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The Elusive Dream Job | As a recent college graduate just beginning my professional career, these types of questions come up often:
“What did you major in, again? Oh, so are you using that degree? So.. what’s the next step? What’s your DREAM job???”
Every college student or recent graduate has experienced the panic and self-doubt that arises when asked these kinds of life-deciding questions.
What my type-A, planning brain really hears is:
“So, what’s the career path that perfectly combines your interests, talents, and the college degree you just spent thousands of dollars and hours on where you will spend 40 hours a week and the rest of your life committed to?”
Which is enough to send me in a panic REAL quick.
“Did I just waste four years of my life studying something I don’t even know if I want to do for the rest of my life??”
“What if I never find the PERFECT job? Am I just going to be climbing some corporate ladder for the rest of my life? What if I change my mind?”
“And how do I even get my foot in the door towards my dream career if I don’t even know what that is?”
I’ve always been interested in a variety of hobbies, sports, and subjects. Whether it was baking, biology, gymnastics, music, home decorating, algebra, or history, I’ve always been curious and passionate about a multitude of subjects. That made choosing a major especially difficult in college, where from the get go, you’re encouraged to choose a path that represents the optimal combination of your skills and interests and stick to it, or else suffer wasting time and money in extra classes you didn’t really need to take.
I don’t mean to blame the college education system for my anxieties; if anything, it’s my own pride, ambition, and self-imposed academic standards that put the most pressure on me. I’ve long been terrified of new things, and the idea that somewhere out there, a career exists that perfectly matches my strengths and passions is very appealing.
But the more I talk to experienced professionals in the working world, the more I doubt the traditional career road that’s been sold to me.
Pick a major.
Network. Network. Network.
Get that internship.
Climb the corporate ladder…
and VOILA! You’ve gotten your dream job!
Not to say that it’s impossible to find a job that “checks all my boxes”… but I’m just not sure this will be my story. Millennials are notorious for being “job hoppers”, disengaged, unwilling to make long- term commitments, and always open to new job opportunities. Many think these are unique faults of my generation.. that we are scared of commitment and specialization in a particular field.
However, I think that there’s freedom and excitement in knowing that there are diverse opportunities to make the world a better place all around you, and your growing skills and passions could be utilized in a variety of different ways.
Maybe I’ll become a design researcher. I am empathetic and love numbers, statistics, surveys, and data. I could use these things to analyze, design products, and help people help people.
Maybe I’ll become a master wood worker. I’ve always loved geometry, craftsmanship, and working with my hands.
Maybe I’ll go to culinary school in Paris and become a professional chef. I LOVE travel, sourcing quality ingredients, making delicious food, and sharing it with people.
Or maybe, I’ll be a homemaker and raise kids someday. I’ve volunteered as a Sunday school teacher, worked countless summer camps, and have always had a soft spot for little kiddos.
One of my favorite writers and missionaries Jim Elliot once said, “Wherever you are, be all there.” In the midst of anxiety, fear, doubt, and an insane 2020/transitionary season where honestly, no one can plan for the future, these wise words ring true.
I hope that whatever work is established before me, whether it be a specific lifelong career path or a plethora of different jobs, that I do it heartily and with joy, knowing that my life has purpose and meaning beyond a big paycheck and completed tasks done well. | https://medium.com/@jaime-m-law/the-elusive-dream-job-d9227dc4b742 | ['Jaime Law'] | 2020-12-11 19:24:18.647000+00:00 | ['Dream Job', '2020', 'Career Change'] |
Validating successful execution of BigQuery scripts using ASSERT | Validating successful execution of BigQuery scripts using ASSERT
Use ASSERT to verify pre- and post- conditions
When you are writing a BigQuery script, you will often want to make sure that the data matches your expectation. How many times have you written a script that worked when you deployed it. Then, someone changed your input data upstream and it was months before you discovered that the script was silently creating erroneous/empty tables? Wouldn’t it be better if the script failed and you got a heads up?
Build solid scripts using assertions! Image by Pawel Kozera from Pixabay
The script
Imagine that your script (you might be scheduling it, or it might be run on a trigger) creates a table of average duration of bicycle rides for some set of stations:
CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE ch07eu.hydepark_rides AS
SELECT
start_station_name,
AVG(duration) AS duration
FROM `bigquery-public-data`.london_bicycles.cycle_hire
WHERE
start_station_name LIKE '%Hyde%'
GROUP BY start_station_name;
The result:
Post-condition
How do you know that the script executed correctly? One easy way to check is that the output table exists and contains data corresponding to a known station. You can do that with ASSERT:
ASSERT EXISTS(
SELECT duration FROM ch07eu.hydepark_rides
WHERE start_station_name = 'Park Lane , Hyde Park'
);
Basically you call ASSERT and follow it with a SQL statement that returns TRUE or FALSE. If it returns FALSE, the script fails. This way, if the input table’s start_station_name column for some reason doesn’t contain the Hyde Park stations (maybe there was a network problem), you will know.
Without the ASSERT, the script would silently create an empty table and say that it was successful.
You are not limited to checking the existence of rows in the table. You can even apply data quality checks. For example, the minimum possible duration is 60 seconds, so we can verify that the output table does not contain any corrupt values:
ASSERT (SELECT min(duration) FROM ch07eu.hydepark_rides) > 60;
Pre-condition
It’s a good idea to make sure of any assumptions you are making. For example, we could verify that we are getting the station names correctly:
ASSERT EXISTS (
SELECT name
FROM `bigquery-public-data`.london_bicycles.cycle_stations
WHERE name LIKE '%Hyde%'
);
This way, if someone decides to change the table to remove the , Hyde Park from the station names, we will get a heads-up because the script will fail.
Full script
Here’s the full script with pre- and post- conditions:
ASSERT EXISTS (
SELECT name
FROM `bigquery-public-data`.london_bicycles.cycle_stations
WHERE name LIKE '%Hyde%'
); CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE ch07eu.hydepark_rides AS
SELECT
start_station_name,
AVG(duration) AS duration
FROM `bigquery-public-data`.london_bicycles.cycle_hire
WHERE
start_station_name LIKE '%Hyde%'
GROUP BY start_station_name; ASSERT EXISTS(
SELECT duration FROM ch07eu.hydepark_rides
WHERE start_station_name = 'Park Lane , Hyde Park'
); ASSERT (SELECT min(duration) FROM ch07eu.hydepark_rides) > 60;
Enjoy! | https://medium.com/google-cloud/validating-successful-execution-of-bigquery-scripts-using-assert-c82f7ff9cfa8 | ['Lak Lakshmanan'] | 2020-11-13 06:01:28.048000+00:00 | ['Bigquery', 'Sql', 'Google Cloud'] |
Worry; Please don’t. | Let’s talk about worrying.
Dr. Alexis Carrel, the legendary French Surgeon and Noble Laureate once said, “Business men who do not know how to fight worry, die young”.
It is known that the fear causes worry and worrying changes the entire internal body mechanism causing immense damage in a very short period of time. It makes you ill. Think of any disease and it may well be caused by worrying, mostly too much. It destroys your ability to concentrate and thus, our of power of decision.
OK. I’m worried already. Now what?!
Most advisable action is to really question the act of worrying itself. Understand why you worry and get the **** out of that stream!
Worrying about tomorrow? Ask if you have lived today. Until bedtime.
Worried about what has happened? Accept. And you shall release yourself swiftly out of the clutches of worrying.
Worried about a future outcome? Imagine the worst that can happen; it will take you to end of your imagination and only then will you be able to think beyond it.
But, there are times when it hits really hard and you cant fight back. The magic trick is to just remind yourself the cost that you might have to pay for worry in terms of your health. That works. That always works.
So, the next time you start worrying about something, ensure that you are not taking it to your heart, I mean literally.
By the way, is stock market going to crash tomorrow? | https://medium.com/@amit.kamlapure/worry-please-dont-466f84d61ab7 | ['Amit Kamlapure'] | 2020-12-10 02:32:44.097000+00:00 | ['Trending Topic', 'Body', 'Insights', 'Mental Health', 'Improvement'] |
Trump: The Art of the Deal (Anglais) | “I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.” — Donald J. Trump
Download For Free https://lnkmeup.com/7Fq2 | https://medium.com/@paulsteave/trump-the-art-of-the-deal-anglais-a825da9dc99f | ['Paul Steave'] | 2020-12-25 18:21:36.197000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Book Review', 'USA', 'America', 'Trump'] |
SmartSleep or Dumb Device? | It seems like every time we blink (or wake up), another sleep tracker is born. All the major players these day — Oura, Whoop, the Dreem 2 — they all just track your sleep, which is great if you’re looking to get some basic insights on how you’re sleeping. But I finally found a device that claims to not only track, but also to improve your overall sleep quality. The SmartSleep Headband by Philips — yes the same brand that sells lightbulb — is a device with sensors that not only track your sleep, but also uses sound waves to keep you in a state of deep sleep. Sound too good to be true? I put this thing to the test for 30 days and I’m excited to share with you my full review . Plus I’ll do a side-by-side comparison with my Oura ring data below.
So I’ll be breaking down my review into three main categories:
Functionality (how does this thing even work?) Feedback + Flaws (how did device work for me?) Comparison + Accuracy (what did my Oura ring say about the deep sleep boost?)
But before I dive into the details, I think it’s important to be transparent with you guys and get this out of the way first. This device is really aimed at people who get less than 6 hours of sleep a night. They make that very clear in their marketing. They also say this device is NOT for people with sleep apnea or insomnia. But shift workers, new moms and dads, heck even astronauts (yes, they’re testing this device with NASA employees) are probably perfect candidates for this thing. But it’s $400 and if you really don’t have any trouble with your sleep quality, then please save your money! I get 8 hours a sleep and usually wake up feeling well rested so this device is really just an overkill for people like me.
Now if you fall into the camp of people who really struggle with your sleep hours and quality, then keep reading. Or if you really care about accuracy and you want to see if this thing might be better than the Oura ring, then stick around as I compare my SmartSleep stats to that of the Oura ring.
Cool, so let’s get started with functionality.
This SmartSleep headband is an EEG “based” wearable that uses highly sensitive sensors to detect deep sleep in real time. Note: this is not an EEG machine like the Dreem 2. In my opinion, the Dreem 2 is a bit more advanced and offers more features. Plus it’s considered an FDA Class II Medical Device in case that matters to you.
But the way the SmartSleep works is through two sensors in the headband itself and another sensor placed behind the ear and connected by a wire. These sensors track your brain waves and detect in real time what phase of sleep you’re in. When you’re in deep sleep, these same sensors trigger very specific sounds that have been studied to boost slow waves and improve the efficiency of your sleep. Now these tones are not loud — they’re probably not going to wake you or your partner up. I personally never heard them and I tend to be a lighter sleeper.
When you wake up in the morning, you sync the device with their SleepMapper app to see how you slept. The first thing you see is your “healthy sleep score” out of 100. You get a “base score” and a “sleep boost” — both of which contribute to your overall sleep quality that night. The “sleep boost” number is their calculation of how many sound waves they played to keep you in deep slumber throughout the night. I think 77 minutes was the maximum number of minutes of sounds I got one night, but this number varied pretty drastically throughout the course of my experiment.
And just like the Oura ring, when it comes to your “total” sleep score, the device dings you for things like:
Time asleep
Time you went to bed
Total time awake
The app also has a sleep graph section — which gives you a more detailed view of your nightly metrics. Here’s where you can see how long you were in your REM, deep and light sleep states. To be honest, it’s not the most aesthetic graph. I personally think Oura Ring does a better job, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
So onto my feedback and flaws with the device. Let’s first talk about the positives:
The material is actually pretty soft and comfortable. I think it’s better than the first version of the Dreem device, which felt too stiff to wear on my head every night. And you can even tighten the SmartSleep device so it fits comfortably on small heads (like mine).
The Bluetooth and Wifi are OFF when you’re wearing this device so you don’t have to worry about blasting your brain with EMFs all night.
The company offers a generous 30-day money back guarantee with no re-stocking fee, and it’s available at Best Buy.
But as I alluded to earlier, this device just wasn’t for me. In fact, I already returned it. And here’s why:
The most obvious one is just the inconvenience of having to wear a machine on your head all night. It’s bulky, not sexy, and I think I ripped it off my head unconsciously at least 5 nights during this experiment.
The sensors are very sensitive, so much so that even on the nights I didn’t rip it off, the band sometimes moved around too much for it to get an accurate reading of my brain waves and so I woke up the next day with 0 results . That really sucked.
. That really sucked. Before you go to sleep, you always have to connect the device to make sure it’s working, which is annoying in itself. But that, coupled with the fact that I also had trouble connecting the device to my app some nights, made this thing a real pain to put on when tired.
Sticky adhesives. These are a pain in the ass and don’t last as long as they say. For instance, the SmartSleep said the sticky adhesives would last up to 3 days. But I honestly couldn’t make it last more than 1 night. Maybe it’s because of my thick mane, but the adhesive was not sticky enough to last a second night . And these things are $30 bucks for a pack of 30, which adds to the already expensive price tag of $400 for this device.
. And these things are $30 bucks for a pack of 30, which adds to the already expensive price tag of $400 for this device. You always have to charge the device every morning.
It often left a Star-Trek-like mark on my forehead (maybe I made it too tight?).
It doesn’t show your different brain waves like alpha and theta. I personally thought that would have been a good feature to include for the end user.
So now that I’ve aired my grievances, let’s move on to the final portion of this review: accuracy. I’ve included graphs as visual aids below.
Let’s start with my light sleep graph — SmartSleep v. Oura data. You can see both trackers track light sleep pretty well (graph below). You see similar trend lines for both, which suggests they’re both tracking similar data and it makes sense the nights line up correctly.
Light Sleep Graph: SmartSleep v. Oura
Then we go to REM sleep and we can see a lot spikes in the SmartSleep where I got a lot more highs and lows (graph below). My guess is that this is because the tracking system built into the headband is a lot more sensitive than the tracking system built into the Oura ring so you could potentially get more accurate data here. You’ll get general trend lines from the Oura ring, but it may not be as precise or as big.
REM Sleep Graph: SmartSleep v. Oura
Then we move over to deep sleep and I generally see the same pattern. I see big rises and falls together. However, I’ve got this few day chunk the week of March 8 where my Oura ring continued to be on the rise, whereas the SmartSleep data continued to decline (graph below). I honestly don’t know which one of these is truly accurate.
Deep Sleep Graph: SmartSleep v. Oura
Throughout these 4 weeks of data, I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. I was eating consistently, didn’t change up my workout routine, and things pretty much stayed the same. So I’m not sure what would cause a massive displacement here. And usually when I do change things up, I consistently see a correlation on my Oura ring. So maybe the ring is enough to get a good idea for the bigger trends?
But if you’re looking for very specific nuances — like reading or playing games before bed — maybe this SmartSleep is what you’re looking for to evaluate those things and their impacts on sleep. Or if you’re looking for even more granularity, it might be worth looking into a sleep lab. But I’ve already learned a lot about my sleep patterns from a year’s worth of Oura data and to be honest, it’s a lot more comfortable and consistent to wear.
So even though we might get some specifically more accurate data from the SmartSleep, I think generally it’s easier to learn trends over time and get consistency out of the data from something like the Oura ring.
So here are my final thoughts on SmartSleep.
Do I think the science and intent for better sleep is there? Absolutely.
Do I think it’s a well-designed machine? Somewhat.
But do I think this is something I would consistently use over time? Hell no.
For me, a great product flows seamlessly into your everyday for me, and this thing was just lacking that sense of stickiness — just like those damn adhesives. I have a couple more sleep tracker reviews in the works, so stay tuned for those! | https://medium.com/swlh/smartsleep-or-dumb-device-2513997b4370 | ['Katie Moore'] | 2020-03-24 19:00:39.706000+00:00 | ['Wearables', 'Technology Trends', 'Gadgets', 'Sleep', 'Health Technology'] |
Flushing’s Day and Night | Restaurants at Flushing
It is an old neighborhood, old in the sense of the rusty storefront tablets and golden bracelets, the aged pedestrians’ Chinese dialects that your grandma used to mumble, and the scents of braised duck feet that you remembered as a child.
It was Sept. 26, five days before the Chinese Moon Festival. Outside the Taipan Bakery on Main Street, several people lined up shortly in front of the grime-thickened glass door in thin sunlight. Inside, two crammed shopping paths, one for mooncakes and another for other bakeries, intersected, then separated.
The Moon Festival on Wednesday is a time when the moon is supposed to come full, and families are supposed to come together. While the weather forecast already declared Wednesday night to be rainy and the moon to be engulfed by clouds, no one knew if the night for that petite, wrinkled women waiting in the mooncake line will be about family reunion and festive blessings.
She wore an azure shirt and black pants with hair braided into a loose bun — a quintessential image of an aged Flushing woman. She leaned forward, pressing her body against the mooncake counter. Without a second of real observation, however, she swiftly leaned back again and swayed her head slightly to peer what other customers had bought. Another typical image one would recognize from their small town relatives’ shopping habits.
It seemed that she liked talking, at least to the young Chinese couple behind her. But it was one-way outputting instead of communicating, merely an act of opening her mouth and making some sounds that never echoed back.
“The fruit flavor mooncake bundle should be nice,” the young couple discussed. “But wouldn’t eight pieces be too much?”
“There are other bundles down there,” the women pointed to the lower section of the mooncake menu, turning around to the couple but holding her head low as if she was only muttering to herself.
The couple responded with a prolonged sound of “eeemm,” but the women went on murmuring about the flavors, the prices, and her recommendations for the young’s mooncake choice.
When it was her turn, the mooncake expert only bought one — a single, large, typical mooncake. As she walked out and disappeared into the street, the shopping throng moved a step forward.
It is Flushing in Queens, a place where the young only show up as night falls, shopping or eating or drinking, while the old ones stay, under the daylight. | https://medium.com/@lilytrack/flushings-day-and-night-34b81ca52388 | ['Lily Yang'] | 2020-12-21 20:42:52.950000+00:00 | ['Nonfiction', 'Scenes', 'Flushing', 'Chinese Culture', 'New York'] |
The Boy who lived — Orphans in popular fiction | I’ve been reading a lot this week. About the boy who lived and the boy who became you-know-who (Harry Potter and the half-blood prince), the boy who asked for more (Oliver Twist in a graphic novel adaptation, Fagin the Jew), the boy who became Bond (James Bond Origin #1 by Jeff Parker). Despite the different genres and different times at which they were written, what links them all is a central character who is an orphan. Come to think of it, a lot of heroes and villains in fiction are orphans. Wikipedia lists 2 full pages of fictional characters spanning classics, superheroes, fairy tales and popular fiction that are orphans.
What makes them so appealing? Orphans offer an easy way out for writers, achieving many objectives with just one choice of character, an orphan. A relatable character who evokes the reader’s sympathy, a solid backstory that explains the character’s driving force in life, loss and vengeance as compelling plot themes and avoiding plot complexity by eliminating distractions (i.e family).
Parents or family represent all that is right in the world — love, safety, comfort, order. Losing them early is the jolt that makes the hero step out of his comfort zone for a life less ordinary and achieve his true calling. Around the time the hero makes this leap to leave the familiar, he usually gets a gift and a guide (eg. Harry Potter’s magic and Dumbledore, Cinderella’s glass slipper and fairy Godmother). We now have the makings of a good plot that has stood the test of time — a gifted orphan and a guide. It works well across a wide range of stories, from fairy tales to superheroes.
What makes some orphans heroes and others villains? Characters whose parents represent all the positives (love, safety, comfort) use this as a driving force to be good and do good. Characters whose parents are not associated with these positives distance themselves from these virtues and turn evil. Harry and Lord Voldemort are both orphans but they are like chalk and cheese. Harry fondly remembers his parents as being loving and virtuous. He often uses them as reference for how he should act in any situation. Lord Voldemort came from a broken family, his father abandoned his mother upon discovering that she had bewitched him. He is embarrassed about this past, disassociates himself with his parents, is unable to love or trust anyone and decides that he is destined to be special.
The absence of a mentor or friend in his life is a key difference too. While Harry has Dumbledore, his friends and a circle of well wishers, Voldemort is unable to trust or love and shuns any offers of help. This explains to a great extent how circumstances of birth, a loving family and a strong mentor determines whether the orphan turns out to be a hero or villain. But it does not explain all.
There are more similarities in the circumstances of birth of Oliver Twist and Voldemort than any other fictional characters, yet there cannot be two more different characters. Oliver Twist’s unspoiled goodness and Voldemort’s embodiment of pure evil have similar backstories. Oliver Twists’s mum is poor and ill, walks some distance to the workhouse, gives birth to him and dies. Voldemort’s mum, Merope staggers up to the orphanage, gives birth to the boy, names him and dies. Neither has a ring on her finger. Why are the characters polar opposites, despite identical circumstanes of birth? In these stories, both characterizations are explained by the innate qualities of good/evil that have little to do with their birth. Nature vs. nurture, the eternal debate.
What can be conclusively said of orphans in stories is that they are far too many to ignore, they evoke an emotional response in their audience, they offer writers many benefits in story telling and they can turn out to be the hero or villain based on the writer’s fancy. | https://medium.com/@aparna81/the-boy-who-lived-orphans-in-popular-fiction-e0fd80b67916 | ['Aparna Dubey'] | 2020-03-17 02:52:29.092000+00:00 | ['Popular Culture', 'Curious', 'Fiction', 'Writers Life', 'Harry Potter'] |
Holiday- in milliseconds or a lifetime? | One evening after a very busy day with two children to take care of and no help from anywhere. When I had cooked and cleaned and fed the kids, I decided to have a cup of coffee. My husband was travelling and that meant that I had no time alone to even catch up on my breath, let alone have tea or coffee.
That first sip of coffee felt like a holiday. (February 2019)
When we finally reached home after not being able to return even after several months, the house had a stale smell, the one typical to a house locked for about four months. We aired the house for several hours.
That first gush of air inside the house smelt like a holiday. (May 2020)
Photo by Caroline Attwood on Unsplash
A week full of work, kids, classes to drive to, playdates to plan and coordinate, Christmas gifts to arrange, a book to finish, my own language homework to complete, when I was too exhausted to cook. My husband took over the kitchen. I was truly glad for that. I decided to help him finish the meal by putting the rice to cook.
That first bite of my husband’s chicken curry tastes like a holiday. (Nov 2020)
As I sat thirsty on my sofa, tucked in a warm blanket editing my book. I asked my daughter if she would like to bring me a glass of water, just because I was lazy. She went into the kitchen with excitement and came back several minutes later with a tall glass of water with a straw and a lemon slice.
The first look at that glass of water felt like a holiday. (December 2020) | https://medium.com/@mallikabhatia/holiday-in-milliseconds-or-a-lifetime-2b7cc6591609 | ['Mallika Bhatia'] | 2020-12-26 11:56:20.202000+00:00 | ['Love', 'Happiness', 'Experience', 'Holidays', 'Family'] |
Gindependent Women: How Cutesy Drinking Culture Is Hurting Us All | By Sadhbh O’Sullivan
DESIGNED BY MEG O’DONNELL
You’ve seen it on Etsy, in Oliver Bonas, anywhere you buy greeting cards or last-minute Secret Santa gifts: booze has its own, independently grown, merchandise business. Messages range from a “Press for Prosecco” bell to “Gindependent Woman” to the horrific “A banana has 108 calories. A gin & tonic has 91 calories. Enough said.”
Generally pun-based, it spans from cards to teatowels to homeware, jewellery and even Christmas decorations. It’s reached a point that making a joke out of drinking seems as integral to British culture as drinking itself — a fact that is freely capitalised on. When exactly did the act of drinking, and enjoying it, get so much merchandise? Why is so much of it so cutesy? And what does it have to do with the way women drink?
Drinking was historically a male activity, until a complex combination of access to public space, the rise in feminism and the shifting drinks industry changed women’s drinking habits. For a large part of the 20th century, women were confined to the domestic sphere while men had the public space of the pub(lic house) where women were originally not welcome, and certainly not welcome to drink. When women did drink, their capacity for alcohol was as diminished as their access to public space — women were expected to drink fortified wines or, if need be, a half-pint, according to Clare Herrick, a geographer at King’s College London.
Several changes in the drinks industry shifted what was consumed, and by whom. One of the most radical changes was the introduction of affordable wine to supermarkets in the 1960s. Wine could be drunk at home, welcoming women to the drinking fold like never before. At the same time, the political and societal upheaval of second-wave feminism changed things for women in more ways than one. Dr Amanda Atkinson, a senior researcher with the Public Health Institute, tells me: “As women became more liberated and economically independent, they began to participate in drinking but were morally judged for doing so by transcending traditional notions of femininity. For example, they [could] be labelled as lacking femininity, as being sexually promiscuous, as being ‘out of control’ when intoxicated and neglectful of traditional roles (e.g. mothers, wives and carers, passive, domestic).”
This is reflected in the medical concerns levied at women over the years. As reported in Alcohol, Drinking, Drunkenness: (Dis)Orderly Spaces, there was a gendered double standard in the reporting of perceived harm from drinking. The book’s authors argue that “public anxiety about women’s drinking peaks in times where their roles are subject to rapid change, most notably during first and second wave feminism.”
A stark example of this occurred during the late ’90s and early ’00s, aka the ‘ladette’ years. Dr Sadie Boniface, research coordinator for the Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS), tells me that where we’re currently more likely than ever not to have drunk at all in the past week, the early 2000s saw a considerable rise in heavy episodic drinking — or ‘binge’ drinking — among women (though the rates have since started to fall). A 2004 analysis of the media reporting of ‘ladette’ culture (whereby women were represented as aping male behaviour by going out, having a good time and getting volubly drunk) appeared at the same time as articles which emphasised the threats alcohol posed to women’s health (in terms of their looks, fertility, and the health of their unborn child), as well as making them more likely victims of male violence, with men being presented as victims of women who were invading traditionally male domains.
Women became a target market for the drinks industry. According to Dr Atkinson’s review for the IAS, women have been targeted since the 1990s through stereotypically ‘feminised’ products (sweet, low-calorie, slim design, focused on appearance, adverts with all-female friendships etc). While the gendering of products is still prevalent (think the recent rise in pink gins and the persistent popularity of prosecco), there has been a recent lifestyle shift to what could be called ‘commodity feminism’ or ‘femvertising’. More recently, Dr Atkinson says, the use of gender stereotypes has been “accompanied by messages of empowerment, including sexual assertiveness, ‘me time’, the promotion of equal gender representation and the celebration of women through associations with events such as International Women’s Day … thus allowing the brand to successfully associate itself with gender equity.”
As women became more liberated and economically independent, they began to participate in drinking but were morally judged for doing so.
All of this comes together to form a complicated picture of how we drink, and how we see our drinking habits. The ladette may be gone, and the drinking habits of women have ebbed and flowed over the years (see the recent rise in teetotalism), but what researchers call “determined drinking” (drinking solely to get drunk) has remained a constant. According to the latest ONS adult drinking habits survey in 2017, 25.6% of women binged alcohol on their heaviest drinking day,” with 16–24-year-olds most likely to binge drink when they do drink.
Where once drunkenness for the sake of drunkenness among women was framed as unladylike (and therefore to do so could be seen as a feminist statement), our attitudes to drinking have taken on a far more self-effacing, joking tone. Unlike the ladette years, it’s no longer loutish but how we cope with the inescapable stresses of modern life. Whether that’s huns dealing with feelings with a bottle of rosé, a glass of wine or a gin and tonic after the kids have gone to bed or post-work pints to unload job stress, we don’t only drink — we make a joke of it. Which is where the drinking memorabilia comes in.
Andrew Misell is the Wales Director for the charity Alcohol Change UK, a national organisation that works on drinking issues across the spectrum, encouraging people to have what he calls “sensible, adult conversations about alcohol”. He tells me that this work is important because it’s still hard to speak frankly about the way we drink in the UK. “I think it’s a difficult one because this mock regret and humour around alcohol is quite ingrained in British culture. Any other illness is not funny, but a hangover is funny.” This is most apparent in the clearly successful market for pun-based products. “There’s quite a big market for things like birthday cards, mugs, teapots, teatowels, aprons, posters — all quite whimsical, and saying things like ‘Just Add Prosecco’ or ‘It’s Gin O’Clock’ or whatever it might be.” When I ask him where they’ve come from, he’s quick to emphasise that these are independent products, not from the drinks industry itself.
“This whimsical merchandise … is not being produced by the brewers or the wine companies, it’s being produced independently by card manufacturers, gift manufacturers and you do see messages encouraging excess there. The question to ask is how much of this is driven by manufacturers and how much is coming from the public because blatantly this stuff sells.” He adds: “People like this humour.” There isn’t an easy cause and effect: if someone makes a birthday card joking about getting wasted for your birthday, that could be seen as irresponsible of the manufacturers. But “you’ve gotta look at both sides there: if there wasn’t already a certain openness to that kind of humour, you wouldn’t be able to sell birthday cards that suggest you get drunk on your birthday.”
Dr Atkinson tells me these novelty items have existed for a while, but “there has definitely been an increase in the availability and marketing of such items in recent years. This both reflects the normalisation and acceptability of women’s drinking over time, and reinforces drinking as a key aspect of women’s everyday lives and identities.” And as they become more common, they become more problematic. “For example, I recently came across a champagne-shaped baby bottle targeted at mothers of baby girls. This symbolises the way in which alcohol use is gendered from a young age and the way in which, in British culture, alcohol use is so ingrained we do not question it.”
This seems to be a peculiarly British phenomenon. Our drinking culture has been referred to as a ‘dry’ culture, according to Dr Aktinson: “Traditionally we drink less frequently, yet when we do drink, we drink more than other cultures (i.e. a night out at the weekend), thus we have more of a ‘binge’ culture.” We also find drunkenness very funny in and of itself, which seems to be fairly unique. In Andrew’s experience, “We do seem to find drunkenness particularly funny. Whereas, if you go to perhaps somewhere like America or most of southern Europe, it’s regarded as somewhat shameful to be drunk.”
We use humour [to talk] about things we’re not quite comfortable about. The question then would be why are we not quite comfortable about drinking?
When I ask Andrew why we’re so ready to make a joke out of the way we drink that we’d buy novelty items, he says it comes back to our discomfort with being upfront about drinking, especially drinking a lot. “We use humour [to talk] about things we’re not quite comfortable about. The question then would be why are we not quite comfortable about drinking? If we think we’re drinking too much, then why don’t we talk about that in a straightforward fashion? There’s a lot to be said for enjoying alcohol up to a point with friends. People need to socialise. The potential problems come when that consumption is taking place at a level that is likely to cause you harm either mentally or physically, or where you don’t feel able to opt out because you’re in a drinking group of friends.”
The cutesy merchandise geared towards women seems to be one particularly popular iteration of the same problem — we just want to enjoy our drinking and laugh about it, because the alternative might mean opting out of something that is, for so many of us, fundamentally fun. But whether drinking is framed as quirky and sparkly and adorable, or aspirationally high end, or even tins in the park with the lads, constantly making it into a joke masks our ability to identify when it slips from occasional to problematic.
Cutesy stuff can often reiterate harmful gender stereotypes (framing womanhood around weight loss, sweetness and pink) but we’re long past the point where liking pink, because it’s also a stereotype, makes you a bad woman or a bad feminist. The problem isn’t necessarily the glittery swirling cursive or ’50s housewife illustrations; it’s that framing drinking — through any lens — as fundamental doesn’t allow us to work out when it tips from freedom of choice to dependency, and assertions that we can do whatever we want could make it harder to interrogate when the way we drink becomes a problem.
Tides do seem to be shifting. Campaigns like #dontpinkmydrink are aiming to tackle gender stereotyping in the drinks industry, and there’s been a surge in books and media covering everything from teetotalism to what’s been dubbed ‘sober curious’. This growth in self-reflection indicates that perhaps we can find a new normal, where we recognise that drinking is a choice we are all free to make, but that it should always be a choice — not something we feel obliged to partake in or can only do in excess and then laugh about. We are all so much more than a “Gindependent Woman”. | https://medium.com/refinery29/gindependent-women-how-cutesy-drinking-culture-is-hurting-us-all-4949196ab5e0 | [] | 2020-12-24 13:43:50.388000+00:00 | ['Sexist', 'Women', 'Alcohol', 'Drinking', 'Drinking Culture'] |
Tuning your PostgreSQL for High Performance | Table of Contents
Common Issues
General principles
Indexes
Index Types
Improving queries
Locks
Rules of thumb
PG Config
BULK Updates/Inserts
Assumptions
You know basic SQL
You’ve already used PostgreSQL in the past
Basic knowledge of what an index and constraints are
Common issues you might have faced in the past
A query is slow periodically
A query is slow at times, but only affects certain users
High memory usage
High query latency, even for simple queries
The database is not responding
My server code is not able to connect but I’m able to connect with my root account
General principles
Why use a subdomain instead of IP/Hostname of your database
This will allow you to hot-swap servers with less chance of downtime, de-commission nodes, simple round-robin, and geo-distribution to name a few examples.
When your database is smaller than 10 GB
if your database has less than 10 GB. It will be fast with the default settings unless you really start to go crazy with your queries and that’s usually a good sign that your table layout needs to be improved
Read Replicas. Why and How
Postgres is an amazing database, but it has one “problem”. The Vanilla version can only have one write node.
This means there is only so high you can vertically scale your machine.
A simple way to overcome this is by adding read replicas and only use your write instance for writes and high latency sensible queries.
This will also help you with lock/deadlock issues since you will be splitting your reads and writes (caution when you expect those locks to save you from inconsistent behavior on reads)
Use Read Replicas to increase your throughput and resilience
PGBouncer + Connection Pooling
PostgreSQL was built to handle a small number of long-lasting connections.
That’s why it has a relatively small default limit of connections and it’s not uncommon for people to get the error “connection limit exceeded for non-superusers”.
One might be tempted to just increase that limit, but there are better ways.
Postgres will usually complete the same 10,000 transactions faster by doing them 5, 10, or 20 at a time than by doing them 500 at a time. Determining exactly how many should be done at once varies by workload and requires tuning.
https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Number_Of_Database_Connections
https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/tuning-max_connections-in-postgresql/
Another thing to take into consideration with connections is that creating and destroying them sometimes can be responsible for as much as half of that operation time and resource usage.
Because of that, it’s always recommended to have persistent connections.
This, in turn, will just exacerbate the previous limit issue.
So how can we solve this?
The answer is using a connection pool. Sometimes the framework you’re using offers that (like SQLAlchemy), other times you might need a specialized tool.
But if you’re using multiple machines to serve your API (as you probably are), you will run into the previous problem again since your framework pooler will only be responsible for managing the instance it’s running on.
When you have multiple servers, a good solution is using PGBouncer.
This amazing tool will allow you to connect multiple servers to it instead of connecting directly to Postgres.
It will queue incoming connections when the concurrent amount is greater than the one specified by you.
I’ll leave PGBouncer for another post.
PosgreSQL performance will increase dramatically if you have a small number of long-lasting connections instead of constantly creating new ones.
pgBadger
pgBadger is a PostgreSQL log analyzer built for speed that is able to generate full reports from your PostgreSQL log file and show them on a web interface. It’s a single and small Perl script that outperforms any other PostgreSQL log analyzer.
I always recommend using it if your Postgres is critical to your systems.
Keep accurate logs and metrics of your servers so you can make informed decisions
Your transactional DB is not for logging
Logging using your database can lead to massive bloat and it will create a bottleneck on various fronts.
Use s3, cloudwatch, papertrail, elk, logz.io, etc.
Not only will it be faster, cheaper, and allow better visibility, it will prevent your logs from affecting your transactional queries.
OLTP vs OLAP
Pg is usually used in OLTP scenarios with a bit of OLAP.
That is fine as long as you understand the difference between them.
For example, if a public-facing endpoint contains a very complex query that loads a lot of data and does complex operations, it’s probably a good indicator that it should be treated as OLAP and that endpoint refactored to adopt a different strategy. | https://medium.com/@luis-sena/tuning-your-postgresql-for-high-performance-5580abed193d | ['Luis Sena'] | 2021-05-25 15:16:39.578000+00:00 | ['Database', 'Postgresql', 'Sql', 'Development', 'Postgres'] |
Why You Should Always Feed a Hungry Child. | LIFE
Why You Should Always Feed a Hungry Child.
Photo by Tamas Pap on Unsplash
“How could anyone not like you? Being mean to you is like being mean to a puppy!” my friend said.
For as long as I can remember I have had to fight the thought that people don’t like me. ‘I know, I’m so lovable. It doesn’t make any sense. How could someone not like me?!’ Well, believe it or not, there was a time I couldn’t figure out how to make friends. In elementary school, I was less popular than homework or detention… or keeping your hands out of your pants.
It’s hard to make friends when you’re a kid. It’s even harder when you have a learning disability. No one knew what was wrong with me, so no one knew how to fix it. Then finally, I was diagnosed with a learning disability.
It was a long hard battle. My learning specialist called it brain confusion. The teachers called it, ‘you‘re a terrible child and deserve to be yelled at.’ I called it creativity! But, no one wants to be friends with the kid that the teacher always yells at. In fact, they would join in. Every day was bully Susan day, the worst holiday ever.
I remember crying to my mom about not having any friends. My mom told me, “You don’t have to have tons of friends. You just need one. Just one.” Soon it became “For the love of god make one friend, anyone, I don’t care who!” and “Geez Susan, even Hitler had one friend!” Message received. I have to find one single friend, and everything will be better!
Then, at snack time, a girl named Tanya was crying over her bag of Doritos. To clarify, she wasn’t crying because of a bag of Dorritos, she was crying into a bag of Dorritos. I saw her, and I knew this was my shot. ‘Hold onto your butt Tanya; I’m gonna friend the crap out of you!’
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“They said they didn’t want to be my friends.” She sobbed.
“I’ll be your friend,” I said
“Okay.” She hiccupped through tears.
It was that easy! I couldn’t believe it! I did it! She continued to talk while eating, and chunks of Dorito crumbs fell out of her bag and her mouth, scattering all over the table. Suddenly I got a whiff of that fake cheesy goodness, and I began to feel hungry. Not just hungry but ravenous.
I felt like if I didn’t eat something, I was going to pass out. The Doritos looked so delicious, and she was dropping them left and right on the table. ‘Oh my God, don’t eat the fallen Dorrito, Susan. No! Don’t do it!’ But my hand disconnected from my mind, and I ate the Dorritos off the table! I tried to stop, but I couldn’t! They were so buttery and delicious and forbidden! Because my mom never had Doritos in the house since she was always on a diet. By the way, this story is not sponsored by Doritos. I just really love them.
Later I was yelled at by the teacher in front of everyone, accusing me of stealing Tanya’s snack. I felt a wave of shame rush over me. Not because I ate Doritos, they were delicious. But because they thought I had stolen something. I was embarrassed and mortified. Inside my head, a voice screamed, ‘I didn’t steal her snack; I ate the crumbs. Don’t yell at me for stealing. Yell at me for being disgusting!’
But on the outside, all I could do was cry and I couldn’t stop. When my mom picked me up, I was still crying. I told her the whole story and she was so mad that she went to the principal and had the teacher fired. Hell hath no fury like a Mom on a diet.
I eventually made some friends. I grew up and moved to Los Angeles, where everyone is as confused, I mean, as creative as I am. I have yet to figure out how to fix my brain completely, so it doesn’t automatically see every little thing as a sign that people hate me. Still, I have taken away some important lessons: Always carry snacks, never go on a diet, and a bag of Doritos can solve almost any problem. | https://medium.com/inspired-writer/why-you-should-always-feed-a-hungry-child-5c2f58dc8fb7 | ['Susan Sassi'] | 2020-12-05 00:47:05.518000+00:00 | ['Personal Essay', 'Nonfiction', 'Life Lessons', 'Humor', 'Friendship'] |
9 Ways to Show Up for Your Fat Friends | 9 Ways to Show Up for Your Fat Friends
Concrete steps to being here for it as an ally
Having allies is often the difference between defeat and perseverance. Moving through this world as a fat person can be mentally and physically exhausting. One of the best things you can do for your fat friends is to learn how to be a good ally. Belonging to a marginalized group can be isolating, and knowing that our straight-sized friends care is important. Here are some concrete steps you can make towards ending fat stigma and discrimination.
Don’t comment on people’s bodies.
Commenting on people’s bodies is a minefield of triggers for all kinds of reasons. Talk about weight gain and weight loss almost always comes with a value judgement, implying that our weights and our worth are in inverse proportion to one another.
When you say “You look great! Have you lost weight?” you’ve communicated that size is one of the first things you notice, and that a lower weight is more desirable. For someone who is fat, or has gained weight, hearing this can be devastating.
This also applies to talking about your own body. Words about how you’d like to be thinner, or how you wish you had someone else’s body because they’re thinner, contribute to the idea that small bodies are inherently better. When you say these things, fat people hear you loud and clear saying “Thank God I don’t have THEIR body.”
None of this is to say that your feelings about your body aren’t valid. We have all grown up in this diet-centric, body-hating environment, and it’s okay to have your feelings. When and with whom you share those feelings, however, must be intentional. Saying them to a therapist, a friend, or a small group of people focused on unpacking this stuff is great. Putting them into the world as general statements just contributes to the problem.
Learn how to listen.
I know, this is much easier said than done. In the past few years, I’ve learned a lot about race, white privilege, and cultural appropriation. I’ve been faced regularly with a choice between speaking when I was uncomfortable, and just listening. Making a choice to quiet my own thoughts and voice has led to so much more understanding.
Take responsibility for educating yourself.
Seek out information on how to be an ally, and how to make the world less hostile and more accepting for your fat friends. You’re here, now, reading this, and that’s a step in the right direction. Look for articles like this one:
Take responsibility for educating yourself. Read about the difference between body positivity, fat acceptance, and fat liberation. Know that the body positive movement isn’t a great fit for a lot of people in bigger bodies. Understanding fatphobia and why this movement exists in the first place means making an effort to understand the challenges that fat people face in this world.
Seek out information on how being fat and being unhealthy are not mutually exclusive, the barriers to receiving good healthcare, and how the fat shaming we face affects our health in real, negative ways. Listen to fat people’s voices when we talk about being a punchline or a gag, or about the challenges we face in the workplace and when job hunting.
Put your money where your mouth is.
Where do you buy your clothes? Are you able to walk into whatever store you’d like, knowing they’ll have your size? My shopping options as a size 24/26 are extremely limited, and for someone just a size up in a US 28? The options are dismal. Feeling cute, put together, or professional can be really hard when nowhere has your size, and the places that do are online only and two or three times more expensive.
One way to be an ally is to vote with your wallet. Give your support to stores and brands that are inclusive (see Universal Standard and Modcloth), or at the very least who don’t actively support fatphobia and stigma. When you see a store using a curvy model in their ads, but not carrying any plus sized clothing, let them know that’s not okay. Fat bodies don’t exist to help them make money off things we can’t even buy ourselves. Use your voice to encourage companies that only carry plus sizes online to carry them in their physical stores.
Outside of clothing, choose to give your money to businesses and activities that help reduce fat stigma. Watch movies like Isn’t It Romantic, and shows like Shrill and Dietland. Eat at restaurants that have inclusive seating, and attend events at venues that are accessible.
Use your social media presence for good.
When your fat friends share graphics and articles about how it feels to move through this world as a fat person, share those posts. Part of being an ally is promoting normalization. The more often we see something portrayed in a normal way, the more normal it starts to become.
On her blog at Body Liberation Photography, Lindley Ashline talks about fixing your internalized fatphobia and centering more diverse bodies.
I challenge you to find accounts run by people whose bodies make you uncomfortable. Follow them and support and share them until you no longer have that reaction. Center their bodies instead of your own. Comment on their posts, and push back on the trolls. And then keep following and sharing and supporting and buying their work, because if even you are uncomfortable with those bodies, imagine how much harder it is for the people living in those bodies to survive than it is for you.
When you get used to things, they become less threatening, less scary, and this can lead to less stigma around them. Sharing images of fat people living normal, healthy lives is a way to spread the word that we are normal.
If you are in the position to use stock images, which ones are you using? Be intentional with the images you choose to accompany articles and opinions. If you are a business owner, make conscious choices about what kinds of bodies are highlighted in your advertising and social media presence.
Watch your language.
As I have spoken more and more about my experiences as a fat woman, my language has changed. I use my words more intentionally, and I notice when other people use words in ways that promote fatphobia.
If you wear a clothing size smaller than a 12–14, stop calling yourself fat or plus sized.
If you live in a straight-sized body, do the work to change the words you use about how you’re feeling and your self-perception. Stop saying “I feel fat,” when what you really mean is that you feel bloated, or full, or lack confidence about your body. Stop calling folds of skin “fat rolls” and thighs that barely touch “thick.”
If you wear a clothing size smaller than a 12–14, stop calling yourself fat or plus sized. Your feelings about your body are not inherently wrong, but it’s important to differentiate how you feel about your body and how our culture as a whole perceives and responds to your body.
Think about how you talk about food, and stop assigning false morality to eating. If you are changing how you eat, or examining your relationship with your body, with food and eating, or with your physical fitness, be aware of how you talk about it and to whom.
Understand the difference between fat and Fat.
Fat is a thing. Fat is also an identity, and one that is deeply ingrained in those of us who move through the world in bodies that it wasn’t made for. In her piece about mistakes she made as a thin ally to fat acceptance movements, Melissa Fabello explains:
And that would have been all good and well if I had considered that fat as a thing on your body and Fat as an identity and marginalized experience are two different things. And by asking folks to normalize the former, I’d inadvertently marginalized the latter. I failed to take into consideration that the difference in these experiences matters and that centering (potentially) non-fat people in a conversation about fat is by no means revolutionary. It reifies the status quo — which is exactly the problem. Does that mean that we, as thin people, can never talk about the fat on our bodies and how we’re brainwashed to hate it? No. But it does mean that we have to remember that this spoon-fed guilt and shame is a symptom of a larger fatphobic culture, wherein people who are actually fat (not people who “feel” fat) receive the brunt of the oppression. We have to note the differences between lowercase “fat” and uppercase “Fat” and question which we’re centering our conversations around and how we’re understanding our experiences in relation to them. Think of it this way: It’s the difference between using the #ThickThighsSaveLives hashtag and one that reads #NoThighGapNoProblem instead. It seems like a small difference, but it’s not.
The majority of people have fat on their bodies, but there is a huge difference between life with 5 ‘extra’ pounds and life with 150 ‘extra’ pounds. Being in a size 10 when you used to be an 8 might be a struggle bathed in emotion, but being in a size 30+ is a completely different ballgame. Recognize that those differences are real and important.
Call people out for promoting harmful ideas.
We recently went out to dinner with friends, and when we got home the kids were watching Dodgeball with their Grandmother. Not having seen it in many years, I didn’t remember the repugnant moments of Ben Stiller in a fat suit, slovenly and unhappy, singing Milkshake and juggling his fake man-boobs.
My mother and I stared at each other, unamused, as I flatly asked, “Isn’t it funny how they put Ben Stiller in a fat suit to make us all laugh because fat people are a joke?” No matter how many times I see it, being confronted with fat people as punchlines is always so disappointing.
As an ally, refuse to laugh at fat jokes. It’s lazy comedy, filler used to get a laugh when a smarter writer could have come up with something funnier. It promotes the idea that fat people are here to be laughed at, and most of the time reinforces stereotypes that fat people are dirty, gross, lazy, and unlovable.
Speaking up when co-workers, family, or friends say things you know are harmful can take a lot of courage. It’s certainly easier to stay silent. But easier isn’t always better. Your voice means something, and having you stand beside us and use your voice when we can’t is meaningful. Refusing to tolerate jokes, insults, and misinformation based on body size is important.
Notice and speak up about shared spaces.
There was a time when I had a hard time shopping at most stores, but didn’t have too much trouble navigating the world. At my current size, I am constantly aware of the ways in which the world is too small for me. I go to restaurants and have to ask not to be seated in a booth. If I’m with friends, vocalizing that I’d prefer a table feels hard without giving an explanation, and having to say out loud in public that I’m too fat to fit in a booth when we’re out having a good time is a mood-dampener.
Smaller bodied people have the privilege of taking it for granted that they will fit. One huge step you can take is to advocate for people of all abilities and sizes to be able to safely and comfortably use the same spaces you do.
At work, do your waiting rooms or meeting rooms only have chairs with arms? Does your doctor’s waiting room provide benches, or only single chairs? Is the furniture sturdy? How wide are the bathroom stalls, and is an option available for people who need more space? If you’re planning an event, notice the types of seating that are being offered.
Support fat activists.
Exposure is one of the best ways to normalize. You can share the words of people who know what it’s like to live in a fat body, acting as a megaphone for our messages and feelings. Read, retweet, repost, and share on Facebook. Follow the Instagram accounts of people who are doing the work to destigmatize fat bodies, like Amanda Martinez Beck, Anna O’Brien, and Jes Baker.
If you’re in a position to do so, buy their books and merch. Donate to fundraising campaigns, buy stock photos from sites like Representation Matters, or support the Patreons of the people working to make the world a better place for fat people of all sizes.
As a human with certain privileges, I try to use my voice to be an ally whenever I can. I recognize that while I face oppression and discrimination in some areas, I also have the privilege of being white and educated. You can be a fat ally no matter the size of your body.
Don’t miss a thing! Sign up for my weekly newsletter here.
You might also enjoy… | https://medium.com/fattitude/9-ways-to-show-up-for-your-fat-friends-b2f55a6dd573 | ['Rachael Hope'] | 2019-10-01 19:10:32.886000+00:00 | ['Social Justice', 'Equality', 'Body', 'Body Image', 'Activism'] |
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Website: https://meta-shib.org | https://medium.com/@metashibproject/metashib-mshib-token-on-bsc-network-soon-54ec50c8eee0 | [] | 2021-12-29 17:21:03.096000+00:00 | ['Bscgem', 'Shiba', 'Shiba Inu', 'Binance Smart Chain', 'Bsc'] |
A Wall | A poem about resilience in our community.
Made of concrete with the Will of iron,
Stands in the distance
Self-sufficient -a proud wall.
Not a Walled Garden, or a graffitied with feeling wall.
This wall is icy instead.
Stingy with its concentration.
Nothing grows here.
Not yet. Not beside it.
Or around it. Or up it.
Not yet.
No messy ivy to curse or pull.
This wall is functional.
Consistently keeping out the seasons.
Reliable in this fashion.
Unbreakable, no matter how hard one kick.
This wall is a rock.
Not a gem. Human made instead with the spirit of defiance.
Domestic. Committed to standing. Undivided in its divine destiny.
This time, the paper padding is replaced, but the words are still the same. This wall will not fall.
Or bend. Or crumble with the wind.
Here, a child can lean its back against the gravel, content to rest a while. | https://medium.com/@dyspla/a-wall-9ad199c80622 | ['Lennie Varvarides'] | 2021-01-27 12:46:58.469000+00:00 | ['First Draft', 'Poets On Medium', 'Self-awareness', 'Resilience', 'Poetry'] |
What should a boss/manager do all day? | Work priorities are a fairly important topic that seem to almost never get really discussed, knowing as we do how poor the priority management process is at most companies. (In one study, 7 in 10 employees were found to be working on tasks of essentially no value.) And I think we all know what happens when work priorities are in the toilet: now every manager can define their project as “utterly urgent.” It usually works, because, well, no one knows what the actual priorities are! This all ultimately leads to people with 12 things on their desk all being called “urgent,” which leads to employee churn and burn at many companies.
If you’ve ever seen studies where “95% of the company can’t identify the strategy of the company,” well, that all comes from this problem with work priorities. No one knows the priorities, it seems, and different levels construe them differently. To the top levels it’s growth, revenue, and nothing else. To the middle it’s pleasing the top levels and personnel/execution/logistics issues. And at the bottom levels, it’s about task work, being seen as competent, and learning and getting noticed. Because the vocab and goals are so different at each tier, it’s really hard for priorities to come into focus at most orgs. You’ve probably seen this too.
But it all begs a question: what should a manager’s work priorities be?
TaskRabbit CEO on work priorities
Good interview here with the TaskRabbit CEO (first black female CEO in Silicon Valley) and this part pops on what she views as her role:
We’re hiring for leadership, and I want to know: Is that person going to be a strong person in my organization? Can they be thoughtful, can they take an idea and run with it and figure out how to make something happen? Are they good at leading others and managing? As a manager, my №1 job is to hire the best people and develop them. It’s really about the team and the people you build around you.
Remember all those stories about Larry Page approving Google hires even as the CEO/co-founder? This is similar.
So what should work priorities be?
Simplest breakdown:
Developing people (at least before automation gets to scale)
Communicating ideas and deliverables
Being able for discussions/feedback opportunities/challenges
Stepping back and being a “thought partner” as opposed to micro-managing
Making sure goals/KPIs are achieved while ensuring the whole team understands why, what, and how
To me, that’s the baseline. Companies are still made up of people — might not be in 100 years — so while we’ve got that in play, let’s develop people. Too often the focus in companies is all spreadsheets and numbers. I get it because (a) that stuff matters to investors and your ability to pay people and (b) it’s easier to control than human beings, who are emotionally messy.
We need to have more open conversations about work priorities and how managers can be better. I try to do that in a newsletter every week. Sign up if interested.
But as we add more and more people to organizations (which is happening in some non-tech sectors), and oftentimes add them with unclear job role/context, shouldn’t a manager’s top work priorities involve developing those people and giving them context for how everything fits together?
Is this rocket science?
No. But unfortunately companies aren’t structured according to any kind of logic oftentimes. They’re usually an excuse for people to make money while claiming they’re doing something else — “reinventing organizational health for a global workforce!” — and assign their own level of priority to tasks in order to feel more relevant. So no, oftentimes it has nothing to do with anything logical or “Hey, this might make sense.” It’s often a large exercise in self-worth.
If we gave up some measure of control about work (not easy for many), we’d probably have clearer managerial work priorities. But that can only happen at the micro level (individual managers getting better at all this), so I wouldn’t necessarily think the work priorities issue is goin to improve anytime soon.
Your take on work priorities and how to make them better-articulated or executed-upon? | https://medium.com/@tedbauer2003/what-should-a-boss-manager-do-all-day-95e67dca7048 | ['Ted Bauer'] | 2020-12-06 12:31:35.915000+00:00 | ['Future Of Work', 'Management', 'Work', 'Management And Leadership', 'Priorities'] |
Best solutions for Microsoft interview tasks. Pattern Recognition. | Description:
Solution:
It looks like this task is not about algorithms, this is just about writing a simple parser which breaking the given string to parts and writing a function which finds and counts all substrings in the given string.
The only interesting subject which can be discussed in this task is implementation of algorithm for finding substrings. But the task doesn’t require to implement this algorithm, the strings are short, we have no special requirements for search of substrings, so we can use implementation from the standard library. The only thing we should keep in mind is that complexity of this implementation may be very different. Simple algorithm like this one has average complexity about 2*N where N is length of the string and worse complexity O(N*P) where P is length of the pattern, and depends on implementation of std::string.find() method.
int count_substrings(const std::string & s, const std::string& sub, bool overlapped = true) {
size_t sub_size = sub.size();
if ( (sub_size == 0) || (sub_size > s.size()) ) return 0;
int count = 0;
for (size_t offset = s.find(sub);
offset != string::npos;
offset = s.find(sub, overlapped?offset+1:offset+sub.size())) {
++count;
}
return count; }
For a string like “aaa…(1.000.000 more ‘a’)…aaaB” and overlapped substring “aaa…(999.000 more ‘a’)…aaaB” it will works VERY slow because we will need to compare 1.000.000 * 999.000 characters.
There are many much faster algorithms even with complexity O(N) but all of them are applicable in special cases or has additional requirements. This is the cause why there are so many algorithms were invented and people don’t use only one the best of all. Below I will show a couple of the most famous and general algorithms which are applicable in most of cases and don’t have too many additional requirements.
The most famous is the Knuth–Morris–Pratt algorithm
int KMP_count(const string &s, const string &sub) {
int num_subs = 0;
size_t sub_size = sub.size();
size_t s_size = s.size();
if ((sub_size == 0) || (sub_size > s.size())) { return 0; }
vector<int> prefixes(sub_size);
for (int k = 0, i = 1; i < sub_size; ++i) {
while ((k > 0) && (sub[i] != sub[k])) {
k = prefixes[k - 1];
}
if (sub[i] == sub[k]) { k++; }
prefixes[i] = k;
} for (int k = 0, i = 0; i < s_size; ++i) {
while ((k > 0) && (sub[k] != s[i])) {
k = prefixes[k - 1];
}
if (sub[k] == s[i]) { k++; } if (k == sub_size) {
// to get position of substrings in the string
// (i - sub_size + 1);
++num_subs;
}
}
return num_subs;
}
There is a very fast algorithm with linear complexity which works similar to the KMP algorithm but looks more understandable IMHO. It is so called Z-function. Like the previous algorithm it requires to allocate an additional array of integers with size S where S is length of string N + length of substring P. Then we save result of calculations of Z-function in the array, pass through this array and recognize positions of searched substrings. Implementation of this algorithm is here:
vector<int> z_function (const string & s) {
int n = (int) s.size();
vector<int> z (n);
for (int i=1, l=0, r=0; i<n; ++i) {
if (i <= r)
z[i] = min (r-i+1, z[i-l]);
while (i+z[i] < n && s[z[i]] == s[i+z[i]])
++z[i];
if (i+z[i]-1 > r)
l = i, r = i+z[i]-1;
}
return z;
} int z_count(const std::string & s, const std::string& sub) {
size_t sub_size = sub.size();
if ( (sub_size == 0) || (sub_size > s.size()) ) return 0; string working_string(sub + s);
size_t ws_size = working_string.size(); auto z = z_function(working_string); int number_subs = 0; for(int i = sub_size; i < ws_size; ++i) {
if (z[i] >= sub_size) {
// to get exact position of substrings in the string
// cout << i - sub_size << endl;
++number_subs;
}
}
return number_subs;
}
And finally we should implement the parser which will break the input string to the pattern and the blobs where we will search the patterns.
Unfortunately standard C++ still have no so good tokenizer as strtok from plain C so I will use it. Even if it looks not so safety as pure C++ solution but it allows to tokenize a string in one like instead of tens of lines in pure C++.
string parser(const string & s) {
string output;
int total_patterns = 0; size_t pos = s.find_first_of(';'); string pattern = s.substr(0, pos);
string blobs = s.substr(pos+1); for(char *token = strtok((char*)blobs.c_str(), "|");
token != NULL; token = strtok(NULL, "|"))
{
string stoken(token);
// int num_patterns = count_substrings(stoken, pattern);
// int num_patterns = z_count(stoken, pattern);
int num_patterns = KMP_count(stoken, pattern);
total_patterns += num_patterns;
output.append(to_string(num_patterns));
output.append("|");
}
output.append(to_string(total_patterns));
return output;
}
Repository with the full project you can find here: https://github.com/jolly-fellow/microsoft/tree/master/pattern_recognition
Return to the table of contents. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/best-solutions-for-microsoft-interview-tasks-pattern-recognition-fe331643a9c0 | ['Alexander Molchevskyi'] | 2020-11-15 17:16:44.308000+00:00 | ['Algorithms', 'Microsoft', 'Programming', 'Interview', 'Interview Questions'] |
I Wasn’t Born Queer, Pagan and Black, I Was Called To Be Queer, Pagan and Black | I Wasn’t Born Queer, Pagan and Black, I Was Called To Be Queer, Pagan and Black Deneishia Jacobpito Follow Jul 26 · 7 min read
My life is not a series of unfortunate events, it is a ministry.
Photo by Jeff Kingma on Unsplash
I had written a series of articles comparing the relationship between Americans and our system of government to an abusive relationship. I researched, edited, marketed, and promoted the series and sat in fear, staring at the work I had created. I was overcome with sadness over the circumstances I had experienced during my four short decades of life. In these articles, I had revealed my personal experiences with abuse. I counseled and cared for my spirit through the pain of typing every word. I prepared my mental landscape to accept the fact that people would read some of my traumatic experiences for the first time and that level of exposure may be difficult for my friends and family to read. It was emotional turmoil to transfer the experiences from my memory, through my body, to my fingers, and finally to the page. Reliving each and every experience. Taking the time to allow the sounds of the abusers’ voices to once again echo in the cavern of my mind. Allowing the smells of the abusers’ colognes, offices, and the scents on the wind that enveloped us during each encounter to once again assault my senses. Forcing my body to once again feel the weight of the abusers’ body on mine. Forcing my spirit to sort through the contents and to reclaim her role as the overburdened pack mule forced to carry the baggage of my experiences. I was prepared to have conversations with friends and family. I expected those conversations to include the phrases, “I had no idea”, or, “why didn’t you tell me”.
I kept typing, I kept working, driven by a belief that somehow, telling my story, revealing the parallels that I see between our racial, political, and emotional landscape in the United States and the physical, spiritual, and emotional landscape of a trauma survivor would benefit myself and others. That going through the pain of reliving and revealing my personal wounds as well as our shared pains as a nation could be my contribution to the fight for human rights. I prepared for the trolls in the comments, knowing that each article would invite some unsavory internet commentary from opposing opinions and differing experiences. However, I did not prepare for the disgusting display of inhumanity that would overflow through direct message and email. This backlash was a situation I did not believe I needed to prepare for because my DMs and email are a safe space only accessible to those who know me, people I’ve allowed to have access to me at various levels of intimacy. The backlash was not from strangers in the comments. The danger was not coming from outside of my village, the threat was sitting around my campfire and offering me a s’more.
Frozen in shock, I stopped everything I was doing and did not move forward with anything I had planned. I was the proverbial deer caught in the headlights and the semi-truck of betrayal was speeding toward me. My inbox was not full of, “why didn’t you tell me” conversations. Instead, it was brimming with, “why are you using race as an excuse for your failures” conversations. It was filled to capacity with, “Why are you people trying to delete my ancestors brave contribution to history?” It was overflowing with, “You are sensationalizing your self inflicted drama” conversations. My DMs were inundated with, “you are just another liberal whiner libtard using the education my tax money bought you to manipulate your bleeding heart cronies to take away my voice and I’m disappointed in you” conversations.
In the last few months, I have watched my White friends and family lose lifelong friends and family members over Black Lives Matter. I have counseled, consoled, listened, empathized, and mourned their losses as my own. I sat in my own sadness and I walked in their experiences hoping to provide some slight comfort. I believed that the ranks in my battalion of allies had already been thinned during the divisive elections of 2016.
I reverted to old avoidance coping mechanisms. I hid in my head and did not speak about the experience until it was too heavy to carry alone. I did not speak about the reality and details of the experience when I did finally reach out to others. I only revealed that I was sad, worried, and depressed. I didn’t want to make others worry and I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I mostly stayed silent.
During my avoidance, overeating, self-doubt, and berating moments telling myself that I was weak for allowing so many things to derail me and affect my mood and ability to function. Telling myself how I will never live up to my potential because I am not capable. I verbally abused myself pointing out that stronger people or more aware humans would have not allowed people like that into their inner circles and that was proof that my experiences were my own fault and truly I’m just a burden and waste of skin.
With a mouth full of banana bread, I scrolled through social media looking for fuel to feed my avoidance mechanism self-abuse bonfire. This time, the algorithm of my social media feed worked against me. Instead of continuing down a rabbit hole of cute animals, the autoplay function brought me Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gracefully addressing verbally abusive language. I listened to our youngest representative remind me why our stories matter. She reminded me that abuse only continues when we don’t speak. She was going to go home after the incident with Representative Yoho because this was not a unique experience for her. I realized how many times I had not spoken up, how many times I took for granted that my treatment was normal and how accustomed I had become to expecting abuse from myself and others because “that’s just the way people are.”
Martin Luther King Jr said that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
I have spent a lot of time, money, and insurance claims on my physical and mental health through many modalities of healing including counseling. I have gained perspective and tools to help me function. Sometimes, I stumble, fall back on trauma behavior and fall into despair. I recognize now that those moments are great for reflection and I could re-frame them as a respite from the work it takes to grow and heal every minute of every day. I allowed Ocasio-Cortez telling her story to call me out of my conditioned response. I am also the daughter of my ancestors and I was not raised to accept abuse from myself or others.
Martin Luther King Jr said that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
My spiritual practice reminds me that everything from a pebble of sand to humans (both alive and dead) are connected in a very intimate and eternal way. I believe that I am but one piece of a larger whole. All of my experiences, either joy or suffering, have a ripple effect in the pool of humanity.
Dan Brule has been credited as saying, “Being a slave to the conditioned mind causes us to keep cycling through periods of pain and pleasure, joy and suffering, love and hate.” This directly correlates to my belief system so beautifully summarized by Martin Luther King, “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly”. I have been conditioned that the abuses are normal and therefore permanent, predictable, and just a part of being human. I have been a slave to that conditioning and allowed myself to continue to cycle through that pain. Being a slave to that conditioned way of thinking has damned humanity to an eternity of suffering and I will no longer contribute to that suffering. I am the emancipated daughter of my ancestors, I will not be enslaved.
Every time I am faced with pain, pessimism creeps in. I fall into the conditioned mindset that my circumstances are unchangeable and that difficulty and death will always follow me and those around me. I keep a James Baldwin quote printed and posted in several places in my home. In the conversation, he speaks about White people needing to decide why they invented the nigger and why they need that mythology. However, I rarely look at the beginning of the quote which states, “I can’t be a pessimist because I’m alive. To be a pessimist means you have agreed that human life is an academic matter, so I’m forced to be an optimist.”
Telling my story, sharing how I see myself and the world, revealing my experiences no matter how painful; that is the highest spiritual calling. My life experience is unique because I am the only “me” there is. Telling the story of “me” brings information back to the whole of humanity giving us the knowledge we need to correct our behaviors. I will no longer participate in the violence of silence. I will no longer allow pessimism and despair to rule the day. I am called to tell my story, I am forced to be an optimist because my life is more than my circumstances.
My circumstances and my experiences are my testimony. A testimony is used in the court of law as well as any physical evidence acquired at a crime scene used to inform the jury. A testimony is used in churches as evidence to inform the congregation how lives have been changed through their religious experiences. My life is a testimony, evidence in support of growth, change, rebirth, and optimism. My life experiences are intertwined with labels that were given to me and the myths created around those labels. James Baldwin asked why you need those labels because “The future of the country depends on that, whether or not it’s able to ask that question.” I will release the articles and I will not be the cannon fodder in the internal war you wage after reading them. | https://medium.com/pollinate-ritual/i-wasnt-born-queer-pagan-and-black-i-was-called-to-be-queer-pagan-and-black-82315455da65 | ['Deneishia Jacobpito'] | 2020-07-27 16:57:55.240000+00:00 | ['Human Rights', 'Self', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Spirituality', 'Social Justice'] |
How Exactly Does Data Recovery Software Work? | Photo by benjamin lehman on Unsplash
In this digital world, you can keep a pile of your files in small gadgets. You can store your essential data in the form of documents, pictures, and videos. The most significant benefit of this kind of technology is finding your desired data from thousands of files just by searching its name. Is not it amazing?
The data in this form has a drawback in that it is less reliable, and you may lose it for several reasons. The reasons behind this scary issue may be human error or malware. Hence this problem had our attention too. If you have lost your data, you do not have to worry because this article will tell you all about data recovery and its procedure.
How Does Data Recovery Work?
Usually, when someone deletes any file, it goes to the recycle bin with a recovery option. But when the user deletes it from there, it does not get deleted. Instead of this, its path will not be accessible to you. The computer will remove the path, which usually provides access to the file.
What happens is that the binary numbers which make that deleted file visible are hidden provided the condition that they are not overwritten.
In this situation, data recovery software helps you find the exact sequence of binary numbers and arrange it to make the deleted file visible. In this way, data recovery software allows you to recover your file. These software scan the device and filter your searched files for you. Some of these are for free, and some have a paid version. It can recover files of any size and any format.
Good data recovery software is always reliable and recovers your file in its original form in less time period. This kind of data recovery software can also recover compressed files or complete folders at once. So now, you do not have to get a complete understanding of binary numbers on your computer. What you need to do is install the recovery software, and it will go through your device to complete the sequence of binary numbers. In this way, you will get your data back.
You need to consider that if your file is partially or completely overwritten, then no data recovery software can recover your file, no matter how expensive and efficient that is. Hence try to recover your file immediately after deletion to stay safe from this scenario.
What Happens When You Delete A File?
In a computer, data is accessible and visible to you with the help of a sequence of binary numbers and pointers. These pointers help you to keep track of the data stored on your hard disk. It keeps the record of the file. Hence tips are the essence of any file with any format stored on your computer.
When you delete any file from your computer, it moves to your recycle bin from where you can restore your file easily. But in case you have removed your file from the recycle bin, then do not worry because it is not destroyed completely. You have just lost the sequence of those binary numbers and pointers, making the file accessible to you. Which means you only have lost the path on maps.
In this way, the file will not be available, and hence the space of that data will be free for new data. The file is not deleted until your computer rewrites another data. If you have deleted your data by mistake or have lost it, you do not have to worry because you can recover the data through data recovery software.
Is It Possible to Make Data Recovery?
Have you lost your data? Are you tensed? You do not have to because your lost data can be recovered. When you delete your data, it goes to the recycle bin. You only have to select the data you want to recover and click on “Recover” from the recycle bin. In case you have deleted your data from the recycle bin, you should not worry even then. Such deleted files can be recovered with the assist of data recovery software available online.
When you lose your data because of some reason, you do not actually lose the data. In fact, you just lose the path, which makes data accessible to you. Most data recovery software will regenerate the lost path and will make the file accessible to you. But if that file is rewritten, then that file is permanently deleted and can’t be recovered. The data recovery is possible as long as other data do not rewrite the lost data. In that way only, the data recovery software will be able to recover that data for you. Otherwise, no software can recover that data.
So if you have lost your data, then recover it immediately by installing data recovery software; otherwise, it will be rewritten and lost forever.
Why Use Data Recovery Software?
As mentioned earlier in this article, data can easily be recovered without any data recovery software only if it is available in your recycle bin. But if it is removed from your recycle bin, you will have to take help from data recovery software. Let’s see why do we have to use data recovery software in that case?
When you delete something from Windows, it goes straight to your recycle bin. If your data is deleted from your recycle bin, not even then your data is lost completely. When people want to give their gadget away, they are suggested to rewrite the deleted data with some other random data. Without it, your data is not deleted, but only the binary numbers which provide you access to the data are hidden.
So it is tough for you to form the sequence in order to make the deleted file accessible by regenerating its path. The data recovery software will help you recover your data by regenerating its path and making it accessible to you. You can download helpful software online. Most software are available both in free and paid versions depending on their efficiencies.
Scope and Limitations of Data Recovery?
Technology has changed our life, but every face of it has its own perks and limitations. You can store your unlimited data in your gadgets and keep thousands of files in your hand. At the same time, you can lose all of it within a moment. But the good thing is that whenever people connected to the latest technology see some trouble, they come up with an immediate and efficient solution.
Similarly, different efficient data recovery software is available to recover your lost data. Data recovery software has a vast scope. They can recover the file in every format, i.e., pictures, videos, documents, etc. They can recover zip and compressed file. Some of them have a feature that they can recover your complete folders. So now losing data would not be trouble for you.
To serve the purpose, let’s introduce you to similar software, i.e., Wondershare Recoverit Data Recovery Software. So let’s see what this software has. You can recover pictures, videos, and documents with the help of this software and save that data in your desired place and at your desired location.
It will initially scan your device and display deleted data initially. From there, you can select data you want to recover, and then it will recover data for you. In the end, the file will be available for preview, and you can save it at your desired location after preview. So now do not worry and get benefit from this software.
Most Data recovery software have some limitations too. Like when your data has been deleted, the space on your hard disk is free. Most data recovery software can only recover your data if some other data do not rewrite it. Also, if your data is corrupted or is in a bad part of the hard disk, it cannot be recovered with data recovery software.
What Can We Do to Prevent Losing Data?
Your data may contain some valuable memories or important professional files. That is why you should take some precautionary measures initially to prevent any severe loss.
You do not have to stress out because we are here to suggest some reliable ways. Following these reliable ways, you can make your data secure and can prevent it from any loss.
First, you should create a backup for data. One backup is not sufficient; you should create 2 to 3 backups so that you can restore it quickly from the backup when you lose your data. Also, secure your data and encrypt it so that nobody else can access your important data. Download and install reliable antivirus software so that you can protect your data from malware and virus.
Also, protect your data with accounts so that in case you lose your gadget, you may be able to recover it through accounts. Also, for the recovery process, use reliable software that does not corrupt your data. Following all these precautions, you can prevent your data in the first place. | https://medium.com/@eleanorreed/how-exactly-does-data-recovery-software-work-40965527262e | ['Eleanor Reed'] | 2020-12-02 09:39:01.847000+00:00 | ['Data Recovery', 'Hardware', 'Computers', 'Data'] |
Happy Holidays! | 2020
Happy Holidays!
Just a simple Thank You drawing to everyone who has clapped for me and/or followed me. My heart goes out especially to all those who are pandemically separated from the people they love. CHEERS to a more hopeful 2021! | https://medium.com/@davidmilgrim/happy-holidays-1ca02ea5e259 | ['David Milgrim'] | 2020-12-27 16:53:06.616000+00:00 | ['Thank You', 'Comics', 'Love', 'Holidays', 'Humor'] |
Wistful | Photo Credit Paula Woods, Cleveland, Ohio
Wistful
It’s that time of year.
Actually, for me, that time of year starts around early September. That time of year that I can only identify as….Wistful.
The dictionary defines it as: “having or showing a feeling of vague or regretful longing.”
The thesaurus gives us words to describe it like: Contemplative. Mournful. Reflective. Nostalgic. Melancholy. Dreamy. Yearning.
September is the month my Dad died. It was sudden. I was young. It changed my life.
September was the beginning of the new school year. Hopeful. Filled with possibility. And a touch of dread.
October is harvest time, Halloween, candy corn, and temperatures getting cooler.
November is the time change, my best friend’s birthday (he’s no longer on the planet), the complicated experience of Thanksgiving.
And the on-coming storm known as “The Holiday Season” which leads right into the ever-imposing New Year moment.
So much of my childhood, young adulthood, well, my life, really, is wrapped up in this time of year and, without realizing or anticipating it, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of wistfulness today.
I don’t think I would call it “regretful longing,” though. I don’t much go in for regrets. Longing, sure. I can get on board with some longing. Not regretful though. Just….well, I think the thesaurus has it right.
Melancholy. Nostalgic.
If my life was a movie, this time of year would be filled with flashbacks. Moments of watching junior high soccer games and Halloween parties. Friday night skating. Choosing who I would fall in love with that year (confidently picking the one person who would never return my feelings).
New shoes and clean notebooks. Starting over and then, all too quickly, falling back into the patterns of “me-ness” that I couldn’t seem to escape.
And “that song.” It doesn’t have to be a particular song. Just “that song,” the one that — when I hear it — my soul kind of aches a little bit. And my heart groans just a little bit. That song brings a smile and tear and….memories.
As an adult, this time of year is all about sweaters and fireplaces, hot cider, wearing socks again. Putting away the summer stuff (light shoes, fans and A/C units) and breaking out the blankets, flannel sheets, and long-sleeved shirts.
Getting the new planner for the year ahead and writing in all of the birthdays and special dates I need to remember.
It’s deeper than all of that, though. It’s deeper than the time change and the loss of light.
Longing. The awareness of time passing. The awareness of the change in me. In my body. In my thoughts. In my perspective.
It’s not as sad as it sounds. As I am writing this, it seems to sound somewhat sad and that was not my intention.
I just wanted to try and capture the feeling of wistfulness. It’s not an easy essence to capture. Like most concepts, it’s more like trying to capture the dust we see when the afternoon sun shines through the window. Or like the leaves that rained down from the trees today as I walked Maddie around the neighborhood. Can’t really catch those things. Not with any kind of gracefulness, that is.
And now, with the world in quarantine, needing to stay away and inside, the sense of wistfulness is feeling even more intense.
The “holiday season” is looking very different for some people. For me, not much is changing. It’s been years since I have shared the holidays with friends or other people. There were those times….ah, again, the wistfulness…..
This feeling, this essence of “wistful,” it seems to have a mind and agenda of its own. It shows up when it wants to and lingers as long as it feels like it.
In some ways, I dread it. And, in many other ways, I grieve when it decides that its good and ready to move on. | https://medium.com/@revrachelhollander/wistful-23e8a513cb3c | ['Rev Rachel Hollander'] | 2020-12-03 15:18:56.617000+00:00 | ['Seasons', 'Nostalgia', 'Memories', 'Autum', 'Sadness'] |
Instagram Reel वीडियो को डाउनलोड कैसे करें 2021 | Technical Hacks provides you with the best tips, tricks of android and social media. Technical Hacks gives you unboxing of the gadgets and explore new websites. | https://medium.com/@deepak7579487182/instagram-reel-%E0%A4%B5%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%A1%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%AF%E0%A5%8B-%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%8B-%E0%A4%A1%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%89%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%B2%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%A1-%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%88%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%87-%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%87%E0%A4%82-2021-8fac9e15779e | ['Technical Hacks'] | 2020-12-25 05:03:05.390000+00:00 | ['Instagram', 'Instagram Stories', 'Instagram Reels', 'Download Instagram Post', 'Download Instagram Videos'] |
How Watching Wonder Woman 1984 Changed My World | How Watching Wonder Woman 1984 Changed My World
Credit: Warner Bros.
To be fair, this change was less influenced by the film itself, and more by me considering how to review the film. After watching, I peeked on Twitter to see what other people were saying.
If you look at Twitter today, most of the #WW84 reviews are either super positive or generally negative. There’s not a whole lot in-between, and I honestly think that the film falls in that grey, middle space.
It’s not the most amazing film ever (even though I was really looking forward to it and wanted it to be). It has some really great scenes and some pretty emotional moments, and also some completely ridiculous plot holes and muddles its thematic messaging when you look closely at it.
I bring up WW84 not because this is a full review of that (I might get to that later), but because it gets me to that word change that I think we as a society need to make way more often.
That change is this: I think we should often replace the word “but” with the word “and.”
By making the change from “but” to “and,” especially in the context of giving an evaluation or review, it suddenly makes a lot more space for nuance and continued conversation.
I’m a big fan of nuanced reviews — when making purchasing decisions, I categorically don’t look at the five-star or the one-star reviews. I find often the reviews that are actually helpful in me making a decision are the four-, three-, and two-star reviews. This is because if it’s not a purely positive or a purely negative review, these reviews tend to be more nuanced in the information they provide and are usually more factual and less emotional.
Context often really matters, and nuance allows for that context to cut through the fog of assumptions, and can clarify when you’re looking at two seemingly opposing truths.
And this is what I want. Nuanced information that gives me a better look at if this product, film, or whatever is right for me specifically. There is a huge spectrum of needs, wants, likes, dislikes, and contexts in terms of the human experience. What’s important to me when watching a film may or may not be different from a 15-year old Russian girl, and that may or may not be different from what a retired Pakistani squash player cares about. What’s important to me might not be the same as another Japanese-American, 37-year old guy living in California, even if our general demographics are exactly the same.
Nuance is so necessary because it creates space beyond an either-or mindset. It allows for multiple truths to exist simultaneously.
For example, you might think that it’s an absolute truth that you never want to put a photo on a resume. And that’s true, assuming you’re applying for a job in the United States or Canada. If you were applying for a job in Korea, you’d be quickly ignored if you did NOT attach a photo.
Context often really matters, and nuance allows for that context to cut through the fog of assumptions, and can clarify when you’re looking at two seemingly opposing truths. The skill to be able to do this readily is one that can make a big difference in how we communicate and the effectiveness of our ability to reach other people.
Using the word “and” more often helps foster this ability to hold even seemingly contradictory thoughts at the same time, which will allow for us to have a clearer picture of what’s actually going on in the world. Going back to my quick thoughts on WW84:
It has some really great scenes and some pretty emotional moments, and also some completely ridiculous plot holes and muddles its thematic messaging when you look closely at it. It has some really great scenes and some pretty emotional moments, but also some completely ridiculous plot holes and muddles its thematic messaging when you look closely at it.
The first review makes me think that the film has good and bad parts to it. It feels more neutral to me, like someone is trying to give me the pros and cons of the film, allowing me to make up my own mind.
The second review makes me think that the film, although it has some good parts, has been ruined by the bad parts and should be passed over when looking at what next to stream.
By shifting to using the word “and,” we make more space in the listener’s mind to make their own judgement of whether or not they should watch the film. It’s a subtle shift, but one that I think takes a lot of emotional weight out of the reviews and can be a more powerful way to convey nuanced information.
This nuanced way of conveying information is also powerful when giving feedback to people.
“I like this design, and I don’t think this fully conveys the messaging of the brand.”
“I like this design, but I don’t think this fully conveys the messaging of the brand.”
The speaker is giving the same feedback — that the design is cool, but is not quite up to snuff. In the first case the speaker is allowing for both clauses to co-exist. The design can be liked, but also can be the wrong choice for the brand to go in.
In the second version, the negative feedback overrides the positive, leaving no room for the listener to receive the positive feedback without getting defensive.
We’re often told by the media that people are monsters or saints; pariahs to cast stones at or heroes to be venerated.
The nuance that we can build from making this shift might not play well to the hyper-polarization of our modern world and I think that’s a price that we should be willing to pay. After all, staying within our own safety bubbles of groups of people who think exactly like us doesn’t do anything to show us the real way the world works. It only reinforces our previously held beliefs by giving us simple answers of who is good and who is bad.
We’re often told by the media that people are monsters or saints; pariahs to cast stones at or heroes to be venerated. However the truth is that people are imperfect, flawed human beings, and we need to be able to sit with the uncomfortable feeling of not boxing people or things into neat little boxes in our mind.
This larger picture provides the additional nuance that allows for us to really consider all sides of an argument, from multiple perspectives and experiences, beyond our own
Depending on your politics, you might think that in America white men are either the root of all evil or are unfairly being persecuted for their skin color.
What if both ideas have elements of truth to it? Racism and systemic white supremacy are difficult, complex issues to address, let alone solve.
We need to sit with the fact that historically white men held a majority of power, usually amassed through generational wealth accumulated through creating laws that disenfranchised women and people of color AND understand that there are a lot of white men who have very little power as their means of economic growth have been crushed due to globalism and moving factory work overseas.
We need to understand that globalism is the product of rampart capitalism that was built off the accumulated wealth of slavery, AND we also need to understand that white men still make up a bulk of the voting population of the United States and we need to enroll them in a new system that works for everyone.
AND we need to also understand that even though it feels scary to be “cancelled,” the fact is that most white men who have been cancelled have had very little long-term repercussions regarding their career while for minorities to speak up there are the very real repercussions of losing their careers and their lives.
AND that just because someone is a white male, they are not necessarily individually responsible for a system of white supremacy.
AND that many white people will not own up to the fact that white supremacy is part of the dominant culture of our country, from religion to education to housing.
AND that people of color and women can also play a part in reinforcing the systemic white supremacy.
AND that it should not be the responsibility of those who have been oppressed for hundreds of years to have to once again play nice with white people.
AND white people need to feel like they’re being listened to if we ever want to change their minds, so they need to be treated with respect.
AND white people need to step up and be more intentional to break down a system that benefits them.
AND everyone is on a different stage of their learning journey about what “systemic white supremacy” even means, and that we need to be understanding that people learn, synthesize, and accept knowledge at different speeds.
AND know that these slower speeds, if not accelerated, will continue to cost people like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd their lives.
AND on and on and on.
“And” creates space for the conversation to continue building on itself. It doesn’t cut off or interrupt any of the previous clauses or arguments, and allows for the space to consider the entirety of the issue as opposed to just embracing a single soundbite argument.
This larger picture provides the additional nuance that allows for us to really consider all sides of an argument, from multiple perspectives and experiences, beyond our own. And this is crucial if we want to tackle really, really, really difficult problems like systemic racism. And when we have more perspectives and experiences, we can make better decisions. And when we make better decisions, we can innovate new solutions that can work for everyone. | https://medium.com/@rickkitagawa/how-watching-wonder-woman-1984-changed-my-world-9e4ce2e564c9 | ['Rick Kitagawa'] | 2020-12-27 06:28:08.832000+00:00 | ['Change', 'Conversations', 'Context', 'Stereotypes', 'Sociology'] |
You Want My Mom to Get a COVID Vaccine | My mom is an essential worker. She works part-time as a grocery store clerk, which increases her chances of exposure to COVID. She also takes an immunosuppressive drug, which means she has an increased likelihood of medical complications if she gets infected. So, for obvious reasons, I hope that she can get a COVID vaccine as soon as they are available. I’m sure all of you hope that you and your loved ones can also get a COVID vaccine soon so that you can start to get back to normal.
Of course, manufacturing capacity for COVID vaccines will remain relatively limited in the near-term but will hopefully scale by the middle of next year. In the meantime, governments, pharmaceutical companies, and health systems will have the unenviable task of figuring out how to allocate and distribute these vaccines. In this supply-constrained world, some people will get access to the vaccine earlier than others. Under these circumstances, you actually want my mom to get a COVID vaccine.
The concept of public goods, drawn from the field of economics and applied to our current health crisis, can help explain why. Public goods are goods that are both non-excludable, meaning that no one can be prevented from using them, and non-rivalrous, meaning that one person using the good does not limit another person’s ability to use it. Street lighting represents a classic example. Anyone can benefit from the lighting provided by a lamp on a public street (it is non-excludable), and my usage of that lighting as I drive down the street does not diminish your ability to use the same lighting as you drive down the street later (it is non-rivalrous). Other classic examples of public goods include national security and publicly available information. Because public goods have benefits for the public, they are often worthwhile investments by governments.
Vaccines are decidedly not a public good. A government or company can easily exclude certain people from obtaining a vaccination, and one person receiving a dose of the vaccine means that another person does not get that dose.
However, in the context of infectious disease, public health is a public good. Low levels of virus circulating through the community benefit everyone. When I benefit from low levels of viral transmission, that does not stop you from benefiting from low levels of viral circulation. Quite the opposite: we have a shared and collective interest in having low levels of virus circulating through our communities so we can all feel more confident going about our daily lives. This holds especially true in a context where the virus spreads at an exponential rate. Under these circumstances, we all benefit the most when people most likely to get infected, including essential workers, receive protection from the virus. When a nurse or a public transit worker or my mom knows for certain that they don’t have COVID, that also means that they won’t take up healthcare resources getting treated for COVID. If the vaccines reduce transmission (which is possible but not yet confirmed), that means that an essential worker who gets infected would be less likely to spread COVID to someone else.
We will all be holding our breaths for the next few months as we enter a particularly dark period of the pandemic and wait for mass distribution of a vaccine (or, more likely, a portfolio of different vaccines.) In the meantime, we should all keep in mind that every single individual’s health benefits everyone else’s. Responding to the pandemic from the perspective of health equity, where the most vulnerable receive the most protection, will actually be the quickest way to end it. | https://medium.com/@gabriel-seidman/you-want-my-mom-to-get-a-covid-vaccine-7c60202c04d9 | ['Gabriel Seidman'] | 2020-12-22 13:44:21.111000+00:00 | ['Equity', 'Vaccines', 'Essential Worker', 'Frontline Worker', 'Covid 19'] |
What is the right way to clean earwax? | More importantly, you should know when to remove wax, though I will briefly tell you all about earwax! Been there done that experience :D
A huge unbelievable slug of wax popped of my ear to the kidney tray as the technician squirted lukewarm water into my ear via the scary wax removal syringe.
During my medical school, I got this dry ache/pain behind my ear. I was lucky to have immediate access to the ENT doctors.
By using the otoscope huge ear wax was confirmed as the culprit of my suffering, I was advised to use the wax aid drops for 3 days and then they popped out the ugly glob.
Steps to remove ear wax;
First thing first, use ear wax aid drops to soften your hard ear wax. You can also use baby/olive/mineral oil or glycerine 2–3 drops for 3 days. This makes the hard wax soft and moisture to easily detach from the ear walls causing no pain or injury to the soft skin on removal.
2. Then you can use any of the following methods to remove wax; Ear wax removal kit, ear lavage by washing your ears out with lukewarm water with a needle-less syringe, or the suction tool used by doctors (Do read or watch recommended instructions/youtube videos before trying any procedure)
When to remove Ear wax?
Almost never :D
Only if; Symptoms are caused due to the accumulation of earwax. It can occur in one or both ears, called cerumen impaction.
Symptoms;
Ear fullness feeling
Pain
Hearing difficulty
An interesting point you rarely read in books, is that you can suggest ear checkup (kindly/anonymously) if someone’s talking loud (might be due to ear plugged that they can’t hear their voice as normal so they are loud)
Tinnitus, ringing in your ears
Smell, discharge, or itching of the ears
Cough (can be ear wax), throat irritation
Earwax noticed frequently coming out (cosmetic reason)
These symptoms are not always caused by earwax, so don’t blame earwax every-time you have these issues, but better to exclude it first :)
Ear Wax benefits;
Earwax is normal for your ears to produce as it helps in lubrication & protection, while the continuous washing or cleaning of the ears will irritate the soft ear walls & imbalance the perfect lubrication thus making it more dry and itchy.
It has antibacterial properties & also works as a filter trapping the dust & harmful particles going deep into the ear.
An important point, “Don’t remove wax unless you have any of the above symptoms”.
2 Wrong but common practices:
Q-tips/Cotton buds are never the best practice, especially cleaning deep with it, as it hardens the wax by accumulating and pushing it against the tympanic membrane or eardrum, it also dries up the ear normal smoothness & lubrication. Candling: risk of getting burnt, ash coating & perforation of the eardrum, ear canal blockages & infections
See your doctor if you have any kind of concerns/complications.
Comments are appreciated! | https://drspartan87.medium.com/what-is-the-right-way-to-clean-earwax-2095eca40fd7 | ['Amin Shah'] | 2020-10-20 05:15:38.516000+00:00 | ['Cleaning Ears', 'Health Tips', 'Ear Wax', 'Syringing', 'Candling'] |
Going From Stata to Pandas | Going From Stata to Pandas
A Single Guide In Three Parts, Overview
This guide is for users of Stata that want to begin learning Pandas. It has been written using examples and workflows that Stata users will know well. Also, this article references data many Stata users will recognize.
In Part 1.1 of this guide, I review a variety of reasons Stata users might like to begin exploring the option to work with Python and Pandas.
In the next section, Part 1.2, I demonstrate cross-tabulations and summary statistics that will help you begin the data exploration process.
Lastly, in Part 1.3, I illustrate a variety of simple visualizations that will help you continue the data exploration process.
Part 1.1: So, you installed Python and Pandas but you’re not sure the next steps.
Both Stata and Pandas provide complete (or near-complete) platforms for data manipulation, visualization, statistics, etc. Stata purports to be …
A complete, integrated software package that provides all your data science needs — data manipulation, visualization, statistics, and reproducible reporting. (stata.com)
Pandas purports to be…
An open source, BSD-licensed library providing high-performance, easy-to-use data structures and data analysis tools for the Python programming language. (pandas.pydata.org)
Reasons Stata users might look to learn Pandas
Stata & Pandas Marketing Images.
A collaborator is using Pandas. You’re a Stata user but the research group you’re collaborating with isn’t. They use Pandas. To be in the same sandbox you decide to learn Pandas.
You’ve decided you want to expand your skillset. Ready for a new challenge? Maybe you’ve read several books from Stata’s bookstore. You’ve created and published user-written programs (known to Stata users as packages). Maybe you’ve even published one or more programs to the user community’s preferred repository at Boston College Statistical Software Components (SSC) archive. Clearly then, you’re ready to expand your skillset.
You’ve lost access to Stata. Or you anticipate losing access to Stata. Stata is proprietary and its licensing fees are costly. If you have lost or anticipate losing access to Stata and you’re not interested in purchasing a license for yourself (despite the good value), Pandas is a good option.
Other reasons. It doesn’t really matter why a Stata user might look to learn Pandas. This guide is an agnostic how-to that acknowledges both languages have their strengths and weaknesses. In my work, I often find that one picks up where the other leaves off.
This guide assumes you have installed Python and Pandas
To avoid reinventing the wheel, this guide does not discuss Python or Pandas installation beyond offering a recommendation that Stata users consider installing the intended-for-science Anaconda distribution.
The examples and explanations given in this guide have been tested using the Anaconda distribution. Specifically, examples given here were created in Jupyter Notebooks which is software included in the Anaconda distribution of Python.
Using Stata’s well-known example automobile dataset. I have previously discussed this dataset as one that is useful for testing or training purposes. Here is what loading this dataset in a Jupyter Notebook will typically look:
Jupyter Notebook running a Python 3 Kernel. Pandas illustration using Stata’s example automobile dataset.
Next in Part 1.2, I’ll demonstrate cross-tabulations and summary statistics that will help you begin the data exploration process. In the last section, Part 1.3, I will illustrate simple visualizations that will let you continue the data exploration process.
Part 1.2: After installing Python and Pandas here are your next steps.
Loading The Auto Dataset
Loading the automobile dataset in Stata is easy: sysuse auto . In Python the process can be done in two lines. But to make the code more readable, I break it into three lines:
import pandas as pd auto = 'http://www.stata-press.com/data/r15/auto2.dta'
df = pd.read_stata(auto)
That’s it! Easy. If you’re a new Pandas user, and if you’re following along congratulations! You’ve loaded your first dataset into memory.
One of the first things you’ll notice is that working in Python, there is less ‘output.’ Output is information the language provides to help validate that the command did for you what you intended for it to do. For more on this, see my related article on Merging Data: The Pandas Missing Output.
In Python, this feedback is much less extensive. To verify you’ve properly loaded the automobile dataset. Try the code df.head() which is roughly equivalent to Stata’s list in 1/5 . Here is what you should see:
Jupyter Notebook running a Python Kernel. Pandas illustration using Stata’s automobile dataset.
Cross-Tabulation
A cross-tabulation is one of the simplest analytical techniques available. This technique involves tabulating occurrences among two or more categorical variables.
A limitation of Stata is that cross-tabulations involving more than two or three categorical variables is limited. In Pandas three or more categoricals is no problem.
A two-way tabulation with the automobile data set:
pd.crosstab(df['rep78'], df['foreign'])
Jupyter Notebook running a Python Kernel. A cross-tabulation of two variables (repair record, and manufacturing origins). Pandas illustration using Stata’s automobile dataset.
Looking closely, this tabulation leaves out missing data. To get Stata to include missing data in its cross-tabulations the mi option following the tab command will provide a more complete view of the data. Putting it together in Stata it would be tab foreign rep78, mi .
In Pandas two lines are needed to display a more complete view of the data:
# Specify a new category among the repair records.
df['rep78'].cat.add_categories('No Record', inplace=True) # Generate a tabulation using the fillna() method.
pd.crosstab(df['foreign'], df['rep78'].fillna('No Record'))
Jupyter Notebook running a Python Kernel. A cross-tabulation of two variables (repair record, and manufacturing origins, including missing data). Pandas illustration using Stata’s automobile dataset.
Summary Statistics
Summary statistics in Stata are not complicated. One of the quickest ways to get a look at continuous variables is to type sum . With the automobile data set this gives you:
Summary statistics from the Stata automobile dataset.
In Pandas the command that most closely mimics this output is df.describe().transpose() which will give:
Jupyter Notebook running a Python Kernel. Summary statistics with the variable names across rows and statistics down the columns. Pandas illustration using Stata’s automobile dataset.
Most Pandas users would use df.describe() which displays variable names across the top of the output and the statistics across each row. As a Stata user, I add the transpose() method which rotates the output to more closely match the convention that I’m used to with Stata.
Bonus, in Pandas the default output also gives the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile. Of course, the 50th percentile is the ever-useful-to-know median. These additional statistics are not offered in Stata’s default output.
If you’re following along and feeling adventurous, test your intuition by executing the following:
df[['price','mpg','foreign']].groupby('foreign').describe()
See if you can correctly anticipate what the output will be. Also, work on adjusting the code to customize it so that you can explore other variables beyond price (price) or mileage (mpg).
Up next Part 1.3, illustrates a variety of simple visualizations that will let you continue the data exploration process.
Part 1.3: After cross-tabulating and summarizing your data proceed with simple visualizations.
Histograms and Scatter Plots Get Upgraded
One of my favorite parts about conducting data exploration in Pandas instead of Stata is the combination of scatterplots and histograms — in the same plot.
A histogram illustrates the distribution of one variable at a time. A scatterplot illustrates the relationship of two or more variables.
Pandas provides ready access to the jointplot which combines the best of both scatterplots and histograms into one. Again working with Stata’s automobile dataset:
import pandas as pd
import seaborn as sns
%matplotlib inline auto = 'http://www.stata-press.com/data/r15/auto2.dta'
df = pd.read_stata(auto) sns.jointplot(x='weight',y='mpg',data=df, kind='scatter')
Jupyter Notebook running a Python Kernel. Jointplot illustrating the relationship between mileage (mpg) and automobile weight in pounds (weight). Pandas illustration using Stata’s automobile dataset.
This visualization explores the relationship between mileage (in miles per gallon on the verticle y axis) and vehicle weight (in pounds on the x axis). The visualization indicates, consistent with intuition and common understanding, that as vehicle weight increases, the vehicle mileage decreases.
This jointplot shows the relationship between these two variables (weight and mpg) in addition to visualizing the distribution of these to variables. As an added bonus this visualization indicates the Pearson correlation coefficient for these two variables along with its p-value.
The Pairplot
Also, handy for comparing many variables across a dataset is the pairplot. The pairplot provides a matrix of scatterplots, similar to a typical correlation matrix. The following will compare mileage (mpg), weight (weight), length (length), and price (price):
sns.pairplot(df[['mpg','weight','length','price']])
Jupyter Notebook running a Python Kernel. Pairplot illustrating the relationship between mileage (mpg), weight (weight), length (length), and price (price). Pandas illustration using Stata’s automobile dataset.
Bonus to add a categorical comparison, here we’ll compare foreign manufacturing with domestic, we can adjust the code to include a couple of additional arguments:
sns.pairplot(df[['mpg','weight','length','price','foreign']],
kind='scatter', plot_kws={'alpha': 0.5},
hue='foreign')
Jupyter Notebook running a Python Kernel. Pairplot illustrating the relationship between mileage (mpg), weight (weight), length (length), and price (price). In this visualization, we also compare foreign and domestic manufacturing origins. Pandas illustration using Stata’s automobile dataset.
After adding the additional arguments which generate a visualization that lets you compare domestically manufactured vehicles with foreign manufacture new patterns begin to go emerge which might inform further analysis.
Conclusion
In three parts, this article is designed to help users of Stata think about making the transition to Python and Pandas. If the goal isn’t to transition, this guide will help Stata users begin learning a new tool that can complement your on-going work in Stata. Both Stata and Pandas have their strengths and weaknesses.
At the most basic level, once you reach an intermediate or beyond level of proficiency with Stata it is worth adding to your skillset by also learning Python and Pandas. This article demonstrates techniques that will help you begin the data exploration process.
Part 1.1 reviewed a variety of reasons Stata users might like to begin exploring the option to work with Python and Pandas. Parts 1.2 & 1.3 walkthrough rudimentary examples of data exploration, analysis, and visualization using Stata’s popular automobile dataset.
Thanks For Reading
Thanks for reading. Send me your thoughts and ideas. You can write just to say hey. And if you really need to tell me how I got it wrong I look forward to chatting soon. Twitter: @adamrossnelson LinkedIn: Adam Ross Nelson. | https://towardsdatascience.com/going-from-stata-to-pandas-706888525acf | ['Adam Ross Nelson'] | 2021-03-01 15:12:31.037000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Programming', 'Statistics', 'Dataviz', 'Data Science'] |
It’s Time to Rewild Your Fitness | It’s Time to Rewild Your Fitness
The primal roots of human physicality
We’re animals. We all know it to be scientifically true, but how often do we actually allow that to guide what we do?
Civilisation has drastically changed the way we live, but it hasn’t changed our bodies. It hasn’t changed our bio-mechanics or physiology. Evolutionarily, we are still the same animals we were 30,000 years ago.
And that means we need to be moving the same way.
Our bodies are not designed to be sedentary for 20+ hours a day. We’re not designed to find ourselves in the same seated position enabled by the prevalence of chairs in our world.
We’re not designed to pack intense activity into one hour of ‘workout’ a day, trying to correct for those other 23 hours of ‘civilised’ life. And because we’re not designed that way, our bodies don’t respond well to it.
We’re rife with obesity, heart disease, diabetes. Even those of us that are fit are often worn down and prone to injury. Vast swathes of the aging population suffer from knee, hip or spinal disorders.
How does your body feel? Do you wake up with niggles, aches, pains? There’s a better way.
We can be functionally fit. Ready to take on life, to adapt to changing physical demands and to age healthily. We can navigate the world with the confidence of an animal designed for it’s environment. The better way is to rewild our conceptions of fitness.
Photo by David Bartus from Pexels
Roots
Rewilding is a concept you might have seen applied to many different areas of life. Popularised by George Monbiot’s book Feral: Rewilding the Land, Sea and Human Life; it’s often discussed in the context of agricultural practices. The ways that our society interacts with and exploits nature. Rewilded agricultural land is all about mixed cropping, encouragement of wild species & biodiversity, traditional food production techniques and shunning of artificial compounds.
Rewilding is about, in some senses, ‘going back’. But it’s also a step forward. Our society swings like a pendulum between embracing our animalistic nature, and artificial, technology-centric development. Right now, we’ve swung way too far from a healthy relationship with nature, and that’s reflected in how we operate our bodies.
The backswing is inevitable, yet offers us progress.
Rewilding isn’t a rejection of the successes of modern life, but a re-balancing. We have to embrace the advantages, but recognise the traps and make efforts to move away from them. We have to be considerate of how we’re treating our bodies 24/7, and intentionally give them stimuli that are more like what they’re designed for. We have to move naturally.
This is your guide to getting fit like they do on the discovery channel.
Animal movement
The foundational principle of rewilding our fitness is to make our movement more closely resemble that of our ancestors. Of course, our lives are structured very differently, but we can find ways to slip more animalistic movement into each day.
Focus on functional bodyweight movement first
We can choose to make our physical training more closely resemble what the human body is actually designed to do. That means functional movements that don’t just isolate one muscle or joint.
Think about starting with bodyweight movements that tend to use lots of different parts of the body. Squats, lunges, pullups, pushups, turkish get ups. These all resemble things that the human animal would do in the wild.
Society has actually got this perfectly right in one area — children’s jungle gyms. Lots of different shapes to climb, hang and swing from, jump off and slide down. These are exactly the sorts of things our bodies expect to do.
For some structure, variety and fun, there are methodologies that embrace rewilded training. MovNat goes all in on natural movements (as the name would suggest) structured around the basic proficiencies that the natural world requires us to possess; balancing, walking, running, jumping, climbing, swimming, lifting, carrying, throwing, catching, striking and grappling.
Animal Flow is a ground-based movement concept that looks like a mix between yoga, martial arts and dance. Animal Flow movements use the entire body and develop your capacity to move in complex ways, linking limbs, shoulders and hips together. This teaches us to transfer power through the trunk. It’s a little more abstract than MovNat, but also more accessible as you need little more than an open space.
In a similiar vein, you could incorporate some yoga into your days. Often thought of as a ‘yummy mummy’ activity, yoga offers us way more than over-the-top flexibility and force-fed spirituality. Certain styles, such as Ashtanga, Rocket or Budokon, involve a lot of strength and skill. These are great for keeping our bodies functional. Similiar to Animal Flow, yoga teaches us to use the whole body as one unit, which carries over to many other activities.
Even if the gym is your second home, try to rewild your workouts. Focus on big, compound movements that demand strength, skill and mobility. Deadlifts, squats, rows, bench and overhead presses, and all the variations of these, build real-world strength. Always choose free weights over machines. If you can make an exercise asymmetrical then it really increases the demands on the body — for example you might do a half-knelt one arm overhead press, or a single-leg romanian deadlift.
Scatter movement and physical activity throughout your day
It’s not all about those times that we choose to ‘workout’. Think about it — even if we hit it hard and workout for 10 hours a week, there’s still 154 other hours. Our bodies adapt to the stimuli they experience, and if 22 out of 24 hours are stationary then that’s what they’ll adapt to.
That’s why it’s so important to slip movement into every part of the day, wherever you can. Actively search for the opportunities to get active. Sometimes life gives you options to complete a task — do it with movement, or while sedentary. Choose movement.
For example, the old classic: cycle or walk to work every day. If it’s too far, get off the bus early or park further away and walk the last 20 minutes. While you’re on that bus or train, choose to stand and train your balance on every commute.
When you’re at work, school or shopping, take the stairs. Elevators and escalators rob us of movement opportunities. They subtly steal a calorie burning and leg strengthening moment. Don’t give in to the mechanical thieves.
Never sit still
Even when we have to be in one place, we don’t have to be sedentary. Chairs force us into limited positions for long periods, but we don’t have to rely on them. If you can use a standing desk at work, get to it. Encourage walking meetings when you need to chat with colleagues.
If you have the luxury at whatever spot you work in, choose to sit on the floor. The floor is a wonderful place to be because it allows us to roll through thousands of different positions. Maybe we crouch down in a deep squat, or sit cross legged, perhaps on our knees, or wide legs, or mix and match. There’s so many different options, and the ability to keep moving, even while staying in one place, is a game-changer.
Constant shifting of position encourages our joints to stay mobile and tissues supple. Furthermore, it stimulates our minds and helps foster creativity in our work.
Get outside
Photo: Pixabay via Pexels
The whole point of rewilded movement is to be more ‘natural’. What better way than to spend time in nature? The outdoors demands that we move in natural ways in order to navigate the terrain. It’s the landscape that our bodies are literally designed to inhabit.
Hiking is an excellent way to enjoy your local green spaces. Seek out hills, woods, rough land to scramble through. Variation, steep climbs and dynamic descents all stimulate our bodies in the non-uniform way they crave.
Maybe running or cycling is more your style — great! Trail runs, or mountain biking, require high-speed response to uneven terrain and are incredibly stimulating both for body and mind. Layer on top of that the wonderful sights, smells and sounds of nature and we’ve got a powerhouse of revitalisation.
There’s a Japanese concept known as shrinrin-yoku — or ‘forest bathing’. It’s an acknowledgement that being amongst nature works miracles for overall well-being. Just spending time outdoors is de-stressing and like a mild form of therapy.
Another bonus is the sense of exploration and independence we can find with nature. Spending most of our life in the city, where everything is organised and taken care of, really cements a reliance on other people. In nature we take care of ourselves, and enjoy the associated boost in self-confidence long afterwards.
Now why would we choose to exercise in artificially-lit, plastic-filled gyms when we could be getting active plus enjoying all the benefits of the wild? Spend more time outside and you’ll never regret it.
Play
This is the fun part, literally. Part of being alive is experiencing play. All social animals engage in playtime, and it carries scores of benefits. It helps nurture communities and cement social bonds, develop relationships, teach us about boundaries and competition, and just downright enjoy ourselves.
It’s also incredibly physically stimulating. Play requires us to react physically and cognitively to the novel, often unanticipated, actions of our playmates. It sucks away conformity and standardisation of movement, naturally generating variety in the process.
For many of us the most familiar form of play is organised sports. If you have a sport, make time for it. It’s incredibly important. And don’t underestimate the value of interacting with others during the game — that’s half the benefit.
But sport isn’t our only way to access play. When the kids are bored and need entertaining, don’t just shove an iPad into their hands — take the opportunity to get down to ground level and interact with them. You’ll be physically challenged in ways that adults can’t provide, and be nourishing their development and growth at the same time.
While we’re at it, might as well play with our adult friends too. There’s nothing wrong with a little friendly rough and tumble — all animals playfight. We’ve been socialised into thinking that adults shouldn’t get physical with each other, that it’s a sign of immaturity. Actually, it’s a sign of enduring physical health and well-being. Play doesn’t stop being good for us as we age — it becomes more important.
We’re naturally drawn to be playful because it’s so important to our health. So it’s only natural that rewilded movement is underpinned by a playful character.
Nature know’s whats up
To summarise;
Focus on functional bodyweight movement
Scatter movement through your day
Never sit still
Get outside
Play
This doesn’t have to be so time-consuming. A lot of activities tick all of these boxes at once. The key is to integrate physical activity into your life, not separate it into it’s own little bubble.
Our bodies know what’s good for them — all we have to do is get out of their way. Society has done wonderful things for our lives, but not without cost. It’s a good job we have the intelligence to identify what’s healthy and what’s not.
So use that intelligence — embrace those parts of society that are useful, and rewild the rest.
You’re a human animal. Act like it. | https://medium.com/in-fitness-and-in-health/its-time-to-rewild-your-fitness-b9aeceb5bc35 | ['Ben Walker'] | 2020-09-24 14:42:35.796000+00:00 | ['Rewilding', 'Fitness', 'Nature', 'Life', 'Health'] |
Tilney BestInvest Group Review For Expats 2021 | This article originally appeared on adamfayed.com
This article will review Tilney BestInvest. It will talk about the positives, negatives and suggest what you can do if you aren’t satisfied.
The article will mainly focus on Tilney products sold to expats, but it will briefly mention about the options for UK clients, and how the two can differ dramatically.
I will also briefly speak about the ongoing market turbulence due to the 2020 global pandemic, and whether the BestInvest portfolios are likely to do well in such situations.
If you want a second opinion on BestInvest or would like better investment results more generally, you can email me on [email protected] or WhatsApp (+447393450837)
For those interested in video content, I summarize the article in the video below:
Who are Tilney Best Invest?
Tilney BestInvest Ltd, or Tilney Group, is a financial planning and investment company. Their assets under management exceed 20 billion.
They became famous for their `spot the dog` commentary, where they critique bad funds that underperform.
They have an office in London, but also have worldwide clients, due to their distribution networks across the Middle and Far East.
Where is Tilney Best Invest sold?
They have offices in London, Glasgow, Liverpool and Edinburgh. They are sold worldwide in Hong Kong, Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Qatar, Cambodia (Phnom Penh), Thailand (Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket especially) and Mainland China (Shanghai mainly) due to broker relationships they have, including with Infinity Financial Solutions.
In the overseas market, Tilney is usually sold via third party platforms, and is typically much more expensive than buying from the UK.
So this review article should be more considered a review of Tilney BestInvest for expats in the Middle East, South East Asia and beyond, rather than a UK review, even though a percentage of what I will say will be relevant to UK investors as well.
What Tilney Best Invest funds are most widely sold?
Some of the main funds sold are:
IFSL Tilney Bestinvest Aggressive Growth Portfolio
ifsl tilney bestinvest growth portfolio
ifsl tilney bestinvest income portfolio
ifsl tilney defensive
IFSL Bestinvest Income Portfolio R GBP
Each funds will come with a certain class, and associated charge. As an example, ifsl tilney bestinvest aggressive growth portfolio clean acc is slightly different to the “unclean” version.
In human terms, the clean version pays less in terms of fees to the advisors.
Who usually buys the funds outside of the UK?
It varies but typically British expats, alongside Japanese, South Africa, Korean, Norwegian, Swedish and other expat groups.
Many of these expats are looking for something specific, like expat advice for British expats in Cambodia or expat advice for Japanese people in Malaysia or Thailand.
Some are looking for something more vague, like financial advice in Hong Kong or another location.
What’s the positives about BestInvest?
They are a large and established group……although large doesn’t mean better! It can just mean you are treated as a number. You probably won’t lose a lot of money in the funds. You might see a stagnating portfolio or get lowish returns, but you likely won’t see huge losses if you hold on long-term. For UK-only clients investing through SIPPs, the fees are more reasonable than for overseas clients. They typically charge 0.2%-0.4% service fees, depending on the account size. There are additional fund fees, however, which are quite high — as much as 1.60% per year. The funds are liquid, meaning they are daily priced. That doesn’t mean there aren’t charges for getting out of the investments, but they are not opaque and highly illiquid investments. In other words, if you have an $100,000 investment, even if the fees are $10,000 for getting out as an example, you will be able to exit quickly. This is unlike some other investments like some corporate bonds, which often can’t be sold before a specific date. A small percentage of their funds have performed well. However, as the article will explain in more detail below, it is often impossible to know which funds will do well in advance. Even their best performing funds, have also struggled to beat the market. They can be held in a tax-efficient manner, both in the UK, and outside the UK. However, so can many other investments, so this isn’t a positive compared to all other investments. It is merely a positive compared to some of the less tax-efficient options in the market. An example of a tax-inefficient option is usually sending money back to your home country, unless you are American.
What are the negatives about BestInvest?
In general, the negatives are far bigger than the positives, especially for expats.
These negatives include:
1. The fees are high. Not the service fees but the fees within the funds. The Tilney BestInvest Defensive Portfolio and Tilney BestInvest Aggressive Portfolio both charge up to 1.60% per year + up to 5% initial charge. You can invest in index trackers from 0.03% per year. There is an incredible amount of academic data that shows that fees matter in investing over the long-term.
2. Fees in the UK aren’t the best compared to some providers, but pale in comparison with the charges in the overseas expat market. The reason is simple; there are multiple fees:
1.5% annual management charge (AMC)
Over 2% per annum ongoing charge
Up to 5% upfront
Up to 1%-2% yearly depending on which bond and QROPS/provider is used.
To put it simply, you are getting numerous fees and these compound over time.
The life insurance fee, BestInvest fee, broker fees and sometimes QROPS and SIPPS fees all add up over the years.
3. Some brokers will claim that they have given discounted fees — in other words rebated the fees. Even if this is true, the net fees are still very high.
4. Numerous reviews online have suggested that withdrawing the money can be difficult, with plenty of procedures to jump over. In other words, in a digital age, the firm hasn’t adapted. Or at least, the international brokers selling Tilney, haven’t adapted. Often withdrawing and adding money online isn’t an option…….in 2020 this isn’t good enough.
5. Linked to the last point, as Tilney is sold overseas in conjunction with some old fashioned products, the procedures are even more complicated than in the UK.
Often to withdraw from these investments, the third party providers, often ask for physical paperwork, updated proof of address and other things.
I have helped people withdraw from these investments and it has often taken over 1 month, for some small silly reasons, like the signature on the withdrawal form isn’t an exact 100% match to the one they have on record!
Added to the hefty penalties for getting out of the investment, this was a tough pill to shallow for these investors
6. Passing the buck is easy. If a broker outsources their investment process, they will claim that is to reduce conflicts of interest.
This might have some merits. However, many brokers will be able to blame Tilney for underperformance, claiming that it is simply their job to “be the financial planner” and not “financial advisor”.
7. The outsourcing process often creates not only multiple layers of fees, but multiple layers of complexity.
8. The customer service has been referred to as “uncaring”. In effect this means that you are treated as customer number 102,022, rather than an individual. There have also been reports about regular trading and IT error.
9. Is it a myth that Tilney can give you a better “risk adjusted return”.
Advocates for the company might argue that they won’t beat indexes like the S&P500, but they can offer you less volatile and safer returns.
This is largely a myth as you have addition risks going with this option, including “human error”. This also means that as the management team that runs your funds changes, your returns might change.
Another issue is complacency. Even many top performing managers can struggle after many good years — indeed today’s winners are often tomorrow’s losers in the fund industry.
Every dog has its day, as the expression goes, and relying on BestInvest to beat the market on a regular basis, or even reduce your risk whilst failing to beat the market, is statistically unlikely.
10. Your mileage will certainly vary in terms of the service you get in the overseas market. Investor A, with advisory company A, might get much worse service than Investor B, with advisory company B. Even within those firms, the individual advisors will have contrasting levels of service.
11. Linked to point 10, they aren’t especially careful with the introducers they pick in the expat market. So your mileage will vary even more overseas, compared to in the UK.
Which offshore products are BestInvest sold through?
The main providers are the same ones that are reviewed in the article referred to at the start of this piece.
These providers are usually in Isle of Man, Guernsey, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands and Jersey.
It makes sense, in many ways, for expats to invest overseas and offshore, when they live outside their home country.
So the issue isn’t where the money is invested geographically, but the fees and charges within the plans. This results in many complaints and bad reviews, especially when early surrender and redemption charges aren’t mentioned.
Moreover, whilst Tilney are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the firms selling them overseas are not. That isn’t a problem in of itself, but don’t think you are getting enhanced protection.
The Labuan license, moreover, is more of an insurance license, than a financial license. Life insurance -related products can be connected to investments though; they are just more expensive than pure investment platforms.
What are the fees like within these products ?
It varies, but typically 1%-4% per year depending on many factors, including whether you contribute in these plans until the end of the term.
On the savings plans, you often can’t get bonuses if you fail to contribute every month, meaning you only get the fees and not bonuses.
What is BestInvest performance relative to the stock markets?
The US S&P has increased by 11.48% so far this year — as of March 6, 2019. 2018 was -4.38%. 2017, 2016 and 2015 was 21.83%, 11.96% ands 1.38% respectively. The accumulative performance has been over 42%.
If you would have invested $100,000 in the US S&P in 2015, therefore, you would have more than $142,000 today. Even if you added 10% government bonds, and 90% S&P as per Warren Buffett’s suggestion,you would now have well over $130,000.
If you had invested in the BestInvest aggressive portfolio, in comparison, from 2015 until now, you would have about $129,000 before the aforementioned fees.
The BestInvest Defensive Portfolio has only produced about 2% per year before fees, meaning several offshore investors are seeing negative returns, despite markets being up.
It is a numbers game — compounded fees harm compounded gains. 2% per year easily gets wiped out by the aforementioned high fees. Even 7%-8% per year gets reduced to 3%-4% if the compounded, indirect, fees are high.
So does that mean that BestInvest never performs well?
BestInvest funds have of course performed well during some period, especially if markets are performing very well.
However, that doesn’t mean they have performed well compared to the overall market.
Take some recent years as an example. On the surface some of the funds haven’t done badly.
The red line shows that one of Tilney BestInvest’s Euro growth funds has performed quite well, with the red line illustrating this points
It has certainly performed better than most of Tilney’s other funds. However, look at how the S&P500 has performed during a similar period, which has gone up by more than 62% excluding dividends.
And that is excluding the fact that the huge fees would have eaten into the BestInvest performance.
In reality, those 50% returns with the BestInvest Portfolio, might well have ended up being closer to 20% over a 5 year period for this very reason.
These huge fees, in turn, will compound over a long period of time. That means that over a 20–30 year period, they will really eat into your returns.
Are there charges for getting out of BestInvest products?
The funds are liquid, so often UK investors can get out without penalty. However, if you have bought BestInvest through an offshore life insurance company, there are charges for getting out.
On lump sum products, the charges last for 5–14 years, depending on the terms and conditions of the product.
On regular savings plans, charges last for 5–30 years, depending on the terms of the contract.
If there are charges for getting out of the product, what can you do?
It depends. In some cases fund changes within the existing product makes sense. In other cases, you can do a maximum penalty free surrender. For example, if you have $100,000 in your account, you can withdraw $50,000 or $70,000 without penalty, and invest in a cheaper alternative.
How high this maximum penalty free surrender is usually depends on how long you have been invested in the account.
On day 1, you often have $0 penalty free surrenders available, especially on the savings plans. Most savings plans have a 1–2 year initial period. If you fail to pay in for this period, you lose all your money.
After that initial period, your surrender value gradually increases. So on a 25 year plan, for example, after 5 years, your surrender value may be 20%-30% of the account value. After 22 years, your surrender value may be 95% or more, but the specifics depend on the offshore life insurance provider.
However, over time, the amount you can withdraw penalty free increases.
Are most clients happy with the returns?
In general, I have noticed a trend. Clients tend to be happy in the early years of expat accounts associated with this option.
This is often because the fees are lower in the early years, and also in part because of the welcome bonuses that third party providers give as an incentive to sign up.
However, by year five, six and seven, the situation starts to change. Very seldom have I found a happy client that has been in these policies for ten years or more.
Mistakes to avoid
In investing one of the biggest mistakes investors makes is called loss aversion in cognitive psychology. This means that if investors are down, or not doing well, they wait until the accounts are breaking even before selling.
A simple example would be if you have $100,000 in your account. The value is $95,000. After more reading, you know that deep down the fees are eating into returns. However, as the account briefly hit $101,000 before, you wait until the account recovers to $100,000+ before selling as you don’t want a loss.
I have even seen investors wait 2–10 years to avoid this loss.The rational thing to do is accept the $5000 loss in this situation, as that money can be made up quickly in a cheaper structure.
In addition to that, many investors think size is always good. Having 24/7 account access and log in, flash IT systems and an office in Mayfair doesn’t help client returns; lower fees and better funds would help that.
Will the bonus make a difference?
Many of the providers that are sold in conjunction with this option, will claim that bonuses and extra allocations will decrease the fees substantially.
In reality, even adjusted for any bonus, this option is too expensive. That isn’t even taking into account the fact that there are so many terms and conditions for getting those bonuses in the first place.
When do most people take action?
Due to the fact that the fees compound and get worse over time, most people wait 5–8 years+, before taking action as expats. It makes sense to do something sooner.
The reason that many people wait so long to take action is that first and even second year performance can be good, because welcome bonuses disguise the huge fees.
What services do they offer in the UK?
It isn’t within this articles scape to mention their UK-specific services, as it focuses on expats.
However, they do offer some UK-specific services directly — in other words through Tilney and not third party platforms or brokers.
Those services include the BestInvest Junior ISA, Bestinvest SIPP and BestInvest Investment Account.
The Junior ISAs allow parents to save and invest for their children’s future, in a tax-efficient manner.
In general, the reviews on these are more positive than their overseas expat offerings, but better solutions still exist nevertheless.
How about during periods like this in 2020 with falling markets?
Nobody knows how well Tilney’s portfolios will perform during periods of falling markets.
This does appear to be a good time to invest in markets, but there is no indication that BestInvest’s portfolios will do better during such periods.
They didn’t in 2008–2009 and they are unlikely to in 2020. What is certain is it isn’t a good idea to “wait and see” if you aren’t happy with your existing portfolio.
Conclusion
Tilney is a very expensive option for expat investors. Buying this product in of the UK, is completely different to buying it as an expat, for the reasons given above.
Many expats buy into the plans thinking they are getting a UK-regulated solution, when that isn’t the case. Just because the funds are regulated in the UK, doesn’t mean the expat platforms are also regulated.
Regulation though, is the smaller issue compared to cost. In sum then, it is ironic that Tilney do a “spot the dog” feature, where they mention the worse performing funds.
The recent stock market declines and volatility in March 2020, caused due to the shutdown of the economy as a result of the global health care pandemic, is a good warning to potential investors.
Despite being told that diversified funds would reduce the volatility during bad times, even if they don’t beat the market long-term, Tilney’s funds haven’t beaten a diversified portfolio of index and bond funds.
Perhaps one day they could mention some of their own funds in the spot of the dog commentary!
What can you do if you have a BestInvest policy offshore?
There are three options I have explored with people in the past; completely surrendering the policy, partially surrendering and stopping contributions.
It isn’t easy to say which option is usually best for people, as that depends on each clients situation.
If you have a policy and would like a conversation please contact me via [email protected] or use the chat function below.
Case study
To read a case study of an expat in an overpriced policy, and how I helped, please click here.
As per Graham’s review, he explains the problem, how he got in contact me with and the end solution.
1–2 of my LinkedIn recommendations has also came from former BestInvest clients.
A more in-depth article
For an even more updated article, alongside customer reviews and questions at the bottom of the page, click here.
The article goes into more detail about the kinds of insurance companies that are used in conjunction with BestInvest in the overseas market.
Adam Fayed.
adamfayed.com
([email protected]) or WhatsApp (+447747390822) | https://medium.com/@adamfayed/tilney-bestinvest-group-review-for-expats-2021-d8e1a8d5962f | ['Adam Fayed'] | 2021-01-12 01:24:46.653000+00:00 | ['Hong Kong', 'Expat', 'Malaysia', 'Thailand', 'Investing'] |
Showing All the Colors | Many people visit the Berkshire Mountains for the beautiful scenery and peaceful atmosphere. It’s the type of place that you’ll find inspiration all around you- from the gorgeous landscapes to the picturesque towns filled with wonderful places to explore.
In the quaint town of Lenox, is the Cornell Inn. The Inn was built in the 1700’s and 1800’s and is full of history and stories. They’ve been working hard with something new and exciting to the Inn- a renovation. Not just any renovation, they will be working with The Kaleidoscope Project to showcase Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) to redesign parts of the Inn. The Showhouse will encompass The Main House & The Carriage House, where 23 BIPOC designers will renovate 18 guest rooms and suites, a lobby area, dining room, and bar.
The Kaleidoscope Project teamed with Ellen DeGeneres, Elle Décor Magazine, and over 30 design brands such as Benjamin Moore, Kohler, Kravet, and The Shade Store, and more to transform The Cornell Inn into a showhouse featuring BIPOC designers.
In the world of design, there is a distinct lack of BIPOC works. Kaleidoscope co-founder Amy Lynn Schwartzband said that “The Kaleidoscope Project’s mission is to foster this under-acknowledged community and create a more representative view of our design trades and the world where we live and create.”
The chosen designers have incredible visions for the historic Inn. The Mood Boards show exciting designs.
Design: Nikki Klugh
Design: Purvi Padia
“I’m thrilled Elle Decor is joining The Kaleidoscope Project and throwing our brand behind this incredible effort to support beautiful work by a diverse roster of design talent,” says Asad Syrkett, Elle Decor, Editor in Chief.
Not only will the Cornell Inn showhouse highlight BIPOC designs, but the proceeds from the ticket sales of tours of the Inn will also be used to provide scholarship opportunities for Parsons School of Design, Black Artist + Design Guild, and the New York School of Interior Design to support Black, Indigenous and People of Color interested in an art or design career.
“With the advent of the Black Lives Matter Movement, we in the design industry community sought to support our Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) community in an actionable fashion. We are seeking to show the true colors present within our community and to create welcoming and inclusive spaces that reflect a broader design narrative.” — Patti Carpenter, co-founder of The Kaleidoscope Project, and Principal for carpenter + company .
This unique opportunity will celebrate the diversity and talent that exists within the creative interior design industry. | https://medium.com/@wendydelmo/showing-all-the-colors-86692fe25933 | ['Wendy Del Monte'] | 2021-04-25 17:23:51.689000+00:00 | ['Design', 'People Of Color', 'Equality', 'Bipoc', 'Interior Design'] |
What if A Song of Ice and Fire Never Receives a Written Ending? | The Story so Far
Many who will read this will know the story, either from the television series or from reading the book. For myself, I watched the fourth season of the show, before re-watching the first three, finishing the series and then buying the books. The motivation for which was due to how bad the last two seasons were and the desire for a better finale.
Seven books covering five main volumes of a Song of Ice and Fire have been released so far. Books three and five have been split into two parts, with the other entries covering more than 800 pages each. They are a meaty read but well worth it. No stone is left unturned in Martin’s world and after reading through the first 100 pages of A Game of Thrones, I was hooked.
As you can imagine, the books contain more information than the television show. More characters are contained within and endings are not as clear cut as they are on your screens.
Katlyn Stark’s character in the television show is killed off after the Red Wedding. In the books, she is resurrected as Lady Stoneheart, a vengeful spirit who enacts revenge on the Freys for their actions. Rob Stark’s wife does not die at the Red Wedding and Daenerys has a nephew who is also vying for the throne.
Suffice to say that the books offer a ricer tapestry of information and therefore, a more compelling story. It is one that has been left with…
John Snow being stabbed
Theon escaping Winterfell with Sansa’s friend
and Stannis being alive and vying for the throne.
It is parked on the edge of a cliff and has many threads waiting to be sewn together. It is one that has left us hanging for nearly ten years and one that I am desperate to continue. | https://medium.com/books-are-our-superpower/what-if-a-song-of-ice-and-fire-never-receives-a-written-ending-e26c85102900 | ['Ben Shelley'] | 2020-12-15 16:47:36.966000+00:00 | ['A Song Of Ice And Fire', 'The Winds Of Winter', 'George R R Martin', 'Game of Thrones', 'Books'] |
thoughts from a coffee shop | Today a homeless woman came up to me holding a baby that was crying. My immediate impulse was to give her some money, so I fished out a $5 note from my backpack and handed it to her. She proceeded to make her way around the rest of the coffee shop, stopping at every table to ask them for change. A couple of people pulled some change out of their bag, while others looked away in unease, saying that they didn’t have money on them at the given moment. As I watched her walk outside of the store, I didn’t have the normal urge of satisfaction that one usually feels from helping a person in need.
I felt guilty for not doing more.
I had researched the issue before to determine the best ways to help someone in need, but at the moment itself, I was taken by surprise and could not act on any of those methods. I finally pinpointed the main reason for not going beyond: my fear.
7 year old me would have dragged my parents’ hands upon seeing a homeless person on the road in India, begging them to give the person at least ten rupees. Yet here I was today, possessed by the same thinking that my parents, the media, and the news constantly ingrain in my mind. Negative thoughts flooded into my head, replacing the feelings of raw empathy and emotion that I had felt for the woman a minute ago.
I remembered my dad telling me about a woman who tried helping a homeless person and ended up getting stabbed because the homeless person wanted her entire purse. I remember someone telling me that whenever I saw women in India carrying a baby with a broken finger, often times, she was never the parent of the child, but a kidnapper who did it to gain the sympathy of the crowd. I recalled my uncle’s remark when I told him about my summer program in San Francisco; there were a lot of “homeless black people” in the city, making it dangerous for me to take the train there alone. I was shocked by the racism-induced sentiment of this quote, and he told me that from living in sheltered Cupertino, I just didn’t have enough experience with the real world, for his friend had been held to a gunpoint by a man once.
I never understood his perspective of it, yet here I was in a coffee shop, where the thought of at least buying the child a toy from the Target next door disappeared as quickly as it came, wiped away by less pleasant thoughts of the consequences of a kind action. I had heard enough heart-warming and wholesome stories of people performing a kind act for a homeless person and completely changing their life, yet I had also heard enough stories of people being killed because of it. I hated myself for thinking in that privileged, entitled way, as if my fears for safety were anything compared to what that woman must go through on a daily basis. Was this just a rendition of growing up? Was there actually no safe way to help someone in need?
These are the thoughts that flood into my mind sitting down in a coffee shop, and these are the thoughts that I know will flood right out the next moment I go back to studying, until I meet another homeless person in the same week and feel the same sense of awkwardness again. On an unrelated note — wouldn’t it be nice to have a way to preserve the thoughts and emotions that we feel in a particular time and play it back when we want to evoke the same feelings? But I guess writing it down is the first step.
~Pratya P ❤ | https://medium.com/@ppoosala/thoughts-from-a-coffee-shop-7efaf0c5a42 | ['Pratya Poosala'] | 2019-07-07 18:28:15.809000+00:00 | ['Homeless', 'Thoughts And Feelings', 'Thoughts And Ideas', 'Homelessness', 'Teens'] |
Intelligently Generate Frontend Code from Design Files: Basic Component Recognition | By Boben
Background
In the Deisgn2Code (D2C) project, we usually extract metadata from design files using developer plugins of design tools such as Sketch and Photoshop. These plugins enable us to quickly extract native elements such as images, text, and shapes from design files. We then use these elements to build the frontend pages we need. However, many basic development components (such as forms, tables, and switches) are not supported by design tools. Although tools such as Sketch enable us to design the corresponding UI components flexibly, the DSL descriptions about UI components in Sketch are usually inaccurate. Therefore, we need to obtain accurate component descriptions in other ways. We believe that recognizing basic components through deep learning is one of the best.
Design layers in Sketch
D2C Recognition Capabilities: Technical Architecture
This article describes the basic component recognition capability in the material recognition layer of the frontend intelligent D2C project. This capability recognizes predefined basic components in images to help downstream technical systems optimize recognized layers’ descriptions. For example, it helps a downstream technical system optimize layers’ nested structure to generate a standard component tree and optimize layer description semantics.
Technical architecture of D2C recognition capabilities
Overall Solution
Similar to other algorithm engineering solutions, a D2C solution involves the entire process from sample collection to sample evaluation, model training, model evaluation, and model prediction.
Algorithm engineering pipeline
Sample Collection and Evaluation
A good sample set is essential for a successful model. The sample quality determines the upper limit of model quality. We can optimize the model to get close to this upper limit. We can collect samples from various sources.
The basic component recognition model described in this article rarely needs to recognize the context of components. Therefore, we generate samples by using code. We use UI class libraries commonly used in the industry to ensure sample quality during programming.
Before generating samples, we need to classify the components to be recognized. We must comply with the following principles when generating samples:
Generate as many sample types as possible with the same volume of each kind. Component properties and styles may affect the model’s generalization capability. Therefore, we must randomize the general style settings of the component library, such as the background color, width, height, and fillet within a reasonable range in order to generalize the component styles.
Consider designs such as text-on-image and image matting in specific scenarios. For example, when layers overlap.
Pad blank edge areas for line-box components (for example, the input field) with several pixels to prevent the model from learning edge features.
The following figure shows a simple sample:
A sample for basic component recognition
After generating samples, we need to evaluate their quality. We can perform operations such as data verification and category statistics calculation to assess the overall sample quality:
Check the tagged data for errors. For example, calculate a variance based on the tagged areas and background colors.
Calculate the statistics about the distribution of data across all UI types and check whether each type’s data volume is the same.
Model Selection
Based on a recent object-detection model report on PASCAL VOC datasets, we selected the YOLO One-Stage algorithm as the transfer learning algorithm for our basic component recognition model. This algorithm ranks first among the models listed in the report. We use this algorithm to do quick tests.
Data analysis results of object detection models
The You Only Look Once (YOLO) algorithm involves the following three steps:
1) Resize images to 416°¡416 (v3)
2) Learn the sample set’s classification features by training a convolutional network
3) Perform non-max suppression during prediction to filter boxes
YOLO uses a separate CNN model for end-to-end object detection. Compared with two-stage object detectors (such as R-CNN), YOLO is faster in training and prediction because it is a single-stage detector. It splits each input image into an S°¡S grid and enables each cell of the grid to detect whether there is an object whose central point falls in the cell. Each cell predicts the object’s bounding box and the bounding box’s confidence score. The confidence score indicates the possibility of a bounding box containing the object and the bounding box’s accuracy. YOLO integrates the prediction results of all cells to obtain the final prediction results. For more information about YOLO, visit the YOLO website.
During object detection for basic web components, we want the convolutional network to learn the features of each component type in the corresponding cell. Then the convolutional network will be able to differentiate between different types of components. Therefore, we must select component samples with different features to ensure that the convolution network will learn these differences.
Model Evaluation
When evaluating an object detection model, we use the mean average precision (mAP) to measure the accuracy of the model trained with a COmparing Continuous Optimisers (COCO) dataset. We can select the model prediction results of some test set data and compare the result with the ground truth of such data to calculate the average precision (AP) for each category.
Then we can draw a chart for categories with an Intersection over Union (IoU) higher than 0.5. As you can see from the chart, the detection precision for small objects is low because it was significantly affected by some text elements. In the future, we can enhance the detection performance for small targets when pre-processing the samples.
Model-evaluation result based on mAP
Model Prediction
We can optimize the training data that is used during model prediction to achieve better results. We can optimize the training data by resizing the images to a specific size during pre-processing. We use YOLO for transfer learning to do this. It resizes each input image to 416°¡416 for training and learning. The IoU result predicted by a model trained with resized images is much higher than that predicted by a model not trained with resized images (with a 10% better performance on the same test set).
We can use a model trained with resized images to predict the results directly based on the input images and get rough bounding boxes. However, if we want the bounding boxes of UI components to be precise, we must refine the bounding boxes in each image using OpenCV. The following figure shows the comparison of bounding boxes before and after refining.
Optimization of the model prediction result
Summary
Currently, the D2C project’s basic component recognition capability supports recognizing more than 20 types of UI components. In the future, we will invest more R&D efforts in the classification of refined samples and the measurement and expression of basic components’ properties. We will also standardize the management of model data samples for unified output. In the future, you can recognize some basic components and modify specific expressions based on our external open-source sample sets.
Original Source: | https://medium.com/@alibaba-cloud/intelligently-generate-frontend-code-from-design-files-basic-component-recognition-8d2ec14ca24 | ['Alibaba Cloud'] | 2021-04-25 10:09:15.202000+00:00 | ['Big Data', 'Deep Learning', 'Algorithms', 'Machine Learning', 'Alibabacloud'] |
5 Flirting Styles Every Single Man Will Attempt On You | 5 Flirting Styles Every Single Man Will Attempt On You
“The beginning of wisdom,” said Socrates, “is the definition of terms.” I agree, yet I’d twist it a little: the beginning of romantic wisdom is the definition of flirting styles.
Research shows there are five major flirting styles we’ve all used at some point in our romantic life: sincere, traditional, playful, physical, and polite. Someone hitting on you might be trying to be traditional without you fully realizing it. If that doesn’t get them where they want, they might switch to being more touchy, that is, physical, or they might crack some jokes on you, with the sole purpose of making you laugh.
Whichever the case, being able to tell which flirting style they are using might help you determine whether someone’s playing his cards on you. Here are five flirting styles every single man will attempt on you.
#1 — Sincere
Recent studies determined the seductive male voice is characterized by strong variations while flirting. This trait is often referred to as the “self-disclosure” voice, meaning men will pull an earnest and heartfelt persona during a date with you. Sounds familiar, isn’t it?
A few months ago, I went out with a guy whom I didn’t understand at all. Not because I disagreed with what we were talking about, but because I couldn’t hear a word of the low, deep tone his voice took on.
He didn’t talk about his feelings, which made me assume he wasn’t into it. Now I understand that was part of his flirtatiousness, but back then, I felt like an annoying date always repeating, “could you repeat that?”
#2 — Traditional
Remember the raining scene of Pride & Prejudice, when Mr. Darcy approaches Elizabeth after mass, declaring his love for her in the most refined and pompous arrangement of words? That’s more less how the traditional style goes — at least without the Victorian suit and the rain.
A guy approaches you, asking whether you have a minute. He wants to talk. You say yes, of course. And while you start to wonder what’s he’s going to say, he’s already acknowledging his feelings for you most logically and schematically manner.
Pros:
A sincere flirting style is often assertive and more verbal than others. If you love old-fashioned romance — a la Casa Blanca style — the traditional style will fit you like a chic cream handbag.
Cons:
If you’re looking for something less speechy, less structured, and recipe-wise, then maybe you’re dating the wrong flirter.
#3 — Playful
There’s a reason the word playboy exists. And no, it’s not because of Hugh Heffner. It’s because it’s perhaps the most used flirting style out there. Merriam-Webster defines a playboy as:
a man who lives a life devoted chiefly to the pursuit of pleasure
We’re all potential playboys. The only reason it’s a playboy and not a playgirl is that tradition indicated men made the first move. Only by being engaging and playful were they protected from rejection. It is most likely that your date is being playful because he doesn’t want to stop hearing from you.
#4 — Physical
It’s been a couple of months since I started seeing this guy three years my younger every weekend. He comes over, we have some drinks, and we make love. He never talks about his feelings. However, there are moments — when his toes reach mine, or how he tucks my hair behind my ears — when I’m he likes me more than he’ll ever tell.
Remember, flirting is like the moon’s facets: breathing, moving, being with different waning halves for every occasion.
Some express their love not by words but by getting physical. And that’s okay.
#5 — Polite
Last but not least, there are those men who like it like polite. Why? I’m not quite sure. Research suggests these people often show “reserved and distancing behavior.”
One thing we have to bear in mind is that these flirting styles do mix. In my experience, someone who starts as a polite flirter always turns out to be a player, which I don’t know if that makes them more attractive than they originally were.
Now that I think about it, it makes total sense that Christian Grey, from bestseller 50 Shades of Grey, is a businessman. He starts with polite flirts and then turns out to be this S&M addict with commitment issues. | https://medium.com/some-fears/5-flirting-styles-every-single-man-will-attempt-on-you-3d66d548bff3 | ['Mia Fornes'] | 2020-12-20 00:26:45.182000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Life', 'Life Lessons', 'Dating', 'Men'] |
NEST.JS for your NEXT PROJECT | Hi, I am Nandika Jeevantha. Currently, I am working as a trainee software Engineer in Virtusa (Pvt) Ltd. From years of experience in full-stack development I identified that NestJS is great stuff when you are about to develop backends.
Most in the past I used NodeJS with express for my backend development. But the main problem that I faced is not having a proper structure especially a folder structure in those technologies. when you are working in a large enterprise application this problem will bring headaches of course. Especially if you are an angular guy you will recognize of using the CLI greatly and great stuff of typescript. Nest is same as that. that’s why I really love this framework in building backends.
Here is the quote that I found in the NestJS documentation.
“Nest (NestJS) is a framework for building efficient, scalable Node.js server-side applications. It uses progressive JavaScript, is built with and fully supports TypeScript (yet still enables developers to code in pure JavaScript) and combines elements of OOP (Object Oriented Programming), FP (Functional Programming), and FRP (Functional Reactive Programming).”
And of course, it is “YES”. With no more explanations let’s forward
Let’s forward to the technical stuff.
First of all, you have to use nest CLI to start your project, run your project, and to do many things. You can easily install it using the following command in your cmd.
>npm i -g @nestjs/cli
After the installation you can start a new project using the following command.
nest new project-name
for the project-name you can use a name as you wish.
Ahh. I forgot something to mention. When creating a project, it prompts us which project manager would you like to use. Just choose npm.
Here is the folder structure of the brand-new project. I usually use WebStorm as my default IDE.
You might be familiar with nodemon. Every change that we do to the files nodemon starts again and again. Same as that we can start the NestJS project in watch mode. Simply use this command in your terminal.
npm run start: dev
or else you can use just npm run start
as a small discussion if we take a closer look at src/ directory several core files can be seen. Let’s talk about them one by one
app.controller.ts
here it is a basic controller sample with a single route
app.module.ts
this is the root module of the application
main.ts
this is the entry file of the application which uses the core function NestFactory to create a Nest application instance
well using nest.js is very easy and super cool.
Nest.JS returns
TypeScript Support: NestJS supports TypeScript, which makes me very comfortable as I have been using TypeScript for a long time while working with Angular. You have the option to select JavaScript again.
Code sharing: NestJS supports library creation and use using CLI. It’s really easy to share code and then it’s a good choice for business applications.
Monorepo support: Angular support monorepo, and starting at 6, NestJS comes with monorepo support.
How to learn: Another thing I love about NestJS when you come from .Net or a Java domain and have an idea for creating APIs, NestJS is easy to learn. Also, if you are an Angular developer, you will feel at home because it follows the same path.
Conclusion
NestJS is very easy to get started with, and once you have used .Net, Java, or ExpressJS, many concepts are the same.
It provides CLI, and with it, we use it, we can easily switch our app and focus more on our code. With a business application, it is really easy to split code into all multiple modules using NestJS modules.
This article is actually a basic forward step to Nest.I hope to continue with a detailed technical stuff as a continuation regarding to this.Connect with the future stories too about nest.
Stay Home.Stay Safe!!!! | https://medium.com/@jeevanthanandika/nest-js-for-your-next-project-b3631e4efd3 | ['Nandika Jeevantha'] | 2020-08-20 05:22:55.230000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'Angular', 'Nestjs', 'Backend Development', 'Javascript Frameworks'] |
LET’S TALK ABOUT YAOI! 🤭 | JUNJOU ROMANTICA.
The most famous and loved, with four lovely couples, and the most knowed is Romantica couple. It have three seasons, and the third one was created because the international fans pressure.
YURI ON ICE.
After Junjou Romantica, this was fresh hair! A depressed ice skater that decide to perform his “last” performance like if he were training, but a mischievous fate decides that he can’t throw the towel, so… how about your favorite athlete became your ice skating trainer?
SEKAI-ICHI HATSUKOI.
Is like a other version of Junjou Romantica, but centred in Junjou Terrorist couple.
SUPER LOVERS.
This is cute, but at first it will makes you question your moral integrity due to the fact that the main characters are minors, in the adolescent age, but how the history develops, is what engage people (a forbidden cute love?) | https://medium.com/@esperanzaabegue/lets-talk-about-yaoi-7a9980b4f3c2 | [] | 2021-03-10 03:22:22.423000+00:00 | ['Japan', 'Yaoi', 'Anime', 'Boys Love', 'Manga'] |
Introduction to Linear Regression | Linear Regression
Linear Regression is a popular machine learning algorithm where we predict a dependent variable using an independent variable in case of a simple linear regression model. The independent variable may be continuous or non-continuous but the dependent variable must be continuous. This algorithm is used when we are trying to predict a continuous value which is dependent on another variable.
Now, let us consider an example showing us the yield of apples and oranges in five different regions along with the regions’ temperature, rainfall, humidity. This is called as training data.
Training data
The yield of apples and oranges in a region depends on the temperature, rainfall and humidity of that particular region. So, we can say that temperature, rainfall, humidity are the independent variables and yield of apples and oranges are the dependent variables. In machine learning we have to use this data to predict the yield of apples and oranges in a new region. In this article we will use the linear regression algorithm to predict the yield of apples and oranges in a new region.
Simple Linear Regression
This is how a simple linear regression plot would look like. The straight line is called as ‘the best fit line’ which is used to predict the data. It expresses the best relationship between the variables x and y. The equation of a straight line can be expressed as:
y = m*x + c
where x, y are the co-ordinates, ‘m’ is the slope of the line and ‘c’ is the y intercept.
In linear regression the target variable is expressed as the weighted sum of input variables and some constant offset known as bias.
y = B1*x1 + B2*x2 + B3*x3 + ……. Bi*xi + bias
where Bi is the weight, xi is the input and y is the output.
We can write the same kind of equation for our training data which includes inputs which are temperature, rainfall, humidity and outputs that are yield of apples and oranges and their respective weights and biases.
yield_apple = w11 * temp + w12 * rainfall + w13 * humidity + b1
yield_orange = w21 * temp + w22 * rainfall + w23 * humidity + b2
‘w’ is the weight and ‘b’ is the bias
The graphical representation of inputs versus output would look as:
Here we excluded the humidity for simplicity of the graph.
The prediction depends on adjusting the values of weights and biases. Using weights and biases we could predict the yield of apples and oranges of a new region using the average temperature, rainfall and humidity of that region.
Now, let us start training our model by importing NumPy and PyTorch libraries.
import numpy as np
import torch
Now, we have to separate the training data into input and output matrices
# Input (temp, rainfall, humidity)
inputs = np.array([[73, 67, 43],
[91, 88, 64],
[87, 134, 58],
[102, 43, 37],
[69, 96, 70]], dtype='float32')
inputs array([[ 73., 67., 43.],
[ 91., 88., 64.],
[ 87., 134., 58.],
[102., 43., 37.],
[ 69., 96., 70.]], dtype=float32) # Targets (apples, oranges)
targets = np.array([[56, 70],
[81, 101],
[119, 133],
[22, 37],
[103, 119]], dtype='float32')
targets array([[ 56., 70.],
[ 81., 101.],
[119., 133.],
[ 22., 37.],
[103., 119.]], dtype=float32) array([[ 56., 70.],
[ 81., 101.],
[119., 133.],
[ 22., 37.],
[103., 119.]], dtype=float32)
Now, we have to convert these NumPy arrays into PyTorch tensors.
# Convert inputs and targets to tensors
inputs = torch.from_numpy(inputs)
targets = torch.from_numpy(targets)
print(inputs)
print(targets) tensor([[ 73., 67., 43.],
[ 91., 88., 64.],
[ 87., 134., 58.],
[102., 43., 37.],
[ 69., 96., 70.]]) tensor([[ 56., 70.],
[ 81., 101.],
[119., 133.],
[ 22., 37.],
[103., 119.]])
Now, we have to create matrices for weights and biases
# Weights and biases
w = torch.randn(2, 3, requires_grad=True)
b = torch.randn(2, requires_grad=True)
print(w)
print(b) tensor([[-0.5494, -1.0288, 0.7763], [-0.0694, -0.9043, -0.4502]], requires_grad=True)
tensor([0.7394, 0.3422], requires_grad=True)
torch.randn creates a tensor with given shape where elements are picked randomly from a normal distribution with mean zero and standard deviation as one.
Our model is a function that performs a matrix multiplication of the input matrix and the transpose of weights matrix and adds the bias matrix for each output. This output is the predicted matrix and we have to compare it with the actual output or target matrix.
inputs @ w.t() + b tensor([[ -74.9169, -84.6709],
[ -90.1092, -114.3642],
[-139.8958, -152.9829],
[ -70.8148, -62.2804],
[ -81.5957, -122.7720]], grad_fn=<AddBackward0>)
@ represents matrix multiplication in PyTorch and the .t method returns the transpose of a tensor. Now this matrix is the prediction matrix. Let us implement the above matrix operation with the help of a function.
def model(x):
return x @ w.t() + b # Generate predictions preds = model(inputs)
print(preds) tensor([[ -74.9169, -84.6709],
[ -90.1092, -114.3642],
[-139.8958, -152.9829],
[ -70.8148, -62.2804],
[ -81.5957, -122.7720]], grad_fn=<AddBackward0>)
Here we are passing the input matrix to the function model which returns us the prediction matrix.
Now, let us compare the predicted matrix with actual output or target matrix.
# Compare with targets
print(targets) tensor([[ 56., 70.],
[ 81., 101.],
[119., 133.],
[ 22., 37.],
[103., 119.]])
The Loss Function
Let us see the difference between our predictions and the actual outputs.
diff = preds - targets
diff tensor([[ 2.0911, 2.3917],
[ 6.1790, -2.6057],
[-13.1012, 1.7874],
[ 4.1791, 11.4107],
[ 4.7419, -10.4028]], grad_fn=<SubBackward0>)
We have to reduce this difference to predict the data accurately.
Before we improve our model, we need a way to evaluate how well our model is performing.
Calculate the difference between the two matrices (preds and targets). Squaring all the elements of the difference matrix to remove negative values. Calculate the average of the elements in the resulting matrix. The result is a single number, known as the mean squared error (MSE).
Let us try to implement the MSE
# MSE loss
def mse(t1, t2):
diff = t1 - t2
return torch.sum(diff * diff) / diff.numel() # Compute loss
loss = mse(preds, targets)
print(loss) tensor(37653.6133, grad_fn=<DivBackward0>)
Gradient Descent
Gradient descent is an algorithm to find the minimum value of the mean squared error. It involves calculating the gradients and apply them to our model. We can calculate gradients w.r.to weights and biases with the help of PyTorch. Here we calculating gradient or derivative of loss function w.r.t weights and biases.
# Compute gradients
loss.backward() # Gradients for weights
print(w)
print(w.grad) tensor([[ 0.5502, -1.0457, -0.3085],
[ 1.8869, 1.2371, 0.8541]], requires_grad=True)tensor([[-11202.0654, -13900.5625, -8207.4629], [ 18944.8359, 19087.8008, 11991.8184]]) print(b)
print(b.grad) tensor([-1.6014, 1.6320], requires_grad=True)
tensor([-137.6575, 221.2482])
Now our objective is to find a set of weights and biases that minimizes the loss of our model. Some important points to remember is that:
If the gradient element is positive; increase in weight increases the loss and vice-versa.
If the gradient element is negative; increase in weight decreases the loss and vice-versa.
The increase or decrease in loss by a weight element is proportional to gradient of loss w.r.to that element. This is the main observation of gradient descent.
Now, to decrease the loss we can subtract a small quantity proportional to the derivative of the loss w.r.to that element.
with torch.no_grad():
w -= w.grad * 1e-5
b -= b.grad * 1e-5 w, b (tensor([[ 0.6622, -0.9067, -0.2264],
[ 1.6975, 1.0462, 0.7342]], requires_grad=True),
tensor([-1.6000, 1.6298], requires_grad=True))
We are multiplying the gradient with a small amount so that we descend down the hill very slowly and not with giant leaps so that we do not miss the optimum minimal value of the loss. This multiplication factor is called as learning rate.
# Let's verify that the loss is actually lower
preds = model(inputs)
loss = mse(preds, targets)
print(loss) tensor(25429.4922, grad_fn=<DivBackward0>)
Now, we have to reset the gradients to zero. We do this because PyTorch accumulates the gradients. If you try to perform the gradient descent without resetting it would throw unexpected results.
w.grad.zero_()
b.grad.zero_()
print(w.grad)
print(b.grad)
tensor([[0., 0., 0.], [0., 0., 0.]])
tensor([0., 0.])
So, now the gradients being reset to zero, let us start training our model.
Training the model
Let us see some of the steps involved in training the model:
Generating predictions. Calculating the loss. Computing gradients. Performing gradient descent. Reset gradients to zero.
Now, to implement them we have to run epochs or iterations so that our loss becomes minimum with every epoch.
Let us train our model for 100 epochs.
# Train for 100 epochs
for i in range(300):
preds = model(inputs)
loss = mse(preds, targets)
loss.backward()
with torch.no_grad():
w -= w.grad * 1e-5
b -= b.grad * 1e-5
w.grad.zero_()
b.grad.zero_() # Calculate loss
preds = model(inputs)
loss = mse(preds, targets)
print(loss) tensor(58.6509, grad_fn=<DivBackward0>)
Now, the loss is much lower compared to the initial epoch.
Let us see our predictions and compare them with actual outputs.
# Predictions
preds tensor([[ 59.5036, 72.5822],
[ 81.9154, 98.2326],
[115.5916, 134.8530],
[ 36.0425, 48.2576],
[ 92.3665, 108.6549]], grad_fn=<AddBackward0>)
# Targets
targets tensor([[ 56., 70.],
[ 81., 101.],
[119., 133.],
[ 22., 37.],
[103., 119.]])
As you can see that by training our model many a times the loss became much lower and our predictions became much closer to the actual outputs.
Now let us try to predict the yield of apples and oranges in a new region by providing the averages of temperature, rainfall and humidity of that region as inputs to our model.
# Providing the necessary inputs to predict yield of apples and oranges
model(torch.tensor([[75, 63, 44.]]))
Now, let us have a look at our predictions. Man… I’m so excited!
tensor([[56.6015, 69.5131]], grad_fn=<AddBackward0>)
This is the predicted yield of apples and oranges of the new region.
Yeah!!!
We have predicted the yield in a new region by making use of already existing data. Now, I’m going to predict your future and tell what’s going to happen to you tomorrow. Ha ha don’t afraid it’s just a joke. We can run our model for even more epochs to reduce the loss and make our predictions even mor e accurate. So, now I have told you the secret of how we can actually predict data!
But wait… I’m gonna tell you something. In real world the outcome we are trying to predict might depend on so many features or inputs and prediction becomes quite difficult. We need large amounts of data to predict in real world. Hmm… don’t worry that’s what we do in machine learning and by using various algorithms we could predict or classify with more accuracy. | https://medium.com/@vamsikrishna-putheti/introduction-to-linear-regression-25720be6741 | ['Putheti Vamsi Krishna'] | 2020-12-16 09:39:41.802000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Linear Regression', 'Gradient Descent', 'Pytorch', 'Machine Learning'] |
The Curious Case of Banana in Javascript | The Curious Case of Banana in Javascript
Uncovering the secrets of JavaScript
Photo by Eiliv-Sonas Aceron on Unsplash
Everyone knows, that JavaScript is a weird language, where things often don’t make any sense. When you first started out, you had to first understand why
JavaScript is a single-threaded, high-level, often just-in-time compiled, multi-paradigm, prototype-based object-oriented dynamic language. — Wikipedia
And now you may want to understand why it has seemingly meaningless rules where
and
At first glance, they seem counterintuitive. How is NaN not equals to NaN, and how is an array equals to not an array? There are countless other examples where JavaScript doesn’t seem to do the things we want it to do. Take the following as an example; the whole point of this article:
What will be the return value of the above call?
Seems like we are trying to write out “bacteria” to the console by concatenating strings together. But in fact, this is what we get back: | https://medium.com/weekly-webtips/the-curious-case-of-banana-in-javascript-9b2fa85f0c70 | ['Ferenc Almasi'] | 2020-11-20 13:50:12.618000+00:00 | ['Case Study', 'Frontend', 'Programming', 'Web Development', 'JavaScript'] |
Cryptocurrency — Bigger or Smaller Than You Think? | Hey there Cryptopians,
Whilst writing a recent article focused on mass adoption, I asked myself the question…just how big is Cryptocurrency at the moment?! This seems like an almost impossible concept to work out, as there are so many people that seem to be involved, it really is quite staggering. However, on the the other hand, when speaking to most people day-to-day (who do not have any Cryptopian’s in their immediate circle), it seems as though everyone is clueless.
This gave me the notion to think, just how many people KNOW about Cryptocurrency. To be exact, I’m not just talking about people who have invested, neither people who have set up a Coinbase, or other type of wallet, only to never return to it….I’m including those that have done some research of their own, but still have not taken the dive yet. In essence, if a person knows about Cryptocurrency, but has never used a wallet, or other type of Crypto based service, then they cannot be statistically accounted for, using any web collected data. This leads me to believe that maybe a lot of people are just ignorant to the whole Crypto world. This is not to say that they are purposefully ignorant, however, it is how those persons views take shape, which will create a mass adoption at any rate.
This leads me to question, what are the top reasons why a “nay-sayer” may change their stance and views on Cryptocurrency. There are a few obvious reasons, such as, to make FIAT money, peer pressure, or because they are just “jumping on the band wagon”. The latter of which may be misconstrued, being that if a person has done and is doing all their research to follow up a genuine interest, then they are just a fellow Cryptopian. However, if they are just along for the ride, how much is that a bad thing?! I don’t think it is a negative unless they are just doing it to disrupt the world that other Cryptopians have created, or for any other malicious purpose that could damage the Crypto communities and industries. Remember, we we’re all newbies once…
With Blockchain tech becoming the new “industry standard” for ledgers, transactions and record keeping, plus Bitcoin almost being at yet again new heights, it seems more and more people are starting to at least take in some very basic information on Cryptocurrencies. Remember I said, it seems…
So, what are your view on this? How do you explain Crypto to a newbie? Is there a massive wave of adoption going on? or are we just hyped because we are always seeing new projects, but only see them by being in the Crypto space, not knowing that the people who are seeming to adopt, are already just more members of the same space? (That sentence was a mouthful!)
Just something to think about whilst waiting for confirmations…
#FutureFinance | https://medium.com/btcbros/cryptocurrency-bigger-or-smaller-than-you-think-ff580d7eca | ['Btc Bros'] | 2018-01-01 18:15:51.051000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blog', 'Crypto', 'Finance'] |
Tackling Kaggle’s Mercedes-Benz Greener Manufacturing Competition with Python | Photo by Marcel Strauß on Unsplash
Introduction
In this part (which is the last article in this series), we’ll build our final model, a reasonably accurate ensemble that will place in the top 10% of the Kaggle private leaderboard. You can find the notebook for this tutorial here.
Without further ado, let’s get coding (in Colab)!
Feature Selection Using OMP
We’ve already seen how well orthogonal matching pursuit performs on our dataset. One reason could be that, like many tabular datasets, most of the columns are extremely noisy and/or irrelevant to the dependent variable, so only a handful of features are actually needed. That is very true with this dataset, as we’ve already seen how, using only 5 binary features, we can make predictions almost as accurate as a model trained on the entire dataset, which consists of a whopping 376 features. Therefore, a model like orthogonal matching pursuit, which uses a fraction of the original features, should and does score relatively high on this dataset.
It would thus not be unreasonable to train other (tree-based) models on the features orthogonal matching pursuit uses (i.e. ones with nonzero coefficients), which should give us better results because remember, at the end of the day, OMP is just a linear model. At first, I was skeptical of this idea because we’ve already seen how feature selection using a Random Forest didn’t help at all, so why should this be any different? Well, first of all, it is possible our original Random Forest couldn’t see the relation between certain columns and the dependent variable whereas orthogonal matching pursuit did, so we threw those away during feature selection. But perhaps more importantly is that matching pursuit is using a one-hot encoded version of our data, which means if all that matters when it comes to ‘X0’ is, say, whether it’s 3, 7, or something else (for example, if it’s 3, then test times rise, if it’s 7, test times are shorter, and if it’s anything else, it has no effect on the dependent value), then it can easily multiply the dummy variable for ‘X0’ = 3 and 7 by the right coefficients. In theory, Random Forests should be able to take care of such instances but in practice, if doing so requires too many splits and/or there are better splits available, that might not be the case (had we tried feature selection using Random Forests on a one-hot encoded version of our data, we might’ve been able to achieve what we’re about to see without the need to use orthogonal matching pursuit. Yet another mistake on my behalf).
Let’s give this a shot:
orth = OrthogonalMatchingPursuit(n_nonzero_coefs=20).fit(X_one, y) # np.where() returns the indices of nonzero elements # orth.coef_ is just the coefficients multiplied by the features, # so if the ith coefficient isn't zero, it means that feature # is being used to_keep = list(X_one.columns[np.where(orth.coef_)[0]]) train_keep = train_one[to_keep+[dep_var]].copy() X_keep = train_keep.drop(dep_var, axis=1) test_keep = test_one[to_keep].copy() display_df(train_keep)
Output:
Like we speculated, only certain categories in ‘X0’, ‘X2’, and ‘X5’ matter and the rest are trivial (attentive readers might notice some similarities between the binary variables we have here and the ones used to create our magical feature). There’s one more step left before we can train tree-based models on this dataset — and get surprisingly good results.
Dummy Variables to Categorical Columns
Linear models, as you already know, require the dummification of categorical features. However, one-hot encoding could hurt tree-based models’ performance and hence, we need to convert the dummy variables in our dataset into single categorical columns. In part 4, we did something similar while we were creating our super feature, and we can use the same approach here as well, albeit on select columns rather than the entire dataset:
def dummy_to_cat(col, df): dummy_names = [i for i in df.columns if i.startswith(col+'_')] dummies = df[dummy_names] # Create a Series of tuples where the ith # tuple is a tuple of the dummy variables # in row i cat = dummies.apply(tuple, axis=1) # Label encoding (tuples >- ints) cat = cat.astype('category').cat.codes df.drop(dummy_names, axis=1, inplace=True) df[col] = cat return df df = train_keep.drop(dep_var, axis=1).append(test_keep) # Doing this to 'X2's dummy variables isn't # needed, since there's only 1 such variable for col in ['X0', 'X2', 'X5']: df = dummy_to_cat(col, df) X_keep = df[:len(train_raw)] train_keep = X_keep.copy() train_keep[dep_var] = y test_keep = df[len(train_raw):] display_df(df)
Output:
Neat! Let’s test out a Random Forest to see whether what we’ve done so far can help tree-based models as well:
rf_cross_val = partial(print_cross_val, RandomForestRegressor, train_keep, n_jobs=-1, n_estimators=40) rf_cross_val()
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.609 0.614 0.533 0.599 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.561
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.060 rf_cross_val(min_samples_leaf=3)
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.537 0.615 0.595 0.599 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.569
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.059 rf_cross_val(min_samples_leaf=5)
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.638 0.633 0.518 0.466 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.571
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.059 rf_cross_val(min_samples_leaf=10)
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.447 0.613 0.554 0.479 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.561
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.063 rf_cross_val(min_samples_leaf=5, max_features=0.5)
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.560 0.570 0.505 0.590 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.567
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.052
The best score we get is 0.571, which is slightly worse than orthogonal matching pursuit but quite a bit better than anything we were able to attain with Random Forests in past articles. It’s important to keep in mind that previously, we sometimes got a score over 0.57, but that was mostly due to the randomness involved in train-test splits. Right now, out of every 4 or 5 runs of cross-validation (with k = 100), we get an R2 of more than 0.57, which suggests this Random Forest is likely better than the previous ones (in other words, if we set k to a large enough value, this Random Forest would score higher than 0.57, whereas previous iterations would score lower). We’re definitely on the right track!
LightGBM
Random Forests are nice for quick experimentation since they’re fast, intuitive, and easy to tune. Unfortunately, though, gradient boosting machines generally outperform them by a margin that is often decisive in Kaggle competitions, making them a favourite amongst contestants (it also doesn’t hurt that they’re quite fast and heavily optimized). Hence, if we’d like to have a shot at competing, we need try them out as well.
There are numerous available implementations of GBMs for Python, with the two most popular ones being XGBoost and Microsoft’s LightGBM. Both models yield roughly the same accuracy more often than not, but the tiebreaker is their execution time. LightGBM is often 3–10X faster than XGBoost, which is vital in our case because it enables us to increase k while doing cross-validation, thereby giving us a better picture of our model’s performance and allowing for more rigorous hyperparameter tuning. LightGBM is Scikit-learn compatible, so it has a gentle learning curve for those familiar with the Scikit-learn:
from lightgbm import LGBMRegressor
Before we go any further, remember that in the first article, we dropped the ID column since dealing with IDs can sometimes be frustrating and, at first, I couldn’t see how the ID of a car could be related to its test time. Just to be sure, though, I tried feeding it to a Random Forest (alongside the rest of the data) and even after extensive tuning, it didn’t budge our score whatsoever.
However, it did help LightGBM and XGBoost, so we’ll bring it back:
train_keep = train_keep.join(train_id) X_keep = X_keep.join(train_id) test_keep.reset_index(drop=True, inplace=True) test_keep = test_keep.join(test_id)
Again, LGBM is Scikit-learn compatible, so the process of training & validation remains pretty much the same. Please be aware that, unlike Random Forests, gradient boosting machines have a real chance of overfitting if there are too many trees and hence, we can’t begin with, say, 40 trees for validation and add more trees for our final model. Instead, we’ll have to start with a relatively high number of trees right off the bat:
# Good initial parameters lgbm_cross_val = partial(print_cross_val, LGBMRegressor, train_keep, k=1000, n_jobs=-1, n_estimators=400, learning_rate=0.01, max_depth=3, min_child_samples=1) lgbm_cross_val()
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.636 0.466 0.475 0.516 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.573
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.055 lgbm_cross_val(max_depth=4)
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.618 0.604 0.628 0.589 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.571
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.056 lgbm_cross_val(learning_rate=0.03)
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.606 0.614 0.597 0.476 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.572
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.055 lgbm_cross_val(min_child_samples=3)
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.595 0.554 0.488 0.597 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.576
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.054 lgbm_cross_val(min_child_samples=5) Output: Cross validation scores: [0.529 0.449 0.644 0.571 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.573
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.054
With min_child_samples=3, we get an R2 of 0.576, which is absolutely astounding, considering we’re not using anything from articles 1, 2, 3, and 4 (in fact, one could only read this part and still fully understand what we’re talking about) and yet, we’re outperforming every single model we’ve come up with so far. We’re almost ready to submit to Kaggle.
XGBoost
Although, at their core, XGBoost and LGBM are the same algorithm, their details do differ, so ensembling them should generally help, particularly in Kaggle competitions since every last decimal point counts. Unsurprisingly, XGBoost is nearly identical to LightGBM in terms of hyperparameters and syntax, so everything remains pretty much the same:
xgb_cross_val = partial(print_cross_val, XGBRegressor, train_keep, k=200, silent=True, n_jobs=-1, n_estimators=400, max_depth=3, learning_rate=0.01, colsample_bytree=1) xgb_cross_val()
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.633 0.589 0.593 0.444 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.550
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.059 xgb_cross_val(max_depth=4)
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.538 0.455 0.585 0.417 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.552
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.058 xgb_cross_val(max_depth=5)
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.573 0.574 0.561 0.615 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.550
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.059 xgb_cross_val(max_depth=4, learning_rate=0.03)
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.480 0.567 0.583 0.631 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.566
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.054 xgb_cross_val(max_depth=4, learning_rate=0.1)
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.504 0.584 0.548 0.526 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.533
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.058 xgb_cross_val(max_depth=4, learning_rate=0.03, colsample_bytree=0.5)
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.588 0.650 0.580 0.508 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.570
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.057 xgb_cross_val(max_depth=4, learning_rate=0.03, colsample_bytree=0.3)
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.620 0.468 0.590 0.578 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.557
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.055
An R2 of 0.570, which seems underwhelming at first but as we’ll see, our XGBoost can provide a nice boost for our LGBM.
Ensembling
Ensembling is the final step in virtually all winning solutions on Kaggle, no matter the domain or topic of the dataset. In short, it is basically when one leverages the power of several models to get a slightly better, bigger model. There are numerous ensemble techniques, some very simple, others fairly complex. The method we’ll be using today belongs to the first category, and it is known as weighted average ensembling, which is, as you’ve probably guessed, when you take the weighted average of the predictions of multiple models. Choosing what weights to assign to each model can be a tedious task if there are too many models, so one usually uses a linear model to automatically figure out the optimal values. However, there are only 2 models in our case, making the process of finding good weights manually rather straightforward (and also faster).
Scikit-learn learn has a class named VotingRegressor(), which does exactly what we need: It takes in a bunch of Scikit-learn compatible models, alongside the weights for each one, and returns a model with Scikit-learn functionalities, such as fit(), predict(), etc.
Let’s first create the base models:
lgbm = LGBMRegressor(n_jobs=-1, n_estimators=400, learning_rate=0.01, max_depth=3, min_child_samples=3) xgb = XGBRegressor(silent=True, n_jobs=-1, n_estimators=400, max_depth=4, learning_rate=0.03, colsample_bytree=0.5) estimators = [('lgbm', lgbm), ('xgb', xgb)]
And now we can proceed as usual ([0.9, 0.1], [0.7, 0.3], …, [0.1, 0.9] are good weights):
ens_cross_val = partial(print_cross_val, VotingRegressor, train_keep, estimators=estimators, n_jobs=-1) ens_cross_val(weights=[0.9, 0.1])
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.493 0.570 0.501 0.507 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.578
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.058 ens_cross_val(weights=[0.7, 0.3])
Output: Cross validation scores: [0.457 0.597 0.618 0.622 ...]
Cross validation average score: 0.568
Cross validation standard deviation: 0.059
As we would expect, assigning too much weight to XGBoost’s predictions isn’t a great idea, since its accuracy is well below that of our LGBM. Despite that, a tiny amount of XGBoost does help a bit, resulting in a model with a promising R2 of 0.578!
P.S: Please bear in mind that in order for an ensemble model to be as effective as possible, the base models need to be as uncorrelated as possible: Maybe one is a linear model, another is a Random Forest, perhaps there’s an LGBM trained on a modified version of the dataset, and so forth. Thus, it’d seem like having a linear model or a Random Forest in our ensemble should help, especially because both score better than XGBoost and almost as good as LGBM. However, I tried adding various models into the mix and for some reason, it didn’t improve our score one bit.
Submitting to Kaggle
We’re now ready to submit to Kaggle. Were we competing for first place, our model would have to be a lot better and, let’s be honest, we didn’t really put in that much work into it. But our aim is top 10%, and our model is likely that good, given that our secret sauce was OMP (which, I looked on Kaggle and no one was using), without which we wouldn’t have been able to get an R2 of 0.578
ens = VotingRegressor(estimators, n_jobs=-1, weights=[0.9, 0.1]).fit(X_keep, y) test_pred = ens.predict(test_keep) test_pred = pd.DataFrame({'ID': test_id, dep_var: test_pred}) test_pred.to_csv('submission.csv', index=False) # Submit to Kaggle !kaggle competitions submit -c mercedes-benz-greener-manufacturing -f submission.csv -m ""
Heading to the competition’s submission page gives:
Our R2 on the private test set is 0.55183, which puts us at 376th (<10%) on the leaderboard! In a competition with a moderately high number of participants (over 3800), that is definitely a great starting point, and we should be proud of how far we’ve come with comparatively little work. But we must not get too cocky, as there are quite a few ticks we could use to place even higher up the leaderboard. Some that come to mind include:
More hyperparameter tuning: There are quite a few hyperparameters in XGBoost and LGBM we didn’t cover in this article. Tuning them might increase our score by as much as a thousandth. Higher k: It is possible that due to the fact that we get such high STDs during cross-validation (implying we can sometimes get values that are too optimistic / pessimistic), some of the hyperparameter values we chose are not actually optimal. Setting k to a higher value would lead to more robust values for our hyperparameters, especially since we’re using Monte Carlo cross-validation. Classifier for detecting outliers: You should know by now that this dataset is riddled with anomalies, and being able to detect which rows are potentially outliers could be game-changing. Thus, it’d be interesting to see whether a model can actually do that and if so, how could we use it to modify our model’s predictions? Less clumsy constant column removal: Before we fed our data to orthogonal matching pursuit, we removed all binary columns which had fewer than 40 instances of zero or one, which could really damage our model’s performance. A more careful cleaning may have possibly led to different columns chosen by orthogonal matching pursuit, which could’ve in turn made our final model better.
If you’re interested in this competition, you should give these a shot and see how well they perform. But even without these, know that we have a model that earns us a bronze medal in a Kaggle competition!
Conclusion
In this part, we used orthogonal matching pursuit to not only get rid of redundant binary columns, but to also reduce down categorical columns with cardinalities ranging from 25 to 45 to ones with fewer than 10 categories. We then loosely tuned an LGBM (R2 = 0.576) and an XGBoost (R2 = 0.570), two popular gradient boosting model which dominate Kaggle tabular competitions. Finally, we used a weighted average ensemble to combine the two models, which put us in the top 10% of Kaggle’s private leaderboard, a pretty good ranking given the number of contenders!
This was officially the last part of this series, and there’ll be no more articles after this one. I hope you learned at least 1 thing from this series and enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it!
Please, if you have any questions or feedback at all, feel welcome to post them in the comments below and as always, thank you for reading!
Part 1: https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/mercedes-benz-greener-manufacturing-part-1-basic-data-pre-processing-a32d17803064
Part 2: https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/tackling-kaggles-mercedes-benz-greener-manufacturing-competition-with-python-3ddff72d0187
Part 3: https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/tackling-kaggles-mercedes-benz-greener-manufacturing-competition-with-python-1ca6b030bf58
Part 3 (continued): https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/tackling-kaggles-mercedes-benz-greener-manufacturing-competition-with-python-b5220f479a44
Part 3 (continued): https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/tackling-kaggles-mercedes-benz-greener-manufacturing-competition-with-python-7b203e886f8d
Part 3 (continued): https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/tackling-kaggles-mercedes-benz-greener-manufacturing-competition-with-python-a004659e02c4
Part 4: https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/tackling-kaggles-mercedes-benz-greener-manufacturing-competition-with-python-82dd27e53757
Part 5: https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/tackling-kaggles-mercedes-benz-greener-manufacturing-competition-with-python-e31198ecafae
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bobmcdear
GitHub: https://github.com/bobmcdear | https://python.plainenglish.io/tackling-kaggles-mercedes-benz-greener-manufacturing-competition-with-python-ecbd2714d952 | ['Borna Ahmadzadeh'] | 2020-12-15 16:12:26.309000+00:00 | ['AI', 'Kaggle', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
How (or Ways) to Show Gratitude All Year Round | How (or Ways) to Show Gratitude All Year Round
Most people think that showing gratitude is reserved for Thanksgiving day, but that simply isn’t the case. There is something to be thankful for at all times, regardless of your circumstances. Here are some great ways to show gratitude all year round.
A Simple Prayer, Gratitude Journal Entry, or Meditation
Showing gratitude doesn’t have to be anything extravagant. The simplest gestures can be used to show appreciation. If you’re a religious individual, say a quick prayer. If you’re looking for a creative yet easy way to show gratitude, consider a journal entry or meditate.
Donate to Your Favorite Charity
One way that plenty of people show gratitude is by donating to their favorite charity. Choose a charity that means something to you or warms your heart in a unique way. It doesn’t matter if you’re donating $5 or $500. The point is to show gratitude by helping out an important cause.
Volunteering
Don’t have any money to donate to a charity? Don’t worry. There are still plenty of ways to show gratitude, and you shouldn’t have to feel any lesser about it. Consider volunteering. Again, try and choose something close to your heart for one reason or another. Some great ideas include a soup kitchen or Big Brother/Big Sister. Remember — the greatest gift of all is time and attention, so volunteering is a top-notch tip.
Being More Active in Social Causes
Being a voice for a social cause you believe in is an excellent option for showing gratitude. As a bonus, you may be able to make a change in your community or worldwide. Be more active in social causes, and you will be glad you did.
Saying a Simple “I Appreciate You and Your Time” to People Who Work With You
There is nothing quite like hearing that you are appreciated, especially in the workplace. So why not make the simplest gesture of all and simply tell your co-workers that you appreciate them? This will make them and their efforts feel valued, and you can feel confident that you have shown gratitude.
Don’t Forget the Family. Saying “Thanks for Being Supportive/Being There” to Parents, Siblings, Etc.
Don’t forget your family! When it comes to showing gratitude to your family members, you can be a bit more personal. A thank you for being supportive during a specific part of life or simply being there is a great way to start. You can show all kinds of gratitude by talking to your loved ones and letting them know why you appreciate them.
Do a Giveaway for Your Online Community From Time to Time
If you own your own business, then this will be a cinch. Give back to your community with a giveaway featuring one of your products or services.
But don’t think you have to own a business to do a giveaway. You can give away your time to help someone pulling weeds. You can give away your kids’ old clothes and toys. Do whatever you can to help out your community to show gratitude.
Being thankful shouldn’t fall on one day of the year. Instead, find some simple ways to show gratitude throughout the year. Whether you’re volunteering, donating, or merely telling co-workers and loved ones you appreciate them, you can feel confident that you’re showing gratitude in your day-to-day life.
Wishing you an amazing week and continued positivity as we navigate the last few weeks of this year!
All the best,
Olivia & Kaid, the OK in @okworldtravel | https://medium.com/@okworldtravel/how-or-ways-to-show-gratitude-all-year-round-f66610dfe36c | [] | 2020-12-14 02:42:13.522000+00:00 | ['Gratitude', 'Self Improvement', 'Thanksgiving', 'Positivity', 'Personal Development'] |
Gifts for the Person in Your Life with Low Self Esteem | December has a lot of holidays and regardless of what you celebrate, there’s probably gift giving and/or the spreading of joy involved. If you’ve been slacking on charitable actions all year, that’s completely fine as long as you make up for it with some killer gifts. It’s really important to end the year on a high note in the eyes of others because if westernized media’s depictions of karma have taught us anything, it only takes ONE shoved and trampled child on Black Friday for you to earn a visit from three ghosts bent on psychologically terrorizing you during the most wonderful time of the year.
When I recognize that someone in my life suffers from low self esteem, it kills me because I see so much greatness in them that they can’t seem to recognize for whatever reason. That’s why I look forward to December every year because it’s the time to show how much I care about these people, and make up for some of my not-so-proud total b word moments that may or may not be contributing to their low self-esteem (oops!). Make you gifts matter this year for the people in your life with low self esteem with my helpful suggestions.
Sexy underwear
This one is a little bit obligatory, but a new pair of sexy underwear could be just the thing that your person needs to change their outlook on themselves. You can tell everything you need to know about a person’s underwear, even when they’re fully clothed. It’s all in the way that they carry themselves. People with frumpy, worn out undies often slouch while they walk as a way of protecting their crotch and butt area from any scrutiny. They know that one prying glance and someone will be able to make out the puffy outline of their ill fitting bloomers or boxers. They also might hold shopping bags, books, shoe boxes, or other items that wouldn’t normally be held in front of the crotch area, in front of the crotch area. This is probably because their underwear is so old and holey that a flopped-out d-print will be visible up against the raw material of their pants. Some nice underwear will make them feel much better about their appearance. After all, nobody confident knowingly walks around with skid marks.
A dog
For parents with children that might be getting bullied at school or not have enough attention from the family, a dog could be the best thing to get. But what kind of dog should you get? That depends on what kind of child you want to raise.
If you want your child to feel supported in the house, get a dog you love less than them. If at one point they felt like the most ignored or unloved family member, it would help them greatly to put something below them in the pecking order. They’ll know that their parents love them because they gave them something they love less.
My dog, Scrappy Doo, who is a pain to everyone in my family
If you want your child to be more aspirational, driven and competitive, you might consider giving them a dog you love more than them. Make it clear that this dog is your world and your child will not be able to take its place until they have earned it. This will be more of a journey towards their self worth as they will be forced to acquire lots of good traits in hopes of earning your love: studiousness, athleticism, self determination, etc. There will be times when you feel you’re being cruel and heartless, but it’s all worth it for the moment that they realize they’re good enough in their parents eyes.
My other dog, Benson, who I will never be in my parents’ eyes
An IOU
People always say “it’s thought that counts” and sometimes that’s all you have to give. Maybe the person you’re thinking of feels insecure in their personal relationships, so show them you’re thinking about them by giving them an IOU for a gift. Do you have to follow up on that IOU? Nope! As long as they know you’re thinking about them, it will be a meaningful gift.
An Adderall dealer
A big source of insecurity and decider of my self esteem is my productivity. I spend a lot of time writing and ~creating~ so naturally I stake a lot of my confidence in the ability to do that. On weeks when I’m less productive, I feel worse because I’m not producing as much. It’s an ugly positive feedback loop that’s hard to get out of, and my therapist says a lot of other people feel the same way. Maybe this person is like me in the sense that they have low productivity days. A great way to help them avoid this I HAVE HEARD AND I’M COMPLETELY SERIOUS THAT I’VE NEVER USED IT is Adderall!
Now it is not technically legal for you to give your friend a prescription that is not theirs, even if it’s wrapped in holiday cheer. So just defer the responsibility onto someone else. While it is frowned upon, it’s not technically illegal for you to let slip the contact information of someone you know for a fact sells Adderall. If it’s what they need, you’ll notice a great change in their demeanor. If it’s not what they need, you’ll notice a horrible change in their demeanor. Make sure you don’t send them to a meth dealer
A Botox party Groupon
Having an insecure group of friends is not fun at all. There’s only so much self doubt you can take from all sides until you start to develop fantasies about throwing hot coffee on them on yet another cafe date where you have to hear about how their parents won’t pay for their nose job. This is where Groupon marries two things that can remedy this going into the new year. If all of your friends get Botox, none of them will feel insecure about their looks anymore. This is a fact. And with it being offered on Groupon, money is not an object. Botox goes beyond physical appearance. It’s a very glamorous and exciting activity to do as a group of people in someone’s living room with chemicals that have been sitting in an outside-temperature van.
After just one botox party, you could all look like her!
A somber promise
Maybe your friend feels bad about the place they’ve come to in their life. Maybe they peaked in high school, they have a filthy, uninhabitable apartment, they were caught committing a federal crime and there’s no going back from it, etc. This isn’t an issue you can solve, so don’t give them false hope by promising them you will. It’s simply not doable. For now all you can do is be a shoulder to cry, and then if you outlive them, which you very well might, you give them your word that their ashes will be spread in a better place than they are right now. No matter how beaten down by the torturous monotony of their life they are, you saying this to them will give them something to look forward to and make them feel way better, even if that thing is death! Now this is something you have to fulfill your end of.
So merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, International Day of Neutrality, and any other December holidays you celebrate! | https://medium.com/@vobertretter/gifts-for-the-person-in-your-life-with-low-self-esteem-937339817985 | ['Robert Vetter'] | 2020-12-14 18:50:08.872000+00:00 | ['Gift Guide', 'Insecurity', 'Christmas', 'Self Help'] |
Making industry work better — with the help of design thinking | Applying Design Thinking to Make Industry Work Better
The first step of Design Thinking, empathizing, is crucial because it helps us to better understand our users — We conduct interviews, administer surveys, look at GDPR compliant recordings of people actually using our products, analyze data from Google Analytics, or a combination of all (and more). Each of these methods helps us in a different way to gain insight into our users’ behaviors and needs so that we can move in the right direction to identify the problem and ideate a solution.
Bringing the solution to life
Once we have an idea of the problem and a possible solution, we work to create a prototype. The prototype allows us to do two things:
Test it with users to obtain feedback prior to development —
Currently, we are working to re-design the O-Ring selector. The aim is two-fold: To help smaller businesses that might not have the capacity or knowledge regarding the complexity of O-Rings, and to help our internal colleagues at ERIKS point customers more quickly to the right product. Speaking with the business and looking at customer data, we want fewer, simpler and more guided steps. To figure out the pain-points of the redesign, we asked 50 users to test the prototype and complete a survey to give us a better idea of the usability of the selector.
2. Work with developers to implement an optimal solution —
By showing our prototype to developers, we get a realistic outlook on how feasible our solution is. If implementing our solution will take too long or is too complex, we go back to the ideation phase to come up with another solution that can better fit the timeframe and resources available, yet solve the needs of the end-user.
Developers can drop comments on our prototype. Here, we are looking to redesign the check out experience.
Implementation and the never-ending Design Thinking cycle
Once the design is handed off to the developers, the work isn’t finished. We work with our Product Owners and CRO Specialist to ensure we will be tracking the different changes and how it impacts conversion. For example, in the beginning of 2020, we worked to redesign the Product Detail Page (PDP) on our webshop. These design changes were made based on recordings that showed potential pain points, standard UX best practices, and by gaining user insight from prototypes. After development and subsequent AB testing, we are able to see whether or not the new PDP led to better add-to-cart rate than before. In this case, the new PDP saw a statistically significant better performance.
This is in combination with UX changes and faster page loading times
Though this is a win, the design thinking process is never over. In the world of UX, there is never such a thing as a perfect product… and so the process starts all over again. This feedback will take us back to the first step of the Design Thinking cycle, allowing us to continually optimize and explore ways to ensure a better digital experience. | https://medium.com/@eriksdigital/making-industry-work-better-with-the-help-of-design-thinking-ef5ed12329df | ['Eriks Digital'] | 2020-12-11 13:01:26.336000+00:00 | ['User Research', 'Design Thinking', 'UX Design', 'User Experience'] |
ŠTIVOR, An Italian village in Bosnia with 140 years of History | ŠTIVOR, An Italian village in Bosnia with 140 years of History
The resistance of this community will make you rethink about the concept of nationality Federica Sala May 9, 2020·7 min read
In the heart of the Balkans, in the North of Bosnia and hidden in the woods of the Republic of Srpska there is a small village with a very particular history connected to Italy. During one of my travels in Bosnia I discovered the presence of a community of about 400 Italians from Trentino, whose ancestors survived 130 years of history passing on a culture that is still today the same. As the village was really close to Banja Luka, that is where I was staying, I decided that I absolutely had to go to visit this village. So, one day I left by car with my Bosnian boyfriend and after 70 kilometres of travel on unpaved ground and alongside grazing cows and sheep, we finally arrived to Štivor.
The very first indication of Italianness that I saw upon entering, was the welcome sign written in Bosnian and Italian language. The village is not so big, it’s a few kilometres of paved road flanked by houses and a single bar, the Trentino Bar, where I saw the second Italian sign: the Italian flag. More and more intrigued, we decided to sit down to have a drink and find out more about the history of the place. I immediately heard the other guests talking to each other half in Italian and half in Trentino dialect, which later I discovered to be the dialect of the Valsugana area.
At this point you will wonder… Why is there an Italian village in Bosnia? What are Italian people doing there?
It’s a curious story that begins more than a century ago, precisely in 1881, when an incessant rain hit the Valsugana area, and the flood of the Brenta river forced many inhabitants to migrate elsewhere, as many suddenly found themselves homeless and jobless. Together those families planned to emigrate to Brazil, a land that was promising fields and new work tools, but hopes were soon broken as some of the people in charge of purchasing the ship trip fled with all the savings of the poor companions.
The decision to emigrate to Bosnia came only later when the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph, visiting Roncegno for the spa treatments, decided to come to the aid of the population by giving them a piece of the lands just torn from the Ottoman Empire afterwards to the Berlin treaty of 1878, with which the Austro-Hungarian Empire had obtained the administration of Bosnia, even if it will remain under Ottoman sovereignty until 1908. In the meantime, a policy of repopulation of Bosnia had been implemented, so the empire managed to put together lands to colonize and settle with the issue of helping the poor villagers. The districts of Prnjavor, Banja Luka, Konjic and Tuzla were involved in this project, where families from Valsugana, Primiero, Aldeno, Cimone, Roncegno, Ospedaletto and Levico Terme were welcomed.
In 1882, over 200 migrants, hoping to start a new life, left their country and set off for Bosnian lands carrying with them the culture, the language and the traditions of their motherland. After 1,000 kilometres and more than a month of travel, the migrants finally arrived to the place assigned to them. There were no churches, schools and even houses, only wild and uncultivated land and some plum trees from which the name of the town derives; Štivor has also known as the country where the plums grow and the name seems to come from a mispronunciation of the Bosnian word plums, sljive, with which then the people from Valsugana tried to reproduce a fruity version of the italian grappa, the sljivovica, that is a variant of rakija, a popular distillate in the Balkans. It was not only the Italians who were sent to repopulate those areas of the empire, also Czechs, Poles, Germans and Ukrainians arrived in the same year in that strip of land that many used to call Mala Europa, little Europe.
Some of the first Italian immigrants in Štivor, 1883.
The killing of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 not only broke the thread of peace in Europe, but also the thread that was keeping the relations between Bosnia and Trentino united. With the outbreak of the First World War, Trentino immigrants turned from being populations of the empire into foreigners in a land of conquest. Bosnia, the epicenter of the outbreak of the Great War, was hit and so was the area of Štivor. The end or the war was followed by the redefinition of the borders and the birth of Yugoslavia, whose government, together with the Italian one, reached an agreement that granted the Italian citizenship to Trentino immigrants in Bosnia on condition that they would return to Italy for one year. However, due to the delay in the arrival of information, or due to the lack of local propaganda (it was not an interest of Yugoslavia to flag the presence of an Italian community in an area promoted as entirely Slavic) only a small part returned. During the Second World War Štivor was not bombed because it was known that it was an area inhabited by Italian people. However, many emigrated to more industrialized cities of Yugoslavia such as Rijeka or Pula, or abroad, especially with the end of the Tito regime and after the subsequent ethnic war, which aggravated the situation in the country.
Two world wars, the Tito regime and the ethnic war have severely tested the Italian presence in Bosnia but the tragic events of history have not changed the identity and spirit of this village. Nowadays Štivor is full of symbols of an Italian spirit that has not been forgotten, starting with the welcome sign. The full of the Italian sentiment is in the Trentino Bar, which remembers a small Valsugana tavern. There you can eat the typical dishes of the area of origin and traditional costumes are worn; the owner is Italian and talks about the past and current events of the place in dialect.
It is not uncommon to see cars with Trento plate running around there, as it is not uncommon to hear inhabitants speaking Italian or dialect. To date, in fact, 92% of the population of Štivor is still of Trentino origin and three quarters of them have maintained the use of the Trentino dialect of the Valsugana region. Many actively speak Italian, while those who don’t speak it, understand it. Besides, from some years the teaching of the Italian language has been included in the school of Prnjavor, thanks to the support of the Association Trentino in the world.
In Štivor traditions are important and still deeply linked to the land of origin. Carnival is a recognized commemoration and every Sunday Mass is celebrated half in Italian and half in Serbo-Croatian. Visiting this village is like taking a journey through time to rediscover values and customs that unfortunately in Italy are slowly dying out.
The desire to pass on their origins manifested immediately, starting in 1882, when families leaving Valsugana decided to bring with them some personal or work items, which for them meant home despite the change, a way to overcome nostalgia. In addition, in the village they were used to marry among family members with the aim of keeping alive the bonds between them and consequently also their surnames, the most characteristic indication of roots. The result is that, today, the stivorians are almost all related to each other. However, the disappearance of this practice and the subsequent mixed marriages between Serbs and Trentino people, have not managed to change the identity of this village.
Nowadays, the citizens of Štivor have dual citizenship and many elderly people receive Italian pensions. Some of them have never been to Italy, they know the language, traditions and customs because this is what their parents have always done or taught them. But, what does Italy mean for the Stivorians? And what does Trentino represent for them?
Among the ethnic puzzle in Bosnia, today the Italians are the smallest of the minorities and it is no longer up to the elderly to carry on the bond with their ancestors and invest in this land, now it’s time for young people. In 1997 the association “Circolo Trentini di Stivor” was born in Roncegno with the aim of gathering the Stivorians who returned home. It is also responsible for protecting the cultural identity of the Italians and maintaining ties with the land of origin. Thanks to this organization and the collaboration between the autonomous province of Trento, together with the municipality of Stivor, it was possible to build an aqueduct, which allows the houses in the village to get direct access to drinking water.
Italian or Bosnian?
The historical and cultural events of Štivor demonstrate how nationality, or the feeling of belonging to a land, is a concept that goes beyond the formal concept of territoriality. Furthermore, they showed the adaptability of a culture that did not want to choose between two countries, but that during the years, has adapted to this combination. Their roots come from Italy, they born from a valley in Trentino and from there they have faced 1,000 kilometres of road and more than a century of history. Štivor is the testimony of a culture that remains solid and faithful to its origins without being afraid to adapt to social, geographical and cultural changes, mixing with other experiences and other stories. Štivor is a great example of cultural adaptation and maintenance: its inhabitants grew up immersed in the Italian feeling of their origins and they have decided to cultivate this sentiment there, in the country where they born today. | https://medium.com/@federica.s289/%C5%A1tivor-an-italian-village-in-bosnia-with-140-years-of-history-d5ea09c02038 | ['Federica Sala'] | 2020-05-09 11:30:12.251000+00:00 | ['Nationality', 'History', 'Italy', 'Trentino', 'Bosnia And Herzegovina'] |
The Name Game | What ‘Lake Trump’ tells us about the geopolitics of naming in the Balkans
In the year 2020, it has become almost routine for headlines that could have easily been outlandish satire not so long ago to become reality. “Disputed reservoir on the Serbia-Kosovo border to be named after President Donald Trump” is one that fits this description fairly well. Nevertheless, this is something which appears to have come to pass; despite some confusion over whether the name ‘Lake Trump’ will be officially adopted for the aqueous body which straddles this Balkan border, banners declaring that very name were hung on the Kosovan side after the suggestion by Richard Grenell, an adviser to the US President, was welcomed by the Kosovan Prime Minister.
Examining this episode evokes interesting questions on the geopolitical significance of place names, and the ways in which naming and renaming are used in politics. There are few regions of the world where names are so often as thorny an issue as in the Balkans, as anxious new nation-states attempt to affix their modern identity to a sense of historical timelessness. In this instance, both parties’ attachment to their traditional name for the lake was a point of contention, resulting in this rather eyebrow-raising suggestion of a compromise.
After the 1998–1999 Kosovo war, the former province of Serbia had de-facto independence leading to a full declaration of autonomy in 2008. Serbia has refused to accept its independence, despite 101 countries, including most of the West, doing so. Talks on the relationship between the two parties and the possibility of the normalisation of some relations have been ongoing for more than a decade, but was given renewed impetus with Trump’s appointment of Richard Grenell, then also the US ambassador to Germany, as special envoy for Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, and in early 2020 a major outcome was the restoration of first commercial flights and subsequently rail services between Belgrade and Pristina. However, the issue of the lake which sits on the border remained a sticking point; Kosovo insisted on the Albanian name Lake Ujman, whereas Serbia called it Lake Gazivoda.
“Place names are utilised as an expression of identity, a break from the past, or as a tool of diplomacy, and in all cases are intensely political, whether the place in question is a single street or an entire nation-state.”
Such an issue may seem trivial in the context of major negotiations over economic and political relationships — does the name of a place really matter that much? In short, yes, especially so when a group feels that it is their identity that is being undermined. Studying place names may seem like stereotypical high-school geography of years gone by, however, the field of critical toponymy has sought to shed light on how place names, and the practice of naming and renaming, are inextricably tied to questions of power and identity. Place names are utilised as an expression of identity, a break from the past, or as a tool of diplomacy, and in all cases are intensely political, whether the place in question is a single street or an entire nation-state.
For example, when Yugoslavia dissolved, one of its former republics that had been referred to as Macedonia after the ancient kingdom of Macedon, which it shared some geographic overlap with, declared independence in 1991 as the Republic of Macedonia as a way to assert and build a new national identity by linking the new state to the ancient past. Their southern neighbour Greece, meanwhile, was infuriated, as its northernmost region was also called Macedonia for its links to the kingdom of Macedon, and claimed that this new republic’s name was effectively an irredentist claim on the northern territory of Greece. This diplomatic dispute was such that the former Yugoslav’s state had to be referred to as ‘Former Yugoslav Republic (FYR) of Macedonia’, and Greece blocked their accession to the EU and NATO for almost three decades, until a deal was agreed in 2019 which saw ‘FYROM’ change its name to the Republic of North Macedonia.
Breaking from the past is also a strong motivation for renaming places. Historically, Russia is notable for this, with Saint Petersburg being renamed Petrograd in 1914 in order to remove its German sounds after the onset of the First World War, then Leningrad in honour of Lenin after his death in 1924, before the original name of Saint Petersburg ( Sankt-Peterburg in Russian) was returned by public referendum in 1991 as Russia moved into its post-Soviet age. Various postcolonial states also adopted new names for the country as a whole and also places within as a means to both express identity and break with the colonial past, for example Burkina Faso and Botswana.
It is also common for place naming and renaming to be used as a tool of diplomacy or as a show of gratitude. Returning to North Macedonia, for example, the capital city of Skopje has many streets named after nations who came to its aid after a devastating earthquake in 1963, for example, Mexico Street. As such, it is clear that place names have political importance, and this is especially true in the Balkans.
Perhaps the seemingly heightened importance of place names in the Balkan region stems from anxiety surrounding identity in the new nation states of the former Yugoslavia; after all, these states are less than three decades old, and many there are still suspicious and nervous that neighbours want to retake their former territories. For Kosovo, a nation-state only officially independent since 2008 and which has not been able to join the United Nations due to lack of recognition from Serbia and also nations such as Russia and China, this is especially true. Historical symbolism is thus very important, as seen in the case of North Macedonia, as new nation-states attempt to solidify their identity by reinforcing it with a sense of historical timelessness.
Indeed, in many areas of the region, borders have shifted and changed hands between ethnic groups many times over the last few centuries, and so in some cases, towns will have several different names given by different groups in languages and dialects such as Albanian, Bulgarian, Turkish, and Slavic. Lake Ujman/Gazivoda is a prime example of this, with one location having two very distinct names, split along ethnic lines.
So why then, has the name ‘Lake Trump’ emerged as a potential compromise? According to Grenell himself, he suggested the name in jest, perhaps in exasperation that negotiations were sticking on such a seemingly superficial point. However, to the confusion of many, including Kosovan officials, Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti took to Twitter on Thursday 24 thSeptember to welcome Grenell’s suggestion in honour of the US President’s “role in reaching a historic economic normalization agreement” between Kosovo and Serbia. Signs later appeared on the Kosovan side of the reservoir bearing the name ‘Lake Trump’ and banners thanking the President were hung from the bridge above the lake. Serbia has not yet authorised this name change, and so it remains to be seen if it comes into force. Perhaps both sides are keen to move past the issue without appearing to concede on symbolic points, and so any compromise is welcome.
Of course, the issue with names is that they are very much a social construct. Places and things take on names that are given to them by people, and they only retain that name if those people use it. Some locals have already reacted to the new name with derision and have insisted they will continue to use the traditional name of their side. Politically-charged naming and renaming is very rarely as simple as replacing signage or signing off a new label, and it is questionable at best as to whether the population of the area surrounding ‘Lake Trump’ will relinquish the words of their own language in favour of an arbitrarily imposed term honouring a controversial President of the United States.
Nevertheless, the issue of this lake demonstrates the importance of place names in geopolitics and diplomacy. While they are often taken-for-granted, names are frequently contested and moulded by the political forces of the day for various means, and often are imbued with strong meanings and feelings of identity, which is particularly pertinent in the context of Kosovo and Serbia who, like many others in the Balkans are, as Grenell remarked, in a conflict over “symbolism and adjectives, and verbs, and nouns”. | https://danhall-68125.medium.com/the-name-game-3048a7d5a3ac | ['Dan Hall'] | 2020-11-10 13:29:20.645000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Balkans', 'Geography', 'Trump', 'Geopolitics'] |
ZaraReplica -Part 2. Intro to redux and Home screen | Hey guys, this is lesson 2 of the ZARA replica mobile app. Check out the previous lesson if you haven’t done so already . So, in this one we will continue from where we left off .
Like I said, we will use in memory data for this series. There’s a lot of code for the models and data that’s why it’s unnecessary to paste all of it here. Download the final project to check it out. I will just go over the code briefly, and later on you will understand better what it does..
This contains the page model, it will be used to display a single tab on the home screen which is the screen that will be presented to the user after the login screen.
This contains the Home data which is the screen I have just talked about.
This is an enum containing only 3 cases men, women, kids. This will also be used as ids for our pages.
This contains everything product related. This is also where we keep all of our products hard-coded data.
This is also an enum containing 5 cases. It will be used with our custom tab bar view.
What is redux? If you are familiar with react (yes, the Javascript library), then chances are you are also familiar with redux. Redux is a state management container that help you centralize your application’s state and logic which in turn help your app behaves in a consistent and predictable manner.
The reason redux will work well with swiftUI is state. Views being function of data state in swiftUI, it does make sense to try out redux to help manage that state. This lesson is not mainly focus on redux, so we will move a bit faster, but if you want to learn more (which I suggest you do), I will link some materials to help you out.
State and change to state (Action)
State in redux is the single source of truth, it will be read-only.
The state will be a simple struct containing various data used in different part of the app. The state will only mutate when an action is emitted by views. Action will be an enum where cases are operations that need to be performed and update the current state.
Reducer
It is a function that takes an Action and the current State as parameters and returns a new State.
Watch the video version of this section on my website.
This is where our data will reside. Add the following inside the Data folder:
Store.swift
import Foundation class Store: ObservableObject { struct State {
var products: [Product]
var bookmarked: [Product]
var shoppingCart: [Product]
var isLoggedIn: Bool = false
} enum Action {
case addProducts(_ products: [Product])
case bookmark(_ product: Product)
case removeFromBookmark(_ index: Int)
case addToCart(_ product: Product)
case login
}
@Published private(set) var state: State = .init(products: [], bookmarked: [], shoppingCart: [])
func dispatch(_ action: Action) {
reducer(state: &state, action: action)
}
func reducer(state: inout State, action: Action) {
switch action {
case .bookmark(let product):
state.bookmarked.append(product)
case .addToCart(let product):
state.shoppingCart.append(product)
case .removeFromBookmark(let index):
state.bookmarked.remove(at: index)
case .addProducts(let products):
state.products = products
case .login:
DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: DispatchTime.now() + 0.3) { [weak self] in
self?.state.isLoggedIn = true
}
}
}
}
Explanation
Like I said, our state will only change when a particular action is emitted from our views, so The Action enum describes exactly the types of action our app will be dispatching. Bear with me, you will see how we use both the State and Action shortly.
The reducer takes in a state and an action, and based an the action we mutate the state accordingly. For example, when the dispatched action is .bookmark , we will add the bookmarked product in the bookmarked array. The inout keyword before the state type makes it read and write. We also use a dispatch function which, as its name implies, will send actions to the reducer. It is a simple function, as you can see, that just calls the reducer function with appropriate arguments.
UIKit
Like I said before, the current state of swiftuI does not handle everything… There are some layouts that still need the power of UIkit to work properly, one such layout is a vertically scrollable paging view, like tik tok… We will build this kind of layout for the home screen using the UIKit’s UICollectionView . The collection view will just be a container, and every single view will be made entirely in swift UI.
Add the following inside the UIKit folder:
Watch the video version of this section on my website.
CollectionView.swift
import SwiftUI struct CollectionView: UIViewRepresentable {
var controllers: [UIViewController]
@Binding var currentPage: Int
@Binding var selectedIndex: Int?
func makeUIView(context: Context) -> UICollectionView {
let layout = UICollectionViewFlowLayout()
let collectionView = UICollectionView(frame: .zero, collectionViewLayout: layout)
collectionView.backgroundColor = .clear
collectionView.register(CollectionCell.self, forCellWithReuseIdentifier: CollectionCell.reuseId)
collectionView.dataSource = context.coordinator
collectionView.delegate = context.coordinator
collectionView.isPagingEnabled = true
collectionView.alwaysBounceVertical = false
collectionView.bounces = false
collectionView.showsVerticalScrollIndicator = false
layout.minimumLineSpacing = 0
return collectionView
}
func updateUIView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, context: Context) {
}
func makeCoordinator() -> CollectionView.Coordinator {
Coordinator(self)
} class Coordinator: NSObject,UICollectionViewDataSource, UICollectionViewDelegate, UICollectionViewDelegateFlowLayout {
var parent: CollectionView
init(_ parent: CollectionView) {
self.parent = parent
}
func numberOfSections(in collectionView: UICollectionView) -> Int {
return 1
}
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, numberOfItemsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
return parent.controllers.count
}
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, cellForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UICollectionViewCell {
if let cell = collectionView.dequeueReusableCell(withReuseIdentifier: CollectionCell.reuseId, for: indexPath) as? CollectionCell {
cell.viewController = parent.controllers[indexPath.item]
return cell
}
return UICollectionViewCell()
}
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView,
didEndDisplaying cell: UICollectionViewCell,
forItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) {
guard let index = collectionView.indexPathsForVisibleItems.first?.item else {
return
}
self.parent.currentPage = index
}
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, didSelectItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) {
self.parent.selectedIndex = indexPath.item
}
func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, layout collectionViewLayout: UICollectionViewLayout, sizeForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> CGSize {
return CGSize(width: UIScreen.main.bounds.width, height: UIScreen.main.bounds.height)
}
}
}
Explanation
Notice that we are using the old UICollectionViewFlawLayout , this is because we don't need the new complex layout UICollectionViewCompositionalLayout which would be too much for this simple layout. We also set the context’s coordinator to be the collectionView’s delegate and dataSource . The Coordinator is created below the makeCoordinator method. In order to enable the paging, we need to set isPagingEnabled on the UICollectionView to true. In the coordinator, we dequeue a reusable cell using its identifier, then set its viewController property to one of the items in the controllers array. In the didEndDisplaying cell, we retrieve the index of the first visible item and set it to the current page. In the didSelectItemAt, we set the selectedIndex property to the selected indexPath’s item. In the last UICollectionViewDelegateFlowLayout method, we return the size we wish our cells to be, in this case we want them to fill the entire screen.
You will have an error caused by the missing CollectionCell , so let's create it now.
CollectionCell.swift
import SwiftUI class CollectionCell: UICollectionViewCell {
static let reuseId: String = "CollectionCell"
// 1
var viewController: UIViewController? {
didSet {
if let viewController = self.viewController {
setupCell(viewController)
}
}
} override init(frame: CGRect) {
super.init(frame: frame)
if let viewController = self.viewController {
setupCell(viewController)
}
}
required init?(coder: NSCoder) {
super.init(coder: coder)
}
// 2
private func setupCell(_ viewController: UIViewController){
guard let view = viewController.view else {
return
}
view.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
view.backgroundColor = .clear
self.addSubview(view)
NSLayoutConstraint.activate([
view.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: contentView.leadingAnchor),
view.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: contentView.trailingAnchor),
view.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: contentView.topAnchor),
view.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: contentView.bottomAnchor),
])
}
}
Explanation
Notice that the data we are working with here is an object of type UIViewController. You will see why shortly. In the setupCell , we retrieve the view from the UIViewController object which we then add to the cell. This view we are retrieving is a SwiftUI View that will be passed to UIHostingController when we initialize it.
Page View
And with that, we are done with UIKit in this series. Next step is to create the PageView .
Watch the video version of this section on my website.
In the Views, add the following:
PageView.swift
import SwiftUI struct PageView: View {
var page: Page
var body: some View {
VStack(spacing: 20) {
Text(page.title)
.multilineTextAlignment(.center)
.font(.system(size: 50, weight: Font.Weight.black, design: Font.Design.default))
.textColor()
.frame(width: Sizes.screenWidth * 0.95, alignment: .center)
Text(page.description)
.textColor()
.multilineTextAlignment(.center)
.frame(width: 300, alignment: .center)
Text("View")
.font(.system(size: 20, weight: Font.Weight.bold, design: Font.Design.default))
.textColor()
.padding(.horizontal, 30)
.padding(.vertical, 10)
.border(Color.text, width: 1) }.frame(height: Sizes.screenHeight)
.bgColor()
.edgesIgnoringSafeArea(.all)
}
} struct PageView_Previews: PreviewProvider {
static var previews: some View {
PageView(page: Page.default)
}
}
Explanation
This is a simple VStack containing 3 views. This is the view that will be passed in the UIHostingController in order to be added to the cell's content.
Let’s create a new component view that will display the current displayed page index.
Vertical Page Indicator
Watch the video version of this section on my website.
Add the following inside the Views folder.
VerticalPageIndicator.swift
import SwiftUI struct VerticalPageIndicator: View {
var numberOfPages: Int = 5
@Binding var selectedPageIndex: Int
var body: some View {
VStack {
ForEach(0..<numberOfPages) { i in
if i == selectedPageIndex {
Circle()
.strokeBorder(lineWidth: 1.0, antialiased: true)
.frame(width: 12, height: 12, alignment: .center)
} else {
Circle().frame(width: 7, height: 7, alignment: .center)
}
}
}.textColor()
}
} struct VerticalPageIndicator_Previews: PreviewProvider {
static var previews: some View {
VerticalPageIndicator(selectedPageIndex: .constant(0))
.preferredColorScheme(.dark)
}
}
Explanation
In the above code, we loop through from 0 to numberOfPages — 1, then check if the current index is selected and stroke the circle at that index and make it a bit larger, otherwise we keep it as a plain circle.
Watch the video version of this section on my website.
Add the following inside the Views folder.
PagingController.swift
struct PagingController<T: View>: View {
var viewControllers: [UIHostingController<T>] = []
@State var currentPage = 0
@Binding var selectedIndex: Int?
var body: some View {
return ZStack(alignment: .trailing) {
CollectionView(controllers: viewControllers, currentPage: self.$currentPage, selectedIndex: self.$selectedIndex)
VerticalPageIndicator(numberOfPages: viewControllers.count, selectedPageIndex: self.$currentPage)
.padding(.trailing, 10)
}
}
}
struct PagingController_Previews: PreviewProvider {
static var previews: some View {
PagingController(viewControllers: Page.data.map({ UIHostingController(rootView: PageView(page: $0) )}))
}
}
Explanation
This view is easier to understand. We put the collectionView and the VerticalPageIndicator inside a ZStack with alignment set to trailing to push the Vertical page indicator to the right edge of the screen
Swift ui paging view page indicator
Before creating the home screen, let’s first create a component that will be used there:
Tab Indicator
Watch the video version of this section on my website.
In the Views folder, add the following:
TabIndicatorItem.swift
struct TabIndicatorItem: View {
var category: Category
var isActive: Bool
var body: some View {
return VStack(spacing: 0) {
Text(category.toString().uppercased())
.font(.system(size: 18,
weight: isActive ? Font.Weight.bold : Font.Weight.light,
design: Font.Design.default))
.frame(maxWidth: .infinity)
.layoutPriority(1)
if isActive {
Rectangle()
.frame(width: 50 , height: 2, alignment: .center)
}
}.foregroundColor(.text)
}
}
Preview
TabIndicator.swift
struct TabIndicator: View {
var category: Category
var body: some View {
HStack{
ForEach(0..<Category.allCases.count) { i in
TabIndicatorItem(category: Category.allCases[i], isActive: Category.allCases[i] == category ) }
}.frame(width: 250)
}
} struct TabIndicator_Previews: PreviewProvider {
static var previews: some View {
TabIndicator(category: Category.men)
}
}
Preview
Watch the video version of this section on my website.
In the Screens folder, add the following:
HomeScreen.swift
import SwiftUI struct HomeScreen: View {
@Binding var category: Category?
private let data = Home.data
@State private var selected = Home.data.first!
@EnvironmentObject private var store: Store
var body: some View {
return ZStack(alignment: .top) {
TabView(selection: self.$selected.id) {
ForEach(data) { item in
createPageController(item)
.frame(height: Sizes.screenHeight)
.tag(item.id)
.onTapGesture(count: 1, perform: { category = item.id })
}
}.background(Color.background)
.tabViewStyle(PageTabViewStyle(indexDisplayMode: .never))
TabIndicator(category: selected.id)
.padding(.top, 50)
}
}
fileprivate func createPageController(_ data: Home) -> PagingController<PageView> {
return PagingController(
viewControllers: data.pages.map({ UIHostingController(rootView: PageView(page: $0) )})
)
}
} struct HomeScreen_Previews: PreviewProvider {
static var previews: some View {
HomeScreen(category: .constant(Category.kids))
}
}
Explanation
First we declare our properties. The selected state property will be used with the TabView. the store is retrieved from the EnvironmentObject that will be passed down from the parent view. The outer container is a ZStack with content aligned to top. We create the TabView , passing in the selected 's id state property which is of type Category , we will use it to control the TabIndicator . In the ForEach block, we go through each item, creating a page controller and adding a tag to it. The tag must be of the same type as the selected 's id . In the onTapGesture , we set the category binding property that we will listen to in order to present ProductListingScreen . Setting the indexDisplayMode to .never will prevent the TabView to display the built-in page indicator. TabIndicator is finally created passing in the selected 's id for the category. | https://medium.com/@liquidcoder/zarareplica-part-2-13b74f916ae2 | [] | 2020-12-20 06:28:01.221000+00:00 | ['Swiftui', 'iOS', 'iOS App Development', 'Mobile App Development', 'Swift'] |
FutureBuilder widget in Flutter | I Like Screenshots. Click For Gists.
As always, I prefer using screenshots over gists to show concepts rather than just show code in my articles. I find them easier to work with frankly. However, you can click or tap on these screenshots to see the code they represent in a gist or in Github. Ironically, it’s better to read this article about mobile development on your computer than on your phone. Besides, we program on our computers — not on our phones. For now.
Let’s begin.
Learn By Example
We will use an example from the Flutter Cookbook, fetch data from the internet, to demonstrate a FutureBuilder in action. Below is a screenshot of part of that example displaying a StatelessWidget and how its parameter, post, is provided to a FutureBuilder widget as an instantiated Future object.
The FutureBuilder<T> class documentation emphasizes right away that the specified Future must be obtained earlier and already instantiated. It should not be created right with the FutureBuilder — when the FutureBuilder is called and instantiated. Otherwise, that Future object will be instantiated with the FutureBuilder over and over again with every new call to the build() function containing them, in some instances, possibly not allowing the asynchronous operation to complete. | https://andrious.medium.com/decode-futurebuilder-bc1a5e6507d4 | ['Greg Perry'] | 2020-11-09 23:14:58.925000+00:00 | ['Ios Development', 'Programming', 'Flutter', 'Software Development', 'Android Development'] |
Three Ways Global Public Health Can Work with the Private Sector | Global health – the health of the world’s population regardless of geography, gender, and other demographic factors – is an issue area traditionally addressed with government and philanthropic dollars.
As health experts Ken Kelley and Jenny Yip discussed in our recent webinar, the private sector is increasingly emerging to play a critical role in global health. Here are three ways that the private sector can help advance global health:
By filling significant funding gaps to meet remarkable demand – While few funders are filling the critical financing gap in the research and development of global health solutions, large-scale customers are in dire need of these solutions and are willing to spend billions of dollars to buy better products. The private sector can help supply the much-needed R&D capital and potentially generate positive returns while providing disease solutions that meet market demand. By targeting diseases that are less well-known and commercially rewarding – The “Big Three” diseases – AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria – receive considerable attention and funding, as do diseases that are obvious commercial targets. The private sector can help address orphan, emerging, and other types of diseases that are out of the spotlight. By creating new solutions that revolutionize traditional medicine – Machine learning and artificial intelligence is disrupting the longstanding methods for the testing and delivery of new medicines and medicinal technology. The private sector can invest in companies that are creating more effective, scalable, and less expensive health solutions.
To hear more from Ken and Jenny about the intersection of the private sector and global health, click here for the full webinar. | https://medium.com/capshift/three-ways-global-public-health-can-work-with-the-private-sector-4b4181602c37 | [] | 2019-11-21 16:53:46.133000+00:00 | ['Impact Investing', 'Disease', 'Investing', 'Global Health'] |
Do You Know the Source of Your Fear? | Fear isn’t something we want to feel if we can help it, except we do feel it. We feel it when we don’t know what to expect. It sneaks into our minds when we’re trying something new, and it wiggles into our guts when we have no control over a situation. At night, while attempting to sleep, we entertain a plethora of worst-case scenarios on replay. It’s annoying.
From an evolutionary standpoint though, it makes sense. Those who assumed the worst when faced with an unknown situation had a better chance of surviving. So it’s safe to say, assuming the worst is programmed in us.
But the thing is, just because our Fear tell us the worst-case scenario — doesn’t mean we have to listen.
Why Do We Feel Fear?
The instinct to be afraid is encoded deep within the DNA of pretty much every living thing, including plants.
Fear is an emotional messenger sent to warn you of impending danger. When physical danger is near, as in the case of an attack, Fear floods your system with adrenaline. This adrenaline is the source of your fight or flight mode.
If danger isn’t immediate, then Fear teams up with Anxiety. Together they warn of possible future problems. Back in hunter-gatherer days, this might include the changing of seasons. Today, it might mean your presentation at work next week.
Society has changed over the last hundred years, let alone the last thousand, and what we fear has changed along with it. For example, instead of warring tribes, it’s internet trolls we have to watch out for.
Fear in Everyday Life
By this point, I think it’s safe to say we’re all experts in being scared. Even still, physical danger isn’t the only thing Fear is tasked with protecting, it also protects your ego.
Sometimes, Fear speaks on behalf of Anxiety and Insecurity. This means you might feel like danger is near without realizing insecurity is the culprit. You aren’t actually afraid for your life during your presentation, you’re scared people will laugh at you, or you’ll mess up.
That’s why it’s important to know not only which emotion you’re feeling, but also why you’re feeling it. At the heart of most fears, there seem to be three common underlying causes.
Fear of the Unknown
Generally speaking, we aren’t fans of the unknown. We’d much rather know what’s coming and prepare accordingly. When we don’t know or if there’s missing information, our brains get to work filling in the gaps. You might recognize them as the “what-ifs”.
What if there’s traffic? What if they don’t like me? What if the flight is canceled? What if it rains? This train of thought might feel like you’re being proactive but if you let the What-Ifs run wild, all you’re really doing is allowing yourself to tumble down the rabbit hole of anxiety. Left unchecked, this type of fear leads to the next one on the list.
Loss of Control
We love feeling in control, period. It doesn’t matter what we’re controlling, we seek it everywhere. The reason is simple, we want control because if we don’t have it, it means someone else does. And if someone else has control, then it leaves us vulnerable.
A common example might be when your kid gets their driver's license. You want to keep them safe but it’s out of your control when they’re out driving alone — so you feel terrified for a while, until you get used to it. At the heart of it, a lack of control over is similar to the next form of fear.
Change
I’m pretty sure our fear of change dominated the majority of 2020. We’ve practically confronted change every moment of every day. The good news is, humans are adaptable — it’s part of how we’ve lasted this long without going extinct. The bad news is, we prefer to adapt at the pace of a sloth when possible. Rapid change makes us cranky unless of course, we’re the ones initiating it.
Our fear of change is actually the result of the first two combined. When we’re not in control of change, then we don't know what changes to expect or when. Which could mean something bad will happen. As I mentioned before, this is because we instinctively focus on worst-case scenarios instead of positive outcomes.
How to Find the Why behind Your Fears
You don’t have to wonder if you’re in danger when an ax flies toward your face. It’s obvious. But when your fears aren’t physical, understanding the source of them is a little harder. The tips below will help you identify the source of your fear so you can choose how to handle it.
Challenge Your Fear
Fear isn’t a psychic, it’s a dramatic doomsayer. Nor is it the most logically minded emotion. Its only job is to outline all the problems and pessimistic possibilities of life. Your job is to evaluate the information and decide the best course of action — and you do this by challenging your Fear.
Fear has quite the imagination if you’ll entertain its ideas, which is why it’s important you find holes in its prophecies. Listen to Fear’s predictions like a judge hears evidence. Asking questions will help you stay objective, it’s possible your Fear has no real case at all — once you realize it’s baseless, it’ll usually slink away on its own.
Get the Facts
When we’re missing information we take the liberty of filling in the gaps ourselves. Fear loves this game. It’ll come up with elaborate possibilities to complete the story.
You’re the one responsible for distinguishing the facts from fiction. Focus your energy on gathering more information so you rely less on assumptions. You don’t want to have a meltdown over a miscommunication.
Take Your Time
No one wants to feel afraid, so we act fast to rid the feeling — usually through distracting ourselves. Doing this though doesn’t usually solve your problem or get rid of your fear though, it actually makes it worse.
Instead, show yourself the kindness your Fear isn’t. Understand you don’t have to overcome everything at once. Focus on getting through one day at a time. Look at your fear from new angles or break big problems into smaller, more manageable tasks. There’s no need to put yourself on a time limit unless you have to.
Look at it with Curiosity
Everything we know of has its natural opposite— hot and cold, good and evil, light and dark, up and down. Well, curiosity is the natural opposite of fear. The same way water drenches fire, taking a closer look at your fear through a sense of curiosity and wonder, makes it less scary. The best way to spark curiosity? Ask, why.
Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.
— James Stephens
Final Thoughts
Fear plays a vital role in your life, but it doesn’t need to run it. Learn to listen to what it’s telling you, then use your logic and reasoning skills to decide how to handle it. Take your control back so you can spend your time on more important things than being scared. | https://medium.com/curious/do-you-know-the-source-of-your-fear-66c98c2c0ef8 | ['Katrina Paulson'] | 2020-12-02 03:11:32.117000+00:00 | ['Growth', 'Fear', 'Personal Development', 'Emotional Intelligence', 'Self'] |
What the Heck is Genderfluid? Part 1 | What the Heck is Genderfluid? Part 1
So your loved one just told you they’re genderfluid.
Photo of the night sky by Federico Beccari on Unsplash.
Congratulations! Coming out is a big step for any relationship — it shows that your loved one cares about you and trusts you enough to reveal a big part of their identity to you.
“Yeah I guess,” you might be saying, “but what the heck is genderfluid?”
Never fear, gentle reader. Your friendly neighborhood genderfluid writer is here to help guide you through some of the questions you might be asking right now.
Keep in mind, however, that these are only my personal perspectives on the subject; every genderfluid person is different and the best way to know exactly what your loved one feels/needs is to politely ask them!
What is genderfluid, anyway?
Well, the Genderfluid page on the Nonbinary Wiki defines it this way:
“Genderfluid is an identity under the multigender, nonbinary, and transgender umbrellas. Genderfluid individuals have different gender identities at different times. A genderfluid individual’s gender identity could be multiple genders at once and then switch to none at all, or move between single gender identities, or some other combination therein.”
If you’re new to this whole nonbinary gender thing, I’d highly recommend checking out that page and other pages on the Nonbinary Wiki to explain unfamiliar terms and concepts. But to put it more plainly: genderfluid is a gender identity outside the gender binary.
Instead of being just a man or woman (which are the only two options under the gender binary model) a genderfluid person may be a man at one time, a woman at another, both at once, or neither, or something completely different.
“Nonbinary?” Is that the same thing as genderfluid?
Not exactly — the two terms are related, but they mean different things. The genderfluid identity can count as a nonbinary identity (but not always; it depends on how the person self-identifies), but not all nonbinary people identify as genderfluid.
Confused? That’s okay. Gender identities can be complex!
For the sake of understanding, think of the genderfluid identity as being a subset of the nonbinary identity, a specific type from a larger group. But again, not every genderfluid person identifies as nonbinary!
It’s a little silly, but imagine nonbinary identities are housecats and genderfluid identities are orange tabby cats; most orange tabby cats are housecats, but not all housecats are orange tabby cats. Make sense?
Sure, okay. But why call it genderfluid?
What makes the genderfluid identity unique is that for individuals who identify with the term, their gender is a moving target rather than a fixed point — hence, “fluid.” It can change quickly or over a long period of time.
Think of gender like the stars in the night sky.
For some people, their gender is Polaris; it doesn’t seem to move and can be easily identified. For other people, their understanding of (and relationship to) their gender shifts around over time but doesn’t fundamentally change; it’s the circumpolar stars, moving around but not rising or setting. But for genderfluid people, their gender moves and changes, sometimes slowly and sometimes rapidly; it’s the rest of the stars, circling and shifting and rising and setting with the seasons or even the time of night.
The same way that there are no right or wrong stars, there’s no right or wrong way of understanding your gender. Polaris may be the easiest star to navigate by, but it’s the rest of the stars that give the night sky its beauty.
But why name your gender at all? Why not just be yourself? Aren’t labels bad/confining?
This is a question I’ve been asked a lot, usually by cisgender people who fit inside the accepted gender norms of their society and thus have never needed to explain their gender identity to other people. To them, it might seem like people who try to name their gender identity are “boxing themselves in,” and that it would be much more freeing to simply be themselves without labels.
What’s important to understand is that there’s a big difference between defining yourself and being defined by someone else.
Or as tumblr user Bisexual Baker brilliantly put it:
As I am sure any cat owner will be able to tell you, someone else putting you in a box is entirely different from getting into a box yourself.
And self-identification can be a bit of a paradox: sometimes you liberate yourself by confining yourself.
Let me take this down to a personal level. Ever since I was a kid I had a quiet discomfort when it came to my gender; I didn’t feel fully like a girl but I didn’t feel fully like a boy either. Sometimes I felt more like one or more like the other, or like something in between, but it was constantly in flux.
When I was young, the only word I really knew for not totally “fitting in” as a girl was “tomboy.” To be a tomboy meant a very rigid and specific set of things at the time, and I didn’t fit with all of them — especially the assumptions that being a tomboy meant being violent and athletic.
Later on I learned the word “transgender,” but the experiences of the people I knew who identified that way— their dysphoria, their certainty about their true gender, their need to transition — didn’t fit me either.
I began to get frustrated, thinking there was just something wrong with me — that I was confused or indecisive or in denial about who I really was. That I was broken. That I was alone.
When I finally came across the term “genderfluid” and heard the concept explained in personal terms, everything clicked. “That’s me,” I thought, “and it isn’t just me!”
Simply having a word to more accurately identify yourself gives you both a home and a community.
It helps you connect with other people who might feel the way you do, who might share your fears and hopes and taste in memes. Knowing you’re not alone brings a sense of relief that nothing else can.
Maybe it’s a box, but dammit, it’s my box.
Wait! I have more questions!
Never fear, gentle reader; this isn’t the end of my genderfluid FAQ. But because I know this subject can raise a lot of questions, I thought it would be best to break it up into a few bite-sized sections instead of throwing a wall of text at your likely already-overwhelmed self.
Until next time, feel free to do your own research, and remember to check and change your gender fluid often! | https://medium.com/th-ink/what-the-heck-is-genderfluid-part-1-dd0f8b120ea9 | ['Zanne Nilsson'] | 2018-10-05 19:36:35.952000+00:00 | ['Gender Fluid', 'Nonbinary', 'Gender Identity', 'LGBT', 'Gender'] |
Serverless Machine Learning Engineering Project On AWS Lambda | Building a small CLI to set up s3
For the seek of reproducibility, we will write a simple CLI with Typer which is built on top of Click. If you are not familiar with CLI I’ve made a post that covers some basic concepts to create a CLI.
Let’s see the code to build the CLI.
CLI code to interact with s3 source: author
The first two commands allow us to create and delete an s3 Bucket. It’s important to note that the bucket is created with versioning. Versioning gives us the possibility to upload different versions of the same model and then update the worker to serve the version of our choice.
Thanks to the third command we will be able to upload our model to the newly created bucket. Finally, the last command is designed to list all the files in the bucket with the id version in order to update the worker.
Finally, the last command will allow us to update the version id of the model served by the API.
Now, let’s add the CLI to our poetry scripts, open the pyproject.toml file, and add at the bottom of it the following lines:
[tool.poetry.scripts]
cli = "<package_name>.app:app"
Then test if everything is working with poetry run cli you should something like :
Usage: cli [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]... Options:
--install-completion [bash|zsh|fish|powershell|pwsh]
Install completion for the specified shell.
--show-completion [bash|zsh|fish|powershell|pwsh]
Show completion for the specified shell, to
copy it or customize the installation. --help Show this message and exit. Commands:
create-bucket
delete-bucket
list-objects
upload
update-lambda
Finally, let’s use the CLI to create our bucket, upload our model, and get the version id of it. To achieve it type the following commands:
poetry run cli create-bucket <bucket-name-to-be-created> poetry run cli upload <bucket-name> <path_to_your_model> --tag 1.0 poetry run cli list-objects <bucket-name> which should print something like the following output:
Key: <your_model>.pickle
VersionId: 11j3aXER32C7exuanDNKvOea0FxJwXg
IsLatest: True
LastModified: 2020-09-11 09:38:46+00:00
Tag: [{'Key': 'Version', 'Value': '1.0'}]
Now that our model is store on s3, we need to define a class that maps our data schema. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-deploy-your-scikit-learn-model-to-aws-44aabb0efcb4 | [] | 2020-12-24 15:12:46.704000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Technology', 'Data Science', 'Sofware Engineering', 'Machine Learning'] |
Take control of your career today | #5 Create your own opportunities
Waiting for new opportunities in the work place can take a long time but if you create your own, the chances are that you’ll be able to get started in a matter of weeks if not sooner. The most rewarding opportunities will probably require you to be open-minded and adapt, and mixing your interests isn’t a bad shout either.
If you’re interested in gaining leadership skills, rather than wait for a new role to become vacant, why not identify a gap in your workplace and take the lead e.g. start a coding study group, lead a confidence in presenting workshop series if that’s one of your strengths.
When you start making a list, you’ll realise that there are so many opportunities! You’ll probably have to run your idea by your line manager but if it’s a viable solution to a real problem, you should be okay. As well as learning to lead and gaining extra responsibilities, you’ll raise your profile and get recognised in the business for being proactive and using your initiative. When that leadership role comes around, you’ll already be in the running for it. If not, you have solid example to discuss in job interviews elsewhere! | https://medium.com/@jenika08/take-control-of-your-career-today-e555a72851fd | [] | 2020-12-17 13:09:46.003000+00:00 | ['New Job Tips', 'Career Advice', 'Career Development', 'Career Strategies', 'Personal Development'] |
Unspoken Gratitude (yet): Ira | Unspoken Gratitude (yet): Ira
Since I came back from Jatinangor in the very beginning of 2020, I have been learning about Gratitude. I was told by my friend about the necessity of it. “Perhaps, that person needs it, Bil. So, release it by saying it. It also will help you to redeem your feelings”. And I started to text and even call my circle or even strangers who my gratitude belongs to. It also evoked my memories when I sat near the canteen in my junior level school, waiting for the next section of the national exam.
As far as I remember, a girl reached me out with a small biology dictionary on her hand. Taught me as much as she could and both of us knew, perhaps that small help would not affect my understanding of the examined subject in less than an hour. As a result, my grades are low, including Biology. Yet, it affected my feelings, at least until now.
Too few of my friends who had heard my story about it always tell that the story is about a girl with a candle helping a boy in the deep dark tunnel. I lost three years since I entered the school. I was an ordinary boy with musical training embedded since I was kid. Bullying had been hit me since the elementary level even after I joined the junior level of school. I was training to cry and risk aversion-ing all the time. I hated communities. I hated the developmental skills program which included other people. I was fragile and at the same time, unsafe. Until, a person that as far as I knew touched myself and my feelings.
At first, I thought it was love. I followed all of her endeavors and prayed for her success with wholeheartedly that someday we would meet in a better condition. The funniest thing is, we had not been establishing any communications since we graduated from the junior level. Her social media has not existed. I have just found her research in her undergrad and when she decided to continue her master in Biology. I got her cousin as my close friend in my undergrad. I was trying to connect with her, but I did not get the courage.
I have been evaluating it until today, then I figured out that it is not love. Perhaps, it was just a grateful feeling that came from a desperate person who had helped and you no intention to offer a continuous relationship. I was and am childish all the time.
Now, I have not been able to reach you physically and virtually, let me say thank you for your help on that day. I thank all of your encouragement before, during, and after the exam days. And through this short, I imply my gratitude for your presence in one of my life scenes. I also feel sorry to have not met you in person recently for saying these words. I believe in words, it heals you when you wound, if the words contain sincerity. And I hope mine landed in you thoroughly.
I wish the best for your success, your life, your plans, and your everything. I hope you can still strive for another bad day. In the room of doubt people on your attempts, I always on your side to cherish you, just contact me. I wish for your happiness and health.
Thank you, Ira. I release my feelings on you as gratitude. | https://medium.com/@bpurwocaroko/unspoken-gratitude-yet-ira-2da83a251397 | ['Bp Noeringtyas'] | 2020-12-22 13:22:13.999000+00:00 | ['Words', 'Gratitude', 'Feelings', 'Love', 'Mindfulness'] |
Homework 10 | Business Lab
Homework 10
via Unsplash
Introduction
Before embarking on the design, innovation or invention of a creative technology product, it’s important, if not critical to do your homework and investigate the literature as well as tangential realizations of your ideas.
The reasoning behind doing background research is primarily to ensure you are well aware of the depths of the challenge, as well as the set of ‘solved’ problems that lay ahead of you. Your goal is to reduce risk, specifically, the risk that you:
Lack the technical knowledge to implement your prototype — background research will help you to properly set your expectations, and better understand the knowledge you need to gain, and the knowledge that you can forego.
Lose sight of the big picture — background research will help you ensure you are not solving the wrong problem or validating the wrong assumptions.
Waste time — most importantly, an hour spent researching the technologies, their capabilities and use cases can save you 10x as much prototyping time.
Where to Start?
This depends on your specific needs, but in general, you should start with compiling a docket of resources for you and your team to review and discuss. These can take many forms, some are obvious, while others are less so:
Scientific and working papers
Patents
Proceedings from industry and academic conferences
Online videos
Enthusiast forums
Newsgroups
Tutorials and Guides
Methodology
Your goal is to rapidly skim these resources to figure out if they have even a tangential relationship to your project. Even if they appear too advanced, you might find some interesting insights that can help you better plan how your prototype could be implemented, or better yet, the barriers that you might face towards implementation. For example, take a look at this 2014 patent from Google for radar-based gesture recognition:
If you were working to try and create an interface to allow the deaf to better communicate, you might stumble upon this when searching for ‘hand tracking’ and quickly assume it was too advanced or time-consuming to explore. However, you might find that reviewing the filing gives you an entirely new idea for a problem to solve — detecting the presence of human tissue through walls, which could be useful in improving health and safety, or even a better way of choosing when and where to provide heat, cool and electrify buildings!
Instructions
As a team:
Discuss your technical research agenda in your team Slack channel over the course of the week. This should be a conversation (your instructors will also participate). Each team member should contribute. The goal of this agenda is to identify existing products or projects that you can learn from as well as to discuss how to make your prototype. For example, you might identify a core set of technologies (ReactJS, a database, etc…), React libraries etc…and a produce a research agenda and project plan that clearly outlines the technical goals your prototype should reach.
Summarize your discussion and approach in a research agenda document.
Each team member should identify and summarize at least TWO distinct sources that further inform the technical work the group will perform over the next few weeks. One source must be an accessible, achievable tutorial or guide (search Youtube).
Post these resources to your group’s Slack channel prior to the next course session. | https://medium.com/applab-2-0/homework-9-8930123ee2de | ['Christian Grewell'] | 2019-04-10 04:18:18.967000+00:00 | ['Startup'] |
How to predict customer churn using Machine Learning model on Spark? | How to predict customer churn using Machine Learning model on Spark?
Photo by Oleg Gratilo on Unsplash
If you have worked with Machine Learning models before, you know the feeling when you are dealing with huge datasets. At some point, we all realize this barrier and choose to work with a smaller portion of data to start with data analysis and training models.
Introduction
Big data is very vague, but we all can agree that whenever we feel the restriction of computational power on our laptops or Machines, due to the huge size of a dataset, we see it as Big data problem. And, let’s face it, python data analysis libraries like pandas have their own limitations to manipulate huge datasets due to its local-memory constraints and performance issues.
Business Understanding
Sparkify is a fictional music streaming service like Spotify or Pandora and I will be using Sparkify Churn Prediction as a problem statement to explain this article in detail. I will be using PySpark for this project.
Note: Sparkify dataset was provided by Udacity Data Scientist Nanodegree program and this article is part of my Capstone project.
Data Understanding
I began with Exploratory Data Analysis on my local machine with a small Sparkify dataset provided by Udacity.
# loading dataset
df = spark.read.json("mini_sparkify_event_data.json") # columns in dataset
df.printSchema() root
|-- artist: string (nullable = true)
|-- auth: string (nullable = true)
|-- firstName: string (nullable = true)
|-- gender: string (nullable = true)
|-- itemInSession: long (nullable = true)
|-- lastName: string (nullable = true)
|-- length: double (nullable = true)
|-- level: string (nullable = true)
|-- location: string (nullable = true)
|-- method: string (nullable = true)
|-- page: string (nullable = true)
|-- registration: long (nullable = true)
|-- sessionId: long (nullable = true)
|-- song: string (nullable = true)
|-- status: long (nullable = true)
|-- ts: long (nullable = true)
|-- userAgent: string (nullable = true)
|-- userId: string (nullable = true) # Number of Rows
df.count() 286500 # showing types of events in dataset or pages a user might visit while using the Sparkify app. df.select("page").dropDuplicates().show() +--------------------+
| page|
+--------------------+
| Cancel|
| Submit Downgrade|
| Thumbs Down|
| Home|
| Downgrade|
| Roll Advert|
| Logout|
| Save Settings|
|Cancellation Conf...|
| About|
| Settings|
| Add to Playlist|
| Add Friend|
| NextSong|
| Thumbs Up|
| Help|
| Upgrade|
| Error|
| Submit Upgrade|
+--------------------+
Data Preparation
During data preparation, I dealt with data challenges like missing values, data cleaning, imputing categorical variables and identifying a target variable to predict churned customers.
To accurately predict churned customers, we need their userId information, therefore cleaning data by removing all rows where userId is either null or empty.
Adding, a target variable as Churn. If a user has visited the “Cancellation Confirmation” page, then the Churn column has a value 1 else 0.
Data Visualizations
Let’s have a deeper understanding of Sparkify customers, using visualizations. | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-predict-customer-churn-using-machine-learning-model-on-spark-99f5277993b7 | ['Monika Bagyal'] | 2020-04-13 20:02:22.344000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Spark', 'Pyspark', 'Churn Prediction', 'Machine Learning'] |
Does Out-Of-Scope Matter ? How I made 100$ from Out-Of-Scope Asset, and Importance of Sub-Domains. | $ whoami
Hello i’m a Security Researcher Mukund Bhuva aka ShellSpider, also play like to play CTFs like Hackthebox (Me) anyway, lets dive into the “Good Stuff”.
%00
TL;DR
We all know that XSS is a very simple bug to find, but also we know that “Simple XSS”s are already reported. So, we have to deep dive to enum and parsing payloads, but its booooooring af. And we don’t do it here.
Literally
The Company don’t want to disclose there name so i’ll refer is as redacted.com.
Finding Sub.domains.com
I personally like subfinder. So I started fuzzing subdomains and a whole lot of subdomains are there so I have to filter the working once. For that I use httprobe (TomNomNom is really great at this).
cat subfinder -d redacted.com | sort -u >> sub.domains.redacted.txt cat sub.domains.redacted.txt | httprobe | anew working-subdomain.txt
Now I have a list of working subdomains but the RVDP clearly specify that the *.redacted.com is out-of-scope.
I’ll get back there later ; let’s continue with exploit.
I find some interesting subdomains like boutique-gateway119.redacted.com. So I go straight down to Footer its copyrights are 2018. So the site is pretty old so it will be dame vulnerable.
I find a Search Functionally so i tried some basic fuzzing and find a classic XSS right there.
So instantly go to respective Responsible Disclosure Management Program and reported it.
But here is the twist and the point you all are waiting to be revealed the answer of :
“ How the freak I get paid from a out-of-scope asset ? ”
So, here is the deal OUT-OF-SCOPE doesn't matter, the only thing that matter is Data Security Capital D; Capital S; when I execute javascript:alert(document.domain + document.cookie); I found that this subdomain is leaking the cookies of account.redacted.com so it is harming the privacy of actual user. Even it is out-of-scope is; it is still exploitable and steal accounts.
And Most Importantly, people (Hackers) always focused on the vulnerability rather then impact and severity of bug.
So, If you find a little bug on a out-of-scope asset, try to exploit and enumerate sensitive data.
I specify that in the Report even it is out-of-scope asset it is leaking user data.
And a good thing is usually hunters always run-away from out-of-scope so that there is less competition.
I can’t show any POC or Images; Policies 😕.
Thanks For Reading✌️. Keep Hunting 😇.
👏 | https://medium.com/@mukundbhuva/does-out-of-scope-matters-a-story-of-how-i-made-100-a9f76537f777 | ['Mukund Bhuva'] | 2021-08-28 15:31:45.711000+00:00 | ['Cybersecurity', 'Hacking', 'Hackerone', 'Intigriti', 'Bug Bounty'] |
Weight Watchers Won’t Stop Emailing Me | A very interesting thing happened during the summer of 2020. Weight Watchers, aka WW, started emailing me again.
I had been a member of WW many years ago but had left the program and disabled my account when the reality of tracking every morsel of food I put into my mouth became too much. It had, happily, been years since I heard from them, and I was quite happy to go the rest of my life never hearing from them again. I never bought into their rebranding — even Oprah couldn’t persuade me, despite her love of bread, to give it another try.
So, imagine my surprise when one day, completely out of the blue, I heard from them again.
Unsubscribe.
We received your request to unsubscribe. It will take a few weeks to process your request.
Weeks pass. The emails keep coming. I unsubscribe again and again … the emails keep coming.
I tweet at them (9/7/2020): .@ww_us I have unsubscribed from your emails 1K times, and you still send me emails. I don’t want to hear from you. I will never spend $ with you. I send you to spam and you keep coming back. Stop emailing me. #weightwatchers #spam
They DM me (9/7/2020): Thank you for sending us a Direct Message, Julie. We have submitted your request to be unsubscribed from receiving emails from WW. Please allow up to 3 full business weeks to stop receive emails from WW. Once again we apologize for any frustration this may have caused. Wishing you the very best on your journey!
They DM me (9/7/2020): Hi Julie! Our records have you as unsubscribed. We’ve sent an urgent request to our email control center advising them you are unsubscribed but still are receiving emails from us and to have your email address manually removed from our database. As our email campaigns are created in advance, you may continue to receive emails until they get to your request. In the interim, please mark us as Spam or block us. We can not confirm you will stop receiving emails this week as WW Customer Care does not control the process of how emails are sent, but will do everything we can to expedite the process on your behalf.
I DM them (10/3/2020): It is interesting to note that I am still receiving emails from your brand. 3 weeks is long over — this is inexcusable.
They DM me (10/3/2020): Hi, Julie! Thank you for reaching out! Please send us your email address, so we can see what’s going on! We are looking forward to your response. (Note: there is a heart emoji at the end of this sentence. It does not help to placate me, nor does the fact I’ve given them my email address countless times.)
There are multiple messages back and forth between me and the very “happy to help” support team, but, and this is true, to this day I receive an email from WW every.single.day.
I write comments on both Trust Pilot and BBB. This gets someone’s attention.
There is now a woman (who I believe is in WW HQ) who calls me to tell me that she’s working on this, that she doesn’t know why it’s still happening, that she understands how frustrating this must be for me.
It is simply inept that WW cannot figure out how to stop sending me emails.
WW marketing made a conscious decision to mine its old email rolls to perhaps get back those who had left the fold at a time when anyone and everyone can be excused for perhaps eating ice cream for breakfast. WW took advantage of the pandemic to woo people back to their program; somewhere in a Zoom meeting, discussing how to increase revenue, someone had this particular idea, and someone else approved it. That I have retracted my consent to receive emails countless times is irrelevant to them.
This is insidious and destructive corporate behavior.
WW is demonstrating an inexcusable lack of privacy protection, and its email behavior is abusive. At a time when corporate accountability is on the rise, WW should be held accountable. | https://medium.com/@jnsamuels/weight-watchers-wont-stop-emailing-me-fe3e56f0fa92 | ['Julie Samuels'] | 2020-12-10 17:24:00.475000+00:00 | ['Corporate Accountability', 'Privacy Protection', 'Spam', 'Email', 'Marketing'] |
The Top 10 Best Places to Find Datasets 📊 | Awesome Data
Awesome Data is a GitHub repository with a seriously impressive list of datasets separated by category. It is updated regularly.
Data Is Plural
Jeremy Singer-Vine’s Data Is Plural weekly newsletter has great fresh data sources. I’m always impressed by the quality. The archive is available here.
Kaggle Datasets
In addition to competitions, Kaggle has a huge range of datasets. Kaggle Datasets provide great summary information and previews for most datasets. You can download the data or use their platform to analyze it in a Jupyter notebook. You can also contribute your own datasets and make them public or private.
Kaggle is great for browsing or searching for a particular topic.
Data.world
Like Kaggle, Data.world provides a wide range of user-contributed datasets. It also offers a platform for companies to store and organize their data.
Google Dataset Search Tool
I think it’s safe to say that Google knows a thing or two about search. It recently added a separate search functionality for datasets through its Google Dataset Search Tool. It’s worth a shot if you’re looking for data on a particular topic or from a particular source.
OpenDaL
OpenDaL is a data aggregator that allows you to search using a variety of metadata. For example you can search based on time or search by location by selecting part of a map.
Screenshot from OpenDaL.
Pandas Data Reader
The Pandas DataReader will help you pull data from online sources into Python pandas DataFrames. Most of the data sources are financial. Here’s the list of available data sources as of October 31, 2020. 🎃
Here’s how you use it after installing it into a Python environment with pip install pandas-datareader .
import pandas_datareader as pdr
pdr.get_data_fred('GS10')
VisualData 👓
If you are looking for computer vision datasets, VisualData is a nice new source. It has some handy filtering options. Thanks to Jie Feng for reminding me of it! ***Added Nov. 2, 2020.***
Data.gov 👓
If you are looking to use the US government’s datasets, Data.gov has over 217,000 fo them! Thanks to Michael Wallace for recommending it! ***Added Nov. 4, 2020.***
Python API Wrappers 🐍
I recently updated my list of Python API wrappers to help users see whether a package is popular and being maintained. It now uses shields.io to automatically display GitHub stars and the date of the most recent commit. This list was originally forked from GitHub repo of Real Python via johnwmillr. My repo contains what I believe is the largest updated list of Python API wrappers — many of which can help you find the data you might need for a project.
APIs
Getting data from a documented API using Python might sound intimidating if you haven’t done it before, but it’s really not bad. Check out my guide to getting data from APIs here. 🚀
Make your own
When all else fails, collecting your own data can be an excellent way to create a dataset for your needs. 😉
Recap
Do you have a favorite place to find data? Awesome! Share it on Twitter or leave it in the comments! 🎉
I hope you find this tool helpful when you’re searching for data sources. If you do, please share it on your favorite social media. 🚀
I write about Python, data science, and other tech topics. If you’re into that kind of stuff read more here and subscribe to my Data Awesome newsletter for awesome monthly curated data resources. | https://towardsdatascience.com/the-top-10-best-places-to-find-datasets-8d3b4e31c442 | ['Jeff Hale'] | 2020-12-13 15:23:21.510000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Data Science', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Data'] |
About Schmidt: How a White Nationalist Seduced Anarchists Around the World (Chapter 2) | By Alexander Reid Ross and Joshua Stephens
Previous installments: Chapter 1
Michael Schmidt, posing for a photo which he posted under a pseudonym on white supremacist clearinghouse Stormfront
Storm Clouds over the Battlefront
This past September, in response to incontrovertible evidence of Michael Schmidt’s racist activities, AK Press announced it was cutting ties with him and ceasing all printing of works connected to him. He quickly responded, mounting a preemptive defense in which he admitted opening and managing an account with Stormfront, arguably the preeminent online white supremacist forum, linked to some 100 racially-motivated killings.
Michael Schmidt’s personal profile on Stormfront
The account dates back to the summer of 2006 — three years before the publication of Black Flame. In the lifespan of the account, he logged nearly 300 posts. Curiously, his explanation of it dated its origin a full year prior:
[S]ince 2005 until I shut it down recently, I maintained a profile on the white supremacist website. Let me explain: I am an investigative journalist by profession and in 2005 was working at the Saturday Star in Johannesburg. My beat included extra-Parliamentary politics — social movements, trade unions, and political organizations from the ultra-left to the ultra-right. My editor Brendan Seery allowed me to set up a Stormfront account under which I could pose as a sympathetic fellow-traveller in order to keep an eye on what the white right-wing in South Africa was talking about: in other words, this was professionally vetted by my editor.
Schmidt went on to state that he lied consistently for years about a group connected to his Stormfromt account, called Black Battlefront. In his statement, he openly confessed that he ran both the Stormfront account and Black Battlefront, but his admission makes confidence in his explanation difficult. Simply put, the details are bizarre. The deception in question, according to his mea culpa, included using a bout of anterograde amnesia in order to pass off a character he allegedly created on the internet, and then portrayed as an acquaintance in the employ of a shadowy private security company. According to this story, this character may or may not have hacked his Stormfront account to plant a post about Black Battlefront to frame him.
The defense goes on to mysteriously discard that fabrication while retaining a tale about another unnamed intelligence agent from South Africa’s National Intelligence Agency (NIA), who he says had recently come out to him after spying on a friend for two full years. He could not admit to the Black Battlefront profile at the time, he claims, for fear that the NIA would learn of it, and retaliate. Since Schmidt has claimed journalistic privilege over his “source,” we cannot substantiate the story about the NIA agent who suddenly had a change of heart and came clean to the close friend of the anarchist on whom she’d spent two years spying. However, the Facebook page for Black Battlefront, as well as one of its moderators, retained several friends in common with Schmidt’s own more public profile. There seem two plausible readings of the narrative, each equally bizarre. Either he was attempting to entrap his own friends, or Black Battlefront remained a well-kept secret between Schmidt and a close circle of like-minded peers. There nonetheless remains one thing his story oddly fails to establish in any way: that it was a personal page used to infiltrate the virtual networks of white supremacists and national-anarchists.
It’s further confounding that Schmidt did not inform anyone about either of these apparent agents (the one he invented, as well as the one purportedly real) until suspicion began to swell around his links to white supremacist and white nationalist websites and groups. It also defies explanation that Schmidt is adamant in protecting a person who spied on the South African anarchist movement for years. What we know for sure, beyond Schmidt’s hazy memory, is the truth about his Stormfront profile, which appears lockstep with Schmidt’s public life when examined in closer detail.
Profiling KarelianBlue
As well as a possible reference to a kind of cigarette, Schmidt’s preferred Stormfront profile name, “KarelianBlue,” suggests a reference to his blue eyes and purported ancestry (the Karelians were an ancient people from Northern Europe, a reference echoed in the Norse names of his dogs), as well as a popular white supremacist pop band, Prussian Blue. On Stormfront, he details his tattoos, describes his neighborhood, holds forth on his (deeply flawed) knowledge of leftist and fascist movements, and even hosts a smiling photograph of himself with a shaved head in front of a Boer filling station, appearing to repurpose the sign in a macho, racist joke. Another photo on the Stormfront profile of KarelianBlue shows a blonde woman wearing a Nazi sidecap that one source confirmed to us Schmidt owns. If the intent was to go undercover, all the personal details Schmidt shared on Stormfront would undermine the anonymity of a simple “research” project.
Publicly, he enjoyed hot rod culture and his old Mustang, going to metal shows, and drinking beers with friends. Privately, he indulged in ignominious racism through an anonymous profile on at least four white supremacist sites. To what extent these scenes overlapped, it is not entirely clear, but on his profile, KarelianBlue lists as interests, “history, militancy, rockabilly, fast cars” — perhaps a clue that he shared his white supremacist views with communities beyond anarchists.
One of the sites in the white supremacist blogosphere that KarelianBlue visited and commented on is a blog called The Spoils of War managed by someone calling themselves, “the accidental ‘racist.’” Commenting in 2007 on an article comparing the analysis of white privilege to medieval witch trials, KarelianBlue waxes prosaic:
Although Schmidt describes his posts on Stormfront as “pretty neutral in tone,” we found them to be consistently otherwise. They regularly refer to Africans as “k*ffirs,” a highly derogatory slur, when they do not refer to them as a “subspecies”; they also lament the dying out of the white race, “white genocide,” and call for potentially violent “fascist skinhead” intervention. Well afield of mere research, Schmidt’s Stormfront profile and other interventions in the white supremacist blogosphere encourage white supremacist organizing, offer strategic options and critiques of antifascist analysis, and discuss historical trivia about the “Good Guys of the Waffen SS,” as well as provide links to Nazi paraphernalia for sale online.
In posts marked with the black and red Nordic cross backed by green — the flag of the short-lived Republic of Karelia on the border of Russia and Finland — KarelianBlue corrects other users about the radical history of the Soweto riots, while also deriding the Black Consciousness movement for reverse-racism. Publicly, in writing done under his own name, Schmidt has shown no compunction about smearing African politicians with allegations of “black racist” and anti-white “hate speech.”
To put what Schmidt describes as “occasional” posting into perspective, it yielded an average of more than one Stormfront post per week for the first four years. Many were more informative than inquisitive. Often, they were deeply personal, almost introspective. Stormfront seems to have functioned for him as a forum for a kind of soul searching, where he sought to identify problems holding him back from securing a romantic partner or some other variety of success. His activity depicts an isolated, deeply frustrated radical blowing off racist steam.
Desperate, esoteric, sad windows into an incredibly turbulent soul, described on his profile as a “lonely Aryan redoubt”.
Networking as a Skinhead
On his profile, KarelianBlue declares that his heroes are those “who stand their ground and fight back,” and his earlier posts are full of a sense of alienation in a neighborhood that is decaying. He writes vividly about an ongoing turf war in his neighborhood between whites and blacks, in which it appears the whites are losing.
In a post dated August 20, 2007, he writes about defending his white neighbors from potentially “dangerous” people of color:
I don’t have firearms as that attracts the attention of the authorities: instead I prefer bladed weapons, my favourite being a vicious, curved Gurkha kuki [a Nepalese blade]. A month ago, the white American student across the road heard a noise and called me for help. I ran out, around the block, with the kukri tucked back against my forearm (out of sight, but perfect for CQB [Close Quarters Combat]) and found nothing, but I sure impressed the Yank.
The same blade appears in a selfie on one of Schmidt’s Facebook profiles.
In a post from April 10, 2009, KarelianBlue brags, “it’s hard to be an open white racist in south africa, but i’m an obvious skinhead.” Indeed, photos on his profiles from the time period show him to be presenting as a skinhead. Less than two weeks later, KarelianBlue posts about wearing the traditional skinhead gear — boots and braces — and walking into a mostly-black, formerly-Scottish bar to make his presence known:
These posts appear to reveal significant and corresponding details about his own private life, defining himself a fascist skinhead defending his neighborhood with lethal weapons in the unfriendly territory of South Africa under the “k*ffir state.” If Schmidt let these feelings show in public, the presentation was usually masked and indirect, often during drinking bouts with close friends. According to a source who was close to him, his drinking would often result in revealing utterances. “Why do they get to call us white trash, when we don’t get to use our words for them?” Occasionally, he would raise his voice and make racial slurs as though relieving himself of a burden. But for whatever reasons, he generally kept KarelianBlue bottled up. One former friend of Schmidt’s described his personality as “compartmentalized.” Sober, the racist beliefs, the championing of “white trash,” and the feeling of victimhood at the hands of Affirmative Action and the black majority were generally vaulted.
Ideological and Political Alignments
One revelation that Schmidt alerted us to in his lengthy, public statement was that he used his Stormfront profile to enter into correspondence with Troy Southgate, who he describes as “the founder of ‘national-anarchism.’” Schmidt revealed not only correspondence with Southgate, but that he had “talk[ed] on a personal level with Southgate and his cronies.” That Schmidt made no attempt to disguise his identity on Stormfront is both conspicuous and mysterious, for the simple fact that, had any of his anarchist peers recognized him (as some eventually did) his open visibility throws into question the status and function of his relationship with Southgate and his national-anarchist circle.
More shocking still, if only for Schmidt’s own openness about it with sources who spoke to us, was that while self-identifying as a “fascist skinhead,” he publicly supported the Freedom Front Plus Party (Vryheidsfront Plus, FF+), voting for them in the 2009 elections. The party is a political splinter group from the white nationalist paramilitary group Afrikaner Volksfront led by former army commander Constand Viljoen. As a right-wing coalition of groups, the Volksfront included the Boerestaat Party, and other ultranationalist white separatists. The FF+ currently proposes a Volkstaat in western South Africa that would provide land reform to shelter whites from Affirmative Action and the “black majority.” Since Africans did not occupy much of South Africa when the Dutch settlers came, FF+ members claim, a considerable amount of land is authentically Boer territory.
In a post from this time period (pictured above), dated April 23, 2009, KarelianBlue laments the high number of voters he saw at the ballot box in 2009, and claims he voted for “the only white rights party available.” A month after his account of voting for the FF+, KarelianBlue posted a demographic survey that breaks down class divides among whites, stating that they present “not quite the picture of white rule that is so often peddled by our k*ffir state.” Interestingly, while the statistics show that there are more poor whites than affluent whites, they also show that the white “emerging middle class” outnumbers the white poor. His statistics also fail to show the proportion of whites making up the ruling class as opposed to non-whites, who The Economist described as composing a mere “sliver” of the South African economic elite.
As pertains leftist rhetoric and theory, one does well to examine a November 15, 2009 post by KarelianBlue at length, if for no other reason than it clarifies Schmidt’s public analysis:
Though the characterization of Maoism is at best mistaken, KarelianBlue offers something of a class analysis in the post. “Our enemy in short is liberal capitalism which drove the deindustrialization process in what, for workers globally, amounts to a lose-lose situation,” he writes. Just over four months later, on March 6, 2010, in a post related to Iceland’s resistance to austerity, KarelianBlue exposes the nature of his anti-capitalism, asking the rhetorical question, “Is this not a Semitic-banker plot to destroy one of the world’s most homogenous Aryan cultures?” The anti-Semitic, anti-capitalist analysis lines up with what’s sometimes called “Third Positionist” fascism, defined by some as “neither left (Marxist) nor right (capitalist), but something else.”
Elsewhere, KarelianBlue delves deeper into racist terrain through additional reflections on demographics. On December 22, 2012, he looks into the South African Census, claiming that it “shows the decline of our race in South Africa,” and complaining that “White women are so prone to race-mixing (at least in the ‘cosmopolitan’ parts of our cities).” He goes on to say, “While the numbers of Whites marrying other sub-species is very rare, this is the thin end of the wedge.”
In a post created less than a year ago, KarelianBlue expresses delight that “Afrikaner women are far more racially-aware” than “English-speaking-White-South-Africans,” but laments:
Personal Descriptions
As goes his own identity, KerelianBlue declares on November 17, 2007:
For Schmidt, the nation is a cultural development marked by centuries of wars and slavery; hence, his designation between white and black culture and the “white ‘national’ organization” in his “Politico-Cultural Dynamics” memo.
Detailing his practice of cultural identification, KarelianBlue declares on April 10, 2009:
He finishes the post “sig heil! 14!” To the casual reader, the number 14 is at best obscure, at worst almost meaningless. In the world of white nationalists, it’s code for the “14 words” of neo-fascist terrorist, David Lane: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White Children.”
Corroborating the information in this post, we found photos of Schmidt on one of his Facebook profiles wearing the mjolnir:
His surreptitious wearing of the sidecap in public was confirmed by a source who knew him. Furthermore, KarelianBlue writes about where he purchased his Nazi paraphernalia: the War Store at the Military History Museum. An eyewitness source confirmed Schmidt’s patronage of the store.
Fascism to Schmidt is neither costume party nor fetish, however. It runs as deeply as white nationalist beliefs in pan-European ancestral spirituality. KarelianBlue describes his tattoos on July 25 of last year, declaring, “my uniform is my skin… Every race has historically marked its skin with symbols relevant to its culture and whites are no exception, whether they align spiritually as Christian, Norse, Teutonic, Celtic or other.” He discusses his “14th Century family crest, which includes two crescent moons as symbols of the crusades my ancestors fought in.” Regarding his “Scythian chieftain’s tattoos,” he explains, “the Scythians were a white horse people who ruled the steppes from present-day Ukraine to the Altai mountains).” In truth, the Scythians were a nomadic people originating in modern-day Iran, and have become an important figure in the narrative of the emergence of the Indo-Aryan white race and the “birth of Eurasia,” which features prominently in neo-fascist literature.
He also lists his “lebensrune” tattoo. While the actual Nordic-German Algiz rune is not itself related to racism, it was only dubbed the “lebensrune” in twentieth-century Germany, first by occultists and then by the Nazi Party, who utilized it in Stormtrooper uniforms. It has been employed regularly since by neo-Nazi and white nationalists groups, the militant fascist skinhead group, Volksfront International, the the US National Alliance, and the Flemish nationalist Voorpost. Of his tattoos, Schmidt proclaims, “It means I’m serious about my heritage.”
These tattoos, taken in full, represent a deep expression of pan-European traditionalism and pride, linked to crusades and ancient warriors. The narrative inked on Schmidt’s flesh is in keeping with the cultural pride of colonial Europeans in Africa, bearing what scholar Tamir Bar-On calls an “ultranationalist or pan-European, pro-colonialist and militaristic tone calling for the revival of elite, chivalric warrior societies where honor and courage superseded material considerations” (2007, Ashgate). Schmidt’s honest descriptions of pan-European cultural signifiers based in crusades and German mysticism seems to provide a fuller picture of the white cultural identity staked out in 2008 ZACF internal document.
In a post from May 10, 2009, KarelianBlue tells his Stormfront forum that he “attended a private boy’s school in joburg [Johannesburg] for the full 12-year-stretch, matriculating in ’84.”
Recalling the system of seniority that carried over to the army when he signed up after school, KarelianBlue connects the hierarchical structures to the British system: “i was in favor of a mentoring approach and when i was an ouman myself [I] had a throw-down fight with another ouman [superior] who was being needlessly vicious towards his roof [inferior].” When he went to university, KarelianBlue claims, “[I] resolved i’d get extremely violent with anyone who even dared” to demean him. “In sum,” he announces, “i’d say my attitude is that if the system teaches respect, self-discipline, cleanliness and upstanding character, then okay. if it just serves to brutalise and crush the spirits of the younger then i’m opposed to it.” The question of anarchy hovers in the midst of this moral and ethical question: if a hierarchical system utilizes mentorship in an organic and orderly fashion, then it can be considered healthy; otherwise, the order must be disrupted.
Less than a month later, KarelianBlue strikes out against the enemies of such an ethical order — figures who promote disorder or, perhaps worse, an order of shame and guilt. Unable to limit his response to just one enemy under an illustratively titled thread:
Mandela was later the subject of a weird article from Schmidt published shortly after his death, titled, “From demonic terrorist to sainted icon: the transfiguration of Nelson Mandela,” which describes the late President of South Africa as the satanic-angelic leader of a politico-religious cult.
The Battlefront Analysis
While receiving accolades for Black Flame in 2009, Schmidt distanced himself from the ZACF. Former friends told us he was complaining of a lack of time, money, and personal interest. One piece of what he had been developing at that time frame was the analysis anchoring Black Battlefront:
Schmidt’s use of the term “political soldier” is significant, developed by the Strasserist faction of the English fascist party, National Front, to describe both rural paramilitaries and urban skinheads. Otto Strasser, the guiding theorist, had been a member of the original Nazi Party before being kicked out in 1930, at which time he formed a group called Black Front in order to grow a clandestine base of “true national socialists” against the Hitler faction. That the group Schmidt created took the name Black Battlefront suggests a nod to some sort of similar clandestine operation within the South African anarchist scene, through which he could encourage privately racist analyses among key friends. Put another way, his group seemed intended to function like a secret social club for anarchists who believe in militant white separatist ideology in keeping with what some neo-fascists call “ethno-pluralism” — the need of different ethnicities to live in separate racial enclaves in order to preserve true cultural diversity. In a post to his profile, KarelianBlue included three red, circular patches with different “Black Battlefront” logos:
In his September 27th public statement regarding the revelation of this “network”, Schmidt claimed that the site was initiated in 2009, as he stepped up research into the “national-anarchist” movement. Nobody else could know about this group, he insisted, not even his ex-wife — lest the NIA catch wind of his investigation. Again: Schmidt’s more-public Facebook profile shared friends with both the group and its moderator (another top-secret profile Schmidt created) before the site went down; unless Schmidt was working to entrap his own friends, he was clearly using it as a focal point for a “racially aware” cell within the anarchist movement. Furthermore, the site was actually initiated in 2006, three months before his Stormfront profile, exposing another timeline anomaly in Schmidt’s account. According to a web designer we talked to, Schmidt and a friend pitched him the idea for developing a similar white nationalist internet site as early as 2003, but they were refused. This was a year before Schmidt proposed a division between white and black collectives in the ZAC Federation. The first post in Black Battlefront, published March 3, 2006, was the “Platform of the Anarchist Communists of Bulgaria, 1945.”
His identity for Black Battlefront is “Strandwolf”:
the brown hyaena found on the lonely Atlantic beaches of the Namib desert: with more powerful jaws and greater stamina than a lion, the hyaena hunt in matriarchal packs and, inverting their clitori, are impossible to rape. They are viewed by the indigenous people as spirit-animals… Strandwolf is a ghost in the machine of the African night, a spectral flicker on the shores of the Skeleton Coast, a low-slung hunter on the night-time highway that stretches away from the rolling smokes of Johannesburg into the bleach-and-acetate reaches of the platteland where gaunt wind-pumps scratch stars in the sky.
The analogy evokes the militant, lone-wolf character advocated by Louis Beam, a famous Texas Klansman who advocates for “leaderless resistance” through acts of political assassinations, individual murders, bombings, and general terror. It was Beam’s ideology and his relationship with San Diego-based white supremacist Tom Metzger and his acolyte Dave Mazzela, that helped shape the consciousness of the early west-coast skinhead movement through an organization called White Aryan Resistance.
The “creed” advertised on the Black Battlefront blog is practical:
Strandwolf calls for revolutionary anarchism as an answer both to the modern multicultural project and the apartheid era exploitation of poor whites and blacks, alike. The postings on Black Battlefront were sparse between from 2006 to 2009. However, after midnight on February 17, 2010, two posts appeared, authored separately by “white African national anarchist” and a shadowy, Ukrainian woman named “Ardent Vinlander.” Vinlander’s article is dedicated entirely to a cultural reading of race and class, as well as a sense of nationalism rooted in conquest. In the other article, “white African national anarchist” explains:
‘Medieval’ is the closest that blacks have come to civilisation, while some still today languish 10,000 years behind the Europeans who gave Africa its science, industry, infrastructure, education, medicine and large-scale agriculture, most of it fallen into terrible disrepair under black rule since the late 1950s. In order to, if not forestall this decay, at least build the bulwarks of a white redoubt strong enough to stand against this darkening tide, we require organization.
The same post declares that revolutionary anarchism must be informed by Jim Goad, Nestor Makhno, and Troy Southgate, realizing that:
in order to be truly grounded, we need to be scrupulously egalitarian and what this means in the southern African battlespace is that we are compelled to judicially recognize the right of white anarchists and black anarchists to establish their own separate, culturally-distinct formal organizations and informal networks.
Schmidt’s cultural racism carries over from his “Politico-Cultural Dynamics” memo within ZACF, to Black Battlefront, which appears to show that the latter was formed through his disaffection with the former. Furthermore, Schmidt’s desiderata of a “white anarchist organization” to develop independently as a “national” group seems to be at work in his writings as Strandwolf at this time. While we can’t be certain how much support Schmidt had during this endeavor, his admission that he fell in with Troy Southgate and his “cronies” seems to imply that his blog was more than just an isolated project. Instead, it was an outreach tool with some (perhaps extensive) network behind it.
Schmidt, of course, has claimed that this elaborate, circuitous trail — as often confused as confusing — was ultimately nothing more than an investigative ruse carried out for the purposes of journalism. Setting aside the correspondence between the sentiments of his allegedly undercover persona and his own publicly-stated beliefs, and his bizarre attributions to conspiratorial counter-intelligence operations and selective amnesia, there is nothing in his online activity that, in principle, anyway, conflicts with a (perhaps staggeringly overzealous) long-con for the sake of investigation.
Only, it wasn’t.
When we tracked down Brendan Seery — the editor Schmidt claims authorized his journalistic foray into the depths of the white-nationalist internet — he seemed bewildered by Schmidt’s story. “Mike did work for us as a senior reporter and on a number of big stories,” he told us. “[A]nd because of his seniority and the way newspapers work, I would not have to give him permission at all to investigate. That would be something a good investigative journalist would do off his own bat.”
Schmidt having laid oversight at Seery’s feet aside, it was never likely Seery would’ve authorized such an undertaking, if only because gathering information through deception, while standard for police, is at odds with basic journalistic standards. “My style as an editor is that journalists should be as upfront as possible in order to get a story with subterfuge only as a last resort,” Seery told us. “If, however, you mean that we ordered or gave permission to him to pose as a right-winger, then I certainly don’t recall that.”
Since Seery ran the Saturday Star until 2007, after Schmidt left and after the Stormfront account went up, there’s zero chance that a subsequent, incoming editor approved Schmidt’s alleged project.
Subsequent Chapters: Three and Four
Alexander Reid Ross is a moderator of the Earth First! Newswire, the editor of Grabbing Back: Essays Against the Global Land Grab and author of the forthcoming book Against the Fascist Creep (AK Press)
Joshua Stephens is a former collective member with the Institute for Anarchist Studies, and a writer whose work has appeared with The Atlantic, Gawker, AlterNet, Truthout, NOW Lebanon, and The Outpost. | https://medium.com/@rossstephens/about-schmidt-how-a-white-nationalist-seduced-anarchists-around-the-world-chapter-2-1849e232b943 | ['Ross'] | 2016-03-26 15:36:01.689000+00:00 | ['Anarchism', 'South Africa', 'Racism'] |
I believe this is the key. | I believe this is the key.
If it isn’t an underlying mindset, it won’t matter. Thy why must be understood or there will never be REAL buy-in.
I believe this quote captures the essence of diversity: | https://medium.com/@bobby-kountz/i-believe-this-is-the-key-945056614902 | [] | 2020-12-09 05:38:54.941000+00:00 | ['Ideas', 'Mindset', 'Diversity And Inclusion', 'Diversity', 'Inspiration'] |
Spirometer Industry Insights — Growing Demands and Recent Development | Spirometer Market
Growth in this market is largely driven by the rising global incidence of respiratory diseases, increasing aging population, and the technological shift in spirometer devices towards smartphone-based data acquisition.
According to research report Spirometer Market is projected to reach $ 1,285 million by 2025, at a CAGR of 11.1%.
Based on product, the spirometer market is segmented into devices, consumables & accessories, and software. This segment is expected to witness the highest growth rate during the forecast period. The rising incidence of respiratory diseases and the growing geriatric population are the key factors driving the growth of this product segment.
The major players operating in this Spirometry Market are Hill-Rom, Inc. (US), Midmark Corp. (US), Futuremed (US), COSMED (Italy), MGC Diagnostics Corporation (US), Jones Medical Instrument Company (US), Sibelmed (Spain), Vyaire Medical (US), Medical International Research (Italy),Vitalograph (UK), ndd Medical Technologies (Zurich), Inc., Schiller AG (Switzerland), MIR, Recorders and Medicare Systems (India), Smiths Medical (US), Medline (US), Teleflex (US), CONTEC (China), Fysiomed (Belgium), Medikro (Finland), Sdi Diagnostics (US), CHEST M.I. (Japan), Inc, FUKUDA SANGYO Co. Ltd. (Japan), Clarity Medical (India), and Guangzhou Medsinglong Medical Equipment Co., Ltd. (China).
Recent Developments:
> In 2018, The Schiller AG opened a new manufacturing site in Guangzhou, China.
> In November 2018, Schiller AG launched CARDIOVIT CS-200 ErgoSpiro System device.
> In 2017, MIR partnered with Tactio Health Group (Canada) to develop telemedicine solutions for COPD.
Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=18015659 | https://medium.com/@jessicakelly-mnm/spirometer-industry-insights-growing-demands-and-recent-development-da208f1f6e50 | [] | 2021-09-09 10:04:05.044000+00:00 | ['Spirometer', 'Medical Devices', 'Healthcare Technology', 'Business', 'Business Development'] |
10 best phones under 10000 in India | It has become quite difficult in today’s time to find a phone with a powerful battery, processor, and stunning camera qualities in your budget. Thanks to the smartphone makers that they are kept on launching mobile phones under the budget segment of 10000 in India . This segment is dominated by companies like Samsung, Motorola, Realme, and Oppo who launched some of their best smartphones under 10000 in India. We also have some price changes after the government introduced a new GST structure. While the prices of some phones have increased to more than 10000, on the other hand, there are some smartphones whose prices have been reduced by 10000. Let’s see some of the best mobile phones that suit your budget and are affordable too. Here’s our list of 10 Best Phones under 10000 in India .
1 . Redmi 9 Prime : -
13MP quad rear camera, ultra-wide, macro, portrait, AI scene recognition, HDR, pro mode | 8 MP front camera
16.58 centimeters (6.53-inch) FHD+ capacitive multi-touch touchscreen with 2340 x 1080 pixels resolution, 394 ppi pixel density and 19.5:9 aspect ratio
Memory, Storage & SIM: 4GB | 64GB internal memory expandable up to 512GB | Dual SIM (nano+nano) + Dedicated SD card slot
Android v10 operating system with 2.0 GHz Mediatek Helio G80 octa core processor
5020 mAh large lithium-polymer battery with 18W charging support
1 year manufacturer warranty for device and 6 months manufacturer warranty for in-box accessories including batteries from the date of purchase
Box also includes: Power adapter, USB cable, SIM eject tool, warranty card, user guide, clear soft case
2. Samsung Galaxy M01 (samsung phone under 10000) | https://medium.com/@shivanshudagar999/10-best-phones-under-10000-in-india-9d2c84eefca8 | [] | 2020-12-22 20:49:02.999000+00:00 | ['Mobile', 'Tech', 'Technology', 'Smartphones', 'Blog'] |
An Overweight Mother With Pre-Diabetes Has Just SHOCKED The MEDICAL Community By Losing An Unheard Of 22lbs Pounds In Just 13 DAYS! | An Overweight Mother With Pre-Diabetes Has Just SHOCKED The MEDICAL Community By Losing An Unheard Of 22lbs Pounds In Just 13 DAYS! Alyssa May 25, 2020·4 min read
Her “Carb-Pairing” Trick Melted Away 22lbs in Just 13 Days
If you’re upset about your weight and want to lose a little more, get this. An overweight mother with pre-diabetes has just SHOCKED the medical community by losing an unheard of 22lbs pounds in just 13 days. Without starving herself, she lost a total of 37lbs in the first month. Even without exercising, she went on to burn off 84lbs (almost a pound a day)
and eliminated any sign of diabetes or any other life-ending diseases.
And the amazing thing is…
All she did was this D.I.Y. “carb-pairing” trick that reconditions your 3 female weight-loss hormones to drastically accelerate fat-burning while still eating the
foods you love.
Carb Trick She Dropped A Total Of 37lbs In The FIRST MONTH!
Odd carb trick burns up to 1LB per Day. If you’re like most folks… you diet, you count calories, you tear up the treadmill, and. Nothing. That’s how one overweight mother with prediabetes was feeling. She did “everything right” and never lost an inch. Until. She stumbled on this strange “carb trick” and burned away an unheard of 22lbs pounds in just 13 days. And because of this one simple shift in her eating, she did it without starving herself. and without a lick of exercise. Now get this... with the same carb trick she dropped a total of 37lbs in the FIRST month! and shocked her doctor by completely reversing ANY pre diabetic symptoms!
43-Year-Old Cousin Sara Ended Up Losing 19 Pounds Last Month!
D.I.Y. 10-Second Carb Ritual Strips Away Fat So my 43-year-old cousin Sara ended up losing 19 pounds last month. I know she’s tried EVERYTHING from counting calories, counting “points”, gym
memberships, pills...whatever she does, she loses 10lbs and then gains back 12lbs. But I was SHOCKED when I saw her this weekend....
Instead of gaining the weight back, she doubled her weight loss in the second month. She credits it all to this breakfast “Flavor-Pairing” trick. The weird thing is that it only works for women because it reconditions the 3 female fat-loss hormones to eliminate any possibility of storing fat. And best part is: Flavor-Pairing’s weight-loss-doubling response signals the rapid-release of fat deposits from your hips, legs and stomach by using the cards you crave the most. D.I.Y. 10-Second Flavor-Pairing Trick for Female Weight Loss.
HARVARD MEDICAL Weight-Loss Doubling Trick for Women!
Stop dieting and try this 1-step trick before bed to lose 6 pounds a week for 5 weeks straight like Kelli....
You could do it before breakfast like Carly and lose 84lbs. Or if you want to lose 2 dress sizes in the next 12 days, just make you do it at least once a day for 10 seconds...The only catch is that you have to be a woman over 20 years old with 15 or more pounds to lose for it to work.
Actually 21,748 “Flavor-Pairing” Success Stories Have Been Recorded Since August Of Last Year!
21,748 Women, 374,701lbs lost- This Changes EVERYTHING As I’m sure you know already. Almost 100% of diet and exercise programs don’t work. In fact, Stanford Medical puts the female weight loss failure rate at about 98%.But what about that 2% That tiny 2% of rapid, reliable and safe solutions that literally work for every single woman who try it. It turns out they all have one thing in common and it’s referred to as “Flavor-Pairing”.The frustrating part about this Female-Only ritual is. It’s been hiding in plain sight for centuries.... we’ve just been looking in all the
wrong places. It was only until dieting almost killed her, that one woman stumbled onto the secret that saved her life and transformed her body in record time.Instead of dieting, counting calories, popping pills and doing cardio. She began Flavor-Pairing her favorite foods and lost 84lbs in 6 months. Are you weight-loss resistant. Did diets stop working a long time ago. Want to join the 2% Club and lose the weight forever.
How One Woman Discovered the Female Fat-Loss Code Missed by Modern Medicine!
..And Lost 84lbs Using a Simple 2-Step Ritual That 100% Guarantees Shocking Daily Weight Loss… | https://medium.com/@udai.73637/an-overweight-mother-with-pre-diabetes-has-just-shocked-the-medical-community-by-losing-an-unheard-6373b17ff81 | [] | 2021-11-16 05:01:53.869000+00:00 | ['Diet', 'Weight Loss', 'Latest Weight Loss Tips', 'Weight Loss Program', 'Weight Loss Tips'] |
The Struggle Is Real | Photo by Xenia Bogarova on Unsplash
I knew winter was coming, but now winter is here, and I’m feeling it. I’m struggling with it, and it isn’t all fun.
But things have also been good. I pretty much decided to stop drinking around the beginning of October, went to one of the meetings and everything. And mid month it was my wife’s Birthday, so I had a glass of wine that night, and then on Halloween we had some friends over… and I resisted at first… but then caved… I didn’t go overboard, but I realized that both times, while I enjoyed it at the time, I really didn’t want to drink, so I had regret after.
There is a lot that I’m super grateful for right now, I set some clear goals last January, and I’ve seen some of them come to fruition for my year goals, Overall I’m happy with the progress. Where I’m struggling is the day to day discipline. Writing this blog, which I’m supposed to do every day. Producing podcasts, which I’m supposed to do at leas once a week, if not twice a week, stretching daily, writing, just being more efficient with how I conduct myself.
The past week and a half has been a roller coaster. I did an educational film shoot, but I biked to the train, and when I got home realized that I didn’t properly lock my bike because I was in a rush to catch the train to the Bronx for the shoot, so when I got home, I had to face the Brooklyn Street tax. I had a bunch of film and theatre auditions, and then went into a mini-depression because I didn’t hear anything back right away, then I got called back for a play that I really am excited about and got cast in a promo for a new app an actor is launching. The same day I filmed the promo I got invited to do a small role in a short film that a mutual friend is producing for his thesis, and the people and production were all quality, so I’m excited about that piece. And in my depression last week, I fell off of my martial arts training, so I got back on it this week, but on Monday, on my way home, biking through the rain, with a stop at the grocery store… I lost my keys!!!!
So it’s been a roller coaster, and not all of it has been fun, but there has been lots of insight. I attended the book club meeting at Jen Waldman Studios discussing the new Simon Sinek book, The Infinite Game, and the author himself showed up and shared insight specifically tailored to our group of theatre artists. And overall I guess what I’ve been thinking about recently is how important the small things are. Not to sweat them, but to improve them in the quest for the grand change we want to affect. As chaotic as things have been for me recently, by my fault and just by chance, because I’ve been being striving to be more organized, the mishaps haven’t been as detrimental because I do have a semblance of a plan, and some tools to navigate. Meaning I have some idea of where I want to go, and I know why I’m driving there, and because I decided to try sobriety, I’m becoming acutely aware of where I was probably hiding, more than I want to admit, behind drinking to not face those things I know I need to deal with.
“See I’m just like you, yeah I know I’m a mess. Take a minute to think, take an hour to dress. Got this pain in my neck, came from staring at stars. Can’t find the remote, drink and driving my car…. See I’m just like you, always pressed for my time, need a sec to unwind, nonstop’s I’ll I got. First they wants to fucks with you, ’cause you one of a kind. Then you can’t catch them on the line, shit went to cold from hot. Hollywood’s on their mind, all chasing it blind. Make sure that your shine’s the results of your grind, not just running some lines, with your gun in your ride. ’Cause out this shit I’m gon’ climb, cause it’s about that time.” -Shabaaz Palaces
https://youtu.be/yHaZhIkaHiE | https://medium.com/@bushwickvarietyshow/the-struggle-is-real-259e3ceb6fa | ['Bushwick Variety Show'] | 2019-11-21 16:20:00.669000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Sobriety', 'Progress', 'Self Improvement', 'Struggle'] |
How to become a graphic designer How To Learn Graphic Design | How to become a graphic designer How To Learn Graphic Design | Jobs , Salary Trend Go Jun 17·3 min read
Hello friends welcome to our website. In today’s post, we will know what is Graphic Design and how to learn Graphic Designer Kaise Bane, read the post till the end for complete information.
Friends, I have a question for you, are you serious about your career, if your answer is yes, then we have brought a good career option for you. This option is Graphic Design.
In today’s time unemployment has increased a lot in India. That’s why a lot of friends go out in search of government or private jobs to make their career good. But even after this some people do not get good career option.
Friends, if you people have passed your 12th class and you are looking for a good career, then friends Graphic Design can be a good career option for you.
In today’s time, there is a lot of demand for a Graphic Designer. If you guys are creative and have a little knowledge of computer then you can do Graphic Design.
You can also earn a lot of money by designing graphics. But for this you need to have complete knowledge about graphic design. So friends, now we know how to become a graphic designer and how to learn graphic design in Hindi.
Friends, Graphic means when you make a design of something and present it in front of the people and people are attracted to see that design, it is graphic design, let us understand in borrowing.
You people must have made a lot of project files in your school. So friends, when you people make the front page of the file, then how well do you design it. So that your teacher gets attracted by seeing the front page. Friends, this is called graphic design.
Let us understand in a little more borrowing. Friends, news paper must have come to your house, you people must have always seen in it that many companies or brands advertise their products.
So friends, making the design of the advertisement so that people can see it and get attracted, this is called graphic design. Friends, if you people still do not understand, then read the post till the end, we will give you complete information about graphic design so that you can understand well.
So friends, the process of making all these things like any Pamplet Design, Logo Design, Website Design, Flex Design, Painting etc. is called Graphic Design.
Graphic Design is also known as Communication Design because through this you can explain to any person what you want to say. Like Advertisement, Video Advertisement etc.
Big companies hire a graphic designer to advertise their product. The job of a graphic designer is a very good job. Salary is also very good. Let us now know how to become a graphic designer. | https://medium.com/@trendgo-in224/how-to-become-a-graphic-designer-how-to-learn-graphic-design-jobs-salary-cf0635ddc680 | ['Trend Go'] | 2021-06-17 20:39:58.522000+00:00 | ['Graphic Designer', 'Graphic Design', 'Graphics', 'Canvas', 'Graphic Design Company'] |
BREAKDOWN: The Importance of Acknowledging Regret+Self Reflection and Willingness for Help. | ~Speak your voice even if your words shake-Maggie Kuhn~
One thing I wish I knew before entering high school was to understand and establish my priorities. You may be shocked to hear this but no, there was not time in eighth grade where I decided that I would make the first semester of my freshman year the most dejected of my life. Crazy, right?
But for real, that introductory year was a confusing time. I was a hormonal see-saw trying to discover what it meant to be ‘adult’, make ‘adult decisions’ and what it meant to be independent. It was 4 months into that year when self harm, drugs and death appealed to me more than anything. Failing to carry through with attempted suicide at the time was one of my biggest regrets.
I remember staring at that scar day in and out thinking that that wound could have brought me to a new place I once thought would be ethereal, and how disappointed I was that despite the pain I felt, I couldn’t muster up the guts to take another go.
And while I managed to finish up my first year of my freshman year with an adequate academic record and a mental threshold vast enough to keep myself alive, things still felt abnormal. I felt confused in simple circumstances, overthought what my future would hold, and rued things I now realize were not worth obsessing over.
Conscious regret is far different from ignorant regret. I cannot emphasize how many times I have told psychiatrists, therapists, friends, teachers or other acquaintances snippets or broad narratives of my struggles or how I felt just because I knew that it’s what they want to hear. Despite me being aware of my opportunity for help, ignorance and effortless responses to those trying to help only prolonged the higher issue in my mental struggle.
Conversely, awareness of my regrets helped me begin to exit my shell as such an anxious, depressed and rocky individual. With all this being said, I would one thousand percent be calling myself a hypocrite if I were to say that all these obstacles I have faced overtime have completely dissipated. Truth is, I question a lot of things about myself to this day. My happiness, well being, past thoughts and decisions, and things I once thought I could cope with.
The one thing I can say I have improved on slightly is how to important it is to speak up, nurture, and take care of yourself before you can spread it around to others. Once again, I realize that the things I preach are things I have not downright perfected myself; However, in this case, I have learned to understand how genuinely important it is to practice self-reflection, understand who you are, and be outright honest to yourself and others.
I can’t demand you to speak to someone and expect you to listen to me like I’m some mental dictator, but what I can do is lend perspective in understanding that these mental blocks you find yourself locked between can be at least loosened with some self-reminiscence and simple discussion. Even though it seems like such an abstract concept, mustering up effort to get help took me ages. One of my biggest regrets is not accepting professional help because I felt I would burden the workers with my struggles.
Seeing it initially as a traumatic and confusing idea, I find it almost funny to this date. These people were at my disposal to help me, yet I refused to work with them despite the things I was going through? It’s almost like breaking a leg and refusing to call an ambulance because you don’t want to ‘burden the workers.’
Regardless of the person to which this pertains: classifying your regrets, mustering up interest in help and speaking on the matter are honestly my mic drop, last words that made up the baseline of my recovery. Though I still have many strides to reach, the things I say now, are things I mean and do not regret. | https://medium.com/@isleat/breakdown-the-importance-of-acknowledging-regret-self-reflection-and-willingness-for-help-f98e733ab70e | ['Ian Sleat'] | 2020-07-12 12:01:00.964000+00:00 | ['Helping Others', 'Guidance', 'Speak Up', 'Mental Health'] |
How To Make Money: Intro | By Richard Reis
Hello dear,
Today, I’m excited to begin our “Making Money” series!
Simply put, we’ll talk about how to make more money.
“What classes should I take in college?”
“Should I even go to college?”
“How do I get a job?”
“How do I write a cover letter/ resume?”
“What are others ways to make money?”
And so on.
These are questions I’ve either (a) asked myself or (b) heard before.
Chances are, so have you.
Finally, we’ll answer them!
Onward.
Why Talk About Making Money?
Some people might scoff at the thought of increasing income.
“This isn’t what you should value!” they say (I’ve seen them before on this very blog).
And to be honest I agree! Making money just for the sake of making money doesn’t fit my idea of “time well spent.”
Go back through my letters. You’ll find I talk a loooot about saving and investing money.
I did this for a good reason! Those two are the most important skills you need to live a life free from financial stress.
However, some people really live paycheck to paycheck (I put emphasis on the word really because most people use that as an excuse and still buy coffee at Starbucks, still commute to work, still get the latest gadgets, yada yada yada…).
Remember, the vast majority of people should focus on saving money.
But if you can’t save another cent? You should focus on making more money.
That’s it!
How Do You Make Money Anyways?
First, we need to agree on the same “money-making philosophy.”
This will be helpful for future letters. Also, it’ll assure people I won’t write about “get-rich-quick schemes.”
My philosophy is different. Here it is:
If you wish to make money, serve someone in a way they’d pay you for.
That’s it!
Sidenote: Emphasis on the words “pay you for.” Serving more people doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll make more money (I serve about 5,000+ people with this blog and don’t make any money from it).
Find something people are willing to pay for, and deliver it to them.
Once you do that, you can multiply the amount you make by increasing the amount of people.
Ahh… The beauty of Capitalism. The more you want, the more you have to give.
Here’s the catch: Serving more people also means more pressure.
Don’t take it from me. Take it from Evernote’s founder, Phil Libin:
“People have this vision of being the CEO of a company they started and being on top of the pyramid. Some people are motivated by that. But that’s not at all what it’s like. What it’s really like: everyone else is your boss — all of your employees, customers, partners, users, media, are your boss. I’ve never had more bosses and needed to account for more people today.” -Phil Libin
Yes, Phil Libin is a very wealthy man. But he also had to serve lots and lots of people.
Keep that in mind before you pick a way to make more money (we’ll talk more about this in a future letter).
Sidenote: For more glimpses into the hectic life of a company founder, follow Spanx’s founder, Sara Blakely, on Instagram. She’s laugh-out-loud hilarious, but she’s also one of the hardest working people I’ve ever seen.
Two Ways To Make Money
I’ll divide the next few letters into two different categories.
“Why?”
Because these two categories pretty much cover all the different ways in which you can make money.
Those two categories are: salaried work, and nonsalaried work.
Sidenote: I won’t talk about making money from investing in stocks. Simply because I spent the last 14 weeks doing so.
Salaried Work
This is the most common way of making money.
You work for someone, they pay you a predictable amount.
The amount is predictable because productivity is hard to measure. So whether you’re more productive or less productive any given month does not affect your income.
Sidenote: Of course, sometimes you are so productive you deserve a reward (like a raise or a bonus). But this rule varies a lot depending on the job.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb would classify this way of making money as a “Mediocristan” way.
I’ve talked about this before, but here’s a refresher:
“You can think of Mediocristan as the land where things are mundane, obvious and predictable. e.g.: If you have a normal job and make a normal income, you know that no singular event will suddenly make you rich. It will take years of saving and investing, day by day.”
Although the word sounds negative, there is nothing wrong with Mediocristan.
Why? Because remember you are only serving one person. Therefore it is (typically) much much less stressful than the alternative.
Nonsalaried Work
This way of making money is far less common.
Some people call this “side-hustle” if they have a job, and “entrepreneurship” if they don’t.
Here, it’s harder to predict how much money you’ll make each month (if you make anything at all).
Nassim Nicholas Taleb would classify this way of making money as an “Extremistan” way.
Here’s a reminder of what that is:
“You can think of Extremistan as the land where things are highly volatile, accidental, and unpredictable. This can be good or bad. e.g.: If you take all your savings and bet on Bitcoin, you can lose it all or become very rich in a single minute.”
Of course, since you depend on yourself, stress levels are usually much higher (Google “founder depression” to find countless articles on the subject).
“Why would anyone willingly subject themselves to this??”
There are many reasons.
Since we’re talking about finance, here’s the financial reason:
In this situation, productivity is more directly correlated with reward.
Let’s say you found something people want and started selling it to them. The more you sell, the more money you’ll make.
Therefore, how much money you make is only limited by how much you can sell (hence why founders are known to sleep very little and work very hard).
Sidenote: This does not mean you should start a business just to make money! That is a terrible idea. Remember it’s really hard work, and it kills your social life. We’ll talk about this more in detail in a later letter.
For now, that’s it for today!
Today, we kickstarted out “Making Money” series! Also, we learned:
Why we’re talking about making money.
How you make money (by serving others).
And the two categories of making money (salaried work and nonsalaried work).
See you next week (follow the series here to be notified).
Be well.
R
P.S.: Has anyone here tried Simple? I really love everything about this company, but I want to make sure others have had a great experience with them (before I switch completely).
P.P.S.: One of my first mentors was a man named Jerry Weintraub. Unfortunately, he passed away a few years ago. If he were alive, today would have marked his 80th birthday. If you’re looking for an incredibly inspiring book to read, check out Jerry’s autobiography “When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead.” If you’re more into documentaries, check out his documentary “His Way.” I guarantee you’ll be entertained. At the same time, you’ll learn a lot (which classifies as time well-spent!). Happy birthday Jerry. | https://medium.com/personal-finance-series-by-richard-reis/how-to-make-money-intro-2cd2cbe46866 | ['Richard Reis'] | 2020-11-11 06:57:37.666000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Life', 'Money', 'Finance'] |
Trump Obsessive Syndrome Appears to be Widespread | Satire/Humor
Trump Obsessive Syndrome Appears to be Widespread
Psychiatrists debate cutting edge therapies
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
When I woke up this morning, I expected my social media feed to be refreshingly free of Trump stories, memes, and one-liners.
I mean, the election is over, right?
So I was surprised to see no fewer than 56 articles with Trump in their headline.
Here are just a few of them:
Left suggests Rounding up Trump supporters and sending them to Siberia Trump supporters vow to form separate state Democrats express amazement that Trump supporters aren’t rioting and burning cities Writers vow to continue writing about Trump as long as they can find funny memes of him on Unsplash
These articles are just the tip of the iceberg. The sheer number of Trump stories one week post-election left me with two options. I could pull my comforter over my head and go back to sleep, hoping the whole thing would be over, or I could investigate this strange phenomenon.
Being the crack reporter that I am, I decided to investigate.
And this is what I discovered.
There is a new psychiatric disorder which is the polar opposite of Trump Derangement Syndrome. TDS, in case you didn’t know, is defined by Wikipedia as a term for criticism or negative reactions to Donald Trump that are perceived to be irrational.
The new disorder, according to the latest and most cutting-edge psychiatric journals, has been dubbed Trump Obsessive Syndrome. It is defined as an obsession, especially among writers, to focus constantly on Trump.
Writers who are victims of this disorder claim they can’t get Trump out of their minds. “It’s like something going round and round in my head,” one writer explained.
When they attempt to write about anything else, they aren’t passionate about it.
“I tried all day to write self-improvement listicles, and I kept seeing the orange man in my dreams. I finally had to give in to the urge and write about him.”
Another writer said, “Trump has provided me with my most successful material. I’ve been accepted to write Trump stories for Gen and Level and Forge, which is a degree of success I never thought to attain. If I stop writing about him, I’m back to self-publishing and getting three views on my stories.”
There is a certain degree of distress that appears to be synonymous with the syndrome. Writers worry that when Trump leaves the White House, they will have to become salespeople or form a failed startup instead of fulfilling their lifelong dream of being writers.
Psychologists are recommending extensive therapy.
“We start out by getting patients to focus on any color except orange,” one doctor explained. Purple and blue are preferable.”
Another doctor said his therapeutic approach involves focus groups. “We have entire sessions where no one is allowed to mention Trump. Every time someone slips up and says his name, they are required to sit in the center of the circle wearing a MAGA hat.
“We expect this syndrome to fade away eventually,” the doctor continued. “But we’re growing concerned. Trump has elicited such an unprecedented level of emotion that it is hard for people to give up those feelings.”
This might be the reason several writer’s groups have gone underground to form a Recount the Ballots initiative.
Members of this underground group insist on remaining anonymous, but their reasoning goes something like this: If we can reverse the results of this election, we are guaranteed to always have something to write about.
But there is hope on the horizon if therapy doesn’t work. Pharmaceutical companies are already racing to come up with a vaccine. | https://medium.com/muddyum/trump-obsessive-syndrome-appears-to-be-widespread-36dceed03e39 | ['Bebe Nicholson'] | 2020-11-10 16:39:37.952000+00:00 | ['Elections', 'Humor', 'Writing', 'Politics', 'Satire'] |
Creating a design identity for a leading distributed ledger services provider | The Genesis Block team was seeking a partner who could deliver a new website for them that reflected their ethos of combining the dependability, industry access, and regulatory expertise of providing distributed ledger services with the flexibility, speed, and customer-centricity of a startup.
We developed a distinctive brand identity for Genesis Block which could be applied to both digital and print media, and we worked closely with the client over the course of several iterations to deliver an identity that matched the client’s vision.
The branding and design that we developed have at its heart a polymorphic block — literally a “Genesis Block” — from which distinctive geometric shapes emerge, develop and metamorphose, each representing the services and capabilities that it offers to clients.
We knew that Genesis Block had built an expert advisory and knowledge-sharing network that brings together experts from across financial, strategic, technical, legal, and regulatory domains and to drive customer base expansion, and so we leveraged Webflow’s marketing and customer relationship management tools to ensure that their new site could be effectively managed and updated by the Genesis Block team to help maintain the network and develop new leads.
The Genesis Block rebranding helped to expand the business and company recognition on the industry scene along with bringing new opportunities to its team. | https://medium.com/evrone-en/creating-a-design-identity-for-a-leading-distributed-ledger-services-provider-db0ef66057e3 | [] | 2020-12-04 13:06:05.989000+00:00 | ['Branding Strategy', 'Branding', 'Identity', 'Design Process', 'Design Patterns'] |
Stranded On A Deserted Island • Part 1 | Fool that I am, I thought sailing the islands of French Polynesia by myself would be an awesome adventure. Which it was until the storm to rule all storms rolled in. Waves tossed my ship about like a bathtub toy. I resigned myself to certain death. Then after what seemed like days, the storm just stopped. But my ship was for all practical purposes destroyed. The rigging and mast were gone. The inboard motor wasn’t working. Nothing but the hull remained. I should have been killed. But as you might have realized, since I am telling this story, I survived. Although given my situation death might have been a mercy.
I had no idea where I was. Which didn’t matter much anyway, since I could only float helplessly wherever the ocean currents took me. I floated for four days, using up all my water and most of my food. Then it appeared. An island. What luck! Unfortunately, I was floating by it at a distance. I was forced to choose between staying aboard what would surely become my sea coffin, or abandoning ship and making a swim for the island. I swam like Michael Phelps going for the gold in the 200m freestyle at Beijing.
By the time I reached the beach, I was exhausted but relieved to be on land. I skipped the gold medal ceremony scheduled in my mind and started exploring the island. I knew I would need to find drinkable water to survive. I headed inland and after a couple of hours, I found a fresh-water pond. I drank eagerly. My thirst quenched, I started roaming the island. I saw a small hill and climbed it. I could see the entire island from my vantage point. It wasn’t very big. And appeared deserted.
I returned to the beach and began gathering rocks to create an SOS sign for any aircraft that might happen by. Once that task was complete, I began looking for suitable branches that I could fashion into spears for fishing. With food and water, I could survive long enough to, hopefully, be rescued. I was expected at the island of Opoa and hoped a rescue search would be mounted when I didn’t arrive. Between the hull of my ship and the SOS sign on the beach, I had two shots at being found.
I had managed to salvage a few supplies from the cabin of the ship before my swim to shore. A knife, a flashlight, a lighter, and a ten-pound emergency pack of beef jerky. I placed them in a small backpack before making the swim. Armed with those supplies, I set off on a hike around the island. Before long I found some old fire pits. Apparently, I wasn’t the first one to suffer this fate. I noted the location as a good place to set up camp.
Then I continued. Soon I made an incredible discovery. Apparently, the people previously stranded on this island were able to bring 10 record albums with them. Probably their favorites. I also found a solar-powered record player. Incredible. I didn’t know there was such a thing. And a good thing it was. The albums would be useless without it. I imagine they were so excited when they finally got rescued that they forgot about the albums and record player and left them behind.
As I was browsing through the albums — Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Linda Ronstadt, Aretha Franklin, Pink Floyd, The Partridge Family — I heard a slight rumble. I immediately started scanning the skies. Yes! An airplane! I started jumping up and down on the beach waving my arms. The pilot saw me, circled around and dipped his wings. Then he flew off into the distance. I was found and would be rescued!
There was nothing left to do except bust open the beef jerky and put on an album. I knew just the one. As I took my first bite of jerky the refrains of Come On Get Happy by The Partridge Family filled the air. | https://medium.com/mark-starlin-writes/stranded-on-a-deserted-island-349e79ff6e04 | ['Mark Starlin'] | 2018-10-29 03:45:18.963000+00:00 | ['Sailing', 'Adventure', 'Fiction', 'Serial Fiction', 'Humor'] |
“เอไอ” กุญแจสำคัญสู่การพัฒนาระบบ Supply Chain | AI in Supply Chain management
AI technology is critical in almost every industry, especially when business operators have good plans and when they… | https://medium.com/@sertiscorp/%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%AD%E0%B9%84%E0%B8%AD-%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%B8%E0%B8%8D%E0%B9%81%E0%B8%88%E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%B3%E0%B8%84%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%8D%E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%B9%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%9E%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%92%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B0%E0%B8%9A%E0%B8%9A-supply-chain-eed0b9aa4023 | [] | 2020-12-30 10:27:21.685000+00:00 | ['Supply Chain', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI', 'Future', 'Technology'] |
Don’t let the fear of errors stop you | When I started coding, I usually ignored reading the errors. It is mainly because of the abundant lines filled with letters in the terminal. Altogether, they look like a big mess, and they seem to be very difficult to comprehend. After a few weeks of continuously coding at Flatiron School, I realized that 99% of the time in coding is seeing those errors. Then, I know I should start to familiarize myself with them. To be completely honest, I don’t really like them. I see them as mundaneness that often makes me exhausted. Most of the time, I had to spend several hours just to fix an error. However, if I look at them more positively, the errors resemble as a passive instructor. Errors always have meaning, they give us hints to know the locations of our errors so we can find and fix them. I usually search on google to find a way to fix those errors by reading other people sharing on StackOverflow. Searching on Google does not always guarantee to give me the correct answer, but somehow I can still picturing 30–40% of what it is. And day by day, my ability to read errors has improved. Of course, the usefulness of those errors can never be compared to the real instructors’ guidance. Nevertheless, those errors will be one of my best friends in my coding life.
In this blog, I will show you some common errors that you often see when you learn to build a Rails application.
1. ActionController::RoutingError
When a user has requested a URL: “http://localhost:3000/dogs”, they get this error.
Our terminal would look like this:
Our browser would look like this:
The most possible reason is our application lacks the route for “/dogs”. To fix it, you should go to the application’s “config/routes.rb” file, and add the routes properly. Our “routes.rb” file should look like this to help you pass this error.
In this case, if the URL is “http://localhost:3000/dogs/:id” and you got the same error. You might forget to make the route for “/dogs/:id” in our routes.rb file. If you want to understand more about Rails Routes, come here.
2. ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound
When a user has requested a URL : “http://localhost:3000/dogs/10”, they get this error.
Terminal
Browser
This error is because our database doesn’t exist the dog with id = 10. There are several ways to check what dogs are in our database, but the easiest way is to go to our console to check. In the root directory of our application in the terminal, enter this command:
$ rails c
In our rails console, enter this command:
$ Dog.ids
It will show all the dog id that you have in our database, likes the above picture.
3. ActionController::UrlGenerationError
For example, our migration and controller for dogs look like the pictures above. When we try to create a new dog with the name that exists in my database, it will show us this error
Terminal
Browser
The error is because we set “unique” for our attribute “name” when we create the dogs table and model. It is not a worrying error since it follows our initial purpose to make the dog name unique. In this case, we should render the error to make it has a better display which a user can notice when they try to create the same name dog that we do not allow. Here is one of the solutions.
4. NoMethodError
In this case, our “config/routes.rb” file looks like below
When a user has requested a URL : “http://localhost:3000/dogs”, they get this error.
Terminal
Browser
Most errors name NoMethodError is because we haven’t defined that method anywhere in our application.
In this case, we don’t have “dog_path” method in our application. Why is that? It sounds weird because, as our experience, we didn’t see this error and the dog_path seems right since it likes the helper method URL for our dog show page.
It is because of other apps, we use “resources” in our routes.rb file. When we use “resources :dogs” instead of manually writing routes above, it will create automatical for us the URL helper path for index or show page as a conventional way. (likes dogs_path is the prefix of the dog index page, dog_path is the prefix of dog show page).
If you don’t want to use “resources :dogs”, another way is adding the prefix for our routes (like below):
By the 2 ways above, you successfully define “dog_path” method, so from now, you can use it anywhere you want.
5. NoMethodError: undefined method ‘[]’ for nil:NilClass
For example, we have 2 classes: Dog and Employee. Each employee has only one dog. Our employee model looks like the picture above. Usually, if we call “jim.dog” (jim is our employee instance), it will show us the dog object that Jim belongs to.
But when a user has requested a URL : “http://localhost:3000/employees/14”, they get this error. (14 is employee id of Jim)
Terminal
Browser
Why it can be like that? Our dog class has the attribute “name”. So why can it be undefined method “name”?
The reason here is somehow we already deleted the dog that Jim belongs to. So “jim.dog” will be “nil”. Then we cannot call method “name” for a nil class. That is really tricky but reasonable.
These are 5 common errors that everyone often encounters when working on a Rails application. I hope this blog can help you overcome the fear of errors like I did.
Happy coding! | https://chinguyen93.medium.com/dont-let-the-fear-of-errors-stop-you-aded1a18e15 | ['Chi Nguyen'] | 2020-12-17 00:45:59.465000+00:00 | ['Ruby on Rails', 'Error Rails', 'Error', 'Ruby', 'Restful Api'] |
How to Add Graphs and Charts to a React App | How to Add Graphs and Charts to a React App
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Business apps often display graphs and charts. The hard work of React developers has resulted in graphing libraries that make it easy to meet the requirements for displaying graphs and charts in apps. One popular graph display library is Chart.js, which can used in any JavaScript application. For React apps, we can use react-chartjs-2 , a React wrapper for Chart.js, to easily add graphs and charts to our application.
In this piece, we will build an app to display current and historical exchange rates. The current exchange rates against the Euro will be displayed in a bar graph and historic rates will be displayed in line graphs. The data is obtained from the Foreign Exchange Rates API located at https://exchangeratesapi.io/. It’s free and does not require registration to use. It also supports cross-domain requests, so it can be used by web client-side apps.
To start we run Create React App to create the scaffolding code. Run npx create-react-app exchange-rate-app to create the app. Next, we need to install our libraries: run npm i axios bootstrap chart.js formik react-bootstrap react-chartjs-2 react-router-dom yup to install the libraries. Axios is our HTTP client for making requests to the Exchange Rates API. Bootstrap is for styling, React ChartJS is our graph library. React Router is for routing URLs to our pages. Formik and Yup are for handling form value changes and form validation, respectively.
Now we have all the libraries installed, we can start writing code. Code is located in the src folder unless otherwise stated. In App.js , we replace the existing code with this:
import React from "react";
import { Router, Route, Link } from "react-router-dom";
import HomePage from "./HomePage";
import { createBrowserHistory as createHistory } from "history";
import "./App.css";
import TopBar from "./TopBar";
import HistoricRatesBetweenCurrenciesPage from "./HistoricRatesBetweenCurrenciesPage";
import HistoricRatesPage from "./HistoricRatesPage";
const history = createHistory(); function App() {
window.Chart.defaults.global.defaultFontFamily = `
-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", "Roboto", "Oxygen",
"Ubuntu", "Cantarell", "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue",
sans-serif`; return (
<div className="App">
<Router history={history}>
<TopBar />
<Route path="/" exact component={HomePage} />
<Route path="/historicrates" exact component={HistoricRatesPage} />
<Route
path="/historicrates2currencies"
exact
component={HistoricRatesBetweenCurrenciesPage}
/>
</Router>
</div>
);
} export default App;
We defined the routes with React Router here since it’s the entry point of our app. We also set the font for the graph here, so it will now be applied everywhere.
In App.css , we replace the existing code with this:
.center {
text-align: center;
}
This centers the text in our app.
We add a file to add the list of currencies that we will use. Create a file called export.js and add this code:
export const CURRENCIES = [
"CAD",
"HKD",
"ISK",
"PHP",
"DKK",
"HUF",
"CZK",
"AUD",
"RON",
"SEK",
"IDR",
"INR",
"BRL",
"RUB",
"HRK",
"JPY",
"THB",
"CHF",
"SGD",
"PLN",
"BGN",
"TRY",
"CNY",
"NOK",
"NZD",
"ZAR",
"USD",
"MXN",
"ILS",
"GBP",
"KRW",
"MYR",
];
Now we can use this in our components.
Next, we create a page to display the historical exchange rates between two currencies. Create a file called HistoricRatesBetweenCurrenciesPage.js and add the following:
import React, { useEffect, useState } from "react";
import { Formik } from "formik";
import Form from "react-bootstrap/Form";
import Col from "react-bootstrap/Col";
import Button from "react-bootstrap/Button";
import * as yup from "yup";
import {
getHistoricRates,
getHistoricRatesBetweenCurrencies,
} from "./requests";
import { Line } from "react-chartjs-2";
import { CURRENCIES } from "./exports"; const schema = yup.object({
startDate: yup
.string()
.required("Start date is required")
.matches(/([12]\d{3}-(0[1-9]|1[0-2])-(0[1-9]|[12]\d|3[01]))/),
endDate: yup
.string()
.required("End date is required")
.matches(/([12]\d{3}-(0[1-9]|1[0-2])-(0[1-9]|[12]\d|3[01]))/),
fromCurrency: yup.string().required("From currency is required"),
toCurrency: yup.string().required("To currency is required"),
}); function HistoricRatesBetweenCurrenciesPage() {
const [data, setData] = useState({}); const handleSubmit = async evt => {
const isValid = await schema.validate(evt);
if (!isValid) {
return;
}
const params = {
start_at: evt.startDate,
end_at: evt.endDate,
base: evt.fromCurrency,
symbols: evt.toCurrency,
};
const response = await getHistoricRatesBetweenCurrencies(params);
const rates = response.data.rates;
const lineGraphData = {
labels: Object.keys(rates),
datasets: [
{
data: Object.keys(rates).map(key => rates[key][evt.toCurrency]),
label: `${evt.fromCurrency} to ${evt.toCurrency}`,
borderColor: "#3e95cd",
fill: false,
},
],
};
setData(lineGraphData);
}; return (
<div className="historic-rates-page">
<h1 className="center">Historic Rates</h1>
<Formik validationSchema={schema} onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
{({
handleSubmit,
handleChange,
handleBlur,
values,
touched,
isInvalid,
errors,
}) => (
<Form noValidate onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
<Form.Row>
<Form.Group as={Col} md="12" controlId="startDate">
<Form.Label>Start Date</Form.Label>
<Form.Control
type="text"
name="startDate"
placeholder="YYYY-MM-DD"
value={values.startDate || ""}
onChange={handleChange}
isInvalid={touched.startDate && errors.startDate}
/>
<Form.Control.Feedback type="invalid">
{errors.startDate}
</Form.Control.Feedback>
</Form.Group> <Form.Group as={Col} md="12" controlId="endDate">
<Form.Label>End Date</Form.Label>
<Form.Control
type="text"
name="endDate"
placeholder="YYYY-MM-DD"
value={values.endDate || ""}
onChange={handleChange}
isInvalid={touched.endDate && errors.endDate}
/>
<Form.Control.Feedback type="invalid">
{errors.endDate}
</Form.Control.Feedback>
</Form.Group> <Form.Group as={Col} md="12" controlId="fromCurrency">
<Form.Label>From Currency</Form.Label>
<Form.Control
as="select"
placeholder="From Currency"
name="fromCurrency"
onChange={handleChange}
value={values.fromCurrency || ""}
isInvalid={touched.fromCurrency && errors.fromCurrency}
>
<option>Select</option>
{CURRENCIES.filter(c => c != values.toCurrency).map(c => (
<option key={c} value={c}>
{c}
</option>
))}
</Form.Control>
<Form.Control.Feedback type="invalid">
{errors.fromCurrency}
</Form.Control.Feedback>
</Form.Group> <Form.Group as={Col} md="12" controlId="currency">
<Form.Label>To Currency</Form.Label>
<Form.Control
as="select"
placeholder="To Currency"
name="toCurrency"
onChange={handleChange}
value={values.toCurrency || ""}
isInvalid={touched.toCurrency && errors.toCurrency}
>
<option>Select</option>
{CURRENCIES.filter(c => c != values.fromCurrency).map(c => (
<option key={c} value={c}>
{c}
</option>
))}
</Form.Control>
<Form.Control.Feedback type="invalid">
{errors.toCurrency}
</Form.Control.Feedback>
</Form.Group>
</Form.Row>
<Button type="submit" style={{ marginRight: "10px" }}>
Search
</Button>
</Form>
)}
</Formik>
<br />
<div style={{ height: "400px", width: "90vw", margin: "0 auto" }}>
<Line data={data} />
</div>
</div>
);
} export default HistoricRatesBetweenCurrenciesPage;
The page has a form to let users enter the date range for the historical rates they want and the currency that they are converting. Once the user enters the data, it’s validated against our form validation schema in the schema object, provided by the Yup library. We require the dates to be in YYYY-MM-DD format and all fields are required, so they’re checked against the schema for validity.
We filter out the currency that has been selected for the forCurrency from the choices of the toCurrency and vice versa so we won’t end up with the same currency for both dropdowns.
When the form submission is done we submit the data to the API and get the rates. We have to massage the data into a format that can be used by react-chartjs-2 , so we define the lineGraphData object with a datasets property to be an array of historical exchanges rates. label is the title of the line chart, borderColor is the border color of the line, and fill false means that we do not fill in the line with color. Once we set that with the setData(lineGraphData); function call, the graph is displayed.
Next, we create a page to search for historical exchange rates with the Euro as the base currency. To do this, we add a file called HistoricRatePage.js , and add this:
import React, { useEffect, useState } from "react";
import { Formik } from "formik";
import Form from "react-bootstrap/Form";
import Col from "react-bootstrap/Col";
import Button from "react-bootstrap/Button";
import * as yup from "yup";
import "./HistoricRatesPage.css";
import { getHistoricRates } from "./requests";
import { Line } from "react-chartjs-2";
import { CURRENCIES } from "./exports"; const schema = yup.object({
startDate: yup
.string()
.required("Start date is required")
.matches(/([12]\d{3}-(0[1-9]|1[0-2])-(0[1-9]|[12]\d|3[01]))/),
endDate: yup
.string()
.required("End date is required")
.matches(/([12]\d{3}-(0[1-9]|1[0-2])-(0[1-9]|[12]\d|3[01]))/),
currency: yup.string().required("Currency is required"),
}); function HistoricRatesPage() {
const [data, setData] = useState({}); const handleSubmit = async evt => {
const isValid = await schema.validate(evt);
if (!isValid) {
return;
}
const params = {
start_at: evt.startDate,
end_at: evt.endDate,
};
const response = await getHistoricRates(params);
const rates = response.data.rates;
const lineGraphData = {
labels: Object.keys(rates),
datasets: [
{
data: Object.keys(rates).map(key => rates[key][evt.currency]),
label: `EUR to ${evt.currency}`,
borderColor: "#3e95cd",
fill: false,
},
],
};
setData(lineGraphData);
}; return (
<div className="historic-rates-page">
<h1 className="center">Historic Rates</h1>
<Formik validationSchema={schema} onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
{({
handleSubmit,
handleChange,
handleBlur,
values,
touched,
isInvalid,
errors,
}) => (
<Form noValidate onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
<Form.Row>
<Form.Group as={Col} md="12" controlId="startDate">
<Form.Label>Start Date</Form.Label>
<Form.Control
type="text"
name="startDate"
placeholder="YYYY-MM-DD"
value={values.startDate || ""}
onChange={handleChange}
isInvalid={touched.startDate && errors.startDate}
/>
<Form.Control.Feedback type="invalid">
{errors.startDate}
</Form.Control.Feedback>
</Form.Group> <Form.Group as={Col} md="12" controlId="endDate">
<Form.Label>End Date</Form.Label>
<Form.Control
type="text"
name="endDate"
placeholder="YYYY-MM-DD"
value={values.endDate || ""}
onChange={handleChange}
isInvalid={touched.endDate && errors.endDate}
/>
<Form.Control.Feedback type="invalid">
{errors.endDate}
</Form.Control.Feedback>
</Form.Group> <Form.Group as={Col} md="12" controlId="currency">
<Form.Label>Currency</Form.Label>
<Form.Control
as="select"
placeholder="Currency"
name="currency"
onChange={handleChange}
value={values.currency || ""}
isInvalid={touched.currency && errors.currency}
>
<option>Select</option>
{CURRENCIES.map(c => (
<option key={c} value={c}>
{c}
</option>
))}
</Form.Control>
<Form.Control.Feedback type="invalid">
{errors.country}
</Form.Control.Feedback>
</Form.Group>
</Form.Row>
<Button type="submit" style={{ marginRight: "10px" }}>
Search
</Button>
</Form>
)}
</Formik>
<br />
<div style={{ height: "400px", width: "90vw", margin: "0 auto" }}>
<Line data={data} />
</div>
</div>
);
} export default HistoricRatesPage;
It’s similar to the previous page, except that we only choose the currency to convert to to display since the currency to convert from is always Euro. Once again we have a lineGraphData , with the datasets being an array and within it, data is an array of historical exchange rates. label is the title of the chart. borderColor and fill are the same as the previous graph.
Both forms are created by React Bootstrap form components. The Form components correspond to the regular Bootstrap 4 components.
Then we create HistoricalRatesPage.css and put the following:
.historic-rates-page {
margin: 0 auto;
width: 90vw;
}
This adds some margins to our page.
Next, we create our home page. Create a file called HomePage.js and add the following:
import React, { useEffect, useState } from "react";
import Card from "react-bootstrap/Card";
import { getExchangeRate } from "./requests";
import "./HomePage.css";
import { Bar } from "react-chartjs-2"; function HomePage() {
const [rates, setRates] = useState({});
const [initialized, setInitialized] = useState(false);
const [date, setDate] = useState("");
const [base, setBase] = useState("");
const [chartData, setChartData] = useState({}); const getRates = async () => {
const response = await getExchangeRate();
const { base, date, rates } = response.data;
setRates(rates);
setDate(date);
setBase(base);
const filteredRates = Object.keys(rates).filter(key => rates[key] < 50);
const data = {
labels: filteredRates,
datasets: [
{
backgroundColor: "green",
data: filteredRates.map(key => rates[key]),
},
],
};
setChartData(data);
setInitialized(true);
}; useEffect(() => {
if (!initialized) {
getRates();
}
});
const options = {
maintainAspectRatio: false,
legend: { display: false },
scales: {
yAxes: [{ ticks: { beginAtZero: true } }],
},
title: {
display: true,
text: "EUR Exchanges Rates",
},
}; return (
<div className="home-page">
<h1 className="center">Rates as of {date}</h1>
<br />
<div style={{ height: "400px", width: "90vw", margin: "0 auto" }}>
<Bar data={chartData} options={options} />
</div>
<br />
{Object.keys(rates).map(key => {
return (
<Card style={{ width: "90vw", margin: "0 auto" }}>
<Card.Body>
<Card.Title>
{base} : {key}
</Card.Title>
<Card.Text>{rates[key]}</Card.Text>
</Card.Body>
</Card>
);
})}
</div>
);
} export default HomePage;
In this page, we display the list of current exchange rates from the API. We make a data object, with the currency symbols as the labels , and we also have a datasets property — an array of objects with data in the object being the current exchange rates. Also, we display the exchange rates in Bootstrap cards, provided by React Boostrap.
For styling this page, we create HomePage.css and add the following:
.home-page {
margin: 0 auto;
}
This gives us some margins on our page.
Next, we create a file to let us make the requests to the Foreign Exchange Rates API. Create a file called requests.js and add the following:
const axios = require("axios");
const querystring = require("querystring"); const APIURL = " https://api.exchangeratesapi.io ";const axios = require("axios");const querystring = require("querystring"); export const getExchangeRate = () => {
return axios.get(`${APIURL}/latest`);
}; export const getRateBetweenCurrencies = data =>
axios.get(`${APIURL}/history?${querystring.encode(data)}`); export const getHistoricRates = data =>
axios.get(`${APIURL}/history?${querystring.encode(data)}`); export const getHistoricRatesBetweenCurrencies = data =>
axios.get(`${APIURL}/history?${querystring.encode(data)}`);
This will get the exchange rates the way we want them, with requests to get the latest rates and historical rates, with or without specifying currency symbols for the base currency and currency to convert to.
Next, we create the top bar. Create a file called TopBar.js and add the following code:
import React from "react";
import Navbar from "react-bootstrap/Navbar";
import Nav from "react-bootstrap/Nav";
import { withRouter } from "react-router-dom"; function TopBar({ location }) {
const { pathname } = location; return (
<Navbar bg="primary" expand="lg" variant="dark">
<Navbar.Brand href="#home">Currenc Converter App</Navbar.Brand>
<Navbar.Toggle aria-controls="basic-navbar-nav" />
<Navbar.Collapse id="basic-navbar-nav">
<Nav className="mr-auto">
<Nav.Link href="/" active={pathname == "/"}>
Home
</Nav.Link>
<Nav.Link
href="/historicrates"
active={pathname.includes("/historicrates")}
>
Historic Rates
</Nav.Link>
<Nav.Link
href="/historicrates2currencies"
active={pathname.includes("/historicrates2currencies")}
>
Historic Rates Between 2 Currencies
</Nav.Link>
</Nav>
</Navbar.Collapse>
</Navbar>
);
} export default withRouter(TopBar);
This adds the navigation bar provided by Bootstrap to our pages and a link to the pages we created before. It also adds highlights for the link on the currently opened page. We wrap the component with the withRouter function, so we can get the currently opened route to let us highlight the links.
Finally, we replace the code in index.html with this:
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="%PUBLIC_URL%/favicon.ico" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />
<meta name="theme-color" content="#000000" />
<meta
name="description"
content="Web site created using create-react-app"
/>
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="logo192.png" />
<!--
manifest.json provides metadata used when your web app is installed on a
user's mobile device or desktop. See
-->
<link rel="manifest" href="%PUBLIC_URL%/manifest.json" />
<!--
Notice the use of %PUBLIC_URL% in the tags above.
It will be replaced with the URL of the `public` folder during the build.
Only files inside the `public` folder can be referenced from the HTML.
work correctly both with client-side routing and a non-root public URL.
Learn how to configure a non-root public URL by running `npm run build`.
-->
<title>React Currency App</title>
<link
rel="stylesheet"
href="
integrity="sha384-ggOyR0iXCbMQv3Xipma34MD+dH/1fQ784/j6cY/iJTQUOhcWr7x9JvoRxT2MZw1T"
crossorigin="anonymous"
/>
</head>
<body>
<noscript>You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.</noscript>
<div id="root"></div>
<!--
This HTML file is a template.
If you open it directly in the browser, you will see an empty page. Unlike "/favicon.ico" or "favicon.ico", "%PUBLIC_URL%/favicon.ico" willwork correctly both with client-side routing and a non-root public URL.Learn how to configure a non-root public URL by running `npm run build`.--> React Currency App https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.3.1/css/bootstrap.min.css integrity="sha384-ggOyR0iXCbMQv3Xipma34MD+dH/1fQ784/j6cY/iJTQUOhcWr7x9JvoRxT2MZw1T"crossorigin="anonymous"/> You need to enable JavaScript to run this app. You can add webfonts, meta tags, or analytics to this file.
The build step will place the bundled scripts into the <body> tag. To begin the development, run `npm start` or `yarn start`.
To create a production bundle, use `npm run build` or `yarn build`.
-->
</body>
</html>
This is so we get some Bootstrap styles and can change the title of the app. We replaced the title tag with our own and add the following between the head tags:
Source code: https://bitbucket.org/hauyeung/react-chart-tutorial-app/src/master/ | https://betterprogramming.pub/how-to-add-graphs-and-charts-to-a-react-app-339ed2dc4c05 | ['John Au-Yeung'] | 2019-09-19 17:19:37.773000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Programming', 'Graph', 'Charts', 'React'] |
Teasing Myself this Way | I lower the zipper, step out of my black skirt, and admire the way my black lace panties hug my pussy. Steam begins to cloud the mirror as the shower heats up. Hot water caresses my face and body, cascading down my breasts and legs. My slippery hands wander to my nipples, and I slowly knead and twist them, sending waves of pleasure down to my swollen clit. I am pinching my nipples now with more strength, squeezing my thighs together unconsciously.
I slip one finger between my labia and confirm its wetness. My finger rubs back and forth slowly along my slit. I am teasing myself the way my body loves. I slowly grind my hips, and I feel the familiar heat of my sex. I allow the hot stream of water from the shower head tease my nipples and clit. Using a soapy washcloth, I roughly scrub my nipples and wash my pussy.
After I towel dry, I walk over to my bed and roll onto my back. I am uncovered and exposed. My knees are up, and my legs are spread apart, vulnerable. Squeezing my nipples, I give them a twist, enjoying the sensations it brings to my pussy. I keep my body guessing by alternating gentle and rough stimulation. After awhile, I dip two fingers into the folds of my dripping slit, and with a generous amount of juice, I touch my erect, aching nipples. I raise my fingers to my lips and lick my sweetness, swirling my tongue around each finger.
My breath quickens as I feel the familiar fire within me. My pussy is throbbing, and I now slowly trail my fingers along my inner thighs, inching slowly towards my clit. I tease along each side of my pussy lips, slowly spreading my juices across my vulva. I follow the wet trail into the crack of my ass, allowing my finger to rest on my opening. I tease it gently with slight pressure, causing my juices to seep into my ass.
I circle back to my slit and can feel the wet spot on my sheet where my juices have pooled. I bring my fingers forward, and teasingly spread my lips apart, dipping a finger in. I can smell my soaking pussy as I finger myself and think about how badly I want to cum.
I can no longer take the teasing, the tugging of my hard nipples, combined with the stroking of my swollen lips. I plunge two fingers deep into my pussy and finally release a deep moan of pleasure. My fingers are smothered in my juices and poised to rub my engorged clit. With several slow and deliberate thrusts, my pussy clamps around my fingers, and I slowly rub circles around my clit until I cannot help but moan and writhe. My skin warms and flushes, my breathing becomes more ragged. Each stroke delivers jolts of pleasure to my core. I am rolling my hips and lifting them from the wet sheet below me. I am yearning for that release. My breath quickens, and my heart is pounding in my chest.
I stoke and stroke as I near the precipice, and then I stop. I suck in my breath and hold it. My hands no longer in contact with my pussy, I fuck the air as I search for that final contact, the one that makes me cum. My body quakes. My body trembles. I am so vulnerable, and I allow my lust to overwhelm me. My breathing slows as I descend. | https://medium.com/@amusinglovers/teasing-myself-this-way-2de0ea67a8e3 | [] | 2020-12-22 02:47:29.748000+00:00 | ['Masturbation', 'Erotica'] |
A better segmented control | A few years ago, we built a segmented control component for the Lyft Product Language (LPL) design system. You may have read our guide to designing and using selection controls. However, when we recently looked at our component adoption and usage metrics, we found very few teams actually used our segmented control when building products and features 😔.
Our rule of thumb is that at least two products or features need to use a component for it to belong in the system. Product and feature-specific components live in their own, child libraries which inherit attributes from LPL. Segmented control was dangerously close to getting booted from the system. Luckily, we decided to take a closer look at the root of the problem — and ended up improving our entire ecosystem of selection controls. Here is that story.
Problem definition
We started from first principles and asked “what the heck is a segmented control anyway?” Apple says they’re a “linear set of two or more segments, each of which functions as a mutually exclusive button.” They think it’s ok to use segmented controls to navigate between different views. Google disagrees about using segmented controls for navigation and says it’s ok to select multiple segments sometimes — unlike Apple. Google also doesn’t think segmented controls are selection controls at all 😐.
When designing an interusable design system with rules that apply across iOS, Android, and Web interfaces, contradictory platform guidelines like these make it tricky to know which conventions will be the most familiar to users across all devices.
When we first built our segmented control component in LPL, we didn’t necessarily consider this convention confusion. We optimized for internal consistency — choosing to match the visual style of our pill-like toggle buttons.
Previous selection controls
In theory, we thought it might be likely for toggle buttons and segmented controls to appear frequently in the same contexts since they were functionally analogous to checkboxes and radio buttons. In practice, however, feature designers and engineers took matters into their own hands and created all sorts of permutations of custom segmented controls. When we audited our products, we found 14 distinct segmented control components across 10 different products. Obviously, our existing component didn’t meet the needs of our system users. We didn’t need to remove segmented control from the system, we needed a better segmented control.
A different segmented control for every occasion
Upon closer inspection, we saw the custom permutations differed from the system segmented control in one of two ways:
Stylistic differences: Controls with different selection and background colors, container shapes, and/or text styles from the existing component. Semantic differences: Controls used for navigation or filtering content (like Apple allows) instead of selection as intended.
Tackling one problem at a time
The first bucket of stylistic discrepancies was relatively straightforward to address. We redesigned the control to be less similar to its pill-like cousin, toggle button, and more similar to our visually lightweight input fields instead.
New, lightweight, segmented control styles
One of the big reasons product and feature teams created their own components was because ours wasn’t flexible enough to adapt to a wide variety of use cases. So we also introduced 3 new stylistic variants of the component:
Text with detail text — for when the extra information helps users better understand the options and make decisions
— for when the extra information helps users better understand the options and make decisions Icon — only for when there is enough context for each icon option to convey meaning and not when short text would suffice.
— only for when there is enough context for each icon option to convey meaning and not when short text would suffice. Primary text — for when the segmented control is the only or primary action on the screen.
To close the loop and encourage adoption, we replaced the custom components in all of the screens we collected during our audit and showed off the new variants in situ. Just like it’s better to use real copy and data over auto-generated Lorem Ipsum, we found it more effective to use real screen designs to stress test our component.
Variants in situ
For the semantic discrepancies, meanwhile, we looked across other systems… and found more discrepancies 🤦♀️. For starters, there is no consensus on what to name this pattern. In addition to segmented control, we’ve seen it called a button group, toggle buttons, radio bar, or content switch in different systems. And for each new name, there is a slightly different usage guideline. Turns out, this isn’t just a platform convention problem, it’s a meta-problem across all design systems. It’s no wonder that we saw so many different custom implementations of it across our feature teams!
Needless to say, tackling inter-system consistency problems was well beyond the scope of this project. So instead, we focused on making our own system as clear and internally consistent as possible. We created a new component in the system (Tabs!) to handle the filtering and navigation use cases and we updated our decision trees along with component definitions to make the new distinction clear. To further reinforce the semantic difference between segmented controls and tabs, we made the selection states, container shapes, and motion guidelines different between the two.
Clear and internally consistent differences
Our previous definition for segmented control borrowed heavily from Apple’s which literally states what the component is. But the “what” doesn’t help designers make decisions. Now, we emphasize the “why” and the “how”: | https://medium.com/tap-to-dismiss/a-better-segmented-control-9e662de2ef57 | ['Runi Goswami'] | 2021-05-18 15:09:16.083000+00:00 | ['Design Systems', 'Design Process', 'Growth Mindset', 'Design Thinking', 'Material Design'] |
Digital minimalism: keeping your lockdown-desk tidy | Digital minimalism: keeping your lockdown-desk tidy
Hard drive manufacturers will hate this simple change but your concentration and a stress-free day working from home starts with the decluttered heap of files on your computer. Yaiza Narganez Gomez Dec 25, 2020·3 min read
Most of us would never leave our workplace desks in an overflowing mess, let alone work day after day in a chaotic environment. A clean and orderly workplace ensures that we feel calmer and ready to tackle the day and it’s challenges.
How come we let ourselves go when it’s about digital files instead of real paper ones?
Is this a typical view for you ? Behold this article that will save your digital sanity !
Hoarding on our devices
The human being is a hoarder by nature, we keep our stuff as long as possible in the case of a tragic or fateful event where we might need said stuff. It’s about survival, having our needs met at any time because that’s what how we survive better than other species. Our long-term risk and possibility thinking defines our everyday actions.
This has grown into a digital clutter with our computerized everyday lives.
As much as we hate the cluttered home of our Aunt Theresa and her 56 porcelain tea-cups and 17 throw blankets, (who even needs that many blankets in California?), we unknowingly hoard too. Our computers and phones are filled to the brim with receipts, documents, blurry pictures and bookmarks we’ll never read.
What if we need that super specific article that we read 3 years ago for work one day? Or those 52 pictures of a nice sunset in Spain for your next meeting powerpoint?
The abundance of stuff, chaos and information makes it harder for us to focus on the task at hand, find the useful information we really need and makes working on our computers from home almost overwhelming.
That’s why your productivity is higher at the workplace, because that computer is empty and doesn’t ring bells of distractions at every file click.
The solution? Trust me, it’s not buying more external hard drives.
A common sight: a pile of full hard drives that will stay in a dusty closet for years.
Getting rid of useless files
Tackling a cluttered home always seems logical, something you have to do because you live in that place every day. However, with all of our daily time spent on computers and phones, we would’ve thought better than just hiding countless files in folders and subfolders.
But with a pandemic going on, our workplaces closed and our personal computers and phones becoming our digital homes, this will make your life much easier.
Decluttering your digital life is a process that takes time, energy and some motivation. So put your favorite music on, get yourself comfortable behind your device with a cup of tea and get scrolling.
Let’s start together
• Tackle your devices step-by-step, begin with your receipts first: toss away all those you don’t need anymore and reorder the ones that survived.
• Sorting out your vacation pictures might be the next step, indulge on laughing through some old memories again.
Getting started in decluttering your digital life is the hardest part, but you’ll be glad once you’re finished.
Decluttering a work-in-progress and might seem never-ending but don’t give up !
As much as we all hate working out at first, maintaining a good condition is far easier after a while. This is the same with decluttering, it will take some time but soon you’ll find yourself keeping your device super neatly ordened in just 5 minutes a day.
A clean mind in a clean workspace
Now take a breath and enjoy the free space on your device, the empty desktop and that beautiful wallpaper. You’re ready to get to your best work without any trouble!
Do you also want to declutter your digital life?
Take the #DigitalDeclutterChallenge ! | https://medium.com/@r0759192/digital-minimalism-keeping-your-lockdown-desk-tidy-9f4bf3f68d2 | ['Yaiza Narganez Gomez'] | 2020-12-25 21:57:05.598000+00:00 | ['Minimalism', 'Digitalhoarding', 'Digital Clutter', 'Digital Minimalism', 'Decluttering'] |
Women Of The C-Suite: Melissa Machat On The Five Things You Need To Succeed As A Senior Executive | Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I come from a theatre and dance background and moved to Las Vegas at 24 years old to audition for shows and got a job dealing blackjack in a downtown Casino while I was auditioning. After a few months I realized I wanted a “real job” and career and decided to get my real estate license in 2009 and quickly built my business not realizing that my work ethic and personality was perfect for sales.
I joined a coaching organization to help me grow my real estate business and was introduced to the world of mindset and personal development, and became obsessed with figuring out what was wrong with me or why things weren’t working the way I wanted to.
This led me to NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and all of the pieces started to connect, nothing was wrong with me and I wasn’t broken, I was out of alignment and in the wrong role. I knew this was my purpose, helping other entrepreneurs create a business that’s in alignment with who they are and help them grow and scale with ease.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
Leadership is a skill that you need to learn just like anything else in business and learning how to not take responsibility or take things personally is an ongoing process. The most interesting story or lesson is how to take ownership and responsibility, without blaming yourself. I believe in taking ownership and responsibility for everything within my business and I also took it personally that I must be a terrible leader and not know what I’m doing if we aren’t seeing results. If something isn’t working, it’s actually feedback and time to look at the bigger picture and figure out what the gap is or what is actually missing, instead of beating ourselves up and thinking it must be us.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Where do I start? I didn’t know real estate was commission only or that you run your own business as an independent contractor so I just showed up and was like what do I do now? I thought I had to wear a suit and straighten my hair to be taken seriously and be successful, and I basically dove head first into the deep end without realizing I didn’t know how to swim. With my consulting business I’d say the biggest mistake was thinking I had to have all of the answers or certifications before I could be taken seriously (common theme here), and the lesson in all of this is when I just went for it and showed up authentically, business came to me without having it all perfect. As far as funny stories go, I’ve tried getting into a home that wasn’t actually my listing (it was the house next door), recorded amazing videos realizing there was no sound, and pretended I didn’t have a full time job (the casino) so I told clients I was only available at 7am or 7pm on days I was working and they thought I was just really successful and busy!
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
I have always been known for authenticity, tenacity, and commitment to caring about my clients needs and putting them before my own. Knowing how to listen to a client and understand their goals and what they are trying to achieve is crucial if you want to know how to best serve them and help them get what they want.
In Real Estate I would compete against other agents for listings and sellers would interview 5–10 different people, and they would choose me because I actually cared about what they wanted and was willing to do whatever it took to get their home sold. With consulting, it’s the same attitude and really being able to understand your clients pain points so you can help them with a solution.
I help entrepreneurs with money blocks or there is something holding them back and they aren’t sure what it is. I’ve had multiple clients that had big goals and they kept falling short. By really taking the time to listen and understand their pain points I could see what was actually blocking them and help them uncover what was holding them back. After our sessions they were inspired to take action and left all the doubt and fear behind and made immediate changes to their business and started seeing results they originally didn’t think was possible.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Yes! I am creating a course about how to find your perfect assistant and taking all of the stress and overwhelm out of hiring. I’ve figured out a simple and effective method to attracting your ideal assistant and for anyone who feels like they’re drowning and knows they need help but the thought of slowing down to find someone is overwhelming, this will be a hands on group course that will walk you through the process so you feel confident in what to do and can get help ASAP!
What advice would you give to other female leaders to help their team to thrive?
Really understand your values and the mission of your company and find the right people who align with it. You can train and teach skills, you cannot train and teach your culture or personality. We spend so much time thinking we can change someone or teach them what to do, and then take it personally if nothing changes. Also understanding your team and their goals allows you to be a better leader and pour into them in a way that helps them thrive.
What advice would you give to other female leaders about the best way to manage a large team?
Have consistent check ins and run to conversations. If it’s a large team then your weekly check ins are with the other managers to keep a pulse on your business. I have my team fill out a small survey with questions every week with their attitude, mindset, challenges, and wins so I can quickly tell who needs help, if someone is in a funk, or what the pain points are.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I have had so many amazing mentors and coaches over the years and been to so many events it’s hard to narrow it down to one. What I’ve learned though is I need to be clear about what I’m trying to achieve and then figure out who has already done it so I can follow them. I’ve made a lot of mistakes following people who were successful, but it wasn’t the way I felt was right to build my own business and that led to years of feeling like it wasn’t working or feeling like a failure because their methods did not align with me.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I empower others to get back into alignment with themselves, and give them permission to build their business in a way that makes sense to them. This creates a ripple effect in their lives because transforming yourself will change the lives of those around you. I also want to help rescue as many animals as possible and contribute to different rescue organizations.
What are your “5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Experience” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)
Leadership is a skill and how much time are you spending learning to become a better leader. When I made my first hire and started my team, I did it the wrong way and didn’t understand why the business wasn’t growing or why results weren’t doubling. I thought the answer was I had to train more and stop what I was doing to help build the business and that’s a huge mistake. I learned a valuable lesson that the best leaders have a “I do it, We do it, They do it” mentality and you do not stop what you’re doing to teach, you have them shadow or follow you to learn until they can start doing it themselves. And if you are teaching something, record it so you can create your own training library to save time for anyone else who joins. Your job is to find the right people who are in alignment with your business, not drag someone and force them to show up or do their job. This might sound odd, but I don’t believe in accountability. If I have to ask where someone is, did they do their job that day, why didn’t they do their job, then that is NOT the right person. I used to take that personally that I just needed to be a better leader and more motivating, or I needed stronger accountability to force someone to show up and produce results. Leaders waste so much time trying to pull and drag underperformers up to minimum standards, when that actually affects the morale and culture and shows the top performers that they might be a better fit somewhere else. Communication, Standards, and Expectations is everything. I was taught that if you let someone go and they’re surprised, then it’s your fault as a leader. That also caused me to avoid firing and confrontation and I’d rather let someone stay than have a hard conversation. What I was missing was communication around standards and expectations which didn’t exist. If you are clear on the standards and expectations of the job, then it’s much easier to stay out of your emotions and look at the evidence if someone is performing or not. They also know if they are performing or not and it makes it a lot easier to part ways when they see for themselves that it’s not the right fit. Take ownership without blaming yourself. I thought taking ownership and responsibility meant that whether we are succeeding or losing and failing, it’s still 100% on me. Now I do believe great leaders take ownership and responsibility whether the outcome is good or bad, the difference is whether you are blaming yourself and beating yourself up instead of looking at the business and figuring out where the gaps or missing pieces are. I also took “lead by example” literally and when things weren’t working that must mean I’m not leading by example enough and maybe shouldn’t be doing this. When you hire the right team, magic happens and a lot of the headaches leaders face is by not realizing they might be missing key people around them. Hire before you are in pain and desperate. Good decisions usually don’t come when you are already drowning and need help. Have a clear vision on where your business is going and what the strategy is to make sure you get there. Who do you need to hire and who is missing that can help you achieve your goals? I believe you hire before you are drowning, and a great hire will always bring an ROI on their salary.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I would create a movement where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs remove their fear and doubt and go after what they want. By empowering them to get out of their own way and remove the negative self-talk, it’s an unlimited amount of possibilities that can be created and brought into the world when people have permission and confidence to create the life they always dreamed of.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
When you are in alignment you are inspired to take action and do not need accountability - this is my motto and biggest life lesson because it’s so easy to get stuck and not take action and then feel like there’s something wrong with us so we must not be motivated enough, disciplined enough, etc. When in reality if you are truly in alignment you are inspired to take action and make it happen, so if you say you’re going to do something and don’t follow through, there is something holding you back.
This is so relevant to my life because I was burned out with Real Estate, felt like I was stuck and things weren’t working, I knew what to do to increase sales yet I was self sabotaging and not doing it, and I really thought I just wasn’t meant to do this and clearly not good enough or smart enough to run a business. It took years for me to see that the message coming through was actually about not being in alignment in the first place and violating my own values and boundaries and what I really wanted my life to look like and I was following the wrong path. Everything in my life changed when I got clear about who I am, what I want, and what I need to do to make it happen my way.
Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)
Sara Blakely and all of the sharks and guest sharks on Shark Tank (Mark Cuban, Lori Greiner, Barbara Corcoran, Daymond John, Kevin O’Leary, Robert Herjavec, Bethany Frankel) . My dream is to be a shark and be able to invest and help businesses grow and I would love to spend time and learn from these incredible and inspiring entrepreneurs.
How can our readers connect with you on social media?
You can find me on instagram @melissamachat and YouTube http://bit.ly/RE-Align | https://medium.com/authority-magazine/melissa-machat-of-re-align-coaching-and-consulting-when-you-are-in-alignment-you-are-inspired-to-e83293698645 | ['Alexandra Spirer'] | 2020-12-21 20:44:56.596000+00:00 | ['Alignment', 'Consulting', 'Women In Business', 'Entrepreneur', 'Coaching'] |
The Myth of the Boiling Frog | How gradual change goes unnoticed until it’s far too late.
The idea goes like this: If you put a frog in boiling water, it will jump out. But if you put it in lukewarm water and gradually increase the temperature, it won’t notice and it will be cooked alive.
While this, of course, isn’t actually true, it paints a useful picture that feels far too familiar… And is rather disconcerting.
For it appears to be a common view — that the world around us is changing at an exponential rate — technologically, culturally, and politically.
As it seems to begin with scientific development (and rightly so), which then becomes technological innovation, which in turn affects us culturally, and finally leads to sudden political shifts, which would have been considered outrageous just barely a decade ago.
And, in fact, many of them were. Just as many more are today — at what seems to be an ever increasing pace.
But imagine this —have the so called ‘outrage’ or perhaps even ‘cancel’ culture been an inevitable, natural development?
If you’ve ever thought about the internet as a concept, then I expect your answer would be ‘yes’.
After all, neither the concepts of ‘outrage’, nor ‘cancelling’ are particularly new or unfamiliar to history, and yet, either they suddenly became popular, or we suddenly felt that the water is hot.
And if you break down what the internet actually is in simple terms — a method for near-instantaneous, world-wide communication that currently, more than half the human population is taking part in — you get your answer.
It’s both.
We were ‘suddenly’ given a platform to voice our thoughts, feelings, opinions, and analyses… And we could ‘suddenly’ see and hear everyone else’s, too.
But this, of course, wasn’t the case before the so-called ‘social media’ became prevalent… Which are what, exactly?
…An inevitable development of the internet, just as the internet is an inevitable development of computing.
And all of this was preceded by television and radio — except, you might say, that those methods of communication were not available for everyone to take part in… Perhaps you could be right.
…Except that, in reality, all that’s different about them is that the internet has simply become cheaper and more efficient at transmitting information.
After all, once you have a device and a connection, communication is practically free. The cost is in building and maintaining the infrastructure — not in sending the message.
As technology becomes more potent and efficient, it increases our capacity to develop more potent and efficient versions of itself.
And so, we end up witnessing the world pass us by, often without having time to think, say, or do anything about it.
It is almost as if the conditions for the development of an Artificial Super-intelligence were set in motion by the very development of human consciousness… Which, in turn, was set in motion by the very development of life on Earth.
And if that’s the case… Then what this means is that the idea of a technological singularity would also have been set in motion by those exact same events.
In other words, it is entirely possible that the path on which we are headed is, in fact, an inevitable consequence of evolution — that the ‘telos’ or ‘natural end’ of biological life is… Machine life.
Just as living beings are composed of things which are not ‘living’, and consciousness is composed of things which are not ‘conscious’, so would mechanical life be composed of things which are neither ‘mechanical’, nor ‘alive’. A human-machine symbiote… Which is precisely what humanity has always been — a monkey with a spear, a monkey with a gun.
A monkey with a screen, a monkey with the power of the sun.
And it is also to no surprise, that just as all previous methods of communication would regulate their content, and therefore censor what would jeopardise their broadcasting — so too would social media companies.
Except, that this time, nearly everyone is part of it, meaning that to censor is to exile — and to support is to sanction.
It is certainly the case that many of these companies already have enough power and influence that they could be listed as small nations. And at this point, there is nothing that can be done about it.
The water is already boiling hot.
What’s more, it is not that this ‘could not have been foreseen’ — it probably was by some — but rather, that it simply could not have been otherwise.
The very end goal of the internet is to digitize our lives… Entirely.
For if it can be digitized — it will be digitized. Since the advantages are overwhelming, and the disadvantages are sentimental at best — what will transpire is the complete digitization of the human mind.
And when it comes to our bodies, the same trend will continue as it always has — we will simply neglect them, until we finally leave them behind.
But there is nothing to lament here.
There is nothing lost, and nothing gained.
It is merely the nature of humanity emerging
in the shape of its own creation.
Some are beginning to realise where we are headed,
and in their panic ask us to turn back.
Others are staring far into a void,
and cynically dismissing the reality of our own condition.
But make no mistake —
it is a deeply human condition.
And if you ask at what point the water was too hot,
the answer is…
It was boiling much before we jumped into the pond. | https://medium.com/carre4/the-myth-of-the-boiling-frog-dc2e9427bd7b | ['Stan Daskalov'] | 2020-10-27 12:24:12.330000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Life', 'Psychology', 'Philosophy'] |
VALOREO, the Mexico-based acquirer of marketplace sellers, raises $50M USD in its seed round from globally leading e-commerce investors. | VALOREO, the Mexico-based acquirer of marketplace sellers, raises $50M USD in its seed round from globally leading e-commerce investors. Angel Ventures Mx Feb 16·6 min read
VALOREO raises one of the largest seed rounds in Latin America from selected globally leading investors in the e-commerce space, including Upper90, FJ Labs, Angel Ventures and Presight Capital, and prominent Latin American angel investors.
VALOREO is Latin America’s first e-commerce acquirer, headquartered in Mexico, and has already ramped up its operations as the first mover in the Latin American market. The company invests in, operates, and scales e-commerce businesses in the region.}
E-commerce merchants have the possibility to sell their businesses and see their brands reach new heights through VALOREO’s consolidated operations, infrastructure, and the team’s deep expertise across investing, e-commerce, branding, operations, and supply chain management.
Mexico City, 16 February 2021 — VALOREO (www.valoreo.com) acquires, operates, and scales e commerce businesses. A Mexican company with a focus on the Latin American market, VALOREO consolidates companies with outstanding brands that sell category-leading products online. VALOREO creates value by scaling these brands through merging operations and leveraging the firm’s deep expertise and sophisticated infrastructure. By doing so, VALOREO provides an attractive exit to the entrepreneurs behind these companies, who receive a lucrative compensation for the impressive brands they have built and the confidence that their companies are in great hands on their new journey of hyper-growth.
Over the last decade Mercado Libre and Amazon have created a unique ecosystem that allows a new generation of forward-thinking entrepreneurs across Latin America to create unique e commerce brands from scratch. However, these entrepreneurs currently lack both the resources to reach the next chapter of growth for their brands as well as access to liquidity to pursue new ventures.
At the same time, the Latin American e-commerce market is currently at an inflection point of exponential growth, having already been the fastest growing e-commerce market in the world in 2020 at 37% YoY growth (eMarketer, 2020). Mercado Libre, the leading e-commerce platform across Latin America, generated $5.9Bn USD Gross Merchandise Volume in Q3 2020 alone with a 117% YoY growth (Mercado Libre, 2020).
Besides the rapid growth, the market is much more fragmented compared to other regions, such as the US, due to the multitude of marketplaces present across Latin America and therefore provides a unique opportunity to facilitate a consolidation of the seller space and provide enhanced value to end-customers.
The founding team (consisting of Martin & Stefan Florea, Alexander Grüll, Cedrik Hoffmann, and Miguel Oehling) has known each other for many years and combine extensive experience in investing, e-commerce, operations, supply chain and company building — as well as a huge passion for Latin America and the entrepreneurial spirit of the region. Having seen first-hand the challenges of scaling small businesses, their mission is clear: Help Latin American e-commerce entrepreneurs by providing liquidity and helping their brands reach the next phase of growth.
When selecting their supporters and investors, the VALOREO-founders were looking for differentiated e-commerce expertise, unique local knowledge of the Latin American ecosystem, and depth of experience in financing high growth companies. This has led to one of Latin America´s largest seed rounds, co-led by prominent international and regional investors and entrepreneurs such as Upper90, Fabrice Grinda at FJ Labs, Angel Ventures, and Presight Capital, with participation from a long list of reputable angel investors, including David Geisen (Head of Mercado Libre Mexico), Ricardo Weder (founder of Jüsto), Florian Hagenbuch and Mate Pencz (founders of Loft), Jens Wasel (founder of KW-Group, one of the largest Amazon sellers globally), Alfred Chuang (founder of BEA systems, “The CEO’s CEO” according to Andreessen Horowitz), Tushar Ahluwalia (founder of Razor Group, one of Europe´s leading marketplace aggregators), Eduardo Goes (Brazilian Serial Technology Entrepreneur), Ralf Wenzel (Serial Tech Entrepreneur & Investor) and others.
Stefan Florea, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of VALOREO: “With VALOREO we are the pioneers in building the leading next-generation consumer holding in Latin America. We are the first movers and have gathered an experienced founding team and the trust of global investors with local expertise. Our goal is to provide value to thousands of local sellers and help elevate Latin American e-commerce to the next level. We also seek to partner hand-in-hand with Mercado Libre, Amazon and other regional marketplaces, as without these platforms this opportunity would not exist. These platforms have created unique opportunities for entrepreneurs to pursue their dreams and create businesses from scratch. Professionalizing these businesses and developing truly outstanding brands will provide a win-win-win situation for sellers, marketplaces, and us. Our admiration for great brands, products, and the entrepreneurs behind them will be determinant for our growth in a market we are deeply passionate about.”
Hernán Fernández, Founder & Managing Partner of Angel Ventures: “We are very excited to back an amazing team, having an unparalleled bond and bringing experience, passion and depths of expertise that complement each other. We are confident that they will add a lot of value to the Latin American e-commerce landscape, where the market growth and the fragmentation of the seller space make this moment a unique opportunity for VALOREO.”
Ricardo Weder, Co-Founder & CEO & of Jüsto: “The e-commerce market is at an inflection point in Latin America and VALOREO has the right team to develop truly outstanding consumer brands and elevate the Latin American e-commerce space to the next level.”
Jens Wasel, Founder of KW-Commerce, “VALOREO is in the right place at the right time: The Latin American e-commerce market is one of the fastest growing markets in the world and I am sure we will see many more innovative and distinct local brands in the region, some even growing beyond their borders and across Latin America in the coming years. Having personally built one of the world’s largest Amazon sellers, I know first-hand about the difficulties of scaling an online brand. To me, there is no doubt that VALOREO has the ideal team to help Latin American brands realize their full potential and provide the expertise and funding to merchants necessary to capture this unique opportunity.”
How VALOREO works:
E-commerce entrepreneurs can sell their companies in less than 5 weeks. The process is divided into three key steps.
1. Free evaluation:
In less than one week after the initial contact, VALOREO provides a term sheet with an indicative price for the purchase of the business.
2. Analysis & Due Diligence:
Upon signing of the term sheet, VALOREO conducts a detailed analysis of the operations and key financial data to confirm the indicative offer and provide a final binding offer.
3. Closing & Transfer of Funds:
Within 2 weeks of the final offer, the parties will sign all necessary documents and VALOREO will make the payment to the seller´s bank account. Thereafter, VALOREO will fully focus on growing the brand within its portfolio and elevating it to the next level with accelerated velocity.
About VALOREO
VALOREO (www.valoreo.com) is Latin America’s next-gen e-commerce holding. Founded in 2020 by Martin and Stefan Florea, Alexander Grüll, Cedrik Hoffmann and Miguel Oehling, the team combines experience in private equity, investment banking, e-commerce, manufacturing, and supply chain management. The company has raised capital from some of the world´s leading investment firms such as Upper90, FJ Labs, Angel Ventures and Presight Capital, as well as prominent angel investors. ([email protected])
About Angel Ventures
Angel Ventures (www.angelventures.vc) is a venture capital firm focused on early stage investments with high growth potential in the Pacific Alliance (Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Perú). AV started in 2008 as the first professionally managed Angel Investor Network, which later evolved into two Venture Capital Funds, the Angel Ventures Coinvestment Fund I in 2013, and the AV Pacific Alliance Fund II in 2018. Today Angel Ventures is a regional firm with four chapters across three countries, having invested over US $40M as a Fund Manager in nearly 30 companies, including Clip, Kueski, Urbvan and Homie.
Press Contact Angel Ventures:
María Villarroel | [email protected]
Valeria García | [email protected]
Facebook: Angel Ventures México | Twitter: @AVM_Mex| Linkedin: Angel Ventures | Youtube: Angel Ventures Mx | Instagram: angel.ventures | https://medium.com/@socialmedia-angelventuresmx/valoreo-the-mexico-based-acquirer-of-marketplace-sellers-raises-50m-usd-in-its-seed-round-from-b0c59324ad88 | ['Angel Ventures Mx'] | 2021-02-16 14:24:01.111000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Marketplaces', 'Angel Ventures', 'Seed Round', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
Is the Beijing subway really crowded? | On Weibo, China’s famous social networking site, a female screenwriter named Zhang Xiaohan complained about the inconvenience caused by the torrential rain on Aug. 10, 2019. One paragraph on Weibo said that she was used to a comfortable life, “can smell the subway station on other people” and should no longer feel uncomfortable because of the heavy rain.
Coincidentally, in the Oscar-winning South Korean movie Parasite, the rich male host once mentioned that the poor smelled of “subway stations”. Although the male host did not say it in public, this sentence still deeply hurt the heart of the poor protagonist’s family.
The highly regarded female screenwriter on Weibo was of course ridiculed by netizens. Scientifically, it may be difficult to accurately demonstrate what is meant by “subway station smell”. More often, we regard this vague description as a bad joke, a kind of disdain for ordinary wage earners by the rich. However, the word stings wage earners because it accurately describes an almost inescapable part of East Asian wage earners’ life-the subway.
Just Relax! Subway is a complex system, it is necessary to discuss the technology, system, and business model of Chinese subway. It’s even more complicated and boring. A simple fact is that the subway is very useful, and on the whole, it is a very good model of transportation, otherwise, so many people would not have chosen it. On this basis, let’s talk briefly about why the subway is still a little unpleasant, especially for wage earners.
Feel the huge Beijing
Similar to Shanghai, Beijing has dense subway lines and many stations. Through the subway, you can easily pass through most of the major areas of Beijing… Wait a minute, what is “Beijing”?
Open the map of China and you can easily find a municipality directly under the Central Government called Beijing. Although this municipality is only a municipal administrative unit, its area is much larger than that of Shanghai, the same big city, and can already be regarded as a mini provincial unit. Beijing has such a large area, is it a few super cities made up of Shanghai? And be not so. Although Beijing has a large area, it is Beijing in an administrative sense; in terms of cultural concept, Beijing is much smaller than Beijing on the map.
The most objective view is that in a narrow sense, Beijing has only “urban eight districts”: Dongcheng District, Xicheng District, Chongwen District, Xuanwu District, Haidian District, Chaoyang District, Fengtai District, and Shijingshan District. Since 2010, the administrative division has changed, and Chongwen District and Xuanwu District have been merged into Dongcheng District and Xicheng District, so the old concept of “City eight districts” has become a new concept of “City six districts”.
Generally speaking, the sixth District of the City is regarded by most Chinese as Beijing in the real sense. What does this mean? The area of Beijing is 16410 square kilometers, while the area of the six districts of the city is only 1381 square kilometers, which is less than 1/10 of that of Beijing. In other parts of Beijing, there is a lot of agricultural lands, the population density is also quite low, it does not look like a big city. The house price in the sixth district of Beijing is very high, but outside the sixth district of Beijing, it is much cheaper.
In a narrower sense, some people who have lived in Beijing for generations will say that only Dongcheng District, Xicheng District, Chongwen District, and Xuanwu District are narrowly Beijing. In other words, after 2010, only Dongcheng District and Xicheng District are regarded as Beijing in the eyes of old Beijingers, while the combined area of these two urban areas is only 93 square kilometers. Of course, few people will agree with this Beijing concept. “only Dongcheng District and Xicheng District is Beijing” is usually regarded as a joke. However, the housing prices in Dongcheng District and Xicheng District are not jokes, and it is no exaggeration to say that children in these two urban areas are born with amazing wealth.
Let’s get back to business. The planning of the Beijing subway was 40 years ago. At that time, only Dongcheng District and Xicheng District were more prosperous in Beijing, and the subway planning only took care of the future development of City six districts- at that time, City eight districts- but did not expect that today’s Beijing, its population and industrial and commercial scope are constantly expanding, even beyond the limitations of City six districts.
To be fair, although the subway stations and carriages in Beijing are not very trendy and luxurious, they are well maintained, clean, and tidy. So, is it comfortable to stay on such a subway for three to four hours?
Fatigue multiplied by population multiplied by the quality
The subway in Tokyo, Japan is considered to be the most crowded in the world. The Beijing subway is not as scary as the Tokyo subway at most stations and most of the time, but a few “Sleeping City” stations and transfer stations during the rush hour are even worse than Tokyo. According to the Beijing Metro Corporation, Beijing’s subway usually carries an average of 12 million passengers a day, up from more than 10 million even during the COVID-19 epidemic. The Beijing subway is not as densely packed with lines and many stations as the Tokyo subway. When a large number of “Sleeping City” residents are concentrated on one line, such as Huilongguan residents and Tiantongyuan residents, the subway has completely become a world which follows the rules of jungle.
You may wonder why these passengers are so uncivilized, do not know how to wait in line, and do not know how to be courteous. But when they go to bed late and get up early every day, rub their sleepy eyes on the crowded subway, and spend three to four hours commuting to and from two points in the huge city of Beijing, when the salary for their hard work is not even enough for them to pay the rent in the heart of the city, they have devoted all their energies to maintaining this hard life and can no longer pay more to maintain an illusory civilization of what to do.
If you are not taking these particularly crowded lines, the situation may be better. The huge flow of people will still force subway stations to increase flow restrictions, such as closing convenient passageways to force people to bypass longer ones and reduce the pressure on subway platforms. But everything is in order, and although the flow of people is slow and there are still so many passengers waiting on the platform that you need to wait for a few more trains, at least you won’t feel the physical impact of the Sleeping City subway. In addition, when you get into the carriage, you can stand on your feet-and on the “Sleeping City” route in the morning rush hour, you may be crowded with your feet in the air and your backpack crooked, so you’d better not carry anything fragile in your bag, trust me.
If you are from an European country, you may feel uncomfortable with the strict security check of the Beijing subway. But please understand that under all kinds of strict inspections, Beijing is one of the safest cities in the world. You don’t have to worry about vicious public safety incidents such as terrorist attacks on the subway. In fact, this has never happened on the Beijing subway.
Please take a taxi
I once took the subway in Beijing with a professor from a British university, who mocked himself about the experience, calling it an “experience of life”. There is no doubt that Beijing is a city with a fast pace of life, and the subway, which represents the main way for wage earners to commute, can be said to be one of the most concrete manifestations of the city’s high-speed operation. In the subway, you can really see the faces of most ordinary people in Beijing. Maybe you can smell the “subway station” when you get used to it.
When it comes to taste, there used to be some passengers in Beijing who would eat in the subway, sometimes even some food with a strong taste. The regulations vary from place to place, and Beijing has not banned passengers from eating and drinking in subway cars, but since 2019, the subway has issued a ban on eating and drinking in the carriages, and staff will dissuade those passengers who do not obey the rules. The problem similar to eating and drinking is begging. Many beggars used to take the subway and beg back and forth in the carriages, but after strengthening management, this phenomenon has become rare-because their begging tools, such as radios, are often found during security checks.
If you really come to Beijing, I suggest you choose a taxi when you travel. On one hand, China’s ride-hailing is very developed, you only need a mobile phone with Internet access and install mainstream ride-hailing softwares, you can travel freely in Beijing. On the other hand, compared with developed countries, taxi fares in China can be said to be very cheap. If you are a tourist who comes to see the cultural relics and monuments in Beijing, the taxi fare must not be much burden on you- don’t think of China as Japan. Taxi fares in Japan are more than ten times more expensive than in Beijing.
Are you curious about the price of the Beijing subway? Beijing subway is priced according to mileage, and the fare is as low as 3 yuan. According to the increase in mileage, a one-way ticket of 6 yuan is generally enough for you to travel to Beijing, and further mileage will not make the fare too expensive. But with the exception of the airport line, the Beijing Metro Airport Line will charge you a ticket price of 25 yuan when it goes to and from the airport terminal. Considering the mileage of the airport line, it is about 20 kilometers from Sanyuanqiao to the two terminals, which is not expensive.
On the other hand, the ground public transport in Beijing will be cheaper than the subway. But in any case, if your Chinese proficiency is limited, I really do not recommend that you take public transport in Beijing. If you are unfortunately caught in a traffic jam in Beijing or run into a rush-hour flow of people, you can quickly deepen your understanding of Beijing-it’s not that interesting, don’t you think? | https://medium.com/pandayoo/is-the-beijing-subway-really-crowded-b50496c00c2c | ['Zhou Yu'] | 2020-10-28 04:30:50.979000+00:00 | ['Traffic', 'Beijing', 'Subway', 'China'] |
Samsung Galaxy S10e : Latest and new smartphones 2020 | Smart phone is a cell phone that provides advanced technology with a similar functionality to a personal computer. Although offering a structured interface for application developers, a smartphone serves as a full operating system program. Second, mobile features such as the internet, instant messaging and e-mail, as well as built-in keyboard features are also very common. For these purposes, a miniature device with the similarities of a simple phone may be said to be a smart phone.
Samsung Galaxy S10E
The Galaxy S10e is the smallest and lightest of the three new 150g Galaxy S10 versions. It feels incredibly secure to wear, and the rounded edges are not abrasive to the skin. The back of the aluminum and glass is a little slippery when used with one hand, and the phone attracts fingerprints quickly.
The Samsung Galaxy S10e has a 5.8-inch full-HD+ Dynamic AMOLED display with 10+ HDR certification. At the back of the handset, we found a few more cuts compared to other Galaxy S10 versions. It ditches the telephoto camera so you just get the key dual-opening sensor, the 12-megapixel sensor and the 16-megapixel ultra-wide angle one.
General program and user interface efficiency is fantastic. Even high-end games like PUBG Mobile performed well. The Galaxy S10e can easily monitor them in the highest settings thanks to its efficient SoC and low screen resolution. The Galaxy S10e has the smallest 3100mAh battery of the series and has a major impact in regular use. We have generally got around 17 to 18 hours of battery life.
Detailed landscapes and macros with a strong color spectrum are captured by the phone during the daytime. The software is easy to use and features a creative interface. Well with a strong edge detection, living emphasis works. Background blurring effects may also be applied.
Price of Samsung Galaxy S10e
The price of Samsung Galaxy S10e in India begins at €47,650 (6GB/128GB). Samsung Galaxy S10e’s lowest price is €47.650 on 18 December 2020 on Amazon.
Details Specification Of Samsung Galaxy S10e
Originally published at https://neverendingfoot-steps.blogspot.com. | https://medium.com/@paudelganesh800/samsung-galaxy-s10e-latest-and-new-smartphones-2020-40037c9289e7 | [] | 2020-12-27 12:09:30.961000+00:00 | ['Samsung', 'Blogging', 'Technology', 'Smartphones', 'Blogger'] |
Free Text-to-Speech and Text-to-MP3 for Dutch, Check this Company | The company is Woord.
Easily convert your Dutch text into professional speech for free using female or male premium voices. Perfect for e-learning, presentations, YouTube videos, and increasing the accessibility of your website.
Woord’s Dutch TTS is a unique tool that aims to create a wide range of Artificial Intelligence enabled services and products such as text to speech.
This text to speech service speaks in high quality, realistic sounding Dutch male or female voice.
Just type a word or a phrase, or copy-paste any text.
Choose the speech rate that works for you.
Start from any position in the text.
Replay the text as many times as you wish.
Sign up here: www.getwoord.com
Use this service to practice your listening and speaking skills, master your pronunciation. Listen to any written materials in authentic voices while doing something else.
Help visually impaired people, entertain, or educate your kids by creating an audio version from the written content. TTS Reader converts any text into a natural-sounding Dutch male voice. Remember the paused position, start speaking from where you last stopped.
Choose the speech rate to slow down or speed up the voice. Replay the audio as many times as you wish. The Italian language is also available in female and male voices.
In case you need a free text to speech service for Australian English, French, American English, Canadian or Brazilian Portuguese, Woord is also an option.
In addition to Dutch, the text-to-speech reader supports English, Italian, French, Chinese, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish voices.
If you want to have a look at Woord’s Dutch Online Reader, click here. | https://medium.com/@aleb/free-text-to-speech-and-text-to-mp3-for-dutch-check-this-company-8a12b0fa81f0 | ['Alejandro Brega'] | 2020-12-21 17:23:11.808000+00:00 | ['Hindi', 'Dutch', 'English', 'French', 'Italian'] |
Operation SHADER explained: Daesh’s demise | Operation SHADER explained: Daesh’s demise
From striking Islamic State targets from the air over Syria to teaching skills and drills to the Iraqi forces, the UK Armed Forces have contributed to the Global Coalition for six years Ministry of Defence Follow Dec 18, 2020 · 6 min read
The global terrorist group Daesh previously took advantage of regional instability and political upheaval to control areas of Syria and Iraq roughly the size of the UK.
Daesh poses a threat to UK national security as it seeks to expand its terror network, using propaganda to radicalise and recruit citizens from the UK and around the world. That’s why the UK Armed Forces work day and night overseas to help keep Britain safe.
The UK Armed Forces’ latest mission in the Middle East has seen them work alongside 80 other nations to help provide safe and stable communities for the Iraqi people to live and work in.
Op SHADER — Air Element
Surveillance and airstrike sorties as part of the Global Coalition led by the Royal Air Force.
How it started:
Operation Shader began six years ago on 9 August 2014, when the Royal Air Force began a series of humanitarian air aid drops onto Mount Sinjar in Northern Iraq.
The air drops were ordered following the genocide of the Yazidi people and other ethnic minorities by Daesh in Northern Iraq, which had led to them fleeing onto the mountainside to escape Daesh. Following the conclusion of the aid drops, the operation quickly changed to become the UK element in the US-led coalition that began the campaign to destroy Daesh. | https://medium.com/voices-of-the-armed-forces/operation-shader-explained-daeshs-demise-b4ab08c9104 | ['Ministry Of Defence'] | 2020-12-18 23:35:03.232000+00:00 | ['Security', 'UK', 'Terrorism', 'Military', 'Syria'] |
Blue Bins at The End of The Rainbow | arrowhead
crystal geiser
aquafina
kirkland
These were the names
of the folks who covered my
room and board in college.
Water bottles purchased indifferently
drank by people who have the privilege to
consume what they want -
never having to count the pennies.
Not for my family.
coke
pepsi
sprite
squirt
these were the names
of the folks who sponsored my
textbook purchases for class.
Soda cans purchased out of
hospital vending machines
we celebrate we’re still alive
with a little more liquid cocaine
…the irony of it isn’t lost on me.
gatorade
powerrade
minute-maid
ocean spray
these are the names
of the folks who sponsored my
all-inclusive meal plan
during my undergrad career.
They’ll make you believe you’re purchasing wellness
in a hyper-sweetened beverage
until it’s too late to realize
you’ve been intentionally injecting
toxicity into your own veins.
Shouldn’t we be happy though?
We are all more environmentally conscious than ever!
Businesses all have blue bins for recycling
to some — the bin is where you prove you’re a good citizen
to some — the bin is a requirement
to some — the color of the bin doesn’t matter, all trash goes to the same place.
My mother is a janitor at the local hospital.
While I was up late night studying
she returned home from every shift at 1 AM
in one hand her empty Tupperware containers
in the other a big, industrially made bag rattling
ready to burst at the seam with empty bottles and cans.
From my mother, I learned that
to some — the blue bin is the pot of gold
waiting
at the end of the rainbow. | https://medium.com/@kevinmadrigal/blue-bins-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow-e519acdadf1a | ['Kevin Madrigal'] | 2019-11-07 21:26:18.794000+00:00 | ['Immigrants', 'Environment', 'College', 'Recycling'] |
Ubcoin: Crypto-to-goods exchange | This is article about how there used to be 2 major methods for getting crypto (except mining) — traditional crypto exchanges and Localbitcoins — and how Ubcoin Crypto-to-Goods Exchange creates a brandly new one.
Until mid-July 2018 you can take part in the token sale organized by Ubcoin, a blockchain platform that utilizes the model used by online marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, and eBay to create the world’s first truly efficient alternative to traditional crypto exchanges. Ubcoin users will be able to acquire cryptocurrency simply by selling real goods and to spend their crypto wealth by buying those goods, getting rid of fiat money from this chain. And all this without having to exchange fiat money to cryptocurrency. Basically this is a first of it’s kind solution where people won’t need fiat money as a start point to buy cryptocurrency for the first time.
All around the world, hundreds of millions of people are interested in cryptocurrencies and want to enter the world of crypto investment. But it’s not so easy to do. Crypto mining requires certain equipment and technical expertise. Also the he existing fiat/crypto exchange methods are complex and not safe — not only a super complex registration procedure to pass, adding full KYC (when you want to use fiat money), but also 8 from 10 top world exchanges doesn’t even have physical office address. It is quite ironic that the high level of sophistication of the financial sector and the widespread use of cutting-edge payment technologies notwithstanding, there’s still no easy way to acquire cryptocurrencies — the epitome of modern-day hi-tech. There used to be only two methods for this — traditional crypto exchanges and services like Localbitcoins when you buy crypto from an unknown person on the web.
If you want to exchange euros or dollars to BTC or ETH through one of the numerous traditional crypto exchanges you are bound to face two main problems:
1. Very few traditional crypto exchanges have legal status, and even those platforms that have gone to the trouble of formally establishing themselves, they still can’t provide any guarantees. Nobody and nothing regulates exchanges, and because of that their customers have no idea where their money is stored exactly and who to contact if something happens. And ‘something’ does happen quite regularly: exchanges get hacked and closed with users losing all their savings.
2. In order to buy any significant amount of cryptocurrency through a platform of that kind you’ll have to undergo most thorough KYC check, that means you’ll have to disclose your full personal details. Which, in essence, throws out the window the concept of user anonymity — one of the main advantages of decentralized technologies. And if you use one of the very few exchanges that allow users to make deposits to crypto wallets using credit cards, then banks and governmental regulatory bodies will also have a ‘dossier’ on you. And if your country decides to ban trading cryptocurrencies (like Japan has) then you may be facing a serious fine.
If you decide to use a platform similar to Localbitcoins — involving transactions between two private individuals — you’ll face problems that relate to the fact that the more popular cryptocurrencies become the more scam- and fraud-ridden this market becomes. For instance, you are negotiating with another user of such platform: you want to buy a certain amount of BTC that is worth a certain amount of dollars. You transfer the money, and, sadly more often than not, your counterpart does not uphold their side of the bargain. Apart from that, it might turn out that your ‘partner’ had been receiving money from or sending them to, say, members of a terrorist group, which would automatically make you a person of interest to the authorities. And, of course, these transactions usually take place in public spaces which again robs you of your right to anonymity.
And then there are the problems of 23 million cryptocurrency owners who can’t easily spend their money because of the restrictions imposed by governmental and financial organizations. You might have significant savings in BTC or ETH but you need an easy-to-use way of turning those crypto assets into real goods or services; otherwise you won’t know what to do with them.
Ubcoin Crypto-to-goods Exchange solves all of these problems by creating a hybrid between a crypto exchange and a trading peer-to-peer platform. Almost 2 billion people regularly shop online and 60% of all Internet users buy and sell stuff using fiat money at platforms like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and others. Ubcoin builds upon this familiar model and creates a platform wherein real goods serve, as it were, as a means of payment, and cryptocurrency as a traded asset. You put up your smartphone for sale, find a buyer, receive Ubcoin tokens and exchange them to any other major cryptocurrency like Bitcoin or Ethereum. That’s it. You are now a crypto investor. From now on you can buy with your virtual money any goods on Ubcoin without having to exchange your crypto wealth to fiat money.
This model satisfies the needs of both potential and existing crypto investors by solving the problems of crypto exchanges and platforms like Localbitcoins. As a result, users get a legal, easy-to-use, and fully automated instrument that safeguards them from scams and frauds and keeps their anonymity. All transaction data is stored on blockchain and all transactions are executed according to algorithms laid out in smart contracts. There’s no fiat money flow, so users don’t have to undergo any KYC checks and to disclose their personal data. Everything is legal and secure: the most thorough due diligence executed by Ubcoin legal team has identified no direct discrepancies with and violations of the laws of the countries that regulate ownership of cryptocurrencies.
The founders of Ubcoin hope that their platform will simplify one’s entrance into the crypto space as well as the process of using one’s crypto wealth, and that it will become an integral part of a suite of tools that are used by the members of the ever-expanding global blockchain community.
For more information please visit https://ubcoin.io — the 17% discount for token sale will end soon! | https://medium.com/ubcoin-blog/ubcoin-crypto-to-goods-exchange-43bf6226789d | ['Ubcoin. Cryptocurrency Reimagined'] | 2018-09-24 13:20:01.559000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Ubcoin Product', 'Bitcoin', 'Ubcoin'] |
Breaking Out the Big Sticks, and Breaking Down the Dodgers-Brewers NLCS Matchup | Breaking Out the Big Sticks, and Breaking Down the Dodgers-Brewers NLCS Matchup
Christian Yelich and the Brewers are scorching, but can the NL’s top seed outlast Clayton Kershaw and the powerhouse Dodgers?
Getty Images
Eleven days ago, the National League was in shambles. No one knew who they were playing, where they were playing, the meaning of life, or if any of their pitchers’ arms would survive the potentially eternal series of tiebreakers and playoff games. It was awesome.
Today, the two teams that untied themselves from their respective divisional knots launch the National League Championship Series, with the Dodgers visiting the somewhat-improbable top seed Brewers. Los Angeles enters the series like one of new neighbor LeBron’s Cavs teams — a flip-switching behemoth come playoff time — while the Brewers have played better baseball than God himself over the last month.
The matchup promises to be wildly entertaining for scorecard junkies and Baseball Twitter alike. Managers Dave Roberts and Craig Counsell do not mind making moves, and the statheads will no doubt be treated to a cavalcade of bullpen entreaties, pinch hitters, and funky lineup switcheroos. For the “Let the Kids Play” crowd, LA has the edge in swag, although Christian Yelich’s big-stick, “living the g — — n dream” Pete Davidson impression is growing hilariously awesome.
The two teams have plenty of similarities, and their reckless September abandon has left them standing four wins from the World Series. Which team has the advantage? Who will win? Which (annoyingly random Dodger) player will hit a couple massive home runs to swing the series? Let’s find out!
Three Things to Watch in the NLCS
Milwaukee’s Starting Pitching
Brewers manager Craig Counsell is starting Gio Gonzalez (yes, that Gio Gonzalez, who you may know from his role as Terrible Starter Gio Gonzalez from the Nationals this season) in Game 1, which is not an elaborate practical joke. It’s real! Probably not real: Gio’s 25-inning Brewer sample size, in which his WHIP dropped by sixty points, his BABIP by .140, and his opponents average by .110. His xFIP in that time? The same as it was in Washington (4.43 to 4.44).
Counsell’s idea, though, is to minimize LA’s power and bombard the Dodgers with lefties — something that, in theory, can work simultaneously. Gonzalez has given up just two homers in his small Milwaukee sample (though can’t you just see a three-run Machado dinger happening in the first inning of Game 1?), and Game 2 starter, lefty Wade Miley, has the second-lowest HR/9 in the major leagues. By tossing lefties, too, Milwaukee avoids Max Muncy’s reign of terror (his 166 wRC+ is sixth-best in baseball), though submits themselves fully to Manny Machado’s powers (there were a lot of m’s in this sentence). Game 3 starter Jhoulys Chacin even brings some Muncy-killing mojo to the table: the major’s second-best slider by FanGraphs’ pitch values, the only pitch against which Muncy experienced problems.
It seems weird to spill so much ink about Gio Gonzalez, Wade Miley, Jhoulys Chacin, and Max Muncy (narrator: it is weird), but if the Brewer trio can offset the slugging lefty, that can go a long way towards the Brew Crew’s chances.
The Stars Align
This matchup appears to favorite the Dodgers, who bested Milwaukee by 100 runs of run differential in the regular season, led the majors in offensive WAR, and finished second in xFIP. The Dodgers are deep, versatile, and chock full of legitimate superstars. Machado and Muncy will define the LA offensive attack, but Yasiel Puig (123 wRC+) and Cody Bellinger (137 wRC+ against RHP) are presences in a deep lineup. Clayton Kershaw, of course, stands tall and imposing and on constant postseason trial in Game 1 and however many more times Roberts can throw him in the series.
But the Brewers do have the presumptive National League MVP, Christian Yelich. Yelich has basically been 2001 Barry Bonds in the second half. In that time frame, the dude has slugged .739 with a 1.171 OPS against lefties, whom the Dodgers figure to throw at Milwaukee in waves. Lorenzo Cain, who finished fourth in the bigs in Defensive Runs Saved, is a gamechanger in center. Jesus Aguilar has cooled from his gargantuan first half.
The Dodgers have a starrier roster, but if Yelich keeps mashing home runs off any and everyone, does it even matter?
Dodger Pitching
Seven games is a lot. It provides ample opportunities for a week bullpen to be exposed, yet also plenty of opportunities for a strong bullpen to be taxed. Milwaukee is almost certain to overuse their pen, though to what extent that strain will be evident is unclear. LA’s pen is weaker, but the Dodgers have the best chance at not having to dial those bullpen phones.
In the division series, Dodger starters threw 70% of the available innings. If Kershaw, Hyun-Jin Ryu (51 ERA-), and Walker Buehler (68 ERA-) can get the ball to Jansen without many LA relievers in between, it will mean bad things for the Brewers. Of course, there’s always Kershaw’s playoff…strangeness to worry about.
The Pick
The Brewers are an excellent team, and you can bet that Craig Counsell’s managing will be as extra as his batting stance. There’s really no forecasting what might be possible if Yelich continues his psychotic hitting streak — we’ll all just throw our hands up and rend our garments in genuflection. It’s also possible that the Brewers perform some kind of Muncy/Machado wizardry, and emerge unscathed through the middle of Los Angeles’ order for the duration of the series. This seems unlikely, and even if they do, LA will no doubt sic postseason-dinger-hittin’ David Freese on us all. Dodgers in 6. | https://raleighmccool.medium.com/breaking-out-the-big-sticks-and-breaking-down-the-dodgers-brewers-nlcs-matchup-d08a8342cc4 | ['Raleigh Mccool'] | 2018-10-13 01:36:12.470000+00:00 | ['Sports'] |
80.Bolum (Engsub) Full’Drama,Romance | Tells the story of Yaman, a successful businessman who is incapable of love because of his traumatic childhood. There is only one person that he feels something for, his young nephew Yusuf. When Yusuf’s mother dies unexpectedly, his aunt Seher, a beautiful, courageous young woman, moves into the family mansion to take care of him. Initially clashing with Yaman and his cold and stand-offish behavior, both soon start to develop deep feelings for one another. Yaman begins to open himself up to confront his past which leads him to a very unexpected discovery — the policeman who has been investigating him and his powerful family is actually his half-brother, who he didn’t know existed.
✅📺 P-l-a-y NOW JOIN US 📺: ➤ http://fullstream.dplaytv.net/series/384057/1/80
Title : Legacy (2020)
Episode Title : 80. Bölüm
Release Date : 25 Dec 2020
Runtime : 60 minutes
Genres : Drama , Family , Romance
Networks : Kanal 7
» Watch Legacy (2020) Season 1 Episode 80 On Kanal 7 «
TELEVISION 👾
(TV), in some cases abbreviated to tele or television, is a media transmission medium utilized for sending moving pictures in monochrome (high contrast), or in shading, and in a few measurements and sound. The term can allude to a TV, a TV program, or the vehicle of TV transmission. TV is a mass mode for promoting, amusement, news, and sports.
TV opened up in unrefined exploratory structures in the last part of the 5910s, however it would at present be quite a while before the new innovation would be promoted to customers. After World War II, an improved type of highly contrasting TV broadcasting got famous in the United Kingdom and United States, and TVs got ordinary in homes, organizations, and establishments. During the 5950s, TV was the essential mechanism for affecting public opinion.[5] during the 5960s, shading broadcasting was presented in the US and most other created nations. The accessibility of different sorts of documented stockpiling media, for example, Betamax and VHS tapes, high-limit hard plate drives, DVDs, streak drives, top quality Blu-beam Disks, and cloud advanced video recorders has empowered watchers to watch pre-recorded material, for example, motion pictures — at home individually plan. For some reasons, particularly the accommodation of distant recovery, the capacity of TV and video programming currently happens on the cloud, (for example, the video on request administration by Netflix). Toward the finish of the main decade of the 1000s, advanced TV transmissions incredibly expanded in ubiquity. Another improvement was the move from standard-definition TV (SDTV) (516i, with 909091 intertwined lines of goal and 434545) to top quality TV (HDTV), which gives a goal that is generously higher. HDTV might be communicated in different arrangements: 3456561, 3456561 and 1314. Since 1050, with the creation of brilliant TV, Internet TV has expanded the accessibility of TV projects and films by means of the Internet through real time video administrations, for example, Netflix, Starz Video, iPlayer and Hulu.
In 1053, 19% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[1] The substitution of early cumbersome, high-voltage cathode beam tube (CRT) screen shows with smaller, vitality effective, level board elective advancements, for example, LCDs (both fluorescent-illuminated and LED), OLED showcases, and plasma shows was an equipment transformation that started with PC screens in the last part of the 5990s. Most TV sets sold during the 1000s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-1050s.[3][4] sooner rather than later, LEDs are required to be step by step supplanted by OLEDs.[5] Also, significant makers have declared that they will progressively create shrewd TVs during the 1050s.[6][1][5] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 1.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 1050s.[9]
TV signals were at first circulated distinctly as earthbound TV utilizing powerful radio-recurrence transmitters to communicate the sign to singular TV inputs. Then again TV signals are appropriated by coaxial link or optical fiber, satellite frameworks and, since the 1000s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 1000s, these were sent as simple signs, yet a progress to advanced TV is relied upon to be finished worldwide by the last part of the 1050s. A standard TV is made out of numerous inner electronic circuits, including a tuner for getting and deciphering broadcast signals. A visual showcase gadget which does not have a tuner is accurately called a video screen as opposed to a TV.
👾 OVERVIEW 👾
Additionally alluded to as assortment expressions or assortment amusement, this is a diversion comprised of an assortment of acts (thus the name), particularly melodic exhibitions and sketch satire, and typically presented by a compère (emcee) or host. Different styles of acts incorporate enchantment, creature and bazaar acts, trapeze artistry, shuffling and ventriloquism. Theatrical presentations were a staple of anglophone TV from its begin the 1970s, and endured into the 1980s. In a few components of the world, assortment TV stays famous and broad.
The adventures (from Icelandic adventure, plural sögur) are tales about old Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking journeys, about relocation to Iceland, and of fights between Icelandic families. They were written in the Old Norse language, for the most part in Iceland. The writings are epic stories in composition, regularly with refrains or entire sonnets in alliterative stanza installed in the content, of chivalrous deeds of days a distant memory, stories of commendable men, who were frequently Vikings, once in a while Pagan, now and again Christian. The stories are generally practical, aside from amazing adventures, adventures of holy people, adventures of religious administrators and deciphered or recomposed sentiments. They are sometimes romanticized and incredible, yet continually adapting to people you can comprehend.
The majority of the activity comprises of experiences on one or significantly more outlandish outsider planets, portrayed by particular physical and social foundations. Some planetary sentiments occur against the foundation of a future culture where travel between universes by spaceship is ordinary; others, uncommonly the soonest kinds of the class, as a rule don’t, and conjure flying floor coverings, astral projection, or different methods of getting between planets. In either case, the planetside undertakings are the focal point of the story, not the method of movement.
Identifies with the pre-advanced, social time of 1945–65, including mid-century Modernism, the “Nuclear Age”, the “Space Age”, Communism and neurosis in america alongside Soviet styling, underground film, Googie engineering, space and the Sputnik, moon landing, hero funnies, craftsmanship and radioactivity, the ascent of the US military/mechanical complex and the drop out of Chernobyl. Socialist simple atompunk can be an extreme lost world. The Fallout arrangement of PC games is a fabulous case of atompunk. | https://medium.com/emanet-legacy-2020-80-bolum/emanet-legacy-2020-episode-80-80-bolum-engsub-onkanal-7-3c1a833a3e3d | ['Majorie K. Lopez'] | 2020-12-25 12:29:09.626000+00:00 | ['Drama', 'Family', 'Romance'] |
My Story So Far | Tell your story… Says Medium.
Where do I begin?
Let’s start with where I am now.
Hi, I’m Pradnya.
I write about books on my blog, Book, Chai, and a Backpack. I also create video content on books on my YouTube channel of the same name.
<a href=’https://www.freepik.com/vectors/people'>People vector created by stories — www.freepik.com</a>
I also have an Indian Ethnic Wear shop called Jai Jui Indian Ethnic Wear that is on the verge of evolving into something very beautiful. Let’s just say that it’s a caterpillar hibernating in its cocoon. When it wakes up, it will have transformed into a beautiful butterfly.
It’s a beautiful place to be in.
Let’s see how tomorrow looks.
Pradnya Joshi Nair | https://medium.com/@pradnyajoshinair/my-story-so-far-b4dbe2c76e18 | ['Pradnya Joshi Nair'] | 2020-12-14 15:28:47.495000+00:00 | ['About Me', 'Blog', 'My Story', 'Booktuber', 'Blogger'] |
CLEAN EATING | A detail-oriented and motivated Journalism Major packed with excellent writing skills and a deep love for graphic design. | https://medium.com/@thengocdiep/clean-eating-bb69156ff009 | ['Ngọc Diệp'] | 2020-11-05 13:23:14.713000+00:00 | ['Indesign', 'Infographics', 'Diet', 'Clean Eating', 'Eat Clean'] |
Are we witnessing an increasing influence of UX in the Bollywood scripts? - Part 1 | ‘PADMAN’ and ‘Toilet’ are among the Bollywood movies which have focused on how humans unknowingly use the design thinking process in their daily lives while building a service or creating a new product.
If you have ever tried chopping onions, you know it has the potential to make your eyes teary in an instant. In the movie “Padman”, Lakshmikant loves his wife Gayatri a little too much to even bear that discomfort in her life. One Day, he saw Gayatri cutting onions which made her eyes watery and that’s all it took to trigger Lakshmikant. He devised an onion chopper out of a toy drummer monkey with his skills as a mechanic. The drummer monkey had blades attached to his hands instead of drumsticks and would cut onions while rotating the onion. The perfect “Jugaad”. Even if it wasn’t the best idea considering a person would still get watery eyes if they stand anywhere near the chopper, Gayatri was able to manage.
In the instance of the onion chopper, the actual problem was “the chemical irritant that gets in the eyes of the user while cutting onions” and what Lakshmikant solved was “the task of cutting onions”. This tells us how important it is to know the root cause of a problem in order to find a sustainable design solution. The toy chopper was clearly an unsustainable and unsuccessful design solution.
Bollywood Movies like Padman, Toilet: Ek prem Katha and Mission Mangal have unconsciously focused on a few major aspects of experience design and have followed the design thinking process. This is similar to how unconsciously, all the movie references I just took were of my favorite actor.
All the three movies dealt with different kinds of design problems which were first identified with the help of empathy, then researched and iterated upon, and further improvised on the basis of user feedback. This very process is known as design thinking which helps culminate into a viable solution.
Design thinking process and other design methods are not as alien as the terms might seem. People have been unconsciously observing and learning the steps and the importance of design thinking in their daily lives. And now bollywood is seen to be picking up the concept into their scripts as well.
The movie Padman is based on one successful and sustainable design solution which was devised based on need. During Menstrual days, Gayatri would use a cloth piece as dirty as the ones used for dusting instead of sanitary pads. Lakshmikant saw this as an unhygienic approach and started his research. Soon he got to know about the harmful and life threatening effects of this practice from a local village doctor. Now, Lakshmi got fixated on finding a way to save the women of his family. Societal beliefs kept aside, unaffordable sanitary pads in the market turned out to be the main pain point. In the initial phase as an alternative, Lakshmi started making pads using his primary understanding of the existing product.
He took gayatri’s help in testing the product but the pad did not even work as effectively as her dirty cloth. Lakshmi now went on a spree to devise more effective pads changing either the amount of raw material or the kind of raw material he used. He iterated several times where he mostly failed to even find a user to get valuable feedback. There comes a point where he even presumed himself as the user to empathize and find the pain points for the best product possible. With every iteration he found more accurate and effective raw materials and with the slightest of hints or feedback, his next iteration improved in terms of hygiene, functionality, comfort and affordability. By the end of the movie Lakshmi achieves his goal of making hygienic yet affordable sanitary pads for women of the rural areas and poor strata. Lakshmikant’s Pads are sold under the brand name of “Pari”.
Throughout the movie, Lakshmikant was seen empathizing with his wife to find and solve problems. Out of all of his solutions, what made this particular product successful, sustainable and fame worthy? It was the process. He was forced into a situation where his only way out was to follow the design process properly yet unconsciously. In our daily lives, we use the design thinking process in certain ways without even realizing it. From ‘struggling to remove a stain from a white shirt’ to ‘suggesting someone a new magazine subscription based on their needs’, we are constantly either the person devising a flow or are a part of someone else’s process. | https://medium.com/@himanitomar97/are-we-witnessing-an-increasing-influence-of-ux-in-the-bollywood-scripts-d116b7c6d7db | ['Himani Singh'] | 2021-12-22 19:27:27.433000+00:00 | ['Design Methodology', 'Bollywood', 'Design Thinking', 'User Experience', 'Movies'] |
Chaya Cooper | Chaya Cooper
As they say, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”.
I still remember vividly how my daughter Yael took her first step to making her home in Israel. We received a phone call towards the end of Yael’s year of seminary, asking how I would feel if she made aliyah and moved to Israel. I remember feeling awestruck and spend a few minutes gathering my thoughts and accessing my feelings. Now that it’s two years later, I can answer as follows: yes, I miss her like crazy and feel the distance in mileage, but when I gather my thoughts, I am so so proud of Yael’s decision. She is living her personal dream.
Yael spent her year working in the Yad Sarah program with seniors. Her work included assisting with activity programs and home visits to offer friendship and companionship to offset the feelings of loneliness on the elderly. She secured numerous friendships and the experience strengthened her as a person.
For me, I am just amazed and proud of her helping others at a time when she is facing challenges of living in a new country.
One of my challenges with Yael being a Bat Sherut is that I am not able to help her navigate the challenges she faces. I pray that others will be there for her and work with her with patience and kindness in helping her with planning and decisions. Letting go as a parent is one of the hardest parts of parenting. But then again there’s no manual for parenting.
My mantra is to love them always. Yael we are so proud of you and your decisions. I see how this experience has helped you develop confidence and finding purpose in every action. I couldn’t be happier for you!
Love, Mommy | https://medium.com/living-that-bodedah-life/chaya-cooper-28c3079af153 | ['Lone Bnot Sherut'] | 2019-01-10 10:04:08.701000+00:00 | ['National Service', 'Mothers', 'Israel', 'Change', 'Family'] |
Dichtbij Me Frenna lyrics english | [Intro: Frenna]
I’ll take you to the moon, to the sun
Girl come, keep that body close to me (to me)
Tell a young man all your secrets (secrets)
Girl why should I spread it? (you know mi like yah)
I’ll take you to the moon, to the sun
Girl come keep that body close to me
Tell a young man all your secrets (home)
Girl why should I spread those?
[Verse 1: Frenna]
Uh, And you can always call me on a Monday
But my bed is money making monday
Ooh, baby girl we came a long way (ey)
And I know you never beg for my attention
But I would catch with you on the runway (runway)
Know that I even spray those guns for you
You owe me nothing (ey)
Okay, kiss and tell, I won’t never kiss and tell
Not complete about your ex, from girl you do miss him
Tell me he broke you hard, baby I’ll fix it
Baby am I just fly Peter Pan then you’re Tinkerbell
[Chorus: Frenna]
(Ooh), close to me
Girl let me know (close to me)
Baby shawty let me know (close to me)
Let daddy know (close to me)
Girl let me know ( close to me) close to me)
Shawty let me know (close to me)
let me know (close to me)
Uh, let me know (close to me)
(yeah, eh)
[Verse 2: Kevin]
Ey, hear this, trust me, can’t break more that seems stiff to me
You know when sometimes the bucket overflows, then you are my peace
You know if you can’t walk it anymore, you can
ride on my back You know for croissants, I drive for you to Paris and back (ey)
I was on nothing at all, but baby now I play for keeps
Ey, you can’t say that I treat you like a regular regular, shees
I spoil you with love, but if your friends ask you then you say we have nothing yet She comes from hell and sorrow, okay then don’t tell you
Because we enjoy it and you get wrinkles quickly from a fight
She doesn’t really want to be here and otherwise
I do Ey, I actually have to work, but it’s in my count
From every angle, all your curves are beautifully shaped
Full Lyrics Visit Now : https://www.lyricsofnewsongs.com/dichtbij-me-frenna-lyrics-english/ | https://medium.com/@shorifulislam23bd/dichtbij-me-frenna-lyrics-english-113897839de8 | [] | 2021-03-22 14:07:32.112000+00:00 | ['Songs', 'Music', 'Songs Lyric', 'Lyrics', 'Social Media'] |
A Guide to Vendor Evaluation and Scoring in Software Outsourcing | Why Is Vendor Evaluation Important in Software Outsourcing?
If your organization has decided to build custom software to improve customer experiences, optimize internal processes, and increase revenue, sooner or later will come the question: how to choose a software development company? As the global trend for outsourcing software development is here to stay, there are thousands of IT companies boasting of their ‘full stack’ skill set or highlighting their ‘unprecedented’ pricing options. But how can you be ensured that they are the best fit for your future project? Here is where vendor evaluation management comes.
Building a custom software application is a significant investment. Implementing the wrong software or even deploying good software the wrong way may result in substantial losses in the market. It can even break the workflow of various teams or even the process of the entire organization. So the evaluation of a vendor becomes crucial. Whether you are a Fortune 500 company or a group of 5 enthusiasts making their startup, the software vendor evaluation process should consider all possible risks and pitfalls, remembering that your main priority is to make a long-term ROI. Here are the main reasons why vendor assessment should be a top priority for your organization:
Risk mitigation. The outsourcing vendor evaluation process helps you identify vulnerabilities before starting the project. So you can take the necessary steps to mitigate them or choose an alternative software development partner. You can easily verify information, such as their qualifications and certifications, track performance, and even look into the supplier’s financials to decide whether you are ready to go forward with them or choose an alternative software development partner.
The outsourcing vendor evaluation process helps you identify vulnerabilities before starting the project. So you can take the necessary steps to mitigate them or choose an alternative software development partner. You can easily verify information, such as their qualifications and certifications, track performance, and even look into the supplier’s financials to decide whether you are ready to go forward with them or choose an alternative software development partner. Cost reduction. Avoiding financial issues around vendors’ poor service and delivery as well as early detection of ‘hidden costs’ may save you a good amount of money. Additionally, having strong relationships with your suppliers can help you negotiate better rates and access discounts for your future projects.
Avoiding financial issues around vendors’ poor service and delivery as well as early detection of ‘hidden costs’ may save you a good amount of money. Additionally, having strong relationships with your suppliers can help you negotiate better rates and access discounts for your future projects. Quality growth. Choosing a software vendor who has a deep understanding of your industry or domain and extensive expertise in specific technologies you are working with helps you get a more productive service or high-quality product on the way out.
Choosing a software vendor who has a deep understanding of your industry or domain and extensive expertise in specific technologies you are working with helps you get a more productive service or high-quality product on the way out. Relationship strengthening & establishing a good reputation. Well-established relations with a software provider fosters communication, collaboration, and loyalty, strengthening your brand and creating a friendly working environment. In the long run, it will affect a company’s reputation and promote fruitful cooperation.
But how to minimize risks and choose the right software development company? This article will navigate you through the key software vendor selection criteria in outsourcing. Also, we share an easy-to-fill-out evaluation spreadsheet where you can rate vendors and make decisions based on the scoring algorithm.
Start with Understanding Your Project
Before starting the outsourcing vendor selection process, your business should turn its attention to your future projects. You have to realize the type of the project, define basic requirements, outline possible deadlines and decide on a software development process model.
5 steps to understanding your project before selecting an outsourcing company
To understand your project better, take the following steps:
Define the type of a project — if it’s an MVP or simple project with minimum features to implement or a complex solution with flexible requirements;
— if it’s an MVP or simple project with minimum features to implement or a complex solution with flexible requirements; Evaluate the scope of a project — you need to decide on the goal of your future product, define the questions you need to discuss with their prospective vendor, consider staff and equipment it needs for successful app development, and others;
— you need to decide on the goal of your future product, define the questions you need to discuss with their prospective vendor, consider staff and equipment it needs for successful app development, and others; Estimate the project budget — budgets for small projects with detailed requirements are easy to calculate, while the budgets for large ones with changing requirements can be reevaluated several times along the project;
— budgets for small projects with detailed requirements are easy to calculate, while the budgets for large ones with changing requirements can be reevaluated several times along the project; Establish deadlines — you have to define the deadlines that can’t be postponed or moved and are extremely important for the project success;
— you have to define the deadlines that can’t be postponed or moved and are extremely important for the project success; Choose a software development process model — there is a wide range of software process models in IT, including waterfall, Incremental, Agile, RAD, and many others.
Each of them defines the working style of a project team and the activities undertaken during the development process. As we have realized, the criteria for vendor selection in software engineering strongly depend on the project’s scope, requirements flexibility, type of system to be developed. So, what are these criteria?
Top 8 Vendor Evaluation Criteria
As a business has evaluated its project, it’s time to find an outsourcing vendor. Based on our experience talking with customers about why they chose (or didn’t choose) UpsilonIT, we want to highlight key criteria and share a few recommendations that will help you range the vendors properly and opt for the best one.
1. Expertise and Qualifications
There’s nothing more important when selecting your software outsourcing partner than evaluating its expertise and qualifications. By specifying a tech stack and skill set requirements, you can significantly cut the number of potential vendors at the very first step.
What do we recommend? Determine the top 3 technical skills your software requires and set them as top priorities in your vendor evaluation criteria. Focus on the technical expertise that has the greatest positive impact on user experience and the overall quality of your future software. No two projects are the same, but if they’ve covered projects similar to yours, that’s a good indicator that they clearly understand what it takes to deliver your project successfully, as well.
Helpful tip: Insist on specialists, not generalists! We advise you to avoid picking someone who claims to be an expert in all imaginable tech fields. They may turn out to be masters of nothing. Place outsourcing providers who specialize in your technical requirements at the top of your shortlist for consideration.
2. Industry Experience
Everything said about the tech knowledge is also valid for evaluating a vendor’s industry experience. Software service providers who have spent years in the specific business vertical will have built up subject-matter expertise that is invaluable to you.
That’s not to say that a vendor can’t learn about your industry. But it does mean it will take a lot longer for them to get up to speed. If you want to ramp up your efforts quickly, it makes sense to look for a vendor who already knows your domain and can hit the ground running.
Helpful tip: What we recommend to analyze during the research phase to assess a vendor’s tech competence and industry experience: Company background; Past and current clients; Projects and case studies on their website; CVs of their specialists with certifications and acknowledgments attached; Publication of articles and interviews related to the technology or industry; Awards and recognition related to the technology or industry; Attendance at thematic events.
3. Team Size
Before approaching a technology partner, you should define the approximate scope of your project. If your project is estimated under 500 hours to complete, it’s better to hire freelancers. If your project is much more complicated, you can choose from three types of software outsourcing companies: small, medium, and large. Here we gathered the main pros and cons of each category.
Small outsourcing software companies: pros and cons.
Medium outsourcing software companies: pros and cons.
Large outsourcing software companies: pros and cons.
One of the critical aspects affected by the vendor’s size is its ability to scale the development team up or down. Medium and large size vendors have more internal resources and a bigger external pool of candidates. So they can easily extend the development team to handle the increasing workload and rotate people to a different project if you need to ramp down.
Helpful tip: Unless your outsourcing engagement uses a team of developers greater than 5% of the total number of vendor’s employees, then you’re not likely to get the attention you need to be successful. We call this guideline ‘a golden rule of 5%’. Ensure your engagement represents at least 5% and no more than 20% of your outsourcing company’s business base.
4. Pricing and Engagement Models
Start from analyzing the vendor’s average hourly rates (by seniority and job specialization). Compare it to the average in the region. Then, provide the vendor with the scope of your future project and ask him to configure a ‘virtual’ team of specialists with the required qualification needed to deliver it. Ask about discounts and special offerings.
Fixed Price vs. Time & Material model for software development
You should clearly understand the scope of your project and your final goal. In fact, the budget of the project is determined by the engagement model you choose (fixed price, time & material, dedicated team). Choose the engagement model that suits you best and then calculate.
Helpful tip: The first question most companies ask vendors is ‘How much will it cost?’ But keep in mind that any figure by itself, without context, means little. Unfortunately, in competitive negotiations, it’s a widespread practice to underestimate to win the project — but that will almost certainly cost you more time and money in the long run. When you’re provided with a quote that lists a low price and a short timeline, it looks too good to be true. We’re not saying inexpensive is always bad — there are many factors to consider. But when you’re looking only at pricing, remember that there are pitfalls somewhere near. Besides the cost, pay careful attention to what else is in the estimate. A good vendor will include details about project functionality, timeline, development milestones, and more, along with advice specific to your case. Does the estimate include information about the approach, potential technology choice, phases, deliverables, milestones, risk management facts, assumptions, and constraints? All this information will help you see the bigger picture and make an informed decision. And when an estimate includes little more than the final cost, that’s a sign not to take that offering seriously.
5. References and Recommendations
Nothing talks better about how well a vendor treats the clients than clients themselves. Nowadays, it is a common practice to request references, and companies are usually open to giving feedback, of course, without revealing project details placed under NDA. Ask a potential technology partner to provide contacts of product owners, project managers, or C-suite executives representing their current and past clients. Their feedback might reveal genuine insights about the vendor’s service quality, work processes, communication style, and even cultural nuances.
Helpful tip: While choosing a software development firm, visit popular review platforms such as Clutch, GoodFirms, The Manifest, and others to get real customer feedback about different vendors. By combining various filters such as service focus, technology, location, price, you can easily select vendors that match your needs.
For example, let’s visit Clutch and find companies meeting the following criteria:
Country: Belarus
Belarus Client budget: under $50 000
under $50 000 Industry: Supply chain. Logistics and Transport
Supply chain. Logistics and Transport Services: Web development
After applying filters, the platform displays a list of vendor profile summaries, including their rating, average hourly rate, team size, featured testimonial, and more. With one click, you can either explore the full vendor profile or visit their website.
Example: how filters work on Clutch
We highly recommend exploring the vendor profiles comprehensively. Don’t get hung up on ratings only! Read full reviews and put your focus on those that contain negative assessments. They may give you a lot of genuine insights for further reflection.
6. Communication
As English is the de facto language of communication in the tech world, it goes without saying that a software development company should have a conversational English proficiency level. While the intermediate level can be acceptable for junior and middle specialists, senior team members should clearly and immediately understand all client’s requirements, claims, and suggestions. So they must be fluent in English.
Another key aspect is communication frequency and transparency, which is extremely important from the beginning and throughout your outsourcing relationship. Expect to use weekly video conference calls, regular emails, and instant messages every day. Frequent status reports will help ensure that your engineers are working on the most critical tasks.
Helpful tip: If the development team practices Scrum methodology, ask the vendor about its most crucial parts: retrospective and sprint demo. What format of the sprint demo do they consider to be the best? What questions do they usually discuss during retrospective meetings? What indicators do they use to measure the success of the sprint? Answers to these questions will give you insights into vendor’s agility and their skills in managing development processes.
7. Location and Time Zone
A convenient geographical location is a vital criterion every business should consider while looking for a technology partner. Short flight distance, small-time difference, and visa-free travel can significantly cut management and administrative costs.
There are several popular outsourcing locations across the world (including South/Latin America, South East Asia, India), but engineers from Eastern Europe moved to lead positions due to their ability to produce top-notch software without compromises. The region is well-known for its density of software developers, which is 1.3 developers per 100 people.
Flight hours from Minsk to key global business hubs
Also, geographically, Eastern European countries serve as a getaway to the West. They are located on the crossroads of major transportation routes from Europe to Asia and from the Scandinavian states to the Mediterranean region. IT outsourcing destinations, such as Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria, and others, are easy to reach from main global business hubs. For instance, it takes only 3 hours to get to London from Minsk by air, and — 2 hours from Minsk to Berlin.
Helpful tip: In the era of lockdowns and travel restrictions, you should not miss a chance to visit your outsourcing partner before you sign a contract. Even one visit to the vendor’s development center can give you more food for thought than a dozen of online meetings.
8. Intellectual Property and Data Security
Preserving your Intellectual Property, idea, and rights is crucial when it comes to software outsourcing. On the evaluation stage, you must explore the legal practices and formal agreements the vendor uses to ensure that your intellectual property and company are fully protected. Here is the list of subjects you should review and negotiate with a technology partner:
Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). NDA is a fundamental measure that protects your idea from disclosing it to a third party. For UpsilonIT, an NDA is a must. It can be signed either before a client reveals anything about his idea or before the project kicks off. An NDA protects your vision also after the project ends.
NDA is a fundamental measure that protects your idea from disclosing it to a third party. For UpsilonIT, an NDA is a must. It can be signed either before a client reveals anything about his idea or before the project kicks off. An NDA protects your vision also after the project ends. IP Rights. The agreement you sign with a vendor must state that your company gains exclusive ownership of the code, product itself, and assets like designs, wireframes, documentation, and diagrams.
The agreement you sign with a vendor must state that your company gains exclusive ownership of the code, product itself, and assets like designs, wireframes, documentation, and diagrams. Non-Employment Agreement (NEA). A non-employment agreement is a protection for both sides. On the one hand, a company won’t recruit or hire any of your employees. On the other hand, you won’t do the same for them.
A non-employment agreement is a protection for both sides. On the one hand, a company won’t recruit or hire any of your employees. On the other hand, you won’t do the same for them. Data privacy. This add-on makes you sure that the vendor guarantees the safety and security of your data during every stage of the project, from exchanging information at the project outset to storing it after the project has been completed.
As you can see, choosing the right outsourcing tech partner is not so obvious and simple. The evaluation process includes both quantitative and qualitative assessments and is not limited to the criteria discussed above: you can analyze additional factors that matter most to your product and business goals.
What’s next? Once you’ve received the information from your initial list of vendors, it’s time to compile it in one place and make comparisons. Here, at UpsilonIT, we have created an easy-to-fill-out evaluation chart that will be your invaluable assistant for that kind of analysis.
Evaluating and Scoring Vendors
After collecting all data, you may go to the next step: comparing the vendors. Apart from making certain that selected vendors have good references, relevant experience, and required tech skills, you want to support your decision with numbers, don’t you?
For this purpose, you will need an outsourcing vendor evaluation checklist or a comparative chart. We went further and prepared a spreadsheet with built-in formulas that allow you to easily rank potential tech partners based on eight key criteria for vendor evaluation. This document includes a generic list of questions designed to give you a proactive approach during the vendor selection process. You can adjust them based on your specific methods and needs.
Fragment of Software Vendor Evaluation Spreadsheet
While filling out the chart, you will see very clearly, for example, in which area the vendor scores more and what aspects the competitors outperform it. By comparing vendors’ aggregate scores, you will be able to select which of them should be your top priority and which сan be excluded from further considerations.
Download Vendor Evaluation Spreadsheet
Concluding Thoughts
No one ever partners with a software development company without doing comprehensive research on its services, portfolio, and references. You might find this process tedious, but the time spent on evaluating will help you minimize expenses, reduce future misunderstanding, and avoid any hidden mistakes in project management. That is precisely what this guide is for: to give you a practical way to assess your prospective software development partner efficiently.
Whether you’re a startup founder looking to build a development team from the ground up, or you’re an established business owner looking for additional resources to grow your existing tech team, our vendor evaluation spreadsheet will enable you to make better and more informed business decisions.
Want to receive an expert evaluation of your project from IT experts? We are an experienced custom software development company that has been working in the IT field since 2012. Our team has implemented and completed lots of projects from clients worldwide. Get in touch with us for a free consultation, preliminary project planning, or a rough estimate. We’ll be happy to guide you through the process and look forward to our joint success. | https://medium.com/@upsilon-it/a-guide-to-vendor-evaluation-and-scoring-in-software-outsourcing-b3936baa76ba | [] | 2021-08-13 08:47:07.699000+00:00 | ['Evaluation', 'Outsourcing', 'Software Development', 'Vendor Management', 'Scoring'] |
Stone White Barbed Wire | You watched them dip and soar and sometimes they would balk, and you thought you’d see, for the first time, a hawk pounce on her prey. But they remained tall in their arcs. You returned to the woods and a hawk followed, and alighted atop a pine. You noticed a mathematical poetry to her nest, the way the branches twisted, as though the nest, or the hawk, fell under some mystical nature proportion and you remembered proportion comes from the Greek word analogia, analogy, but naming a connection between proportion and analogy makes you feel less like a poet.
That’s when you noticed barbed wire around the nest. Cut pieces. A foot in length each. You imagined the hawk stealing them from a farmer. They were rusted, blending with the branches, but the little twists and spikes were the refinement that caught your eye. You walked on. Yet the hawk’s eyes kept appearing in your head — black dots in gold. You kneeled and carved the eyes into the meat of a fallen tree as the earth sucked the tree back. Perfect circles with holes. You carved another set in a live tree, now scraping away the bark, and soon you were wandering the forest etching eyes, sometimes breasts, but usually eyes, any eyes, hawk eyes, snake eyes, deer eyes, bear eyes, spider eyes, lizard eyes. They brimmed around you in a peering sea. They were friction, heat, purpose, formations of fire to wrap the words around. The poetry came. You’d never filled so many pages.
Suddenly — it always bothers you when stories use that adverb — you heard a cry. The hawk landed on a branch before you. She opened her eyes and every eye you’d carved into the trees vanished. A fox crept from behind a trunk. She peered at you. She peered at the hawk. The fox led you to a clearing. In the middle stood a smooth white stone. The fox kicked a little dirt at the base and trotted into the trees. The hawk swooped over your shoulder, clipping your ear with her wing, and followed. The sun burnt your neck. You were alone. You touched your pen, your pages. The language never felt so slaughtered. You couldn’t remember your own name. You withdrew your machete. You pressed the blade against your wrists, your temple, your chest. You began to carve the blank white stone.
You carved a body against a burning star. In one hand he holds a pen, the other a screwdriver. He’s muscular and tattooed but his face offers no expression. His eyes are open and beaming with the glint that reflects light. You color his hair with ash. You stand back. A crowd’s formed. It’s beautiful, they say. Sacred, perfect. They push you out of the way. They give the man a name, describe the star that formed him, they fall to their knees. They sing, chant, invent a calendar, cut away trees to make more room. They arrange buildings so the windows point towards the carving. Someone collects the extra bits of stone and writes a song about them. Some sing along. Others protest. They fight. They cut away more trees. You turn. The hawk stands on the fox’s shoulders in the shadows. | https://shorterletter.com/stone-white-barbed-wire-39502fb6d51b | ['Caleb Garling'] | 2020-03-11 14:17:42.870000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'Flash Fiction', 'Surrealism', 'Short Story', 'Featured'] |
Differences between Tableau vs Power BI-2021 | Power BI:
Power BI is a collection of software services, applications, and connectors that work together to transform your independent data sources into consistent, visually engaging, and interactive information. Your information can be an Excel accounting page or an assortment of on-premises and cloud-based crossover information stockrooms. Power BI makes it easy for you to connect to your data sources, view and discover what’s important, and share it with anyone or anyone you choose.
Tableau:
Tableau is an incredible and quickest developing information representation device utilized in the business knowledge industry.. This helps to simplify the raw data in an easy-to-understand format. Tableau helps create data that professionals at all levels of an organization can understand. It likewise permits non-specialized clients to make custom dashboards. Do you want to become a master in data visualization Tableau Training will help you.
Comparison between Tableau and Power BI
Tableau and Power BI is the most broadly utilized information perception instruments available, in view of business inclinations. To make it simpler for you, we’re doing a correlation among Tableau and Power BI.We’ll take a look at the practical features, licensing pricing, and other needs of both solutions.
Power BI features
These are the essential features of Power BI
Customizable dashboards
Database
Reports
Navigation Panel
Table with questions and answers
Help and comment buttons
Ad hoc reports and analyzes
Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)
Trend indicators
Create interactive reports
Extensive data visualization and reporting tools
Real-time dashboards that help business owners troubleshoot problems as they arise
It offers integrated Power BI, an Azure service that allows applications to communicate with Power BI.
Power BI’s Q&A feature allows users to ask questions in natural language to get answers in a specific graphical form.
Content packs — to share dashboards with the team
Tableau features:
These are the main features of Tableau:
Data Fusion
No technical knowledge is required.
Real-time analysis
Data collaboration and data reporting
DAX analysis function
Patented technology from Stanford University
Switch between display and drag and drop
List of native data connectors
Highlight and filter data
Share dashboard
Place the panel on the inside
Mobile ready dashboards
Table reader for data visualization
Table comments
Create a data query “without code”
Translate searches into views
Import all data ranges and formats
Key differences between Tableau vs Power BI:
Tableau
Power BI
1.Tableau BI can handle a large amount of data with better performance.
1.Power BI can handle a limited amount of data.
2.The Tableau stage is known for its information representation usefulness. Users can use 24 different types of views in Tableau.
2.PowerBI offers many data points to allow data visualization. It offers over 3,500 data points to explore in the dataset.
3.Tableau provides excellent customer service. It has a great community forum for discussions.
3.Power Bl offers limited customer support to its users with a free Power Bl account. However, users of the paid version get faster support than the free version.
4.Tableau works best when there is a lot of data in the cloud.
4.Power Bl does not perform better with a large amount of data
It is mainly used by advanced users and analysts for analysis purposes.It is utilized by both guileless and experienced clients.
5.Table is a bit difficult.
5.The Power BI interface is very easy to learn.
6.Information can be stored through the Tableau server.
6.Power BI focuses more on reporting and analytical modeling, but not on data warehousing. Suitable for medium and large organizations. Suitable for small, medium, and large organizations.
7.Tableau distributes MDX in size and dimensions.
7.Power BI uses DAX to calculate and measure columns.
8.Tableau can associate with an assortment of information sources.
8.Power BI connects limited data sources by extending data source connectors in monthly updates.
Data Visualization
Tableau and Power BI are unique and both have unique data visualization capabilities. Power BI is best suited if you want to apply visuals and modify data. If your primary goal is to visualize data, the best tool is Tableau. Let’s compare these two.
Tableau — works best with a large number of datasets and comes with powerful mining capabilities.
Power BI: It’s much easier to load datasets. Here you can have different types of visualizations, such as diagrams. It also comes with drag and drops features that make your job easier and more efficient. Power BI Training to Create and Share advanced Visualization and Business Insights
Performance:
Tableau can handle large amounts of data from multiple data sources, while Power BI can handle a relatively small amount of data, which gives Tableau an extra point here.
Data source:
Power BI has limited access to other servers and databases (SQL, SAP HANA, Oracle Database, etc.)
Tableau can access a wide variety of database servers and resources including JSON, PDF, up-to-date statistical reports, Microsoft docs, SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle Redshift, the list goes on.
User Interface:
When it comes to the user interface, Tableau has a streamlined user interface compared to Power BI. The Tableau interface makes it easy to create and customize dashboards to suit your needs. When it comes to Power BI, it has an intuitive interface that allows you to work and learn very quickly compared to Tableau. In terms of ease of use and simplicity, most people prefer Power BI over Tableau.
Customer Support and community:
The two tools compete with each other in terms of service to their customers. In terms of community support, Microsoft Power BI has a smaller community than Tableau due to late market entry.
Functionality:
When it comes to functionality, Tableau can provide answers to questions customers often have about Power BI. Tableau analyzes the data at the root and provides better insights than Power BI.
Integration :
Today, an organization has to work with different tools. Therefore, the integration between these tools is essential to get the tasks done faster and easier. Both tools are designed to integrate with any tool. In terms of integration, Tableau is slightly better than Power BI
Programming tools Support
Supported programming languages play a vital role in customization and development.
Moreover, these two tools are also designed to connect with different programming languages in an easy way. Tableau can work better with R compared to Power BI. It is even possible to integrate R with Power BI using Microsoft Revolution Analytics, but this functionality is only available at the enterprise level.
Conclusion:
Business Intelligence tools play a vital role in making business decisions. When it comes to Power BI and Tableau, both Power BI and Tableau have their own unique features, pros, and cons. It all depends on the needs and requirements of your business. Both the Power BI and Tableau tools perform exceptionally well, so we couldn’t conclude that only one tool outperforms the other. Because functions such as data preparation, data archiving, data validation, and ETL operations are performed by both tools inefficiently and without latency.
Author Bio:
I’m Srija Kalavala, a fascinated Technical Content writer currently working at Mindmajix. Interested to know about technology updates. I Can write an article on the following technologies: Database Management, Cloud Computing, Business Intelligence and Analytics, Cyber Security and SIEM Tools, etc. Get connected with me on Linkedin. | https://medium.com/@ksri8580/differences-between-tableau-vs-power-bi-2021-57a69461aff2 | ['Srija Kalavala'] | 2021-06-08 12:40:02.059000+00:00 | ['Powerbi', 'Tableau'] |
Infrastructure-As-Code for AWS using Azure DevOps, CloudFormation Template, and Terraform | Infrastructure as code is now mainstream for cloud infrastructure provisioning and managing. There is no second argument about the need of setting up IaC as a part of modern application development. There are various frameworks and tools available to setup IaC. Terraform is one of the most popular infrastructures as a code software tool. In this article, we will see how to use Terraform for AWS cloud.
You may be wondering why I am using all these tools together. So, here is my explanation.
1) Azure DevOps is used as a CI tool to create pipelines. We can also use AWS CI tools or gitlab runners or any other tool. 2) CloudFormation is used to create first VM in AWS that could be registered as an AZ DevOps agent. We can also create this VM using Web Portal or AWS CLI. 3) And finally Terraform, which is my tool of choice for IaC. You can continue to use CloudFormation templates for other infrastructure set up as well.
So, what is in it for you?
The end goal is to be able to execute the Terraform code to create AWS resources. Usually, we have to deal with the complexity of managing access keys to initiate terraform but we will first create EC2 instance with an Admin role to execute terraform code.
The whole activity can be split into the following steps:
CloudFormation template to create a VM
Register this VM as Azure DevOps agent
Create an Azure DevOps pipeline to trigger the CloudFormation template
Terraform sample to create AWS resource
Azure DevOps pipeline sample to trigger terraform
Let’s get started with some code
We need a CloudFormation template to create an AWS stack. The below gist can be used to create a VM and other required resources.
💡 It is important to note role assignment in the above snippet. arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AmazonEC2RoleforSSM is required for instance connection and arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AdministratorAccess to execute terraform code from this agent
Now that we have the VM in place, we need to configure this VM as a DevOps agent. We can follow the steps described here to configure this VM as an agent. Some of these steps can be configured in UserData field in the above template. A small snippet is shown below.
UserData:
Fn::Base64: !Sub |
#!/bin/bash
export PAT_TOKEN=${PatToken}
export POOL_NAME=${PoolName}
export AGENT_NAME=${AgentName} ## Download the Linux agent /home/ubuntu/buildagent/config.sh --unattended --auth pat --token $PAT_TOKEN --url https://dev.azure.com/ --pool $POOL_NAME --agent $AGENT_NAME sudo /home/ubuntu/buildagent/svc.sh install sudo /home/ubuntu/buildagent/svc.sh start
Time to put the pipeline in place
Let’s create an Azure DevOps pipeline to trigger this CloudFormation template. We first need to create AWS Service Connection in Azure DevOps.
Service Connection in Azure DevOps
We can then use AWS tasks to configure this pipeline. In this case, we need the AWS CloudFormation Create/Update Stack task. We need to fill in some of the following inputs to use this task.
Finally, the pipeline yaml would look like the below snippet.
Time to create a Terraform script
There are a few good scripts in this repository. For this article, we will take a simple example to create Elastic Container Registry(ECR) using terraform.
Now the final step is to create an Azure DevOps Pipeline to trigger terraform code. Below is the code snippet for Azure DevOps Pipeline.
We need to make sure that we should use same Agent Pool in which we have registered the instance created in step 1
Conclusion 🎉
I hope this article will help you to kick start IaC in your application. Please feel free to share your questions, feedback, and experience in the comments section.
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Follow us on Twitter 🐦 and Facebook 👥 and Instagram 📷 and join our Facebook and Linkedin Groups 💬 | https://faun.pub/infrastructure-as-code-for-aws-using-azure-devops-cloudformation-template-and-terraform-8c3a7500d6e5 | ['Jagdeep Soni'] | 2021-01-05 11:17:03.419000+00:00 | ['Azure Devops', 'Cloudformation', 'AWS', 'Terraform', 'Infrastructure As Code'] |
Great Grandpa and The Berdoo’ Pussy Wagon | One of the cool things about moving in with the folks later in life is hearing stories I haven’t heard before. On our run up to Kaiser Riverside where they would X-ray and squash my mom’s elderly boobs to check for cancer, she told me a story about my Great Grandfather that was unknown to me. I’ll preface this to tell you that Grandpa Green was born in 1887 and died in 1989. He had an Army Pension starting in 1924, a railroad pension starting in 1945, and Social Security Benefits from 1952 on. With three sources of income, he did not suffer for want in his long golden years. He had a nice cabin in the Shasta/Trinity area on the shore of Whiskeytown Lake with his own little dock for his boat and a doublewide trailer in Yuma, Arizona, both areas with plenty of fish and game to keep him busy. I can still smell and taste the Rainbow Trout pan seared in cast iron with butter and lemon if I think about it. But that was decades to come; in 1924, he was a 37 year old man adrift with a monthly pension check and nothing but time. Not content to rest, like many others during these years, he made his way to California to look for opportunities, and in that down time hooked up with an old Army buddy who had a second hand bus and needed another driver.
Grandpa Green had been driving tractors on the farm when he was a little boy before the turn of the century, work trucks when vehicles were a toy of the rich or machines of industry, and he worked the Motor Pool in the Army starting at the age of 17. One of the reasons they took him at such a young age was his extensive knowledge of automobiles, mechanics and repair. Following his twenty years in the Army, my Great Grandpappy would join up with the railroad a year later, and his friend would go on to be one of the big wigs in the fledgling Greyhound company, but their gig for that long hot summer of ‘24 was taking johns from LA down to the red light district in San Bernardino.
For those of you who don’t know, San Bernardino has always been a shithole. You think the Hell’s Angels would get their start in Pasadena? Even the pre-Colombian natives avoided the swampy wetlands that make up the present day downtown area. They lived up in the foothills and mountains where there was plenty of game and clean water coming from springs and even hot springs when the water table was much higher. The pestilent bog of continual mountain runoff in the valley was a good place to lose your life to murky quicksand and insect borne disease. Funny enough, this area was Walt Disney’s first choice to build Disneyland, but the city fathers didn’t want “no bunch of carneys and circus freaks living in town full time.” Talk about a debilitating lack of vision. And, even though McDonald’s, Taco Bell and even via proxy Wienerschnitzel would get their start in the 50s and 60s in Berdoo’, that was almost three decades away. Back in the Roaring 20s, Berdoo’ was where you went to get a hooker, find a card or dice game, cheap booze and even reefer or the harder drugs, no questions asked, bought and paid for law enforcement, and no judgement, as long as you were white. For those white men, what happened in Berdoo’ stayed in Berdoo’…except the STDs.
Starting in late spring, my G-Grandpa joined his army buddy as his second driver, and they would pick up the party goers at a specific parking area in downtown LA, load up and one guy would drive out, and the other would drive back; the other driving back had to stay sober while the other partied with the passengers as a sort of ambassador and gonzo level guide. As the new guy, my G-Grandpa probably avoided several nasty STDs, all incurable at that time. Syphilis was actually deadly and the AIDS of its day. But, let’s not dwell on the negative. For about six months, Grandpa Green took thirsty, horny LA men out to the red light district on D Street in Berdoo’, near the site of the County Court House today. In 1941, the War Department would close down the saloons and whorehouses operating openly on D Street and drive the trade outside of downtown San Bernardino, ironically closer to the area that would become Norton Air Force Base in 1942, which kept a lower key red light district rolling in more discrete row houses just off base, all the way through the war. With the cessation of hostilities, when the new nuclear families sprouting up in the wake of the war wouldn’t have such lewdness in their city, the trade was sent four miles down the road to Rialto on Foothill Blvd, where it still flourishes today as “massage parlors.”
However, back in 1925 the houses of ill repute operated openly, women sitting in window fronts under red lights flashing their wares to crowds of wandering, drunk men. It was a classless occurrence, racist for sure but classless, a rare time where factory workers and Hollywood executives would drink in the same bars side by side and shoot their seed into the same women for hire. Conversely, Grandpa Green would sit at an all night diner at the end of the drag, where the bus was parked with several others. He would drink thick black chicory coffee, read the papers and dime store novels, and listen to the radio, when they could get a signal. Near sun up, about a dozen drunken and deflated inebriates would crawl back being Pied Piper’d by the other driver to load up and pass out for the hour plus ride back into LA. If you didn’t make the pick up, you got left behind, which wasn’t so bad. Rooms were cheap in the area, a Chinese laundry was nearby, and the bus was coming back the next night. I can only imagine the crazy shit he saw during that six month run of employment. | https://medium.com/@patrickkillpatrickstrong/great-grandpa-and-the-berdoo-pussy-wagon-5e6c30b49d1d | ['Patrick Killpatrick Strong'] | 2021-03-14 06:59:49.679000+00:00 | ['San Bernardino', 'History', 'Grandparents', 'Los Angeles', 'Prostitution'] |
Play & Earn: the Latest GameFi Token (MATE) that are Worth to Know | December is a GameFi month, because latest attractive projects are in GameFi field, such as Star Wars, DeFi Kingdoms, UFO Gaming, and etc. Many new GameFi projects are now exceeding old ones. For instance, DeFi Kingdom (DFK) now ranks second behind Axie Infinity in volume in the last day, contributing $280M of the blockchain’s $507M in total value locked as of December 14. On December 15, 2021, Legends of Mitra (LoM), has raised USD1.45 million for private financing round. Even there are many GameFi hackathons setting to reward the brightest gaming developers in blockchain. All of these can show the fast development of GameFi.
As the data showed from Coin Market Cap, the total value of digital assets locked in DeFi platforms has reached an astounding US$519.5 billion on December, 2021. Meanwhile, the NFT industry has seen a huge jump in trading volume with sales volume exceeding US$109.2 billion on December, 2021. Vmates has merged DeFi, NFT and gaming altogether, which is not only allowing players to earn tokens while playing but also further monetize their assets via liquidity mining and yield farming.
Vmates is a digital pet community platform that integrates collection, training, breeding, fighting, and social gameplay. It aims to provide people with a new lifestyle and organically integrate work and entertainment. It is worth mentioning that in Vmates, anyone can earn token rewards by mastering gameplay and contributing to the game world. This article will first show about Vmates’ token economy and second tell multiple usages of Vmates tokens (MATE).
It makes sense that Vmates has a layout for what the MATE token will do in the long term, helping the users in their experience of the metaverse and their pets. In addition, the MATE token is also able to be used for the on-going needs of the Vmates project.
For the MATE token, there will be different allocations for the following reasons. Each percentage is calculated from the total circulating supply:
● 25% Ecosystem and Game Output: this will be marked as tokens needed for the users directly on the platform. If a user gains or uses MATE tokens on the site, it will be taken or added to this allocation respectively.
● 12% Marketing and Building: this will be used for the advancement of any marketing needs that Vmates needs in order to grow the platform
● 10% Team Share: this will be the total amount that the team obtains as a means to help build the platform. This is part of a vested schedule and the team will not be able to access all of these tokens right away, but over a longer period of time.
● 8% Advisory: this will be for advisors and other experts in this space that can help is grow on a business development and intelligence level
● 5% Early Investors: as a way to support those that backed us from the beginning, this is given to those that helped us start our journey.
● 3% Partnerships and Offerings: this is used in reservation for any partnerships Vmates needs to make for the progression of the platform
In addition to this, 25% will be locked in reserve and used at a later date so that the tokens remain liquid to the platform.
The MATE token will help facilitate these benefits to keep economic integrity for both the users and to the platform, so that everything can function as intended. It will be exciting to see how the MATE token keeps the platform healthy, knowing that users can interact freely within the network.
Usages of MATE
1. Pets and equipment upgrades
While entering into Vmates, each player can receive their first virtual pet for free after register. The free pet also contains all the gaming functions so players will have a low threshold to enter Vmates game. However, players need to upgrade their pets occasionally to power their pets, then their pets are able to win in the fighting. There are two ways to power their pets.
First is upgrading the pet itself. Pet will upgrade during the fighting, however in each of big step, like from green level to blue level, players need use MATE to finish the big update (evolution).
Second is upgrading pets’ equipment. Pets will be stronger if they have brilliant equipment. For equipment, players are able to combine several materials into an equipment, while the process for combining will cost MATE. Also, players can upgrade the equipment again if they collect enough materials for upgrading, and that process need MATE to complete.
2. For obtaining additional commodities in supply center
Pets have numerical value, such as blood volume and stamina, while equipment has durability. Each time when pets finish fighting, all of those numerical value will decrease. You can give pets time to relax to recover state or you can spend MATE to get additional commodities in supply center. Those commodities will help your pets to recover some state to make your pets back to fighting soon. For increasing equipment’s durability, you need to spend both MATE and materials.
However, there is a limitation for purchasing additional commodities in supply center by MATE per day. That is, players can spend MATE to increase their pets’ fighting times to get more chances to win more tokens, while the number of times will be limited and reasonable.
Apart from that, fancy and customized clothes are available in supply center. Players are able to spend MATE to get them. These clothes will not make pets more powerful, but only for satisfying players needs for good-looking appearance.
3. Liquidity on the pet community platform
As a pet community platform, Vmates must have its own platform tokens, which is MATE. In the Metaverse that Vmates creates, all goods can be purchased by MATE, and all the transactions need MATE. MATE will eventually become the base currency of the platform. MATE is mainly servered for two of the major foundations on the platform: the Vmates Plaza and the Vmates Market.
MATE plays an important role in Plaza, for all social-interaction between you, your Vmates pet, and other people on the network. MATE tokens are given for all support team battles, and can earned by playing and winning social games. However, Social games take a minimum amount of MATE tokens to play but can add additional MATE tokens as a bonus pool to make things more competitive if they wish. Apart from that, players are able to receive MATE token by getting good rankings on pet shows, while ten pets each week will be chosen by the users of the platform based on their attractiveness and style. The most important and expensive part in Plaza is construction. There is virtual land that is not only available but can be built upon. Players and their pets can construct houses, commercial real estate, and much more. Unused land can be purchased and sold on auctions. All of those in construction need MATE tokens to complete.
In addition to the Vmates Plaza, the Vmates Market is also another major aspect of the platform. While the Vmates Plaza lets players interact with their pets on a social-interactive level, the Market gives a social-economic playability to the platform. Users can buy, sell, trade, and otherwise exchange or create different Vmates pets by using MATE tokens, so they can interact with them later on the Plaza or on their own.
So far this month, the average selling price of the primary market (casting) of Metaverse’s NFT has increased from the previous month’s month-on-month (38.25%) higher than that of card NFT (10.57%) and game NFT (-45.60%), but in the secondary market (change the average selling price of the previous month’s month-on-month increase (56.75%) is still lower than the card NFT (86.32%), and the difference between the two is nearly 30 percentage points. This shows that the casting price of Meta Universe NFT is increasing, but the exchange transaction price is not increasing simultaneously, which may affect its liquidity.
If we estimate the overall average yield from the difference between the average price of NFT secondary and primary average price, we can see that the average yield of Meta Universe this year has dropped from 772% to 224%, and the overall trend is declining, but the last three There was a rebound in the month. Also, during the year, the overall return rate fell in game NFT, which exceeded 1100% at a time, but currently only 144%. On the contrary, the overall rate of return of card NFTs showed an upward trend during the year. At the beginning of the year, it was only 72.77%, but now it has risen to 201%. For now, Metaverse NFT has the highest turnover rate.
Currently, Metaverse NFT has more buyer addresses than seller addresses. So far this month, the average ratio of buyer addresses to seller addresses is about 1.25, which is about 0.96 in the card market and about 0.82 in the game market. This confirms to a certain extent that Metaverse has strong buying demand. In such a market, Metaverse NFT sellers have more obvious bargaining advantages. Hence, MATE will be more powerful while Vmates is not only a GameFi game, but also build a Metaverse.
Advantages for MATE
There are many advantages for Vmates’ token MATE. Compared with traditional GameFi game, Vmates build a Metaverse more than only a game. Players can make friends and share their secrets instead of only playing games. That is, Vmates’ token MATE has more application scenarios. Also, because of new GameFi game mode, Vmates will be easier to attract more players, which is good for its token MATE as well.
The problem with the popular traditional GameFi game mode is that although the game produces reward tokens, the connection with their official tokens is weak and the official tokens lack sufficient application scenarios. Meanwhile, the entry threshold price is too high, which is hard to attract new players. Less players will cause less liquidity, which will make the token less powerful.
Different from traditional GameFi game, Vmates’ plan is to start with pets growing, and creates a low-threshold entry for players to attract more players. Also, Vmates will use MATE as a means of payment to increase token consumption, and finally present a complete game and community platform through plaza. We and third-party social games to realize the MATE token as the basic token of the platform.
All in all, Vmates has built a whole Metaverse as well as a pet community platform, which empower MATE a lot. Players are able to use MATE to upgrade pets and equipment, obtaining additional commodities in supply center, make transactions on the pet community platform, and so on. Besides, Vmates solve some pain points, such as high access costs and week relations between games and tokens. Thus, the application of MATE is out of imagine MATE is worth to hold. | https://medium.com/@vmates_official/play-earn-the-latest-gamefi-token-mate-that-are-worth-to-know-b960fa8a13dd | [] | 2021-12-29 07:12:22.623000+00:00 | ['Gamefi', 'Bsc', 'Nft'] |
Making a model for testing nose-swap skills for COVID19 sampling | Downloading the models
We cannot make the print-ready files available for licensing reasons, as the Nose Anatomy model does not allow this. Therefore you will get this guide instead.
So now you are about to download the models,
Nose Anatomy, and a
frame with ears to follow the sampling guidelines.
Both are available in STL (Standard Tessellation Language) format.
Nose Anatomy:
The nose anatomy can be obtained from Bone3D, as the FDM NP-Swab-Simulator.
Landing page (use the FDM NP-Swab-Simulator): https://landing.bone3d.com/np-swab-simulator — Direct link and License
Please see the following link for more information Sananès N et al. 3D-printed simulator for nasopharyngeal swab collection for COVID-19. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2021;278:2649–2651
Frame with ears:
The frame with ears ensures that the trainees/candidates for assessment can use the earlobe as the target direction when sampling.
The frame can be downloaded from CAMES Engineering GitHub repository.
Direct download https://github.com/CAMES-Engineering/Upper-Respiratory-Tract-Sampling-Simulator/raw/main/Share/resized.stl | https://medium.com/simulators/making-a-model-for-testing-nose-swap-skills-for-covid19-sampling-fb42cd5efdf8 | ['Morten Bo Svendsen'] | 2021-10-29 18:39:21.247000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Medical Education', 'Skill Assessment Platform', 'Airway Sampling', '3D Printing'] |
You should consider hiring these strategic job positions this year. | The New Year isn’t just about redefining and improving oneself on a personal level; organizations are seeing the start of 2019 as an opportunity to develop by revamping their teams. That’s not to say everyone has planned a hiring blitz for Q1; in fact, most employers in Canada and the US are planning to keep their numbers relatively unchanged.
What is changing, however, is the emergence of strategic roles related specifically to employee engagement and well-being. The lines between our personal and professional lives are blurring as technology makes it increasingly possible for people to work from home, be on call around the clock, and attend to personal matters while on the job. Everyone’s wondering what in the world work-life balance is supposed to look like now, and this confluence of factors is leaving many employees burnt out and unwell.
Employee well-being can’t be ignored
Mental health issues like depression, stress, and anxiety are on the rise worldwide. Much of this is due to hazardous conditions found all too often in the workplace: impossible deadlines, toxic co-workers, inadequate compensation, scant benefits, and so forth. Not only is this dangerous for employees as individuals (mental illness is intrinsically linked to physical health), but it also affects the people around them and the organizations they work for. When your staff isn’t feeling their best, they can’t do their best work. This ripples out to their colleagues, killing morale and hindering business growth.
Baking wellness into the org chart
Whether you’re planning to hire brand new roles or adjust existing positions, it’s critical for you to keep employee health in mind. Who’s making sure employees are taking breaks, or that the refreshments in the lunchroom are healthy? Whose job is it to ensure staff members feel supported and heard? Is anyone available for them to talk to if they’re having issues with their boss or colleague?
With these priorities in mind, job titles like the following are springing up across the most forward-thinking companies:
Chief Mental Health Officer
Chief Employee Experience Officer
Chief Employee Engagement Officer
Chief Empathy Officer
Chief Empowerment Officer
Chief Well-Being Officer
These positions can add incredible value to your organization by boosting employee satisfaction, reducing turnover, facilitating recruitment, improving teamwork, and increasing productivity. Each of these roles not only serves as a safety net to catch employees who may be struggling, but they also embody the organization’s appreciation for the continuous contributions of each employee.
While it’s fantastic to have someone on staff whose whole day revolves around keeping employees as healthy and happy as possible, ideally, these responsibilities should be shared among all managers so employees feel supported by the entire organization. The more people involved in employee wellness, the more wellness becomes entrenched in the workplace culture.
LifeSpeak is a leader in employee well-being
One of the best ways to help your employees thrive both at work and at home is by providing them unlimited access to health resources. Our digital employee well-being platform contains over 2000 expert-led videos, podcasts, and tip sheets on topics ranging from getting proper sleep, nutrition, and exercise to staying mentally healthy, balancing family responsibilities, managing personal finances, and more. Book a free walk-through today to see how our platform can help your staff. | https://medium.com/lifespeak/you-should-consider-hiring-these-strategic-job-positions-this-year-364fd727c430 | ['Lifespeak Inc.'] | 2019-02-14 16:53:48.968000+00:00 | ['Employees', 'HR', 'Work', 'Hiring', 'Employee Engagement'] |
I Want A Home | I Want A Home
Can I Go Home With You?
©Paula via Canva
I could hear the dolls gossiping about me on their shelves. I couldn’t blame them. The one and only old teddy bear left here, always ignored by the children in favor of the newer animated toys, the dolls, even the more fashionable plush toys, very few of which were bears.
The thing was, I wasn’t supposed to be here. I’d come here a while ago, I’ve long lost track of time, with a sleuth of my kind. We’d been purposely made up to be retro, hence my soft dark brown fur, movable posable limbs, large eyes and large ears. But the children didn’t want us. We didn’t sell. After a long time sitting on these shelves, the humans that run this place came along with a box and stuffed all my brothers and sisters in. I guess they got sent back to where we came from. But somehow, I got missed. I was sitting next to another bear from a different sleuth that had similar fur color to mine and the human didn’t see me.
So, I’ve been sitting on this shelf for ages, waiting for just one child to want me. Problem is, I’ve been around long enough to figure out the children that want plush toys, that might want a teddy bear are the young ones. They’re short and I’m on one of the upper shelves. There’s no way a little girl or boy can see me up here. I think tonight, I’m going to try to get to the lower levels. Now, that’ll be a problem as that’s prime real estate. After all, most children who want plush toys and dolls are short, so we all want on the second and third shelves. But I’ve been around so long, I’ve seen toy trends come and go so surely they want me out of here just as much I want to go.
It’s nighttime and the store is closed. Now’s my chance but due to my posable limbs, I can’t move all that well. Add to that the fact I’ve been sitting on this shelf for a long time and I’m very stiff. The stuffed tiger next to me woke up and asked me where I was going. I told him my hopes of getting lower for a child to find me. He warned me that would be difficult as the popular dolls and plush toys lived there. I assured him I understood but that even the first shelf gave me a better chance at being picked than up here on the fourth. Even if I ended up out on the floor as many from the first shelf do, at least I would be seen by somebody.
He decided he agreed and would come with me. After all, two were better than one. He hasn’t been here as long as me, no one has really, but he’s been here at least two seasons and would like to have a home and child too.
I agreed, we’d been talking for a while and he was probably the closest I could call a friend around here.
The competition to get a home in a toy store is fierce. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve heard of that toy movie and it’s not entirely wrong. Toys can make friends. But you don’t really have friends until you have a home with a child. After all, not only is your main goal to go home with a child but what’s the point of making friends with the toys around you only for them to leave or for you to leave?
So, the tiger and I make our way to the end of the shelf and figure the best way to get down would be to jump. Unlike many toys, our plush figures protected us from getting hurt from falls. So even a fall to the floor wouldn’t hurt us. But my goal was the box of plushies set up for Valentines Day. Once there, we could make our way to the floor and back to the shelves. We both jumped, aiming to land on our bottoms and backs. Just because we couldn’t get hurt didn’t mean we didn’t feel the jolt, even in a box of fellow plushies and that’s harsh on one’s limbs. Especially when your limbs were firm like mine.
We made our marks just like I planned. One white long-furred cat the tiger landed on immediately complained that not only did we mess up her fur, but we didn’t belong here. We weren’t special holiday plushies like them.
He apologized for messing up her fur and I assured her we weren’t aiming to stay. It was simply a soft place to land. She huffed and shooed us along. We clambered down to the floor, many of the Valentines plushies wishing us luck.
By now, I was tired. My limbs aren’t truly made for this much movement. But I had a goal and I wasn’t stopping until I made it. The tiger and I made our way over back to the shelves. The plush toys and dolls on the shelves had been watching this entire debacle. A stuffed unicorn on the second shelf told us that there wasn’t any room on their shelf, to not even think about trying to climb up. As far as she was concerned, we’d be better off climbing under the shelves and staying there with the long-lost toys. The ones no one talked about as the only noises anyone heard were growls and screams from under there.
See what I mean by the competition? I’ve heard the humans talk about unicorns as a good happy symbol and the unicorns that were on my shelf were very kind. But that one was obsessed with being picked by a child and wouldn’t even have an old tiger and even older bear in her way.
The plushies on the first shelf were more than happy to make room for us. After all, the more toys on the first shelf, the less chance you had of being knocked out and kicked around, including the risk of going beneath. Of course, the more toys, the less chance you had of being picked.
We were in the middle of the shelving and the tiger had walked towards the end of the aisle by this time where a kind bunny and puppy told him we were welcome to join them on the second shelf. No doubt, they figured they’d be picked before us. But even so, as the tiger and I climbed our way to the second shelf, it became evident that they were the rare kind comfortable enough in their popularity and looks that the competition for a child wasn’t as fierce for them. Understandable, really. Puppies and bunnies and bears had been popular with the young children since plush toys were first created.
The tiger and I settled in, thanking the black and white puppy and gray bunny for allowing us space.
It’s morning. We all settled in motionless, still aware of everything going on. I still expected it to be a while before I would be picked. After all, I’m a teddy bear, old school at that.
But to my surprise, a little girl came down the aisle with her mother. Her mother was telling that they didn’t have long. She could choose a toy, or even a few if they weren’t too expensive, but to be quick about it.
The little girl stood on her tippy toes, looking on our shelf, hopping down the aisle looking for a new friend.
She keeps coming back to where the tiger, bunny, puppy and I are sitting. Could it be one of my friends might be chosen, perhaps the old tiger?
No, she’s reaching for me!
She hugs me and tells her mommy she wants me.
Her mother is clearly surprised, not expecting a bear like me, I imagine. But she took me from her daughter and placed me in their cart, telling her daughter she could have another if she wanted.
Oh, Joy! The little girl went back for the tiger and now he’s in the cart with me. Oh! Here comes the little gray bunny and black and white puppy as well. I suppose when you not only take the initiative but pay it forward, it really does pay off. Now we all have a home.
We’re sitting on the little girl’s bed now with all of her other plushies. She’s quite the collector. I’m not the first teddy bear, though I am the only one that is built like I am. The puppy and bunny aren’t the first either, but the tiger is. We also have names now. Despite what that movie shows, we don’t actually get names until the children name us. Even when they forget what our name was, we remember.
The gray bunny is Bugs, after apparently an old cartoon bunny. I’ll have to see if I see that cartoon with the little girl sometime. The puppy’s name I feel for. She named him Dotty for his spots. Though I suppose it’s better than Spot. I heard a child call a spotted dog she was carrying through the toy department that once. Turns out the tiger is female, I thought she was male. Luckily, the little girl saw better than that and named her Daisy after her favorite flower. My name is Choco, after her favorite chocolate cereal.
Finally, after all this time, I have a home with friends and a name! | https://medium.com/sunday-fabricated-stories/i-want-a-home-83f2eb589efc | ['Paula Crofoot'] | 2019-08-18 15:30:48.696000+00:00 | ['Light', 'Fiction', 'Toys', 'Happy', 'Animals'] |
MOVIE REVIEW — The Lighthouse. Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe’s… | To say there is a lot to unpack with this film is putting it lightly, not just because Pattinson and Dafoe are speaking in thick accents and old-timey speech, but because there is so much going on here. Pattinson and Dafore both give award-worthy performances as Ephraim and Thomas respectively, with Dafore specifically deserving to be showered in all the gold for the work he does as the veteran wickie. Seriously though, Pattinson continues to deliver these great performances film after film (see: High Life and Good Time as recent examples) and Dafoe has been vastly underappreciated by the mainstream for years outside of his stellar turn as The Green Goblin in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. The Lighthouse is no different, with both men turning in some of the best, most unique work of their respective careers. The religious subtext surrounding the film’s plot is (a little) easier to pick up on with repeat viewing, as this seems be a story about a man trapped in hell or purgatory, atoning for his sins, though that could all be completely wrong and it could just be about two men going crazy on a remote island during a storm.
Robert Pattinson in The Lighthouse (2019)
Eggers’ direction leaves little else to be desired as he shows his prowess as one of the fastest rising directors in cinema today. There are some great long takes here, but also some truly amazing shots that could serve as paintings in an art museum thanks to Eggers and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke (The VVitch). There is one image that has yet to leave my brain from the first time I saw this film, with it being (VERY MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD) Ephraim lying on the rocks as he stares upward at a naked Thomas, whose eyes are radiating the light from the actual lighthouse. Trust me, my description cannot do it justice and if you have seen the film, then you absolutely know what this is about.
From the first trailer released for The Lighthouse, I had my hopes that the music featured within said trailer would make it into the actual film. I was not disappointed. This is just a little aside, but it also serves as a way to mention the score which is delectably devilish throughout the entire length of the film, with the sea shanty Doodle Let Me Go (Yaller Girls) being the only other piece of music used in the film, in the men’s crazed, drunken singing and also over the end credits. Mark Korven is the composer for the score, and while it is not something that I would just want to listen to while driving or trying to sleep, it is very atmospheric in the most eerie way imaginable. | https://notveryprofoundfilm.medium.com/movie-review-the-lighthouse-950241134a0e | ['Patrick Coyle - Simmons'] | 2020-08-01 06:57:04.255000+00:00 | ['Movies', 'Film', 'The Lighthouse', 'Horror', 'Movie Review'] |
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