object in one of the threads. Since the internal state of an immutable object remains constant in time, we can share it safely among multiple threads. We can also use it freely, and none of the objects referencing it will notice any difference, we can say that immutable objects are thread-safe and side-effects free.
Conclusion
Immutable objects don’t change their internal state in time, they are thread-safe and side-effects free. Because of those properties, immutable objects are also especially useful when dealing with multi-thread environments.
Every time we add a field to a class we should make it immutable (i.e. final) by default. If there is a reason to make it mutable, that’s fine, but unnecessary mutability increases the chance of introducing bugs and maintainability issues by unintentionally changing state.
References | https://medium.com/@davidasync/til-2-immutability-of-an-object-50104a855dc6 | [] | 2020-11-21 16:30:46.517000+00:00 | ['Concurrency', 'Final', 'Object Oriented', 'Threads', 'Immutable'] |
Want to read more in 2021? Top 3 roadblocks to avoid. | 1. Do NOT Speed Read
There are probably people out there that can read 1,000 words per minute while both retaining what they’ve read and enjoying themselves. I am not one of them and I’ve never personally met one of them either. For me, reading is meant to be a joy, a learning experience, something to break up the status quo from the rest of my day. I didn’t find I was getting that when I was focused on how fast I was reading. Sometimes I go back and re-read parts. Other times I’ll breeze over short passages because I understand the point and don’t feel like going too deep. Having that freedom is important to me. The moment reading starts feeling like a chore, I’m done. I have enough of those elsewhere.
Key Lesson: Reading is self reinforcing. The more you read, the more you will read!
I found reading to be a self reinforcing activity. The more I read, the more I enjoy reading. The more I enjoy reading, the more I naturally find time to read. The more I find time to read, the more I read. The more I read, the more I enjoy it and the more I find time for it. The more I find time for it…I’m sure you get the picture.
I didn’t have much success trying to carve out hours a day to begin with (I still don’t), but I have found that by focusing on enjoying what I’m reading, I naturally find ways to dedicate more and more time to reading in general.
2. Do NOT Set a Goal
My goal of 50 books was arbitrary. I learned that it was doing a job for my ego and not much else. It drove me to read books for the wrong reasons e.g., because they were shorter and would keep me “on pace” for 50. My intent, however, was authentic. I wanted to learn more, understand more, be exposed to more.
Key Lesson: Focus on the habit of reading instead of a goal for how much to read.
I found that the more I paid attention to fostering the habit of reading each day and then doing it again the next day, the more successful I was. I let go of the goal (50 books, 4 per month) and found that I still read roughly the same volume (I’m currently on my 54th with 2 weeks to go in the year). Some months I would read more books, other months fewer. It all nets the same, except when I focus on the habit vs. the goal I read what I want, learn a ton and really enjoy it.
A few key tips that helped me keep the habit healthy:
Keep a backlog of books you want to read. I like the feeling of finishing one book and having another ready to go without having to figure out what to read next. Picking what to read can be daunting, so I like to separate the act of reading from figuring out what’s up next. Create time pressure. Though I don’t like strictly pacing myself week to week, I do find it helpful to know I have a deadline for a book. For me it’s usually because I have to return a book to the library by a certain date. It could also be because you have an upcoming book club. Anything that keeps timing of some kind top of mind seems to work. Set a regular reading time. It’s easy to fit a few ad hoc minutes of reading here and there throughout the day. However, without regular, dedicated reading time I also found it was easy to go days without reading. I like to read for about an hour each night before bed. Whatever works for you, I’d recommend setting some consistent time each day you can rely on.
3. Do NOT get into a committed relationship with any book
I used to view reading a book as a big commitment. Once I start, I have to finish. Also, while I’m reading one book I won’t read any others. Over time I shifted to thinking about reading more like listening to music. With music, what I listen to is highly dependent on the moment. I find reading is the same. I tend to have 2–3 books active at any time. This is really helpful so that when I sit down to read, I can jump into whatever feels right at the time.
Key Lesson: Don’t get bored! Make it really easy to read when you have the time.
How? Have 2–3 books on the go at once. I usually go with one fiction and 1–2 non-fiction “learning" books. Also, if you don’t like a book, just put it down. No one is forcing you to read it and you can always come back later if your interest picks back up in the future. | https://medium.com/@silversaying/want-to-read-more-in-2021-top-3-roadblocks-to-avoid-6b423c058da5 | ['Jason Silver'] | 2020-12-20 01:52:00.347000+00:00 | ['Personal Growth', 'Learning', 'How To', 'New Years Resolutions', 'Reading'] |
“She’s not here…it feels really empty…….”- covid stories | The lockdown has taken its toll on everyone in the world. It is like a global phenomenon. Amidst this virulent pandemic, sufferers are many. We hear the stories of only those, who came to light. Some patients, some survivors, others saviors, and heroes. We hear about those who fight the war on the streets but what about those who are fighting small battles locked inside their houses every day? With the intention of providing you an insight into their lives, I present the story of someone I know, an acquaintance. She called me after quite a long time. When I heard what she had to say, I was moved at the depth of my soul. She lost her mother this march. It was because of the natural process of aging and not the virus. She died at a good age of 89, but here is what a daughter had to say about it.
“I live alone now, well, most of the time my elder sister is not home. She a junior resident at the hospital so she leaves early and seldom comes home in less than five days. Earlier, it was us, sisters, and my mom. Both of us are single and have no plans of getting married now. We were always happy together. But now she is not here and it feels really empty. I just didn’t realize that it could be so sudden, death. I mean I always knew, of course, but it just leaves an empty space. Space which can never be filled. I am in the same house and everything reminds me of her, the sofa, bed, dining table, everything. And I can’t help but think about her. My mother was sick for a long time like she was bedridden for two years but things were working out for us somehow and, I and my sister were taking really good care of her. I understand that moments of this sort come without a warning and I feel like a fool fussing over something that I knew was about to happen someday soon, but the problem is that I can’t get over it.
My mom passed away in mid-march, only a week before the lockdown was announced. It has almost two and a half months now but I am still unable to recover from the grief that struck me when she left. Because, my sister couldn’t spare much time in the house, most of the time it was just the two of us. Most of my time went by taking care of her even on my workdays. I used to be really busy worrying but now I feel as if everything has transformed to nothingness. I am in utter need of some fresh air, literally. People generally try to deviate their minds to something else when in such situations. I was sure that work would get me out of this. With exams coming up, there will be a lot to be prepped for the students, a lot of copies to be checked, extra classes to be taken, but with colleges closed, the work pressure dramatically dropped. Taking online classes did not consume much of my time and as soon as it ended, I felt empty again. Looking at the same bed she slept on, the same old chair she sat on…even furniture became a precious memory now. I envy my sister so much. She has work pressure more than ever and when she complaints about it, I tell her how lucky she is to have something that could occupy her mind. It is better to be busy than turning mad. It is taking a mental toll now. I wonder how long this lockdown will last. I really want to be free of the void that has been created in my life. This house seems dead now, and, I feel no different than any of the furniture lying around here, just one of her memories.
I want to return back to life”. | https://medium.com/@tshivanirao/shes-not-here-it-feels-really-empty-covid-stories-451f6afcb6b7 | ['Shivani Rao'] | 2020-12-26 16:43:28.691000+00:00 | ['Lifestyle', 'Loneliness', 'Covid Diaries', 'Mental Health', 'Covid 19'] |
A Meditation on Not Being a Dick to Yourself | A Meditation on Not Being a Dick to Yourself
It’s possible to hold yourself accountable with compassion
Photo: Kohei Hara/Getty Images
A few days ago, I was sitting at the piano. It had been a while. I used to play pretty regularly, but these days I’m not what you’d call a musician. I’ll jam with my husband every once in a while, noodling with things by ear and messing around with chord progressions, but it had been years since I seriously sat down in front of a piece of sheet music to see if I could still sight-read.
Side note: Don’t get the impression I’m some kind of Renaissance woman here, it’s not like I nobly pursue the arts in my spare time because I’m virtuous and well-rounded. I only ended up at the piano because we’re quarantined in a pandemic and my husband and I had run through all 24 seasons of America’s Next Top Model, and now I was bored.
So I pulled out a Bach prelude, prepared to go as slowly as I needed to go, very maturely laying the groundwork for a nonstressful experience by reminding myself to breathe and be patient with myself. I was the very picture of emotional evolution! Pema Chodron herself would’ve been proud, and I made a mental note to tell my husband what a good job I’d done of practicing the shit I preach.
Seven minutes later I was literally sweating. I’d been stuck on the same four fucking measures, repeatedly making the same fucking mistakes, because I was a moron and I couldn’t figure out what the fingering was supposed to be. I kept getting stuck counting ledger lines because I’d been a lazy piece of shit who was wasting her bullshit brain on reality TV, and I couldn’t stop thinking that the last time I heard this fucking prelude was when some nine-year-old asshole played it at a recital. Flawlessly.
Don’t look at me, Pema. I’m hideous.
The tendency to resort to self-abuse when we miss the mark is an instinct. It’s not exactly an instinct that has intelligence to it (by which I mean, we rarely stop to investigate whether it’s useful) but it’s definitely an emotional reflex.
Shame is always promoting the idea that we didn’t just make a mistake, we are a mistake.
For some, that instinct toward self-abuse is an organic attempt at self-motivation which may once have been healthy, but became warped and weaponized over time. For others it’s a direct result of trauma; if we were parented with abuse, abuse will be the tool we reach for when we’re failing, and find ourselves in “survival mode.” My dad (who wasn’t a musician but liked to think of himself as one) had some pretty unrealistic expectations about what my practice technique should look like, and draconian methods of enforcing them. I say this not to blame him for my piano meltdown — I’m a grown-up, I’m capable of finding healthier, more creative methods of holding myself accountable than those my dad resorted to, but on a neurological level this stuff gets embedded in us.
Self-abuse is born of shame, and shame is always promoting the idea that we didn’t just make a mistake, we are a mistake. It’s all about what we should be instead. We should be better by now. We should be in a relationship. We should have tackled our whole to-do list. We should want to make sacrifices for our children. I should be more compassionate with myself given that I coach these issues. These are valid things to want for ourselves, generally speaking, but the shame that’s driving them undermines our ability to actually grow.
Yet, we’re often terrified to surrender the self-abuse. One of the most common fears I hear from my clients is some version of “but if I’m not beating up on myself, I’ll never get any better!” My dear, if self-abuse were an effective strategy for transformation, don’t you think it would’ve worked by now? It’s about time we acknowledge the data; shame-based self-abuse isn’t an effective technique for evolution after all.
So what is?
I hate to say it, but compassion is the most reliable catalyst for healing and lasting behavioral change. I know, I know, it’s a therapy buzzword, and in our rigid, neurotic culture of overachieving black-and-white thinkers it’s even kind of a dirty word. I get it, I grappled with it myself; I too was convinced that the whole self-love/self-compassion thing would make me soft. I envisioned myself being slowly conditioned to mindlessly forgive my own self-destructive patterns, bid my critical thinking adieu, start wearing mood rings, join a commune, take up chanting, and ultimately melt into an underachieving puddle of Pollyanna self-acceptance.
We Westerners seem to have grossly misinterpreted compassion as laziness, or simply letting ourselves off the hook. I frequently hear from clients “If I’m compassionate with myself, I’ll just accept my flaws and never improve, then I’ll really hate myself.” Well, if that’s how you understand compassion I can see why it’s so damn dangerous!
Compassion just asks us to change our relationship to accountability, so that it isn’t one rooted in abuse.
For those of us indoctrinated to believe that being tender with ourselves is a form of indulgent enabling, compassion really is a courageous act! Our brains are telling us compassion risks the slippery slope toward entropy and chaos. It’s crucial that we identify how much fear we have about being kind to ourselves, and stay curious that perhaps compassion isn’t as one-dimensional as we’ve understood it to be. In truth, it’s far more nuanced — compassion includes accountability, it doesn’t absolve us of it.
Sitting at the piano, telling myself “That’s okay honey, you did two and a half minutes of work, that’s enough hardship for today” would not have been a compassionate response, because it ultimately would have created more suffering for me by enabling my laziness. Compassion just asks us to change our relationship to accountability, so that it isn’t one rooted in abuse. It invites us to re-parent ourselves with tenderness. “Take a breath, girl. Slow down the tempo. No, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it means it’s been a while since you used this skill. Give yourself a chance to relearn it.” Compassion needn’t even be overly saccharine, it’s just the truth filtered through kindness, rather than through our shame and our judgment.
We’ve spent years trying to discipline ourselves into being better using the wrong tools. Rather than disciplining ourselves with self-abuse, what would it look like if compassion itself was the discipline?
I haven’t been back to the piano since my mini meltdown. I was hoping that writing this piece would be enough of an amends to myself, but it’s only making me realize that for the sake of my own spiritual and professional integrity, I’m going to have to break that prelude out again. I’ll let you know how it goes. Maybe I need a refresher lesson. If anyone knows a patient nine-year-old who can sight-read, send her my way. | https://humanparts.medium.com/a-meditation-on-not-being-a-dick-to-yourself-7c907c5500d2 | ['Mollie Birney'] | 2020-04-27 14:01:01.519000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Productivity', 'Life Lessons', 'Psychology', 'Self Improvement'] |
Anything’s Possible | Today may be dull. It happens. Sure.
But tomorrow remains rife with possibilities.
Podcasts of Trump on on the value of modesty.
Street fights in several extinct languages.
Hillary wins at Detroit poetry slam.
Jihadists explode poodles in crosswalks.
Island countries wave & grin as they sink.
Porno flicks found starring Merkel and Putin.
A sane, reasonable presidential election.
Angry cats with opposable thumbs rebel.
Men & women speaking & understanding each other.
Brock Turner announces sex change operation.
God announces: No More Mulligans!
Gender wars conclude. Everyone’s dead.
Debut of lost Bach Partita for Electric Kazoo.
New, hip-hop production of Treblinka: The Musical.
Shakespeare cloned. Buys poetry anthology. Dies.
End-up, instead of start-up, launches in Palo Alto.
Smart phones install apps with annoying ads on users.
Common sense becomes common again.
Victim-less rhymes decriminalized.
Medium figures out what to be when it grows up.
This is America! Never two dull days.
Take Heart! Tomorrow, there be Wonders… | https://medium.com/thenewnorth/anythings-possible-8a09102aa95b | ['Mike Essig'] | 2017-04-21 11:14:47.960000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Poetry', 'Hope'] |
Domestic Violence Isn’t Always Obvious | In the early days of their relationship, Jenna* did not believe that she was being abused by her partner, Daniel*.
At the beginning of their relationship, Daniel made sure to establish a strong sense of trust in her. He wanted her to believe that he was protective of her; that she would never be hurt or harmed by anyone as long as he was around.
And then, they got married — and everything changed.
At first, this began in slow, subtle ways that were difficult to articulate. In fact, the first sense Jenna had that anything was wrong was the feeling of uneasiness that she could not shake off.
“His behaviour left me constantly on edge,” she noted.
According to American psychologist Lenore Walker, signs of tensions mounting is the first stage in the cycle of abuse, which is the theory that abusive relationships follow a cyclical pattern. In this initial stage, the victim becomes tense and afraid, so they direct their attention towards appeasing the abuser.
Daniel then began having ‘episodes’, where he would insult Jenna and humiliate her in front of friends. These episodes were a sign of his constant need for control. He would go so far as to push her and even throw objects at her, but he would avoid hitting her. For someone experiencing this type of abuse, they may feel as though this type of behaviour is relatively tolerable — since the physical abuse they experience doesn’t seem to be as obviously abusive as being hit and physically injured.
Once Jenna gave birth to her first child, the toll this abuse took on her increased.
“After I had our first baby it got worse. Danica* was an unsettled baby, and I was beside myself from exhaustion from getting up in the night and struggling to breastfeed. I’d stopped working and lost contact with my work friends. Feeling vulnerable and isolated from the rest of the world, I became very dependent on him.”
Image source: Very Well Family
Eventually, Jenna made new friends at a mother’s group. But Daniel could not stand for this either.
“He didn’t like that. Over time I had to cut myself off from them too, because he’d be so rude if they visited the house.”
Like many abusers, Daniel was careful to appear to the outside world as a good father and partner to his family. At home, he not only refused to care for the children or help out with chores, but he would also use his power to undermine the little authority Jenna had.
“If I told the kids it was time for bed, he’d say “we don’t need to listen to her do we?”
The psychological tactics he used chipped away at Jenna’s dignity and self-esteem and made her question the self-perception in her ability to even be a good mother to her children.
“At some level I thought the abuse was my fault — I was inadequate and couldn’t cope well as a mother. I was ashamed to tell anyone.”
As her children became older, Jenna noticed that Daniel’s conduct had a definite impact on her children. While her oldest child coped by becoming reclusive at home, her youngest child actually started to adopt his demanding behaviour.
Eventually, while at the doctor’s office, Jenna accidentally revealed her circumstances at home. The doctor immediately recognized that she was experiencing domestic violence and suggested that she find support. In seeking help at a domestic violence service, she finally found the strength to leave.
Just as she found her resolve, Daniel started apologizing. While the second stage in the theory of abuse is known as incident — which is when the abuse in question occurs — reconciliation is the third stage in the cycle. Abusers’ resort to this stage once they realize they could lose control of their victim.
“I made a couple of attempts to leave, but he would beg and cry and tell me how much he’d miss me and the kids. I caved in and stayed. But after one horrible incident, in which he pushed me up against the wall and threatened to kill me, I decided I had to get out. I picked the kids up after school and we drove to my sister’s place in the country. There, I rang him and told him I wasn’t coming back.”
After continuing to receive support from the domestic violence centre, and seeking legal assistance, Jenna was finally able to break free of this cycle. She has now found a home, work, and is undergoing counselling — slowly rebuilding her life, step by step. She would like to share her final thoughts for others who may be in — or know someone — in a similar circumstance.
“I know how difficult it is to leave, how much you want to believe the justifications and excuses. I know it’s difficult to get the energy to plan a way to get out when you are living day to day just trying not to provoke an angry outburst. But you can do it. Just take the first step: get help. There are services out there who will understand. Call them. Find ways to build your confidence and keep your focusing on yourself and your children. We are supposed to believe that children need their fathers. But this all depends on what their father is like. Believe me, children are better in a happy, stable environment with one caring parent, than living with two parents in an unhappy, tense atmosphere.”
We thank Jenna for sharing her story, and commend her for her courage. To learn more about gender-based violence and available resources, be sure to check out our We Need to Talk About Gender-Based Violence blog post. We have also included relevant links below for people living in Ontario (for information for more provinces/territories, check out the Canadian Women’s Foundation):
Shelters and Transition Houses
Crisis Lines
Newcomer Services
Sexual Harassment
Legal Aid
| https://medium.com/@mommymonitor/domestic-violence-isnt-always-obvious-cb83c36f39e | ['Mommy Monitor'] | 2020-12-10 19:50:31.827000+00:00 | ['Survivor', 'Domestic Violence', 'Gender Based Violence', 'Domestic Abuse'] |
Social distancing is worsening our ability to agree | Thursday 21 January 2021
Covid isolation has pushed us further apart, both physically and politically. Unable to mix with others, it’s easy to imagine that everyone is facing the same challenges. But that’s not the case, and we’re quickly losing our empathy.
Credit: Edward Howell / Unsplash
Paper rounds were once a familiar sight. Every morning, children would get up at the crack of dawn to deliver the daily newspaper to local residents. People would start their day with a coffee and their favourite paper. The same newspaper every day.
Nowadays, our reliance on printed news has subsided. But the pattern with which we chose our news sources has not. People still prefer news that fits their views. And this has intensified with social media whose models carefully select posts that are more likely to retain our attention. Unsurprisingly these often happen to be things we agree with. The result is more anger and frustration directed towards points of view that differ to our own, simply because we are less accustomed to dealing with differing perspectives online.
A similar concept has crept into our physical lives. 2020 saw people isolate into social bubbles, protecting themselves from viral infections but also from alternative outlooks. As we have sought to limit our outside interactions, we’ve also replaced our banter in bars, chats in queues and brief exchanges on commutes with limited but intense conversations with close friends and family. Our bubbles have given us an excuse to do away with unneeded interactions with strangers and ignore the disproportionate social impact of lockdowns.
Like any bubble, our isolated social groups will eventually burst open. The pandemic has hit people to very different extents, but the reality of just how much we’ve drifted apart from one another will only really be comprehensible when we finally leave our homes. As cumbersome as 2020 was, past challenges have not disappeared. Climate change, racism and income inequality will demand deep consideration for other people’s circumstances.
Key elections are on the way in Germany and France. But with everyone’s heads buried in their socially distanced sandpits, we’re running the risk of being shocked, once again, by overwhelming conservative nationalism that brought us Trump and Brexit.
It’s time to open our eyes. We’re not yet able to re-explore the strange and different, but let’s make sure it doesn’t scare us when we can. | https://medium.com/@julientatesmith/social-distancing-is-worsening-our-ability-to-agree-12c64b3de8f5 | ['Julien Tate-Smith'] | 2021-01-24 22:53:44.140000+00:00 | ['Empathy', 'Covid 19', 'Lockdown', 'Isolation', 'Social Media'] |
Turnip The Heat! | In our quest to grow our own food, we’ve come to realize that we really haven’t tried a whole lot of the things we can grow.
Recently we went to a neighbor’s house and they started talking about what they were growing and harvesting. We looked at each other like they were talking in another language.
Turnips? Mustard greens? Beets?
We hadn’t tried any of those.
So then I was watching one of the channels on Youtube that I follow, and they were talking about kohlrabi.
What?
When the neighbors found out we had no idea what any of those taste like, they took it upon themselves to share their bounty with us.
Now I have a sink full of turnips and mustard greens.
I have to use them, right? I don’t want to waste them.
At the same time, I’ve never cooked them, and never even heard anything about them so it’s a little daunting even trying it out.
We’re going to do it though. In a world full of viruses and uncertainty, we are not going to back away from free food. You can’t be scared of it, right? We have enough to try several different recipes, so if we don’t like the first batch, we can try again a different way.
Sometimes I curse technology these days. Things are so easily found at the tips of your fingers, it has taken away a lot of creativity from children growing up. Right now though, I’m very pleased to see that there are hundreds of recipes to try out without having to go to a book store.
Who knows? Perhaps we will love them and I’ll have to grow them myself next year. That being said, tonight we are going to bite the bullet and try them out.
Roasted Turnips. On the bar-b-que. Hmmm.
Hopefully we won’t die.
If you have any tried and true recipes that you swear by, I’d love to try them out! | https://medium.com/@stefanivader/turnip-the-heat-63b878bcb844 | ['Stefani Vader'] | 2020-11-25 13:52:41.719000+00:00 | ['Cooking', 'Vegetables', 'Recipes', 'Gardening', 'Food'] |
Are You Intermittent Fasting or Having an Eating Disorder? | Source: Image by the Author
Are You Intermittent Fasting or Having an Eating Disorder?
Intermittent fasting saves times, improves your well-being and helps you look good — we’ve all heard this already. But don’t confuse an order in your eating habits with an actual eating disorder. How do you know if you have an eating disorder? Here’s a story by an intermittent faster with an anorexic history. Anna Bohonek Jun 8·5 min read
“I was so busy in the morning I didn’t even have time to have breakfast.” Stop right there. Ain’t cool anymore. Now you gotta call it intermittent fasting.
The entire Silicon Valley is obsessed with fasting. Not because of weight but because of the time you free up. “In Silicon Valley a new type of fasting is becoming popular, the purpose of which does not seem to be to lose weight, worship or claim any rights, but to improve productivity.” — (Entrepreneur Europe) One example for all — Jack Dorsey not eating for days.
Is intermittent fasting the new excellent cover for having an eating disorder and obsessing about food? What are the signs of having an eating disorder?
Intermittent fasting (IF) and eating disorders (ED) are two different worlds. I struggled with ED a decade ago. It took me a couple of years to find a balanced approach to food. I had a couple of ups and downs. So, when I started IF, I wanted to make sure that I am NOT going back to hell again.
You can starve yourself to death
I used to eat a tomato a day. Sometimes I ate corn. It got nothing to do with healthy eating. I weighed 45 kg (99 pounds). I was tired. Simple acts like climbing stairs required an extra willpower. Yet, I forced myself to run. I ran 7–10 km (4–6 miles) almost every day.
No wonder that all I could think about the entire day was food. I started to cook. I cooked for all of my family, baked something sweet every week. I was obsessed with recipes that were high in sugar and high in fat. In my head, I was cooking 24/7. Simply said, I craved calories.
Then, a friend slapped me in the face and told me to wake up. I finally woke up when visiting the exhibition Bodies. I felt so tired walking through the information panels. One of them shocked me: eating less than sustaining the basal metabolism (for a couple of weeks) will cause your brain cells to die, and you’ll decrease your IQ.
Tipping point: I’d rather be bright and fat, than slim and dumb.
So, I started to eat again. I didn't know how. It took me years to find a balanced approach to food again.
And now you can fast yourself to better health
Fasting doesn't mean starving. You fast for couple of hours, then you break your fast and you eat. You eat enough to feel good. You eat enough to feel full. You eat enough to be healthy, happy, strong and sane.
ED is about obsession with food, while IF is precisely the opposite. Fasting is not starving. If you catch yourself thinking about food for hours and restraining yourself from eating, then you got a problem. ED means spending all of your mental capacity on food, while IF means the opposite: it's about spending less of your mental capacity on food.
I can’t speak for health benefits, but here is what I learned:
During my daily fasting windows, I really can’t tell whether I’m currently burning fat, decreasing my sugar level or renewing my brain cells. (Or whether any of this is actually even happening.) I log my fasting windows through an app called Fastic, and I like how it educates me on the fasting phases. I’d love to believe that my brain cells renew every day after I had spent years killing them by not eating enough, drinking alcohol and not sleeping.
According to the app, IF helps brain cells to renew better because they need to have the uninterrupted time to do so — that is, when you fast:
Currently, I oscillate somewhere between 16 to 20 hours of fasting per day. Image Source: Screenshots from my Fastic app April dashboards
I dismissed habits, trade-offs, and I gained clarity
I no longer eat when I am not hungry.
I don't plan around food anymore. It freed up time, it made life simple.
I rather stay hungry than compromise on the quality of the food just because it's dinner time.
I no longer have the habit of opening the fridge and just peeking inside.
It helped me to connect with myself. I understand now what my stress eating triggers are or when I tend to eat out of boredom.
I have more energy and sharper senses.
Hunger triggers my creativity.
I crave healthy unprocessed food.
I digest better.
I sleep better.
Fast because you want to take good care of yourself. Fast because you want more clarity, awareness, and focus; not because you want to suppress your emotions with hunger or lose weight.
Source: Image by Author
But Anna, don’t you feel hungry?
I do. I feel hungry from time to time. And it's ok to feel hungry. I know it's not a deadly hunger. I know I'll get good food when I break my fast. Like cold showers in the morning: most of the days it's fine, but once in a while it hurts.
People struggle to get their heads around the fact that you got a different routine than them. Sometimes, they discourage me. Or they even get upset.
When I lived in Lisbon, I experimented with 24 hours fasts once or twice a month. When I told my friend, he got angry with me: “Anna, you need to stop, it is not healthy!” I am fascinated by how upsetting this was to him. I mean, he wasn't the hungry one.
Lockdown made experimenting with food easy. I didn't have to explain to anyone. I did not have social distractions or temptations. And now I know that even if things start getting back to normal, I’ll keep fasting. Sure, occasionally I'l break my fast in favor of lovely social events where I just feel like eating even later in the evening. But otherwise, the benefits of fasting outweigh — for me — the benefits of not fasting. | https://medium.com/@anna-bohonek/are-you-intermittent-fasting-or-having-an-eating-disorder-2a74b174196 | ['Anna Bohonek'] | 2021-06-08 19:31:04.728000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Life Lessons', 'Intermittent Fasting', 'Life Hacking', 'Eating Disorders'] |
What’s Your Personal Version of Success Look Like? | What’s Your Personal Version of Success Look Like?
We all want success in life — here’s how you can not stop yourself from attaining it
Photo by Julian Jagtenberg from Pexels
Success is one of the most misunderstood things in our culture. Our brains usually associate success with the kinds of advertising images that have been linked to success through anchoring, a testament to the advertising world we find ourselves immersed in just about twenty-four seven. We think success is money.
When I ask you to close your eyes and envision what success might look like, what do you see? Seriously, stop and picture it — what’s your future success look like?
For most people, the answer to this question conjures up men and women in business suits, people sitting around on mattresses stuffed to the brim with money, massive yachts and high-rise condos, and other tangible objects that we believe come along with success.
We’ve seen these images associated with people we were led to believe are successful for so long that we, being the visual creatures we are, file these objects away in our brains as sure-fire signs of success. We conflate the anchors with the actual process of becoming successful.
Making Excellence a Habit
This is fallacious thinking. It’s an appearance-manner fallacy, where we mistakenly assume that something is given its authenticity by how it looks rather than what it does.
As the old saying goes, “You are what you do.”
Philosophers as early as Aristotle noticed the habitual nature of life, with Aristotle himself saying:
“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
Excellence needs to become a habit before we can be excellent at something. And no matter what it is that’s important to us in life, how can we be successful if we aren’t excellent at it?
Success Takes Work
When asked to do the exercise above, very few people (and usually the people who end up successful) picture themselves working tirelessly. Most people don’t conjure up images of themselves or others looking disheveled and wearing yesterday’s clothes. We tend not to picture ourselves so immersed in work that we’re calling our friends to sigh as we cancel our plans because we’re so dedicated to what we’re trying to achieve in life that we’ve prioritized it.
But which of those two images do you think better aligns with reality? Is it the condos, the yachts, the fancy clothes, the wealth and the riches? Or is it the dedication, using your time to do something you truly love, making a difference in people’s lives, and getting paid for it?
A happy, healthy, secure marriage is a successful one, regardless of what it may look like. This is because what we think something might look like and what’s actually happening are often two different things. Looks can be deceiving. We commit an appearance-manner fallacy when we believe that the authenticity of something is based solely on its looking like we think that thing will look in our minds.
A successful musician has mastered his instrument to a degree that’s undeniable might not have all the wild parties we usually associate with insanely successful musicians. Oftentimes, these people are just down-to-earth people who love their families, stick to themselves, and spend most of their time writing more music. Their music is their passion, everything else is a distraction.
Everyone wants to sell us this image of quick and easy success, even if we all know that in reality, life doesn’t work that way.
But is quick and easy success really success? Or is it just a historical accident?
Anchoring the Proper Images
These images are anchors, they’re ideas that were implanted in us without our consent or often even our knowledge and they’re important. After all, how can you direct your course if you’re aiming for the wrong things in life?
Anchoring is also an error in thinking, a heuristic that we make to simplify life whereby we compare the incoming streams of information to previous experiences to try and assess probabilities. This is how we predict danger and pursue pleasure.
We reference our past at every single moment of our lives as we try to sum up the present and possible future. If things were painful in the past, we learn to avoid them. If things were pleasurable in the past, we learn to chase them.
But success is generally a lot of grueling hours of not-so-pleasurable experiences and it pays off in the long run. That’s the cost of success.
Success requires that we sacrifice now for pleasure later.
If we want to chase success, we want to find the people who are doing what we want to be doing well. We want to seek those images and those habits out so we can learn to master them.
After all, as French philosopher and thinker Rene Girard pointed out, an unbelievable amount of human behavior is conducted through mimetics. We see someone doing something, we want to do what they’re doing, and we copy that behavior in hopes we get the same result. In the end, because we learn from others mostly by imitation, we’re all a lot more similar than we think we are. As Girard said:
“It is not difference that dominates the world, but the obliteration of difference by mimetic reciprocity, which itself, being truly universal, shows the relativism of perpetual difference to be an illusion.”
So How Do I Escape This Trap?
It’s safe to say, we have a tendency to conflate success, which is a state of being, with the objects that we falsely believe signify a successful person. We conflate a mode of Being within ourselves with objects that surround us in the world.
It’s a mistake in thinking to believe that if we can just obtain the objects of success, we’ve actually obtained success. What about someone who inherited all these things? Does putting on a certain outfit make you into someone else? I think not.
We have to envision the behaviors that can be expected of us on our path. Don’t know what those behaviors are? The best thing you can do is go and find people who are already doing it.
So many people end up making this mistake in life and chasing the objects and not success itself. That’s the first mistake they make on the road to success, not realizing that success is the accomplishing of goals. Success is our own personal growth and transformation as we master certain aspects of our lives that we wanted to.
We can avoid this pitfall by finding the people who are successful at what we want to be successful in ourselves. The next step is to mimic their behaviors, their attitudes, the things they do, the effort they put in, the work they accomplish, and much more — all until we get it right and habituate it ourselves.
Once all of these things become habits, we’ll be well on our way to success in whatever field we desire. | https://medium.com/flux-magazine/whats-your-personal-version-of-success-look-like-2107131d598f | ['Joe Duncan'] | 2020-10-27 10:17:30.810000+00:00 | ['Self', 'Philosophy', 'Growth', 'Business', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
# 86: BOOK OF THE WEEK — “Der kleine Kaempfer” | Story behind the Book Choice
This short book is a treasure. It touched me, it intrigued me, it comforted me. And there is no reason, why it would not do this for others. This book was a gift I gave myself for Christmas. As I often do, I order so many books that I do not even open the envelopes/packages immediately after their arrival. This is how it happened that before Christmas, I had a pile of unopened packages sitting in my living room. I carefully wrapped them in gift paper and unwrapped them under the Christmas tree. As usually, I had already forgotten which titles I had ordered in the course of the last two months. So, it was a huge surprise that I created for myself.
In one of the packages I found Doppler’s book. The story why I ordered it is easy and quite nice. In my latest book which I sent to the press for the final editing process in December, I included a picture from Doppler’s book Change Management. It is like the Bible of change management in the German-speaking world, I would say. In order to not violate any copyrights, I sent a message to Doppler asking whether he was o.k. with me using the image in my book. It did not take long till he sent me his reply and agreed. But there was another nice outcome of this exchange. When I had previously looked up his e-mail address on this website, I had also gone to the section that said “books” on his page. There I saw the title Der kleine Kämpfer (The Small Fighter) and ended up immediately ordering it.
You will learn more about the details of the book below. But for me and my purchase decision, it would not have taken any abstract or any reading sample. The title itself, Der kleine Kaempfer, immediately resonated with me. Yes, I know it is unfair for the non-German audience to use a German book in my book discussion. Still, I just had to. Just a year ago, a dear colleague and friend of mine from university shared something with me which really touched me. He said: “Silke, you are a fighting woman.” And he did not mean this in any negative way. He was describing how he observed my leadership behavior when running a seminar team. “You listen to everyone and you change things if somebody convinces you. But everybody at the table also knows that you have a plan and you pursue the goals in order to reach the best result possible.”
Do you understand why I just had to buy the book and immediately got into it the day after Christmas?
1. Entrepreneurship
Doppler 48
Doppler’s story is about the “small fighter” who grows up to become a big change leader. But the hero has to stand many tests in order to get there. At the beginning when he is a small boy from a working class family who grows up in a small village, the reader immediately gets a sense of the entrepreneurial personality of the boy. What I love so much about Doppler’s careful characterizations is the beaurifully clear language that mirrors immense depth. It really shows what business and entrepreneurship is all about. No, it is not just about making money or being successful, whatever that means. It is connected to social bonding, communication, and the dignity and pride that goes along with earning one’s own money with one’s own business.
The final sentence in this passage, “What I do not do does not get done” refers to this entrepreneurial truth. It is the central message of the book and of (change) management and leadership at large. Nobody will do anything for you if you do not start acting. Even getting an important answer from someone requires action in the first place: You need to ask if you want an answer. And what is so nice about the choice of words here are the adjectives “simply happy” and “totally self-evident.” The finding that you need to take action in order to get things done IS SIMPLE but obviously quite difficult to implement if you lack the positive and open-minded nature of the small fighter.
This nature is being challenged soon.
2. Identity Change
Doppler 73
This passage describes the period when the small fighter enters the work world. Already during his time in a boarding school, his natural naivety and his “just do it” spirit were put to a test. He learned that there are unwritten rules in organizations, including schools, andthere are hierarchies. And if you want to win the favor of superiors, e.g., teachers, you better stay quiet and do whatever is expected of you. Also, you do not mess with those around you. This was the first test that the small fighter had to stand and he was not able to fully resist the temptation and the pressure to conform and just follow the crowd.
When he then enters the work world, he experiences a similar situation. But this time, he is even more convinced to not risk his previous achievements. After all, he is the first one to have graduated from a boarding school, who could even have studied at university (which he decided not to do), he now found a great job at the first attempt. All these are achievements that he does not want to lose by being a troublemaker. After all, his discipline and his will and ability to fight the odds brought him to this place and now he is determined to use his talents to also adapt to whatever it takes to move forward as an employee in an organization.
As the passage also explains quite clearly, this decision makes him lose what he was known for from childhood onwards. His “energy, curiosity, the thurst for knowledge…” all this gets lost. The “small fighter” turns into a “small employee whose most important goal is conformity and not showing any edges. I was so touched when I read this passage because I went through exactly the same process more than once in different organizations. And the thing that touched me most in the passage was the decisiveness and the discipline that the small fighter displays. If people like us, “small fighters,” decide to suppress our nature, our very strengths, our identity, we do so: 100%. That is fatal if you do not know how to break out of the vicious cycle again.
3. Never Give Up
Doppler 105
The small fighter dreams a lot in the course of the story. His dreams always cause awareness. He wakes up and knows the next step. And this next step to him means that he speaks up, he breaks out of the bad habits he has taught himself to adhere to — the habit of remaining silent, of suppressing his curiosity and of entrepreneurial thinking, his adopted mediocracy. He realizes how much of his true being has been buried underneath. But his dreams also signal him that he can revive his true capacity to become a role model for those who also want to start playing their own game. Playing one’s own game means ending the lamentation and shifting one’s perspective to finding solutions.
The optimism and unlimited strength to keep on “fighting” is not unrealistic. It is the force that becomes alive again if you unleash it after experiencing a wake-up call of the kind that the small fighter encounters in his dreams. In my own life, this usually led me to flee the environment that made me change my identity up to a point where I did not recognize myself anymore. Maybe this was too early sometimes. In other cases, it was almost too late. In any case, I always managed to regain my small-fighter mentality to switch the lever from dreaming to acting. This is also the message that Doppler in his book conveys:
“Break free of your paralysis. Bring movement into the game! Fight and be a role model for others!”
Reflection Questions
1) Are you a “small fighter”?
2) Did you ever work in an environment that changed your personality to an extent that you did not recognize your old strengths anymore? How did you change this?
3) Where can small fighters best use their potential according to your perspective? | https://medium.com/@silkeschmidt-32637/86-book-of-the-week-der-kleine-kaempfer-9d8ba012484b | ['Silke Schmidt'] | 2020-12-28 16:06:24.792000+00:00 | ['Organizational Culture', 'Diversity', 'Change Management', 'Young', 'Management'] |
Customer Support — Dutch. ListMinut is a web start-up founded in… | ListMinut is a web start-up founded in 2013 by 3 young entrepreneurs, which raised more than 1M euros. Today, the team is composed of 20+ young motivated people based in Brussels.
ListMinut has launched a new way to provide services and make daily tasks carried out in an easy, fast and interactive manner through a web/mobile application with more than 300.000 users. ListMinut is a two-sided marketplace where we allow our users to find reliable help for everyday tasks in their neighborhood (gardening, assembling IKEA furniture, babysitting,…)
We are currently looking for an outstanding Customer Support who will be in charge of our beloved users (both clients and service providers). He or she will be in charge to build strong relationships with them. Its mission will be to guarantee a super positive experience to all of them. 💪
Our users are the life-blood of ListMinut. Our goal is to have the most satisfied users everywhere in Belgium (and on an international level soon or later). 🚀
Last, but certainly not least, if you’re ready to work in a fast-growing start-up and to work side by side with a passionate team, we can’t wait to meet you! 💎
Mission
Manage by e-mail and phone the questions/issues that our users are facing.
and the questions/issues that our users are facing. Follow on a daily basis the entire customers processes (cancellations, profile validation, moderation, …).
(cancellations, profile validation, moderation, …). Onboard and follow our users for their first steps on the platform.
and follow our users for their first steps on the platform. Give all our users the best experience and solution.
and solution. Support the technical team through user feedback.
In short, becoming THE new pillar of our thousands users !
Required skills
You speak and write fluently Dutch.
You’re a human person.
person. You’re an outgoing and curious person who love contact with people.
and person who love contact with people. You’ve a passion for internet and collaborative economy is a plus.
and is a plus. You are comfortable on the phone .
. Your spelling in Dutch is perfect.
Desired skills | https://medium.com/@listminut/customer-support-dutch-6e602153b50f | [] | 2021-03-19 10:30:09.144000+00:00 | ['Support', 'Dutch', 'Startup', 'Customer Support', 'Jobs'] |
Discovering the Undercurrent of a Conversation using AI: An NLP Model using Corpus of Interviews | By: Contributors
Anshuman Neog, Consultant|ML & DL, Affine Analytics,
Rayudu Pujitha, Data Scientist, Affine Analytics
Ever stepped out of a meeting and wondered how it went off? What if there was some intelligent software or gadget that synthesized your conversation and gave you a report on how it went — good, bad, ugly?
With Artificial Intelligence you can do just that — well almost!
The Power of NLP
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a stream of artificial intelligence which deals with the ability of a computer to understand human natural language and its ability to process and analyse a large amount of natural language data.
( Read our earlier blog “NLP for All” for more details on the basics)
One of the basic foundation blocks of any AI is the process of making the software intelligent using data sets to train NLP algorithms and build an NLP data model which can then be shared with the community. Newbies to NLP, can use existing data-sets if one exists or create a new one if there doesn’t exist one — like in our case.
Training the NLP Algorithm — Building the NLP Model
Our objective is to study undercurrent of a long conversation and provide meaningful interpretation. For our particular scenario, we will be using a set of Interviews which are part of Earning Call Transcripts as our data-set to train the NLP algorithm and build the NLP Model.
The Challenge — Using Long Interviews as NLP Training Data
Double problem: your corpus is huge, and each document is an interview
The Approach we use here is to look at this data set as a classification problem, which means that using techniques of machine learning, the software will group together data by a particular criterion. Our aim will be to find this grouping or the classification.
Problems while solving a Classification Problem where your Corpus is a set of Interviews
(1) Large Text: You are dealing with a document with at least 5000 words. This is quite different from say when you are dealing with Twitter (average of 50 words). Imagine the chances of polarities being lost amidst the thousand words for a simple Sentiment Analysis
(2) Interviews do not contain discernible topics. There is a reason behind this. In any interview there will be information hiding. The interview will be bordering along Positive things. For example, if a CXO is being interviewed, rest assured the CXO will never say about negative topics. And even if a difficult question is put across to the CXO, the answer will be mostly placed in a positive manner
(3) Interviews are mostly Neutral
Most NLP problems can be viewed as having two aspects: The HOW aspect and the WHAT aspect
(1) The “How aspect”, how is the person replying to a question. Consider the case of a question being asked and the person is not confident about the answer versus the person is confident about the answer.
(2) The “What aspect”, what is the person talking about. The Topics which the person is talking about. Say for a CXO, is he talking about new Markets, Revenue, Loss etc.
The Interviews marvel in the “How” aspect.
We implemented this on Earning Call Transcripts, created features which captures the “How” aspect and then created a ML model which accurately predicts risk of Class Action Lawsuits given how an Interview went in the immediate Call Transcripts before the Class Action.
Feature Creation pitched to capture the how aspect:
We capture the “how” by creating Features which falls into the following Categories:
(1) Tonality
(2) Modality
(3) Complexity
(4) Sentiment Extraction on small snippets/ Chunks of the entire Interviews. These locations are determined using NLP processes as well as Domain Knowledge
Tonality:
Tone, in written composition, is an attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience. Tone is generally conveyed through the choice of words, or the viewpoint of a writer on a specific subject. The tone can be formal, informal, serious, sarcastic, sad or cheerful, or it may be any other existing attitude. The formality of tone is the use of contractions, words like we’ve, I’d, they’re, and it’s. Using ‘it’s’ instead of ‘it is’ kind of informal tone.
Consider the following examples of tone:
“I want to ask the authorities what is the big deal? Why do they not control the epidemic? It is eating up lives like a monster.”
“I want to draw the attention of the appropriate authorities toward damage caused by the epidemic. If steps are not taken to curb it, it will further injure our community.”
The theme of both tone examples is the same. The only way we can differentiate between them is their separate tone. The tone in the first example is casual or informal while, it is more formal in the second
“Can someone tell me what the hell is going on here?” which has an aggressive tone.
“That’s great!!!” which has a cheerful tone and sometimes it can be sarcastic as well. So, it depends on the complete context of the paragraph.
Modality:
Modality is the semantic information associated with the speaker’s opinion on what was said. It captures the certainty, possibility, willingness, obligation and necessity from the text. It is the non — propositional part of the sentence which concerns to the factual status.
Low modality shows less certainty and high modality shows more certainty. Flags of high, medium, low modal words are created and based on these flags it calculates the number of words which have high modality, medium and low modality words in the transcript.
“I am almost certain; every investor has to look at their own situation and conclude the things that they think are best. I think the active devices are definitely” . In the above text words like ‘almost’ , ‘definitely’ are strong modal words
It is connected to act of ‘Assertives’, ‘Directives’, ‘Commissives’, ‘Declaratives’, ‘Expressives’
Assertive — ‘Socrates is bald’
Directives — ‘Pass the Mike’
Commissives — ‘I solemnly swear to truth’
Declaratives — I promise to complete it by today
Expressives — Thank you for giving me this opportunity
Let’s say, some of the tokens are given as ‘might happen’, ‘could possibly happen’, ‘will definitely happen’. Here the modality of sentence is increasing from low modality to high modality.
Complexity:
Complexity measures the standard of the text or how much text can be easily understandable. It is important to analyse the complexity of statements since it is difficult to capture the actual sense of the text when speaker is trying to hide information. For example, if analyst asks some difficult question, then the executive if wants to evade the question, the sentence structure is less likely to be straight forward and more likely to be complex. The complexity comes out with various different motivations at both micro and macro level of meaning. One motivation can be to divert the topic. But the most common will be as a human response to evade or feeling of uneasiness. They tend to use complicated, ambiguous words in their answers or make insignificant and sophisticated statements instead of giving more simple answers. For example, consider the following 2 sentences whose meaning is same but the difficulty of words is different. If the manager asks the employee about the progress of the task. It can be as follows
‘I completed the task and will forward it to you immediately’ — which is less complex and more clear
‘The task is quite strenuous, but I am almost done with that and going through it to so there won’t be any white spots in it’ — using unnecessary words and hiding information
Here, we are using readability index to measure complexity of the text. It can also be captured using quantitative features like
· Word length (e.g., simple versus multisyllabic words)
· Frequency of unfamiliar or new vocabulary terms
· Sentence length and syllables used
· Text cohesion
Qualitative evaluation of the text can be possible by understanding the Levels of meaning, structure, language clarity.
Sentiment Analysis of specific sections of the text
Sentiment is the opinion of the speaker on certain topic. Many techniques are being evolved on how to extract the sentiment from text but as discussed it is difficult to extract sentiment for long discussions/ Interviews. By normal sentiment analysis it is not possible to get the exact views but a very Strategic Sentiment Analysis must be performed.
Ex: The company performed very well in last 2 quarters and the revenue has been increased significantly. — tells positively about the company
One of the approaches is splitting the whole text into small paragraphs / smaller chunks based on some predefined ruleset and extract SA on them individually which makes more robust. Defining ruleset is a very important and proper, and it will be different for different kinds of problem/text.
For example, let’s take extracting the sentiment from interview between the Analyst and CXO’s of the company. Our hypothesis is that CXO’s will answer positively about his company even if the analyst asked the complex question using some negative terms about the company. Similarly, if we compare answers given by CEO and Vice President, we assume that the answers given by CEO will be stronger and more positive without hesitation and less use of unnecessary words when compared with the answer given by Vice President. These can be the set of rules while extracting the information from interviews and this rule set will vary according the problem statement
Conclusion:
As discussed above, when it comes to extracting information from interviews, “how” aspect matters a lot. In fact, interviews especially an interview related to financial health of the company, there will be a lot of disclosure on the bad aspects. This indirectly means that extracting the “What” aspect which comes via Topic Modelling is not so reasonable. However, if we address “how the replies are being given?” and extract information along the same, we can engineer a ton load of Features which we can use in creation of ML/ DL model. This is captured by Tonality, Modality and Complexity and Sentiment on important parts of document.
Note: For each of Modality, Tone and Complexity there will be multiple features.
References:
Modality
(1) https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/eppcontent/glossary/app/resource/factsheet/4091.pdf
(2) https://www.slideshare.net/merykul95/modality-61463910
Tone of text
(3) https://literarydevices.net/tone/
Complexity of text
(4) https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/sec-rdng2/cr_assess/#content
(5) http://missionliteracy.com/complex-text.html
(6) https://www.sc3ta.org/downloads/CommonCore4ELL/Mini_Lesson_7-Text_Complexity.pdf
About Affine
Affine has been a provider of analytical solutions, working with global organizations solving their strategic and day to day business problems.
We combine data-driven statistical and AI analysis with heuristic domain expertise to provide actionable insights empowering organizations to make informed decisions and take proactive action. Our value lies in enabling our clientele to implement and realize the ROI of the recommendations.
About Humans For AI
Humans For AI is a non-profit organization focused on building a more diverse workforce for the future leveraging AI technologies. Learn more about us and join us as we embark on this journey to make a difference! | https://medium.com/@humansforai/discovering-the-undercurrent-of-a-conversation-using-ai-an-nlp-model-using-corpus-of-interviews-a4ce21c2b389 | ['Humans For Ai'] | 2019-03-05 14:51:00.929000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'NLP', 'Sentiment Analysis', 'Conversations', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Skills Transformation For The 2021 Workplace — IBM Training and Skills Blog | Share this post:
2020 has been a year like no other. It’s the year that a pandemic brought the entire world to a complete stand-still at the same time. We may not yet know how the number of deaths caused by the coronavirus will stack up to previous disasters, how the economic fallout will compare to previous recessions, or what the last political impact will be. But one milestone is becoming clearer: COVID-19 is likely to be remembered as the first truly global event in human history.
As the entire world went into lockdown mode and businesses and schools were forced to go remote, everyone had to pivot. The way we worked, learned, shopped, socialized, and entertained changed — maybe forever. Now, as the hope of multiple vaccines looms large and the world is slowly but surely looking to transition to a new normal, it’s time to reflect on the past for lessons learned and plan for the future accordingly.
Redefining the skills framework
According to the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Job report, there are seven key professional clusters emerging. These reflect the adoption of new technologies-giving rise to the demand for green economy jobs, roles at the forefront of the data and AI economy, new roles in engineering, cloud computing, and product development. The future of work shows demand for a wide variety of skills that match these professional opportunities, inclusive of both disruptive technical skills and specialized industry skills and core business skills.
The growing interdependence of human and technical skills is not the only factor that demands new skill-development frameworks. Research suggests that skills generally have a “half-life” of about five years, with more technical skills at just two and a half years. The short shelf-life of technical skills requires a continuous re-skilling effort to stay relevant. According to the Chief Learning Officer Magazine, business leaders and learners need a completely new model for thinking about skills, a model that fosters thinking about emerging questions:
Are skills more durable or more perishable ?
or more ? Are skills transferable across roles, job families or industries?
across roles, job families or industries? Are skills in demand, and will they be so in the future?
Planning for the unknown
To illustrate the longevity of a skill, CLO Magazine divides skill durability into three categories:
Perishable skills : Half-life < 2.5 years — Specific technology skills that are updated frequently; organization-specific policies and tools and specialized processes all can be classified as perishable skills. Semi-durable skills : 2.5 years <Half-life < 7.5 years — These tend to be those frameworks with base sets of knowledge from which field-specific technologies, processes and tools arise. Durable skills : Half-life > 7.5 years — They constitute a base layer of mindsets and dispositions. They include skills like design thinking, project management practices, effective communication, leadership which are more foundational in nature.
As organizations and individuals get ready for a reset and start to think through a skills refresh, it’s important to consider just how transferable a given set of skills really are. This along with the durability of the skills provides a framework that can adapt with the changing business needs.
Building a skills tree
While training people on perishable skills provides a quick ROI, it allows for little flexibility between roles and job families. Approaching training from a durable-skills-first perspective empowers an individual to make dynamic, longer-term contributions to an organization as they navigate through various jobs during the course of their tenure. Following a tree-shaped model may be a more effective way of thinking through skill development: Durable skills form the roots of the tree, with semi-durable frameworks forming the branches, and more perishable skills coming and going like the leaves with the changing seasons. The objective is to grow a tree that is tall and wide, and flourishes in every season, feeding the roots that keep the tree steady, growing branches of new expertise, and fostering the leaves that change with the passage of time.
This tree-shaped paradigm enables us to view mindset and framework learning as essential to the task at hand. This organic model represents a different way of thinking about skill development, one that encourages us to develop skills with an eye for their longevity, their transferability and their relevance for roles that our organizations may need to fill years into the future. It also ensures that as individuals our employability quotient stays high as the skills mix includes in-demand skills which are current and relevant.
Bringing Skills, learning and career together for an individual
As an individual looking to navigate this new post-COVID world we need to nourish our personal skills tree with a variety of skills that helps us develop capabilities aligned with whatever our chosen career path may be. Here are some resources to help you identify and acquire the skills that can set you up for success in 2021 and beyond.
The Top 10 Skills Recruiters Are Looking for in 2021
LinkedIn Emerging jobs report 2020
World Economic Forum Jobs of Tomorrow Report
Workforce Strategies for Post COVID Recovery
Thriving after COVID-19: What skills do employees need?
Forbes: What Are The Fastest Growing Cybersecurity Skills In 2021?
Organizations and individuals have had to do a big reset of how they study, work, shop, and entertain. Life as we knew it has changed forever. But, the one thing that the pandemic has taught us is that we are a resilient human-race. Each of us responded to restrictions imposed, thrived during the hardest of times, and now it’s time to reimagine and rebuild our future. Happy Holidays, stay safe!
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings” — Lao Tzu | https://medium.com/@sonia-a-malik/skills-transformation-for-the-2021-workplace-ibm-training-and-skills-blog-da85463a8d08 | ['Sonia Malik'] | 2021-03-01 16:57:21.784000+00:00 | ['Careers', 'Future Of Work', 'Jobs', 'Learning', 'Skills'] |
Why Bad Telemarketing is the Real Problem | Telemarketing, especially in the B2B industry, has gotten a bad rap nowadays. For one, many people have mentioned having a bad experience or two with a telemarketer. Indeed, people have their own opinions about the practice of cold-calling, but generally, everyone seems to have this idea that telemarketing is something to be avoided like the plague, or worn out literary clichés.
Anyway, it is still important to note that telemarketing is a staple in every B2B enterprise’s attempts to generate high-quality leads. It is just that not a lot of people have a favorable view towards telemarketing, and for reasons that are too obvious right from the get-go. One reason is that telemarketers have become too persistent that they would often engage a lead during the most unlikely hours.
What most people, particularly executives, know is that telemarketing remains to be a force to reckon with. Knowing that cold-calling is still a practice that ensures quality leads, more and more companies are putting more emphasis on keeping their B2B telemarketing operations up and running. For sure, outbound telemarketing continues to be a top tactic for lead generation among various industries across the B2B spectrum.
So, now, why all the bad rap?
Basically, we should begin by asking ourselves “What is telemarketing for?” The simplest answer is that it allows companies to generate quality leads and convert as many cold prospects as possible. Companies will need to provide effective talking points aimed at pulling the heartstrings of even the hardest prospects.
And of course, there are no shortcuts. However, there are companies out there that tend to get away with practices that are not only ineffective but also unethical. Here are a few of them:
Doing away with call scripts
There is a reason why Hollywood actors need to read scripts. It’s obvious enough to know that in order to perfect the character one plays, he or she should look at the script first. With B2B companies, it entails preparing a call script that will address possible caveats during an engagement over the phone. At least, with call scripts, you will be able to perform effectively.
Related: Don’t Waste a Moment! See Sample Cold Calling Scripts
Making guesses
Never assume what a prospect wants to hear. As much as you want to apply college-level psychology, it does not work well with B2B decision-makers who are on tight schedules. Rather than making conclusions, be honest and tell the prospect what you think.
Become needy
The least that B2B prospects want is someone trying to sell them using an “in your face” approach. In fact, decision-makers don’t like it when they are approached from nowhere with a sales pitch. Instead, be more of an expert rather than a marketer or salesman. Prospects, after all, want someone to enlighten them, and not someone to offer up products and services like at a weekend market.
Related: How NOT to Market your Product: 9 of the Worst Branding Failures
Set up intangible targets
Companies rely mostly on tangible data to better approach the most complex aspects of the business. The same should go for telemarketing. Rather than setting up unrealistic objectives for yourself, you should focus more on how to craft resonant messages as you go along with the call. As long as you have a target in mind, it will become a lot easier for you to reach it and put the contact right through the sales pipeline.
Be unprepared for questions
It’s a correspondence over the phone, which means that the channel relies mostly on clarity in order for the message to be delivered. While this is a no-brainer, you still need to prepare for possible inquiries. What exactly does the prospect want? He or she will tell you and ask if it’s available. You should know about it on your part.
Related: Your Roadmap to Buying the Best Leads
Showing less enthusiasm
You’re calling a B2B decision maker. You should be happy about it since it means getting more profits. If you so much as show the prospect that you’re bored, then all will be lost. But not really. You’ll just give the prospect a reason to turn you down.
Not making any follow up calls
Before a prospect hangs up, you need to know if he or she would like to know a lot more about your company. A follow-up call may be on the ropes, so when you say you’ll make a scheduled, stick to it. Your prospects want to make informed decisions. By allowing a much wider opportunity to explore other propositions, you might just win over a customer or two.
Sources: gsa-marketing.co.uk, impacttargetmarketing.com, bizjournals.com
Read more sales and marketing tips | https://medium.com/@SandraCrowe9/why-bad-telemarketing-is-the-real-problem-7bd9a7661979 | ['Sandra Crowe'] | 2019-10-09 14:12:17.819000+00:00 | ['Best Practices', 'Sales', 'Telemarketing Tips', 'Telemarketing'] |
The misbuttoned shirt… what can you learn from it? | Your life is like a misbuttoned shirt
Emotional intelligence, emotional maturity… the end of suffering, the end of life in hell is all a result of the misbuttoned shirt life
Fiction, good fiction, allows you to have intimacy with people you never knew. And what we miss most in life is intimacy. Knowing the other, being known and accepted.
It’s hard to be intimate in real life, it takes two people, two people who were hurt, maybe abused as children, so it is nearly impossible.
I listen to the partner call (from the Playground) and wish they read fiction. Reading fiction, especially children’s books, is very healing.
At least for myself.
You cry, and you don’t even know why, but you are healing.
I have watched the movie: Saving Mr. Banks… and sobbed through… some movies are also good for healing. Then I bought Mary Poppins, the book. Then I watched the movie with the famous Olsen twins It Takes Two (1995).
I loved it… Then I watched the 101 Dalmatians, then I got all the books, including the original by Erich Kästner and Mark Twain… because when I do something I drink deeply from the cup… not just a sip here and there.
“A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.” ~ Alexander Pope
If you are someone with troubled childhood, do yourself a favor and start reading, maybe even binge on children’s books that will talk about feelings that you haven’t felt, have no words for or have been afraid to access, express, remember… because they are too confusing and too painful.
Why is it important that in some form you revisit your incidents that have more to do with who you have become than your genes?
Puzzling question, isn’t it?
For me it took, essentially, two sessions, two healing sessions.
The incidents, interestingly two incidents feeling like one: First I was raped by a drunk stranger and left to die at age three and a half. And then, not much later, my father made me perform oral sex.
I have shared before, but I think it will teach you something if I repeat how I healed, one session after the other, even though, even though, in reality, about 15 years passed between the three healing sessions.
First: in 1987, I managed to look at the “oral” incident from the outside, and noted that “horrible” was just one possible vantage points… it looked different from the sideways view.
Second: in 1996, I was asked, by a healer, to recount the incident, backwards and forwards, many times, each time adding more details, colors, smells, sounds, touch perceptions, backwards and forwards.
Third: in 2008, I was asked, by a BEST chiropractor, if I knew anyone of the same age as I was then? I did. My oldest grandniece was about that age. Then the chiropractor asked to get present to my grandniece and look what I would say to my niece if she were in that same or similar incident.
I could feel her smooth skin, her soft body, even though I’ve never met her. But I knew she was innocent. And I felt deep love and compassion for her.
And… and then I turned that towards myself. I wept, but this time with love.
When who you are, for yourself, was defined from only one vantage point, others, you are condemned to not be able to love yourself.
When through the work of the Playground you can change your vantage point on command, at will, you can manage to see your innocence, and you can start loving yourself.
Being able to love yourself is what starts your path to human being. Nothing else you have ever done or can do before that.
But, as I just read in Rob Brezny’s weekly column,
“So much of what we learn about love is taught by people who never really loved us. So much of what we learn about love is taught by people who were too narcissistic or wounded to be able to love very well; and by people who didn’t have many listening skills and therefore didn’t know enough about us to love us for who we really are; and by people who love themselves poorly and so of course find it hard to love anyone else.
As long as you love yourself poorly, you cannot love anyone else.
You only experience love when it is YOU who loves, and when you love well.
Don’t expect to be loved. At the current evolutionary level humans are, they are unable to love, or love well.
But you can always love yourself… once you find the you who you can love.
I now can love myself.
When you love, committing to something, and fulfilling on it becomes easy.
It becomes who you are.
It even becomes easy or easier to commit to integrity: being true to your Self.
I am, occasionally starting to hear that on the Playground partner calls. Occasionally.
It took me 15 years. It may take you a year, or more than a year, but if you do the Playground as the Playground needs to be done to be effective, then you’ll get there.
If you do the program as it needs to be done.
Step by step…
If you miss a step, especially if you miss the first step and try to do the higher steps, you will NEVER get to the stage where you can love.
Bummer, eh?
Everything in today’s world suggests, all the marketeers suggest that you can jump to a high level in anything… with what they are selling you.
Whether it is a spiritual or healing course, or about beauty (just put this cream on your face), or about health (just take this tablet, superfood, whatever), or abundance (let’s do away your negative beliefs)… they are all lying to you.
Unless you change your fundamentals to be aligned with self-love, unless they are aligned with growth, and then, when the foundation is done, build whatever you want on that foundation, you are going to be stuck in the unbridgeable gap of low living, high desires.
The desire trap. The misbuttoned shirt phenomena.
There is no desire trap for the person who can love themselves.
A person able to love themselves well will be able to see that life is a process of building up to big accomplishments, not a jump.
There is nothing as horrible as the desire trap. Or the resignation and regret when you don’t even have enough energy to desire. When you are a walking dead. Not dead yet but also not alive.
And you can be like that at ages 18, 24, 28…50–60–70, any age. I can see it on my students before and after they come alive.
It actually takes a lot of work, from them and from me.
No one teaches how to do it or how to teach it. Even though there is a science to it: just reverse what your parents, your teachers, your friends, your society packed on you.
What took 10–20–30–40–50–60 years to build, you cannot unbuild in a week… And even in a year, in the Playground, you can only unbuild it if you do it step by tedious step. In the partner calls.
Or if you get lucky, in an occasional one-on-one call with me.
I have never taken a course where most of the class was sent back to the beginners class. Instead, what teachers do, is let everyone pass, and then declare the course done, and successful.
B.S. This is one of the reasons courses have a success rate around 1%.
I promised one of my underachiever students that I was not going to leave her behind… The hardest promise I have ever made. Totally counter to my natural inclination. I used to be the Firing Queen after all… lol.
But my word is my word. And she isn’t doing well. She, and eight other students are back at the starting point. So they can attend to what they have forgotten to attend to… the first step.
Like they say in Hungary: if you mis-buttoned your vest, you need to start over again… or you’ll never succeed.
What is the first step, you ask?
It is the same as the first step I took back in 1987: seeing the incident from a sideways view. We call it the Martian’s view. If you don’t do that step, if you skip it with any incident, every story, everything you do afterwards won’t set you free.
Why? Because only the sideways view takes you to reality.
And only in reality you’ll see that there is never any drama, never any suffering, never anything wrong in reality.
There may be pain. There may be grieving. There may be beating. There may be being left on the street corner. There may be a busy mother, or an overpromising drunk father. But if you saw it in a movie, would you suffer? No. you wouldn’t.
Your incident was horrible only through your own eyes.
I knew I was out of the woods, when I could see the Holocaust, Hitler, Stalin, Donald Trump without feeling that OMG, it’s horrible. This is the result of a sideways view: taking yourself out of the picture… or better said: inside and outside of the picture… Bilocating, I call it.
It’s a skill, and it is difficult to learn.
I am not emotionless. I still grieve my niece’s passing a few years ago. I still grieve that my little brother doesn’t want to talk to me. I still grieve that some of my students are not doing the work.
It is happening, but it isn’t happening to me… I am happy much of the time able to experience fun, joy, aliveness most of the time.
And that is the most a human, or a human being can expect from life. Even though a lot of desires are unfulfilled, and will remain so.
The next Playground will start on Saturday, May 18. if you want to be in it, you can sign up, or request a brief call with me, where we can decide if it is the right thing for you.
Get into the Playground
Module 1 teaches the method of separating reality from unreality and makes you practice it. If you do it right, this is all you need to live in the light.
Related Posts:
Author: Sophie Benshitta Maven
True empath, award winning architect, magazine publisher, transformational and spiritual coach and teacher, self declared Avatar View all posts by Sophie Benshitta Maven | https://medium.com/@mavensophie/the-misbuttoned-shirt-what-can-you-learn-from-it-96257a014e09 | ['Sophie Benshitta Maven'] | 2019-05-09 15:10:49.540000+00:00 | ['Human Behavior', 'Emotions', 'Psychology', 'Emotional Intelligence', 'Self-awareness'] |
How to get your first Digital Marketing job when everyone is looking for an experienced candidate? | How to get your first Digital Marketing job when everyone is looking for an experienced candidate? Semly Pro Aug 23·2 min read
Getting that first Digital Marketing job may seem like a daunting and often confusing process. Companies expect you to already have some real-world experience in the field when you apply for a job. But how can one showcase their knowledge when this is the first job that they are applying for? Read on to find some interesting but strong action points that you can now take to score that first step into a very creative and rewarding Digital Marketing career.
Create a Blog.
When you create a blog, you learn about the basics of Domain, Hosting, and CMS.
Nothing comes for Free. If you are serious about your career then don’t hesitate in spending Rs 1500 to buy hosting and domain.
You can learn everything on youtube and set up a WordPress website on any topic.
2. Write 20 Blog Articles of at least 500 words each.
Select any topic you are interested in (Auto, Tech or anything) and write about it.
Content writing is a very very important skill for any Digital Marketer.
Your future company will expect you to write Ad Copies, Metas, Email Templates, etc. So, some content writing examples will definitely help in showcasing your skills.
Make sure you review your content and keep it error free and grammatically correct.
3. Implement SEO
Read about how to do SEO or watch SEO tutorials and implement each point on every blog article you have written.
Few points you should not miss are given below:
>> Meta Title, Description and Keywords
>> URL Optimization
>> Canonical and Alternate Tag
>> Heading Tag
>> Internal Linking
>> Content Optimization
>> Image Name, Alt and Title
>> Navigation and Footer SEO
>> Sitemap
4. Create a Google Ads Campaign for each Blog article.
You don’t have to spend any money.
Just create a campaign for each blog page. 2 Ad groups in each campaign, 4 Ad Copies in each Ad Group and 10 Keyword in each Ad Group.
Select the right Location and Keywords.
Just for learning, you can add Rs 500 and run all the campaigns but don’t bid more than 50 paise.
5. Create Social Media Pages for your Blog.
Now read up about the best timing to post on different Social media accounts and start posting on a daily basis.
Share 2 Blog articles each day on all social media accounts.
Write a Description and fill in all the details. Make it look like a real company page.
Conclusion
This approach is better than going in an interview with just some course certificates. For any doubts contact our Founder and Marketing Head, Anil Varma via DM. For new project queries visit our website. Follow us on Medium for more useful insights in the field of Digital Marketing. | https://medium.com/@semly-pro/how-to-get-your-first-digital-marketing-job-when-everyone-is-looking-for-an-experienced-candidate-118b4aa1d284 | ['Semly Pro'] | 2021-09-01 07:12:27.831000+00:00 | ['Blogging Tips', 'Digital Marketing Tips', 'SEO', 'Digital Marketing Career', 'Digital Marketing'] |
Money can buy you more time to do things that matter to you | Money can buy you more time to do things that matter to you Shweta Follow Dec 17, 2021 · 2 min read
Photo by Ricardo Díaz on Unsplash
If you want more time to do your own thing, use money to outsource some of your work to people or tools. Yes, tool too!
And no, this is no affiliate promotion. It’s just that tools have made my life much easier and I want the same for you.
For instance,
If designing social media posts or resizing them for different channels takes up lots of time, sign up for pro version of the tool you are using. Canva made all this so much easy for me. You have a superbusy week leading up to the product launch event. Can you ask your cleaning lady to cook dinner for you for the next 3 days? That’s at least 4–5 hours saved. You want to go on a short vacation but your social media lead gen has just picked up. If you pause now that would amount to loss in income. What to do? Simple. Sign up for a social media management tool like Buffer or Hootsuite. You have taken on new clients and your monthly accounts is taking up lots of time. What to do? Easy peasy. Hire an accountant to do it for you.
But when should you decide to outsource some work to free up some time?
Couple of scenarios can play out here.
One, you hate the job and cannot do it yourself. In that case you have no option but to outsource.
Two, you feel that you can earn more in the same time. For example, if your hourly rate is $75, and you hire an accountant at $40/hr, you are increasing your income while getting rid of work that has nothing to do with your core skills.
Three, you want some free time for yourself because you are neck-deep in projects. That’s a good place to be in income-wise but you need to take care of yourself too.
And you know, you will feel much happier when you are doing something more interesting or spending leisure time. | https://medium.com/24-hours-are-enough/money-can-buy-you-more-time-to-do-things-that-matter-to-you-ef82066a363d | [] | 2021-12-17 05:18:32.726000+00:00 | ['Delegation', 'Money', 'Outsourcing', 'Time', 'Time Management Tips'] |
Siemens Cybersecurity: Trust in a secure network | We take a closer look at Siemens Cybersecurity, and how the company is committed to the safety of its customers.
Cybersecurity is at the heart of every business, with Siemens being no exception. In an ever-evolving digital world, cybersecurity is at the heart of every business and at the front of everybody’s mind. Cybersecurity threats arise every day and companies and people have to continuously adapt to overcome these dangers and not fall victim to the threats. Siemens is dedicated to protecting its clients against these ever-rising threats.
Siemens takes cybersecurity threats seriously, they say that a large number of advantages of today’s ever-adapting and increasing digitalized and connected world comes with a dangerous price: Cyberattacks have become a serious threat, more serious than ever — affecting our day to day life and not only just data anymore.
Cybersecurity is a rapidly changing and evolving battlefield that requires awareness, continuous vigilance and resilience, and a consolidated response from all people involved. Siemens has a holistic approach to combating cyber threats. The company is a trusted partner to many high fledged technology corporations, the company’s expertise in and knowledge in partnership with international standards allows for the company to pave the foundation for a long-term security partnership. Siemens has joined forces with leading technology corporations from around the world to form the Charter of Trust.
The company’s interoperable products and solutions meet and excel the strictest cybersecurity requirements for secure communication, protection of data integrity, access control, and consistent monitoring.
The company has over 30 years of experience in cybersecurity, meaning it brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to its customers to help fight against cyber threats. In an article by Siemens, a spokesman for the company says “In addition to its focus on industrial customers, Siemens also provides cybersecurity services to suppliers, power grid operators, and the healthcare sector.” So not only does the company help combat cyber threats in the technology industry, but it has branched its operations out to other industries. | https://medium.com/technology-magazine-bc/siemens-cybersecurity-trust-in-a-secure-network-bd1c59469995 | ['Kayleigh Shooter'] | 2020-08-27 09:40:47.561000+00:00 | ['Cybersecurity', 'Technology'] |
[Part-6]Blockchain Simplified Notes NPTEL | Transaction Flow in Hyperledger Fabric.
In Hyperledger Fabric, consensus is made up of three distinct steps:
Transaction endorsement
Ordering
Validation and commitment
Step I: Propose Transation
Within a Hyperledger Fabric network, transactions start out with client applications sending transaction proposals, or, in other words, proposing a transaction to endorsing peers.
Client applications are commonly referred to as applications or clients, and allow people to communicate with the blockchain network. Application developers can leverage the Hyperledger Fabric network through the application SDK.
Step II: Execute Proposed Transaction
Each endorsing peer simulates the proposed transaction, without updating the ledger. The endorsing peers will capture the set of Read and Written data, called RW Sets. These RW sets capture what was read from the current world state while simulating the transaction, as well as what would have been written to the world state had the transaction been executed. These RW sets are then signed by the endorsing peer, and returned to the client application to be used in future steps of the transaction flow.
Endorsing peers must hold smart contracts in order to simulate the transaction proposals.
Steps III: Proposal Response
The application then submits the endorsed transaction and the RW sets to the ordering service. Ordering happens across the network, in parallel with endorsed transactions and RW sets submitted by other applications.
Step IV: Order & Deliver Transaction
The ordering service takes the endorsed transactions and RW sets, orders this information into a block, and delivers the block to all committing peers.
The ordering service, which is made up of a cluster of orderers, does not process transactions, smart contracts, or maintains the shared ledger. The ordering service accepts the endorsed transactions and specifies the order in which those transactions will be committed to the ledger.
The Fabric v1.0 architecture has been designed such that the specific implementation of ‘ordering’ (Solo, Kafka, BFT) becomes a pluggable component. The default ordering service for Hyperledger Fabric is Kafka. Therefore, the ordering service is a modular component of Hyperledger Fabric.
Step V: Validate Transaction
The committing peer validates the transaction by checking to make sure that the RW sets still match the current world state. Specifically, that the Read data that existed when the endorsers simulated the transaction is identical to the current world state. When the committing peer validates the transaction, the transaction is written to the ledger, and the world state is updated with the Write data from the RW Set.
If the transaction fails, that is, if the committing peer finds that the RW set does not match the current world state, the transaction ordered into a block will still be included in that block, but it will be marked as invalid, and the world state will not be updated.
Committing peers are responsible for adding blocks of transactions to the shared ledger and updating the world state. They may hold smart contracts, but it is not a requirement.
Step VI: Notify Transaction
Lastly, the committing peers asynchronously notify the client application of the success or failure of the transaction. Applications will be notified by each committing peer.
Important Points To Remember: | https://medium.com/moatcoin/part-6-blockchain-simplified-notes-nptel-892f13875555 | ['Divya Goyal'] | 2018-10-07 14:06:43.314000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Hyperledger', 'Tutorial', 'Bitcoin'] |
This is how Big Oil will die | It’s 2025, and 800,000 tons of used high strength steel is coming up for auction.
The steel made up the Keystone XL pipeline, finally completed in 2019, two years after the project launched with great fanfare after approval by the Trump administration. The pipeline was built at a cost of about $7 billion, bringing oil from the Canadian tar sands to the US, with a pit stop in the town of Baker, Montana, to pick up US crude from the Bakken formation. At its peak, it carried over 500,000 barrels a day for processing at refineries in Texas and Louisiana.
But in 2025, no one wants the oil.
The Keystone XL will go down as the world’s last great fossil fuels infrastructure project. TransCanada, the pipeline’s operator, charged about $10 per barrel for the transportation services, which means the pipeline extension earned about $5 million per day, or $1.8 billion per year. But after shutting down less than four years into its expected 40 year operational life, it never paid back its costs.
The Keystone XL closed thanks to a confluence of technologies that came together faster than anyone in the oil and gas industry had ever seen. It’s hard to blame them — the transformation of the transportation sector over the last several years has been the biggest, fastest change in the history of human civilization, causing the bankruptcy of blue chip companies like Exxon Mobil and General Motors, and directly impacting over $10 trillion in economic output.
And blame for it can be traced to a beguilingly simple, yet fatal problem: the internal combustion engine has too many moving parts.
The Cummins Diesel Engine, US Patent #2,408,298, filed April 1943, awarded Sept 24, 1946
Let’s bring this back to today: Big Oil is perhaps the most feared and respected industry in history. Oil is warming the planet — cars and trucks contribute about 15% of global fossil fuels emissions — yet this fact barely dents its use. Oil fuels the most politically volatile regions in the world, yet we’ve decided to send military aid to unstable and untrustworthy dictators, because their oil is critical to our own security. For the last century, oil has dominated our economics and our politics. Oil is power.
Yet I argue here that technology is about to undo a century of political and economic dominance by oil. Big Oil will be cut down in the next decade by a combination of smartphone apps, long-life batteries, and simpler gearing. And as is always the case with new technology, the undoing will occur far faster than anyone thought possible.
To understand why Big Oil is in far weaker a position than anyone realizes, let’s take a closer look at the lynchpin of oil’s grip on our lives: the internal combustion engine, and the modern vehicle drivetrain.
BMW 8 speed automatic transmission, showing lots of fine German engineered gearing. From Euro Car News.
Cars are complicated.
Behind the hum of a running engine lies a carefully balanced dance between sheathed steel pistons, intermeshed gears, and spinning rods — a choreography that lasts for millions of revolutions. But millions is not enough, and as we all have experienced, these parts eventually wear, and fail. Oil caps leak. Belts fray. Transmissions seize.
To get a sense of what problems may occur, here is a list of the most common vehicle repairs from 2015:
Replacing an oxygen sensor — $249 Replacing a catalytic converter — $1,153 Replacing ignition coil(s) and spark plug(s) — $390 Tightening or replacing a fuel cap — $15 Thermostat replacement — $210 Replacing ignition coil(s) — $236 Mass air flow sensor replacement — $382 Replacing spark plug wire(s) and spark plug(s) — $331 Replacing evaporative emissions (EVAP) purge control valve — $168 Replacing evaporative emissions (EVAP) purging solenoid — $184
And this list raises an interesting observation: None of these failures exist in an electric vehicle.
The point has been most often driven home by Tony Seba, a Stanford professor and guru of “disruption”, who revels in pointing out that an internal combustion engine drivetrain contains about 2,000 parts, while an electric vehicle drivetrain contains about 20. All other things being equal, a system with fewer moving parts will be more reliable than a system with more moving parts.
And that rule of thumb appears to hold for cars. In 2006, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration estimated that the average vehicle, built solely on internal combustion engines, lasted 150,000 miles.
Current estimates for the lifetime today’s electric vehicles are over 500,000 miles.
The ramifications of this are huge, and bear repeating. Ten years ago, when I bought my Prius, it was common for friends to ask how long the battery would last — a battery replacement at 100,000 miles would easily negate the value of improved fuel efficiency. But today there are anecdotal stories of Prius’s logging over 600,000 miles on a single battery.
The story for Teslas is unfolding similarly. Tesloop, a Tesla-centric ride-hailing company has already driven its first Model S for more 200,000 miles, and seen only an 6% loss in battery life. A battery lifetime of 1,000,000 miles may even be in reach.
This increased lifetime translates directly to a lower cost of ownership: extending an EVs life by 3–4 X means an EVs capital cost, per mile, is 1/3 or 1/4 that of a gasoline-powered vehicle. Better still, the cost of switching from gasoline to electricity delivers another savings of about 1/3 to 1/4 per mile. And electric vehicles do not need oil changes, air filters, or timing belt replacements; the 200,000 mile Tesloop never even had its brakes replaced. The most significant repair cost on an electric vehicle is from worn tires.
For emphasis: The total cost of owning an electric vehicle is, over its entire life, roughly 1/4 to 1/3 the cost of a gasoline-powered vehicle.
Of course, with a 500,000 mile life a car will last 40–50 years. And it seems absurd to expect a single person to own just one car in her life.
But of course a person won’t own just one car. The most likely scenario is that, thanks to software, a person won’t own any. | https://medium.com/newco/this-is-how-big-oil-will-die-38b843bd4fe0 | ['Seth Miller'] | 2017-07-01 16:13:06.048000+00:00 | ['Cities', 'Autonomous Cars', 'Climate Change', 'Energy', 'Tesla'] |
3 Perspectives To Make You Think Hard | There has been growing unrest among some Americans about the Shelter in Place requirements imposed by the government. They claim that it infringes upon their freedom and their civil rights. What these people seem to conveniently forget is that civil rights come with civil responsibility. But then, it makes you wonder if they even know what the word civil means.
Many of the outspoken writers have challenged this behavior as irresponsible, and rightly so. They have eloquently put forth perspectives to shine a light on the lunacy of the whole thing.
In “Lesson From Anne Frank: ‘Holocaust II’ is Neither a Movie Nor Our Reality” Joel Eisenberg talks about the “inconveniences” that Anne Frank and her family had to endure when their civil rights were violated.
Julia E Hubbel takes us back just a few years, to shed a light on what a community is and what civil people do when faced with unexpected calamity. She takes us to Ireland, and talks about the cancellation of St. Patrick’s parade in wake of an unfortunate accident.
And finally, the ever so lovable Helen Cassidy Page takes a stab at the idiocy of the whole thing, reminding them that we’ve been there before and how our forefathers handled it compared to how we are behaving, and what they might be thinking looking at us from another realm. A fun read that only someone with her outlook after eight decades on earth can provide. You don’t want her to be mad at you, buckaroo.
It was only a century ago, a blink of an eye in human history, that we faced a global pandemic, and it lasted a year and a half. We may be in for a long haul, and if this is how we are behaving less than two months into it, we will have a rude awakening in another two months.
May we come to our senses before it is too late. | https://medium.com/top-3/three-perspectives-to-make-you-think-hard-349be093be15 | ['Rasheed Hooda'] | 2020-07-01 03:26:31.132000+00:00 | ['Perspective', 'Advice', 'Life Lessons', 'Top 3', 'Life'] |
Why ERP should have AP automation | Accounts payable (AP) is an challenging process to deal due to its conventional paper-based approach which increases the error rate. So AP automation in an ERP can be seen as an relief.
Conditions are changing in today’s business world and with market disruptions, companies have started to recognize the benefits of extending the functionality of their ERP by integrating other solutions that focus on specific areas such as payroll, T&E, tax and accounts payable.
Accounting systems in ERPs are essential to optimize accounting and financial operations. It remains your core system of record and centralized source of information across all functions within the finance organization. With accounts payable automation, it can provide a significant cost savings for a company beyond the expected savings from eliminating manual tasks.
Here we discuss why ERP must have Accounts payable automation:
Minimize wasted time
AP Automation saves a great amount of time from a manual paper-based approach and does entire work in much less time. You can receive now invoices directly into your system to process them faster and reduce inquiries from suppliers by providing payment status as a self-service.
Simplify operations
It simplifies the entire operations of account payable and reduces transactional costs and eliminates routine tasks by optimizing invoice processing for both indirect and direct procurement that also maximizes early payment discounts capture.
Go Touchless
AP Automation provides a digital workflow to manage steps previously handled by an AP staff member. It makes possible for organisations to touchlessly process invoices without any human intervention. You can upload digitally the invoices and later it will be processed accordingly.
Increase payment speeds
With AP automation, you can speed up your payments as it allows you to automatically code and distribute invoices to the right person for approval based on your company’s chart of accounts, business rules and approval hierarchy that are pre-configured in the system.
Provides Transparency
With a traceable approval process that allows the invoice to be processed for payment with designated authorizers indicating approval and decreasing the chances of fraud to occur. It gives management and AP staff unprecedented visibility and reporting capabilities into the flow of invoices and transactions across the company.
Accounts payable automation if done right improves the productivity of the enterprise and helps to have more valuable supplier relationships, and supports company growth and business agility. So it is required to have an ERP with the AP automation.
Apexdroid ERP integrates all core process that needed to grow a company :- Accounting, Finance, Payroll, Manufacturing, SCM, Procurement, CRM and others.Try Now: https://www.apexdroid.com | https://medium.com/@apexdroid/why-erp-should-have-ap-automation-de7783802953 | ['Apexdroid Erp'] | 2020-12-24 06:26:58.398000+00:00 | ['Erp Software', 'CRM', 'Accounting', 'Payroll'] |
Henry David Thoreau on Violence | Henry David Thoreau on Violence
Why a Muslim-American dissident read “Civil Disobedience” in prison
Jon Dawson, Shackles and Chains, via Flickr
Often associated with nonviolent civil disobedience, Thoreau isn’t usually the first name that springs to mind when one thinks of violent resistance. Yet Thoreau was among the first names I came across when I began to research Muslim-Americans’ responses to the crackdown on their civil liberties following 9/11. The Egyptian-American Muslim Tarek Mehanna, who since 2012 has been incarcerated in a US Supermax for downloading and translating content deemed by the US government to constitute “material support” for al-Qaeda, cites Thoreau prolifically in his prison writings and drawings. (I have discussed Mehanna’s case in more detail here.)
In his sentencing statement as well as in a series of quote-filled sketches of his prison cell, Mehanna brings Thoreau’s writing on civil disobedience into conversation with radical Muslim thinkers who argued in favour of resistance to oppression even when such resistance might lead to violence. In using Thoreau to inform his understanding of the conditions under which violence could be legitimate, Mehanna developed a strand in Thoreau’s political thought that is increasingly coming into focus in our postcolonial age, at a time when Muslim thinkers have begun to make a virtue of civil disobedience.
A close reading of Thoreau’s manifold writings on the question of violence leaves the reader with an impression of profound ambivalence. On the one hand, Thoreau meticulously avoided violence in his personal life. He reportedly quit his first teaching job because he refused to engage in corporeal punishment. On the other hand, his celebration of the abolitionist John Brown, convicted and executed in 1859 for leading a violent slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry, was impassioned and seemingly without reservation. Like Emerson, who praised Brown as an “idealist” who “believed in his ideas to that extent that he existed to put them all into action,” Thoreau held up Brown to his fellow citizens for emulation in the struggle against slavery.
Brown’s willingness to sacrifice his life in order to bring an end to slavery resonates with the aspect of Thoreau that appealed most to Mehanna, who saw himself as responding to the oppression of Muslims by American imperialism. “If it is deemed necessary,” Brown reflected during his trial in words that resonate with Mehanna’s sentencing statement:
“that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice and mingle my blood with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I say let it be done.”
When placed in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., civil disobedience is premised on nonviolent resistance. But Thoreau understood that, under certain conditions, the protestor’s nonviolent resistance may lead to violence by the state. Hence, the ethical question of violence arises in connection with that which is being resisted as much as with the person who is resisting.
Since all forms of coercion, including imprisonment, involve violence, the protestor’s awareness of the possibility of arrest is also entangled in violence. The circumstances that led to the writing of Thoreau’s work on civil disobedience-his refusal to pay a poll tax in support of the Mexican-American war that landed him briefly in jail-situate the ethical and religious foundations of violence in a framework from which it is rarely viewed.
The image of Thoreau as a supporter of violent resistance is only a partial representation of his worldview. As a steadfast practitioner of nonviolence, Thoreau refrained from condemning those who engaged in violence under circumstances or for the sake of causes that he considered just. Yet he was centrally concerned with finding ways to avoid coercion in our public and private lives. This dualistic relationship to coercion makes Thoreau at once a theorist of violence and of nonviolence. His thinking simultaneously occupied both mental horizons so as to better probe their intersection.
How can we reconcile-or relate to-these two extremes in Thoreau’s approach to violence? One approach is to consider Thoreau’s politics as a derivative outcome of his vision of the transcendent self. The relation between the political and the ontological self, between being and action, between the principles inscribed onto one’s conscience and how one implements those principles in the world, cuts through Thoreau’s political thinking.
Hannah Arendt, who authored her own Thoreau-inspired treatise on “ Civil Disobedience” in a racially fractured America, underscores the difference between these two selves when she distinguishes between what she calls the vita activa and the vita contemplativa.in The Human Condition. Although the active and contemplative life are in many ways diametrically opposed to each other, they also assume and require each other. The ethical meaning of contemplation depends on the existence of a political realm where one’s private visions can impact the lives of others.
In her analysis of Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience, Arendt describes Thoreau’s concept of conscience as “unpolitical.” Thoreau’s oblique relationship to politics may indeed help us understand how he could have advocated nonviolence while defending John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. But it is a mistake to conceive of these dual dynamics as unpolitical. Instead, we can describe the tension between private conscience and the political realm as a political theology that is conceived contingently, in relation to a specific set of circumstances that rarely rise above the conditions that generate them.
Conscience, as conceived by Thoreau, is untranslatable beyond the individual in whom it resides; its precepts do not easily translate from one context, or one person, to another. Arendt identified this aporia within Thoreau’s political thought when she reasoned with regards to his concept of conscience that “it cannot be generalized; it must remain subjective.”
We can recognize Thoreau’s inward looking conscience is as more than purely negative, however, if we conceive of it in religious terms, and trace how this concept served as his ethical ground and as his spiritual guide.
As Arendt points out, there is a paradox at the heart of Thoreau’s thinking about resistance. Thoreau’s concern is less with society or the state than with himself. As he argues in “Civil Disobedience”:
“it is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.”
This formulation suggests a clear subordination of politics to the spiritual realm. In Thoreau’s political theology, the political and the theological are not equal partners; the political is subordinate to the spiritual, and the self is the arbiter of the law’s justice.
Although Thoreau’s politics is constrained in certain respects by its untranslatability-and it is this, one might argue, that leads to his conditional support for violence, and his appeal to Mehanna and to a long lineage of anticolonial resisters-it is also valuable for what might be called its intrinsic dimension, its self-assured superiority to the law. Thoreau is opposed to those who say that we should accept or reject a course of action due to its compliance with legal norms. Instead he declares of his fellow Americans:
“This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.”
What is right is right irrespective of its outcomes. The self-assured status of the self’s intrinsic principles provides Thoreau with a guide to action.
Thoreau’s writings radiate a religion of the self that resonates with his contemporaries, Emerson and Walt Whitman. While its celebration involves a turn away from certain forms of organized religion, this new sovereign self propagates a new religion as well. American poet C.K. Williams calls it (with respect to Whitman), “a religion of the imagination.”
For each of these transcendentalist thinkers, our conscience dictates the best course of action, not the state. Those who serve the state with their consciences, Thoreau recognizes, “necessarily resist it for the most part: and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.” It is in such junctures that resistance can lead to violence, even while opposing it.
Due to its subordination of the law to conscience, we can say that Thoreau’s political theology refers not primarily to social or political transformation, but first and foremost to the transformation of the self. Far from denoting a turn away from politics, Thoreau attempts to align political activity with a sacred mandate, a mandate found not in a church or in a specific set of scriptures, but within one’s self.
In putting his conscience first, Thoreau is identifying his spiritual condition, his place in the world, and his relationship to the cosmos. For Thoreau, there are intrinsic goods that precede political action and even political consciousness. Our ability to recognize these goods depends on the extent to which we have been able to discern the voice of the divine within our selves.
Read more about slavery and resistance | https://medium.com/the-collector/henry-david-thoreau-on-violence-fd938cc3e938 | ['Rebecca Ruth Gould'] | 2021-01-01 16:47:30.319000+00:00 | ['Thoreau', 'Violence', 'Slavery', 'History', 'Politics'] |
Why You Should Be Excited About Talisman | The Talisman Execution
In fulfilling its vision, Talisman focuses on two key areas:
1. Easy portfolio visualization and navigation
Talisman portfolio dashboard — Photo by Talisman
It should be possible to view your total DotSama portfolio at a glance or, at most, within 3 clicks. Anything more is bad UX. With Talisman, you can view your entire DotSama portfolio right from the landing page/asset dashboard(?).
Another challenge here is ensuring that this service is provided without any central points of failure.
…eventually, we want Talisman to rely on little to no centralised dependencies. This means we need to develop ways for a Talisman client to connect to Parachains and collect data without using centralised middleware, RPCs or initialising a full API for every chain. — Agyle, Talisman Guardian
The team is already working on this and has created an API that interfaces directly with parachains data. These libraries are fully open source and can be used by anyone. Further down the line, new libraries will be developed to match the uniqueness and complexity of upcoming parachains. This is what’s so cool about Talisman’s modular design and architecture.
2. Wallet versatility and transaction comprehension
In a paraverse of 100+ parachains and an infinite variety of transaction types, it is important that a paraverse transporter be sufficiently versatile to handle whatever is thrown at it. It needs to be able to go to the most obscure places and carry out the most uncanny missions. But beyond this, it must guide Paracitizens and ensure that they understand everything they are doing.
To understand what I’m really driving at, consider the different kinds of chains and transactions that can be undertaken in the current iteration of DotSama:
Publishing, liking, and commenting on Subsocial
Agreeing to the terms of service of various crowdloans
Purchasing a land parcel in a blockchain-based game
Buying NFTs on Singular
Providing liquidity to the Acala DEX
Teleporting assets between Parachains
Equipping one NFT into another on RMRK’s Kanaria
Registering a PNS name
Examples custom transaction experiences Talisman can enable — Photo by Talisman
On the one hand (wallet versatility), Talisman strives to empower users to complete all these operations (and any that will arise in the future) across various chains. On the other hand (transaction comprehension), Talisman seeks to ensure that users understand the context of every transaction they are approving with the wallet.
It achieves this by using a modular approach, wherein every parachain team or dapp developer is able to customize the transaction flow (mainly the description of the transaction and its components). This will ensure that, although you are using one wallet/extension, a wider range of transaction confirmation messages will be displayed, depending on which dapp you’re using and/or which action you’re taking.
This level of transparency is vital for onboarding and establishing trust among new users who often know nothing about crypto and are worried of losing their tokens. | https://medium.com/coinmonks/why-you-should-be-excited-about-talisman-b38680f91519 | [] | 2021-12-23 11:11:16.434000+00:00 | ['Kusama', 'Polkadot', 'Wallet', 'Blockchain', 'Crypto'] |
Using AI to detect Cat and Dog pictures, with Tensorflow & Keras. (1) | Cat or Dog?
Hey everyone!
I am going to write up a few articles exposing the power of Convolutional Neural Networks in image detection. To begin with, we will attempt to recognize whether an image is a Cat or a Dog using a vanilla neural network.
Google Collab:
First I would like to recommend using google collab as you don’t need to install any pesky packages and can start your AI journey right away. All you need is a Gmail account, to follow this link and click File-> new notebook.
Once you create a new file press Edit -> NoteBook settings and using the drop-down menu choose the GPU hardware accelerator. This will help speed up your TensorFlow process.
Basic google collab image.
Developing the Dataset:
First, we need to import several packages:
import numpy as np
import tensorflow_datasets as tfds
import tensorflow as tf
from tensorflow.keras import layers
Numpy will be for data manipulation, tensorflow_datasets will be used to import our dataset and we will use layers for image rescaling.
We now will import our cats_vs_dogs dataset:
totalSet = tfds.load('cats_vs_dogs', split='train', shuffle_files=True)
In this case, we want our image to be 64px by 64px. Thus we will Keras to resize each of our images to this size. Furthermore, we also want to normalize our data so our network can analyze the images quicker.
#final image size
IMG_SIZE = 64 #resize and rescale images function
resize_and_rescale = tf.keras.Sequential([
layers.experimental.preprocessing.Resizing(IMG_SIZE, IMG_SIZE),
layers.experimental.preprocessing.Rescaling(1./127.5, offset=-1)])
Next, we want to separate our dataset into image data and corresponding labels. The labels will be “0” or “1” for cats and dogs respectively. We will also transform these arrays into NumPy arrays and resize our images.
#loop through
trainX = []
trainY = [] i = 0 for example in totalSet:
i += 1
print('loading %d'%(i))
trainX.append(np.array(resize_and_rescale
(example['image'])))
trainY.append(np.array(example['label']))
Next, let’s transform our X and Y dataset into NumPy arrays. We will then check what the shape of our datasets will be.
#set as arrays
trainX = np.asarray(trainX)
trainY = np.asarray(trainY)
print(trainX.shape,trainY.shape)
Your output should be:
the shape of X and Y arrays
As you can see we have 20,000 photos and 20,000 corresponding labels. The X/trainX arrays each image is 64 by 64 pixels and the “3” represents the RGB color for each pixel.
Next, we want to transform our data from the RGB format to a gray image. This is simply for preference as I have no interest in color at the moment.
For RGBtoGray transformation, we simply need to transform the RGB vector to the value R*0.2126+G*0.7152+B*0.0722. This will grant us a final image shape of (20,000,64,64).
We also need to reshape our array into the shape (20,000,64*64) so each image can be inputted into our neural network. Whereby the network will train on 20,000 [64*64 = 4096] inputs.
def rgb2gray(rgb):
return np.dot(rgb[...,:3], [0.2126, 0.7152, 0.0722]) newTrainX = []
for image in trainX:
newTrainX.append(rgb2gray(image)) newTrainX = np.asarray(newTrainX)
newTrainX = newTrainX.reshape(newTrainX.shape[0],64*64)
Developing the Model:
We now want to develop a model capable of analyzing our dataset. First, we will import several packages:
from keras import models
from keras import layers
from matplotlib import pyplot
Next, we will set up a Sequential model that goes from Nodes
512 → 256 → 128 → 64 → 10 → 1
Each node will be followed by a soft plus activation layer which essentially transforms the output using the following function:
soft plus function
Graphically:
SoftPlus Graphical Function
As you can see it essentially trims off negative numbers.
The code for our network is:
#setup network network = models.Sequential() network.add(layers.Dense(512,input_shape=(64*64,)))
network.add(layers.Activation(tf.keras.activations.softplus)) network.add(layers.Dense(256))
network.add(layers.Activation(tf.keras.activations.softplus)) network.add(layers.Dense(128))
network.add(layers.Activation(tf.keras.activations.softplus)) network.add(layers.Dense(64))
network.add(layers.Activation(tf.keras.activations.softplus)) network.add(layers.Dense(10))
network.add(layers.Activation(tf.keras.activations.softplus)) network.add(layers.Dense(1, activation='sigmoid'))
You should notice that our last layer uses a sigmoid activation function, this is used to force our output to be between 0 and 1. This is needed since our outputs are going to be either 0 ( cat) or 1(dog). The output will thus display a probabilistic outcome (0.2 means most likely cat while 0.8 means most likely dog).
Sigmoid function
We will compile our model using the rmsprop optimizer. Since our output is binary (0 or 1) we will use binary_crossentropy loss and we will measure our accuracy.
#compile network network.compile(optimizer='rmsprop', loss='binary_crossentropy',metrics=['accuracy'])
Finally, we will separate our data into 19000 training data and 1000 validation data. The latter will be used to analyze how good our network is with non-training data.
We will also train our system in batches of 128 and run it for 100 epochs.
val_x = newTrainX[:1000] partial_x = newTrainX[1000:] val_y = trainY[:1000] partial_y = trainY[1000:] #FIT history =
network.fit(partial_x,partial_y,epochs=100,batch_size=128,validation_data=(val_x,val_y))
Measuring accuracy:
The history variable stores the validation accuracy and our training accuracy. The former is the accuracy with non-training data, the following code will output the maximum accuracy granted by our network with non-training data and graphical output of accuracy vs epochs.
#show loss and accuracy #get loss for training acc = np.asarray(history.history['accuracy']) #get loss for testing val_acc = np.asarray(history.history['val_accuracy']) # x axis will display epochs running from 1 to the number of losses we have - 1 epochs = np.asarray(range(len(acc))) pyplot.plot(epochs,acc,'r',label='Training accuracy') pyplot.plot(epochs,val_acc,'b',label='validation accuracy') pyplot.title('Training and accuracy') pyplot.xlabel('Epochs') pyplot.ylabel('Accuracy') pyplot.legend() print(max(val_acc)) pyplot.show()
With our network we have the following output:
Accuracy vs Epochs (1)
We can see that the accuracy rate peaks at around 65%. This means our system recognizes cats from dogs 65% of the time which is okay but not great!
Next time we will see if we can get higher accuracy rates using a Convolutional Neural Network.
GITHUB CODE:
Part 2:
Link | https://medium.com/@codewebduh/using-ai-to-detect-cat-and-dog-pictures-with-tensorflow-keras-1-6e880cbc14c6 | ['Maxamed Sarinle'] | 2020-11-23 14:05:42.839000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning Python', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'TensorFlow', 'Keras', 'Neural Network'] |
5 Delightful Side Effects of Creating a Culture of Interdependency | I spent nearly 10 years working for a non-profit organization, and along the way, I saw many situations where a specific need existed, a job description was written, and one person was hired to handle that need — in isolation. The newly hired talent may have been exceptional. They were lauded to be the silver bullet we needed with their unique skills, experience, and personality. But the results were usually far from what we were told to expect.
As I looked at these repeated failures, I started to recognize some similarities. The only meaningful input these new staff received was from their direct manager. There was duplication between what one of these staff members was doing and what their counterparts in other departments were doing. They lacked support from someone with deeper institutional or domain knowledge. They were a single point of failure when they were taking time off, or left the organization.
And what’s worse, often these new team members were being told to avoid working with others in order to streamline their work.
Saying the results weren’t great is a bit of an understatement.
Eventually, I got my turn to lead a team. I was responsible for building and managing a team that was responsible for the organization's entire web presence. We handled everything from design, to web development, to content management, SEO, and analytics.
Forming bonds between the members of my team, both internally and with other teams throughout the organization was a key aspect I wanted to focus on. As I wrote out job descriptions for my team members I designed the roles to be slightly overlapping in their responsibilities and defined interdependency between the roles. None of these new team members would be able to do their whole job without collaborating with someone else. And that was intentional.
I had created a culture of interdependency.
Other managers, the leadership team, and even HR thought I was insane, but I was persistent with my approach. Fast forward to a few months after all of these positions were filled and onboarded, and I could see my plan was working. The blurred lines between each of the roles forced collaboration. The collaboration led to sharing ownership over their work. And that shared ownership led to more collaboration to push our whole team forward. Soon enough the team practically functioned on its own. Sure I still provided guidance and overall direction, but no longer did each of my employees come to me individually as the sole source of input into their work. Instead, they relied on each other to move us forward as a team, often surpassing any level of expertise I brought to the table on my own. I had created a culture of interdependency.
My goal in this strategy was to solve some of the issues I’d seen before: the lack of broad input and institutional knowledge, the duplication of effort, and the single point of failure. All of these were common results when a job description was written with the intent of the new staff member working in isolation. And I wanted to avoid them.
But the results were far better than I could have imagined. And in fact, my efforts paid dividends with a number of other positive side effects that emerged from my team working interdependently.
Accountability
When team members are only accountable to their manager, a lot is lost. The manager controls their employment — and thus their paycheck. And so, oftentimes they won’t admit when they’re having trouble with something, because they’re afraid of the consequences.
Peer accountability helps with this. When team members on the same level need their peers to get a task done for them to do their part, the fear aspect is removed and it’s much easier for team members to be upfront about where they are and what they need help with. And on the flip side, peers are just as likely to call out when they aren’t getting what they need when they need it to do their own work.
Overall this made my job as a manager easier because I could observe and interject when needed without having to be in the weeds with the details every day.
Morale
Quite simply, as social beings, people like to work together. Even when some of our tasks aren’t the most enjoyable, misery loves company, and working together helps create a team spirit to keep moving through the bad times. Of course, there’s also the morale boost when the team can celebrate successes that they all had their hands in. Overall my team had stronger morale because they were forced to work together as a team and not pushed into a situation where they felt like they were competing with each other. And this same result applied as my team collaborated with other teams throughout the organization.
Efficiency
Having overlapping roles and skillsets helps make things more efficient by giving you extra capacity that can be shifted around between tasks. This works especially well for tasks that happen on a regular interval. My team used to create reports at the end of each month, and as these reports grew larger and more complicated over time, they were taking more and more time.
The team was able to work together and shift capacity from the content management roles to help with reporting so they could continue to produce them in a timeline manner without bogging down just one person. Since the content managers were already cross-trained in the analytics tasks, it was easy to bring them in to help, so producing the reports wasn’t solely reliant on one team member.
Growth
As the team worked together, they started to highlight opportunities for growth and improvement to me. In a more traditional environment, I would have had to identify these opportunities myself as each team member worked in their own silo, and there’d be significant friction trying to pull them together to take advantage of new opportunities. Because my team members worked so closely together they had a lot of opportunities to cross-train and expand their skills into areas where they would otherwise not have the opportunity to learn and try new things.
On my team, the analytics coordinator and the content managers collaborated with the writers on another team to continue to improve the blog content they were posting. Together they could determine improvements to the content that would make the posts perform better without adding additional work for the content manager. This type of collaboration would take a lot more coordination in a more traditional setup where I would have had to be in the middle of the conversation.
Resilience
Every team has to deal with various types of time off, whether for vacations, weddings, or medical reasons. In the past, it was always a big rush to offload all of a person’s day-to-day tasks onto someone else before they left. The person filling in still had their normal work to do, and they never had much practice doing the tasks they were filling in for. Building an interdependent team helped with this a lot. Instead of only having to fill in once or twice per year, now the team members were always immersed in the work their colleagues were doing, and so shifting workaround for time off, or even to help manage workloads or special projects was easy. | https://medium.com/swlh/5-delightful-side-effects-of-creating-a-culture-of-interdependency-5201b2cdb772 | ['Jeremy Gimbel'] | 2020-04-21 14:15:59.055000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Management', 'Leadership', 'Productivity', 'Business'] |
Knowledge Can Kill — By Madison Seal | Knowledge Can Kill — By Madison Seal
Long ago with the petticoats and pride lived a young girl Scarlet. Scarlet had the most lushes and beautiful shade of strawberry blond hair around. It was always tied up with a silky white ribbon from her mother. But her eyes are what everyone was envious of. They were green, not just any green but dark emerald green. No one around her had magical eyes like that. They even had hints of gold sparkle in the sun like her father. Scarlet had pale skin with many freckles on her sculpted face and thin arms. She was tall for her age and fragile-looking, but her mind stayed strong withholding all her secrets. She always paired her outfits with a nice smile and a pair of silk gloves.
She was the daughter of a wealthy and important man and woman, James and Rose. James was a strict man, he meant what he said and got what he wanted. James always had a stern voice, his actions showed that, but he had a soft spot for his love Rose. Rose was a quiet and gentle soul. She looked at the world differently because she saw the unspoken words in people. Rose ended up with James because she saw the good in him and not many people did. Rose and James were both nice-looking people, but together they made a striking couple.
The three of them lived joyfully in an old castle on a prairie in Ireland. Their home was marvelous, with all the historical statues and silky curtains you could think of. The house was tall and dark, but the family always made it feel like home. The family inherited the house after the passing of Scarlet’s Grandmother. The house had rooms upon rooms down each hallway, but Scarlet was always in the library with a book in hand. She read all different kinds of books, from books about art and literature to talking animals and fairies in a faraway land. But her favorite was a book serious about a special little girl who could read minds and could feel what others felt. She loved those books because she related, she was special just like the girl in the books. Scarlet was sensitive, she could feel emotions when she touched something.
Scarlet has been sensitive since a young age, the first time she felt something was when she was seven years old, it started with touching her Grandmother’s old quilt. When Scarlet touched the quilt, she became very sorrowful. Scarlet then saw her Grandmother on her death dead years prior with her father putting the quilt over her. It was almost like a flashback, but Scarlet was not alive at the time, she was not there to remember that. That was a while ago, she has come a long way in nine years. Now she wears gloves to help stop the emotions from spilling over into her reality. But sometimes she uses her abilities to learn more, she often uses it when reading books. Scarlet will pick up and book and with a clear mind be filled up with memories that are not hers. It’s like a movie to Scarlet, until last year.
Scarlet was doing her usual daily reading, she got distracted by the wind howling outside and turned to see an unusual book. It was sitting on her Fathers leather reading chair in the corner of the room. Scarlet has seen hundreds of books in the library but never came across that specific one. The book looked a little rugged and old. Scarlet was a curious girl; she wanted to know and understand the world as much as she could. So, wanting to know the history of the mysterious book she strolled over picked it up.
Scarlet closed her eyes and opened them to see her father. But he looked younger, she glances around, and she detects she is in the library. But with half the number of books and the usual peeling wallpaper is all in tack. Scarlet walks over to James sitting and reading. Scarlet waves her hands around but he doesn’t notice because this is not her reality and can’t intercept it. Scarlet then jumps at a loud banging, it sounds like it’s at the front door. Scarlet gets up and treads along with her father to the main entrance. The front door then squeaks open to reveal a man, he is wearing a long trench coat paired with a black shirt and trousers. Scarlet noticed him from a picture that sits on her father’s nightstand. James’s face instantly manifests with anger when their eyes lock contact. James lets out words of annoyance mixed with a loud “Get out” The man then walks inside denying James’s request.
James then remarks, “I told you to stay away Walter, you ruined my life and my chance at a future, and I can never forgive you for that.”
Walter then counteracts James and says, “We both messed up that day, you can’t act like the victim.”
Scarlet is standing in the corner with her brain running with all the possible reasons this account is happening. James stands tall, breathes in, and declares, “I didn’t cast the spell that killed her, you did. But I took the blame and got expelled.”
Scarlet is caught off guard with the word spell, she never knew or even thought her father had something to do with magic and was special. Scarlet then is reminded of the situation when Walter glances at James and utters, “I know okay, I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. I bagged the headmaster to let you back to school, but he denied.”
James looks up at Walter and screams, “Oh so you can beg, but not tell the truth!”
Mid-sentence James balls his hand up in a fist, then throws a punch, hitting Walter’s face. Walter trembles back and the two of them scramble around the house. While fighting they end up in the library, hands in each other’s faces. James then begins being choked by Walter. James’s lips start turning blue and as a last resort James picks up the mysterious book. James then strikes Walter in the head with the book. Walter tumbles back and James goes at him again and again until Walter is on the ground.
Blood is smeared all over Walter’s face and the book, James then takes one last batter at him with the book and Walter turns cold. Scarlet is scanning over the situation with terror and fright in her eyes. James then falls to the ground and lets out a scream when he realizes what he did. Out of the blue Rose races down the stairs after sensing death, she turns to the library and is shocked at the sight of her fiancé standing over a dead man’s body. She runs over to James as he looks up and sputters out, “I’m so sorry, stuff got out of hand and I had to. Please don’t tell anyone, I can hide him.”
Out of panic Scarlet focuses on her hand and rips it off the book. Scarlet opens her eyes and is back to the library by herself holding the blood-stained book. She trembles back and falls into her father’s chair reflecting on what she just witnessed. Tears burn in her eyes and fall down her cheeks. She just found out her father was a murderer and is special like her. Scarlet’s father then strolls in from the sounds of his chair, he looks up and sees Scarlet with tears running down her face. He walks over to her with concern, then he sees his book in Scarlet’s trembling hands.
James sat down next to her and slowly took the book out of Scarlet’s cold hands. James then put it into a drawer and looked at Scarlet like he was waiting for her to admit that she did something wrong. “I told you to wear those gloves, you are not ready for what life holds.” James vocalizes in a serious tone.
Scarlet looking disgusted says, “It’s not the world” she pauses and then utters “It’s the people like you. You’re getting mad at me for finding out you are a murderer!”
Ever since that day she wears her gloves, never wanting to experience something like that again. Scarlet never told anyone else what she saw and relives that memory of her father killing a man with a book over and over. Her father tried to help Scarlet understand how bad Walter was, Scarlet acted like she forgave him but never did. Who would have guessed Knowledge can kill as much as mankind does.
12/10/20 | https://medium.com/@madisoncwrites/knowledge-can-kill-by-madison-seal-8a6d039c57bc | ['Madison Seal'] | 2020-12-18 15:03:57.692000+00:00 | ['Ficton', 'Books', 'Magic', 'Secrets', 'Murder'] |
Gouging Our Eyes Out | Gouging Our Eyes Out
The blindness of white privilege.
Image by Martin Redlin from Pixabay
As a white person who is descended from Mayflower Pilgrims, I have a certain amount of social currency. Because my skin isn’t dark, it allows me to move mostly unhindered in my community. However, I didn’t know I had this privilege, or that I was being treated differently until I moved to Portland, Oregon.
White privilege is an insidious poison of our collective culture. It’s one of the reasons for slavery in America. It’s why we had the Civil War, and it’s what cause the genocide of Native Americans during the western expansion. It’s the driving force behind Jim Crow laws, and why it took so long to end segregation. It’s the why so many people of color have died at the hands of the police.
White people are blind to it because it’s so ubiquitous that we accept it without thinking about it. We allow it to blind ourselves because we benefit from it. We profit off of it, and we don’t question it because it makes our lives easier at the expense of people of color. Driving while black isn’t a new thing, it has been around for as long as there have been cars and horse-drawn carriages.
We have to acknowledge that white privilege is why so many people of color have been harmed by every white person. The list of how white privilege has harmed people of color is so long that I couldn’t begin to list the ways it’s impacted the black and brown communities.
I would like to take this just a bit further and say that where you find white privilege at its worse is in primarily white Christian churches. The idea that just because you’re white that somehow that means that you should have preferential treatment is flawed and dehumanizes people of color. It has created a system that causes harm on a daily basis.
Parents of color shouldn’t have to fear that their children won’t be coming home because some racist cop decided it’s open season on black and brown people. People of color shouldn’t have to fear for their lives any time they get pulled over, or fear that they are going to have the cops called on them just for holding a barbecue at a local park. They shouldn’t have to worry that they are going to get shot just for reaching for their wallet.
White people need to see that they have contributed to a system of racism that has made it ok to view people of color as less than. We have to work to make our society more equatable and more color blind. We have gouged out our eyes so not to see the harm we have done, yet we refuse to do the work that would create a system that works for everyone.
We shouldn’t have to have mass protests to get corrupt racist cops charged with murder. We shouldn’t have to have riots to make people hear the wounded cry of American citizens who have been wronged in the worse way. It’s been 155 years since the Civil War, and it’s been just over 50 years since we ended segregation. Yet in that time we still haven’t balanced the scales for people of color in America.
We still treat people of color as if they mean less than a white person. We have to start walking a path of equality for all. Because if we don’t, then we are going to see a lot more violence in the streets. Our nation is still broken and is less united than ever. We have to start the healing process or this grand experiment will fail. | https://medium.com/dshorbauthor/gouging-our-eyes-out-ccad859378ae | ['David Shorb'] | 2020-06-05 13:49:09.761000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Race', 'Culture', 'Racism', 'Life Lessons'] |
Five New Books to Get Your Hands On in 2020 | Five New Books to Get Your Hands On in 2020
The YA genre isn’t just for teenagers.
New year, new books. The first few months of 2020 hold many secret treasures for bookworms. Several well-loved authors like Becky Albertalli and Mackenzi Lee are releasing brand new books.
You don’t want to miss that!
I didn’t plan on limiting this list of 2020 releases to a specific genre. But as it turns out, many of the notable new releases belong in the young adult and middle-grade genres, so I decided to dedicate this list entirely to those.
No need to click away now if you don’t identify as a “young adult”. Being 26 myself, I don’t belong in the target audience for YA books anymore, yet I still enjoy reading them.
One of the reasons why I love YA literature is because the authors in the genre know the importance of diversity. YA books feature all kinds of characters — gay, black, gender fluid, introverted, autistic — like no other genre.
Many YA authors have a critical way of looking at the world just like many of the hyped contemporary authors do (I’m talking Dave Eggers or even Margaret Atwood here), they just convey it differently.
Give it a try if you don’t believe me. I have the five most exciting new releases in the genre listed for you. All of them will come out in the first half of 2020.
Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli
Release Date: 4 February 2020
Becky Albertalli’s name is well-known all over the world, even Swiss bookstores haven’t found a way around the queen of YA. She is the author of Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens’ Agenda and its sequel Leah on the Offbeat.
Simon was so popular he got his own movie (Love, Simon) and a ton of merch. Becky Albertalli knows what she is doing, which should be enough of a reason to be excited for her new book, Yes No Maybe So.
She has teamed up with Aisha Saeed to write this story about a group of teenagers who get tied up in political activism. Thanks to her co-author, readers can expect a slightly different cultural dimension than what they know from the Simonverse.
Hollowpox by Jessica Townsend
Release Date: 10 March 2020
March will be the month to dive into middle-grade books. If you think that’s not for you, let me remind you: Harry Potter is middle-grade, too. And Hollowpox by Jessica Townsend compares on a few different levels.
Hollowpox will be the third book in the Nevermoor series with our main character Morrigan Crow. Morrigan is a cursed girl whom everyone blames for everything until she is invited to compete for a place in the renowned Wundrous Society.
This magical elite school is bound to awake memories of Hogwarts, and so is Morrigan. Nevermoor is the perfect series if you want to feel those Harry Potter vibes again.
And since the book only comes out in March, there’s still plenty of time to read the first two books in the series, Nevermoor and Wundersmith.
Rick by Alex Gino
21 April 2020
I promised you diverse characters — Rick by genderqueer author Alex Gino offers just that. According to their website, Alex writes “queer and progressive middle-grade fiction”, which is a perfect description of her first children’s book about a transgender boy named George.
In their new book, little Rick is questioning many things. His identity, among others. Alex Gino has a very unique style and her books are accessible for both kids and adults.
This might be a great book to read to your kids in 2020!
Loveless by Alice Oseman
Release Date: 30 April
Alice Oseman is one of my favourite YA authors. I discovered one of her books, Radio Silence, by chance and only because I liked the narrator of the audiobook.
Now she is releasing a new YA novel about an 18-year-old girl struggling to come to terms with her being aromantic-asexual. As Alice confirmed in this tweet, she herself shares the main character’s sexual identity.
Therefore I expect Loveless to be authentic, fun, and beautiful at the same time — like all of her books usually are.
(Check the bottom of this article to enter my giveaway for Radio Silence!)
The Madness Blooms by Mackenzi Lee
Release Date: 24 November 2020
Mackenzi Lee will be releasing her long-awaited new book in November. It revolves around Dutch tulips and two orphaned siblings.
Mackenzi Lee likes to travel with her readers: Her earlier books, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and The Ladies’ Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, were both action-packed and involved a lot of traveling.
You can expect the same from her new book, The Madness Blooms.
Don’t Forget to Preorder
Whenever I hear about a new release coming up, I make a mental note and then forget about it until the book is already out. If that sounds familiar, I have good news for you:
All of these exciting new books are available for preorder already. I suggest you preorder them right now if you don’t want to forget. | https://karintaglang.medium.com/five-new-books-to-get-your-hands-on-in-2020-db788b58dca8 | ['Karin A. R. Taglang'] | 2019-12-25 10:56:21.352000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Literature', 'Reading', 'Fiction', 'New Year'] |
Ready, Set, Web Scrape: Winning E-Commerce Pricing Strategies | Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash
Consumers who have ever purchased plane tickets, booked hotel rooms or used taxi services have experienced dynamic pricing. Adjusting prices based on market demands is not a new concept, but it is more relevant than ever.
Not that long ago, dynamic pricing was based on past sales data. Market demands were forecasted by analyzing seasonal and cyclical trends. Today, dynamic pricing involves more sophisticated procedures, such as large-scale data gathering and analysis.
In a broader sense, dynamic pricing is part of pricing intelligence: a process where businesses gather and process data to adjust pricing strategies and grow profit.
In this article, you will find out what dynamic pricing is and its main strategies. You will also learn more about the process of acquiring data to optimize pricing strategies and drive growth in profits.
What is dynamic pricing?
Dynamic pricing allows companies to set flexible prices for their goods or services based on real-time demand. Prices are adjusted based on supply and demand changes, competitor prices, and other market conditions.
Introducing dynamic pricing into business strategy is sometimes seen as a controversial decision. If companies abuse real-time pricing, it might damage the brand. This will be further explained under dynamic pricing challenges.
Dynamic pricing explained (Source: Oxylabs’ design team)
What is a dynamic pricing strategy?
The dynamic pricing model allows marketers to adjust product or service pricing based on demand (or other factors mentioned earlier). Instead of having one price point, companies introduce multiple price points in order to increase their revenue.
Dynamic pricing introduces multiple price points (Source: Oxylabs' design team)
What are the benefits of dynamic pricing?
Dynamic pricing has a number of advantages, and here are the main ones:
Stock management (supply and demand control)
Dynamic pricing allows managing demand in case of operational bottlenecks. Adjusting prices also helps to sell out surplus products, if required. Acquired data on market trends allows companies to foresee a peak in demand and take care of required product supplies.
Insights into consumer behavior
Having extensive data on consumer behavior allows companies to get to know their customers. For example, data analysts can extract competitor information and calculate what minimum and maximum price a customer would pay for a product or service. This information can then be used to adjust prices and generate more sales.
Revenue
Introducing multiple price points generates more profit than having a single price point. The revenue increase is one of the main benefits of real-time pricing.
Dynamic pricing challenges
Price discrimination
Real-time pricing brings healthy competition to various markets. However, real-life examples show that some businesses may take it too far and even harm their brand reputation.
Raising prices during peak times might backfire as it did for Uber, a ridesharing company. The company introduced higher prices during times when people needed transport the most, for example, during a snowstorm in New York City. The company was accused of exploiting its customers.
Solution: Dynamic pricing should not turn into price discrimination. A healthy competition may benefit both companies and their clients, but trying to profit in, for example, force majeure situations may have a negative impact on a brand’s reputation.
Customer satisfaction
Introducing a variable pricing strategy is sometimes seen as a controversial business decision. Customers might find it unfair and choose other brands.
Solution: Being transparent about real-time pricing is the way to go. Customers appreciate honesty and freedom of choice.
Data acquisition
In order to implement surge pricing, companies need to constantly follow their competitors’ prices in real-time. Data acquisition, especially on a large scale, is one of the main dynamic pricing challenges.
Solution: Web Crawler tool can be a solution that allows gathering large-scale data even from the most challenging targets in real-time. Such tools do not require any extra management or resources.
Is dynamic pricing legal?
Dynamic pricing is legal, but it has some exceptions. For example, price discrimination based on gender, race, religion, or nationality is illegal, according to findlaw.com. Also, in order not to compromise consumer rights, companies should be transparent about employing dynamic pricing.
Other sources state that: “If different prices are charged to different customers for a good faith reason, such as a [sic] an effort by the seller to meet the competitor’s price or a change in market conditions, it is not illegal price discrimination.”
Optimizing Dynamic Pricing for E-commerce
Dynamic pricing requires companies to track many external and internal factors related to the valuation of a product or service. Internal factors include:
Stock
Production costs
Shipping costs
Meanwhile, external aspects are harder to track as they might vary due to time (seasonal weather changes, holidays, etc.), consumer behavior (such as trends and brand loyalty), competition, and many other factors. Yet, most of all, efficient dynamic pricing requires an accurate and effective process of data crawling and parsing.
Acquiring accurate data can be challenging due to the constantly changing nature of consumer information. Data extraction can be divided into several different processes that allow for the continuous scanning and scraping of the Internet. These processes are:
Building a scraping path
Creating data extraction scripts
Proxy management
Data storage
Data parsing
Each of these steps brings its own challenges, although implementing a pricing data extraction process is not difficult in itself. Issues often arise whenever websites start fighting back against data scraping.
Implementing the pricing data extraction process
In order to apply dynamic pricing, accurate and real-time data is required. Implementing a pricing data extraction process is one of the few ways to continuously acquire such data as only fresh information can be used for dynamic pricing strategies.
Data Acquisition
Data acquisition is an umbrella term for a 4-step process:
Developing data extraction scripts and implementing them Using (headless) browsers and their automation Data parsing Data storage
Developing data acquisition tools is a critical part of dynamic pricing strategies (Source: Oxylabs’ design team)
Building a pricing data acquisition tool is generally not too difficult for teams with dedicated and experienced developers. Nowadays at least several languages have easily accessible libraries that make building data extraction scripts and parsing acquired information significantly easier. Additionally, open source tools (e.g. Beautiful Soup) can serve as good starting grounds for some projects.
On the other hand, maintaining a constant flow of pricing data is challenging. Most website owners are not too keen to give large swaths of data to anyone with a Python script. As such, most data extraction targets (especially ones that are critical to pricing intelligence) have built algorithms to detect bot-like activity.
Avoiding anti-bot detection algorithms relies on two key factors — understanding how websites detect bot activity and consistently rotating IP addresses through proxies.
Avoiding blocked IPs
There are two ways to consistently scrape the web for pricing intelligence — using residential proxies or using a web scraping solution such as web crawler tools.
Residential proxies allow web scrapers to acquire IP addresses of physical devices which makes detection significantly harder. These proxies need to be consistently changed in order to avoid bot detection algorithms. Exact details on IP change frequency, work volume will depend on the scraping target.
Efficient web scraping requires not only a large pool of residential proxies in the world but also a large degree of customization:
Backconnect entries
City and country-level targeting
Session control
Sticky ports
Managing proxies without a dedicated developer team is a daunting task, therefore many customers choose to outsource their data acquisition pipeline. After all, it is often significantly more time and cost efficient.
Out-of-the-box solutions like web crawler tools bring many benefits to those looking for a reliable way to extract data. Proxy management, data extraction script development and other resource-intensive tasks are done on the side of the provider, allowing companies to focus making use of the data.
Additionally, such tools can extract data from challenging targets without the requiring increased resource allocation. Scraping large e-commerce websites or some search engines can require additional development time as these targets often create sophisticated anti-bot algorithms. In-house solutions would have to create workarounds through trial and error which means inevitable slowdowns, blocked IP addresses and an unreliable flow of pricing data.
Conclusion
Dynamic pricing strategies are becoming more popular. The main benefits of real time pricing include increased control in pricing strategy, better stock management, and more revenue. However, implementing pricing intelligence without the appropriate tools requires extensive resources. For example, large scale data acquisition raises challenges that can only be solved with powerful data gathering solutions.
Choosing between residential proxies or a web crawler tool might be tough as they both have their benefits. If you are looking for more efficient ways to extract data from large e-commerce websites and search engines, a web crawler solution will be a game changer as it allows to cut down on data extraction costs. | https://medium.com/@adelina-kis/ready-set-web-scrape-winning-e-commerce-pricing-strategies-61f66e570524 | ['Adelina Kiskyte'] | 2020-11-25 08:45:59.217000+00:00 | ['Data Acquisition', 'Pricing Strategy', 'Web Scraping', 'Ecommerce', 'Dynamic Pricing'] |
Part Four | Harbors You’re Seeing For The First Time | Vietnam. Photo by Nia Outis.
Ch. 15 | I was teaching English in a city tucked up near the Chinese border.
I had arrived late at night after thirty hours in transit from L.A., including a three-hour layover in Seoul, then easy soaring above a wool pelt all the way to Hanoi; a five-hour wait in the latter city’s central bus station, for intake by the school rep; and a seven-hour comfy, cozy, jouncing ride 300 km northwest by sleeper bus—half-reclining bunk beds stretched three rows across the length of a neon-lit interior.
The ESL academy where I would work owned two buildings twenty minutes walking distance from each other: a center with classrooms, and a hostel. Both buildings housed salaried Vietnamese teachers and foreign-volunteer guest teachers, and backpackers (non-volunteers).
Only a few details matter much on a journey such as mine. Is the mattress hard? Are the showers hot? Please God, is the toilet Western? Here, the answer to these three questions was yes.
I lived at the center for starters. It was located on a noisy, polluted road. The cramped, messy women’s dorm, through whose open window an acrid smell seeped, afforded no privacy. Worse, its second-floor window glanced into the city’s most popular dog meat restaurant.
Within the week, I had moved to the hostel, which was located on a much quieter, residential street.
My only regret was relocating 25 minutes away by foot from an upscale coffee house perched atop one bank of Song Lo (the River Lo). The air quality was fresh and delicious there—a quick escape from traffic-clogged streets.
Lyrical Vietnamese pop music played in the background; behind the music, the soft rush of traffic and muted honking of horns. (Drivers there loved to honk, and must, because there wasn’t much sticking to invisible lanes or obeying the few red lights. People drove slowly and considerately and boy did they have good reflexes.)
Sipping strong coffee served with a complimentary cookie and small glass of sugar cane juice, I half sang to myself: “Heh-éllp me, I think I’m fah-áhl-ing in luh-uv again.”
#
Each Vietnamese ESL teacher entered the classroom accompanied by a native English-speaking volunteer who helped with pronunciation, spelling, and so forth. This was apparently a nationwide government initiative.
The academy director assigned me classes from 2–4:30 PM in the public elementary schools.
The teachers and volunteers traveled to the public schools by moped, but moped was not for me. I tried it the first day. The young teacher drove and I rode pillion. Thin plastic helmets, yes, but kneepads no. I loved the cool air rushing past my knees but kept thinking shattered kneecaps.
In Vietnam, elders are accorded respect like nowhere else. After that first day, the considerate director assigned me the nearest elementary school in walking distance.
The kids were charming, curious, and bright. At the start of each lesson, they stood and sang “Hello, Teacher.” They were already writing well in tiếng Việt, and copying short English sentences from the blackboard, and their penmanship (using fountain pens) was beautiful. Between lessons, they poured into a schoolyard noisy and cheerful, with bright yellow, orange, and red floral banners strung across it.
#
The city’s buildings combined Vietnamese, Chinese, and French-colonial styles.
The tube houses reached far back of the street as in Amsterdam. These tall and narrow old houses hid deep interiors: tiled floors, steep stairways, spacious rooms, and French doors leading onto balconies.
Many industrious families had turned their front room—behind which lay their living room, furnished with high-backed, varnished and sometimes inlaid, wooden throne-benches and chairs (they didn’t upholster as in the West)—into commercial space: ma-and-pa markets; shops selling kitchen goods, linens, clothing, shoes; kiosks serving street food. Along the main thoroughfares, these shop houses mixed with designated commercial establishments.
Many decorative house facades were painted colorfully, in pastels, but many of the buildings’ raw flanks were damp, moldy, uncared for. The A-line roofs mirrored the surrounding, steep green mountains.
My new home was located in one such, old-fashioned tube house.
My new dorm was less cramped—only eight bunk beds, two per rectangular-boxlike steel frame, and more space between the two rows. Each bunk featured a wide mattress, and pale green grommet curtains for privacy. When with a satisfying grating sound, you slid shut both perforated fabric panels along the curtain rod, you lived inside your own tiny room, high-ceilinged enough to sit up and get dressed in, wide enough to do yoga, equipped with interior clothing hooks at the foot of the bed frame and, near its head, a strong lamp and an electrical socket.
I would awake with the neighborhood’s roosters, several hours earlier than the building or the street, and huff up a flight of stairs to the rooftop showers.
Then downstairs to the kitchen to cook breakfast. The hostel supplied complimentary bread rolls and duck eggs, and sometimes I saved vegetables from dinner that could be stirred into an omelette.
The academy director’s husband brought me steamed rice, greens, and cabbage or mushrooms for lunch and dinner to spare me a 4x/day walk to and from the center, to which the other hostel residents raced by moped for meals prepared by a hired cook who sautéed the vegetables in lard and often served pork.
The hostel kitchen where I cooked breakfast and washed my dishes was also far from ideal. A plumbing problem had rendered the sink unusable. The local youngster managing the hostel cooked for paying guests in greasy, blackened frying pans and washed the dishes in the adjacent bathroom sink beside the shower and toilet.
I solved the issue by purchasing personal kitchen things that I stored beneath my bunk: an apron, a pot and frying pan, a wooden spoon and spatula, a bowl and chopsticks and mug, several plastic storage containers, a dish sponge, a dish cloth and hand towel, a roll of disposable cleaning towels, and a plastic tub that fit the kitchen-sink rim just below the faucet.
I boiled water in the kitchen kettle, and used that (not the bathroom’s hot tap water, as the young manager did) to wash and rinse my dishes. I poured the dirty soap suds down the loo.
I regretted not having brought a supply of peanut butter and canned sardines from L.A. to supplement the food provided by the director. Instead, I bought bananas and, in quantity, raw peanuts (to fry in olive oil and then store) and tofu (to fry in olive oil and sautéed onion and then freeze). I shopped for these at the wet market near the river.
Caged poultry, and live fish swimming in plastic tubs, were sold there, but by avoiding the central food market, at least I spared myself the sight of live pigs for sale and even, oh never mind, I won’t say it again.
#
The city was small enough that people could walk or bicycle it, but almost no one did. They hopped on mopeds to go a distance of even five minutes through dusty streets.
Almost everyone wore masks against the raw exhaust spewing from mostly mopeds, some cars, some trucks, the occasional bus.
I would learn that mopeds are this poor but highly mobile country’s primary means of transportation. Open fires on urban or village streets, or in the countryside, whether to burn garbage, cook meals outdoors, or incinerate the symbolic paper houses and vehicles and money that, in mourning rituals, accompany the dead, added to the chronic assault on the air’s purity.
Within two weeks of arrival, my priceless capacity for taking deep breaths practically down to the navel had become compromised. I did as in Rome and bought a face mask. It looked like a single, padded bra cup with elastic ear loops.
And perhaps I told you about the sidewalks? No one used them as sidewalks! Private motorbikes and motorbikes for hire used them as parking spaces.
Front stoops, each with a short metal ladder centrally placed, led from homes to a swath of brick-colored, geometrically incised sidewalk tiles that would be pretty if not in disrepair; then a strip of thick concrete rectangles, many with rusted iron handles; then the roadway. Many of these concrete rectangles were cracked or broken, or having been dislodged, revealed gaping holes.
At first, I had wrongly surmised that people wiped their shoe soles against the ladder rungs. In fact, the ladder served for wheeling one’s moped or bicycle from the front room onto the sidewalk or vice versa.
All told, it was treacherous to navigate the sidewalks. The few pedestrians usually walked in the road amid vehicular traffic, and I followed suit. Vigilantly. This was not a city where one flânered; I did so only along the riverfront, and only after having safely negotiated streets and crosswalks on the way.
#
Not all work-exchange hosts are friendly or honor the informal contract’s cultural-exchange aspect—in fact, strip away the rhetoric, and travel’s glamor, and volunteers can find themselves mere itinerant laborers in the global gig economy—but the academy director was exceptionally generous with regard to sharing her culture.
One day, she welcomed her Vietnamese teachers and international TAs to her ancestral village of smallholdings: cornfields, vegetable plots, and terraced rice paddies against a rugged, mountainous backdrop.
Farm women, wading deep in mud, at that season labored at stirring up the mud or flattening the surface with bamboo poles.
Water buffalo pasturing, chickens and ducks in the yards, dogs with hanging teats (from multiple litters) slouching along the unpaved streets, yapping fur-ball puppies—but about them, I was afraid to ask.
She ushered us across a short, gracefully arched stone bridge leading to a handsome stilt house. This enlarged and renovated farmhouse and the land had been in the family for generations, she said.
The honey-colored timber used to construct the farmhouse now was rare, she added; people weren’t allowed to fell those trees to build homes anymore.
The spacious, minimally furnished dwelling featured carved walls, a polished hardwood floor, and soaring, exposed thatch ceiling. Springlike air ventilated the whole of the interior through rectangular window piercings that rose from floor level and framed verdant countryside.
The hostess, a relative, invited us to sit on reed mats in lotus position in a circle, with various dishes placed on a round pewter tray at the hub. Being the eldest volunteer, I was invited to sit with the aunts (women in their early eighties). I ate only rice, eggs, and vegetables—and used my personal chopsticks in this, a meat-eating culture.
We drank fermented-fruit alcohol from shot glasses. Strong stuff that tingled going down! I only sipped and unlike the aunties, who knocked it back, never made it to the bottom of the first shot.
We ate bananas for dessert and drank tea. Then we chewed betel—I would do that only this once, I decided, for the experience. The eldest aunt took a leaf, sprinkled onto it a dash of powdered limestone, placed the betel nut atop the white powder, and tightly wrapped the leaf around it—then you chew, coating your teeth with plant fiber and releasing a red juice that stains.
Despite ground-down, blackened teeth, the elderly aunts were beautiful. Their smiles were good-natured and warm. Each wore a thick gold bracelet and delicate gold earrings. The one whose pale-pink silk blouse I admired had only stopped working the land three years ago, she said (holding up three fingers while the director translated). Now she was enjoying the great-grandchildren.
#
The 15-day Tet (Lunar New Year) school vacation had arrived. This was serendipitous; I had not timed my visit to coincide with it.
The breezes were balmy. I walked to and from the river and crossed the bridge to Ho Chi Minh Square, or would sit out on my dorm-room balcony. I would look up from reading to admire the next door neighbors’ balcony garden, listen to their caged songbirds, and sweet-talk their cat, or my gaze would follow the flickering, swirling flight paths of mating white and yellow butterflies.
The director again took her salaried staff and TAs to her ancestral village, this time to a modest home, for a festive meal in the company of her extended, multigenerational family.
A local TV station filmed the event, to be broadcast just before Tet’s start. I was wearing the school’s bright red logo tee shirt and was more or less coerced to participate in a segment in which, for the camera, several of us ladled pork stew onto serving plates. The idea was that villagers were sharing culinary customs with international volunteers.
Of course I didn’t eat the stew, but nevertheless felt that I had compromised myself. After that part of the filming ended, I scooted past an enormous, cooked boar’s head and trotters displayed on a round, pewter platter on the floor, and down the back ladder stairs to scrub my hands in cleanser under an outdoor tap above a bucket.
Another day, the director took me with her to a friend’s village to pick up several chickens. The prosperous farmwife warmly welcomed us, inviting us to drink tea on her patio and to admire her flowering peach trees and kitchen garden.
Then we followed her into a fenced yard where chickens pecked and puppies gamboled.
(A volunteer once told me that during the civil war, starving people ate anything that moved. And also, there were those who kept dogs as pets, hiding them indoors or behind gates to protect them from the trade.)
The farmwife expertly snatched up three chickens one after another, folded the wings in order to streamline each bird and fit it through a round hole in an oblong, bamboo cage, then knotted the hole closed using a length of bamboo string. The chickens did not appear agitated, and after she had placed a plastic canvas bag over the cage, became silent.
#
As holiday eve approached, public excitement mounted. The municipality planted red flags along all streets and boulevards. Gift baskets filled with cookies, candy, wine, and cigarettes appeared in shopfronts. Vendors of traditional, potted peach and orange trees appeared on major street corners. Drivers toting flowering peach trees on the back of their mopeds sped by.
On the day of holiday eve, the boulevard bordered on one side by the Bookstore (which sold everything—textbooks and school supplies, pots and pans and utensils, coffee and condiments, sunscreen and mosquito repellant, hats and sunglasses), and on the other by the entrance to the wet market, hosted a street fair hawking flowers, tinsel and tasseled prayers for decorating the potted trees, gift baskets, fruit, and so much more. It was jammed with moped and pedestrian traffic squeezing past each other as people made their final purchases.
The next day, we few remaining volunteers accompanied the director to the pagoda where the townspeople had gathered to pray to the Buddha and the ancestors. The day after, we again accompanied her to her ancestral village, visited the homes of relative after relative after relative, and ate and ate and ate.
On the third day, I popped into her bathroom to wash my hands before dinner with the family. On the floor beside the toilet bowl rested the oblong cage, now holding only two chickens, who had poked their heads and outstretched necks through the mesh and were unconcernedly nipping cooked rice from a kitchen plate. Innocents.
“I’m really sorry, you guys,” I whispered.
#
My having been introduced to the pagoda, it become my urban oasis. It yielded much of beauty—red lacquerwork, Chinese lettering, gilding, the intricately incised, carved, or sculpted stone and wood of staircases and balustrades and doors and columns and rafters and rooftops, and of the tens of Buddhas, and of always another dragon or phoenix or turtle; much of awe—the grand stone staircase leading from the courtyard to the prayer complex, the main prayer hall’s lofty wooden ceiling; much that charmed—altars piled high with flowers and fruit and cake and tinned or packaged cookies, pyramids of bottled water and canned soft drinks and beer, a simple plate of boiled eggs.
The many silver-haired nuns, and several monks, clad in dark-brown linen pajama suits, seamlessly accepted the regular presence of us few Westerners at their morning services, in which rhythmic prayers uttered in a language mysterious to our ears were accompanied by the beating of a hollow, rounded, varnished wooden temple block and punctuated by the ringing of chimes and gongs.
Once settled into lotus, I engaged in mindful mishmash—Hebrew prayers followed by meditation on certain resonant Buddhist concepts. Really, at this stage in life, whatever works.
I witnessed (ignorant of the ceremonial purpose) but one instance of sartorial flamboyance—a monk garbed in a saffron yellow satin robe whose wide, pink collar-and-lapels became two loose and flowing satin ribbons.
The chanting changed in pitch; I opened my eyes. The monk performed a sacred, hypnotic dance in place, golden robe swirling, rose-pink ribbons floating, hands and long fingers delicately gesturing in time with the vocal and percussive rhythms that rose and fell about him. | https://medium.com/what-these-ithakas-mean/part-four-harbors-youre-seeing-for-the-first-time-70e65f92aa5f | ['Nia Outis'] | 2022-01-10 12:24:55.650000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Travel', 'Vietnam'] |
U.S. Practice Management Systems Market Worth $13.3 Billion By 2027 | The U.S. practice management systems market size is expected to reach USD 13.3 billion by 2027, registering a CAGR of 10.2% over the forecast period, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Demand for practice management system is growing due to increasing pressure to curb healthcare costs and changing dynamics of hospital/healthcare settings. Increasing focus on implementing cost-effective, quality care will further boost the market growth.
Political instability, economic stress, and lack of proactive initiatives are exerting adverse effects on the healthcare funding. Despite significant healthcare-related funding and insurance programs, there has been a constant rise in healthcare cost in U.S., thus affecting healthcare providers. The healthcare expenditure in U.S. was approximately 2.4 times higher than the global average in 2015 and is anticipated to increase by 68.0% in the next 10 years.
With the help of practice management systems, healthcare providers are able to offer right treatment at effective price, thus reducing treatment costs. Some of the prominent companies in the market are Henry Schein MicroMD; Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc.; AdvantEdge Healthcare Solutions, Inc.; Cerner Corporation; GE Healthcare; and McKesson Corporation.
Click the link below:
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-practice-management-systems-market
Further key findings from the study suggest: | https://medium.com/@marketnewsreports/u-s-practice-management-systems-market-ac97a570b03b | ['Gaurav Shah'] | 2020-02-21 06:09:34.889000+00:00 | ['Company', 'Software', 'Trends', 'Services', 'United States'] |
Designing a portfolio is like creating a football team. | You’ll need different roles — strikers, midfielders, defenders & a goalie playing together to win.
In the “investment team” you instead pick stocks, bonds, commodities & cash. And most importantly, you also choose a “formation” to play.
Lets focus on stocks today
Defense
-Foundational stocks
They are like all rounders and are good in many fronts the have good value, high to moderate growth and many pay Dividends too
The can easily make up when one members of the team is not play so well(Sergio Ramos for real madrid😊) .
Midfield and forwards
Growth stocks(strikers)
High momentum have potential for growth, solid business and a growing market.
The take all the glory when the get the goals (Lewandowski of Bayern Munich 10 goals in first 5 games🔥🔥🔥)
Value stocks(midfielders)
These guys have great fundamentals good management and are solidly profitable etc
the have what it take to make flow in the team between the strikers and defenders( 2009 version of cr7 & messi😁).
Dividend stocks(defensive midfielders)
These guys allow you to profit through appreciation in the price of the and through distributions made by the company. The are key part of the defense in trouble times and can help weather economic downturns with reduced volatility (rodri, sergio busquets, Ndidi)
Speculative stocks(wonderkid)
These are stocks you keep just in case, you are not buying to keep for long but for what they give in the near future . (chicharito in his Manchester united days😁)
You buy only little of them maybe because
1. You are still studying them
2. The just improved on earnings and value for first time
At the end of the day
Every investment has at least one problem or two
Its up to you to manage their weaknesses and strengths to build a good team for long-term successes
Management makes all the difference.
Happy investment guys | https://medium.com/@weafrigrant/designing-a-portfolio-is-like-creating-a-football-team-9febaa4ff225 | [] | 2020-11-16 19:54:06.549000+00:00 | ['Lagos', 'Investors', 'Nigerian Writing', 'Investing', 'Investment'] |
MAKE THE WORLD MORE VISIBLE! | MAKE THE WORLD MORE VISIBLE!
Hello everyone!
Just wanted to summarize and mention about our prototype and introduction video about TEMCO!
As we all know, TEMCO is developing a Supply Chain Data Management Platform utilizing the blockchain technology.
In light of expanding the horizon and to show that how TEMCO’s dApp will work, we’ve recently premiered our prototype video!
Also, please check out our introduction video to get a grasp on the overview of TEMCO!
Our prototype video shows the transfer from a manufacturer to a consumer, uploading and sharing information in TEMCO’s Supply Chain Data Platform.
TEMCO team has been organizing information and developing technology based on what we stand for: Transport, Enterprise, Merchandise, Customer, Organization.
We’ve organized the video to assist everyone in understanding the concept of TEMCO’s ideal goal.
As mentioned previously and many times before, our Business Intelligence tool and Consumer application will be developed so that everyone can conveniently access! | https://medium.com/temcolabs/make-the-world-more-visible-57cec7ca559 | [] | 2019-06-17 03:42:26.493000+00:00 | ['Crytocurrency', 'General', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin'] |
3 Damaging Myths That Keep Writers Poor And Undervalued | “Anybody can write.”
The first way we can take a pop at this is to point out that actually no not “everybody” can write. There are people in the world, for instance, who are neither literate nor capable of typing on a computer–and the latter is really the main prerequisite for a career as a “writer” in today’s world.
But that’s typically not what the naysayers are trying to allege.
They mean that because anybody they can readily conceive of can type at a computer, it means that writing is a complete non-skill.
By that token, writing is like respiring air. Just as you wouldn’t expect to be paid for the service of walking into an office and breathing air, it’s absurd to think that a business is going to pay you to “just write.”
The rebuttal:
The gulf between writing for fun and writing professionally is actually rather large. Anybody who makes a living from writing knows that. And knows that there are few things about this career that could be considered ‘easy’.
Do you know how to use a video camera? Do you know how to drive a car? Do you know how to take a photograph? Have you built IKEA furniture before?
Assuming you answered yes to at least one of those now try to answer this:
Do you regard yourself a videographer — such that if a local cinema production company were looking for a fill-in you’d think about applying?
If somebody rocked up to your door in a rally car — would you know what to do in order to take it out on a circuit?
Do you think that knowing how to put together the odd piece of IKEA furniture qualifies you to begin marketing yourself as an interior designer and professional mechanic?
If you did answer yes to any of those things, you’d likely find yourself getting horribly out of your depth in very short order being asked to do things you didn’t have the first clue how to pull off. Annoyed clients. Annoyed you. Misery all round.
And you know what?
This is kind of what’s happening in freelance writing.
The lack of barriers to entry — and not the odd YouTube huckster who tells you that you can absolutely get very rich if you get into freelance writing and buy my course — further the notion that anybody can write. And many people who are unable to write — even to normative standards of grammar — enter the market. “Freelance writers” who can’t string together a grammatically correct sentence abound. As do “cybersecurity experts” who couldn’t tell you the difference between, say, a VPN and a proxy if their life depended on it.
The result? Clients assume that freelance writing is a skill-less craft filled with those changing their arms at it and that the next prospective writer who sends them a resume is a charlatan. The next step: bad pay for everyone.
Freelance writing, by the way, requires knowing how to do a lot more than “just write” — even if that were easy. You’ll also need to know:
How to run a business. There’s a lot to this and freelance writers are typically one man or woman shops who have to do everything from keeping books to filing tax reports.
How to market yourself to find work. Or network in order to hear about it that way.
How to keep on top of written deliverables for potentially as many as 8 clients at the one time. Deadline juggling becomes an art form.
“Writing is easy “
A corollary to the notion that anybody can write is the idea that writing to professional standards on complicated topics is somehow easy.
You know how easy such writing isn’t (at least for me)?
So un-easy that whenever I sit down to write for clients I have to make sure that my room is perfectly silent, that I’ve drunk my coffee, and that I’m going to be focusing on absolutely nothing but the draft for the next X minutes. It takes every once of concentration that I can muster.
I put such a premium on the value of deep work, in fact, that I put my phone into flight mode whenever I’m doing something like this:
The problem?
I’ve got the impression that many freelance clients have thought that writing their blogs is something I could do while a little tipsy and typing into my phone while taking a touristy horse and cart ride in some busy Spanish holiday resort with screaming teenagers trying to sell me churros from the roadside. Perhaps I’d have the odd conversation going on too. “Si señor, déjame terminar el blog y estoy contigo”.
The reason I say this?
Their budgets often made zero sense unless writing is a near zero effort enterprise.
I recently encountered a client whose maximum budget for a blog post was $300 (and even getting there was a strain) — including an outline that needed approval. When it came to leveraging their one revision they went all out. Multiple stakeholders needed to leave their two cents in excruciating detail.
The question that went through my head — and if you’ve been in this industry, you’ve probably had this thought too — “does this person really think it’s worth my time to go through all this hassle for $300?”
There are a couple of possibilities that lead to answering that question in the affirmative:
No but the client doesn’t really care and will try extract maximum value from whoever they work with (of these in the writing space there are plenty; the best solution is typically not to worth with them).
The client thinks that this process is really easy and that actioning their massively detailed feedback could take you all of five minutes.
Neither of those options is entirely benign. Again: the only real option, in my experience, is avoidance. The problem: when such clients comprise a significant chunk of the buying-side of the industry. Perhaps even the majority of it. | https://medium.com/@danielrosehill/3-damaging-myths-that-keep-writers-poor-and-undervalued-38f20092678f | ['Daniel Rosehill'] | 2021-09-10 13:41:26.206000+00:00 | ['Careers', 'Careers Advice', 'Writing', 'Freelance Writing', 'Freelance Writing Career'] |
Girl Part One | A thirty-year-old recalls their first meeting with their wife on their wedding night.
With their hands clasped, lips locked, and The Internet playing in the room the two lovers danced. It was midnight, but for them, the night was young.
The two young lovers had gotten married earlier, no ceremony but wearing smiles at the courthouse with their friends as witnesses. After celebrating at a small bar not too far from 1st street, they returned to their humble abode, an apartment.
‘Keep me wrapped up in your open arms’ Cissy sang, holding their wife in their arms.
Tight, secure.
Cissy remembered when she met Aaliyah, at twenty. Things were hard to describe — thinking of the fragility of their mortal life, the dangers of a cruel society. So much expectation, with so little repertoire.
A dreamer’s inferno.
They’d gone to a concert to escape, to enjoy some time away from…everything. It was for a home girl’s friend of a friend’s DJ set, one set up outside in the July Sunshine.
There she met her, a person in someone else’s jersey and her own sneakers. A girl with a smile as big as the sun.
Something like attraction at first sight happened — so Cissy did what their heart told them to do and chatted her up. Finding out she knew their friends and knew a cousin or two made them relaxed enough to meet her friends who were setting up a spot on the green nosebleeds.
The smiles, the big ole watermelon, the welcoming arms — they were something beautiful, something Cissy craved.
A family.
A happy, odd family.
“Why don’t you sit with us?” Aaliyah had inquired that day, gesturing to this lively spot.
The words made them cry, a lot. And after a few tissues and jokes, they joined their group of Misfits.
After some time and having enough courage they asked her to be their girlfriend — and they obliged. As they got older, they got more anxious — they were terrified, about a lot of things. The unknown scared them shitless, living in a world where things are never guaranteed.
But with the woman they loved and people they cared about?
Things didn’t seem so stark in contrast.
“Baby, everything alright?” Music still playing, Cissy turns to their newly-wed wife.
“…you remember how we first met?”
“At Nieva’s set. I remember it like yesterday.”
“Yeah.” Aaliyah rested her head on their shoulders as their conversation continued. Cissy held the position, humming as the song continued. Spiced, sweet like cinnamon and vanilla.
“You stood out a lot, you know.”
Cissy laughs, warm slow like the hum of a bass.
“In what way, or how?”
“Your face. You were a wavering beauty. You came to the place by yourself and yet,” Aaliyah’s hands rest on their lower back.
“You looked like you’d rather be anywhere but there.”
“I was scared, Li.” Cissy relented, their dark eyes half-lid, voice cracking a bit, burying their cheek in her ebony coils.
“We’ll I was, until I saw you grooving and shit — put the rest of courage I had to talk to you and everyone else. It’s probably the second best day of my life.” | https://medium.com/@elevenmurdoc/girl-part-one-a2351df78e9c | [] | 2020-12-08 22:03:28.049000+00:00 | ['Marriage', 'Romance', 'LGBT', 'Short Fiction'] |
Eagle Boomtown opens its gate! Spirit of adventure calls you! | Hey, fellow Prospectors! Are your bags packed? It’s time to depart! The Eagle boomtown is waiting for you.
One of the best things about the new Eagle Boomtown being developed on WAX is the easy onboarding for new users. Even if you never played Prospectors before, all you need to do to start is go through a simple registration using your email address. Then you will be able to go directly into the Eagle boomtown and start playing. So it’s a perfect time to invite your friends to join you!
Whether you prefer to research plots for gold, to develop metallurgic ventures, or try to earn as much QPSS as you can, It’s always much more fun together!
To win in the Eagle Adventure, players need to divide their efforts properly, to ensure that they build the railway on time (in 50 days).
All stuff bought on the auction of assets will be delivered on the Central Storage Plot. You can take all your belongings from there and deliver them wherever you need them.
There are two levels to the railway construction. After level 1 is complete, the railway can be used to move cargo back to the permanent WAX land “Yukon”. Players must also complete Level 2, the railway station, which is where the exchange office is located.
When players have completed both levels of the railroad, they will declare a victory and will be able to exchange the raw mined gold. Mined gold can only be exchanged and added to your account using the railway exchange office.
50% commission from the exchanging of gold goes to the Railway Property Fund, which after collection of taxes, will be divided among all participants of the railway construction.
Here is the scheme of gold distribution in the Eagle Boomtown adventure. As you see, the winner takes it all.
What are you waiting for! PLAY NOW!
TELEGRAM
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FACEBOOK | https://medium.com/@prospectors/eagle-boomtown-opens-its-gate-spirit-of-adventure-calls-you-ac57ee1cf78f | [] | 2021-01-22 13:55:58.368000+00:00 | ['Mmo', 'Nft Collectibles', 'Dapps', 'Games', 'Waxio'] |
Israel detains over 400 Palestinian children in 2020 | Israel detains over 400 Palestinian children in 2020
By Yara Younes
As the world community marks International Children’s Day, Israeli authorities have arrested over 400 Palestinian children under 18 both boys and girls in the first 10 months of 2020.
In a statement released by The Palestinian Prison Society (PPS), a nongovernmental organization (NGO):
“The Israeli occupation authorities have arrested 400 Palestinian children under the age of 18 since the beginning of this year, most of them from East Jerusalem.” “Israel is committing various violations against Palestinian children during their detention, including preventing them from completing their studies, depriving some of them of family visits in prison, and isolating them in individual cells.”
Children are often arrested with no charge or trial, they are often not allowed an attorney or a parent present. The most common charge against Palestinian children is stone-throwing, for which they could spend up to 20 years in prison.
Since 2015, Israel has passed new laws that would legalize the issuance of higher prison sentences for children, in some cases up to life imprisonment. | https://medium.com/@thepalestineproject/israel-detains-over-400-palestinian-children-in-2020-7ba44bf4c3ae | ['The Palestine Project'] | 2020-11-22 11:42:31.366000+00:00 | ['Children Rights', 'Palestine', 'Military Occupation', 'Israel'] |
React Sans JSX | Photo by Caspar Camille Rubin on Unsplash
One of the best things to happen to JavaScript would have to be Babel and process by which one could transpile from one version of JavaScript to another. Not only has this allowed the adoption of modern JavaScript to be accelerated, but it has also opened the doors for other important inventions that improve our JavaScript experiences. A wonderful example of this is JSX.
JSX is an XML like structure that allows one to express component rendering in a syntax that is similar to HTML(even though it is not HTML) and therefore in a way that is familiar. Though it is used in other projects, JSX is primarily associated with React. It is how components are built. In fact, it is so common, it might be surprising to some to know the JSX is used outside of React. JSX is not part of ECMAScript (for now) and sending raw JSX to your browser would not work very well. To make it work one depends on a build process to convert JSX into real JavaScript. The most common build process typically uses Babel, Webpack, Typescript, or some combination of those three.
Given all that, what if I told you that you can write React without a build process which means no Babel to transpile JSX into regular JavaScript. React has official docs on using React without JSX, but one may ask why would you do that?
There are, in my opinion, two obvious reasons to not use JSX. One is that you have a mostly static web page, and only need to use React to control a widget or a section of the web page that needs functionality. Bringing in a whole build process can be overkill for something that simple. The other reason is that it is good to understand what is happening when your code is transpiled from JSX. The more you understand what’s happening under the hood, the better you are at writing and debugging your application. | https://medium.com/the-non-traditional-developer/react-sans-jsx-37ae49b16e54 | ['Justin Travis Waith-Mair'] | 2019-07-12 19:29:35.689000+00:00 | ['React', 'Software Engineering', 'Jsx', 'Babel', 'Learning To Code'] |
How to Manifest Anything You Want or Desire | Yes, that even includes love…and money.
You may be familiar with manifestation, or the laws of attraction. After all, the process was the focus of a 2006 bestselling book, The Secret which sold more than 30 million copies — and it’s something that thought leaders, including Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, Gabrielle Bernstein, Iyanla Vanzant and Oprah have spoken about. (For the record, they all agree that you really can manifest things.)
But, first things first, even though manifesting is about turning your dreams into reality, it does require that you to take proactive steps towards whatever it is that you desire — so you shouldn’t expect it to happen instantly or overnight while you sleep. That said, it’s a small price to pay (at least in our humble opinion) for something that can have such a profound impact on your life:
“You control a lot by your thoughts and we control a lot by our joined thoughts…by what I [and we] believe,” Oprah told LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner in 2015. “When I started to figure that out for myself, I became careful of what I think and what I ask for,” she explained. “I was like what else can I do? What else can I manifest, because I have seen it work. I have seen it happen over and over again.”
Looking to give manifestation a try yourself? Here are the steps experts propose you take to attempt to manifest anything you desire — money and love included.
Let’s back up. What is manifestation exactly?
Essentially, manifestation is bringing something tangible into your life through attraction and belief, i.e. if you think it, and it will come. However, there is more to manifestation than willpower and positive thinking. As Angelina Lombardo, the author of A Spiritual Entrepreneur, tells OprahMag.com, “manifesting is making everything you want to feel and experience a reality… via your thoughts, actions, beliefs, and emotions.”
To start manifesting, be clear about your goals.
While everyone approaches manifestation differently, Lombardo believes most follow the same basic principles. First — and perhaps most importantly — you need to know exactly what you want. “You are the only one who dreams your dreams, so whether it’s a new partner and a healthy relationship or a better job, know it and own it,” she says.
Whatever you desire, though, one thing is essential: Make your intention as specific as possible. Lombardo says, “The more clear and concise, the better.” Instead of, for example, saying “I want to meet my soulmate,” develop a detailed picture of what that person would look like (think: qualities, characteristics, values, etc.)
Once you’ve set your intention, ask for what you want — and write it down on paper.
Once you’ve pinpointed exactly what your hopes, dreams, and goals are, you need to ask the universe for what you want. This can be done in a variety of ways — prayer, meditation, visualization, speaking your intentions out loud, a vision board and/or a “future box,” which is a container full of pictures of items you want to manifest — but you need to say exactly what you want.
You can also write your intention down on paper. If you’ve spent any time on TikTok, you might be familiar with the 369 method — in which you write down what you want in the following order: 3 times in the morning, 6 times in the afternoon, and 9 times at night for 33 or 45 days — but it can also be as simple as a letter to the universe.
And start working towards your goals.
According to Gabrielle Bernstein, author of Super Attractor and The Universe Has Your Back, “Manifesting is also known as co-creating because it’s a collaboration between you and the Universe.” Which is exactly why knowing what you want is only half the battle — you will not see any results without action. Set aside a bit of time to think about what steps you can take to reach your goals yourself, then build them into your routine. For example, if you want to make a major career change, start networking with people in your new field and practice for a job interview.
“Another way to be ‘in action’ when manifesting is to ask yourself the question, ‘What would my future self be thinking?’” Lombardo says. The reason? Reframing your mind can (and will) enable you to be successful. “‘Being’ the person who already has, does, and feels your goals, dreams, and desires helps you become that person,” adds Lombardo.
The next step is to be mindful of — and thankful for — what you receive.
While you may not get everything you envision in the order and time frame you want, you should receive and acknowledge what you do get — no matter how big or small it may be. According to Lombardo, gratitude is key.
To do this, consider creating a gratitude journal. Before bed, spend five to ten minutes writing down a few things for which you are grateful, as well as anything that happened that day to bring you closer to whatever it is your trying to manifest. Maybe you want to save enough money for retirement and you receive a call from your cable provider about a way to lower your monthly bill or you come across an informative podcast that inspires an idea for a money-making side hustle.
And let go of any resistance and limiting beliefs.
In addition to changing your mindset and behaviors, you will need to remove any obstacles or limiting beliefs which may cloud your vision, including fear and negative self-talk. “Telling yourself you’re not good enough, you’re not worthy enough, you’re not smart enough, you’re not enough — it’s a tape that’s playing for a lot of people,” Oprah said during an episode of Oprah’s Lifeclass. “If you’re not conscious of that, then you end up acting out of that belief system and not what you know to be the truest or want to be the truest for yourself. You don’t become what you want because so much of wanting is about living in the space of what you don’t have.”
To move past your limiting beliefs, it’s essential that you first identify what exactly they are. To do this, ask yourself: What are the beliefs I have about myself that may be inhibiting my progress? “Write down your answers,” Bernstein recommends in Add More Ing to Your Life. “Cross out the limiting beliefs and write your new affirmations in their place. Jot down your answers, and then replace any negative feelings with positive ones. If your limiting belief is ‘I am incomplete without a man,’ reverse it with ‘I am complete as I am.’ If your limiting belief is ‘I’m not good enough,’ reverse it with ‘I am wonderful as I am today.’”
To take it a step further, the next time you find yourself questioning your worth or saying “I don’t deserve this,” pause and think of all the reasons why you are deserving, says Lombardo.
Make sure to check (and change) your energy.
One thing Oprah knows for sure? Energy is everything. “The energy we put out in the world is the energy we get back,” she says in The Wisdom of Sundays. Which means if you are continually sending out negative energy — either through your thoughts or feelings — you will attract that same energy back to you, according to Oprah’s Super Soul Conversation with Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith. On the flip side, though, if you are able shift your energy (a practice sometimes referred to as raising your vibrations), you’ll also attract more positivity, which will help you realize your goals.
Lucky for you, lifting your energy is actually quite simple: Just focus on activities that cultivate feelings of joy and happiness — whether that’s doing something kind for someone else (helping a friend or family member, donating to a meaningful organization, volunteering), starting each morning with a meditation session or a quick yoga class, spending some time in nature, or even treating yourself to some well-deserved self-care.
Additionally, you can also concentrate on how you want to feel. Says Oprah, “If you want more love in your life, set your intention to be more loving. If you seek kindness, focus your energy on empathy and compassion.”
But, be flexible — and trust the process.
All that said, the process is fluid. The steps you take do not matter as much as your belief, so “trust your actions, visions, and clarity as well as the ‘powers that be,’” Lombardo says. Faith is a powerful motivator and guiding force.
Yes, you can manifest love.
The best part about manifestation is its wide-reaching applications. The law of attraction knows no bounds. “Once you start dialing in your manifestation process, there’s no limit to what — or how often or much — you manifest,” Lombardo explains.
“This includes new friendships and romantic relationships.” That said, it is important to only manifest individuals who will help you fulfill your goals. “You’ll only want to attract people who are attracted to the person you are becoming,” she says. “Of course, this might mean the exclusion of a few exciting prospects, but I’m sure you’d agree that you’ll be happier with someone who’s aligned with the ‘you’ that’s making big moves.” And, as we’ve said before, manifesting love, like everything else requires some actual effort. Need a place to start? Here are some suggestions to help you meet new people.
Same goes for money.
The process for manifesting money follows the same steps previously mentioned; however, Marla McKenna, the author of Manifesting Your Dreams, emphasizes that financial manifestation is rooted in gratitude (well, and working). “The trick for manifesting money is looking at the abundance you already have and expressing gratitude for it,” McKenna says. “So even if you’re struggling to pay bills, raise your vibration and block any limiting beliefs by welcoming the money and prosperity that is on the way. In short, focus on what you have, not what you don’t have.”
McKenna also suggests using visual tools to keep you driven and focused. “Buy a bigger purse, visualize swimming in a pool of cash, make a money tree of monopoly money until you can replace it with real money, or write a large check to yourself knowing that one day you will indeed cash it.”
What’s the fastest way to manifest something you want?
If you see it and feel it, you will achieve it, at least according to McKenna. “The easiest way to manifest anything is to be clear about what you want. Don’t give the universe mixed signals… and take action. Working toward your goals is imperative.” You should also remain receptive.
Ask the universe for what you want and keep an eye out for signs of achievement or success. “The only thing stopping you from manifesting your dreams is you,” McKenna says. “What you can visualize in your mind, you can hold in your hands. So get to work! You have manifesting to do!”
(Disclaimer — This article included affiliate link.) | https://medium.com/@yourmanifestationguide/how-to-manifest-anything-you-want-or-desire-a5f4770f56fb | ['Daniel D.'] | 2021-04-25 16:14:13.981000+00:00 | ['The Law Of Attraction', 'Manifesting', 'Success', 'Achieve Your Dream', 'Manifestation'] |
Another round of COVID-19 vaccines headed to the tri-county area by next week | The Tri-county area could see another round of COVID-19 vaccines as early as next Monday.
Monica Hendrickson, Peoria City/County Health Administrator, said currently 1,801 frontline workers in the area’s local hospitals have been vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccines.
Jennifer Hopwood, the Chief Nursing Officer at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, said two-thirds of the vaccines have gone to OSF HealthCare and one-third went to UnityPoint Health.
“At OSF Saint Francis Medical Center and our surrounding OSF locations in Peoria, we were able to vaccinate about 10% of our workforce that comes into contact with patients,” Hopwood said. “We saw no individuals with significant reactions to the vaccine and overall the process went very smoothly.”
Hendrickson also said the Federal Retail Pharmacy Partnership begins next week which will allow direct vaccine shipments to nursing homes and long-term care facilities.
“We had worked throughout October and in November to make sure that our long-term care facilities that were eligible or registered, we did get the final report from the state as well as the CDC, none of our local entities were disqualified at all,” Hendrickson said. “That means that everyone that registered is on the program and so hopefully we will have vaccines in our long-term care facilities beginning on the 28th as well.”
Hendrickson said the area is currently in Phase 1 of its vaccine distribution plan. She said there are three tiers in this phase.
Tier 1 A: Healthcare professionals, including direct and indirect patient care.
Tier 1 B: Frontline essential workers and people older than 75-years-old.
Tier 1 C: Remainder of essential workers, people between the ages of 65 and 74-years-old, and people between the ages of 16 and 64-years-old with high-risk medical conditions.
She said the general public will have to wait until next year for vaccines.
“I think we’re hoping sometime, you know, in the spring or the summer,” Hendrickson said. “And by then we also hope that you’re going to see this vaccine in a lot of locations such as pharmacies, groceries. Not only you’re primary care provider so don’t be surprised if you go to Kroger one day and you’re able to get your COVID vaccine.”
Hendrickson also shared some positive news in regard to declining COVID-19 cases in the area.
“We’re starting to see a lot of our cases decreasing, transmission rates going down and that’s further seen by the fact that Region 2 for the past 10 days has seen our positivity drop under 12 percent,” Hendrickson said.
She also said the capacity for local hospitals has increased by more than 20% and the number of hospitalizations due to the virus is going down.
However, she did say fourteen residents in the Peoria area have died within the past 24 hours, and 44 people have died since last week.
She’s recommending the public continues to practice proper safety precautions going into the holiday season to avoid a potential super surge of COVID-19 cases.
, , , , , , , , , , , , | https://medium.com/@geboylia86/another-round-of-covid-19-vaccines-headed-to-the-tri-county-area-by-next-week-4ce4f62ff382 | [] | 2020-12-23 07:20:18.757000+00:00 | ['Vaccines', 'Vaccination', 'Covid 19'] |
A Critique of the Argument from Evil | The Hollowness of the Pragmatic Argument from Evil
How does this analysis pertain to the theistic problem of evil? We should observe, first, that the existential possibility of suffering just the right amount is in danger of presupposing atheism, in which case the analysis would be useless as an argument for atheism. Thus, for argumentative purposes, the atheist would want to say that the harsh truths grasped by those who suffer nobly for philosophy don’t necessarily include atheism, at least not at the outset.
What the existential perspective does include, though, is an appreciation of God’s apparent hiddenness. This perspective takes for granted the alienation of our species, due to our scientific knowledge of where we stand in the universe. We’re physical beings with perhaps too much consciousness, reason, and imagination for our good. We understand, for example, that we inevitably die because our bodies give out from under us. And we understand that the natural order can be explained without reference to a deity.
Of course, that perspective all by itself points towards atheism, but it needn’t beg the question. Even religious people can agree that God transcends the universe, which implies that God is in some sense absent and that atheism is, therefore, compatible with how things seem from our vantage point, even if a transcendent deity turns out to exist.
But what becomes of the problem evil if we should stipulate that some suffering is worthwhile? I think the problem should be reformulated.
The difficulty is that when the atheist says God wouldn’t allow for this or that instance of suffering, whether it be for the effects of some disease or for the extinction of the dinosaurs or even for the results of human free will, the atheist divorces herself from the existential perspective and presupposes social conventions that likely depend, in turn, on a pragmatic form of theism.
I’ll explain what I mean. Suppose an atheist presents the following argument from evil: “The monotheist’s God wouldn’t create species by natural selection, since doing so would entail an abundance of suffering which would appall any respectable creator. For example, this mode of creation means that living things have to feed off of each other to survive, which is abhorrent.”
This argument expresses the atheist’s disgust with the rampant savagery in nature. And of course, while we presume to be above the fray, there’s likely been no more deadly animal species than ours. Yet that disgust presumes a contrast with a social standard of civility. The point is that whereas human civilization is relatively moral in that we don’t tolerate wild and lawless forms of murder, the rest of the world, at least, seems amoral, which disgusts us (and which therefore motivated us to build a better, artificial world). We conclude, then, that nature ought to disgust also a Maker that’s at all like us.
But that appeal to the contrast between human and animal standards threatens to make this argument incoherent because the human standards are social, and societies tend to presuppose theism or some idols that substitute for old-fashioned gods. If the laws that validate the atheist’s disgust towards barbaric suffering are useful in propping up society as an alternative to the wretchedness of life in the wild, on what grounds can the atheist reject theism as a comparable prop?
In short, this kind of atheistic argument ends up being merely pragmatic. The atheist is revolted by the kinds of suffering that human societies are intended to minimize or eliminate. Society, therefore, presupposes laws that encode a sense of morality. But society also presupposes religious myths to encourage the population to be proud of its social practices.
Thus, the proponent of the standard argument from evil ends up having to concede the utility of at least the social fiction of God’s existence. But that’s tantamount to what the exoteric, literalistic (unphilosophical) theist is after, since the vaunted faith in God is just the suspension of disbelief in certain myths or transparent fictions. | https://medium.com/the-apeiron-blog/critique-of-the-atheistic-argument-from-evil-d54877c1b0f | ['Benjamin Cain'] | 2020-12-23 20:13:19.029000+00:00 | ['Philosophy', 'Atheism', 'Theology', 'Religion', 'God'] |
ASP.NET Core Serverless Web API running in AWS Lambda, using API Gateway HTTP API, with a Lambda Warmer | ASP.NET Core Serverless Web API running in AWS Lambda, using API Gateway HTTP API, with a Lambda Warmer Michael Dimoudis Jul 7, 2020·2 min read
Back in April 2019 I blogged about running an ASP.NET Core 2.2/3.0 Serverless Web API in AWS Lambda with a Custom Runtime and Lambda Warmer.
Things have changed since then; AWS Lambda now supports .NET Core 3.1 (custom runtime no longer required) and AWS released HTTP APIs for Amazon API Gateway which GA’d in March 2020.
Both announcements are huge for .NET developers wanting to host an ASP.NET Core Web API in the cloud, serverless and cheap. HTTP APIs for Amazon API Gateway offer up to 71% cost savings and 60% latency reduction compared to REST APIs. If you do not need the more advanced features a REST API gives you, it makes a lot of sense to use the new HTTP APIs for API Gateway.
I will keep this blog very concise, all the code to deploy this serverless Web API with 1 line of code is in this sample GitHub repo.
The only code change required to support HTTP APIs for Amazon API Gateway is updating the base class in the LambdaEntryPoint to APIGatewayHttpApiV2ProxyFunction .
Regarding the CloudFormation template file, serverless.template , the change required there is to change the Events in AWS::Serverless::Function from Api to HttpApi . I have also extended the built in template to add an API Gateway Domain Name with a mapping, including updating Route53 with the A alias record for your API’s domain name. This will allow you to serve the API off your own domain name.
Simply specifying DomainName , CertificateArn , and Route53 HostedZoneId in aws-lambda-tools-defaults.json , and then running dotnet lambda deploy-serverless will spin up the entire infrastructure (HTTP API for Amazon API Gateway / Lambda) and an ASP.NET Core Web API in minutes, ready to serve requests in a serverless and scalable way.
As a bonus I updated the Lambda Warmer in my previous blog post to work with the new API Gateway HTTP APIs, doing an effective job in forgoing cold starts by specifying the number of instances you want to keep warm.
A CodeBuild buildspec.yaml file is also provided to deploy this out. I recommend choosing the aws/codebuild/amazonlinux2-x86_64-standard:3.0 environment image, as PublishReadyToRun is set to true to further improve the performance of the API.
Once deployed just hit the API endpoint https://api.mydomain.com/api/values to make sure it’s all working. (remember to use your own domain name)
https://github.com/michaeldimoudis/aspnetcore-lambda-httpapi-serverless
More in depth reading about .NET Core 3.1 in Lambda and API Gateway HTTP APIs can be found at: | https://medium.com/@michaeldimoudis/asp-net-core-serverless-web-api-running-in-aws-lambda-using-api-gateway-http-api-a-lambdawarmer-6d31cdd6d3f5 | ['Michael Dimoudis'] | 2020-07-07 23:30:54.081000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'AWS Lambda', 'Aspnetcore', 'Serverless', 'Aws Api Gateway'] |
For veterans like Graham, civilian life is not an easy road. Here’s how he found his way home. | For veterans like Graham, civilian life is not an easy road. Here’s how he found his way home. HOPE Atlanta Apr 7·3 min read
Photo credit: Bennett Calvin
A veteran with more than ten years of service never deserves to live in a bus station. Yet, that is where U.S. Army veteran Graham found himself just over a year ago, right before the start of COVID.
After he completed his service in 2012, Graham had looked forward to building a good life for his family. He enrolled in college and held down jobs, including helping other veterans at the VA hospital. But, like many veterans, he faced unique setbacks.
Under the surface, Graham was struggling with PTSD and chronic pain that took a toll and eventually made it impossible to continue working. He and his wife eventually separated. Soon after, he found himself homeless.
Graham faced an uphill battle but was not ready to give up. He was determined to get his life back on track for the sake of his two children: “They never knew my struggles,” he said. “I sheltered them from that. To them, dad was handling stuff.”
He turned to the VA for help after realizing his medication was an opioid and highly addictive. The VA enrolled him in a treatment program. There, he was referred to HOPE Atlanta for help finding a place to live so he could reunite with his children and avoid life on the streets.
“Alison was my caseworker. She said, ‘Look, just tell me what you need, and we will make it happen,’” he said. Alison Poole, HOPE Atlanta’s Director of Veteran Services, secured a hotel room for Graham, and he began to search for more permanent housing.
Then came another curveball: COVID-19. “I had apartment complexes say, ‘No, we aren’t taking any more applications right now.’ Once they realized they couldn’t evict anyone, they stopped taking anyone. So, I lived in a hotel for about a year,” he said.
Meanwhile, Graham and Alison worked on securing disability assistance while looking for a permanent place for him to live. While HOPE Atlanta clients are expected to do some of the “leg work” — like house hunting, filling out applications, and keeping up with medications and appointments — caseworkers help them navigate complexities within housing and government systems, advocating on their behalf and securing resources like MARTA passes and food.
“I had to get on the MARTA and had to go around all of Dekalb county looking for a place,” he said.
All of the persistence eventually paid off. He got into a house and back on his feet, with a bit of help from HOPE Atlanta to cover the bills while he worked to rebuild his life. The biggest reward of all? He is reconnected with his children and focused on helping them succeed academically. “I’m old school about it all,” he said. “Grades come first.”
He added: “As soon as I found this place, I just figured the way I looked at it was a new beginning, time to start over.”
HOPE Atlanta offers special services for veterans and their families, who face unique challenges and are more at risk of experiencing homelessness and hunger. For more information about this program, visit our website.
Want to support Georgia veterans like Graham who have fallen on tough times? Consider volunteering to pack meals, create supply kits, shopping our Amazon wish list or making a donation. | https://medium.com/@hopeatlanta/for-veterans-like-graham-civilian-life-is-not-an-easy-road-heres-how-he-found-his-way-home-30f0a8ced357 | ['Hope Atlanta'] | 2021-04-13 17:28:35.897000+00:00 | ['Give Hope', 'Veterans', 'Housing'] |
WHAT I WISH EVERYONE KNOW ABOUT LOSING BELLY FAT | EVERYONE WANTS TO LOOK GOOD. BELLY FAT IS SIGNIFICANT OBSTRUCTION IN IT. ALONG WITH LOOKING GREAT BELLY FAT BURNING EXERCISE HELP YOU IN IMPROVING METABOLISM, SLEEP QUALITY, ENERGY LEVEL AND THEY ALSO PREVENT YOU FROM CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE, DIABETES, OBESITY, AND MANY OTHER HEALTH PROBLEMS. SPOT REDUCTION IS NOT THE BEST APPROACH FOR LOSING BELLY FAT, BUT SOME TRICKS WILL HELP YOU LOSE BELLY FAT FAST.
1. RUN FAST
ALWAYS TRY TO RUN FAST AS MUCH AS YOU CAN DO NOT TRY TO RUN FOR TOO LONG JUST TRY TO RUN FAST AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. RUNNING FAST BURNS CALORIES FASTER. ALONG WITH BURNING CALORIES RUNNING WILL ALSO HELP YOUR SLEEP QUALITY. SLEEP IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR FAT LOSS BECAUSE THIS IS WHERE THE BODY PERFORMS ALL ITS REPAIR WORK. RUNNING HELP YOU IN BACK PAIN AND ALSO BETTER JOINT HEATH. A MORNING RUN WILL BOOST YOUR METABOLISM AND A GOOD MENTAL HEALTH.
2.ALWAYS PERFORM YOUR WORKOUT IN THE MORNING
MANY PIECES OF RESEARCH SHOW THAT THOSE WHO WORK OUT IN THE MORNING ARE MORE LIKELY TO LOSE BELLY FAT FAST IN COMPARISON TO THOSE WHO WORK OUT IN THE EVENING. THAT’S BECAUSE THE BODY’S HORMONAL COMPOSITION IN THE MORNING IS SET UP TO SUPPORT THAT GOAL. IN THE MORNING WE HAVE A BETTER HORMONAL PROFILE THAT WILL PREDISPOSE US TO BETTER METABOLISM. IN THE WORDS OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN “EARLY TO BED, EARLY TO RISE TO MAKE A PERSON, HEALTH WEALTHY AND WISE .”
3. INCLUDE BURPEE IN YOUR WORKOUT
BURPEE IS ALSO A GREAT AND POPULAR EXERCISE FOR LOSING BELLY FAT FAST. IT INCLUDES EVERY PART OF THE BODY AND IT BURN A LOT OF CALORIES IN A VERY SHORT TIME AND ALONG WITH THIS IT ALSO HELPS YOU IN ATTAINING GOOD BODY POSTURE. THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF BURPEE INCLUDES STRENGTHENING MAJOR MUSCLE. BURPEES ARE ONE OF THE MOST BENEFICIAL EXERCISES IF DONE WITH PROPER FORM.
4. TRY TO DO HIIT EXERCISE
HIIT IS A WIDER TERM OF WORKOUTS THAT INVOLVE INTENSE EXERCISES IN A SHORT TIME. HIIT HELPS YOU BURN A LOT OF CALORIES IN A VERY SHORT TIME ALONG WITH LOSING FAT YOU CAN ALSO GAIN SOME MUSCLES BY PERFORMING HIIT EXERCISES. THESE EXERCISES ARE ALSO BENEFICIAL IN HEART DISEASE AND BLOOD PRESSURE. ONE OF THE BIGGEST ADVANTAGES OF HIIT EXERCISE IS THAT YOU CAN GET MAXIMAL HEALTH BENEFITS IN A MINIMUM TIME.
5. CHECK YOUR CALORIES INTAKE
A HEALTHY DIET CAN PROTECT THE HUMAN BODY AGAINST CERTAIN TYPES OF DISEASE, IN PARTICULAR NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASES SUCH AS OBESITY, DIABETES, HEART DISEASE, AND SKELETAL CONDITIONS. A HEALTHY DIET CAN ALSO CONTRIBUTE TO AN ADEQUATE BODY WEIGHT. ALWAYS TRY TO TAKE A PROTEIN-RICH DIET AND TRY TO AVOID PACKAGED FOOD OR FOOD WITH LOTS OF BLANK CALORIES AND SUGAR.TRY TO INCLUDE FRUITS IN YOUR DIET. | https://medium.com/@everythinglimitless/what-i-wish-everyone-know-about-losing-belly-fat-7d9c5636d5de | ['Everything Limitless'] | 2021-06-17 18:28:39.387000+00:00 | ['Workout', 'Exercise At Home', 'Workout Tips', 'Fat Burning Tips', 'Abs Training'] |
5 Reasons Why You Should Avoid This Killer Story | You don’t listen well, do you?
Well, as long as you’re here, listen up.
There are Five outstanding reasons to avoid taking the bait.
And one even better reason to set one.
Ready? Here we go.
#5 It’s obviously a clickbait.
You knew that, but you clicked anyway. Curiosity got the better of you, and that’s the point. You were even warned that it’s a clickbait.
#4 There is nothing of value here.
Or at least nothing new. I am just going to tell you that the interwebs are full of clickbait stories that sucker you into reading.
#3 What is the point?
If you’re asking me that, then you’re asking the wrong person. I told you not to read it. Maybe you should learn a little bit about being discerning when you’re curious.
#2 There is very little value if any.
Okay, you learned that you need to be discerning when you’re curious. As a friend of mine is fond of saying, even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.
#1 I told you so.
The number one reason you shouldn’t have clicked on this story is that you knew there are many reasons you shouldn’t, but you didn’t listen. And now you’re shaking your head and cursing me for tricking you into clicking. But I warned you.
Here is the takeaway.
The takeaway depends on whether you’re a reader or a writer.
If you’re a reader, stay away from stories that use clickbait headlines. At the least, be discerning about how you spend your time online.
If you’re a writer, it is evident that you should put in time and effort into crafting your headlines. If they are not enticing or inviting, no one will click on your story, and all the hard work you put into creating the masterpiece of an article will be for naught.
The main inspiration for this came from Caroline de Braganza’s excellent story in the Rogues’ Gallery.
However, I would be remiss if I didn’t recognize Linda Caroll, who is a master of delivering exceptional value using listicles, and Sinem Günel, whose success has inspired me to revisit my why for writing on this platform.
Also, writers like Sherry McGuinn, P.G. Barnett, Timothy Key, and Helen Cassidy Page, have taught me that you don’t have to be a stand-up comic to create and add humor to your work.
Holly Jahangiri, Sharon Hurley Hall, Paul Myers MBA, Joe Luca, Tim Maudlin, Ming Qian, Bob Jasper, Dr. Mehmet Yildiz, Michele Thill, Trista Ainsworth, Amy Marley, Aurora Eliam, CMP, Gurpreet Dhariwal, Dipti Pande, Henery X (long), Manasi Diwakar, and Desiree Driesenaar, are among many who keep me on my toes to do my best. I don’t always succeed, but I am a work in progress.
As always, thank you for reading and responding.
Here are a couple of related stories:
Graphic created by Rasheed Hooda using Canva
Rasheed Hooda is a published author, and a regular contributor and editor for ILLUMINATION, a writers’ community on Medium, where writers support each other.
He is a self-proclaimed weirdo who lives a Freedom Lifestyle and writes about related topics — Travel (a top writer), Personal Growth, Freedom, and entrepreneurship. (Get the Newsletter)
More about me:
An interview by Dr. M Yildiz for ILLUMINATION
Testimonial by other writers. | https://medium.com/narrative/5-reasons-why-you-should-avoid-this-killer-story-a0f10cb8e724 | ['Rasheed Hooda'] | 2020-08-08 23:41:26.283000+00:00 | ['Advice', 'Inspiration', 'Humor', 'Writing', 'Self Improvement'] |
What is CARRE4? | What is CARRE4?
A publication on All Things Redefining Humanity.
Founded 2019
Redefinition: “to give new meaning to”
What does it mean to live, interact, and survive in the human world? What does it mean to be human? Well, that’s something we can never really put a clear definition on. Why? Because what it means to be human is always changing. Thinking, innovation, laws that govern the land, and much more challenge how we live everyday. If you’re older than 15 years of age and you’re reading this, you’ve likely had at least 5 major innovative events in your lifetime that have changed your thinking, approach, and navigation of the world.
Let’s take me for example. Say I’m 17 years old.
2003: Human Genome Project
2004: Google
2006: Facebook
2008: Obama, America’s first black president
2010: Instagram
2012: Snapchat; Marijuana is legalized in Washington and Colorado
2013: Shared Economy — Uber and Airbnb
2015: 2/3 of Americans own Smartphones
2017: Brexit
2018: Facial Recognition Technology
2019: 5G standard is released
2020: COVID-19; Amazon taking over the world
And that’s not even the beginning of it!
When we’re thinking about what redefines humanity, what first comes to mind? Tech? Science? Innovation? Sure. But it’s not at all limited to those things. In fact, humanity can’t be redefined if everything that redefines it is well…already defined!
Deriving from the french word Carrefour, meaning: Intersection, CARRE4 is a space where interdisciplinary and forward thinking approach is welcome.
If you want to read about ideas, people, or phenomenons that are going to redefine the ways we interact, socialize, and live with the environment, people, and things around us — follow CARRE4.
Here, all topics from culture, to society, politics, literature, science, technology will be explored in the scope of humanity.
Some questions reading CARRE4 may answer
How will [blank] change the way I live?
How will [blank] change the way society functions?
How will [blank] affect [blank]?
What is [blank] and why is it important to pay attention?
What does redefinition mean in terms of [blank]?
It’s pretty much that simple. Anything that is affected is changed, and therefore is redefined.
Thanks for reading, and follow to read upcoming articles in CARRE4!
Photo by NASA on Unsplash | https://medium.com/carre4/what-is-carre4-5343184b607b | ['Shanel Pouatcha'] | 2020-11-14 21:31:30.941000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Future', 'Humanity', 'Society', 'Change'] |
Crypto space is developing and institutional investors are getting involved | Crypto space is developing and institutional investors are getting involved Finoa Follow May 27 · 14 min read
This report focuses on the institutional adoption of crypto from the perspective of Finoa as the leading crypto custodian in Europe. It provides a general overview of the news-worthy institutional investments over the past year and a categorization of use cases of such investments as we observe them.
2020: The inflection point for Bitcoin’s institutional adoption
The past 12 months have seen a major shift in the way institutions look at digital assets. The economic effects of the covid-19 lockdowns in spring of 2020 caused central banks to engage in economic stimulus and lower interest rates to zero, and the narrative surrounding Bitcoin became that of “digital gold” — a good hedge against inflation. This was further strengthened by Bitcoin’s halving in May 2020, whereby the supply of newly “mined” Bitcoin was cut in half, making it less inflationary than gold.
A June 2020 survey from Fidelity Digital Assets found that 36% of US and European institutional investors were already investing in crypto assets — those institutions included high-net-worth individuals, financial advisors, family offices, crypto hedge and venture funds, traditional hedge funds, endowments, and foundations. Especially in the latter half of 2020, a number of large institutional investors announced purchases of Bitcoin, as shown in the timeline graphic below.
Institutional crypto investing accelerated in 2020, with major bitcoin purchases from the likes of MicroStrategy, Tesla, and Square, as well as hedge fund managers like Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller
Curiously, while Bitcoin garners ever-increasing attention from institutions, interest from ordinary retail investors never passed its 2017 high, according to Google Trends.
Google searches worldwide for “bitcoin” over the past five years. (As of May 5th, 2021)
This indicates that bitcoin’s price rally to 3x the 2017 high has not been driven by the same sort of retail mania as in 2017.
It has never been easier for institutions to get exposure to crypto
Making a first foray into crypto investing can be an intimidating prospect, but the reality is that it is easier than ever to achieve a crypto allocation, for both retail and institutions alike. Firms like MicroStrategy and Tesla chose to achieve their Bitcoin allocation through direct ownership of crypto, purchased and custodied through US prime brokerage services. Those who prefer not to own crypto directly, however, can choose from several crypto-backed ETP’s now trading on stock exchanges in Canada and Europe. Although the US SEC has yet to approve a crypto ETF, Grayscale has provided an investment avenue for US institutional investors via a trust structure. The Grayscale trusts take on new investors via private placements, buying cryptocurrencies in the background to achieve the underlying backing for the shares. Alternatively, for institutions comfortable holding derivatives, futures for both BTC and ETH can be traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).
There are also a few options to purchase stock in crypto companies. Coinbase went public on the NASDAQ via a direct listing in April, and its stock provides a way to bet on one of the largest brokerage exchanges in the space. Other notable public crypto companies include the crypto miners Canaan and Riot Blockchain, the ETP provider Coinshares, and the holding company Galaxy Digital.
While this report focuses on institutional investment, it is worth mentioning that opportunities for retail investors to purchase crypto now include Paypal, Venmo, CashApp, Revolut, Trade Republic, Robinhood, eToro, and more. For retail and institutions alike, whether from the US or global, it has never been easier to determine how to invest in crypto.
Breaking down recent institutional inflows into crypto
Grayscale led the way in 2020
The prevailing narrative surrounding institutional inflows has been centered around the Grayscale trusts, which offer new institutional investors access via private placements. These trusts provided an easy answer to institutional investors wondering how to invest in crypto, and Grayscale reported higher inflows for every subsequent quarter of 2020.(The average commitment of institutions also rose dramatically to $6.8 million.) By the end of 2020, Grayscale had raised over $5.7 billion across its family of investment products, more than four times the inflows the received from its inception in 2013 to the end of 2019. Further inflows in Q1 of 2021, combined with the continued rising price of Bitcoin, grew Grayscale’s Bitcoin trust to $36 billion under management, as of May 5th, 2021. With another $8.7b in the Ethereum Trust, Grayscale is one of the fastest-growing asset managers of all time.
The rise of exchange-traded products
A list of crypto ETPs as of May 5th, 2021 — Bloomberg
More traditional (non-trust) exchange-traded products (ETP) have also seen significant inflows. ETPs are springing up in Canada and Europe quickly attracted hundreds of millions from investors wishing to get crypto exposure without the challenge of managing custody of their assets. According to Bloomberg, as of May 5th, 2021 there are $6.9b in Bitcoin ETP’s and another $2.4b in open interest in CME’s Bitcoin futures. (See graphic for full breakdown)
The largest ETPs for both Bitcoin and Ethereum are the “trackers” from Coinshares, which have traded for many years on the NASDAQ Stockholm exchange and have several billion dollars under management. While these “trackers” are synthetically replicated — using both direct ownership of Bitcoin and also derivatives — they do offer shareholders the ability to redeem their shares for the underlying crypto assets, and the funds have been audited to prove their 1:1 replication of the underlying assets.
Further demand may soon come from Germany, where new legislation passed in April of 2021 allows German Spezialfonds to invest up to 20% of their assets into crypto, creating new avenues for institutional investment in Europe (this legislation has yet to come into effect at the time of this report).
The ongoing wait for a US ETF
The next major step forward in the crypto ETP landscape would be the long-waited approval of a Bitcoin ETF by the United States SEC. The Winklevoss twins filed a first application for such an ETF in 2013, which was rejected by the SEC in 2017. Many Bitcoin ETF applications have been made since then, only to receive similar rejections. (Currently, there are 8 applications with the SEC for a Bitcoin ETF.) Grayscale has also stated its desire to convert its products from trusts into ETFs, which would then become redeemable for the underlying assets and trade at a fairer price. Institutional investors wishing to purchase crypto via exchange-traded products will have to wait for a US ETF and make do with existing ETPs.
Crypto investment use cases — Finoa’s perspective
In crypto, investors are as diverse as the methods used to achieve an allocation. Not every institutional investor is the same or enters crypto for the same reason, and Finoa serves a variety of clients who can be broadly categorized as follows:
1. Venture capital is investing in crypto-projects
Whether investing in a blockchain project, participating in governance, or receiving staking rewards, Finoa sees a variety of VC firms following a variety of crypto investing strategies. Traditionally, VCs invest in startup companies at the initial stages of their growth, taking big risks but purchasing significant portions of equity. In crypto, while some founders build companies and raise money by selling equity, innovation also happens in another way: teams of developers work to design and implement new blockchain protocols. Developer teams raise money by allocating a number of tokens on their new blockchain to be sold to investors. VC investors make an agreement with the development team to receive these tokens once the blockchain starts running, after which point more tokens can be distributed to the wider public via a public token sale. Finoa aspires to be the bridge allowing institutional investments to flow into crypto, including the protocol layer, the infrastructure layer, and the application layer, and to this end serves both VC’s as well as industry leaders like CoinList.
GOVERNANCE: On some blockchains, the tokens represent the ability to participate in the governance mechanisms of the blockchain protocol and are used to vote on decisions about how the protocol should run in the future, or where the development team should focus their efforts. This model more closely resembles ownership of voting shares of traditional companies, and venture capital firms are willing to pay for the ability to influence the direction that their investment takes. This is a unique use case that Finoa is following with great interest as here too, custodians have a potential role to play.
STAKING: For blockchains using the Proof of Stake consensus mechanism, investors can enjoy the ability to stake their tokens on the network and earn passive rewards. (This is explained in a previous Finoa blog post HERE)
Finoa allows Proof-of-Stake token holders to choose from several institutional-grade validators to delegate their stake to, ensuring that the underlying blockchains remain decentralized.
2. Crypto-native startups with their own token treasury
As blockchain developers design new and innovative blockchain protocols, they implement unique methods to fund their efforts and organizations. Typically, a developer team will allocate themselves an initial number of tokens, which can be used to sell to venture capital (VC) firms to raise funds. These developer teams require custodians like Finoa in order to safely custody their remaining treasury assets in a regulated manner.
3. Traditional companies invest some of their treasury, provide infrastructure
The current low interest rate environment has led many companies to seek yield for their treasury and hedge their exposure to inflation. German corporates are no exception, and we work with many corporate clients who are looking for digital asset exposure. These types of clients generally seek to purchase Bitcoin and Ethereum and show limited interest in tokens of other protocols. While corporates have generally not led the surge in institutional investments, Genesis Trading reports that the ratios are shifting:
“Before Q1 2021, hedge funds and passive funds were some of our largest clients by OTC volume. As corporate clients began buying Bitcoin for their treasuries in Q1, our ratios shifted. When viewing our top 100 largest clients by OTC volume traded, Genesis saw volume from “Corporates” increase from under 1% to over 25% of our total activity.” (Genesis Q1 2021 Report)
However, not all corporates are getting involved in crypto solely for their treasury assets. T-Systems, one of Finoa’s corporate clients, saw an opportunity to provide staking and node infrastructure but required a custodian to safely manage the proceeds from their staking and node activities. Read more about our cooperation here.
4. HNWI’s seek first-time exposure or move from self-custody to professional solutions
High-net-worth individuals are also becoming interested in crypto but often have no way to invest via their existing brokerage solutions, and do not want to manage custody of their own digital assets. Finoa offers intuitive access to the ecosystem, bringing down the technical barrier to entry and offering the opportunity to custody with a regulated crypto custodian. In this class of clients, we see some risk-on investors exploring purchases of tokens other than Bitcoin or Ethereum.
This category also includes early investors or miners of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies who have custodied their own stockpiles for years, but recently watched the value of their assets grow to such a degree that they seek professional custody services.
5. Hedge funds and crypto-only funds pursue diverse strategies
Many hedge funds limit their trading and investing strategies to certain asset classes, and this applies to crypto as well. We see a number of funds with the sole purpose of putting money into the crypto space, either in tokens, equity in startups, or both. Because these funds are crypto-only, investors typically allocate a small portion of their assets. A typical NYDIG Bitcoin investor, for example, has between 1–5% of their portfolio invested in cryptocurrency, with a few exceeding 5% (Forbes).
At Finoa we are happy to serve some of the world’s largest crypto funds, custodying their digital assets and allowing them to earn staking rewards on their Proof-of-Stake tokens.
There is also a place in the crypto markets for traders seeking returns without betting on the directional movement of the crypto market. The most notable of these “market neutral” crypto investing strategies is the “basis trade”: cash is used to buy Bitcoin on the spot market, which is used as collateral for a short position in the futures market where bitcoin trades at a premium. Since these contracts expire at the same price as the spot market, all that is required to capture a profit equal to this premium is to wait until the expiry of the futures contract and then sell the spot Bitcoin position back to cash. Genesis Trading reports that “the persistence in basis premium has led many more institutions to eye crypto yield opportunities.” This trade incentivizes the flow of cash into the crypto market, as well as higher interest rates in the crypto lending markets, as traders seek to get “longer” bitcoin in order to increase the size of their basis trade.
6. Family offices and asset managers
Family offices manage familial and generational wealth and focus on managing risk by constructing a portfolio of diverse assets. Such a portfolio should have a high “Sharpe ratio” — diversified enough to perform well in many economic environments while never experiencing significant volatility. Many family offices and asset managers continue to monitor crypto but do not engage on their clients’ behalf, but some have realized that even a small allocation to Bitcoin can significantly increase the Sharpe ratio of any traditional portfolio. This is due to crypto’s non-correlation with other asset classes and the positive performance of Bitcoin over recent years. Analysis from the ETP provider Iconic Holdings found that:
“In the example of the traditional 80/20 stock bond portfolio, it can be observed that the Sharpe ratio increases from 6.66 with no cryptocurrencies included to approx. 8.17 with 1% crypto, 9.53 with 3% crypto, and 9.79 with 5% crypto allocated.”
Finoa is receiving a growing number of inquiries, signaling that adoption has started among family offices and investment advisors.
Investing passively vs putting assets to work
Crypto investors generally become more sophisticated over time and learn how to use their assets with the ecosystem.
We’ve explored the types of crypto investors and their reasons for investing, but we can also classify investors based on their level of involvement with the crypto assets they own:
Passive holders : interested in the long-term price appreciation of their assets, perhaps first-time buyers.
: interested in the long-term price appreciation of their assets, perhaps first-time buyers. Yield seekers : put crypto-assets to work — earn interest via centralized lending platforms and rewards from staking.
: put crypto-assets to work — earn interest via centralized lending platforms and rewards from staking. DeFi users: use assets to participate in decentralized finance (DeFi) via lending protocols, yield farming, blockchain governance, or interactions with other decentralized applications (Dapps).
There is a shift happening on the institutional side, where the focus is broadening from simple crypto investing strategies to more complex engagement with the crypto ecosystem.
The value of digital assets locked in DeFi has exploded over the past 12 months (see graph below), but regulations still lag behind and prevent many institutions from entering in full force. Centralized lending (CeFi) companies have successfully opened up a lending market for crypto and work with many large institutions, but the world of DeFi still remains largely retail dominated due to regulatory and technical complexity and risk.
The evolution of digital assets
Cryptocurrencies
The recent entrance of major corporations and institutions into the crypto ecosystem signified an advancement along the adoption curve. Crypto has clearly grown beyond the retail investors who pushed bitcoin to its 2017 heights — now accredited and institutional investors are learning how to invest in crypto. US banks have been given the regulatory go-ahead to offer custody of crypto assets, and core banking software is being upgraded to facilitate crypto investing by private and investment bankers. However, the low adoption from family offices and pension providers shows that we still have a long way to go before cryptocurrencies and other digital assets reach the level of acceptance associated with equities, bonds, or real estate. The largest of institutions will not be able to enter the crypto market in a meaningful way until there is more comprehensive regulatory and tax guidance, less volatility and more liquidity in the markets, and the ability to cheaply insure large portfolios of assets.
Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)
A development that ran parallel to the cryptocurrency space in 2020 was the testing of China’s digital Yuan and the beginning of serious discussion around Central Bank Digital Currencies in Europe and the US. While it seems unlikely that countries will begin to move to a “Bitcoin standard” of money or use their sovereign wealth funds to enter crypto in the near future, Governments are now paying attention to cryptocurrencies and thinking about their role in the future of digital money.
Tokenization of existing financial assets
Perhaps the largest development yet to take shape in the digital asset landscape is “tokenization”, whereby existing financial assets are put onto the blockchain in the form of “security tokens”. Tokenization is set to create massive change in the way we account for and trade assets, both digital and physical, as ownership of digital assets can be more easily transferred, fractionalized into smaller shares, and traded with more liquidity. Tokenization of real estate assets, for example, would do away with listing agents, real estate attorneys, title companies, and notary signing agents, as smart contracts and blockchain ledgers would create immutable records of ownership and transactions. Research from the World Economic Forum (WEF), Deloitte, and McKinsey project that up to 10% of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will be stored and transacted with the help of blockchain technology by 2025–27. A 2018 study from Finoa estimated a tokenized asset market of ~$24trn by 2027.
In 2020, Finoa custodied an asset-linked token representing a German DAX share, which was created by Bankhaus Scheich and Cashlink Technologies. We’ve already taken the first step in what we predict will soon be a massive trend towards tokenization.
Conclusion
Whether through a crypto ETP, a prime brokerage trading desk, or an agreement with a developer team, institutional investors of all kinds are entering the blossoming crypto-asset space. An asset class once seen as risky and confusing has become an area of opportunity, and institutions are keen to find their place in this growing industry.
At Finoa, we serve a wide variety of institutions that choose to get involved in crypto for a variety of reasons. Our goal is to create the gateway for traditional financial market participants to safely engage with digital assets, supporting the ecosystem and growing with our clients. We instill trust by keeping safety and security our highest priority while developing our product to meet the needs of an increasingly sophisticated client base. We see industry trends clearly reflected in our client base, and we’re more excited than ever to serve as the leading European custodian in the rapidly evolving world of cryptocurrencies and digital assets. | https://medium.com/finoa-banking/the-evolution-of-institutional-crypto-investing-43b7289b8528 | [] | 2021-09-06 13:01:39.633000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Digital Asset', 'Institutional Investor', 'Industry', 'Crypto'] |
The Palace of Versailles and Habits of the Nobles | The Palace of Versailles and Habits of the Nobles
A grand palace built as a distraction
The Palace of Versailles was reconstructed multiple times. This is a painting by Pierre Patel of the Palace during its first construction. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Louis the XIV, also known as ‘the Sun King,’ was born on the 5th of September 1638 and died on the 1st of September 1715. He had the longest reign of any European monarch in history, a record he holds even today. However, when he did ascend to the throne completely after the regency of his Chief Minister ended, he found that the king didn’t have as much power as he’d have liked.
The Kingdom of France was decentralised, with the real power lying in the hands of the nobles who had no qualms with revolting against their king. Instead of using force against them Louis the XIV used shrewd politicking to deter them away. This is how the Palace of Versailles came to be. Louis the XIV paid for plays and musicians, built large gardens and held regular hunts, all to keep the nobles entertained.
Converted from a hunting lodge to a Palace in the 1660s, through to the 1670s, the opulent Palace was a mixture of Louis the XIVs hate of Paris and need to control his nobles. He built and publicised it as the centre of the kingdom, everyone who wasn’t at the palace was a nobody. When his nobles finally joined him at Versailles he made sure they were so preoccupied with their appearances and partying that he was able to re-take control of France.
In doing so, he created a strict culture that revolved around himself and his schedule as well as a routine of hedonism, and this resulted in some… strange behaviours.
Louis the XIV of France aged 58, embodying late seventeenth-century French masculinity. Source: Wikimedia Commons
The king awakes
The entirety of Versailles was filled with nobles and the most important men and women in the entirety of France. The most favoured of that group had the esteemed privilege of watching the King rise from his bed, eat his morning soup, and defecate. This was an incredibly prestigious reward and something nobles fought to be a part of. It is thought that approximately one-hundred people would gather in the king’s chamber to watch his routine.
If you were truly the cream of the crop in the king’s eyes you got to dress him, and tend to his… toiletry needs. The importance of this ceremony goes beyond feeding the king’s ego. It meant that the nobles were fighting amongst each other for something desirable, he had created a club that was only valued because of its exclusivity, and he controlled its members.
When he left his bedroom in the morning the ladies and gentlemen of the court would line the hallway outside his room. The king is said to have often chosen people to talk to in the hallway to give each noble a chance to prove their wits and merit to the king who valued quick thinking. Altogether 3,000 people lived at Versailles, though many of those were servants and other low-borns.
One of the Kings Chambers at the Palace of Versailles. Source: Wikimedia Commons
It is also said that Louis the XIV lived on a strict schedule, Louis de Rouroy, the Duke of Saint-Simon, and one of the main sources for what happened at Versailles, famously wrote:
“With an almanach and a watch, one could, from 300 leagues away, say with accuracy what he was doing.”— Duke of Saint-Simon
Fashion was the priority
Fashion reached its most excessive peak under the reign of Louis the XVI, the great-great-grandson of the Sun King, and the ruler eventually brought down by the French revolution. Although the Sun King was no miser when it came to spending money, he usually kept it within the bounds of what was reasonable (for the nobility at least), until it came to wars that was.
While the men at Versailles used money, power, and the favour of the king to fight for the all-important top spot on the social ladder, the women used beauty, fashion, and their wit to stand out. The queen was the driving force behind this, if the queen wore a dress of a certain style or fabric the younger women of the court would follow, no matter the cost. If the queen wore a pearly necklace that cost enough to feed a peasant family for ten years then everyone had to get one. If the queen spent a fortune to weave her hair so that it supported a model ship?
Ladies of the court often placed large objects on their hair. This satirical picture is from the late 18th century. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Well… then everyone had too. This very trend bankrupted not only the poorer nobles but Louis the XVI himself. It was so bad that he had to ask Marie Antoinette — his wife — to spend less, not a good look for a king. It should be pointed out though that Marie-Antoinette is legendary for her frivolity and spending even today, the phrase ‘let them eat cake’ is attributed to her, she reportedly said it when peasants complained of having nothing to eat.
This was compounded by the fact that she used flour to make her hair stay in the shape of a ship, all during times of famine and plight across France. It comes as little surprise that she was hated by the peasantry and was singled out for the guillotine.
Debauchery and then some
The Sun King was also notorious for his sexual appetite. He kept an official mistress and many unofficial ones as well, he had a total of eighteen children that we know of and kept at least eight mistresses across his reign, though he almost definitely had more.
This isn’t so surprising in of itself. Louis the XIV was the most powerful man in the country, the fact that he was desirable comes as no surprise, and considering he hated his wife — Maria Theresa of Spain — it would be more incredible if he didn’t have many affairs. The amazing bit is how open it was and how accepted it became.
Many of the nobles living at Versailles followed suit, the whole palace was cheating on one another in a great orgy. All this was occurring while Louis the XIV, the Sun King, postured himself as being chosen by the God of the Roman Catholic church — which sees sex as an expression of love to one’s partner and condemns adultery as a sin. Of course, there were still a few that clung to their faith strictly.
However, if all the nobles were as pious as they postured then there must have been plenty of love to go around. When I say it was an orgy I mean it quite literally. One incident saw an orgy involving high nobility happen right outside the window of a twelve-year-old Louis the XV — the grandson of Louis the XVI. | https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/the-palace-of-versailles-and-habits-of-the-nobles-40114211917 | ['Jordan Fearn'] | 2020-12-15 09:02:46.898000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Royalty', 'Culture', 'History', 'Habits'] |
New listing on KickEX: NEAR | New listing on KickEX: NEAR
Trade on KickEX
Dear KICK community! We have another cool news for you: NEAR — the token of the NEAR Protocol platform was added on KickEX exchange.
The NEAR coin is already available for purchase and sale on KickEX in the NEAR/USDT pair!
Russian programmers Alexander Skidanov and Ilya Polosukhin created NEAR Protocol, an open-source blockchain on Proof-of-Stake. It is a decentralized platform for creating web-applications. The project was launched only a year ago, but since then the company has grown from a 2-person startup to one of the most discussed crypto-projects of the year in which former employees of Facebook, Google, Nuatic work. They inspired Andreessen Horowitz and obtained funding for $21.6 million.
Alexander and Ilya are innovators who aim to create the Open Web. Their idea is that in the future a person can’t lose access to their data, even if the service stops working.
NEAR token is part of the NEAR Protocol ecosystem, which was added for transaction processing and data storage fees, launching validator nodes in the network through NEAR token staking, and conducting network management voting.
More advantages of NEAR:
The total value of the token reached $2.3 million; At the moment, the NEAR Protocol token is on the 53rd place in the CoinMarketCap rating; The creators of the NEAR Protocol were able to provide high throughput capacity, speed and good cross-compatibility for decentralized applications; Vitalik Buterin (the creator of Ethereum), as TechCrunch writes, admitted that the NEAR Protocol can make a serious competition for his project.
We are very happy to see our compatriots with a really worthy project on our exchange. And we are even more pleased that our users will now be able to buy NEAR on KickEX!
And don’t forget trading on KickEX has become even more convenient: on August 31th, the KICK Crypto Exchange & Wallet app for iOS became available in the App Store!
If you don’t have any experience in cryptocurrency trading, then take a training course at Kick Academy. You can also use our multilevel referral program.
Join the KICK community on social networks so that you don’t miss important news!
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KickICO | https://medium.com/@kickecosystem/near-on-kickex-f36a7eafde2f | ['Kick Ecosystem Official'] | 2021-09-01 13:48:00.465000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Kickex', 'Crypto', 'Near Protocol', 'Listings'] |
Measuring Growth, Accepting Emotions and the Wrestle Between Self-Acceptance and Self-Improvement | Measuring Growth, Accepting Emotions and the Wrestle Between Self-Acceptance and Self-Improvement
KTHT reflection prompts, here I come!
Photo by Alexandra Fuller on Unsplash
I’ve always approached 𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘊.’s prompts as poetry prompts, because that’s the easiest way for me to get my thoughts and emotions out, especially when they feel like they’re stuck in little circles of rumination in my mind.
This time, however, I’m going to try something different. I was inspired by others who contribute to these weekly prompts, who take that step to share these thoughts without hiding behind the rhyme (though let’s be real, I never actually use rhymes in my poems). It’s brave because instead of showing the most distilled form of your thoughts, imperfections chiselled away, a lot of people share the rawest form that came up for them.
There’s value in showing up like that, in showing that the world shouldn’t be comprised of highlight reels, because we’re so often comparing our view of all our successes and our failures, to someone else’s publicized and polished successes.
So, here goes! This week, we’re tackling three questions instead of five, and I’m doing them all in one go.
Monday: How do you measure personal growth? How do you know when you’ve grown as a person?
Photo by Tolga Ulkan on Unsplash
Numbers
I think a lot of people shy away from this because there can be an obvious downside to this. In my poetry, I’ve reflected on how in the past, grades, how the number on a scale took over my definition of my life.
Back then, I had a “perfect” score that I needed to get, a perfect “weight” I had to be. That’s when numbers can make life miserable.
When I say I use numbers to measure personal growth, it’s more about visualization and seeing patterns over time for things that don’t seem to be tangible.
For example, I rate moods over time and rather than striving to have “the best mood”, I’m learning about the contexts, people, things that contribute to a foul mood versus a good one. I’m learning how these environmental factors and also how I respond to them accordingly can impact those moods over time. In visualizing that, I’m tapping into my strength in understanding the world through numbers.
Writing and documentation
Similar to numbers, writing is a complementary aspect of it. Encased in the words that I write at any time are the mannerisms, common phrases that I embody. Fifteen years ago, I didn’t talk or write like this. In fifteen years, I imagine my writing voice will also change.
One tangible way that I’m hoping will be a regular reflection point is the Proust Questionnaire. The saddest thing is that I did complete a bunch when I first entered high school, but I have no idea where they’re saved now. I started completing the questionnaire again this year. Here’s hoping that in documenting it on Medium that it’ll be easy for me to revisit these same questions next year and see my growth.
Even without a copy of the previous questionnaires filled out, simply writing and reflecting on these questions helped me see just how much I’ve grown. Peppered throughout the writing I was surprised to see myself truly and honestly write down thoughts like “I am perfectly happy now”, showing contentment and enjoyment in my life that I don’t ever recall ever having prior to this.
In answering these questions, I was able to name certain things that really helped me grow — setting boundaries, understanding things from my perception (e.g., others calling me lazy vs. understanding that I have different values and am channelling my effort into different priorities than others are).
In journalling for myself but also in writing for others, I see quite a similar set of messages come out. I value self-care now, I approach with curiosity rather than fight out of fear and scarcity.
In those words, I find empowerment within myself. | https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/measuring-growth-accepting-emotions-and-the-wrestle-between-self-acceptance-and-self-improvement-b216facee113 | ['Lucy The Eggcademic', 'She Her'] | 2020-12-21 07:43:32.375000+00:00 | ['Emotions', 'Growth', 'Lovethyself', 'Mental Health', 'Self'] |
The Hat Man | One clever little piece of software we’ve built here at Klaviyo is an open-source slack bot we call “The Hat Man.” This is a story about The Hat Man’s inception.
When I joined Klaviyo in February of 2017, there were eight engineers total — a far cry from the 30+ engineers on our engineering team now. We had just started using AWS auto-scaling groups for many of our workloads, and started running more servers as we grew. In order to keep code in sync across all of our boxes, we deployed via a Fabric script, which would ssh into each box, pull down master from the git repository, and restart all of our worker processes. Typically we’d run this script in parallel, so we could hit many boxes efficiently. With such a small team, this was sufficient.
Hat On
But being a fast-growing startup makes this type of deployment challenging. Teams work at a fast pace, and multiple deployments in a day are not out of the norm. As we added more engineers, deploy collisions became increasingly likely. While we could recover from these deploy collisions, they often left our workers in a bad state, and required a good amount of time to recover from. After a few instances of these deploy collisions, and with Black Friday 2017 approaching, we knew we needed a better solution.
There was a slight problem — we didn’t have the time prior to Black Friday to completely overhaul our deploy process. While building out a CI pipeline would have been the most optimal solution (and one in which we’ve made marked progress), our engineers at that time were focused on the problems that arise with increased scale, and handling the load that we expected on Black Friday. The key issue at hand was concurrent deploys, so we decided to institute a “one deploy at a time” policy.
Hat Off
To facilitate this process we had many ideas. The easiest solution we came up with was the notion of a “deploy hat”. Any engineer that wanted to deploy had to wear the deploy hat. Since there was only one deploy hat, we were guaranteed that concurrent deploys could never happen. Enter Hat Man.
The Hat Man started as a thin layer around the Slack python SDK. There was essentially just a script that set up the slackclient package with the proper credentials and used slackclient.rtm_connect() and slackclient.rtm_read() in a loop to read all messages in every channel the bot was present. If the message started with “@the-hat-man,” the Hat Man would interpret it as a command. Two commands were available — on and off — for putting the hat on and taking the hat off. Slack provides two APIs — the Events API, where you can subscribe to specific events and they are pushed to you via HTTP, and the Real-Time Messaging (RTM) API, where you can open a Websocket and poll for a superset of the information available in the Events API. As we did not want to open a public-facing HTTP endpoint for this bot, we chose to use the RTM API — again, this was supposed to be lightweight.
In order to store state about who had the hat, we used the small python ORM peewee . We didn’t want something as heavy as SQLAlchemy or Django to simply store a tiny bit of state, so we relied on peewee . We defined models for peewee and kept them separate from the simple slack-read busy loop. Our first model looked something like this:
When a user tried to run “on”, we’d check the database to see if anyone had the hat, and if not, created an entry saying that user had the hat. When that user ran the “off” command, we’d set an end timestamp on the row. If a row didn’t have an end timestamp, it meant that the hat was still out there, and could not be assigned again.
Hat Pool
The Hat Man continued like this for weeks, until Black Friday finally arrived. Our engineering team arrived early in case of an emergency, but the day went quite calmly. This was when The Hat Man took on a whole new life.
While we definitely had other work to do, we didn’t want to start on any projects that Black Friday could potentially interrupt. The Hat Man was a perfect candidate for a refactor with minimal impact on production systems. We decided to make The Hat Man an extensible python slack bot. Now, I know a lot of extensible python slack bots already exist. If you go to this link: https://api.slack.com/community#python you can see just how many exist. But hacking away at little mini projects is fun, and we wanted to build upon the little slack bot we already started.
Hat Queue
Our stack remained the same — we still used python with the Slack SDK using the RTM API, and peewee. We just made our code a little bit more intelligent. Instead of hard coding two commands, we defined a base command class which subcommands could inherit from. Each function defined in the subcommand would become a user-facing hat man command. The “hat” related commands moved to their own “hat” module. Our models were also greatly expanded to support newly added “hat” functionality, including a queue, a “pool” (so multiple people could share the hat), and a “force off” command (for when people forgot to take off the hat).
Hat Force Off
If you’re interested in seeing The Hat Man code, it’s open-source and available here: https://github.com/klaviyolabs/TheHatMan. It’s not built with nearly the same quality as our production systems, but it was a fun side project where our developers can add new easter eggs. Feel free to take The Hat Man code and use it for yourself, but we’d also strongly suggest considering some of the other more robust alternatives.
While he’s still in use today, The Hat Man will likely be deprecated this year. We’ve been improving our build systems to avoid some of the problems that The Hat Man was created to address. We’ve replaced our fabric script with a new deploy infrastructure that’s way more scalable that also prevents concurrent deploys. And as we continue to break our monolith into microservices, more and more of our stack will be under CI with Jenkins. But the Hat Man proves that a simple hour long project can pay off in spades in developer velocity and reliability. And even when he’s gone, The Hat Man will always have his little spot in Klaviyo history. | https://klaviyo.tech/the-hat-man-57ff9daf1965 | ['Andrew Kannan'] | 2019-02-01 22:18:47.782000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Slack', 'Python', 'Bots', 'Velocity'] |
Astell&Kern KANN Alpha review: This digital audio player delivers the high-res goods | Astell&Kern KANN Alpha review: This digital audio player delivers the high-res goods Vinnie Jan 12·11 min read
The KANN Alpha is the third model in Astell&Kern’s acclaimed KANN series, following the KANN (reviewed in 2018) and the KANN Cube (reviewed in 2019). These are high-end, high-res digital audio players (DAP) designed to deliver pristine audio to just about any headphone you might decide to pair it with—regardless of impedance.
The Alpha continues the KANN line’s superlative pedigree, but only a select audience will be willing to hand over $1,099 to attain its drool-worthy feature set and very high performance. This player is perfect for owners of difficult-to-drive headphones; music lovers who demand the latest advancements in wireless audio, including Bluetooth 5.0; people who demand broad high-res codec support; audiophiles who want to take full advantage of 4.4mm balanced audio support.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best mobile digital audio players, where you’ll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product.Cutting-edge features, unrivaled codec supportHaving reviewed Astell&Kern’s previous two KANN models, it’s clear that each model has a specific focus. Whereas the KANN Cube was geared towards the audiophile demanding no-compromise performance and balanced audio connections to high-end audio gear, the KANN Alpha seems targeted towards the audiophile who demands the latest high tech features and wireless standards.
The KANN Alpha uses USB-C for all digital connectivity and charging. That’s a welcome sight given the original KANN’s dual-personality with both micro-USB and USB-C connectors—each with different purposes. Connect the USB-C to your computer and you can use the KANN Alpha as an all-in-one headphone amp and DAC.
Theo Nicolakis / IDGThe heart of the Alpha is an ESS Sabre ES9066AS DAC. The ES9066AS is a 32-bit stereo DAC with MQA rendering. The DAC will decode MQA, FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, WAV, and every major legacy audio format, including native DSD256 decoding.
The KANN Alpha’s wireless codec support is unrivaled. The Alpha supports LDAC, MQA, aptX HD, aptX, AAC, and—of course—SBC Bluetooth codecs. The Alpha even supports MQA-CD playback when playing MQA-CD’s via Astell&Kern’s CD-Ripper.
Mentioned in this article Astell&Kern KANN Cube Read TechHive's reviewMSRP $1,499.00See it Codec support doesn’t stop there. The Alpha’s settings menu allows you to select a preferred codec for all your wireless connections. When it comes to LDAC, you have a choice between audio quality optimization or connection quality optimization. If one of the Alpha’s onboard codecs isn’t supported by your headphones or other Bluetooth receiver, then the Alpha will switch to a mutually supported codec.
Bluetooth 5.0 is on board, giving you a huge advantage in wireless operating range, speed, low power consumption, and security features. You’ll see a theoretical maximum of 800 feet in open spaces and about 130 feet in typical indoor spaces—that’s a far cry from the 33 or so feet in Bluetooth 4.2. Likewise, Bluetooth 5.0 delivers twice the speed of Bluetooth 4.2: 2Mbps vs. 1Mbps.
Astell&Kern touts the KANN Alpha’s quad-core CPU. In my testing, Astell&Kern either needs to bump the processor’s performance or optimize the underlying operating system a bit more. While the KANN Alpha is generally responsive, there were times where the player would just lag. I couldn’t find a consistent rhyme or reason. I sometimes found myself clicking things two or three times, unsure if the player had registered my input. While the lag is nowhere near the dog-awful performance of the now defunct AK Jr, for a player in this price range, performance should be snappy and precise.
It’s worth noting that the KANN Alpha retains the rich feature set of all Astell&Kern players, including DLNA network streaming. I’ll point you to my AK70 review for a more in-depth discussion of all those features.
Introducing 4.4mm balanced audio outputThe KANN Alpha sports familiar 3.5mm unbalanced and 2.5mm balanced outputs. The Alpha is the first Astell&Kern DAP to sport a 4.4mm balanced headphone connection. Astell&Kern says its 4.4mm implementation is unique and noise-free because the Alpha physically separates the 2.5mm and 4.4mm outputs using microrelays. The Alpha’s design prevents noise and interference from outputs that aren’t in use by switching them off. Smart.
Theo Nicolakis / IDG Detailed view of the KANN Alpha’s 2.5mm, 3.5mm, and 4.4mm headphone outputs.
Power and battery lifeClean power is the measure of any high-performance audio system, and the Alpha’s amplifiaction is superb. The Alpha’s internal amplifier has three gain settings—low, medium, and high—so you can match the amplifier’s output to your headphone’s impedance. Setting the amplifier to high and using the KANN’s balanced output, you’ll be able to take advantage of the Alpha’s 12Vrms output, which is the same output as the massive KANN Cube. Setting the amplifier to high will drain the battery quickly and Astell&Kern recommends connecting the USB-C charging cable if you use the amplifier in the high gain setting.
[ Further reading: The best headphones you can buy ]Draining the battery quickly is a relative term and will depend on several factors including the types of audio files you’re playing and volume levels you’re playing them at. Battery life is rate at 14.5 hours of continuous playback. You can get a full charge in about 3.5 hours. In real-world use, I sometimes went days without needing to recharge the KANN Alpha.
Protecting your hearingHearing is a precious gift. Thankfully, protecting our hearing is getting a bit easier. For the first time, an Astell&Kern DAP gave me a loudness warning. If I set the player above 50 with the 2.5mm balanced connection, or 60 with the 3.5mm output, the player warned me I could permanently damage my hearing. I had the option to defeat that warning message or enable volume limits in settings.
Doubles as an artistic statementThe KANN Alpha’s gorgeous design continues Astell&Kern’s seemingly endless play with geometric design and textures. When you buy an Astell&Kern high-res player, you’re buying a work of art as much as you are a DAP. To me, the KANN Alpha’s design is a synthesis of the KANN Cube and elements of the SA700.
The player’s all-aluminum casing has different finishes on each side. The back sports a black, brushed-aluminum finish with the words KANN machine engraved into the player’s body. The name Astell&Kern, with model and power requirements, are laser engraved. That lettering, however, only becomes visible when you shine a light on it, much like the One Ring’s Tengwar script from the Fellowship of the Ring, which appeared only when heated in fire.
Theo Nicolakis / IDGThe player’s sides and bottom are matte-finished and untextured. This time around, Astell&Kern chose to protrude the front glass ever so slightly from the player’s body and round the glass sides and edges. The tactile experience is amazing and the rounded edges create a singular line of light that complements the player’s beveled, aluminum edge.
Astell&Kern seems to be joining the 1980s throwback party by including a ceramic black, mirrored finish along the KANN Alpha’s top. Gold circular accents around the three heapdhone inputs complement the black mirrored finish. The gold color pallet reminded me of the similar black and gold color pallet on legendary high-end audio gear from Nakamichi and Pioneer Elite.
Astell&Kern says there is a special coating applied to the ceramic surface to prevent fingerprints and smudging, but I didn’t find it to be effective. In my hands, the KANN Alpha’s high gloss ceramic finish and front glass were far from oleophobic. They both collected fingerprints easily and at a far higher rate than my iPhone 12. I found myself wiping the high gloss finish and glass every now and then.
Ephe Nicolakis / IDG Top view of the KANN Alpha’s high gloss ceramic finish.
The KANN Alpha maintains the same mesmerizing LED illumination around the player’s volume knob that I first experienced in my review of Astell&Kern’s SA700 DAP. Unlike the SA700, where the LED ring took center stage, Astell&Kern has given it a more subdued role, recessing the LED ring almost inside the player’s casing. You’ll notice it if you look at the KANN Alpha from the side, but the LED ring is largely shielded from view when you look at the player head on.
Theo Nicolakis / IDG A recessed LED illuminates to tell you the resolution of the file you’re playing.
As with the SA700, the LED ring isn’t just a design element, it gives you a visual indication of the file format you’re playing. Red indicates you’re playing a 16-bit file; green, 24-bit; blue, 32-bit, and purple indicates DSD. If you don’t like the LED feature, you can turn it off through the settings menu. The LED temporarily changes to a red color pallet when you adjust the volume. The LED increases saturation to a light-saber red as you turn the volume louder, and it de-saturates towards a light rose color as you turn the volume down.
The LEDs worked as expected with local files and the Open APP version of Tidal, but I encountered an anomaly with Quobuz. With that service, both CD-quality and all high-res files up to 24-bit/192kHz showed only a red LED. Either Quobuz wasn’t streaming the high-res files advertised, or there’s a bug in the Quobuz app that isn’t registering properly with the Alpha.
Three rectangular buttons on the left side (in contrast to the KANN Cube, where the buttons sit below the volume knob on the right) are unmarked. By now, Astell&Kern assumes everyone knows the top button is previous track, the middle is play/pause, and the bottom is next track.
Open APP ServiceA valid criticism of Astell&Kern players over the years would have rightly been the dearth of apps and supported music services. In the past, I would have been paying more careful attention to the KANN Alpha’s 64GB internal storage and 1TB micro SD card support. But now, with the introduction of Astell&Kern’s Open APP feature and support for streaming services with high-res audio files, that’s less of a pressing issue.
Astell&Kern’s Open APP lets you install just about any major streaming service onto the player. I first experienced Open App in my Astell&Kern SR15 review. As of this writing, 10 Astell&Kern players support Open APP.
Ephe Nicolakis / IDG Rear view of the KANN Alpha’s multi-angled, multi-textured aluminum body and physical button controls.
I have a serious love-hate conflict with Open APP. The good news about Open APP is that you can install Apple Music, Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon Music, Spotify, and a dozen more streaming services to suit your taste or current subscription. The downside is that the Open APP installation process remains clunky and requires a computer. You can indulge yourself in the step-by-step installation process here.
I’m sure you’ll agree that you shouldn’t have to go through a nine-step installation process on a $1,000+ DAP. At some point in Open APP’s evolution, Astell&Kern should pre-load all these apps into the player as “ready to install,” and then provide the end user the ability to perform an over-the-air (OTA) installation over Wi-Fi. The other approach would be to pre-install a dozen or so of the most popular and allow the end user to turn them on or off. Astell&Kern just needs to make it easier for the user to get the music services they want.
While I’m truly thankful that Astell&Kern has Open APP, it’s clunky implementation sticks out like a sore thumb against the meticulous detail A&K pays to the rest of the user experience.
Effortless, musical blissI used Focal Clear, Bowers & Wilkins P9 Signature, Oppo PM-2, and Beyerdynamic Amiron Home headphones with the KANN Alpha. I used a Kimber Cable Axios 2.5mm balanced cable with the Focal Clear. Though I also paired the KANN Alpha with a pair of Bowers & Wilkins PX Wireless headphones, my comments below pertain to my wired listening.
The KANN Alpha’s effortlessness is astonishing. The Alpha’s firm, unrelenting sonic grip on every single headphone was completely insane. The KANN Alpha’s control revealed ripples and textures on the classic bass lines in James Blake’s “Limit to your Love.” The Alpha articulated the details and decay of bass strings on Ingrid Michaelson’s “The Way I Am.” I noted deep, controlled, pulsating bass on Katie Melua’s “Sailing Ships from Heaven.” No matter the track, there was no smearing and no muddiness. It goes without saying that to get the most of the KANN Alpha’s bass performance, you’ll want to use closed-back headphones. The Focal Clear and Oppo PM-2 open-back headphones couldn’t deliver the deep bass performance their closed-back counterparts were capable of.
That sonic grip comes at a price: The KANN Alpha is a brutally honest customer. It won’t cuddle you or euphonize sub-par headphones. It will lay bare any shortcomings in your headphones and your source material.
Theo Nicolakis / IDG Detailed view of the KANN’s knurled volume and multi-angled industrial design.
I shook my head again and again, track after track at the attack, detail, and bass control on anything I threw at it. Music seems to emanate from a velvety black background with this player. The noise floor and channel separation are superb, allowing you to peer deeply into the music. Rebecca Pidgeon’s “Spanish Harlem,” by Chesky Records, is a reference-grade recording. It was easy to follow the subtlest decays of Ms. Pidgeon’s vocals through the KANN Alpha.
Ephe Nicolakis / IDG The KANN Alpha’s display is bright, but it’s UI exhibited some lag at times.
In fact, the KANN Alpha’s sound is so clean and distortion-free that you’ll be tempted to bathe yourself in sound for hours. You can easily lose track of how loud you’re listening to it.
The KANN Alpha’s presentation is consistent with other ESS Sabre-based players I’ve reviewed. The presentation won’t woo you with warmth; rather, the music is clean, transparent, and detailed with airy highs and tight, controlled bass. Astell&Kern hasn’t added any artificial bumps or overemphasis.
I will note that during my review period, the KANN Alpha’s body had a tendency to get warm to quite warm. How warm will depend on your headphone’s impedance and if you’re decoding DSD and high-res files.
A grand slamAstell&Kern’s KANN Alpha hits a grand slam—though not without a few stumbles around the bases. The Alpha earns its place among the finest high-res audio players I’ve reviewed. By any measure, the KANN Alpha is a superlative high-res DAP.
If you’re an audiophile who wants the freedom to connect any high-end headphone, you also want to connect your high-res DAP to your stand-alone setup, you might find the KANN Cube a better fit. If portability in a slimmer form factor is a higher priority, then you should add the SA700 to your short list.
But if you’re looking for a middle ground, something that can drive any headphone, fit in the palm of your hand, and deliver cutting-edge wireless audio tech, the Alpha is your ticket.
The Alpha’s gorgeous design; high-powered amplification; 40-meter wireless range with Bluetooth 5.0; unparalleled high-res wireless codec support; generous battery life; 2.5 and 4.4mm balanced audio connections; and effortless sound with dual ESS ES9068AS DACs are just the introduction to a long list of specs and features that truly make this the “Alpha” player among its peers. Its occasional sluggishness, clunky Open APP architecture, and fingerprint-prone surfaces are minor annoyances; they certainly aren’t enough to dampen my spirits about this superlative-sounding high-res DAP.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@vinnie95341431/astell-kern-kann-alpha-review-this-digital-audio-player-delivers-the-high-res-goods-286d687488c4 | [] | 2021-01-12 03:47:26.080000+00:00 | ['Lighting', 'Music'] |
Wiley CMA + Miles CMA Review — Your Prep Booster | Given that you have accepted the challenge to be a CMA next year, which review are you planning to go for? In order to become a CMA, you have to pass a comprehensive four-part exam. It takes a lot of revisions, sleepless nights, and efforts to earn the coveted title CMA. Here comes the importance of the exam review materials.
CMA review materials provide you with a detailed understanding of the subjects, which contains practical time-saving tips to be best at the preparation for the exam. To think critically about exam material, Wiley CMA prep books have the best test prep materials for the exam.
But in order to become a CMA, you have to pass a comprehensive four-part exam. It provides an intense overview of 4 CMA subjects, relevant questions similar to what you will see in the real exam. The material encompasses all 4 sections of the exam, each complete with 500 multiple choice questions, 5 tasks simulations with access to the online test banks.
The Wiley CMAexcel Exam Review 2021 Study Guide + Question Pack: Complete Set will help you identify, focus on, and master the key topics you need to know to pass the 2021 CMA Exam. This eight-volume, printed set comprises four volumes of the Wiley CMAexcel Study Guides (one per exam section) and four volumes of the Wiley CMAexcel Practice Questions (one per exam section).
Updated for the 2021 CMA Exam
Organized in Bite-Sized Lesson format
Explains every topic tested, with more than 2,000 printed pages of the study text
2,000 printed multiple-choice questions (500 per section)
20 printed task-based simulations (5 per section)
Answer rationales so you can understand why your answer is correct
Used by many leading review providers
Updated yearly
Bonus: one-month access to the Wiley CMAexcel Online Test Bank for each section
These resources are designed to build and then test your knowledge of AICMA’s CMA Exam Blueprint, as well as familiarize you with how questions are worded and presented on the CMA Exam.
It acts as the strategic exam partner for the CMA exam preparations. The most practice questions of any provider, you will practice tests, assessments, mock exams, and more with 5,500+ CMA practice questions preparing you for exam day. With a claim of 8 out of 10 students who use Wiley CMA pass both parts of their CMA exam, almost double the global pass rate of 40%. It’s a well-balanced material that will help to manage your time and reduce stress with Wiley’s bite-sized lessons, Exam Planner, and mobile app designed to keep you focused.
Pass the CMA exam the first time with our predictive scoring, personalized exam prep, and expert instructor. In addition to that, you have a Score Predictor, 11th Hour Review, and mock exams aligned to the latest CMA exam blueprints, you’ll be one of the 80% who passes with Wiley.
IMA-licensed Wiley CMAexcel Learning System (only “official” CMA study materials) — Includes textbooks and online test-bank access [Included as part of the IMA-Wiley bundle discount wherein the study materials are bundled with IMA membership, certification entrance, and exam fees — and Miles CMA candidates are able to avail these official materials at negligible incremental cost]
Miles CMA Review Notes compiled in exam-focused notes format and including multiple aids for conceptual understanding and memory-
50+ hours of pre-recorded videos including both “concepts on the whiteboard” and “annotations on your book” by Varun Jain, CMA, CMA, Harvard B-School alumnus
90+ hours of live online training spread over 55 sessions via webinars every Saturday by Varun Jain, and the follow-up session for additional practice sessions in the weekdays by Team (refer to the schedule below)
70+ hours of classroom training spread over 11 sessions using Miles’ unique “iCMA” training delivery model [For candidates who have opted for classroom training; classes will resume depending on the pandemic situation]
Up to 100 one-on-one mentoring sessions Upto for CMA formalities and Content/Subject doubts & queries (book 15–30 min slots on Miles LMS.
Advisory support for CMA exam application, CMA certification, etc.
Placement assistance (for self-sponsored candidates)
About Miles
Miles Education is India’s premier finance skills & training provider. Founded in 2010, our mission has been to build the CPA & CMA ecosystem for finance & accounting professionals in India. Miles Education has transformed the lives of tens and thousands of F&A students and working professionals, helping them be future-ready and enabling their career progression through the US CPA/CMA qualification since inception.
Founded by Harvard and Stanford alumni, Miles Education is one of India’s most trusted CMA/CMA reviews in India by professionals & students. We have offices and offer classroom training in 20+ cities in India, UAE & US. Miles Education has a strong network of corporate partnerships with 220+ MNCs, including all of the Big 4s & institutional tie-ups with more than 150+ renowned universities and institutions across India.
Alongside US CPA and US CMA, at Miles, we offer globally recognized certifications and postgraduate diploma programs from premium B-Schools like IIM’s, IIT’s, XLRI | Delhi-NCR Campus in the fields of technology and analytics, HR, emerging and exponential technologies like AI, ML, Data Science, RPA, Data Engineering, and Cloud Computing. These programs are offered in collaboration with Wiley NXT. | https://medium.com/@mileseducation/wiley-cma-miles-cma-review-your-prep-booster-2cb6bfd254fe | ['Miles Education'] | 2021-11-25 13:04:04.546000+00:00 | ['Accounting', 'Cma', 'Management Accounting'] |
Feng Shui : Bursting The Bubble. FENG SHUI. | Feng Shui : Bursting The Bubble
FENG SHUI.
What comes to your mind when you first read or hear the word? Traveling over thousands of miles and evolving over thousands of years, Feng Shui, a Chinese art for a better living, has now become a popular household name in almost all parts of the world.
Confused?
Look around your house or office space. Look at the Laughing Buddha you love to tickle every day, said to bring happiness to your life; the wind chime that sings as the breeze flows through the window. Look at the three-legged frog that you so expectantly placed on your cash counter and hoped it will bring lots of money and prosperity or at the bamboo plant that sits comfortably on your office desk and claims to bring auspicious energy; the dragon-faced turtle for attracting wealth or abundance or the mandarin ducks for lasting love or marriage. This is Feng Shui being commercialized. If you thought this is how the Chinese cure their lives or enhance their living, you are in for a big reality check! Sure these items are great for interior decoration, but attaching metaphysical properties to these is just a business gimmick to rake in hard cash.
So, how did these decorative articles become popular you ask? The answer to this question can be found in the Black Hat Sect Tantric Buddhist Feng Shui which was adopted by westerners in 1986. The Black Hat Sect Feng Shui follows the Black Hat Sect theory which is simple, one size fits all use of the BaGua. It does not place emphasis on shapes, landforms, or compass readings. It uses a pedestrian chart which is shown below:
The Black Hat Sect Chart
In the above figure, it is clear that each direction corresponds to a particular life station. This is the chart followed by Black Sect followers for designing each and every house and office space. Hence, there is no customization or personalization in accordance to the compatibility of the property with the occupants. Thus, this theory of Feng Shui is flawed.
Money makers have attached the life stations to certain Chinese miniatures and this is how they have become so popular and have flooded the market. Thus, placing mandarin ducks in the southwest cannot guarantee lasting relationships. It must be noted that manmade items can neither attract nor create energy.
So, what really is Feng Shui?
Traditional or Classical Feng Shui (pronounced “Fung Shway”) is a combination of science, logic, and mathematics. Originally, Feng Shui was known as “Kan Yu” which is translated as “The way of Heaven and Earth.” This art is more than 6000 years old and has manuscripts in Chinese, which are in the form of poems. The word “Feng Shui” actually means “Wind Water,” the two natural elements that bring or direct Qi (Pronounced as Chi, translated as “Life’s Breath” which means energy) to a particular property. In other words, it depicts the science and art of living in complete harmony with the environment or one’s surroundings.
Feng Shui is constructive, corrective, and predictive. Constructive, as its fundamental principles can be used before the actual construction or design of property; corrective because simple changes in the current surroundings can alter one’s life and predictive because it helps to foresee events and avert risks, if any.
It tries to estimate the quality of Qi that we are surrounded by and its impact on our lives. Classical Feng Shui seeks to identify the good and do away with or weaken the bad.
Feng Shui is not an instant cookbook. It may not help you win a lottery overnight or reduce your weight, but it can really help you gain prosperity and success in the long run or direct you towards good health. It is not a quick fix, it is a way of good life and all good things take time. | https://medium.com/@classical.fengshui.universe/feng-shui-bursting-the-bubble-c238a28b15b6 | ['Classical Feng Shui Universe'] | 2020-05-20 12:46:55.623000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Lifestyle', 'Facts'] |
Intro Screen with multi-languages support in Android | Portfolio app in Android (PART 1) | In this series of tutorials, we’re going to create a portfolio app in android. Here I will display bio-data, work-experience, projects, social media profiles, and papers, etc. you can change it according to your requirements.
Here In this tutorial, we’ll create our first screen i.e. the intro screen. In the intro screen, you can see the image of the user, name, and a headline with two buttons. The first button is for the (Multilingual mode) multi-language support and the second button is the “Skip” button.
Just for now, we are going to select three languages. That means our app supports three languages; English, Hindi, and Bengali.
Why use multilingual mode?
We use many languages in one app just to make it region basis. If your app is supported multi-languages that means your app can be easily accessible by any language people.
Sometimes it is not necessary to use multi-language, but in some cases, it is important to have this feature. In browsing app, we generally encounter that feature, so that in every language people can easily browse anything. We can use this feature in Information-based apps, Marketing apps, E-commerce apps, etc. The best example of this: Amazon
Intro Screen with multi-languages
In the XML file, we will display Two ImageViews, Two TextViews, and Two Buttons. Here we use Circle image view for our profile.
For circle image view we need one dependency in the app level build.gradle file
implementation ‘de.hdodenhof:circleimageview:3.1.0’
Now in the main XML file we add all the elements. Below code will help you to understand it:
main_activity.xml
<?xml version=”1.0" encoding=”utf-8"?> <ScrollView xmlns:android=”http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:app=”http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto" xmlns:tools=”http://schemas.android.com/tools" android:id=”@+id/main_container” android:layout_width=”match_parent” android:layout_height=”match_parent” android:background=”@drawable/background2" android:padding=”20dp” tools:context=”.MainActivity”> <RelativeLayout android:layout_width=”match_parent” android:layout_height=”wrap_content”> <ImageView android:layout_width=”60dp” android:layout_height=”50dp” android:src=”@drawable/lablee” android:id=”@+id/lable” android:elevation=”12dp”/> <de.hdodenhof.circleimageview.CircleImageView android:id=”@+id/profile_image” android:layout_below=”@+id/lable” android:layout_width=”match_parent” android:layout_height=”200dp” android:layout_marginTop=”60dp” android:src=”@drawable/my_profile” android:elevation=”10dp” app:civ_border_color=”@android:color/black” app:civ_border_width=”2dp” /> <TextView android:id=”@+id/profile_name” android:layout_width=”wrap_content” android:layout_height=”wrap_content” android:layout_below=”@+id/profile_image” android:layout_centerHorizontal=”true” android:layout_marginTop=”30dp” android:fontFamily=”@font/asap_bold” android:gravity=”center” android:text=”@string/profile_name” android:textAlignment=”center” android:textAllCaps=”true” android:textColor=”@android:color/black” android:textSize=”24sp”/> <RelativeLayout android:id=”@+id/relative” android:layout_width=”wrap_content” android:layout_height=”wrap_content” android:layout_below=”@+id/profile_name” android:layout_centerHorizontal=”true” android:layout_gravity=”center” android:layout_margin=”20dp” android:gravity=”center” android:orientation=”horizontal”> <LinearLayout android:id=”@+id/litwo” android:layout_width=”match_parent” android:layout_height=”wrap_content” android:layout_below=”@+id/lione” android:gravity=”center” android:orientation=”vertical”> <TextView android:id=”@+id/profile_desc” android:layout_width=”wrap_content” android:layout_height=”wrap_content” android:layout_marginTop=”2dp” android:fontFamily=”@font/asap” android:includeFontPadding=”false” android:padding=”5dp” android:text=”@string/job_des” android:textAlignment=”center” android:textColor=”@android:color/black” android:textSize=”14sp” /> </LinearLayout> </RelativeLayout> <Button android:id=”@+id/select_one” android:layout_width=”match_parent” android:layout_height=”wrap_content” android:layout_below=”@+id/relative” android:layout_marginStart=”25dp” android:layout_marginEnd=”25dp” android:layout_marginTop=”35dp” android:elevation=”8dp” android:background=”@drawable/background” android:fontFamily=”@font/asap_bold” android:onClick=”showDialog” android:text=”@string/select_language” android:textAlignment=”center” android:textColor=”@android:color/white” android:textSize=”18sp” /> <Button android:id=”@+id/skip” android:layout_width=”match_parent” android:layout_height=”wrap_content” android:layout_below=”@+id/select_one” android:layout_alignParentBottom=”true” android:background=”@android:color/transparent” android:fontFamily=”@font/asap_bold” android:onClick=”showDashboard” android:text=”@string/skip” android:layout_marginStart=”25dp” android:layout_marginEnd=”25dp” android:layout_marginTop=”10dp” android:textColor=”@android:color/black” android:textSize=”16sp” /> </RelativeLayout> </ScrollView>
The output of the above code:
Now, when the user clicks the “Skip” button, the user will send it to the main dashboard. For that we simply add android:onClick=”showDashboard” attribute in the Skip button and call the showDashboard method in the main java file. And in the onClick method, we pass the intent from the main activity to the dashboard activity.
public void showDashboard(View view){ Intent intent = new Intent(getApplicationContext(), DeshboardActivity.class); startActivity(intent); finish(); }
Next, when user click the Select Language button, a custom alert dialog will appear where we will see three buttons, one for the English language, one for the Hindi selection, and one for the Bengali selection.
button, a custom alert dialog will appear where we will see three buttons, one for the English language, one for the Hindi selection, and one for the Bengali selection. First, let’s create the custom alert dialog box. For that go to the res > layout folder and create a new drawable resource file and named it as custom_dialog.xml. Here I just add some extra elements to customize the alert dialog. If you want you can add these or else you can skip it. Copy and paste the below code to create a custom dialog in the layout folder.
custom_dialog.xml
<?xml version=”1.0" encoding=”utf-8"?> <RelativeLayout xmlns:android=”http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:layout_width=”wrap_content” android:layout_height=”wrap_content” android:layout_gravity=”center” android:background=”#4688f1"> <LinearLayout android:layout_width=”350dp” android:layout_height=”300dp” android:orientation=”vertical” android:background=”@drawable/background” android:padding=”10dp”> <ImageView android:id=”@+id/close_from_dialog” android:layout_width=”wrap_content” android:layout_height=”wrap_content” android:layout_gravity=”right” android:padding=”2dp” android:src=”@drawable/close” /> <TextView android:id=”@+id/select_language” android:layout_width=”wrap_content” android:layout_height=”wrap_content” android:layout_gravity=”center” android:layout_marginTop=”5dp” android:layout_marginStart=”20dp” android:layout_marginEnd=”20dp” android:fontFamily=”@font/asap_bold” android:gravity=”center” android:text=”@string/please_select_your_language” android:textAlignment=”center” android:textAllCaps=”true” android:textColor=”@android:color/white” android:textSize=”15sp” /> <View android:layout_width=”250dp” android:layout_height=”2dp” android:layout_gravity=”center” android:layout_marginTop=”10dp” android:background=”@android:color/white” /> <ImageView android:layout_width=”50dp” android:layout_height=”50dp” android:src=”@drawable/down_point” android:layout_gravity=”center” android:layout_marginTop=”-22dp”/> <Button android:id=”@+id/hindi_btn” android:layout_width=”200dp” android:layout_height=”wrap_content” android:layout_gravity=”center” android:layout_marginTop=”10dp” android:fontFamily=”@font/asap_bold” android:gravity=”center” android:text=”हिन्दी” android:textColor=”@android:color/white” android:background=”@drawable/ripple_button” android:textSize=”17sp” /> <Button android:id=”@+id/eng_btn” android:layout_width=”200dp” android:layout_height=”wrap_content” android:layout_gravity=”center” android:layout_marginTop=”10dp” android:fontFamily=”@font/asap_bold” android:gravity=”center” android:text=”English” android:textColor=”@android:color/white” android:background=”@drawable/ripple_button” android:textSize=”16sp” /> <Button android:id=”@+id/ban_btn” android:layout_width=”200dp” android:layout_height=”wrap_content” android:layout_gravity=”center” android:layout_marginTop=”10dp” android:fontFamily=”@font/asap_bold” android:gravity=”center” android:text=”বাংলা” android:textColor=”@android:color/white” android:background=”@drawable/ripple_button” android:textSize=”17sp” /> </LinearLayout> </RelativeLayout>
The output of the above code snippet:
Now for the Hindi and Bengali, you just need to do one thing create two separate string.xml files. One for the Hindi and one for the Bengali. For the string, files go to the string.xml file and right-click on it, and select Open Translations Editor.
Now, click on the Add Locale button top left corner and add your language.
After that select your language. Here I select Hindi and Bengla and the default English.
After that, you need to add all of your texts in the string.xml file and translate those texts into your selected languages . For example, here as you see in the string.xml file app name is written as Portfolio but for Hindi and Bengali, it is different, I had to translate them. So that when we execute our code, the languages will change.
file and . For example, here as you see in the string.xml file app name is written as but for Hindi and Bengali, it is different, I had to translate them. So that when we execute our code, the languages will change. For the translation, you can use GoogleTranslate .
. When you done with translating your texts. Go to the main activity class, where we create a method showDialog() when we click on the Select Language button. Inside the showDialog() method call the textView, imageView and buttons. After that create a view and inflate our custom dialog xml file.
final AlertDialog.Builder mDialog = new AlertDialog.Builder(MainActivity.this); ImageView close, selectImg; TextView selectText; Button hindiBtn, engBtn, bangBtn; final View mView = getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.custom_dailog, null); close = (ImageView)mView.findViewById(R.id.close_from_dialog); hindiBtn = (Button) mView.findViewById(R.id.hindi_btn); engBtn = (Button)mView.findViewById(R.id.eng_btn); bangBtn = (Button)mView.findViewById(R.id.ban_btn); mDialog.setView(mView); final AlertDialog dialog = mDialog.create(); dialog.setCanceledOnTouchOutside(false);
To close the dialog set the onClickListener on the close image view and dismiss the dialog box.
close.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() { @Override public void onClick(View v) { dialog.dismiss(); } });
Form the API level 17, instead of modifying the locale variable directly you should use the setLocale method which additionally sets a layout direction internally. Here I use a string to keep the language.
private void setLocale(String lang) { Locale locale = new Locale(lang); Locale.setDefault(locale); Configuration configuration = new Configuration(); configuration.locale = locale; getBaseContext().getResources().updateConfiguration(configuration,getBaseContext().getResources().getDisplayMetrics()); }
Here we used Shared Preferences to save the data and load the save data in another activity. First, save the data using shared preferences in the setLocale().
//save data to shared preferences SharedPreferences.Editor editor = getSharedPreferences(“Settings”,MODE_PRIVATE).edit(); editor.putString(“My_Lang”, lang); editor.apply();
now load the data using loadLocale()
//load languages saved in shared preferences public void loadLocale(){ SharedPreferences pref = getSharedPreferences(“Settings”,MODE_PRIVATE); String language = pref.getString(“My_Lang”, “”); setLocale(language); }
And call the loadLocale() in the onCreate() method.
@Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); loadLocale(); setContentView(R.layout.activity_main); }
Now we need to set onClickListener in the Hindi, Bengali, and English buttons so that when we click any of the buttons its texts should change respectively and redirect us to the dashboard.
hindiBtn.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() { @Override public void onClick(View v) { setLocale("hi"); recreate(); startActivity(new Intent(getApplicationContext(),NewActivity.class)); finish(); dialog.dismiss(); } }); engBtn.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() { @Override public void onClick(View v) { setLocale("en"); recreate(); startActivity(new Intent(getApplicationContext(),NewActivity.class)); finish(); dialog.dismiss(); } }); bangBtn.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() { @Override public void onClick(View v) { setLocale("bn"); recreate(); startActivity(new Intent(getApplicationContext(),NewActivity.class)); finish(); dialog.dismiss(); } }); dialog.show();
New Activity class
Now in the New Activity just, for example, add a TextView and back button in the new XML file and call the textView and back button in the new activity java file. Also, add the setLocale() and loadLocale() functions in the new java file.
<?xml version=”1.0" encoding=”utf-8"?>
<androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout xmlns:android=”http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app=”http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
xmlns:tools=”http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width=”match_parent”
android:layout_height=”match_parent”
tools:context=”.NewActivity”>
<ImageView
android:id=”@+id/backBtn”
android:layout_width=”wrap_content”
android:layout_height=”wrap_content”
android:src=”@drawable/back_black”
android:layout_marginStart=”20dp”
android:layout_marginTop=”20dp”
app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf=”parent”
app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf=”parent” />
<TextView
android:id=”@+id/textView”
android:layout_width=”wrap_content”
android:layout_height=”wrap_content”
android:text=”@string/android_apps_development_blogs”
android:textSize=”22sp”
android:textColor=”@android:color/black”
android:textStyle=”bold”
app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf=”parent”
app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf=”parent”
app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf=”parent”
app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf=”parent” />
</androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout>
In new activity java file
package com.example.portfolio; import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.content.SharedPreferences;
import android.content.res.Configuration;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.ImageView;
import android.widget.TextView;
import java.util.Locale; public class NewActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
TextView textView;
ImageView backButton;
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
loadLocale();
setContentView(R.layout.activity_new);
textView = findViewById(R.id.textView);
backButton = findViewById(R.id.backBtn);
backButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
@Override
public void onClick(View view) {
startActivity(new Intent(getApplicationContext(), MainActivity.class));
finish();
}
});
}
private void setLocale(String lang) {
Locale locale = new Locale(lang);
Locale.setDefault(locale);
Configuration configuration = new Configuration();
configuration.locale = locale;
getBaseContext().getResources().updateConfiguration(configuration,getBaseContext().getResources().getDisplayMetrics());
//save data to shared preferences
SharedPreferences.Editor editor = getSharedPreferences(“Settings”,MODE_PRIVATE).edit();
editor.putString(“My_Lang”, lang);
editor.apply();
}
//load languages saved in shared preferences
public void loadLocale(){
SharedPreferences pref = getSharedPreferences(“Settings”,MODE_PRIVATE);
String language = pref.getString(“My_Lang”, “”);
setLocale(language);
}
}
Output | https://medium.com/@androidapps-development-blogs/intro-screen-with-multi-languages-support-in-android-portfolio-app-in-android-part-1-8ac7b42dfceb | ['Golap Gunjan Barman'] | 2020-12-21 13:52:05.509000+00:00 | ['Android App Development', 'Alert Dialog Android', 'Multilingual', 'Android', 'AndroidDev'] |
What is a Wallet? Part III | There are a few steps on securing a wallet:
Create a hard password Encrypting your wallet — What is encryption? It is an algorithm to transform information to make it unreadable for unauthorized users. This method protects sensitive data. Encryption is essential for ensured and trusted delivery of sensitive information. Create backups and keep them in a safe place. Keeping backups might save you from hardware failures and human slipups. It will also let you restore your wallet in case your PC or phone gets stolen. It would be beneficial, if you create a new e-mail account that you will be using for that specific exchange account. DO NOT mention what kind of cryptocurrency wallet you are using. It makes it easier for hackers to track you. DO NOT store all cryptocurrency in only one exchange or wallet. It is extremely difficult to steal money from several wallets at once. Use two-factor authentication. This sends you a verification code on your mobile phone OR you have to download an app (for example an authenticator — there is many more), which then creates a new code during log in each time. Create a 12 memorable word password — if something happens, you can recover your wallet with the 12word passphrase. | https://medium.com/@aicestonia/what-is-a-wallet-part-iii-fa8547cbf06d | ['Sara Ray'] | 2019-03-20 12:52:56.244000+00:00 | ['Wallet', 'Passphrase', 'Security', 'Crypto', 'Currency Exchange'] |
The difference between Brand Asset Management and Digital Asset Management | Brand Asset Management (BAM) consists of the organization, storage and retrieval of important branding information in order to communicate according to the brand guidelines and standards, therefore protecting the brand’s identity.
Digital Asset Management (DAM) is the organization, storage and retrieval of corporate digital media and marketing collateral along with their associated usage guidelines.
Sounds quite similar, doesn’t it? Although these management forms are often referred to as the same term, there is a distinction between the two.
A company’s brand is its most valuable asset. Brand value or customer based brand equity is built by continuous and consistent branding.
“Customer-based Brand Equity is defined as the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand” — Keller
What are assets?
Digital or brand assets are valuable property of a company. They consist of, well, what else, digital files, aka digital media, images, documents, videos, presentations, etc. The distinction between an asset and a regular file is, and there is that keyword again, value. Digital files can be considered digital assets, but not all digital files are necessarily an asset to the company.
The assets of a brand, which are more or less tangible, play an important role for marketers who manage, control and maintain the corporate identity.
Digital Asset Management is a management form that carries the tools marketers need for consistent branding. DAM software contains the brand guidelines, a media library containing all the brand’s assets and a workflow module where all marketing publications can be monitored before they are published.
Digital Asset Management → Brand Asset Management → Brand Equity
In short: Digital Asset Management software contains, amongst others, brand assets. Therefore, Digital Asset Management complements and strengthens the Brand Asset Management. BAM adds value to a brand, which leads to high brand equity.
BAM or DAM software?
Luckily, you don’t have to choose between the two. Brand Asset Management is an integrated part of Digital Asset Management software. The main goal with DAM is the centralization and consistent use of assets, which includes brand assets.
DAM software is the librarian of your marketing department that never sleeps and never gets tired of your requests. Find out how your company can increase brand equity with Digital Asset Management.
Supercharge your marketing performance
Download the white paper and learn the impact of a DAM solution on your business.
DOWNLOAD | https://medium.com/@raultiru/the-difference-between-brand-asset-management-and-digital-asset-management-a7f9023a578d | ['Raul Tiru'] | 2020-04-23 07:47:29.123000+00:00 | ['Branding', 'Digital Asset Management', 'Brands', 'Brand Strategy', 'Branding Strategy'] |
Mind Your Head | If you have some negative beliefs about money, (who has it, what they do with it, or how they have so much) you’re not alone.
If you’ve heard negative statements about money as you were growing up, chances are that even if you didn’t believe them at the time, those thoughts may be grumbling in your subconscious.
According to the National Science Foundation, an average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those, 80% are negative, and 95% are repetitive thoughts.
One of my personal struggles has been my beliefs about money. We all need money, but if we have negative thoughts about it, that can keep us from feeling worthy of it and could also keep us from saving it for the future.
Here’s a simple exercise on how you can build a positive money mindset, so you can go about the business of making it, and keeping a little more of it in the bank. This has worked for me, and I am as stubborn as they come, so here goes.
1. Write down all of your beliefs about money. These can be any beliefs you have learned from any time in your life. Do this with pen and paper, rather than on a keyboard. The tactile experience provides something that is different from typing. Fill up a whole page, or two.
2. Next, cross out any false beliefs. We have many beliefs that are from prior experience or thought, but are not always true. Really take some time to think these through. Ask yourself if a belief is true for everyone, or just for you. That is how you know it is subjective, and not necessarily true.
3. For the beliefs that have not been crossed out, read them through and see if they feel good when you read them. If any of them make you feel bad, cross them out too.
4. Everything left on the page should be a positive statement about money. Put these somewhere you can look at them every day and read out loud.
Even when something isn’t true, but keeps getting repeated, our very efficient brain will learn it as “truth” so take good care of what you say to yourself. Repetition is important for changing negative beliefs to positive ones.
You can use this same process to discover your beliefs about having an online business, about a relationship, or something that may carry charged emotions. | https://medium.com/@sharon-bond/mind-your-head-3ca44b2be646 | ['Sharon Bond'] | 2020-12-19 05:09:07.551000+00:00 | ['Money Mindset', 'Saving Money', 'Money Management', 'Beliefs Affect Reality', 'Belief'] |
Elemental Bitcoin is Money | Gold ore in quartz. Credit: JXSC
During a recent debate between myself and hedge fund investor Mike Green, Mike insisted that Bitcoin should not be considered money by virtue of my comparisons between Bitcoin and gold, because gold itself was not money.
This led me to ponder why gold was not money.
If I’ve understood him correctly, Mike is right when it comes to gold. Gold, in its elemental, disordered form, should probably not be considered money. If you were a miner standing above some gold trapped in the bedrock, you might say “there are precious metals below,” and “there’s a rich seam of ore beneath us,” not “there is a pile of money down there.”
The reason that I don’t consider raw, atomic gold to be money is that gold in its elemental form is disorganized. It’s useless for commerce in nugget form. It has to be weighed and evaluated for purity each time it changes hands. To become useful in commerce — to become a “generally accepted medium of exchange” — it must be rendered fungible. Thus it is standardized into specie: coins or bars. It was the process of stamping the king’s head on a standard coin that monetized gold. To standardize is to monetize. In so doing, the sovereign (or in some cases, the private mint) reduced uncertainty in commerce and lowered transaction costs. No assaying or weighing necessary. You trusted the physical fixedness of the minted coins.
So for something to be useful in commerce, it has to be fungibilized into a set of weights. It’s no coincidence that the etymology of sovereign currency derives from words for weight or shape. Pound, livre, lira, and peso originate from various words related to “weight”. Mark and markka — more units of weight. Same with ruble. Yuan, yen, and won all mean “round” — another kind of physical standard. To become a currency or money, the coins were standardized into specific shapes, specific weights, and imprinted with images of the king (hence the other class of currency names deriving from ‘Royal’ like real, riyal, and rial).
This process of standardization worked best with commodities that people already considered valuable. Gold and silver were best because of their atomic stability and scarcity. Gold’s superior scarcity and difficulty of extraction means that it has a high “economic density” — that is, you needed relatively small amounts of gold to instantiate a lot of purchasing power. So prior to being rendered into coinage, these precious metals could be considered monetary commodities, or proto-monies. But few would consider gold or silver nuggets money, even back when gold and silver were explicitly monetized.
Enter Bitcoin. Bitcoin achieved spontaneous value in 2010 with that pizza transaction. But as we’ve established, something can have value without being money. Barrels of oil or truckloads of lumber are valuable but are not considered money, because they are not useful media of exchange. But I would contend that ever since Bitcoin attained its spontaneous, market-derived value, it did in fact become money. Its 0 to 1 moment of being worthless to having value not only established it as a monetary commodity, and hence something with the capacity to be money, but a genuine money in of itself. How so? Because Bitcoin is innately standardized. As a dematerialized monetary unit, it does not require a sovereign to assemble it into standard units. As it is innately digital, it avoids the problems of assayability and verifiability that physical commodities suffer from. So Bitcoin could monetize without being standardized, because it is standard by definition. Bitcoin contains its own standard unit: we call it Bitcoin, and it’s one twenty-one-millionth of the total quantity of Bitcoin that will ever be created.
For convenience, Bitcoin has a smaller denomination, like the dollar has the cent and the złoty has the grocz — the satoshi. A satoshi is one one-hundred millionth of a bitcoin, or roughly one two-quadrillionth of the total supply. That there are more orders of magnitude between the two than normal is irrelevant. The point is that bitcoin is natively denominated. Units of bitcoin are fungible by design. Once they came to have value, they were instantly useful in commerce. There was no assaying, no anti-counterfeiting measures. To use bitcoin is to assay the entire stock of bitcoin, all the time. Running a full node accomplishes this.
Thus, there is no distinction between bitcoin in its raw, elemental form, and bitcoin in its money-ready form. The two are one and the same. Thus we resolve the puzzle of bitcoin as a gold-like money. Bitcoin is natively standardized. The same cannot be said for gold. | https://medium.com/@nic__carter/elemental-bitcoin-is-money-2126b1c99ced | ['Nic Carter'] | 2021-02-16 02:43:54.490000+00:00 | ['Gold', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin'] |
Unconventional Productivity Tips: Another Way To Look At Productivity | It’s honestly a moot point as to whether gaming is productive or not, but I think that some gaming can help out significantly.
It’s a form of relaxation, and clearly some moderation in gaming can provide some advantages.
Some other key points to note is that people have started businesses from gaming as well with most top earners on Youtube being “Let’s Players”. These are people who provide online commentary to a video game.
Furthermore, Twitch is a platform dedicated to streamers playing video games.
So it’s fair to say that gaming isn’t as bad as people let on. Too much can be fatal, but some is acceptable.
The tricky thing is bringing those skills from gaming over into the real world, which honestly is a whole other beast.
But you can be sure that playing at least a half hour to an hour a day of gaming can help you significantly regardless of field.
Have Less Goals And Less Work
I’ve said in the past that I’ve boosted my productivity by doing less and I certainly have. Every day I have a satisfying day because I devote my time to some of the “toughest tasks” that are on my list.
These tasks overall take a few hours out of my day and leave the rest of my day open.
Although I honestly can’t afford the same kind of luxury as Tim Ferriss, there is still some nugget of truth to how Tim Ferriss lives.
Doing less and focusing on the main points of work can help in boosting overall productivity.
The reason it can work is that you reduce the risk of getting overwhelmed.
That’s not to say we should all have less goals and ambitions in life. Instead only take on what is necessary at the time. | https://ericsburdon.medium.com/unconventional-productivity-tips-another-way-to-look-at-productivity-19120e4ff509 | ['Eric S Burdon'] | 2018-06-11 13:01:10.058000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Life', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Productivity', 'Personal Development'] |
The limits and failures of the Syria response | Syria has illustrated the limits of global governance and humanitarian intervention time and time again. This week brings this back into sharp focus, highlighting the inability of UN humanitarian teams in Syria, and the UNSC mechanism, to protect civilians in Idlib, hold the Syrian government accountable for committing war crimes, or allow humanitarian aid assistance to reach those most in need without benefiting those guilty of the war’s worst crimes.
These limits are not new, but failure to adapt to these limits appropriately has the potential to alter the humanitarian sphere permanently. This raises two pressing questions: Will these limits and failures become a permanent feature? How will these failures and limits impact the next stages of the conflict and future conflicts?
Part of the problem in the Syrian context is attributable to a somewhat benign problem that snowballed due to inaction. Syria was a country with UN support pre-conflict, which had a heavy development focus, meaning organizations and staff members alike had close working relationships with the Government of Syria. They saw their role as one of attempting to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, which, at the time, was entirely appropriate. While investigating the limits of the UN and INGO response in Syria, it has become clear that there was a reluctance to let go of this mandate and that the protests, and the subsequent violence, were initially seen as something that may undo decades of good work. For this reason, the response did not shift from development to crisis response, until far too late in the crisis. It is for this reason, too, that senior staff members of some departments have long-standing relationships with government ministers and their families.
This reluctance to let go of the development response has recently pivoted to an enthusiasm to get back to it. The result is constant communications from agencies highlighting Syria’s former status as a tourist destination, rushing to repair vital infrastructure in government areas, and encouraging premature refugee return. Donors report feeling bullied and badgered by these agencies in their efforts to get them to untie the purse strings and fund development work.
It is a wonder, then, how the ‘Grand Bargain’ aims of increased cooperation between aid and development would possibly help a situation like Syria. What’s right for one context may not be valid for all, and while a case for a closer relationship between the sectors may be useful in other settings, it is not so for contexts where the humanitarian crisis is broadly the doing of the state and in Syria there’s a constant battle being waged to keep them separate.
In Myanmar, as in Syria, we see the limits of a humanitarian response that serves at the pleasure of the oppressing government power. While language changes in humanitarian response plans and communications may seem like petty grievances, acquiescing to the wishes of governments who choose language that assists them to build potentially-genocidal narratives as in Myanmar, or ensuring accountability remains elusive by avoiding terms of fact like ‘conflict’ and ‘besiegement’ in Syria, falls at the very first hurdle when it comes to protecting the groups those same governments seek to punish and destroy.
It is from this compromised semantic baseline that the very definition of civilian protection in Syria has been degraded. No longer is the aspiration to protect populations from war crimes and human rights violations, but instead, protection is measured in the number of early marriages or incidences of domestic violence experienced or prevented. These smaller concerns fit neatly into log frames, and interventions can include workshops or community centres. In short, saving lives is put in the too hard basket and replaced with outputs achievable in a context where the perpetrator makes the rules.
This new understanding of the very meaning of protection has shifted the entire conversation away from the fundamental responsibility to protect as it was imagined in 2005, to fiddling with gender-based violence and cash-based programming while the world burns. This leaves the humanitarian community with a decision to make: if the ability to protect at the most fundamental of levels is solely political and military, is protection the role of humanitarians at all?
An additional way in which Syria has profoundly changed humanitarian intervention is the degree to which humanitarians have become sub-contracting companies, rather than humanitarians in the more traditional understanding of the word. This has occurred in two ways, one being the difficulties in access, which have necessitated endless supply chains and partnerships that mean beneficiaries become and ever-more theoretical concept, and those who take the most significant risks, and for whom beneficiaries are not academic, get the least funding and the least say in how those funds are spent.
This relatively ‘easy’ subcontracting work and the high levels of funding and attention has seen humanitarians bend to the dollar. INGOs told Syrian NGOs in Idlib that it would not be possible to escalate their concerns about the future of the province because the INGOs feared it would jeopardize their pending applications to operate in Damascus. Rather than standing up for their local colleagues, they instead preferred to maintain a stake in a shrinking space for operation inside the country, aware that Syria still brings in grants and public donations. It is for this reason, too, that the UN is happily installing beehives in Tartous; because by keeping the government of Syria happy by programming heavily in areas it favours, and using only partner NGOs and companies it approves of, the government allows access elsewhere. Any access, even to those who are not in the most severe need, keeps donations and funding rolling in.
The argument that the heavy use of Syrian NGOs in these sub-contracting arrangements fulfills the localization agenda fails to see the lack of agency those Syrian NGOs have within this contractual structure, and corrupting effect that a lack of coal-face work has on those designing programmes and approving funding. Syria, in part through necessity, has entrenched the worst interpretation of the localization agenda.
These concerns build the foundation for lack of conflict sensitivity in programming, something that has underpinned much of the Syria response. In this sense, humanitarians have been outwitted and outsmarted by parties to the conflict. From Damascus, the government has allowed or disallowed, aid access as it sees fit. In failing to understand the conflict well enough to see when they are manipulated for political ends, agencies allowed themselves to become a pawn in negotiations for outcomes that include war crimes. Rather than conflict analysis driving conflict-sensitive programming, it is access driving programming, with analysis and sensitivity thrown in at the end.
The government’s influence on the Damascus hub means actors cannot, or are prevented from, understanding the full context of where they are working and the impact of their actions. These contextual blinkers, combined with a resignation to the fact the ‘big’ rights cannot be protected, is a dangerous combination moving forward from a humanitarian aid response, into post-conflict or stabilization. Which is to say, the circumstances that allowed the UN to be duped into aid convoys that cemented ‘reconciliation’ deals, are allowing them to passively programme in ways that entrench displacement and disenfranchisement, probably permanently. A cursory look at project plans coming out of the early recovery, and refugee and IDP returns, strands of UN Damascus, suggest that these concerns will not be addressed in a meaningful way before they continue into subsequent phases of their work.
There are some in the response who refuse to believe that have erred even slightly, or that criticism of their actions is warranted. Many others see the problems and are personally and professionally concerned by them and try to change them as best they can.
As humanitarians peel off toward other responses and crises around the world and take the bad habits they learned in Syria with them, and others draft new work plans for the ninth year of the Syrian conflict, it’s important to remember that it can be better than this, and it behooves all of us to try and make it so.
Follow-Up Reads:
Some of my own work on this subject is featured on my website: https://www.emmabeals.com/journalism-news
Human Rights Watch, ‘Rigging the System’: https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/06/28/rigging-system/government-policies-co-opt-aid-and-reconstruction-funding-syria
Chatham House, ‘Principled Aid in Syria: A framework for International agencies: https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/principled-aid-syria-framework-international-agencies | https://medium.com/@ejbeals/the-limits-and-failures-of-the-syria-response-c8f8bf6165be | ['Emma Beals'] | 2019-08-31 09:49:34.754000+00:00 | ['Conflict', 'United Nations', 'Human Rights', 'Humanitarian', 'Syria'] |
karma | Some people waiting for the coming of this chosen one. Can we really trust any so called savior when we should have been doing charities for the poor, helpless people, animals? Expecting to be saved, not doing the worthy work to be saved is contradicting oneself. The great conjunction happening this month, once at december 15, another on december 21. So take chance of this month, to call upon The Creator of existence. To ask forgiveness, to be guided to the straight, simple path. Peace. | https://medium.com/@susana-mia7/karma-bedd85533901 | ['Susana Mia Pen Name'] | 2020-12-12 02:44:09.476000+00:00 | ['Helping Poor', 'God', 'Forgiveness', 'Karma'] |
Neden Özel Tasarım? | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/syconx/neden-%C3%B6zel-tasar%C4%B1m-44b5122c2fb5 | ['Sibel Yeğin'] | 2020-12-26 17:10:34.463000+00:00 | ['Design', 'UX', 'UI', 'Web Design'] |
Making AI Better by Making it Slower | The difference between beneficial and destructive AI may be whether making fast thinking faster has any utility for the user.
A couple of months ago I left my job at Auth0 to join a defense and national security company founded by some friends of mine. It was a risky decision both because the company is new and because when one is working with the military, one is inevitably building technology that will either directly or indirectly kill people. It is an environment rich with ethical dilemmas and most technologists prefer to keep their hands clean by simply opting out of any involvement at all.
There were lots of reasons why decided to take the risk, but the most relevant one to this blog post is that everyone in the tech community lately is talking about building “ethical” products and no one can really define how a software development process that produced ethical products is different from a process that produced normal products. Just “don’t be evil” may no longer be Google’s motto, but it is definitely still how Silicon Valley thinks about things.
I’m not the kind of person that believes that outcomes are determined by the quality of the people. The best engineers sometimes build shitty technology together. Teams are not a sum of their parts. Simply assembling a collection of thoughtful people (and Rebellion has employed A LOT of lifelong pacifists) does not mean they will build ethical technology.
But team are a sum of their interactions and interactions are government by formal and informal process. I am the type of person who likes designing effective process and I had by the time I finally accepted my friend’s offer come to believe that AI in defense is a when situation not an if situation. The opportunity for an outright ban has come and gone, these tools will enter the battle space and the impact of that will largely be determined by who participates in bringing them there.
Escalation -vs- De-escalation
Every month at work we have a standing organization wide meeting to discuss our ethics. In one early version of this meeting we decided that the distinction between offensive tools and defensive tools was not a useful one for exploring the impact of what we might build. The difference between defensive and offensive is really who’s holding the tool and what they are pointing it at. That’s not something easy to design software around.
Instead we ended up focusing on the idea of escalating and de-escalating conflict. Responsible technology in the defense space is technology that helps people think deeper and more critically about the choices in front of them. Irresponsible technology encourages them to jump to conclusions or leaves them so far removed from the on the ground reality it dehumanizes the people who are negatively effected when the technology is deployed.
But how does one design AI that de-escalates?
Human in the Loop
Ethical AI people love to talk about “Keeping the human in the loop.” In an earlier blog post I discussed this concept using the framework of System Safety, an existing scientific field that studies the counter-intuitive ways safety policies either benefit or sabotage safety outcomes.
Human in the loop is an effective guiding principle when designing policy, but it is a little more difficult when designing technology because ALL technology redistributes how human labor is applied in a given process. When new technology is introduced to an existing task, some steps are automated away and other new steps become necessary. How does the product team determine when moving the human’s position in the process is taking them out of the loop or not?
Type 1 -vs- Type 2 Thinking
The answer may come from how human and computer thought combine and play off one another. One model of how human’s think popularized by the book Thinking Fast and Slow is called Type 1 -vs- Type 2. Type 1 is intuitive (fast) thinking. It’s low effort for humans. Instinctual, based mainly on pattern matching and how close a given piece of knowledge resembles another piece of historic knowledge. Type 2 is analytical (slow) thinking. Calculating, often statistical in nature. It’s high effort for humans and therefore needs to be budgeted appropriately, but often corrects mistakes made by Type 1 thinking.
Funny enough, the early days of AI research documented something called Moravec’s Paradox which observes that computers have the complete opposite relationship to Type 1 and Type 2 thinking. For a computer Type 2 thinking is easy, Type 1 thinking is hard and resource intensive. Nearly all of machine learning and AI is Type 1 thinking. AI products therefore tend to focus on accelerating Type 1 thinking for human operators.
But Type 1 thinking is already fast, and I’m beginning to suspect the line between beneficial AI products and the ones that create problems is asking how much utility the user really gets out of making fast thinking faster? Web developers understand the law of diminishing returns almost as well as economists. It’s what governs the development of Service Level Objectives. There is a point where simply making a website faster doesn’t really improve the user’s experience any, it just spends money.
Similarly there is a point where making Type 1 thinking faster doesn’t actually offer the user any added benefit, but it does dramatically increase the odds of a critical error.
If humans struggle with Type 2 and excel at Type 1 thinking, and computers struggle with Type 1 thinking and excel at Type 2, and good decision making involves using Type 2 thinking to error check Type 1 thinking….why are we building machines to do Type 1 thinking for us? Isn’t there much more utility from using computers to make slow thinking more resource efficient rather than making fast thinking faster?
Problem Selection
The more I explore the question of AI and ethics, the more I understand how critical problem selection is. The exact same technology can have dramatically different ramifications depending on how the problem it is solving is framed.
Consider two scenarios:
A police officer is trying to identify people in a photograph. AI isolates their faces and looks for matches in a facial recognition database.
A police officer has seized a hard drive with thousands of files on it. AI searches the files and prioritizes them based on faces of significance that might be present in them.
In the first scenario the computer attempts to do the Type 1 thinking for the human operator. Although some operators will examine the match carefully and critically to confirm the AI’s results, most will not. Most will do no thinking at all and simply assume that a match is a definite match.
The second scenario unblocks the human from doing the Type 1 thinking. In real life, the backlog of digital forensic evidence to be processed is often years long. So long that much forensic evidence never gets looked at at all, the case just moves on without it. For all the power of modern computers this work still involves a lot of manual searching by a human operator. Using AI to increase the efficiency of the process, increases the critical thinking being done by the human in the loop, rather than replacing it. Even if some important files are missed you still get more than you would have without it.
Here’s a non-hypothetical example: compare the notorious sentencing recommendation application COMPAS to a similar system called ESAS. On the surface, both technologies seem to solve the same problem: making recommendations on sentencing based on historical data. COMPAS attempts to distill lots of data down to simple conclusions that the user can disregard, but cannot dig into or challenge. It considers everything from your parent’s criminal history, to the lifestyles of your friends, to your answers to personality questions. ESAS, on the other hand, focuses on just the case information. It looks for similar cases and lets the user easily find and explore the context around the sentences that resulted. What made one case worth a long prison sentence and another case with the same charge a shorter one?
COMPAS attempts to do the Type 1 thinking for the user and because both the algorithms and data used to create the recommendation are hidden, the Type 2 thinking that would check for Type 1 errors is blocked. Worse, COMPAS assigns a numerical value to their recommendations. Someone wasn’t just “high risk” they were high risk on a numerical scale. One of the things we know about Type 1 thinking is that it is susceptible to anchoring. Give someone a high number, and even if they think that high number is wrong, the number they replace it with will be higher than they otherwise would have estimated.
Much has been made of the biases in the data that backs COMPAS, but in truth even if the data had been perfect COMPAS would still have created bad outcomes. It automates error prone Type 1 thinking, poisons the user’s judgment with an arbitrary anchoring value and prevents Type 2 thinking from spotting problems.
Buried in COMPAS’s definition of the problem is also one monster of an unchallenged assumption: that a person at high risk of reoffending will be made less likely to reoffend by giving them a longer prison sentence. That the cause of reoffending is some character flaw that the prison system corrects. COMPAS does not consider that the relationship might actually be reversed: that people who spend more time in prison become disconnected from social support networks and are more likely to reoffend in order to survive.
This is the danger of replacing Type 1 thinking done by humans with Type 1 thinking done by computers. Computers can calculate a correlation, but they cannot construct a narrative around it that turns that correlation into actionable insight. Therefore even the best algorithms need human beings to consider the context of their results. AI that removes that context lives or dies by the accuracy of its model. AI that removes that context over several layers of abstraction carves a large blast radius into the Earth when it goes wrong.
On the other hand, AI that increases the speed and opportunities in which human beings can apply both Type 1 and Type 2 thinking fairs much better. Early trials with ESAS in Florida have shown that by matching a case to a range of comparable cases and allowing users to explore their context overall length of sentences were reduced, sometimes considerably. The ESAS team estimated that just five criminal cases saved the state of Florida $1 million in the daily costs of incarceration.
Designing AI by Redistribution
The narrative with advancements in technology is usually about what gets replaced, but technology doesn’t actually replace, it redistributes. The time, energy and money spent on one part of the process shifts to another part of the same process. Adding a computer to something might remove a human being performing a manual process, but replaces it with multiple human beings who build, deploy and maintain the computer doing the work.
The impact and ultimate effectiveness of any product that uses AI, therefore, is determined not by which algorithms it uses, but how it redistributes human effort. Is it creating more opportunities for critical thinking or encouraging more action with less thought and discussion? Software engineers who build AI need to pay attention to computer human interaction more so than other programmers. AI that does Type 1 thinking for the user and blocks Type 2 thinking typically leads to disastrous outcomes. AI that increases the opportunities for Type 1 thinking and encourages the user to add the Type 2 error checking to the machine’s Type 1 thinking, tends to increase utility. | https://medium.com/software-safety/making-ai-better-by-making-it-slower-34e09ba9fcb9 | ['Marianne Bellotti'] | 2020-06-19 05:41:05.791000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Psychology', 'Programming', 'AI', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Best Behringer MS40 Digital Studio Monitors (40 Watts) | Best Behringer MS40 Digital Studio Monitors (40 Watts)
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The Behringer MS40 Digital Studio Monitors (40 Watts) is certainly that and will be a great buy. For this price, the Behringer MS40 Digital Studio Monitors (40 Watts) is highly recommended and is a popular choice with lots of people.
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Buy Behringer MS40 Digital Studio Monitors (40 Watts) is a post from: Musical Instruments | https://medium.com/musical-instruments/best-behringer-ms40-digital-studio-monitors-40-watts-2e1a19b33a8d | ['Michael Henderson'] | 2018-09-13 13:11:14.588000+00:00 | ['Recording', 'Behringer', 'Studio Monitors'] |
Melanin Queens | Beaten and abused,
Harriet Tubman…
You can’t control me,
Rosa Parks
I’m just as smart and maybe smarter,
Ruby Bridges…
You keep moving the finish line farther away so I just ran faster,
Mary Ann Shadd Cary…
I love how I look and no one can tell me otherwise,
Madam C.J Walker
If they don’t listen to him… they will listen to me,
Coretta Scott King
We are life… We are the beginning… We are goddesses,
All melanin queens
~Diara L. Jackson | https://medium.com/@diarajack05/melanin-queens-7edf3492f55a | ['Diara Jackson'] | 2020-12-24 02:18:16.694000+00:00 | ['Blm', 'Poems', 'Women', 'Womens Rights'] |
E3 2018: Video Game Industry, Can You Work on Your Diversity? | “Sony’s E3 Flute guy” The very image of how tone deaf the gaming industry is in regards to inclusion.
I wanted to write about diversity seen at this E3 but I was reminded that diversity/inclusion is still something of a foreign concept to the video game industry.
Diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance -author unknown
Like many video game fans I was excited for this year’s Electronic Gaming Expo (E3). It’s become something like a holiday for many gaming fans. Announcements, reveals, details, release dates, it’s a big deal. It’s a chance for the industry to present itself to the gaming public (fans & critics a like) and build excitement.
Now, I was particularly excited for company presentations. These presentations allow Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and so forth to use stage presence and charisma for their respective visions. To be frank, I just wanted to see what was to be presented and whom was going to present throughout these various shows.
As the days went on and each company took the limelight, I was reminded that the gaming industry is still as diverse as a pack of Wonder Bread. Yes they still have a diversity and inclusion issue in 2018.
So the above tweet perfectly encapsulates what I wanted to talk about today. If you search around social media, you’ll find other PoCs expressed the same feelings while watching. So aside from Nintendo, companies start and stopped at having only one male of color. However everyone utterly failed at having at least a woman of color.
Why is this frustrating? Well, white hetero/cishet males are not the only people playing videogames. Also they aren’t the only ones making our games, despite being the majority. Maybe there isn’t enough PoCs around for companies to use? Well, let’s look at the numbers.
As per the 2017 International Game Developers Association Developer satisfaction survey,
The majority identified as white/Caucasian/European at 68%. Respondents were able to select up to 3 options for this question. East/South East Asian (18%), Hispanic or Latino (5%). Pacific Islanders constituted 3% of respondents, Arabian or West Asian made up 2% of respondents, Aboriginal or Indigenous peoples also represented 2% of the group, and Black/African American or African made up 1%
Now the same survey reports that women make up 21% of the gaming industry. Taking these numbers into consideration, why don’t we have more diverse presentations? Maybe people aren’t qualified and or lack stage presence? Well…those would be poor and lazy excuses.
Let’s not forget Ubisoft had Aisha Tyler host their E3 presentations from 2012 to 2016. So we know they can certainly use the influencers and personalities of color. So the decision to no use them and keep things…status quo was pretty disappointing.
I should mention the same applied largely to the video games shown. However we had a few outliers featuring badass women (which is awesome). Of note, Last of Us 2, stars a young woman. A woman whom shared a passionate kiss with another woman during it’s trailer. Which made a lot of heterosexuals angry (also awesome)
However the games were still rather white male protagonists and melanin deficient. I think Ubisoft’s Beyond Good Evil 2 is the only high profile game shown starring a woman of color. We also had a trailer for the maybe the most inclusive RPG of 2019, Indivisible by Lab Zero.
So you may ask me why is this a big deal? Why should it be important? Or my favorite argument from those outside marginalized groups, “they’re just videogames”.
I’m critically because as a fan of games I want the industry and the games to be better. To not speak on it and accept things as is would be shortsighted of myself.
Now, would you have a problem if all your movies starred only white people? If your directors were only white males? Would that bother you? Would you enjoy if all stories and experiences only came from one perspective?
Jade, a woman of color and antagonist from Ubisoft’s Beyond Good and Evil 2
Now, if people see more developers and industry members that look like them, they will be willing to pursue gaming careers. That would in turn help enrich our games and provided better experiences. These are known facts for any profession. But gaming is a business so let’s talk about that. Diversity is better for the bottom line.
As far as E3 2018 goes, I doubt my rumblings about will be the only one. I do wonder if and or when the game industry will remember non-white males play videogames.
Here’s a question games industry; If you want to incite the most folks to play your videogames, including people of color…why not have more of those faces for us to see? | https://jrous001.medium.com/e3-2018-video-game-industry-can-you-work-on-your-diversity-c15e6aeab5ef | ['Jeffrey Rousseau'] | 2018-06-19 17:48:27.467000+00:00 | ['Inclusion', 'E3', 'Diversity', 'Videogames'] |
Zero, one, and all the things in between | Where we learn that each digital revolution starts decades before we see it coming
Photo by Helloquence on Unsplash
When I was in the United States as a young computer scientist during the late 1980s, it was just the beginning of the digital revolution that we’re all witnessing nowadays. But the real breakthroughs leading to this revolution actually happened a few decades before. Could it thus be that a another revolution might be in its infancy today, and we just don’t see it coming? In fact, yes, and quantum computing might just be that. But what is quantum computing? And how does it function?
The term „quantum computer“ was coined in the middle of the 20th century by the famous Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman. In those times the stuff to build computers from were transistors. These little devices are either in a given state, or not (the famous 1s and 0s). Based on these two states the first binary digits (or „bits“) were implemented, and humans started to the create first little processors and the first primitive forms of modern physical hard drives.
But Feynman knew that that was not the end of the story. In fact, he and other physicists realised that the state of matter behaved completely different on the very small scale. Tiny particles such as atoms could be in multiple states at the same time. It was thus not just a matter of 0s or 1s (I know this sounds weird, but nature has indeed many surprises:). Based on this they imagined a future computer. This „quantum computer“ would not be based on bits, but on qubits (from quantum bits), which would be both 0 and 1 at the same time, and all the combinations in between. This would open a huge new computing power.
During the last years, the first physical quantum computers have been built. They are still very bulky machines, which need to be cooled down to minus 273 degree Celsius to work (this is colder than in the interstellar space!). Because it is only at this low temperature that we can work with those strange quantum states of matter. Nevertheless, they do exist, and basically all companies, from Google, IBM and Intel to Microsoft are investing and building such little quantum chips with the hope to build immensely quick computers one day.
Unfortunately, quantum computers are not only big at the moment, but they also have a very low computing power (similarly to the calculation powers of the early computers in the 1970s and 1980s. But as I could witness myself in those early days of computing, it is just a matter of time until computers get smaller and faster, once some basic principles are overcome. In fact, many experts believe that quantum computers will arrive to the every day world within the next 10 to 20 years. And they will not only speed up all processes massively, but revolutionise (once again) the way our data intensive world will work. | https://medium.com/martinvetterli/zero-one-and-all-the-things-in-between-6c78f142c268 | ['Martin Vetterli'] | 2018-12-18 10:49:05.290000+00:00 | ['Digital', 'Quantum Computing', 'Science', 'Computer Science', 'Algorithms'] |
Vuetify — Paddings and Margins. Changing padding and margin. | Vuetify is a popular UI framework for Vue apps.
In this article, we’ll look at how to work with the Vuetify framework.
Flex align-content
We can add the align-content classes to change the alignment of flexbox content.
For example, we can write:
<template>
<v-container>
<v-row class="text-center">
<v-col cols="12">
<v-card
class="d-flex align-content-start flex-wrap"
color="grey lighten-2"
flat
tile
min-height="200"
>
<v-card v-for="n in 10" :key="n" class="pa-2" outlined tile>item</v-card>
</v-card>
</v-col>
</v-row>
</v-container>
</template> <script>
export default {
name: "HelloWorld", data: () => ({}),
};
</script>
We have the align-content-start class to align the content to the left.
There are other classes for other alignments.
Flex Grow and Shrink
Vuetify has the flex-{condition}-{value} classes to grow and shrink the items.
For example, we can write:
<template>
<v-container>
<v-row class="text-center">
<v-col cols="2" class="flex-grow-0 flex-shrink-0">
<v-card class="pa-2" outlined tile>2 column wide</v-card>
</v-col>
</v-row>
</v-container>
</template> <script>
export default {
name: "HelloWorld", data: () => ({}),
};
</script>
to create a column 2 columns wide and use the flex-grow-0 and flex-shrink-0 classes to fill the container.
Float
We can apply a custom float with Vuetify classes.
For example, we can write:
<template>
<v-container>
<v-row class="text-center">
<v-col cols="12">
<div>
<div class="float-left">Float left</div>
<br />
<div class="float-right">Float right</div>
<br />
<div class="float-none">Don't float</div>
</div>
</v-col>
</v-row>
</v-container>
</template> <script>
export default {
name: "HelloWorld", data: () => ({}),
};
</script>
We have float-left class to float left.
float-right floats right.
float-none disables float.
Responsive
Floats can be applied with some breakpoints.
For example, we can write:
<template>
<v-container>
<v-row class="text-center">
<v-col cols="12">
<div>
<div class="float-sm-left">sm</div>
<br />
<div class="float-md-left">md</div>
<br />
<div class="float-lg-left">lg</div>
<br />
<div class="float-xl-left">xl</div>
<br />
</div>
</v-col>
</v-row>
</v-container>
</template> <script>
export default {
name: "HelloWorld", data: () => ({}),
};
</script>
We have the breakpoint in the class name to only apply the float if the breakpoint is the given one or wider.
Spacing
Spacing can be changed with classes in the following format:
{property}{direction}-{size}
property can be:
m - applies margin
- applies p - applies padding
direction can be:
t - applies the spacing for margin-top and padding-top
- applies the spacing for and b - applies the spacing for margin-bottom and padding-bottom
- applies the spacing for and l - applies the spacing for margin-left and padding-left
- applies the spacing for and r - applies the spacing for margin-right and padding-right
- applies the spacing for and s - applies the spacing for margin-left / padding-left (in LTR mode) and margin-right / padding-right (in RTL mode)
- applies the spacing for / (in LTR mode) and / (in RTL mode) e - applies the spacing for margin-right / padding-right (in LTR mode) and margin-left / padding-left (in RTL mode)
- applies the spacing for / (in LTR mode) and / (in RTL mode) x - applies the spacing for both *-left and *-right
- applies the spacing for both and y - applies the spacing for both *-top and *-bottom
- applies the spacing for both and a - applies the spacing for the property in all directions
size is 0 to 16 to set the size from 0 to 64px.
n1 to n16 set the margin to -4px to -64px.
We can use mx-auto to set the margin size automatically:
<template>
<v-container>
<v-row class="text-center">
<v-col cols="12">
<v-card class="mx-auto" color="white" width="200px">
<v-card-text>Centered</v-card-text>
</v-card>
</v-col>
</v-row>
</v-container>
</template> <script>
export default {
name: "HelloWorld", data: () => ({}),
};
</script>
We can change the padding by writing:
<template>
<v-container>
<v-row class="text-center">
<v-card class="pa-md-4 mx-lg-auto" color="white" width="250px">
<v-card-text>text</v-card-text>
</v-card>
</v-row>
</v-container>
</template> <script>
export default {
name: "HelloWorld", data: () => ({}),
};
</script>
We have the pa-md-4 class to change the padding for md breakpoint and up to 16px.
Photo by Unda Tiltina on Unsplash
Conclusion
Vuetify provides us with many classes for changing margins and padding. | https://medium.com/front-end-weekly/vuetify-paddings-and-margins-b93cf338dd39 | ['John Au-Yeung'] | 2020-10-29 14:05:54.203000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Programming', 'Technology', 'Web Development'] |
AWS Lambda — Sending Slack notification | In this article, we are talking about Incoming Webhooks with AWS Lambda. How we can send the slack message from AWS Lambda using Incoming Webhooks.
What is the incoming Webhook?
Incoming Webhooks are a simple way to post messages from apps into Slack. Creating an Incoming Webhook gives you a unique URL to which you send a JSON payload with the message text and some options. You can use all the usual formatting and layout blocks with Incoming Webhooks to make the messages stand out.
Let's move on Slack and start our exercise.
Install Incoming WebHooks plugin into your slack.
Goto App Directory > Search `Incoming WebHooks`.
Click on `Incoming WebHooks`, It will display like belove
Click on `Add to Slack`.
Configure Incoming WebHooks in the specific slack channel.
Add Slack Channel name to get notification
Copy Webhook URL
Enter the Description of your WebHook.
Enter the Name of your WebHook If you want any customize name default it will be ` incoming-webhook `.
`. If you want any custom icon to add that in Customize Icon section.
Click on Save Setting.
Once you setup Incoming WebHooks into any slack channel it will send notification like belove.
Now we successfully add our Incoming WebHooks plugin in the slack channel 🎊 🎉🤖🎊 🎉
Now let's move on AWS console
In the Lambda console, choose to Create function. Choose Author from scratch. Under Basic information, add the following: For Function name, enter a name that identifies it as the function used to Stop your EC2 instances. For example, “StartEC2Instances”. For Runtime, choose Python 3.7 or Node.js 12.x . Under Permissions, expand Choose or create an execution role. Under the Execution role, choose to use an existing role. Under the Existing role, choose the IAM role that you created. Choose to Create a function. Copy this code, and then under Function code, paste it into the editor panel in the code editor (lambda_function).
If you select Python as a runtime environment, you can use this code.
If you select Node.js as a runtime environment, You can use this code.
🎊 🎉🤖🎊 🎉 | https://medium.com/appgambit/aws-lambda-sending-slack-notification-1beccc070bd3 | ['Prashant Bhatasana'] | 2020-04-17 09:50:39.051000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'Lambda', 'Slack', 'Notifications', 'Automation Testing'] |
nothing lasts forever… | Having a day and some space in-between this provocative thought, I have summated a few things about this experience to make that hurtful truth a little bit easier to swallow.
The only thing you can count on is change. Not always when change will hit, but nothing really lasts forever. People will take a monumental comfort in what’s familiar, change is hard! Most people don’t change; they just become more the way they already are, morphing and finding their way through life. People don’t change who they are because someone is telling them to change, or because society dictates that they will need to change due to new life circumstances. Some people only change when they’re ready to adapt to the next phase of where they think their life is going.
It’s about you. You can’t force someone to change. The trick is, to accept the person for who they are. It’s only then that you can determine if the activity or behavior is intolerable for your life. If the answer is yes, find a way out of it. You aren’t responsible for the behavior of others around you, just the way you allow theirs to affect your life.
In the case of Deja, and many of us who are in situations where we can’t speak up nor have advocates to do so, this is harder. Sometimes we’re dealing with a biological connection to someone who was meant to love, nurture and protect us. The feeling of not being enough to change behaviors of self-destruction our loved-ones engage in may carry with us for the rest of our lives.
However hard it may seem for a child to think the act of being in their parents life will be enough to get them to quit smoking/drinking/doing drugs; it’s not that child’s responsibility to change the parent. I couldn’t tell you why my father changed to be clean, upstanding and appear his life was together, but it happened. Change is your responsibility to yourself, not to anyone else. Because of that, you’re not to blame if someone doesn’t change because of you. Likewise, you will never be enough for a person you want to change.
While we may always remain to fantasize that we have enough power to change an individual, that is only something that must come from the person themself. It’s about them, change comes from the individual themself. | https://medium.com/so-what-have-we-learned/nothing-lasts-forever-2bf50e453e6e | ['Michael Robin Manning'] | 2019-11-27 21:39:06.461000+00:00 | ['Childhood', 'Life', 'Trauma', 'Change', 'Relationships'] |
Inside Australian Waste Management | Bret Collins, GLG Council Member and former Chief Operating Officer, Remondis Australia Pty Ltd.
Three trends mark the current state of the Australian waste management industry: growing interest in waste-to-energy, the need to counter commoditization, and new ways of coping with the challenge of food and garden organics.
Waste Management: Waste-to-Energy
Waste-to-energy is prevalent in Western Europe due to the European Community’s ban on organic waste going into landfills and is now becoming more widespread in the United States. Australia has been slower to adopt waste-to-energy processes because landfill remains the dominant form of waste management.
But, due to growing community resistance to landfill and a variety of economic and political factors, that’s changing. With several projects now underway throughout the country, waste-to-energy is deemed virtuous because it offers the ability to generate baseload electricity as well as create business opportunities that can support long-term investment. That second element is important because while 80% of waste material is easily recyclable, something must be done with the remaining 20% for the process to be viable.
In addition, technological advances will make make smaller systems viable — those that can process 50,000 or 60,000 tons of waste instead of 150,000 tons, as has been the norm in the past. Also, the political push to make Australia less dependent on foreign resources is creating opportunities for domestic companies to use recycled material as the raw product in manufacturing. Visy is an extraordinarily good secondary manufacturer of product in Australia and is increasing its activities, as is Orora.
Therefore, waste-to-energy systems will become more viable and will grow in Australia.
Waste Management: Commoditization
There are two key points to emphasize regarding commoditization. One is that the industry has commoditized its commercial and industrial logistics components. Everything now revolves around the per-cubic-meter or a per-liter lift cost. As a consequence, everyone focuses on cost, which has resulted in the rise of brokerage. Fit-for-purpose systems are sometimes ignored.
Twenty years ago, there was no brokerage in Australia’s waste management industry. I was an early promoter of brokerage, which reduced the cost of waste/recyclable collection. But for lower collection costs to make sense within the system as a whole, commodities collected as curbside recyclables must have value downstream. Initially, that was the case with the cardboard, aluminum, steel, copper, and other material coming out of curbside recyclable bins. Reduced prices promoted the exporting of curbside recyclable commodities, which in turn made it more difficult to run secondary manufacturing processes in Australia.
For example, paper and cardboard manufacturing used to occur in every state of Australia except South Australia. Now it is confined to New South Wales and Victoria.
In Australia, waste management probably costs communities about one-third of what communities in Western Europe pay. This value chain creates cleaner and specific products from the waste streams.
This leads to the second point about commoditization. Low-cost collection is a hard habit to break. But if viable recycling is to occur, change must take place. This recognizes that local governments deem recycling as an essential industry and charge more for it. This will provide a more viable domestic recycling business sector.
Waste Management: Food and Garden Organics
Finally, there is the issue of food organics and garden organics, or FOGO, which is quite different in the Southern Hemisphere than in the Northern Hemisphere due to large variances in infrastructure and the vegetation itself. There are very different types of green waste in Australia as you move from temperate areas into subtropical environments. In addition, the climate leads to increased odor issues.
Various attempts at FOGO processing in Australia have met mixed results. But there is now a clearer vision of how to make it work. Tunnel composting — a static biological process using forced aeration — is costly, yet it works and is likely to become standard in Victoria as well as in New South Wales. But once you get to Queensland, odor remains a problem. There’s a long way to go, and many infrastructure changes and cost recalculations to be made, before FOGO not only is community-accepted but also commercially viable.
That same need for infrastructure changes and a rethinking of economics can be said to exist for the waste management industry in Australia as a whole. | https://smarter.glg.it/inside-australian-waste-management-94ce7b216d7f | [] | 2021-07-15 15:21:35.042000+00:00 | ['Waste Management', 'Recycling', 'Australia', 'Apac'] |
What is JavaScript, Why learn Javascript, and best certifications for 2021 | JavaScript is a scripting language famous for FullStack web development and it allows you to make complex functionalities in web modern world web applications. It is the most important building block of standard web technologies.
in Short: JavaScript is the Programming language for the Web.
Why learn Javascript
JavaScript is one of the most popular programming languages based on the popularity and Job Availability in the entire world.
JavaScript is the backbone of the Web Development
whether it comes to frontend or backend development javascript is everywhere.
Other than Web Development javascript is also gaining its reputation in other tech fields
1> Andriod app development
2> Ios App development
3> Developing servers and Api’s
4> Game development
5> Machine Learning and all Data Science Applications.
When it comes to beginners — javascript is easy to learn.
JavaScript language has amazing frameworks built on top of it.
and these frameworks allow you to build complex single-page web applications with much ease. We have React.js, Angular.js, and Vue.js in the Frontend and Next.js, Node.js, Meteor, and many others on the backend side.
For mobile app development, the most popular JavaScript Framework is React Native.
Best courses for JavaScript
Getting Started with javascript is very easy, just open your Browser, Press Ctrl+Shift+J, and start writing code. But getting your logic right and understanding in’s and out’s of this amazing language can be a little difficult.
Here are the best-handpicked courses that you can follow and become a certified javascript developer.
Udemy.com
This modern JavaScript course is for everyone! Master JavaScript with projects, challenges, and theory. Many courses in one!
385,566 students Enrolled with a rating of 4.7 and that’s amazing.
This course has 66.5 hours of on-demand videos with 20 articles 18 downloadable resources which makes the learner js ready.
udemy.com
This is an advanced JavaScript course for everyone! Scope, closures, prototypes, ‘this’, build your own framework, and more.
For this course, you need to have a basic understanding of javascript (variables, loops, and basic functions ).
155,619 students Enrolled with a rating of 4.7.
This course has 11.5 hours of on-demand videos with 7 articles 50 downloadable resources.
JavaScript for Beginners is a Projects based learning course, whiteboard animations, coding in the browser, and quizzes.
This is a completely beginner-friendly course, for which you don't need any prior coding experience.
21,952 students with 4.4 stars rating.
This course has 37 hours of on-demand videos with 60 articles 7 downloadable resources.
freeCodeCamp.com
It's on youtube. This course has 134-parts JavaScript tutorial for beginners, will teach you everything you need to know to get started with the JavaScript programming language.
creator — Beau Carnes
It's a 3.5 hours course that will teach you all the basics of javascript required to be a developer and people just loves this course.
This is the most popularly followed javascript course on youtube with 4,993,636 views and 96k likes. | https://medium.com/coursecollect/what-is-javascript-why-learn-javascript-and-best-certifications-for-2021-35b2f77e44d5 | ['Abhishek Jaiswal'] | 2020-12-27 08:00:44.503000+00:00 | ['Javascript Course', 'Programming Languages', 'JavaScript', 'Javascript Frameworks'] |
Outlier: Host an Unconference-Style Session! | Host an unconference session!
In addition to the speakers and talks we’ve already curated, there will also be the chance to speak, lead, or facilitate unconference-style sessions. (Note: you will need to be an attendee to host a session.)
We acknowledge that some folks who submitted to speak and were not selected may feel disappointed, and we totally understand that. If time and budget allowed, we would have loved to have selected many more. Unconference sessions and lightning talks (information on how to submit a lightning talk here) are an opportunity for more people to get involved and showcase their efforts, and we hope you consider being involved!
The structure of Outlier
From the beginning, we didn’t want to be limited to a typical or standard conference structure. Instead, we wanted to utilize the freedoms that a virtual event provides to create something we felt would best serve our goals of enabling attendees to:
make connections (e.g., new collaborators, new friends, new roles, new clients!)
(e.g., new collaborators, new friends, new roles, new clients!) learn from others (from both curated and unconference sessions),
(from both curated and unconference sessions), and inspire others (by allowing them to share their expertise and experiences via a variety of formats)
There will be two types of sections within this conference: curated and open, with the schedule alternating between the two.
Curated sections will look similar to the standard “conference structure”, with a higher focus on talks, with only one or two talks at once. The open sections will consist of unconference-style sessions, will have several tracks running concurrently, and will be fleshed out based on the interests and preferences of the attendees.
Alternating between curated and open sections. This is an approximation to get the idea across; the agenda will have some variations.
Let’s dig into this a bit more, shall we!? :D
Curated sections
We had an open call for speakers in October and November of 2020. From our applicants, we curated a lineup of speakers, with a focus on including a diverse range of topics, speakers, and perspectives. (Read more about the process in this Nightingale article.)
To complement these longer talks, we are also including Lighting Talk sessions that are a group of smaller talks from our attendees on a variety of topics, picked by the attendees themselves. Note: We’re still collecting submissions for Lightning Talks. Send us your videos! :D
Open sections
The open portion will allow all attendees to create their own session. These sessions can be about almost anything. They could include talks, discussions, panels, games, or an AMA (Ask Me Anything). Most will probably be dataviz-related, but some might not! Nevertheless, they’ll all connect people from the dataviz space who have similar interests.
These sessions will be shaped by participants, giving everyone a chance to have a voice, and creating a specially-curated experience made by and for those in attendance. (Plus, we think it will be a LOT of fun!)
All attendees will have opportunities to create and/or facilitate these unconference-style sessions.
Creating a session
Signing up
These sessions are made for attendees by attendees; therefore, you will need to be an attendee to be involved. We’ll be sharing details with attendees on how to sign up in the week leading up to the event.
Although you can’t sign up yet, you can start thinking about sessions you might want to plan. :D
What type of sessions can I create?
For the most part, whatever you like! We have created the following categories to help you to clearly label your session, and to signal to other attendees what they can expect if they join. Some sample categories might be:
Talk
Panel
Discussion
Q&A / AMA (Ask Me Anything)
Hands On (e.g., workshop, hackathon, sketching contest)
Fun / Misc (e.g., games, music, etc.)
Let us know if we’re missing any!
Working together
We encourage people to collaborate and work together. Is someone else already planning to host a discussion you’re also super keen to lead? Reach out to them! Perhaps they’ll want to join forces. :D
What’s expected of me if I create a session?
Unlike a more traditional conference session, unconference sessions have less of a clear distinction between prepared speakers and audiences. Even if you present a talk, we hope you choose to leave room for discussion and questions, either along the way or following. Everybody is encouraged to participate and contribute something interesting, whether through leading a session or contributing insights to various sessions.
What should I choose for a session topic?
This is totally up to you (as long as it does not violate the Code of Conduct, of course), so we’d suggest whatever you’re excited about! We imagine a lot of the sessions will be focused around data visualization topics. However, we also encourage people to plan sessions around topics that are only minorly tangential to data visualization, as well as topics that have NOTHING to do with data visualization. We believe that two people connecting over non-dataviz topics (e.g., animal welfare, hiking, etc.) or non-dataviz activities (e.g. ,yoga, games, etc.) is also a really great thing and we want to encourage that. :)
Some examples of potential sessions are:
Start an interesting debate or discussion about deep issues (e.g., a discussion around the data visualization of issues such as COVID-19 or election polling)
Organize or suggest a panel on a popular topic
Lead a workshop on your favorite tool
Host an AMA; share your expertise!
Host a game, lead a yoga session, or some other fun activity
Give an informal talk on something you’re excited about
Share your obscure hobby!
Tell us about a niche area of dataviz you’ve fallen into
Share a live-coding session
Whatever else you can think of!
So I want to facilitate a discussion — what does that mean?
As a facilitator, you are creating a space for everyone present to share and examine thoughts and ideas together. As a facilitator of a discussion, it’s important to remember that this is not just a platform for your own voice and ideas (as great as they may be); it is also a place for others to lend their voice. We ask all discussion leaders / facilitators to be mindful of others in the space and be careful not to take over the conversation.
Do I need slides?
Nope! Unconf sessions tend to be a bit more off-the-cuff. But, if you have slides you want to share, feel free to bring them along.
Can I give a demo of our product?
Unless you have secured a clearly-marked sponsorship session through the events director as part of a sponsorship package, we do not allow product pitches. See more on this here.
Rules of engagement
We have some rules of engagement that apply to all aspects of Outlier. You can read about it in full here. See also the Data Visualization Society Code of Conduct.
Join us!
We encourage you to start planning your sessions! We’ll be sending details to attendees on how to sign up soon. If you don’t have your tickets yet, you can snag them here! | https://medium.com/nightingale/outlier-host-an-unconference-style-session-b03e3ab96c8d | ['Mollie Pettit'] | 2021-01-11 20:03:59.214000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Outlierconference', 'Conference', 'Dataviz', 'Community'] |
“Seven O’Clock” from Gigaton— Why its Pearl Jam’s Best Song Since the Vitalogy Era | I wanted to share my thoughts on something I’ve been non-stop thinking about since I heard Pearl Jam’s new album Gigaton. Specifically, the absolute triumph of the song “Seven O’Clock”! It might just be the best song the band has written since the Vitalogy era (i.e., 1994). Full disclosure, I’ve been a fan for almost as long as Pearl Jam has been together. I know my Ten Club fan club number by heart. Lastly, I’ve been to over 25 shows and can probably recite and sing the lyrics to all Pearl Jam songs including rarities, b-sides and even covers.
Before I go over “Seven O’Clock”, let me briefly address Gigaton as an album. If you don’t recognize it yet, you will; I believe we’ve been given an absolute gift in Gigaton, particularly in what is likely the biggest challenge of our times with the current Coronavirus Pandemic. As Americans social distance and stay in our respective homes to mitigate the spread of the novel virus, I can’t help but think about the poetic coincidence; Gigaton is so eerily relevant not just to contemporaneous events (i.e., politics, Trump “presidency,” climate change and etc) but this exact moment dealing with this devastating pandemic. Dare I say how clairvoyant Eddie Vedder is when he stated “we are stuck in our boxes, windows open no more” in “Dance of the Clairvoyants”. How can he have known and write something so prescient? Needless to say, these are crazy challenging times — might be the biggest in our lifetime. How do I cope? While I recognize that this might be strange to some people, Gigaton has been my lifeline. Personally, its a warm blanket on a very cold night. Its mom’s chicken noodle soup while I lie in bed sick (fyi, i’m not for the paranoid folks out there).
While the album has a ton of amazing songs, the main centerpiece of Gigaton is arguably “Seven O’Clock”. Recent articles have pointed to Gigaton’s sequencing as mostly Eddie Vedder’s work. In fact, he’s probably mostly responsible for this since Vitalogy came out. Eddie’s sequencing of the songs in this particular album was deliberate and he put “Seven O’Clock” smack in the middle for a reason — he really wants you to listen to it. As a comparison, think about songs like “Jeremy”, “Rearviewmirror”, “Corduroy” and “Amongst the Waves”. All 4 songs were placed in their respective album’s middle section. This is significant for a reason because the songs are the torchbearers for their album’s respective central theme. I believe the same goes for “Seven O’Clock”.
Why is “Seven O’Clock” the best song Pearl Jam has written since the Vitalogy days? I look at this in 3 different lenses / categories: thematic relevance, music quality & finally, cultural significance / longevity. It simply triumphs in all 3 categories in a way that hasn’t happened since a particular song in Vitalogy — that song is “Corduroy,” which happens to be my favorite song of all time (well either #1 of #2). For critics out there, I’m definitely not saying Pearl Jam hasn’t written any good songs since “Corduroy”. Some of my favorite songs include “Present Tense”, “In Hiding”, “I Got Id”, “In My Tree”, “Light Years”, “Sirens” and etc. My point is that in “Seven O’Clock”, Pearl Jam hasn‘t been this direct and convincing in writing a truly epic song that exceeds in all 3 categories I outlined.
With regards to thematic relevance, there’s no question as to the relevance of both Gigaton as a album and “Seven O’Clock” as a song. Make no mistake, this song is a “call to arms” to get shit done in the face of pending disaster in the current environment — politically (i.e., “sitting bullshit as our sitting President…as a tragedy of errors”), environmentally (i.e., “waves rising with the oceans”) and socially (too many to quote here). Why? First off, why is the song even called “Seven O’Clock”? Why is that significant? It’s mentioned in the first line of the first verse, specifically “7am”. I think it’s because 7am is the prime time to start your day and get going. As Eddie says “this is no time for depression or self indulgent hesitance”. With this, he’s basically saying it’s 7am so pull yourself together, get the fuck up and get shit done! There’s way too much at stake and “all hands on deck” is required to “fix this fucked up situation” (Covid-19 anyone???). Lastly, to hammer the urgency, at the end of the song Eddie sings there is “much to be done” repeatedly, as if to keep hammering the point home. Clearly, he doesn’t want to be misunderstood. He’s urging us to act now because there is “much to be done” and too much at stake!
Musically, “Seven O’Clock” is as ambitious a song as Pearl Jam has ever attempted. The song perfectly complements the lyrics and thematic elements of the song and album. While Pearl Jam has written plenty of songs with memorable melodies since Vitalogy, this one is absolutely infectious and special even in its seeming simplicity. It is majestic and you will start humming all the parts — verse, chorus and outro (trust me). Further, there is a symphonic quality to the instrumentation — you hear all sorts of instruments like synths, strings and etc. It’s musically layered in certain parts of the song in a way that we’ve never heard Pearl Jam ever attempt in such a grand scale. Vocally, it is also layered in certain parts just like another Gigaton standout, “Dance of the Clairvoyants”. If I had one criticism, I wished Eddie didn’t stuff as many words in the main verses. But its completely forgivable. Further, the song isn’t actually as simple and straightforward as I might have suggested. The intro to the song is particularly interesting; if you listen to it before the first verse, its almost as if it’s a different song entirely. But somehow when it transitions to the verse, it somehow makes sense. At the finale, “Seven O’Clock” absolutely morphs and changes into something unexpected yet magical starting at the 4:18 mark — the outro section which is the song’s final two minutes. Needless to say, this isn’t your traditional Pearl Jam outro. In fact, I don’t think there’s a song in their catalog that completely changed in a manner this has. The chord progression in the outro is completely different as if to suggest an almost a different song entirely. Finally, the song lifts into a cathartic climax as if Eddie is suggesting that the main chorus, while memorable, wasn’t enough to communicate his point across. Again, I think this is highly deliberate. Eddie and the band really wants us to listen to them, even to the point where they completely change the song to get our attention. It’s absolutely hair raising, grand and brilliant! Sounds simply majestic, optimistic and hopeful, particularly when the song ends in that A-major chord.
While “Seven O’Clock” is contextually relevant now in the time of the Covid-19 crisis, will it be relevant later? Does it have legs to stand the test of time, thematically and musically? I’m convinced it does! Just think about how relevant it is given the current Coronavirus crisis. Unless he’s a clairvoyant, Eddie certainly could not have known about the current crisis, yet “Seven O’Clock” sounds even more relevant. I think this is because the theme explored isn’t just limited to the current political and environmental climate. The song is an overall “call to arms” or “call to action”. Once in a while we all need a little push. Bluntly, right now we need to be kicked in the butt to take action. Consider me kicked! I’m certainly inspired and ready. It’s 7 O’Clock in the morning. Are you ready? There is much to be done! Much to be done! | https://medium.com/@rockandromeo/seven-oclock-why-its-pearl-jam-s-best-song-since-vitalogy-acfc85600f03 | [] | 2020-05-03 03:58:12.007000+00:00 | ['Call To Action', 'Pearl Jam', 'Gigaton', 'New Music', 'Rock'] |
Simple Exploratory Data Analysis: Real Estate Listings based on Seattle’s Neighborhood Characteristics (Airbnb data) | Data Source and Context
We can get the dataset provided by Airbnb from this Kaggle link. The dataset consists of 3 tables (listings, calendar, and reviews).
Data description
‘listings’ table consists of detailed information of each listing (e.g. listing id, url, posted time, listing description, neighborhood description, normal price, location coordinate, etc)
‘calendar’ table. The availability of each listing in particular date and the price within that day
Overview:
Airbnb is an online marketplace which provides homestay or tourism services. It acts as a broker/aggregator from hosts and receives commissions from every booking made. Seattle is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States with 730,000 residents as of 2018.
In this article, let’s focus on the ‘vibe of each Seattle neighborhood’.
Seattle (source: wallpaperaccess)
Findings
Capitol Hill is the neighborhood with the highest availability of property listed in Airbnb. Its listing is even 65% higher than that of Ballard, the neighborhood with the second highest no of listing.
Capitol Hill, Belltown, and First Hill’s listings are dominated by apartment while most of Ballard, Minor, and Wallingford’s listings are house. Queen Anne consists of a more balanced mix between house and apartment.
Three main neighborhoods which have the highest price of listings and concentrated in a relatively close area are Pike Place Market, Belltown, and Central Business District.
My Tableau, unfortunately, wasn’t able to connect and overlap the plot to the real map :( So let’s just display the snapshot from Gmaps side by side instead :)
There is ‘Neighborhood Overview’ column in ‘listings’ table in which we can get the overview given by the lister/property owner about the neighborhood.
neighborhood overview column example
Using Neighborhood Overview data, the three neighborhoods share more or less the same keywords: ‘Center’, ‘Market’, ’Downtown’, ‘Tourist’, Museum’, ‘Space’, ‘Museum’, ‘Walk’. It is then clear that Pike Place Market, Central Business District, and Belltown are the most popular area in Seattle as they are located in the heart of Seattle, the center of market/trade, and close to tourism attractions. Thus the property rent price is higher in this area.
By calculating the price difference/distance ratio, there are some neighborhoods which provide cheaper listing price but are near to the city center. First Hill, Capitol Hill, and Eastlake are the top neighborhoods with the highest price diff/distance ratio thus making them the recommended neighborhoods for rent in Seattle.
The busiest time to visit those neighborhoods are between May — Aug during the year and year-end and start are the most vacant time.
Price doesn’t fluctuate as much as the availability. However, since the busiest time is in the Mid-year, the highest price is also in the range of June-Aug.
Key Takeaways
Capitol Hill has the highest number of listing followed by Ballard and Belltown. Capitol Hill, Beltown, and First Hill are dominated by apartment while Ballard, Minor, and Wallingford are dominated by House
2. Three main neighborhoods which have the highest price of listings and concentrated in a relatively close area are Pike Place Market, Belltown, and Central Business District
3. Pike Place Market, Central Business District, and Belltown are the most popular area in Seattle as they are located in the heart of Seattle, the center of market/trade, and close to tourism attractions. Thus the property rent price is higher in this area
4. First Hill, Capitol Hill, and Eastlake are the top neighborhoods to be recommended as they provide cheaper listing price but are also near to the city central
5. The busiest time to rent properties in the recommended areas are between May — Aug during the year and year-end and start are the most vacant time
6. Price doesn’t fluctuate as much as the availability. However, since the busiest time is in the Mid-year, the highest price is also in the range of June-Aug
Appendix
Tools :
1.SQL and Excel for data query and processing
2.Tableau and Thinkcell for visualization
3.wordclouds.com for making word clouds | https://towardsdatascience.com/simple-exploratory-data-analysis-real-estate-listings-based-on-seattles-neighborhood-67a51c515506 | ['Muhammad Lutfi Hernandi'] | 2019-06-18 04:30:20.855000+00:00 | ['Tableau', 'Airbnb', 'Analytics', 'Data Visualization', 'Data Science'] |
The challenges of using real-time epidemiological data in a public health crisis | (Pew Research Center illustration)
Pew Research Center has been documenting shifts in U.S. public opinion during the COVID-19 outbreak using our American Trends Panel, a randomly selected group of adults who take our surveys online. But a number of important questions can’t be answered by survey data alone. For instance: How is someone’s proximity to COVID-19 cases or deaths related to their perceptions of the crisis and the government’s response? Answering this question requires external data about the progression of the outbreak in survey respondents’ area at the time they took a particular survey.
A number of entities have been providing timely, well-organized data on the state of the coronavirus outbreak. But that raised a different question: How could we decide which source to use, especially since all use slightly different methods and report different types of data?
This post will walk through some of the differences in the data available from three widely used sources of information related to the geographic progression of the coronavirus outbreak:
The Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering (JHU) tracks confirmed COVID-19 cases, deaths and recoveries on a daily basis at the county level in the United States, and at the province level in select countries globally.
The New York Times (NYT) provides data on deaths and confirmed cases on a daily basis at the U.S. county level.
The COVID Tracking Project provides data on tests, hospitalizations, deaths, recoveries and confirmed cases collected daily at the U.S. state level. It also offers data on intensive care unit admissions and ventilator usage.
Note that each of these sources is constantly evolving. The descriptions above are accurate as of the time of this analysis but may change in the future. Also note that we’ll be using the R statistical software program to walk through our analysis of the three sources in greater detail.
Analysis
To work with these datasets, we first had to download them from their respective online repositories and conduct some basic data processing to get the data in a consistent and usable condition. Here’s some example code we used with the Johns Hopkins data:
After performing a similar process for the other two data sources, we compared the results to see how well all three agreed with each other. Ideally, each of these sources would paint a similar picture — especially at the state or county level, since we wanted to see how local conditions might affect public opinion. But when we dug into the underlying numbers, we got a glimpse of some of the challenges of working with multiple sources of independently collected real-time data.
Using the Johns Hopkins dataset as our example, here’s the code we used to calculate cumulative nationwide COVID-19 case counts on a daily basis:
At the national level, all three sources told a similar story about the progression of the outbreak. The chart below shows total national-level reported case counts (displayed using a log scale) from each source, collected roughly in real time. As the outbreak progressed, the reported case count figures from each source began to diverge by as much as several thousand cases on any given day. But in the context of a pandemic with more than a half-million reported cases nationwide by early April, these differences were minimal as a share of overall cases:
Of course, national-level data isn’t especially useful if we’re trying to see how public opinion varies based on local conditions. So let’s see how these three sources compare when evaluating data at the state level instead. (Since only two of our three sources reported data at the county level, we decided to compare their state-level estimates.)
For the Johns Hopkins data, here’s how we aggregated the case counts from the county level up to the state level:
The charts below show the absolute difference in reported case counts in three states hit especially hard by the coronavirus: New York, California and Louisiana.
Several trends are apparent from these charts. First, our three sources consistently provided different numbers of case counts in California and New York, but apart from one brief blip, they showed virtually no divergence in Louisiana. Second, the sources that matched each other most closely were not always consistent across states. The Johns Hopkins and New York Times datasets matched each other relatively closely in California but diverged quite a bit in New York.
The chart below offers a more systematic view of this trend. It shows the proportional difference in daily reported case counts from the New York Times and COVID Tracking datasets at the state level relative to the Johns Hopkins dataset, starting in the first full week after all states had reported positive cases:
Two takeaways are clear from this analysis. First, when differences in case counts are observed, the New York Times dataset tends to report estimates for cases and deaths that are higher than those from the other two sources. The COVID Tracking dataset, on the other hand, tends to report numbers that are lower than the other two. Second, these datasets began to converge in the first two weeks of April, even if they still differed in their totals by several thousand cases. In the earlier weeks of the outbreak, these sources consistently differed around 20% to 40%. By April, these differences narrowed to 10% to 20%.
It wasn’t always easy to understand why we might be seeing these differences, but a few possibilities seemed likely after investigating the data and the different sources and methods being used:
Differences in counting methodology . These sources may define a COVID-19 cases differently. For instance, the JHU dataset counts presumptive cases as positive, while the COVID Tracking project focuses on counting positive cases as a subset of reported tests. At least partially as a result of these decisions, some datasets seem to consistently over- or undercount relative to others.
. These sources may define a COVID-19 cases differently. For instance, the JHU dataset counts presumptive cases as positive, while the COVID Tracking project focuses on counting positive cases as a subset of reported tests. At least partially as a result of these decisions, some datasets seem to consistently over- or undercount relative to others. Idiosyncratic sources of infection . Particularly in the early stages of the outbreak, cruise ships were a prominent source of COVID-19 infections. Some datasets (such as the JHU data) treat cases on cruise ships as their own entry not assigned to a particular state. Others, including The New York Times, assign those cases to the counties where the cruise ships first docked.
. Particularly in the early stages of the outbreak, cruise ships were a prominent source of COVID-19 infections. Some datasets (such as the JHU data) treat cases on cruise ships as their own entry not assigned to a particular state. Others, including The New York Times, assign those cases to the counties where the cruise ships first docked. Tracking delays and real-time errors . Our analysis indicated that case count differences often increased during the early part of the week and then declined through the weekend, before repeating the same cycle the following week. This might point toward recalibration efforts by the different sources over the course of the week.
. Our analysis indicated that case count differences often increased during the early part of the week and then declined through the weekend, before repeating the same cycle the following week. This might point toward recalibration efforts by the different sources over the course of the week. Changes in reporting structure . These sources are continuously adjusting their reporting structure to reflect the rapid developments on the ground. For instance, the JHU dataset alternated between reporting state-level and county-level data for a period of time before settling on its current level of granularity at the county level.
. These sources are continuously adjusting their reporting structure to reflect the rapid developments on the ground. For instance, the JHU dataset alternated between reporting state-level and county-level data for a period of time before settling on its current level of granularity at the county level. Retroactive fixes. Some of these data sources — most prominently the COVID Tracking collection — regularly recalibrate their historical data to match with official reports. One notable feature of some of this data collection effort is that changes are documented. As a result, researchers relying on real-time data and researchers working on retroactive data might get different results in a particular area on a particular day.
Conclusion
So which source did we wind up using in our own reporting? Our first analysis was based on a survey conducted March 10 to 16, relatively early in the outbreak. At that point, all three data sources reported comparable numbers of cases, and case counts nationwide were relatively low. For that study, we used state-level data from the COVID Tracking Project and grouped states into three broad “bins,” based on the number of reported cases.
Our second analysis was based on a survey conducted April 7 to 12. At that point, overall cases were much more prevalent. In order to capture respondents living in hard-hit areas, we decided to use death counts from the virus at the county level using the JHU dataset, and to again “bin” these counties into three broad groupings.
As we continue to track the geographic spread of the outbreak and its impact on public opinion, our choice of external data source will depend on the exact research question we’re striving to answer, as well as the level of geographic specificity needed to analyze our results. The wealth of near-real-time data on the outbreak has certainly been a boon to researchers, but figuring out the right tool for the task at hand is often not a simple one.
This post was written by Regina Widjaya and Aaron Smith of Pew Research Center. Regina Widjaya is a computational social scientist with the Data Labs team. Aaron Smith is director of Data Labs. | https://medium.com/pew-research-center-decoded/the-challenges-of-using-real-time-epidemiological-data-in-a-public-health-crisis-c7a6c2e9c950 | ['Regina Widjaya'] | 2020-05-01 20:04:02.106000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Public Health', 'Coronavirus', 'Data', 'Data Science'] |
Pillars of Destruction #2: Democracy | Do you really live in a democracy when protestors think their actions don’t matter at all?
Pillars of Destruction #2: Democracy
Why this Barbaric Outdated System Needs to be Renewed, Fast!
“How bad is it, doctor?” My reaction: “This patient is a goner, but we may save the children.”
Time for ideas that haven’t been tried yet! cc by Democracy Chronicles
Democracy. Criticize it and people say, “What do you want? It’s has it’s flaws, but it’s the best we have.” Is it? Is this the best we can do? I pose that we seriously need to consider: What comes after democracy? What’s next?
Introduction
I fear most of us, will need, at the least, another 200 years before they can look back at this, by then historic, system and know how truly barbaric it was; how seriously flawed. Many western democracies currently have been highjacked by corporate players and their money or threatened by populists who play easy emotions rather than discuss deeper real world issues, like the ongoing collapse of our eco systems, climate change, growing poverty and ‘Trumpian leaders’ not helping with any of those.
If you won’t read all of it, just check how many weaknesses there are, and know, there are people who consciously (seek to) exploit them all.
Then we have a fun game called ‘Sick Democracy’ to play at home with friends. Warning: You may lose some friends because of it.
Then we’ll propose some alternative paths, concrete step and fun ideas towards creating something better.
“When a Politician uses a Spin Doctor, he says to you, the voter: “I will manipulate the truth to get you to vote for me.” In short, I don’t really serve you nor truth.”
12 Fundamental Flaws of Democracy (+4 new ones)
Our current form of democracy blinds voters, corrupts candidates and is in general a barbaric and flawed ideology that even hurts the countries it is supposed to uplift. I divided these then into the three main bloody arguments against main stream democracy! And that’s even before adding the latest misuses brought by modern times.
I. Democracy is a Barbaric Concept!
#1 Democracy is ritual warfare.
Yes. It’s a ritual. Basically it’s generals meeting on the battlefield. They debate to seem bigger, better, stronger than the others, with better promises. Then the soldiers take sides. The general who gets the biggest army behind him wins the day. And this ritual battle is repeated every 2, 4 or 6 years. And when you consider it a battle, playing dirty becomes okay and a danger for demoracy itself.
Why do we assume the winner of a ritual battle, who can best others in a debate, or is best at making other candidates look worse, is someone who can include all ‘losers’ and unite the whole to progress as a collective?
#2 The ones that decide who and what you vote for set the standard.
We all remember the American, best of two evils, choice between either Hillary or Trump. But even in the primaries most candidates were more of the same, except perhaps Bernie Sanders, who was cheated and people like Jill Stein, who got ignored. The power to select* what candidates you can choose from is damaging any real choice. Edit: news about such corruption unveiled. These people also set the rules. Like if you don’t get a day, let alone an hour off work to go and vote, making it so that many poor in the USA can’t vote. This gives the upper classes unfair advantage, in a country where everyone was born… equal?
*) There’s even a historic book that claims to show how the old elite stayed in power in the time that most kingdoms turned into democratic republics.
Note: choosing the best of two evils even adds perils of its own. (edit 2018)
Why do we accept that voting for a pre-selected few is a real choice? Do we have enough clarity on who pre-selects or sponsors the candidates with what motives? What if we want to select awesome people who are not on the list? How do we get everyone get a fair (chance to) vote?
#3 Debate and ideology kill possible solutions.
Democracy loves debates. I call debates a solution killer. In debate there must be a winner and the other side has to be fought against. The bias (read ideology) of a party blinds it to real solutions their ideology doesn’t embrace. The proof that the ‘trickle down’ ideology doesn’t work is very clear, yet ideology and (financial) interests too often forbid accepting reality checks. We even strive for getting a great ‘deal’ before allowing the other side to implement a watered down version of their solution. #sad.
What if we allowed for way more dialogue, in which shared visions can arise? What if we allowed our leaders to slowly design real world solutions based upon real world wisdom and realities, beyond bias and ideology?
#4 Voting fallacy & rules.
People tend to vote for parties and or candidates that have a better chance to be elected, not for the one they’d really want. They fear their vote is lost when they spend it on a less popular personal choice. And there are countries with counting systems where this is more or less that case. So a huge portion of voters already compromise when they vote. And this gives large parties in power a huge, at times even unfair, advantage over newcomers. People must be deeply fed up, before newcomers can really challenge the establishment.
What if voting without compromise was promoted or celebrated? What if people really wondered why they water the wine, before they vote? Does it make the establishment more lazy and corrupt, when challenging them is harder? What if you voted for issues not politicians?
II. It Leads to Corrupt(ed) Candidates
#5 People who want to be elected, are not the best candidates*.
Some people really want to make a difference. But the idea that ‘you having power is the best solution’ is not a good idea. Most politicians also have huge ego’s, psychopathic tendencies, long for power, long for attention and glory. They see it as a contest, a business or a step supporting their personal interests. Somehow such people often lose sight of the real needs of the average people. If when the start with noble intentions, often keeping their position becomes more important to them, then staying true.
*) In Ancient Greece, you were selected to lead through a lottery! Indeed. All voters where also candidate for important positions. Thus mostly a commoner, one of the 99% we’d say nowadays, would win. Thus self serving members of a small elite had way less means to use offices of power to strengthen their position. And commoners would seek to build personal ‘gravitas’ just in case they ever where selected.
Might it be, the right one to select is somebody who is very conscious of the damage he or she might inflict through wrong choices? Somebody who rather tries to be wise than appear to be ‘a strong leader’ who promises to be ‘the answer’; somebody who prefers consideration before blaring rally cries. And why don’t we prepare our children with gravitas? How come preparing children to work for a company seems enough ‘life’ preparation?
#6 The Plague of Career Politicians
We like to have leaders who know what we are doing, but occupying a government seat for too long changes them. Power corrupts. Too many intimate relationships with main lobbyists, main business leaders infects their understanding of reality. And this often leads to a worrying disconnect with the actual reality of voters. Many people don’t understand the careful framed non-committal language career politicians excel at. And on top of that, too often, they end up putting more energy into holding on to a position then in really serving the people. And we the people, trust their experience and studied smile and vote for them as long as they don’t rip us off too badly.
Could we have yearly tests to fact check how in touch politicians really are? Could we bring them in general way more in touch with normal people and way less in touch with trained lobbies? If a politician doesn’t dare to mingle with common folk, we must assume he’s not working for, let alone listening to them.
#7 Shopping list voting corrupts candidates.
Too many candidates lose track of the needs for the whole system. When candidates play to what gets them more votes, the people forget what’s most healthy for the whole. We think it is normal when certain candidates seem to please big chunks of the population to gather a majority behind them. Yet in the pleasing they avoid addressing real issues, for fear of losing votes. No wonder issues like climate change and the efforts we should put into it are lower on the list than tax reduction. Even worse, they start to play our emotions (“Fear Illegal Immigrants!”) or bribing us with tax reduction promises, to mold you into thinking they are your best answer.
Why do candidates totally focus on our fears and longings? Whether they choose to play us emotionally, or mold themselves to please us, ‘being real about real issues’ (even when they use such phrases) gets thrown under the bus. How can we all make long term fundamental issues go over shallow anxieties?
This stands as much today as in the time of slavery. cc by DonkeyHotey
#8 Risk of Winner takes All.
From Mussolini forward we have seen dictators rise through democratic means. Often in countries new to ‘democracy’ we often see a winner takes all culture arise. Power seeking winners often change the rules once they’ve taken the seat. In most recent years we all saw Putin, Erdogan and many others expand their powers. Moreover many also intimidated opponents, sidetracked them, had critics imprisoned, tortured or disappear. Democracy isn’t asshole proof.
What system can protect itself against men using the rules against the system itself? What system can help people to protect them against their urge to vote a ‘strong leader’ in, when the pressure is high?
(2019 edit) And then money in politics is a whole evil on its own, especially in the USA. It makes evil legal. And Socrates arguments too, which leads to voter fallacies.
III. Democracy thrives on Voter Fallacies
#9 Democracy is a poor man’s religion.
Every 2,4,6 years you may pray to some flawed ‘Gods’ (mostly men as capricious as the Greek Gods, far removed from anything really divine). These Gods all claim to hear your prayers and promise that if you vote for them, your prayers will be answered. Well, it’s the easiest praying in the world, just color a box or press a button. And mostly after praying you go home and complain when your flawed God doesn’t deliver. Meanwhile you forget you are as much a God as the one you voted for, and have all the same powers. Yet, as long as you hope your prayers might be answered, you don’t act yourself.
Why do we select a few, in the hope they will deliver, what we could help make happen ourselves? Why don’t we open our eyes to the fact that voting is like praying with hopes someone else will grant our wishes? How can we stay involved after voting, and act ourselves, when the government fails us, or candidates turn out to mostly have made false promises? How can we take more control over our own lives? For now implementing direct democracy in some neighborhoods over budgetting seems like a hopefull experiment.
#10 People confuse power and status with trustworthiness.
To assume that men who are great at taking care of themselves will also take care of you, when they promise so, is a stupid & dangerous misconception. Our biology or social conditioning admires success and power and voting for men having lots of it is a dangerous trap. In reality such men, like Berlusconi and Trump, mostly use their victory to take even better care of themselves.
Why do we even consider self serving leaders as a promising choice? We all know people who give a lot, who support others too much and forget themselves a bit. Might it be such people would actually also be better for the people as a whole? Might it be we should be able to forward candidates as the people and not let parties do that for us?
#11 Voting according assumed self interest isn’t in your best interest.
During campaigning people compare parties to how much of their personal shopping list might be granted by them. Yet voting for lower taxes or for somebody pleasing your part of the population, might not be what you really need. Currently both false and true promises ignore the decaying of our eco-systems, let alone building stronger bigger dykes just in case of bigger storms. Our bodies rather react to a clear and present danger than to a seemingly abstract threat. And unscrupulous politicians play those triggers rather than help you face reality.
How do you know that the people warning you of a danger they’ll protect you for aren’t the danger? How do you know your self interest is best served by those whose promises come closest to your wishes? Why do we keep on voting for our shopping list? Why do we forget the health of the whole system as soon as someone promises to grant you some personal wishes?
#12 Democracy is a restrictive box.
With pre-selected candidates playing to your emotions, showing of their strength, neglecting issues that might harm their number of votes; with candidates debating but never really listening, never accepting great points of other parties, avoiding essential issues if they cost votes, democracy is an outdated model. Yet the whole establishment running the shows protects it, as if it’s the foundation of civilization not to be discussed. And this lack of real innovation and discussion, with so many points easy to list, as I do here, is killing the ideal of democracy.
Where public investigation testing the quality of (y)our current democracy? Who wonders loud enough who dares to question the fairness and quality of their own form of government? And what would help open te box to better and more ideas for a better form of government, at the least democracy 2.0. How to make people wonder beyond the restrictive fallacy of “It’s the best we have.”?
This protest attacks democracy! An attack both made by these protestors and by those who use this image to make you fear all of Islam. The dominant sign in front might have been photoshopped. cc by Dying Regime
#edit: more bad news: Noam Chomsky adds the damage Neo-liberalism does to democracy. And here he explains how the whole frame about it, has been manipulated from the start. Also saying: think for yourself as a autonomous authentic human being, think outside the box, matrix if you like. No wonder all debates within the box ‘democracy is good’ somehow never are fulfilling. Here a clear TEDx talk by Larry Lessig, making it very clear too.
IV. Four more Modern Abuses
#13 Globalization
With global corporations having spending power bigger than many countries, new problems arise. Many countries seem (forced?) to give advantages to global corporations over local enterprise. Starbucks doesn’t pay taxes in the Netherlands, while it doesn’t offer more, let alone better paid jobs, than local joints, in the same locations they now occupy, might have. While their use of private prison workers, or Monsanto GMO coffee’s don’t really sound attractive to give them even such an advantage. So what happened behind closed doors? What more decisions do governments take that don’t show up in the public eye, because they have unethical aspects. These big corporations with better access to government officials have such an advantage when to use all the weaknesses above and below to their own benefits. Because profits way too often outmatch ethics.
How essential is a thriving economy, and bending over to corporate interests, compared to real freedom, local entrepreneurship and access of normal people to their government? How to regulate misuse of corporate power? What fallacies makes us believe we shouldn’t disrupt their businesses? And what would really happen if we did?
#14 Modern marketing/propaganda
Parties want to win, thus they hire marketeers to sell their message. Marketing makes them seem less interested in what you want, as in selling you what they want. “Give us the power and we’ll give you…” And even when they listen, or shape their program points based upon an public inquiry, the intention becomes: what will help us get more power in government, not in really caring. Learn this, when a politician has a spin-doctor, he’s actually saying: “I am willing to mold my words and reframe reality any which way to win your vote.” And all too soon smart framing can become lies and no one know what to believe anymore (see video;) ) When the truth is manipulated, more and more people will take decisions based on false information, which, then when real issues appear, like environmental break down, or massive increase in cancer due to our industries (which no one likes to talk about) they can’t be solved, because the truth, let alone alternatives view points, aren’t available (enough). :(
Both hilarious and shocking example of(the lack of) ‘Free Speech’ of the news in America, warning against Fake News. The pro-Trump Sinclair Media Group is pushing these kind of messages onto all their stations.
Informing the public with what they need to know, or what certain parties are all about is essential. Yet how can we reduce the power of players manipulating what you hear, reducing air times of opponents, and playing potential voters on subconscious levels in order to win, quite possibly at your cost? And why don’t we all see that professionals selling parties and politicians corrupt the playing field in order to get results?
Money in Politics. cc by DonkeyHotey
#15 Corruption
As we saw with career politicians, being too approachable to upper class lobbyists, often former colleagues makes them open for bribes. Such financial bribes are forbidden in many countries. In such cases things like sweet functions in big corporations are offered as a follow up for after their political careers. Which offers these corporations even more easy access due to these political experts, who no doubt have also many friends left in politics. Often enough, also opportunists sliding their way into upcoming parties, with too few legitimate qualified candidates, have a habit to see a political role as a means to personal profiteering. And that’s not even mentioning legalized bribing as is custom in the USA.
Where to begin with this? Can we get money out of politics? Can we make consequences for lying politicians much higher, let alone scrutiny much fiercer when corruption seems to be at hand? How to keep the system protected against people out to misuse, corrupt either the system and or people within it?
Outsider Influence cc by Pedro Ribeiro Simões
#16 Rigging
Many countries have trouble to keep really honest elections. Votes may get lost, certain voters banned (blacklisting, closing polling stations), we know the drill. You can forbid exit polls thus hide irregularities. The USA adds Gerrymandering and superdelegates as tricks on top of that, let alone meddling in own or other countries, with modern technology. Not even mentioning all other aspects making it hard for the poor to go out and vote. Tech, from photoshopping to big data abuse, seems to have made meddling way easier. It started with electric voting machines that can’t be controlled. Now we find marketing that is pure manipulation, using peoples private information on facebook to influence them in subtle and not so subtle ways. Cambridge Analytica is just the first, or the first that got caught in the act.
How to prevent all democracies stay away from this, or end these crimes when they happen? How to bring more awareness to how essential honest elections are for democracy, even compared to ‘winning’? How to activate everyone involved to fight rigging and catch and expose riggers?
And the smarter the tech gets, the worse democracies will become. Already organizations have been targeting audience just to sway voters through all kinds of modern tricks, most people, and laws, aren’t prepared for.
The farce of democracy leads to both leftish attacks and right wing rise. Interestingly bye bye could also become to mean, hello something better.
The Challenge to move beyond Democracy.
With the Netherlands 10th on the Democracy Index (lots of disguised lobby corruption, outside influencers and settled politicians preventing innovation) and the USA still 21st, even including Gerrymandering, Blacklisting, Voting Computer ‘Malfunctions’, ‘lost’ votes and rigged marketing by Cambridge Analytics (read the Billionaire Mercer) and other parties, things look bleak.
So here we are in a system where possibly corrupted candidates may lie to play the frames of people to gain votes, after which the loyal voters can go back to sleep and those who ‘won’ can do as they like, within restrictions put onto them,… if there are any. Let’s investigate the beyond, after we played this little essential game, to help you long for what might come next. :) We seem to have come to the end days of democracy. It seems to get played more and more by an elite. It’s has become a truly barbaric farce. Too many people become too apathetic to vote, because they don’t believe it matters anymore. And voting alone is not enough to repair the flaws in the system. We need something new entirely.
EXTRA: Here is a link to David Von Reybrouck in the Guardian offering a overlapping or similar tale. And we leave with the question: Is the USA still a democracy or an Oligarchy (as the university of Princeton claims)or Plutocracy? Check these forms of government you feel which your country is closest to. And if you want to dig deeper into this struggle of people vs elite, go here.
“Sick Democracy”, the Game.
Invite any group of players to play, as long it’s more than two. Put in the middle of the table a pile of (game)money. Each turn a player may make a proposal to divide an pre-established part of the money; all depending on the currency you play with. It could be anything from five ‘nuts’ to a $1000 per person. ;) . Players may never repeat a proposal that has been played before.
In my turn I may propose something like: “Anyone with blue jeans on, gains 100.” This proposal is framed to have me in the majority, because I noticed most players wear blue jeans. Thus the more you are part of the majority, the more you win. After discussions about proposals you may edit a proposal, like add to the jeans proposal “And anyone with black jeans gets a 50.” when you feel this way you win the vote, or don’t anger losers towards revenge when it’s their turn.
When half the money pile in the middle is gone, also rule proposals may be made. “Everyone who has more than a 1000 must give some money to those that have less.” if you want to show a ‘human’ face, but not challenge the system. Or go very sick: “From now on, only people with blue jeans may vote. Other players still may make proposals in their turn.” You will understand that at some point, even through democratic process, the game has become rigged. Dangers of prejudice against minorities are huge. Only humanity can keep the losing side in. For the winning players it will become in their interest to keep the losing side playing, to win even more money in the long run. For this some risks have to be taken, because open revolt would of course spoil the game for all, mostly the current winners. That too makes the game sick.
NB: And you can understand that a group of people born and raised in the late game, may consider this late game as ‘the way things are’. And protestors can be seen as spoilsports, where perhaps some rules need address that issue. Oh my.
So, What Comes After Democracy?
Around 2004 I already posed the same question. When a friend and I tried to offer a weekend about it at a school for Philosophy, most people wondering about this question kept asking us things like: “Are you proposing also a vote against?” “Have you thought about everyone getting 10 votes?” We told them: “No, not different voting! Something new altogether!” We got blank stares. The weekend didn’t happen. It felt to us, that the capacity to think beyond the box of democracy altogether was still very low at that time. I hope and fear, given all the current corruptions, we’ve moved on since then. Are we ready to re-invent the best way we govern ourselves as a people? Whether that is your town, country or the whole world I leave up to you.
Asking this question led us to discover many alternative systems already being tried out in different settings, shapes and states of development. Methods like Socratic Dialogue, Deep Democracy, Enlightened Conversations, Circle Meetings, Open Space Technology all enriched the way we could organize meetings and make decisions within organizations and communities. Below you’ll also find a lot of alternative models such as Sociocracy and Holacracy. For now I don’t want to state what new approach is best. I do hope you get involved and start asking questions where it matters.
Some Ideas To Get Started
One Very Bad Idea to Avoid: National Referenda
It seems a great step: referenda. Especially populist right and left wing parties love calling for them. And what do they lead to? People being played on their emotions and anxieties. All the irregularities happening around Brexit tell us, that smart marketing and manipulation had more influence than consideration and fact checking. So more referenda might mean more emotion, means easier being played, means misuse of citizens as voting fodder. Turning issues into simple ‘yes or no’ is often already a manipulative framing. Huge long term decision making needs national dialogue with a huge diversity of opinions, slowly developing into an shared sense of direction. Especially diversity of opinions and considerations are essential for mature decision making.
Challenge it: Experiment, push for change.
Where and when you can, speak out against the eroding ‘normal’. Help make it not normal that those with a lot of (ambition for) power get to rule, decide over all those that prefer a gentler normal. Just consider how few a people make the war in Syria worse and how many don’t want it or have been kept out all considerations. Thus also where and when you can experiment with alternatives, try out things in your organization, network, meetings, family.
Or as to be seen in this short clip, start over, or perhaps better go back to the roots. In this Mexican town, you will be chosen as representative, by others. You can’t put yourself forward, which as we have seen leads to trouble.
Challenge it: Right to Challenge.
This already is introduced and implemented in a few countries, like England and the Netherlands. If you think you can offer something better and cheaper than you government does, you may challenge them and they have, at the least, to research your suggestion. If it is accepted you may also be the one to execute it.
Better Democracy: More Participation
More Democracy: One friend said to the question, “What comes after democracy?” “More democracy”, meaning more participation, involvement of all people. How to involve citizens more to all processes of democracy? How to make meetings between sides more part of the process? When the Parkland students (survivors of the school shooting in Florida) met a senator and an NRA spokeswoman in a town hall, the disconnect between these ‘professionals’ and ordinary people became very clear. They tried selling a fixed answer to people who wanted an open discussion. It’s a tragedy when civil servants don’t feel as servants of the public anymore. The answer to that disconnect is not to avoid such meetings, but demand more of them!
Increased Participation: Citizen Movements
In the Netherlands there are cities with citizen movements seeking to improve their own city. These movements engage in taking care of community gardens, discussing traffic issues, or seek to actively make improvements to their city. And city governments seek to learn how to facilitate such involvements rather than see them as threat. Exactly what good governments should do, facilitate civilians needs and wishes.
Better Democracy: More bridges to overcome disconnect.
People who protest aren’t enemies of the state. They are citizens who speak out about an issue they’d love to see action taken on. If a politician can’t face such people, then he may have a disconnect. Thus how to build more bridges between the professionals and worried citizens?
Decrease the Gaps: Wisdom Council.
The distance between professionals and ‘ordinary’ citizens can be closed when a Wisdom Council can advice and feedback political proposals. In the Wisdom Council are chosen wise citizens of all ages, and of all minorities. On a global levels there are some wisdom councils, like the grandmothers, but power doesn’t tend to take wisdom serious, as it may interfere with their interests.
Decrease the Gaps: Burger Buddy.
Netherlands we also had for a while Burger Buddies, normal citizen buddies for politicians and high ranking civil servants. I remember when the first buddy came back from her first appointment with a city hall employee, she was still confused as to what that employee was actually doing. One buddy became famous when he toured a minister through his Dutch Moroccan neighbourhood. It made her change her ideas of her politics.
Different institute: 200 in a 3 day conference.
Why not have 3-day conference with 200 outstanding citizens chosen from a lottery, deciding among them who has the best leadership skills, highest moral values and integrity, and give them either a leading role, or a controlling balancing role, most governments give out to older experienced politicians who are basically more of the same, but a bit more nuanced.
Different Thinking: Integrity and Gravitas
I sometimes ask people, “Who do you hold in highest regard as leader in this world?” Among the most mentioned names are Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Gandhi. Men we don’t see in modern politics. Why don’t we educate budding politicians to be like them, rather than these administrative compromisers avoiding any real point of view. Why not have a ‘Gravitas & Integrity Top 500’ every year, instead of the Fortune or Power Top 500?
Different Vision: Wonder, Imagine & Dream
This is just a start. From here on, dream louder, envision new possibilities, ask questions that offer clear improvements. Dare to dream of something better. Support those who take action for more honest politics and politicians. Because in the end, a government for and by the people, needs active people who will take the matters into their own hands to keep it that way. And each time smart professionals found tricks to use the system to their advantage, the people must be ready to protest, or act against that.
Learn, research: What more is possible?
Higher forms of consciousness allow higher forms of government. cc by Kent Bye
10 alternatives are listed here. The article is slightly biased and not extensive, yet gives some ideas. This is another one, less alternatives and closer to the old model, but a bit better researched. You can even check some wacky (according to the writer) alternatives. Or perhaps just skip the election. Or take a deeper look at holacracy https://gerardchiva.com/2017/03/12/holacracy-from-feudalism-to-fractalism/ If you want an outdated extensive list, then this Wikipedia page is a start, yet somehow it neglects anything that would upset the current status of democracy too much. The fact that not even Sociocracy or Holocracy are mentioned is weird, until you read somewhere the CIA might re-edit a lot of stuff on Wikipedia.
And while we’re at it, let’s also renew Capitalism, see this post. Each idea will also have consequences for how we see or shape our governments. And with possible new technologies or even future disasters, we might end up in any of these places.
Link to Pillars of Destruction #1 Link to more articles like this one. | https://medium.com/the-gentle-revolution/pillars-of-destruction-2-democracy-ba0511d6c9db | ['Floris Koot'] | 2020-02-20 08:35:40.575000+00:00 | ['People', 'Politics', 'Social Change', 'Political Revolution', 'Democracy'] |
Can singing increase the ability of speech? | When referring to music as a whole, people often think that it is not really related to language as the orchestral elements play a big part. The two seem to not be directly related , however, if you paid attention to our last article, you would know that music plays a big role in early language development. But in particular, singing, which involves the most linguistic feature in the music world, has the most influence on promoting children’s early language development.
Credit: Unsplash
The relationship between music and speech could be closer than what you think. Within many cultures, there are gray areas between music and speech. The Ewe tribe in West Africa use talking drums to communicate between villages while “speakers” of Silbo Gomero use whistles to converse. In Cambodia, secular singing is typically accompanied by a fixed metrical pulse. Buddhist practice argues against music for spiritual practice, so the religious chants, which are highly melodic, are nevertheless treated as speech, to be performed without a rhythmic accompaniment. Poetry, with its attention to such sonic features such as rhyming, assonance, alliteration, and metric design, is widely regarded as hovering between music and speech. Indeed, epic poems are often sung: the Finnish Kalevala is frequently performed as a “singing match” between two voices. As adults, we process “canonical” speech and music differently: for example, speech and music show opposite patterns of hemispheric dominance, with speech processing relying more on the left hemisphere and music relying more on the right. Nevertheless, the neural regions underlying speech and music perception show significant overlap even in adults, with both types of stimuli recruiting a bilateral frontal-temporal network. Furthermore, some differences between regions responsive to speech and song in adults is to be expected: over development, our brains become far more specialized in many domains.
Credit: Unsplash
Although there are many similarities between music and language, there is little work comparing neural responses to speech and music in infants. Evidence shows that newborns largely overlap activation to infant directed speech and to instrumental music suggesting that processing differences in adult brains may have emerged gradually over the course of development. It has been suggested that speech and music may have intrinsic differences in low-level auditory characteristics that require different types of aural processing: for instance, some have proposed that speech includes very rapidly changing temporal features whereas music is made up primarily of pitch features varying over a longer time window. Yet, just as mentioned in the last article, the same perception of temporal acuity is required to process both speech and musical timbre. Therefore, it enhances the child’s ability to extract segmental and phonemic information from the speech signal.
In addition, infants often direct speech and singing together to serve as an aid for language learning by capturing and engaging attention and communicating affective information and later by enhancing the important patterns in language. Some have argued that the role of infant directed speech is not for learning per se, but rather serves as a vehicle for emotional communication. Despite the research in this aspect is not significant yet and infant directed speech might serve all of these purposes, it is known that its role in language acquisition changes over the course of development. First, speaking musically plays an attentional and affective role, and later directing attention to linguistically relevant information. Whatever its purpose, it is clear that a child’s first direct exposure to verbal communication frequently has heightened prosody, with the music, and meaning of speech all bound up together. This explains why parents tend to sing their children to sleep, other than enhancing the sleeping quality, there are deeper reasons behind.
Credit: Brandt, Anthony et al. “Music and early language acquisition.” Frontiers in psychology vol. 3 327. 11 Sep. 2012, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00327 | https://medium.com/@fluentup/when-referring-to-music-as-a-whole-people-often-think-that-it-is-not-really-related-to-language-as-a4ec004908dc | [] | 2021-08-27 10:03:01.944000+00:00 | ['Language Development', 'Language', 'Singing', 'Language Learning', 'Music'] |
5 Ways Writing Can Improve Your Mental Health | In the past week, several stories filled the airwaves of people embracing the cold hands of death. Not by accident, but by suicide. The stories were heart-rending and stirred up all kinds of conversations. While some threw blames, others advised, some others simply stayed aloof and questioned themselves.
We have to recognize that we have Mental Health Crisis on our hands.
Mental Health Crisis is real. It is not a cliche, a facade, or something a number of people are saying or writing about to feel relevant.
I even think it’s another Pandemic that we need to urgently deal with today. Like, right now.
With research showing that one in four people suffer from one mental illness or the other, urgent action needs to be taken.
Are you battling depression, stress, anxiety, or even suicidal thoughts?
Here’s how writing can improve your mental health
When I speak of writing, I speak of therapeutic writing or journaling for the self. I have also included prompts to help you in this regard. | https://medium.com/@oluwatobi-adesanya/5-ways-writing-can-improve-your-mental-health-8ad846a33ea5 | ['Oluwatobi Adesanya'] | 2021-03-22 08:10:53.126000+00:00 | ['Journaling', 'Writing', 'Mental Health', 'Wellness', 'Mental Health Crisis'] |
My experience as a product design intern at Bigbasket | Over the last couple of years, I have had the opportunity of interning at startups and small-size companies until the dawn of Hover Studio, a design studio that I co-founded. At Hover, we give a lot of importance to the design phase of every project, and I used to wonder what went into the design cookbook of large product companies.
I had a lot of questions — How does an idea go from a brief to a shipped feature? How does a feature get approved, especially in a large sized product company when there are multiple stakeholders involved? How are certain decisions made, keeping accessibility and inclusivity in mind, while designing for a large user group?
To find out, I wanted a taste of this experience myself. This is when I actively applied for a product design internship. About a couple weeks into the process, I was more than elated to hear back from Bigbasket, where I was given an assignment followed by an interview. A couple days later, I was in! And this would be the beginning of a few months packed with immense learning and truck loads of fun.
Onboarding 🎯
Onboarding is such an important part of the process, since it’s step one and tends to leave an impression for a long time. Getting to know your team, the project you’ll be working on, going through existing design files, understanding the design language and values of the company: it can get pretty overwhelming. But at Bigbasket, a lot of care is taken to make sure a new designer joining the team instantly feels at home and doesn’t get too overwhelmed. (Over the next few months, I would see this process evolve as well. That’s how much thought is put into onboarding a new designer into the team.)
Onboarding Cards for the Design Team
My first week consisted of a couple of KT sessions, where I was told that I’d be working on Design Systems. Voila! Over the past year, if there was one thing that not just had my curiosity, but also my attention — was Design Systems. I dove deep into this world to learn more about how product companies use design systems, why they use it, how it brings about a positive impact and so on. I also took this time out to read about Brad Frost’s Atomic Design in detail.
Me at Design Systems
Additionally, during my first week, I tried to get to know my team better and go through the design files. Bigbasket uses Figma, and I was glad I could put my auto-layout and component-variant skills to use and sharpen them.
Projects 📚
I got to work extensively on building Melon 🍉 — Bigbasket’s Design System — from the ground up. I was completely amazed by the level of responsibility I was given while building Melon with my team. We had a well-planned schedule ahead of us and hopped on calls on a regular basis to discuss our progress (and memes). More on this later.
As an intern, I wasn’t boxed into one particular project to spend my entire focus and time on that. I was also actively involved in side-projects, which was a great way to diversify my time. Something fresh and new always feels warm! | https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/my-experience-as-a-product-design-intern-at-bigbasket-3133b982cd6a | ['Sudarshan N Srinivas'] | 2021-09-11 03:40:06.840000+00:00 | ['Internships', 'UX', 'Design', 'Ui Ux Design', 'Product'] |
4 things you MUST do to build a successful insurance product | 4 things you MUST do to build a successful insurance product
1. Ask yourself, why should your customers care?
How is your product going to change your target customer’s life? What difference will it make? What is special or unique about it which means they’ll not only be telling their colleagues, but their friends!
Give your customers a reason to care. If it’s not remarkable, people won’t talk about it.
Put this question at the forefront of your mind when making decisions relating to your product. Ignore it, at your peril!
2. Find out how can you help the communities in which your customers hang out.
RESEARCH. What does this community need? What are they asking for? Do your research and find that hole your product could fill. See if you can genuinely connect with communities, WITHOUT selling. This will make all the difference to your research, and to your brand.
Cheeky tip; think about what you can give these communities for free — is it an app, a website? What would they absolutely love?
3. Keep your insurer happy.
What does your insurer need? What are they frequently asking for, or struggling with? Is it MI? Reports? Data exports? Have the answer for them, before they even ask the question.
Get ahead of the game, and it will change the conversation FOREVER.
4. Make customer experience your guiding light.
We could go on… and on… and on… about the importance of customer experience. So to save your mental well-being here are the highlights.
If you can shave a few questions off your question set so customers can get a quote and buy in record time — and this applies to business customers too — then do it.
Keep reinforcing the value of completing your form wherever you can, and make it as easy as possible.
There is always a slicker way, and the difference it will make is your customers will return again and again … and they’ll bring others!
‘A Walker study in 2020 found that customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator.’
(https://www.superoffice.com/blog/customer-experience-statistics/) | https://medium.com/@schemeserveltd/4-things-you-must-do-to-build-a-successful-insurance-product-78bf39807ac3 | [] | 2021-06-08 15:27:53.343000+00:00 | ['Broker', 'Insurance Software', 'Insurance Companies', 'Insurance', 'Insurtech'] |
What we do about the fact that a third of the country genuinely believes this election was stolen? | A question was asked on Twitter about what we do about the fact that at least a third of the country genuinely believes this election was stolen. My answer was there is a certain percentage of the GOP who does, in fact, know better. And this does include most of the GOP establishment. So why are they going along with it? Because their political survival literally depends on it. Trump has turned the GOP into a loyalty test to himself. You cross Trump, even minimally, and he comes after you as a traitor. That can be seen this week with his attacks on the GA and AZ governors and in Friday’s chants of “Destroy the GOP!” at the Stop the Steal! Protests in Washington.
What this means is the GOP is now wholly Trump’s. They won’t dare cross Trump because they can’t. Not if they want to continue forward in Republican politics. The political calculation clearly is it is better to stick with Trump no matter what. And at this precise moment, they might not be wrong about that.
However, the thing is, the Republican Party has become the champion of those on the wrong side of every major demographic trend in America. By that I mean, they are on average whiter, older, more rural, sicker, and less educated than Democrats. By any measure of population replacement, the Democratic Party is becoming stronger, and the GOP will either have to use every voter suppression trick in the book to hang onto rough parity, or they will fundamentally have to change from being the party of Trumpian rage and (rural) white existential angst. So when we circle back to the original question — what do we do about the fact that so many of them genuinely believe the election was stolen ?— the answer is we help them towards their demographic inevitability.
We attack the GOP infrastructure. We “fix it” by contesting every election in every State from dog catcher on up. We hyper-focus on voter registration, voter turn-out, and issues engagement (especially in marginalized communities). In-the-trenches work is unglamorous but necessary if we want to reduce the political power at stake behind these deeply cynical calculations they are making.
There is any number of incredibly low turnout elections for key roles at every level of government. One of the things the GOP did years ago was to pay attention to these races consciously. And it’s reaped dividends for them. The Democratic Party, in turn, needs to focus on the same nuts and bolts of democracy. Let’s build a groundswell.
There’s much more to be said about demographic dynamics and the implications for the distribution of political power, but that’s going to have to be another post. I want to finish on this point: we are all Americans at the end of the day. As an American who has spent a hell of a lot of time outside the U.S. and who appreciates how our diversity IS our strength… that cannot distract from how the more we obsess about our differences, the less we appreciate what is truly special about being American. | https://medium.com/the-daily-kerfuffle/what-we-do-about-the-fact-that-a-third-of-the-country-genuinely-believes-this-election-was-stolen-1cbe17a57c16 | ['Matthew Spira'] | 2020-12-13 15:49:53.582000+00:00 | ['Elections', '2020 Presidential Race', 'Current Events', 'Politics'] |
React Native at Wix — The Architecture II (Deep dive) | In my last post, I wrote about the high-level architecture of our Wix application. I explained how we adjust it to fit Wix organization structure (by using multi-module architecture, improving velocity, and shifting our environment to be Native agnostic), and how that helps us to achieve independent development and enhance the deployment experience for each group of developers.
Armed with this information, we can now dive deep into the code itself and see a practical implementation of such an architecture. We’ve previously outlined a few terms (Modules & Engine), which are used to describe the various pieces in the architecture. This post aims to illustrate some of them and points to relevant examples of code.
To better explain such a complex design, I chose to describe it from the bottom-up. First, we will jump into the Engine implementation, then build an example of a Module, and only afterwards review the main repository of the application.
For the sake of this example, I chose to build a simple blog application based on our react-native-crash-course by Dror Biran (recommended!). The example app will display a list of posts with the ability to view, add, and delete them.
The Engine
My example of an Engine implementation is called react-native-wix-engine , you can find the full source code here:
https://github.com/wix-incubator/react-native-wix-engine
It’s important to note that this is not the same Engine that’s used in the Wix application and it may not be the Engine you want to use — it’s just an example to help you better understand how to create your own.
To begin our journey, let’s create a new react-native project using react-native init .
Adding Native Libraries
As we discussed before, the Engine of your application should include all of the native implementation and the dependencies to 3rd party native libraries. Most likely things will differ from one application to another.
This is the point where you need to choose the libraries that will be the foundation of your application. When it comes to mobile app development using React Native, one of the most important steps is choosing the right navigation library for your project. Navigation serves as the backbone of an app and has a big impact on user experience. In my example, I chose react-native-navigation by Wix to achieve a fully native navigation experience. Another important library I decided to use is react-native-ui-lib — as a UI tool-set & components library.
You can add any libraries you want to the Engine, both JS and Native, and they will be available to be used by all the Modules in your application. If you install a Native library, remember to link it to native projects.
Pre-Built Binaries
The exciting part of the Engine is the pre-built binaries that are published to NPM together with the JS codebase of the Engine, and which are then used by Modules.
First, let’s see which files need to be built and published:
Android:
.APK file with debug symbols
file with debug symbols .APK file for release
iOS:
.APP file with debug symbols — built for Simulator (x86)
file with debug symbols — built for Simulator (x86) .APP file with debug symbols — built for a real iOS device (ARM)
file with debug symbols — built for a real iOS device (ARM) .APP file for release — built for a real iOS device (ARM)
In order to allow developers to debug applications with simulator\device in both release and debug mode, and to publish to the App Store and Google Play, we basically need to build our project 5 times. It means for every new Engine release, we should build all of these variations and publish them as an NPM package (here I chose to save the binaries in the same Engine NPM package, but it can be more efficient to save them in separate packages, and download only when required).
To build our Engine:
npm run build
You can review the full implementation of the publish script.
Remember that the pre-built binaries only include the native part, and we should also inject the JS bundle file, which brings us to the next section.
Engine Command Line Interface (CLI)
Among the goals we set was for our architecture and developers’ environment is to be native-agnostic.
Engine CLI is a command-line interface. The main purpose of our CLI is to replace react-native CLI (considering part of it is not relevant anymore) and to bypass the complexity of the Engine structure via a friendly interface for developers.
One example of Engine CLI usage is to install the pre-built on your device\simulator — which is a preferred and much faster option than using Xcode, Android Studio, or call react-native CLI command: react-native run-ios to build iOS\Android apps from scratch.
rn-wix-engine -run-ios \ rn-wix-engine -run-android — install the pre-built ios\android binary on all open simulators\devices, open the app, and run a local packager so the app fetches the bundle from it.
By using rn-wix-engine you can also:
Install\uninstall pre-built apps
Run the packager
Inject bundle file into pre-built release binaries (before publishing the app to store)
Other utils function from react-native CLI
You can basically add any command you want to the Engine CLI to improve the velocity of developers of Modules.
Project Structure
As you may notice, the structure of this project is a little bit different:
react-native-wix-engine
├── ...
├── inner_folder
│ └── react-native-wix-engine
│ ├── ios
│ ├── android
│ ├── src
│ ├── bin
│ ├── app_builds
│ └── ...
└── ...
The Engine holds the native projects (and binaries), and run locally from the library root folder, but at the same time it is also used by other projects as an NPM package, and so, the project structure can’t stay the same. One of the reasons for that is the location of the node_modules folder, which is installed by NPM in the root of the project which affect relative path in the code.
My Project
├── ...
├── node_modules
│ └── react-native-wix-engine
│ ├── ios
│ ├── android
│ ├── src
│ ├── bin
│ ├── app_builds
│ └── ...
└── package.json
For example, you can find the build.gradle file in your Android project which contains the relative path to the react-native package in your node_modules folder:
apply from: "../../node_modules/react-native/react.gradle"
Since we want to build the native project from both inside and outside the Engine repository, all relative paths to node_modules folder will fail, because from an external point of view, node_modules as a relative path moved two levels up, to be:
apply from: "../../../../node_modules/react-native/react.gradle"
We should simulate the same environment and restructure the Engine project structure. There are several ways to handle this challenge, I went with a simple trick and moved the Engine src folder codebase 2 levels inside (and add symlink to package.json to the root folder, for convenience)
Now, from either points of view: react-native-wix-engine root folder and any consumer of this library (installed in node_modules) the source code is the same.
To complete this restructure, we need to fix the relative path of node_modules in the native projects and remember to publish the Engine from the inner folder and not from the root folder.
Module Manager & Module Registry
Communication is basically the heart of your Engine — all traffic between Modules passes through the Engine, and that’s actually the best part here.
Module Manager is responsible for loading all the Modules, making sure their contract is valid, registering all Module APIs into the Module Registry, which holds all of the information about each Module and its contact.
Communication between Modules can be done in 4 ways: Method, Component, Broadcast, and Service. Later on, we’ll see an example of, and will talk more about each of them.
Running the Engine
If we run the Engine without a Module you should see this screen:
npm run start-empty-engine
Next, let’s make our app more interesting and implement a new module. | https://medium.com/wix-engineering/react-native-at-wix-the-architecture-ii-deep-dive-9cfcb3c2822c | ['Omri Bruchim'] | 2020-12-28 19:41:06.166000+00:00 | ['Software Architecture', 'Android', 'Multi Module', 'React Native', 'iOS'] |
Kill the Bill to Save The Future | Kill the Bill to Save The Future
How The Policing & Crime Bill for England and Wales Makes us More Vulnerable to Catastrophe Tom Hobson Dec 29, 2021·9 min read
Illustration by Magdalena Adomeit
This article was written by Carla Zoe Cremer, Tom Hobson, Alex McLaughlin & Luke Kemp.
In 1985 the Greenpeace protest ship ‘Rainbow Warrior’ was bombed and sunk in New Zealand. The ship, on its way to protest a French nuclear weapons test in the Moruroa atoll, had been sabotaged by two French spies. But these efforts did not kill the resistance. Instead, the fallen ship inspired a flotilla of yachts, crewed by New Zealand citizens to take its place. Thereafter, the French abandoned nuclear tests in the Pacific for almost a decade.
The Rainbow Warrior is an example of how dissent and defiance paved the path towards reducing risk from nuclear weapons. The US saw national strikes, with hundreds arrested for civil disobedience at testing sites. In India and Pakistan, protests and petitions spread widely despite strong police responses. In Kazakhstan, a protest movement led by a poet, Olzhas Suleimenov, in coalition with indigenous peoples managed to halt numerous Soviet nuclear tests.
Protests, demonstrations, and civil disobedience are an essential part of a healthy democracy. Most, if not all, human rights advances, have been won through and accompanied by hard fought campaigns — protest, solidarity movements and organised resistance. We owe civil rights, the five-day working week and universal suffrage to dissent and disobedience.
The lesser-known story we want to tell is of how protest can reduce the greatest threats facing humanity, from nuclear weapons to climate change and emerging technologies. Choking expressions of dissent will make the world more dangerous for us all. This is what the proposed ‘Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill’, if passed, will do.
The Bill
The British Government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill of 2021 seeks to strengthen law enforcement and curtail protest. Under this bill, the police could set time and noise limits on protesters, determine methods of protest and be given greater legal authority to make judgments about what is and is not an acceptable way for citizens to express their views.
The Police in the UK already have significant powers to issue arrests for failure to comply with their instructions during public protests — with many arrests justified under the broad ranging Section 14 Public Order act. The new Policing and Crime bill will further embed the legal standing of police forces to sanction or prohibit protests based on their own discretion. It would allow police forces to class a single person as a protesting crowd. Protestors that fail to comply with police rules for a given protest can be criminally charged, even if they were not directly informed about these restrictions.
The bill is still under review with the House of Lords. Here, away from the attention of the public it is being loaded with even more shackles for protestors. Priti Pratel has added amendments to give police the right to stop and search individuals to avoid “serious disruption” or a “public nuisance”. In other words, they can stop and search protestors with no reason to suspect them of carrying a weapon or prohibited object. Those who refuse face a maximum of 51 weeks in jail. The same penalty applies to those who engage in ‘wilful obstruction of a highway’ or ‘major transport works’, as well as those who lock themselves onto another person, object or land.
This is a draconian criminalisation of protest. One carried out in the middle of a pandemic while the public is distracted. If this bill passes through parliament, it will mark a major blow to the rights of UK residents to protest against policies that may harm them and their communities, or to stand in solidarity with others who may be harmed.
The bill will directly undermine protest by cutting demonstrations short and making them more difficult to organise. Fears of being charged will keep people away. If the police can determine what is too inconvenient, inconvenient protests are under threat. But inconvenience is partly what makes protest effective and protest is vital in responding to some of the most urgent global challenges.
A Short History of Catastrophe and Protest
Throughout the 20th and 21st Century, civil disobedience and resistance were at the heart of efforts to prevent humanitarian or ecological disasters. Whether we look to the more than a million US citizens who gathered in Central Park in 1982 to demand unilateral disarmament, or the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, which was occupied from 1982–2000 — it is impossible to tell the story of reductions in nuclear arsenals without looking to ordinary people.
Perversely, credit for mitigating harms is often given to the very states and corporations that produce them in the first place. While the nuclear START treaty was doubtlessly a major accomplishment, and the signing of the Kyoto climate protocol appeared at the time a major step in the right direction, these histories only tell a part of the story. They must be understood in a broader context, where the preconditions for political change were established through resistance, and where the defiance of a range of actors guarded against catastrophe in the meantime.
Sometimes even individual disobedience can have large effects. In 1962, Vasily Arkhipov, a Soviet military officer, defied orders to launch a nuclear protocol. Stanislav Petrov did the same in 1983. They trusted their better judgement that the situation did not justify a nuclear strike and both turned out to be right. Safety depended on them refusing to do what they were ordered to — had they not, it is plausible a nuclear war could have unfolded.
Solidarity works too. Recently, Italian dockworkers made the news by refusing to load ships containing military supplies bound for Israel. In 1977 Rolls Royce workers in East Kilbride refused to repair bomber engines that were destined for Chile and Pinochet’s coup forces. This act forced the manufacturer to break its contract with Chile. Google employees recently took a stance against the company’s involvement with the Pentagon’s Project Maven which forced a withdrawal and pushed the company to take steps towards developing an ethical code for its work on AI. The general precedence of coordinated workers thwarting dangerous action is promising. It could affect some of the greatest threats facing humanity, from nuclear weapons to fossil fuels.
The Future of Catastrophe
As important as these acts of resistance have been, more will be needed in the future. Our world remains a dangerous one. States have developed increasingly lethal weapons technologies and humanity is now more able than ever to sow the seeds of its own destruction, whether deliberately or in error. A zealous pursuit of technological supremacy fuelled the creation of nuclear weapons. If geopolitical and big tech rivalry alone are allowed to guide the development of biotechnology, artificial intelligence and geoengineering, the consequences could be dire.
Protest, as history indicates, could be a vital mechanism for curtailing the worst effects of risky technology deployments. Growing awareness of inequality and of the scale of environmental destruction has recently inspired a wave of citizen resistance movements. Extinction Rebellion, the Dakota pipeline protesters in the US and the Farmers Protests in India, indicate the global nature of their concerns. States have often tried to delegitimise or to repress such movements. We must ask whether the UK bill is simply the most recent example of this trend.
Criminalising public protest in the wake of both environmental movements and renewed demands for meaningful equality for black and minority ethnic citizens, is a familiar reactionary move. It could come at a steep cost: if the past is anything to go by, the movements the government seeks to curtail might play a vital role in keeping us safe.
The voice of the public is precious and must be protected if we are to navigate an age of extraordinary global risks. Ordinary citizens tend to be precautious about risks, ranging from climate change to GMOs (whether the risks are real or perceived is a separate debate) and nuclear weapons. They are likely to be more risk averse, in part because a lot of them will bear the cost of global catastrophes.
The Point of Protest
Are there any legitimate concerns that might justify the bill’s curtailment of protest and civil disobedience? One concern raised by the bill is about the cost of protest. Protests, through disruption of economic activity, policing costs, and sometimes repairs, can cost the taxpayer money. Protests often deliberately aim to create costs and inconveniences. Yet the costs of the political action that the bill is a response to are trivial compared to the problems protesters seek to address.
A series of protests by Extinction Rebellion in 2019, for instance, cost the MET approximately £37m. By contrast, the 2015–2016 Winter floods cost the UK £1.3–1.9 billion. Climate change was likely a strong contributor to these floods and will drive more frequent and severe storms in the future. Worrying over the costs of protest in this case appears akin to being concerned over firefighters kicking in a door, rather than the raging inferno behind it.
It is ignorant to recommend that protesters should instead explore more formal democratic channels. Protest is more often than not a last resort when formal democratic procedures have been exhausted. The argument rings especially hollow in cases like climate change, where political change has been obstructed by vested interests and officials for over three decades.
Protest is one democratic path of accountability and an important protection against government overreach and serious wrongdoings. Unaccountable powers, be those government or corporations, do not only create new hazards. They also feed vulnerabilities that come to bite back during periods of instability. They worsen disaster by amplifying emerging threats. Inequality and corruption are vulnerabilities we can never afford and their harm is particularly striking when crises hit.
Not all protests will always or directly lead to better outcomes. But mass protest is also unlikely to trigger a tail-risk catastrophe. Leaving concentrated power uncontrolled and unaccountable however, is more likely to end in disaster.
Shackling the UK Risk Machine
Is any of this relevant to the UK? We might agree that protest is important and can help us alleviate global risks, but still doubt that this has much to do with the UK Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. After all, we are just an island of 66 million people, not a superpower. Unfortunately, while small, the UK does play a sizable role in producing global risks.
Only eight countries in the world possess nuclear weapons and the UK is one of them. The cap on warheads was meant to be 180, but under Johnson’s government this figure suddenly rose to 260 — a number that would give the UK the fourth largest nuclear weapons state in the world, surpassing China (although China too appears to be growing its stockpile). While some analysts have highlighted that the UK’s nuclear infrastructure means that it is unlikely to actually deliver new warheads in line with the expande cap, the “deterrence ambiguity” is clearly a contributor to creating an arms race dynamic.
There are already early signs that the UK may look to use genetic engineering for security and defence purposes. Investments into ‘robot soldiers’ are central to the UK’s planned five year defence review and the country has been one of a handful to torpedo international efforts to create a ban on the development of lethal autonomous weapons.
While the UK government is making positive statements about decarbonisation and tackling climate change, independent experts have repeatedly pointed out that these statements have yet to be translated into effective policy. At the same time, we need to bear in mind that on a per capita basis the UK is the world’s worst historical emitter.
Protest, whether it be on global risks or matters of injustice in the UK are not low stakes. Whether it is by example or direct impact the UK and its citizens will shape our global future and the risks we face. The Crimes, Police and Sentencing Bill will strangle the right to protest and with it one of the best ways of ensuring that the UK tackles rather than worsens the greatest risks of our time.
Carla Zoe Cremer is a DPhil student in the Human Information Processing Lab at the University of Oxford. Tom Hobson, Alex McLaughlin & Luke Kemp are Researchers at the Cambridge University Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. | https://medium.com/@t.hobson/kill-the-bill-to-save-the-future-e62689e02328 | ['Tom Hobson'] | 2021-12-29 13:24:34.310000+00:00 | ['UK Politics', 'Existential Risk', 'Protest', 'Catastrophe', 'Policing'] |
Are Probiotics Really Good For Kids? | Are Probiotics Really Good For Kids?
How to get started with children’s probiotics, specific bacterial strains, and safety considerations
It’s pretty overwhelming to look through kids’ probiotics these days. Supplement labels often have unfamiliar bacteria names. Some list the amounts of their bacterial strains; others don’t. Then, products often don’t say what to expect in terms of benefits, and if they do, it’s still hard to trust that kind of marketing.
Given what we currently know from scientific research, probiotics could very well be beneficial to children. In this article, we’ll give you some guidance on children’s gut bacteria, how probiotics might help, and how to go about choosing a supplement that works for your child.
For more information about the quality and safety of best-selling probiotics for children, visit Labdoor’s full lab test results here. | https://medium.com/labdoor/probiotics-for-children-83280c488fda | [] | 2017-08-01 00:19:37.213000+00:00 | ['Home', 'Children', 'Health', 'Nutrition', 'Parenting'] |
#DeleteMonday with Talking Politics: History of Ideas 2 | by Samyuktha Varma
Now that the existential threat feeling is starting to lift, how about some Sartre?
This week I am recommending “Talking Politics: History of Ideas 2” Podcast which I think is as good if not better than a Masterclass (I’ve never taken a Masterclass). The show is hosted by Cambridge Professor and London Review of Books contributor David Runciman, who hosts Talking Politics, which is a great, serious interview show about politics. This spinoff series is for when you’re feeling extra nerdy and thinking about how it might be the right time to fill some of the “gaps” in your education from the lectures you skipped to go drink beer.
It’s Monday morning, so I’m not going to waste your time — here are three reasons why it’s great: First, David Runciman has an extraordinary voice and his presentation style makes you feel like he wrote up a talk just for you. The series has no music, no distractions, no archival audio, and makes no attempt to entertain, it’s just Prof Runciman talking, and you will listen because he wrote this so that you — lazy college drunk — can get another chance to finally learn something. Second, the episodes are standalone, each devoted to an important work of an important political thinker, so while helpful, you don’t have to go in order.
There is no episode on Jean-Paul Sartre (yet), and right now I’m enjoying “Rousseau on Inequality” in which he talks about Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s discourse on Inequality. Third, like all great professors he takes all your muddled feelings about the world and boils them down to fundamental questions: in this one, it is “How did we end up with these idiots in charge?”. Who wouldn’t want to know the answer!
Listen to this episode of Talking Politics History of Ideas 2 on Spotify here. | https://medium.com/@vaakamedia/delete-monday-with-talking-politics-history-of-ideas-2-1be04f45267 | ['Vaaka Media'] | 2021-04-29 11:56:28.323000+00:00 | ['Podcasting', 'Podcasts', 'History', 'Podcast Recommendations'] |
The Need To Control Might Be Ruining Your Relationships | Undoubtedly, the biggest perspective shift in my life was surrendering to the idea of controlling things that are beyond my control.
I am going to do everything possible within my power to achieve this result, but not base my happiness on the outcome of the result itself.
I will give my all to fixing this relationship without any expectations from them to do the same.
The pandemic stopped me from exploring this new city, so I will focus on building up my skills. This will enable me to offer some value to society when normalcy is restored.
We can’t change things like the pandemic & the behavior of others, but what we do have control over is how we approach and contextualize the problems.
Overcoming this was, and still continues to be, one of the toughest mental challenges I face every day. I use the word overcoming very intently in the previous sentence because it’s truthfully a daily effort. It requires a great deal of intentionality to stop myself from going towards conditioned habits.
A bit of History
Stress, anxiety, worry, and the desire for control have all evolved over time. Mark Leary, professor at Duke University states, “A deer may be startled by a loud noise and take off through the forest, but as soon as the threat is gone, the deer immediately calms down and starts grazing. And it doesn’t appear to be tied in knots the way that many people are.”
Similar to the behavior of deer, our ancestors were equipped to react to dangers and threats in the environment by utilizing stress and anxiety to their advantage. However, once the threat was gone, their stress and worries subsided with them.
This is not the case anymore. We live in an environment that is drastically different from our ancestors. This mismatch between our old brain and a new environment is what leads to long-term stress, overthinking, and other such negative emotions that we must overcome.
Control in Relationships
The difficulty of giving up control is realized when we form a relationship with another being. It is a bit more difficult to control the actions and emotions of other people. I will go as far as stating that most relationships fail due to the perpetual battle for the need to control and dominate one another.
When two people start a life together, they enter relationships with many expectations. They reflect these expectations on their new partners with the assumption that their partner should understand exactly what their needs and wants are.
Hypothetically, let us assume that one person in the relationship becomes unhappy with the level of attention they receive from their partner. They confront their partner but get no apologies in return. Instead, their significant others argue that their partner is being dramatic and making a big deal out of nothing.
“Me, wrong? Never.”
They get frustrated because they are not able to convince their partner to accept his or her fault. In another word, they are angry at not being able to control their partners’ emotions. | https://medium.com/modernmeraki/the-need-to-control-might-be-ruining-your-relationships-7cb77ca8adf2 | [] | 2020-09-03 15:47:56.048000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Adulting', 'Relationships', 'Letting Go', 'Self'] |
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