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SCOTTIE DIABLO’s FAVORITE SONGS + ALBUMS — 2020 🔊 | — ALBUMS —
(in no particular order)
BAXTER DURY “THE NIGHT CHANCERS” → stream
PURL “RENOVATIO” → stream
LOW CUT CONNIE “PRIVATE LIVES” → stream
HOLY FUCK “DELETER” → stream
TIMBO “BRAND NEW FEELING” → stream
KNIFE FOR AN EYE “DAMNATION ROCK ’N’ ROLL → stream
HARALD LASSEN “HUMAN SAMLING” → stream
GREG FOAT “SYMPHONIE PACIFIQUE” → stream
KEITH RICHARDS & THE X-PENSIVE WINOS “LIVE AT THE HOLLYWOOD PALLADIUM” → stream
SNOOKS EAGLAN “THE IMPERIAL RECORDINGS” → stream
FELBM “TAPE 4” → stream
JUNGLE FIRE “JUNGLE FIRE” → stream
HANK WOOD AND THE HAMMERHEADS “USE ME” → stream
IDLES “ULTRA MONO” → stream
THE MAVERICKS “EN ESPANOL” → stream
WANDERWELLE “A STATE OF DECREPITUDE” → stream
W. CRYDERMAN “GRANDE MASTERPIECE” → stream
OBNOX “SAVAGE RAYGUN” → stream
SUSO SAIZ, SUZANNE KRAFT “BETWEEN NO THINGS” → stream
THIS IS SKY “XXY” → stream
EPIC45 “WE WERE NEVER HERE” → stream
CORY WONG, JON BATISTE “MEDITATIONS” → stream
FRANK ENE “NO LONGER” → stream
CHRISTIAN KJELLVANDER, TONBRUKET “DOOM COUNTRY” → stream
THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS “MADE OF RAIN” → stream
RAYMOND RICHARDS “THE LOST ART OF WANDERING” → stream
SAM DOORES “SAM DOORES” → stream
LINKWOOD, GREG FOAT “LINKWOOD & FOAT” → stream
GIGI MASIN “CALYPSO” → stream
PHIL SEYMOUR “IF YOU DONT WANT MY LOVE” → stream
ISREAL NASH “TOPAZ” → stream
JON MCKIEL “BOBBY JOE HOPE” → stream
WILLIAM CASHION “POSTCARD MUSIC” → stream
JOGGING HOUSE “BE” → stream
THE TENDER THINGS “HOW YOU MAKE A FOOL” → stream
CHET BAKER “CHET IN PARIS” → stream
BILL FRISELL “VALENTINE” → stream
JONATHAN TYLER “EP” → stream
ALAN POWER “SONGS TO BREAK AMERICA” → stream
MOTHERFUCKIN’ MOTHERFUCKERS “DANCE MOTHERFUCKER” → stream
EDDIE CRISS GROUP “UNDERTAKER” → stream | https://medium.com/@scottiediablo/scottie-diablos-favorite-songs-albums-2020-eaca45ff379b | ['Scottie Diablo'] | 2020-12-13 21:29:55.858000+00:00 | ['Year End Lists', 'Album Review', 'Reading', 'Songs', 'Music'] |
Sunrise: | I find beauty in sunsets and sunrises. I share those because I believe that beauty should be shared. I hope that the friends I share them … | https://medium.com/@marcus17043/sunrise-d952b5e59b74 | [] | 2020-12-12 01:08:26.413000+00:00 | ['Poem', 'Journal', 'Prompt', 'Mindest', 'Poetry'] |
Living Well With PMA | Living Well With PMA
When life offers you this many lessons, you listen
No matter how you slice it, I think we all need a little PMA in our lives.
1. Positive Mental Attitude
In high school, one of my favorite teachers introduced me to the idea of Positive Mental Attitude. PMA, he said, would get you through life. It would get you through the door, and into places that led to more opportunities.
Case in point. At a fancy dress gala he attended, my teacher arrived to find a long line snaking up a carpeted staircase to the entrance. Mr. Stewart didn’t want to wait. So he squared his shoulders, and strode up those stairs, looking straight ahead the whole time. Like he belonged there. Like he knew where he was and where he was going. Exuding PMA, and striding past everyone in line. Now — he was a good looking guy. Tall, fit, and dressed to the nines, he had a head start on looking like he was somebody. But regaling the story, he also pointed out a valuable life lesson — no one questioned him. Arriving at the top of the stairs, he stared straight out as he stated his name confidently. And he was ushered right in. He told me he walked straight up to the empty bar, ordered a drink, and watched as the people in line slowly made it into the ballroom.
Whether you think that jumping the cue is admirable, cheeky, or worse, there is no denying that projecting confidence was effective. Believing ‘you’ve got this’ works. I’ve found that Mr. Stewart’s reminder for Positive Mental Attitude PMA resurfaces for me at times when I am in need of bucking up. No one knows how I feel after all. Projecting confidence will do the trick for most things. Looking like I know where I am, where I’m going, and that I belong there are more than half the battle.
2. Present Moment Awareness
One of my yoga teachers encourages us to find Present Moment Awareness. This form of PMA, so starkly different from the one of my high school days, is a reminder to stop and be where you are. To notice where you are and stay there. To breathe, and let the breath take control of your awareness. After many years of both yoga and meditation, I still find this simple reminder useful.
Case in point. In hard yoga classes, you’re always focused on something — your balance, your breathing, part of the posture. Extending that awareness to include more than that single focus — to include all of it — and to find a way to stay open to that awareness takes practice.
Awareness of that which is aware.
You are not your thoughts and emotions. You are not even the consciousness that notices them. You are the awareness behind that.
Clouds in the sky are like thoughts. They come, they go, they pass. We can notice them, and realize we are separate from them. That’s a good start. With Present Moment Awareness PMA we can also learn to see that the spaciousness of the sky is present whether our thoughts are there or not.
3. Patty Malcolm Anderson
My dear friend Patty Malcolm Anderson embodied life, risk, and vitality. Coming of age in the 1960’s drug and love fest, she partied hard and lived even harder. By the time I met her, PMA had slowed down. She’d cleaned up in fact, and was a beacon of hope for living clean and sober. Oh, she was still “a brassy blonde.” She still loved her rock and roll, her ’67 muscle car, and her smoldering photos of tall, dark and handsome celebrities. But Patty had come full circle in life. The bad girl gone good, she had mended relationships with her parents and raised two strong sons. She’d made her peace with the small minds of her small town, and had become a colorful, yet solid, part of the firmament.
Case in point: From the vantage point of her teens and twenties, there were no guarantees that Patty would even get to 30. Yet there she was, a working professional, patron saint to stray animals, true friend, loving mother and besotted grandmother.
Hard living has a way of catching up with you. Patty loved her life, too short and pain-filled as it was. She found blessings in every single day. They filled her life, and she breathed them out to others. She offered me some of my first lessons in gratitude, and the joy of the small moments in life. In my darker moments, I am grateful to have the Patty Malcolm Anderson PMA lessons to lean on. Small things do make a difference, and I can chose to do them, now.
My PMAs have taught me quite a lot about living well.
Life is short. Grab hold of it and go. | https://medium.com/emphasis/living-well-with-pma-4611f8624d47 | ['Muffie Waterman'] | 2017-12-12 15:31:44.055000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Self Improvement', 'Life', 'Mindfulness', 'Creativity'] |
Um so I had an amazing year | You cannot get poor enough to help poor people thrive or sick enough to help sick people get well. You only ever uplift from your position of strength and clarity and alignment. — Abraham/Esther Hicks
So.
I had an amazing year.
And I’m embarrassed to say it because I’m not dumb. (At least I hope I’m not.) I look around and can see suffering. Upheaval. Sickness. Poverty. I’m not denying those things exist or minimizing anyone else’s experience.
But I wanted to share why I had an amazing year with the intent of uplifting someone else.
Maybe you.
I’m ending the year feeling happier, healthier, richer, more creatively fulfilled, and closer to my family than I have in a very, very long time. I credit this to a few small but key things — and overall, to one book.
Last year about this time I listened to Atomic Habits by James Clear. I’ve lost track of how many copies I’ve bought of this book. Maybe four? At least two hardback copies, because I gave one away. Simply stated, the audio changed my life.
Just — if you’re sick of listening to yourself complain about your bank account or weight or whatever, and you’re serious about changing things, go read/listen to this book.
AND THEN ACTUALLY DO WHAT HE SAYS. The little, dumb, tiny changes. Because they add up.
Last year I got sick of complaining about the same things year after year. And since I mostly complain in my journal or in my own head, it was a very boring place to be. I got sick of wondering why the balance in my bank account didn’t change, why I wasn’t losing weight, and why I wanted to write so much and wasn’t getting anywhere, even though I tried.
But these things (richer, slimmer, more creative) were also what I really desired, deep down inside. I wanted to feel more financially stable, healthier (defined by weight loss), and to write more. (Well, I already wrote plenty. I wanted to write stuff and put it in public where people could actually read it.) These dreams felt very special and secret, but I think they’re somewhat universal — at least for authors.
(Please note: I know that mental health can get in the way of taking any action at all. I’ve written about my depression and anxiety before. If this blog entry makes you feel overwhelmed, please know I’ve been where you are. Focus on taking care of yourself in whatever way you can and don’t worry about all this aspirational ambitious stuff I’m writing. Because the aspirational and ambitious can simply be getting out of bed and taking a shower. I’m proud of you for hanging in there.)
After listening to Atomic Habits, I decided to do the following macro habits all throughout 2020 — and I checked these off on a little grid in the James Clear journal:
1. Take my vitamins.
2. Save $5 every day.
3. Write 10,000 words per week.
4. Post a blog entry every Wednesday and Saturday.
5. Go to the gym 3–5 times a week.
I thought that these were things that could get me to my goals — richer, slimmer, more creatively fulfilled. And overall — happy.
I also had some habits I already did. These were:
1. Meditate for 10 minutes every day. (I usually use a guided YouTube video).
2. Write three pages longhand as Morning Pages (per Julia Cameron). (Incidentally, I’ve done this for decades and credit it to the reason I don’t get writer’s block.)
3. Take a Swedish lesson on Duolingo.
I just wanted to keep these up.
I have lots more habits … like brushing my teeth or whatever (and I actually floss because I bought the stuff and leave it out where I can see it), but the ones above are my more unusual habits.
Well, what happened?
1. I took my vitamins. Boring, but I’m also quite healthy, so maybe it helps my overall wellbeing. I haven’t been sick all year. I keep them by my bed where I see them and remember to take them.
(Yes, I wash my hands all the time and don’t touch my face. And yes, I stayed home in quarantine. Yes, I wore a mask when I went out. But I think taking vitamins helped.)
2. I ended up saving $5 every workday not every day. I either transferred the money to a Capital 360 account because it’s hard to transfer it back or put $5 into a Stash account. I sometimes would skip Starbucks or something similar and feel virtuous about transferring the $5. Other times I just transferred it.
At the beginning of the year, the Capital 360 account had $5. It now has $806.
At the beginning of the year the Stash account had $50. It now has almost $2500. (Buying $5 here and there in March when the stock market was down ended up making about $500 over the year, a 23% increase.)
Um, so that’s like $3200 I just kinda now have. Incidentally, $5 per day is $1825 over the course of the year, and I’ve almost doubled that because I invested it, not just saved it — and also sometimes I’d transfer like $10 or $25 if I was feeling wild. Over the months, I saw how the account balance would get close to an even number (like $500), so I’d transfer enough to make it that amount. And it just kept going.
(Also, I’m not intending on this to be money advice. Go talk to someone who actually knows. My thought process was to hedge my bets with doing both safe and speculative — a savings account that earned interest and then various stocks. I also wasn’t spending money I needed for food, shelter, etc. I barely felt the expense, but I very much feel the accumulation of savings.)
There really is magic in just starting to do something small, because it really does compound and snowball into good things.
Maybe in the grand scheme of things $3200 isn’t that much. To me it feels like I have this cute little cushion I literally created out of loose change in a year.
Honestly, it feels like a lot, not “cute” or “little.” If I don’t compare myself to millionaires, it’s kind of amazing.
What would happen if you transferred $1 or $2 a day? By the end of 2021, see how much you have…
Another money habit: I wanted to stop buying so much online and one-clicking so many ebooks — even free ones — because it was just too much. I had like 800 unread books. So I kept track of the days I didn’t buy anything or download any books. My ecommerce moratorium ended up being streaks of time I didn’t buy anything and then a day where I would buy everything off of Amazon or whatever all at once. Not sure it did much except make me feel marginally better. With ebooks, while my TBR count is less than what it was at the beginning of the year, it isn’t the zero I’d hoped it to be. But I seriously read about 300–400 books — about 1–2 a day. (I read fast and don’t sleep.) My “read” pile jumped from 800 to 1100. Not sure what to make of it except I read so much and it was really fun. So, I still have about 680 books on my TBR pile for next year. That can be another habit to work on.
3. I’ve written more than 530,000 words this year. The habit I tied it to incidentally, was opening my laptop. If I open my laptop — and that’s a habit I record with a tick mark on a grid — it’s a lot easier to get into the document and start writing. So the way I trick myself to write is I tell myself all I have to do is open my laptop. Simple. I check off the box that I did it and I feel virtuous. To reward myself for actually getting the word count, I have a little jar with binder clips in it and every 1,000 words I put a binder clip in a small old milk bottle. Then I can see the words add up.
I also did a spreadsheet to know what I’ve written this year. I’ve never done one before because it felt too quantitative rather than qualitative. Writing is supposed to be this outlet for me, not something to beat to death with statistics. But I’m glad I did it because writing can be so amorphous. Putting parameters on it made it feel real.
Oh, and I’ve finished one book, set to be published in February. I have a contract for another, and it’s (today) at 77,000 words. Three more books are 50% or more done. And I did NaNoWriMo. So, yeah. It was a productive year.
I also learned that I like juggling projects. Focusing on one can make me stagnant. If I get stuck on one, moving to another really seemed to keep my momentum going.
But I’m now focusing on getting them done and shipped. One at a time. Because they’re all just so close I can feel it.
4. Before this year, I’d published eleven blog entries from 2017 to 2019. This year, I’ve posted 97, not counting this one. I missed a time or two at the beginning, but um, yeah… That’s a big difference.
The reasons I wanted to focus on posting blog entries were multifold. I’d felt “out of it” as far as publishing, having worked on one book for so long that wasn’t gelling. I’d felt frustrated and jealous of those who got their work done. I needed the instant gratification — so to speak — of putting something out there while I worked on projects that took longer. I also wanted to inure myself to the fear of putting myself out there. With each entry — still — I feel fear, but I wanted to do it anyway. So that when the time comes to publish more fiction, I can go, “yeah, I’ve hit publish (literally) 100 times, what’s the big deal?”
My guiding point for writing a blog post has been my gut feeling — tempered by wanting to reach out and help someone else. But to keep up a streak, there is a document on my computer called “Default blog post.” This is what it says in its entirety:
Default blog post
I told myself I just needed to post a blog every Wednesday and Saturday.
Here is me keeping that promise.
If you see that, well, you’ll know how the week is going.
Is there an endgame here? What am I going to do with these blog posts? I can see me taking some ideas and expanding on them and creating some sort of nonfiction/self-help kind of book. I’ve always wanted to do that. I do see them as steppingstones to something bigger.
It also lets me be okay with imperfection. Typos. “Think-Os.” Whatever. This is me with no editor.
5. So, the gym. Well, until it closed, I was going. My trigger was that I just had to check in. That was how I checked the box. Like opening the laptop, actually getting to the gym is the hard part. Once I was there, it was easy.
But the gym closed and is still closed. Like all of us, I needed a Plan B. (C? D?)
I’ve done short walks and long. Currently, I’m just working on doing pushups. I can do a lot of pushups with my knees on the ground. But I can only do a few “real” ones, so that’s what I’m keeping track of. I’m focusing on doing them slowly and properly, not faking my way through them. Faking them is easy, but I’d rather be able to do them right and have the actual arm strength. My trigger for when I do them is when I close my journal, I have to get down and do pushups. (Currently it’s seven.) To someone else that goal might be ridiculously easy. To me, it’s rather difficult and a little embarrassing to post, but whatever. I’m being honest.
I’m ending the year a few pounds lighter than last year — and lighter than I’ve been in years — so I’m calling it a win.
With the other habits, meditating keeps me happy as does dumping my brain in the morning pages. Oh, and I’m on day 622 in a row of Swedish on Duolingo. It feels like I’ve taken about a semester of college Swedish. Not enough to actually converse with someone but getting the hang of it. I’m motivated by a desire to go to Sweden and see some ancestral places — and actually understand some of the language, even though I know most Swedes speak better English than me.
With COVID-19, like most of us, I’ve spent more time at home, but I’m temperamentally suited to that. I know it’s hurt extroverts hard, but as far as I’m concerned, I got to see my family more — even when I went to the office for work.
What am I looking forward to next year? I like the habits I started for 2020. I just want to keep these systems up, because they seem to be working for me. I hope that by using these systems I end up with four to five books happily published in 2021 and I look forward to seeing how the exercise and money habits work out as well.
This entry is about two or three times my usual blog entry, so if you made it this far, thank you. I hope it inspires you to take a small action and then keep taking that small action over and over again. They really do add up.
I wish you the most amazing year ever in 2021. Know that it’s possible. | https://medium.com/@lesliemcadamauthor/um-so-i-had-an-amazing-year-c637d79ca83f | ['Leslie Mcadam'] | 2020-12-26 19:24:32.414000+00:00 | ['Atomic Habit', 'Money Management', 'Weight Loss', 'New Year Resolution', 'Self Improvement'] |
Give a new lease of life to src/test/java | Before I start a quick question to all of you; So how many of you were excited to switch to new functional paradigm of programming in Java? I was very excited when I started learning the more declarative way of doing things. I liked the idea of telling what to do and not baby sit and tell how to do everything. I promised myself there is no going back to the old procedural style anymore. I was very happily replacing my old code with new found streams and lambdas. Until after writing all the new code and I sat to write test cases. That’s when euphoria faded away and I realised that I am back in the procedural world minutes after promising myself there is no going back.
My simple test case was I need to verify that my method under test is returning 3 persons and I need to verify their names, gender and age. With the tools in hand I only came up with following code:
List<Person> result = getPersons();
assertEquals(3, result.size());
for(Person person: result) {
If(person.getName().equals(“Harry Potter”)) {
// do 4 assertions for Harry Potter — Name, Gender, Age, hasMoney
}
If(person.getName().equals(“Ron Weasley”)) {
// do 4 assertions for Ron Weasley
}
If(person.getName().equals(“Hermione Granger”)) {
// do 4 assertions for Hermione Granger
}
}
Or I thought of using Streams and filters but then test case quickly became as complex as the code being tested.
And then I learned about AssertJ the fluent assertions library and boy I was impressed in first look. I can use fluent assertions to write my test code and no more procedural code. It was very easy to write the previous test in much better looking code with AssertJ.
List<Person> result = getPersons();
assertThat(result).isNotEmpty()
.hasSize(3)
.extracting(Person::getName, Person::getAge, Person::getGender)
.contains(
tuple(“Harry Potter”, 11, “Male”),
tuple(“Hermione Granger”, 12, “Female”),
tuple(“Ron Weasley”, 13, “Male”)
);
Clean, Precise and more importantly declarative. If you are still not impressed carry on reading. | https://medium.com/@puneet-wadhwa/give-a-new-lease-of-life-to-src-test-java-1573e74b2974 | ['Puneet Wadhwa'] | 2020-11-18 21:53:36.002000+00:00 | ['Junit', 'Unittest', 'Clean Code', 'Assertj', 'Java'] |
A Brief History on Vaginas, Shame, Misogyny, and Empowerment | Women have long been fed the not-so-covert message that our bodies are something to be ashamed of. This message is even stronger when it comes to our intimate areas, especially our vaginas. It’s one of the major sources of gender oppression, and it’s such a taboo topic that it’s become an almost-overlooked kind of misogyny.
Because of the messages we’ve received for so long, many women believe there’s something wrong with their vulvas — that they have the wrong size, shape, smell, amount of hair…There is a consistent memo that we’re expected to douche, cleanse, spray, pluck, and wax everything away.
In a study put on by Refinery29, nearly half of 3,670 women reported that they’re unhappy with the appearance of their vulvas . Sadly, this same survey found that a third of respondents had been directly shamed by a sexual partner or family member for the way their privates looked.
The impacts of all of this affect women in multiple negative ways. The overarching message is that women’s bodies and natural processes are shameful and embarrassing. Carrying body and sexual shame around for years can be detrimental to a women’s overall confidence, sex life, and intimate relationships.
In addition, there has been an increase in unnecessary surgeries and medications. Oftentimes, products that are marketed to solve “women problems” actually cause more damage instead of solving issues .
The embarrassment runs so deep that it can cause a disconnect from our own bodies, putting us in a position where we don’t know what’s normal. There’s so much shame that a shocking number of women aren’t familiar with their own anatomy .
This disconnect is further reason that some women are missing the signs when something is off with their health. Plus, many women aren’t getting the health care they need in the first place because they don’t even feel comfortable talking to their doctor about their intimate health.
A history of vagina shaming and misogyny
The history of vagina shaming goes back to the days when we had little information on female anatomy. Doctors used to believe women had wombs that wandered about their abdominal cavities , described as “an animal within an animal” that could drive a woman into hysteria. Luckily, the womb could be lured back into place when delightful scents were applied to the vagina.
This mystery, this fear of the unknown, and the assumption that vaginas somehow caused women to act outrageously was a significant driver in the belief that vaginas are something to be afraid of, that needed to be hidden.
Until very recently, women have been encouraged to hide everything that has to do with their nether regions. Any talk about what’s considered to be female anatomy — even something as natural as menstruation — has been a fairly taboo subject. Products marketed towards women imply that vaginas are shameful, nasty places that harbor bad odors and are breeding grounds for infections, bacteria, and STIs.
In fact, the term “feminine hygiene” itself implies that we’re dirty and need to seek out products and solutions. As one woman put it, “vaginal hygiene has been marketed as a duty women must fulfill for the benefits of those around them.”
No one nailed that messaging harder than feminine hygiene companies of the early 1900’s, who put on campaigns that blamed women’s smelly vaginas for destroying their marriages . These ads promised women that the best way to secure love in their life was to douche.
For decades, Lysol was famously advertised to be a safe and effective way to keep your vagina fresh and your husband loyal. Arguably worse, it was also marketed as a contraceptive. Needless to say, a lot of people got pregnant. Not only that, but Lysol douching led to inflammation, burning, and death .
Are we there yet?
We’ve come a long way since those dangerous ads, but we still have work to do.
The fear, confusion, and shame surrounding female anatomy has lingered far beyond those early ads. Kotex even faced issues with their ad campaigns as recently as 2010 . The well-known menstrual product brand was unable to use the word “vagina” in a television commercial featuring products used for…vaginas.
Even today, vaginas are still rarely talked about. Few women know what’s normal and so many women have concerns about their vulvas, not realizing they’re completely normal.
Because of the misconception about what a vulva should actually look like, the prevalence of labiaplasty and vaginal rejuvenation procedures has increased in recent years. In fact, labiaplasty saw a 39% increase in 2016. It is now the fourth most popular form of cosmetic surgery in the U.S.
There are still major problems worldwide surrounding female genital mutilation (FGM), period poverty , and period bullying . These acts contribute to the cycle of oppression, poverty, undereducation, and mistreatment of women.
The rise of vaginal empowerment and women taking a stand
With all of this said, a movement is beginning to take place. The conversation is finally turning and more women are out there speaking out about these issues.Dr. Jen Gunter , a Canadian gynecologist, is one of the most prominent voices for the movement. She talks about the dangers of the misconceptions we have about female anatomy and health.
Photographer Laura Dodsworth photographed 100 vulvas to show women the range of size, color, and shape that vulvas can take. British artist Jamie McCartney created the great wall of vagina in an effort to assure women their vulvas are completely fine. And the idea behind The Labia Library is the same.
These aren’t just art pieces, either. They’re incredibly powerful stories about women and their experiences. Collectively, it’s about women standing up for themselves and each other. Education is one of the greatest forms of empowerment, and the effect it can have on our physical and mental health is exponential.
*This article was first published on seawitchbotanicals.com | https://medium.com/@karie_86524/a-brief-history-on-vaginas-shame-misogyny-and-empowerment-1a7a7bda6df1 | ['Karie Kirkpatrick'] | 2020-12-02 17:55:58.468000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Mental Health', 'Womens Health', 'Sexism', 'Womens Rights'] |
Manipulating data in ThingsDB using procedures | Set up
Before getting into how to create and run procedures, we need to start and prepare the database ThingsDB. You can try out ThingsDB easily by creating a playground on: https://thingsdb.net/. So that is what we’ve done.
However it is also possible to set up ThingsDB manually. If you want to do this, please consult the ThingsDB documentation for more information: https://docs.thingsdb.net/v0/getting-started/.
Now we have a collection in ThingsDB that is called ‘Talus’ and we got an authentication token. We hold on to this token, because we will need this in the next HTTP request, using CURL with token authentication.
First, we will add a list to the root of the collection with the name pizzas . This is done like this:
// Add a new list called `pizzas` to the root of the collection
.pizzas = [];
Second, we will create a type called Pizza . This is not mandatory, but it allows you to define the properties of a given type. Instances of this type that do not meet this definition will not be accepted.
// Create a new type called `Pizza`
set_type('Pizza', {
name: 'str',
price: 'float'
});
Now if we want to add a Pizza to the list pizzas , all we have to do is create a procedure for this and run it!
Creating our first procedure
Creating a procedure is very easy. All we have to do is call the function new_procedure , which is part of the Procedure API. This function requires two arguments. The first one is the name that you give to the new procedure and the second argument is the closure. A closure is an inline function, which you also find in other programming languages such as Javascript (Arrow function) or Python (Lambda function).
So let’s create our first procedure, which adds a Pizza to the list of pizzas :
// Create a new procedure called `add_pizza`
new_procedure('add_pizza', |name, price| {
pizza = Pizza{
name: name,
price: price
};
.pizzas.push(pizza);
});
Note: Procedures can be created to the @thingsdb or a @collection scope. So make sure you target the correct scope, when creating procedures.
Now we just have to run it. Running a procedure is also part of the Procedure API. The run function can be used for this:
// Run `add_pizza` with a given name and price
run('add_pizza', 'Pepperoni', 7.99);
That’s it! Now you know how to create and run procedures.
If you would like to try out the previous steps combined using a CURL command. You can use the following example:
curl --location --request POST 'https://playground.thingsdb.net//Talus' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer <PLACE_YOUR_TOKEN_HERE>' \
--data-raw '{
"type": "query",
"code": ".pizzas = []; set_type(`Pizza`, {name: `str`, price: `float`}); new_procedure(`add_pizza`, |name, price|{ pizza = Pizza{name: name, price: price}; .pizzas.push(pizza);}); wse(run(`add_pizza`, `Pepperoni`, 7.99));"
}'
Note: Stored closures which can potentially make changes to ThingsDB are called closures with side effects and must be wrapped with the wse(..) function. Since a procedure is a named closure that is attached to a scope, this also applies here.
There is also a direct entry point for running procedures instead of starting a procedure using the run(..) syntax. This can be used as follows:
curl --location --request POST 'https://playground.thingsdb.net//Talus' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer <PLACE_YOUR_TOKEN_HERE>' \
--data-raw '{
"type": "run",
"name": "add_pizza",
"args": ["Pepperoni", 7.99]
}'
Additional procedures
Now that we have created our list of pizzas and a procedure to add one, we of course also want to retrieve or even modify this data. The way to do this is by simply creating more procedures. For any ThingsDB related action, a procedure can be created. You can create as many procedures as you want.
So to retrieve the list of pizzas, we could write the following procedure:
// Create a new procedure called `get_pizzas`
new_procedure('get_pizzas', || {
.pizzas;
});
Or if we would like to update a property value of a certain pizza:
// Create a new procedure called `update_pizza_price`
new_procedure('update_pizza_price', |name, new_price| {
pizza = .pizzas.find(|p| p.name == name);
pizza.price = new_price;
nil;
});
And lastly, if we want to remove a pizza:
// Create a new procedure called `remove_pizza`
new_procedure('remove_pizza', |name| {
.pizzas.remove(|p| p.name == name);
nil;
});
Tips and Tricks
In addition to being able to create new procedures, the Procedure API also offers a number of other useful functions. One of these functions is procedure_doc . This function returns the doc string for a given procedure. A doc string can be added to a procedure when creating one.
Here is an example, which shows how a doc string can be added to a procedure and then retrieved again:
// Create a new procedure called `count_pizzas`
new_procedure('count_pizzas', || {
"Returns the number of pizzas";
.pizzas.len();
}); procedure_doc('count_pizzas');
Another useful function is has_procedure . With this function you can quickly determine if a procedure exists within the current scope.
An example:
has_procedure('count_pizzas');
Other use cases
Besides the fact that you can reuse these procedures, using them has even more advantages. First of all, they are faster than regular queries. This actually has to do with “stored closures”. A procedure uses a stored closure whose code / syntax has already been compiled and where possible variables have already been created. So there is already some work done that does not need to be redone. This can have major advantages in terms of scalability. Second, you can call these procedures from any project that you connect to ThingsDB. This can be very useful, for example, when sharing data between multiple apps or other systems.
Finally, as mentioned before, you can avoid code injection by making use of procedures. By using procedures you are more or less ‘forced’ to inject arguments. Variable injection is used to prevent injection issues with normal queries. So you may have to look at the “variable injection” documentation to get normal queries ‘safe’, but procedures by itself force using “arguments”. These “arguments” are parsed securely by ThingsDB and potentially executable code is not executed as such.
Conclusion
In this blog we have shown how accessible and simple it is to use procedures. We explained what its benefits are and some of its use cases. Now you have enough information to get started with procedures yourself!
If you want to learn more about ThingsDB or its procedures you can visit the official documentation page at https://docs.thingsdb.net. | https://robvdboom.medium.com/manipulating-data-in-thingsdb-using-procedures-e1a8a8421612 | ['Rob Van Den Boom'] | 2020-10-29 08:20:24.833000+00:00 | ['Data', 'Open Source', 'Database', 'Programming', 'Querying'] |
Ontario Green Savings on Why Having a Smart Home is a Smart Thing to Do | How Adopting and Integrating Smart Technology Into a Household Can Make Life Easier and More Secure
The transformation of residential dwellings into smart homes — a process sometimes referred to as home automation, or ‘domotics’ — is a relatively new practice, but one that is rapidly rising in popularity amongst homeowners.
According to Statista, the Canadian smart home market is forecast to grow with a compound annual rate of 10.7% between the years of 2019 and 2023 and is projected to generate $3.8 billion (US) in revenues by the end of that timeframe. If those numbers hold, that would be enormous growth over a relatively short period, and it would indicate that this burgeoning new industry will soon become an economic powerhouse. But what exactly is a smart home? How does it work? Why are so many people embracing the concept and opting to modify their households? In essence, what differentiates an ordinary home from a smart home is the integration of various smart devices and appliances into a single master system to monitor, regulate, and better control the way they function. Envision such seemingly disparate household components as lighting, heating, ventilation, security, and entertainment systems unified via a Wi-Fi hub and administered by the homeowner through a single interface, such as a smartphone, electronic pad, or wall-mounted access panel. Although that description may sound overly complex, the result is precisely the opposite. One of the major selling points of home automation is that it simplifies peoples’ lives. Smart homes have other positive aspects, too. Here, by way of explaining them, is a concise summary of the benefits of adopting and integrating smart technology into a household, as presented by Ontario Green Savings.
Convenience and Comfort
Usually, the initial impetus for a homeowner to consider home automation is the idea of greater convenience and comfort. A properly outfitted smart home contains many devices designed to save its inhabitants’ time and effort. Smart refrigerators, for instance, will monitor the expiration dates on the food stored inside it and notify its owners when products are no longer safe to eat and ought to be thrown away. It will also keep tabs on when certain food items are running low, and automatically add them to a digital grocery list. Other examples of labour-saving devices integrated into smart homes include smart sprinkler systems, which eliminate the need for homeowners to remember to water their lawn and plants, and regulate water distribution based on sensory data, thus preventing over or under-watering. Then there are smart lighting systems, which set accurate lighting schedules, automatically turn on and shut off with the comings and goings of people in a given room, and adjust brightness in accordance with the time of day and the weather. | https://medium.com/@saeedtorbati/ontario-green-savings-on-why-having-a-smart-home-is-a-smart-thing-to-do-b555c695eb | ['Saeed Torbati'] | 2020-12-22 19:00:27.044000+00:00 | ['Eco Friendly', 'Smart Home', 'Toronto', 'Smartphones', 'Energy Efficiency'] |
5 Important Things You Should Know Before You Decide To Have Children | 5 Important Things You Should Know Before You Decide To Have Children
They don’t ask to be born and it’s your responsibility to be mentally prepared for them.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
After having my first child, I went into a terrible depression. I was completely overwhelmed and in a state of emotional shock. I sincerely believed my life was ruined.
It’s hard to admit even 45 years later that I was so sad and hopeless when I brought my baby daughter home. I thought there was something badly wrong with me. I had wanted a baby forever and I had a beautiful baby as well as a husband who was ecstatic. I should be happy, I told myself, and was ashamed of my constant tears.
I eventually got treatment and the depression resolved quickly. Initially, I didn’t even know treatment existed. However, even after treatment with an antidepressant I was still overwhelmed by the tidal wave of changing emotions and lifestyle.
The hopelessness I felt is still indescribable. I kept wondering how it was possible no one ever told me it could be like this or how I never realized the crippling weight of responsibility one feels for their child. It turned out I had postpartum depression, and my feelings weren’t altogether grounded in reality. My experience was not atypical, however, and many women experience unexpected depression after childbirth. It is horrible.
It was something we didn’t talk about back then — and still don’t much today. I seldom hear about expectant mothers being warned that they could get home with a new baby and find themselves miserable. That’s dangerous because I know, while I wasn’t exactly suicidal, I didn’t care if I lived or not. It’s this kind of depression, a combination of hormones, brain juice and drastic and overwhelming changes in one’s life that has resulted in many tragic outcomes.
So I’ve decided to talk about it, mostly because babies deserve mothers who aren’t devastated. Some of these reasons may not true in every experience, but no one should be shocked if any or all of these nightmares come up. Physically having a baby is only the first step. Sometimes going home is nothing like we imagined it would be.
1. You may feel at first as though you’ve forever ruined your life.
If you’re talking about the life you led before you had a baby, it’s true life is not going to continue as it has, although you hope it will be even better.
Your life as you knew it is gone. You’ll never be as carefree as you were before that baby was born. You may be blissfully happy about that — or horribly depressed.
No one really knows how it will feel to be a parent until they go home with a new person.
It’s scary as hell and you quite suddenly realize you left as two and came back as three, assuming both partners are there. It sounds so simplistic, even to me as I write it. Of course there’s now three, you had your baby. But you will come to know in the days, weeks, and years ahead that it’s not simple — it’s deeply profound. It is not a cutesy pootsie baby shower or a fun gender reveal. Nope. There’s a new tenant living in your house, maybe forever or maybe just 18 to 20 years, but you can’t cancel the lease and get rid of them, or change your mind.
When the excitement dies down and everybody goes home you start to realize that your tiny new housemate is completely helpless and can’t clean up after themself, screams all the time, and frequently even stinks of poop and sour milk.
You may still be happy about bringing your little bundle of joy into your life and home or you may be — as I was — asking yourself how the hell did you not know how this was really going to feel.
What have I done, I asked myself? I was overwhelmed with all the instructions, care requirements, etc., and sure I was going to somehow break my baby or poison her, or something horrible. Looking at how tiny and helpless she was I was in despair thinking that I couldn’t possibly take care of her. I guess I had believed the know-how and confidence came with the baby
You thought you knew what it felt like to be tired, but now you will
The second thing new parents need to be told to expect is that you will get more tired than you imagined possible. How could something as small as a new puppy cause so much work? You will feel — whether you are happy or sad, adjusting well or not — that your legs will no longer support you (since they’re obviously made of soft rubber). You’ll find you really must make a nest when you sit down so the baby won’t fall off your chest or breast when you nod off and loosen your hold. You’ll find the adorable and traditional wooden rocker requires too much effort and is dangerous in the middle of the night. The baby could fall over the wooden arms if you fell asleep. You learn the corner of the sofa or a big cushy recliner works better and is safer when you doubt your ability to stay alert.
You will sometimes cry because you’re so tired. Maybe because the baby won’t stop crying no matter what you do. Or because the baby just pooped and you are so exhausted that getting up to change the diaper seems equivalent to climbing Mt. Everest. Both are impossible. You. Just. Can’t.
If your friend, mother, father, in-laws etc., come by and comment how sweet it is that you are sleeping with the baby in your arms or on your chest, your thoughts turn murderous.
You can’t help but think back nostalgically about the days when you could sleep whenever you wanted, even in your own bed, for periods longer than a couple of hours.
You might get lucky and have a baby who sleeps through the night early on and allows you some sleep, too. My second baby did. My firstborn, oh HELL no. So don’t count on it.
Just know you are going to be tired. Expect almost unbearable exhaustion. Then if you do get a baby who spends the night screeching like a (night) owl, at least you won’t be surprised.
2. You’re going to hate your partner sometimes over a trivial matter.
We’re led to believe by our lying society that when we have a baby, our partner and helpmate is always going to be there for us. Well, some will be. Others may have to go back to work, or maybe you both got maternity leave and you feel like your partner is on vacation instead.
Nevermind the reason, at times you’re going to come to hate that sucker. Sometimes. Not forever and not on purpose, but you’ll hate each other at some point.
If you’re female and breastfeeding, whatever the non-feeding parent says when they plop the baby on you for feeding is going to piss you off. You want to scream, “Yeah? YOU feed it!” You could even scream that if your partner is male. You won’t care if it’s unreasonable. It may be impossible. You won’t give a damn — it’s just feels so unfair that they can hand you that baby and go merrily on their way. You know good and well they’ve been secretly hoping the baby would hurry up and get hungry so they could wake you up, get you to take the baby, and go back to playing video games or whatever.
You very well may decide bottle-feeding is in your baby’s near future. You also may feel like a milk cow in a stall — restrained from moving far, tied down, and milked. Sometimes on sore, cracked nipples. No one tells you about that, either, but it can happen and it’s excruciating.
Your partner and you will play stupid childish games with each other. Like when the baby wakes and starts crying, you both will pretend to be sound asleep, whether you are or not. You’ll try to outlast each other while the wails increase in volume. Finally, one of you will get up, but be grouchy about it. You were both awake, and you both know it, too.
You’ll do something similar about diapers, too. Who hasn’t hastily handed a baby with a hot mess in their diaper to a partner and hurried away? When your partner complains, you say it must have just happened, though you’ve known about it a while. Then you’ll breezily say you guess your partner needs to change the baby. Lawd help if you have a partner who doesn’t “do diapers.” That’s something else you don’t know about before you have a baby. The diaper change, the gagging, the trying to close your nose with a Bobbie pin. Clothespins hurt too much. Ask me how I know. Vicks Salve under the nose helps. I learned that when I used to do police photography. After that experience I never dreamed my sweet baby’s poo could gag me, but sometimes it did.
Also, if you’ve given birth through a cesarean section or just had a long difficult labor and delivery, your partner will probably give you a break the first day or two home. After that, you’ll be expected to assume full duty or at least full co-captain duty. Because, “y’all” had a baby. You begin to wonder what part of “having a baby” your partner performed. Oh, yeah. They breathed with you. Big deal, you may think, or even say, loudly.
I mean, they never tell you this, but after having a baby there will be times you won’t even like, never mind love, your chosen partner. There may be times when you wonder what the hell you saw in them. You may feel like crying about that, too.
3. You will feel trapped and think “game over”.
You realize suddenly that all this upheaval isn’t temporary. It’s not like when you and your partner babysat or took parenting classes. Those times end. This shit is permanent. This is your life. You can’t decide this isn’t working for you and walk away.
You find out it isn’t easy to go anywhere. You can’t just hop in the car with your phone and run to the store, and you won’t be able to do anything that spontaneous for years.
Speaking of your phone, the baby will drool on it, try teething on it, and most likely puke on it at some point. We didn’t have cell phones when I had children, but I’ve had a pierced earring yanked out of my ear. Ive also had chunks of my hair yanked out, my eye poked, ungodly things stuffed into my mouth, and good sunglasses roughly yanked off my head and broken.
Your baby will assault you and all you hold dear. They never tell you that, either. Babies don’t always just lie there and smile at you. Those little darlings have a good grip. After a while they start doing things. Sometimes they do horrible things like putting the cat’s hairy mouse toy in their mouth. Gah!
You will realize you’re not going to get to go to a movie for years. That’s bad. Then you realize you aren’t even going to get to watch a complete movie at home and that’s much worse. You may cry again.
You will come to know that you must time your potty breaks for the nanosecond the baby isnt hungry or has a dry diaper. Later, you will realize you’re not going to get to go to the bathroom by yourself anymore, but that’s a couple of years off. Right now, just know you are on call and you’d better get your business done anytime you can. Sometimes you’ll almost have an accident because you don’t want to risk standing up and waking the baby.
You won’t be eating out much. Babies have an alarm that alerts them to being in a restaurant. Their reaction is to scream themselves red in the face, spit up, poop, or all of the above. Nobody told me I wouldn’t get to eat out anymore. Hey, I love eating out! But the baby does not, so I couldn’t go for years unless a parent decided to babysit. Both of ours were still working and busy so eating out became a trip to a drive up window after all that tugging, tucking and buckling one must do to put the baby in the car seat.
You won’t wear makeup and you’ll be lucky to wash your hair and brush your teeth; depending on how helpful your partner is or how cooperative your baby is. Maybe your partner or a friend or family member will gift you 30 minutes babysitting so you can take a long a shower. You will enjoy that luxurious shower as much as you ever enjoyed candlelight dinners, soft music, and sex.
What about sex?
Sex? Who cares about sex when there’s a baby in the house. If you make it to your bed you’re only going to want sleep in it. Nothing else. Some partners may whine about it, increasing your feelings of being both a wet nurse and a zombie mommy, and any demanding in this area raises the probability of violence in your home. You will probably think of other things said partner could do (and suggest them loudly) instead of making love if you happen to be one of those exhausted and depressed moms love like I was. You may also spend the first months bleeding, feeling stitches pull, tired, shocked, and nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
Someday you’re going to be done with the bottles or breastfeeding, but then a whole new set of responsibilities appear. There’s school to be gotten to and from. Almost every day. There’s laundry. You can’t let your baby be the one sent to school in dirty clothes.
Then there’s the house. Remember when you could clean it whenever you wanted and the only messes you had to clean up were your own? Your baby, once it starts doing something other than crying, eliminating waste, and eating, will start to play havoc with your sleek and clean minimalist home. Barf shows up terribly on white. You will end up having to forget about beautiful white upholstery and rugs for the next 20 years or so. Maybe it will come back in style someday. But then your babies will probably bring their babies to your house. So, hold up on the white.
Your baby will eventually want and need pets. There will be numerous pets over the years and that will ensure your house is never really clean, and always has a bit of cat or dog fur circulating or forming large dust bunnies in the corners. There will be hairballs. Get them up before the toddler finds them, for crying out loud. Your older babies will tramp in and out of the house approximately a million times a day, bringing dirt, mud, snow, dog poop, and maybe even flu or stomach virus. Kids are walking germ carriers.
You probably hadn’t thought of that when you imagined having kids, did you? I sure didn’t. I had a little OCD about germs before I had kids. I had to give up and try not to think about it. Little toddling kids put their mouths on doorknobs and floors. Yes. They do. No one told me about how I’d gag and wince trying to get something gawdawful out of my kid’s mouth.
You will completely forget the cool chick you used to be. She’s gone. She is not coming back. She’s been replaced by the decidedly uncool mom with the fragrance of soured milk on her clothes and hairy legs hid under her sweatpants. You’ve traded being a cool chick for the being mom. It hurts more than you think it will.
When your baby gets old enough to get their heart broken, yours will break, too. Every time. Then your baby will casually break your heart, too. Maybe many times.
That doesn’t feel cool. It’s wretched and you deny you ever signed up for that.
You feel as if nothing will ever be the same, which brings me to the next thing they never tell you.
4. Nothing will ever be the same.
It will be different, and that may be okay with it, despite everything. Just know that once you have a child your life can never be the same. Surely you know that. But knowing abstractly that a child changes one’s life isn’t really knowing at all. It is one of those things that must be must be experienced. Nevertheless, one should read and pay attention to the caution signs.
Your freedom is gone. In its place is a huge responsibility. It doesn’t get easier.
If you are a normal parent you will put someone else’s well-being above your own. For about the next 18 to 20 years — or maybe 30 in today’s crazy world, you’ll be most concerned about someone else’s health, wellness, and happiness. You will be absorbed in deep worry about your child’s life, but you will eventually lose any control of the outcomes.
If you’re like me, like most parents, that habit of thinking of your children first is permanent. Loving parents sometimes go to their graves still worrying about their child or children. I’ll probably be one of them.
You will over the years become a semi-automatic mom robot who is programmed to say certain things at appropriate times. “Brush your teeth. Bring me your hairbrush. Eat the vegetables. No, you can’t have soda for breakfast. Get in the bathtub right now! Get in bed right now.”
In fact, your conversations will usually be be punctuated with offside commands and questions if your child is present.
Later on the commands and questions will change but you’ll keep saying them, as if you think anyone actually hears you. “What time will you be home? Who is going? Wear your seatbelt. Why does he have to spend the night here? Who is that? Where are you? Get your butt home.”
Yes, you will become her. Your mom. Words will fall out of your mouth you loathed hearing from her. “Why do you need that?” The fee is what? Get a job. Who said you could do that? Don’t say another word. Why did you do that? Where is your report card? Did you just sass me?Don’t talk to me in that tone of voice. Go to your room now.”
You are not going to be the same person. Never again will you just look out for yourself. Worry will etch itself across your smooth skin. An ambulance screaming down the street headed in the general direction of where your kid went makes you vaguely anxious. News about kids using drugs scares you senseless. Teenage pregnancies become one of your nightmares.
You pray. You will pray. No matter your religion or lack thereof, you will in some manner pray for your kid with all that’s in you. You will beg. In my case my constant refrain since my first baby drew breath has been “protect my kid, please, take care of my kids, keep them safe.”
It is by far my most continuous and desperate prayer.
Childhood fevers will unnerve you. Then later, teenage heartache will scare you more. You won’t be able to relax if your baby is sick or hurt even if your baby is a big, strapping six-foot athlete. A sick child will always be scary, just maybe not quite as much so as when you have a tiny baby with a high fever at 2 a.m and you’re alone. Stuff like that will happen. Think about it now, before you have children. Can you handle it?
5. You will never be as free as you were as a childless person.
You must accept responsibility for raising another human to adulthood while knowing full well that if you do a good enough job, your grown-up child will disconnect from you and make their own life. Your baby will someday walk away, no longer dependent, but you will remain forever connected and concerned about their welfare. Forever, having already sacrificed a big piece of your life to your child, you will still be always be connected.
Until you have a child, you don’t know how deep and wide love really is. Once you do, you will simply not be the same person. Sometimes the transition is joyful, but sometimes it’s terrifying and overwhelming as it first was for me. Thankfully, I had help and we made it through just fine.
The feeling one has made a catastrophic mistake that costs more than one can pay is truly awful. And you might feel that way for a long while.
You should not have a child unless you are willing to die if need be to save that child. Children are for real. They come to you completely helpless. Children are among the most helpless creatures at birth. Someone must be devoted to caring for them and protecting them all the time for as long as necessary.
Finally, before you decide to have a child, make sure you’re willing to take on the job. You will cease to be the most important person in your life if you bring a child into the world. It must be that way. All or nothing. No dabbling at being a parent. You’re either all in, or don’t even go there. One thing we do not need is more neglected children.
Where do all the neglected children come from? Could it be in large part because people didn’t fully realize what it means to be a 24-hour-a-day caretaker. It is NOT an easy job. It should not be attempted by people who like the idea of creating new life — but aren’t so much on giving up their own lives and lifestyle for the child’s benefit. It does require sacrifice. Your life is no longer your own once you birth a tiny person who needs you in order to live.
There are rewards. Oh, parenthood is amazing and wonderful. Life is enriched and enhanced in every way. But do not dwell on the reward when deciding whether to have kids. Consider instead the purely hard work, the sometimes crushing responsibility, and the long-term commitment involved. Despite all you can do, it may end up much harder than you expected. Children can become disabled, or sick with a life-threatening illness. Those things can happen when you decide to have a child. Can you do it? No one ever talked to me like I’m talking to you, but they should have. Consider all possibilities carefully before you ditch the birth control pills.
Everything, and I mean every single thing, must become less important than one’s child. If you’re worrying about career or still highly invested in being a star at whatever you’re doing, don’t have a baby.
Don’t bring a baby into your life and into the world who wont have fully engaged, trustworthy, dependable, and most of all, loving parents. We’ve all seen people have babies who are not even able to make a full commitment to a partner or a pet. Pity their poor children.
Not everyone can be or should be a parent. Don’t decide lightly.
It is not easy and it’s not temporary. It is both the most difficult and most rewarding undertaking of our lives. Don’t try it if you aren’t sure. Please. Just don’t. Children deserve better. | https://carolburt-15733.medium.com/5-things-you-should-know-before-you-decide-to-have-children-cd2d2c984906 | ['Carol Burt'] | 2020-02-16 04:20:57.373000+00:00 | ['Family Planning', 'Motherhood', 'Childbirth', 'Parenting', 'Postnatal Depression'] |
Warehouse/Logistics Automation. Collaborative robots are working… | Warehouse/Logistics Automation
Collaborative robots are working alongside humans in warehouses and distribution hubs around the world, and this trend is accelerating at unprecedented rates. Dan Slomski Follow Dec 11, 2020 · 9 min read
Long before COVID-19, the purchasing habits of US consumers were already moving online. From 2007 to 2019, the percentage of retail sales occurring online grew from 5.1% to 16% according to Digital Commerce 360’s analysis of US Department of Commerce Data. With COVID-19 shuttering in-store retail during lockdowns and dissuading consumers from shopping in person, the move to online shopping has been dramatically accelerated. Online spending in May reached $82.5 billion, representing a 77% increase year-over-year (Forbes). If e-commerce growth had remained at its Pre-COVID levels “It would have taken “between 4 and 6 years to get to the levels that we saw in May”(Forbes). In some ways, COVID may have served to accelerate an already inevitable trend. According to eMarketer Analyst Andrew Lipsman: “Certain e-commerce behaviors like online grocery shopping and click-and-collect have permanently catapulted three or four years into the future in just three or four months” (TechCrunch).
This massive and rapid shift in consumer behavior towards e-commerce has caused strains on the delivery systems that bring us our goods. Even Amazon, which controlled 35% of the e-commerce market Pre-COVID and shipped 6.3 billion items through its US network in 2019 (Investor’s Business Daily — Amazon Warehouse Robots Spark Logistics Automation Boom), and has proven to be one of the most innovative companies ever, has struggled to keep up with the blistering pace of online shopping adoption. Amazon has 750,000 employees (Investor’s Business Daily — Amazon Warehouse Robots Spark Logistics Automation Boom) and at least 400,000 of these are warehouse or fulfillment center workers (not including the 100,000 additional personnel they plan to hire according to S&P Global) across their 500 such facilities in the US (NY Times). Knowing what we do about COVID’s spread inside enclosed spaces, it should not come as a surprise that the disease has been an issue at Amazon’s facilities — at one Amazon facility in Minnesota the infection rate was 1.7%, while the infection rate in the county the facility is located in was just 0.1% (CNN). Concerns about COVID spread have impacted Amazon’s ability to keep its facilities staffed: “By mid-March, attendance at Amazon warehouses had fallen as much as 30 percent” (NY Times). At the outset of the pandemic, Amazon had to “stop accepting new shipments into its warehouses that were not for priority products, like health care and baby supplies” because “Companies began sending in products to restock Amazon’s warehouses. But with attendance down and more items coming in, workers could not replenish the supplies fast enough. Trucks backed up, waiting days to be unloaded” (NY Times). This dynamic of labor-shortage highlights a massive opportunity for warehouse and logistics centers to become increasingly more automated in the near future.
In-Warehouse Automation
The most common task for workers inside e-commerce warehouses and fulfillment centers like the ones Amazon operates, is moving merchandise items from bins into shipping boxes. This is backbreaking labor in which workers package orders at a rate of “230 per hour, sending them off in cardboard cartons bearing the trademarked Amazon smile logo…. pickers [are] expected to fetch more than 300 items every 60 minutes” (Wired). Since this work is so hard, Amazon does not actually expect to lay off any of these workers as automation proliferates throughout the process: “Rather than lay off workers… the world’s largest online retailer will one day refrain from refilling packing roles. Those have high turnover because boxing multiple orders per minute over 10 hours is taxing work. At the same time, employees that stay with the company can be trained to take up more technical roles” (Reuters).
Recognizing the need to automate their warehouse and fulfillment operations, Amazon has over the past decade leaned into technologies that mitigate the need for human workers. As S&P Global notes, “Amazon is one of the most prominent disruptors in the retail automation space, starting with its 2012 acquisition of material handling technology company Kiva Systems for $678 million. Amazon has since deployed thousands of orange Kiva robots into warehouses, where they scoot small bins and large pallets of products to staffers.” Wherever possible, Amazon is integrating automation technologies into the fulfillment process:
“The Company started adding technology to a handful of warehouses in recent years, which scans goods coming down a conveyor belt and envelops them seconds later in boxes custom-built for each item… The new machines, known as the CartonWrap from Italian firm CMC Srl, pack much faster than humans. They crank out 600 to 700 boxes per hour, or four to five times the rate of a human packer, the sources said. The machines require one person to load customer orders, another to stock cardboard and glue and a technician to fix jams on occasion….
Including other machines known as the “SmartPac,” which the company rolled out recently to mail items in patented envelopes, Amazon’s technology suite will be able to automate a majority of its human packers. Five rows of workers at a facility can turn into two, supplemented by two CMC machines and one SmartPac, the person said.” (Reuters)
Yet there are certain common automation technologies that have not yet been integrated into their packing process. One example of this is robotic arms and grasping technologies, which Amazon believes “is not ready for prime time” (Reuters). In response, the Company is investing significant capital and effort to bring them up to speed. For instance, Amazon is spending $40 million to build a robotics innovation hub in Massachusetts scheduled to open in 2021 (Amazon Press Release).
Other companies have also adopted similar technologies to Amazon to help automate the fulfillment process. Per Reuters, “Amazon is not alone in testing CMC’s packing technology. JD.com Inc and Shutterfly Inc have used the machines as well, the companies said, as has Walmart Inc, according to a person familiar with its pilot…. Walmart started 3.5 years ago and has since installed the machines in several U.S. locations.” Likewise, companies like Procter & Gamble are also looking to automate everything from ”production lines to end-of-line automation, which would include primary packages, secondary packing and case packing” (Investor’s Business Daily — Industrial Robots Are Friend Not Foe Of Workers).
The demand for robots that can automate the warehouse logistics process, from picking/grasping to packaging to shipping and delivery is reflected in recent market sizings. Pre-COVID, Cowen projected that just the US market size for these robots would be worth $8 billion by 2024, while the International Federation of Robotics has said that the market for these robots was $2.4 billion in 2017, $5.7 billion in 2019, and would approach $22 billion by 2022 (Investor’s Business Daily — Amazon Warehouse Robots Spark Logistics Automation Boom). Cowen also noted that private investment in robotics was up to $8 billion through November of 2019, up from $800 million in 2014, with logistics-related investments (excluding drones) making up $3 billion of the total (Investor’s Business Daily — Amazon Warehouse Robots Spark Logistics Automation Boom).
Much in the way that COVID catalyzed a pre-existing shift in consumer behavior towards e-commerce, it will do the same for the US’s shift towards warehouse and logistics robots. Due to its expensive labor force, the US may actually be ahead of most of the world in terms of warehouse and logistics robots: “Robot sales in the United States hit a new peak of almost 38,000 units, setting a record for the eighth year in a row (2010–2018). Today, robot density in the US manufacturing industry is now more than double that of China and ranks seventh worldwide” (International Federation of Robotics). In 2018, shipments of industrial robots to North American companies grew 7% (Investor’s Business Daily — Industrial Robots Are Friend Not Foe Of Workers). The data shows that the US was already in the midst of a trend towards using robots in factories and warehouses. In the near term, there are indisputable benefits that come with robots and automation in logistics, such as undisturbed economic activity and the preservation of human life. With these benefits, and a pressing need to reduce the number of workers on-site physically and to ensure the resilience of operations, early adopters of these technologies will see competitive advantages, and their peers will have to embrace these technologies to survive.
Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs)
In addition to boxing and packaging technologies, perhaps the most critical technological element of automating logistics involves moving materials around within the warehouse environment. For the last couple decades humans have been helped in this task by simple automated devices called Autonomous Guided Vehicles (AVGs), which are relatively unintelligent machines performing very simple actions along prescribed pathways such as line-following. These devices were often expensive to set up and difficult to maintain, but they did help ease the most expensive operation conducted in almost any warehouse environment: paying humans to walk around the facility moving materials by hand. This ever-present need to move materials paved the way for a newer generation of logistics robots called Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs). AMRs are built with a whole generation of newer technologies and have much greater sensing and processing capabilities, giving them the ability to navigate complex environments and decide on optimal paths to meet their objectives even in unpredictable conditions. Where AVGs were often heavily customized to a particular environment, AMRs are more generalizable and thus cheaper to produce or replace, and easier to set up. AMRs can work alongside people and other equipment within a warehouse, reducing the need for personnel and freeing up human workers to execute higher value-adding tasks. An AMR might take the form of an automated forklift able to select and transport pallets of goods to a location, choosing its own pathway through the warehouse, or a modular smart-cart capable of following a particular human around with a bin of items. Sortation is another key operation that is increasingly being handed off to a fleet of AMRs to handle, especially picking inventory for shipment, or sorting returns. Fetch Robotics develops a line of AMRs for warehouse and distribution center logistics, among other use cases, and saw a 63% increase in inbound interest from US firms looking to automate their processes earlier this year at the outset of the pandemic (Investor’s Business Daily — Industrial Automation Opportunity Seen in Coronavirus Crisis). Fetch’s AMRs handle materials in a variety of use cases, such as moving items from one conveyor belt to another, transporting them within a warehouse and moving large pallets. Canvas Technology, a direct competitor to Fetch, was acquired by Amazon in March 2019 for over $100 million (Faegre Drinker). 6 River Systems, which Shopify acquired for $394 million in October 2019 (PitchBook), is another AMR provider which specializes in automating the picking of items for orders inside e-commerce distribution centers. 6 River’s robots have the flexibility to be configured for different use cases and item types while leveraging AI and machine learning to streamline item picking to maximize efficiency. AutoGuide Mobile Robots, which Teradyne purchased for $165 million in October 2019 (Robotics Business Review), specializes in AMRs for heavy payloads within warehouses. As the recent high value M&A activity shows, there is lots of innovation coming out of nascent AMR companies, and big companies are looking to acquire and own these technologies, in addition to using them.
Safety and Collaboration
This shift towards automated logistics will mean an increasing amount of human-robot interaction on the factory/warehouse floor, while at the same time decreasing the amount of oversight and attention that the humans will be giving to the robots. So it is of paramount importance that the robots can be trusted to go about their objectives without causing harm to people or property (including themselves). The first line of defense is the perception layer of the robot, using its onboard sensors to detect its surroundings, prevent collisions, and optimize its path through the environment using edge computing. In addition to its onboard signals, an individual robot will often be taking cues from a broader warehouse-wide Orchestration Layer, which is a communication network that relays information as needed to coordinate multiple robots across the warehouse floor. Perhaps the last line of defense would involve humans taking manual control of a robot, or triggering an emergency stop using an E-stop, which often takes the form of a large red button located on the side of the equipment that can be punched if a dangerous situation occurs. But given the relatively slow reaction time of humans (on the order of seconds), this manual E-stop activity is often too slow to prevent all accidents. Efforts must therefore be made to program safety routines into the machines themselves, to benefit from the millisecond and microsecond response times of computer controls. The challenge is that these safety measures are often not rolled out uniformly across all of the many robots that we are beginning to share workspace with. To address this, there are regulatory entities such as Exida that are seeking to apply certified safety standards across a broad range of industrial robots, to ensure that the future of co-bots and human workers is harmonious and accident-free. | https://medium.com/prime-movers-lab/warehouse-logistics-automation-908fbbbf131 | ['Dan Slomski'] | 2020-12-11 09:03:48.208000+00:00 | ['Robotics', 'Logistics', 'Technology', 'Automation', 'Venture Capital'] |
Complete Guideline to Buy Online Cricket Sport Shoes | The market is filled with tons of cricket shoes that are appealing both in terms of looks as well as price. If you’re someone looking to get into cricket, chances are you will be overwhelmed with the options presented to you. Cricket shoes are of utmost priority when thinking of progressing in the sport. If you’re a batsman you will want a shoe that is ideal for running between the wickets or a cricket shoe perfect to play shots on the front and back foot. Likewise, if you’re a bowler you need a good shoe to propel you to bowl with force and determination. The same applies to fielders who spend time chasing a ball. Realistically speaking you need the right shoe that would cater to all your needs while playing cricket and therefore we are here to guide you on how to buy cricket sports shoes.
There are 4 things you should essentially give importance to : -
Cushioning — You want to look for shoes with cushioning in the mid-sole region and the heel, as that is the place where most impact is generated. Cricketers exert a lot of pressure on their lower legs. For example bowlers while bowling, batsmen running between the wickets and fielders chasing the ball.
Stability — This is a key aspect that you need to consider as it could potentially help you avoid injuries. Cricket shoes that provide high stability also help in reducing force especially on the ankle, knees and hip.
Breathability — Having sufficient ventilation or breathability is important for players especially knowing that cricket games last a long time. If you’re playing a test match you will want to make sure your feet can breathe properly in the hot sun.
Spikes — Spikes provide necessary grip to gain stability and avoid unnecessary injury.
PRICE — Many brands have found intelligent methods of marketing that make their products highly desirable. If you’re a beginner you want to make sure you don’t give into these tactics and buy a shoe that suits your novice needs. Once you master your technique then you can slowly start investing in a better pair of shoes. If you’re an intermediate player, don’t hold yourself back from spending a little more than you should knowing that the cricket shoe will help you benefit from the game.
MATERIAL — Most cricket shoes today are made of artificial leather that are flexible, soft and offer free movement. The polyurethane should provide cushioning, stability and sufficient ventilation.
SIZE AND WEIGHT — Whatever you do, you need to make sure you buy shoes that are light in weight. Since cricket is a physically demanding sport, you will require something that will assist you in its movement. You definitely don’t want to be wearing shoes that are heavy that hampers your progress while running or moving. Keeping all these aspects in mind you will easily be able to dominate the cricket pitch.
If you want to buy cricket sports shoes, SportsEquip caters to your every need by providing authentic sports equipment right at your door-step. | https://medium.com/@sportsequip/complete-guideline-to-buy-online-cricket-sport-shoes-2e3c43934a69 | [] | 2021-12-21 11:43:02.516000+00:00 | ['Sports', 'Sports Equipments', 'Cricket Shoes', 'Sportsequip', 'Cricket'] |
Heal the World, Cook Dinner Tonight | Heal the World, Cook Dinner Tonight
Cooking with love and hope
photo courtesy of the author, cupcakes by Megan
Making mayonnaise in the rain
It was my 70th birthday and I had decided to give a party. I bought a tent, borrowed tables and chairs, and planned a menu with only food that I especially loved. My friends Don and Argy volunteered their beautiful lawn and gardens as a setting and helped with everything.
My family went to a lot of trouble moving and lifting tables and chairs, erecting tents and cooking my favorite foods. I had set out some posters that were a kind of pictorial retrospective of highlights of my life. I sent invitations to about 35 guests. I was happy about the whole thing. It was just what I wanted.
Everything was complete except for the last minute things- making mayonnaise to mix with lobster for the lobster salad. Painting my toenails. Setting out the glassware on the bar, buying and chilling the beer. Just a few last-minute things.
Unfortunately, it was raining. Not just a polite occasional shower, though there were some of those. Most of it was a hard, right-down-your-neck, driving kind of rain. And things were not going smoothly in the kitchen.
I broke the bright orange yolks into the bowl of the food processor, added dry mustard and salt and began slowly adding the oil. My processor lid has a little circular plastic piece with a small hole for precisely this purpose, adding the 2 cups of extra virgin Spanish olive oil in a thin stream. I had done it countless times before. While waiting for the oil to fall through and create a lovely emulsified mass of yellow mayonnaise, I chopped the cold lobster into bite-sized chunks, minced the celery very fine and sliced the chives I’d picked from Cara’s herb beds this morning. I was stressed since I had a number of things to do and I was worried about the rain. Could we have the party in the rain? Would the tents leak? Would people stay home?
And the mayonnaise didn’t work. Knowing how to fix the situation, I poured the, pretty- gross- looking, oil and eggs into a pitcher and started again in a bowl with another yolk and a whisk. I whisked and whisked, changed to a bigger bowl, a bigger whisk, and beat until my arms and my patience gave out. I put what I’d gotten so far into the processor again and allowed it to start dripping through. By the end, nothing had changed. Not an emulsion to be found. I had told myself we could use Hellmanns mayonnaise, it would be ok, if that was what worked best. But, I was still a little disappointed.
I had the inspiration to take my none-emulsified mixture up to the big house and see if my granddaughter, Lindsey, had time to fool with it. I knew she was in the middle of making garlic knots for the party. But maybe she could help. I’d seen her spend a lot of time whipping up egg whites or mayonnaise by hand before and perhaps she had the patience I was lacking today.
I went off to do the several errands I needed to do. A few hours later, she texted me a picture of a bowl filled with gold: “it’s looking better”. Then, later, “Success”. She says she had added another egg and yolk and some more mustard and spent 45 minutes carefully whipping them together. Thank you, Lindsey.
The mayonnaise was beautiful. Because of all the extra yolks, already bright orange because the chickens were free ranging it up, the mayonnaise was nicely golden yellow. I adjusted the seasoning, added it to the lobster with celery and chives, a bit more lemon juice, some white pepper, and garnished it for serving. Then into a cooler with plenty of ice below and above it until serving time.
Everything went well, the food arrived and was enjoyed. Most of the guests came despite the rain and we had fun crammed together in the tent, occasionally making forays to the beverage bar for more drinks. Coming back dripping wet, laughing.
The lobster salad was delicious, and nobody believed Lindsey had made the mayonnaise. “You made your own mayonnaise?” Of course, that’s what we do.
Heal the world, cook dinner tonight
The title of this chapter is borrowed from my bumper sticker. I appreciate the advertising campaign of the Penzeys Spice Company. They send these and similar messages as bumper stickers and mugs and tea towels along with every order of spices, encouraging people to cook, to share food with family and friends and hope to heal our troubled world, one meal at a time. I appreciate this philosophy and the Penzeys company for their efforts to make things better.
I thought I’d end this series with a quotation from the introduction to the 1949 edition of The Lily Wallace New American Cookbook. This message from the seventy-year-old cookbook is still relevant today. (The highlights are mine)
Through all the centuries of recorded history food has played a leading role as the motivating force behind great events. Arable lands, where foods could be cultivated or livestock grazed, have been the chief prize sought by all great, warring leaders of nations and men.
Other great, historical figures, who achieved similar victories in the realm of diplomacy, employed, food, sumptuously and lavishly prepared and served, to add persuasiveness to their arguments. A dinner, banquet, or feast has almost always been a leading feature of any meeting, conference, or gathering where great decisions, often affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people, have been made.
So, too, can food be used by every clever homemaker to influence persons and events which can enrich the happiness of a home and its’ members. Good meals, attractively served, go a long way toward keeping the family together. Those with a tendency to stray will spend more time in homes where every meal is an event to look forward to. Fine family dinners, where exquisite aroma and savor bring a general feeling of content and good humor, provide exactly the right background for the younger members of the family who are at the age when they are seeking partners with whom to make new homes. And, when those homes are made, the new homemakers with naturally emulate, as far as possible, the finest things in the homes they left. It is unquestionably true that the manner of living of many persons today has been directly influenced by the well-prepared and properly served meals in the homes of ancestors, long forgotten. And, traveling with time in the other direction, it is highly probable that the lives of children, whose grandparents may be yet unborn, will be influenced by the meals being served in many homes today.
My philosophy
While I don’t agree with Lily Wallace in everything, it seems important to me to cook well and to feed myself, my family and friends the best I can offer. As a caterer and professional baker I saw the difference it made to buy fresh high quality ingredients and make most of my foods from scratch.
While I sometimes use a frozen pizza crust for a quick dinner, I know how easy it is to make my own dough and generally do. I do use a commercial mayonnaise but for special occasions it is worth it to make my own.
It’s all about standards, I guess. I respect the raw ingredients I use — often dairy from our cows, vegetables, and herbs from our gardens or neighbors’ gardens, meat from our pigs and chickens — and resent that there are preservatives and fillers and emulsifiers and stabilizers thrown in for some reason when I don’t need them. I try to make my own, whatever it is.
I cook hopefully: hoping I can eat something delicious and feel satisfied and nourished myself, hoping to share food with family or friends, hoping to please, excite, inspire, comfort. Cooking keeps me going, giving me pleasure and purpose. I hope that my efforts are one small step toward healing.
photo courtesy of the author
If you want to receive updates about recipes, stories and more, sign up below. I haven’t figured out how to send free stuff to my email list yet, but I’m working on it. Don’t forget to validate your email after signup. And for heavens sake, get me out of your junk folder. Join the fun:
https://upscri.be/bdp6id | https://medium.com/jeans-in-the-kitchen/heal-the-world-cook-dinner-tonight-30d677dd614d | ['Jean Anne Feldeisen'] | 2020-09-02 23:47:30.051000+00:00 | ['Eating', 'Cooking', 'Family', 'Celebration', 'Food'] |
The Fear of COVID-19 Is Back, and This Could Trigger a Major Correction in Bitcoin Price | The Fear of COVID-19 Is Back, and This Could Trigger a Major Correction in Bitcoin Price
Image: Pixabay
After a week that saw the Bitcoin price break the psychological barrier of $20K, then the barriers of $21K, $22K, and $23K, we had a historic weekend as the Bitcoin price reached $24.2K on Saturday, December 19, 2020. The next day, the Bitcoin price was still very close to $24K.
We were heading into another week of records. And then, an event changed everything. On December 20, 2020, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, announced strict confinement of a major part of England because of a much more contagious variant of COVID-19.
This new strain of COVID-19 has just been discovered in England, and it appears to be spreading much faster than the previous strain. This has raised enormous fears around the world at the same time that the first vaccines against COVID-19 are being given to some people.
While optimism about the medium-term prospects of these vaccines has returned, the big question now is whether they will be effective against this new strain of COVID-19.
As you know, financial markets do not like uncertainty.
If Bitcoin is also a hedge against uncertainty, the institutional investors who have arrived in this new world in large numbers over the last few weeks may not necessarily have this vision. Their reactions when uncertainty about COVID-19 returns to the forefront will be the same as in traditional markets.
This may explain the drop in the Bitcoin price yesterday just above $22K to $22.1K:
Bitcoin price drop on December 21, 2020
Bitcoin price then rebounded, driven by demand from institutional investors but also from large companies. MicroStrategy took advantage of yesterday’s drop in price to purchase $650 million of BTC.
MicroStrategy now owns 70,470 BTC purchased for $1.125 billion, with a current valuation of $1.591 billion.
Grayscale Investments has also accumulated even more BTC for its customers in its Bitcoin fund. Grayscale holds more than 570,000 BTC for its clients, representing more than $13 billion at the current Bitcoin price.
All this is still impressive but has not prevented Bitcoin price from falling below $23K again to $22.6K at the time of writing.
In the hours and days to come, a larger correction may occur. If Bitcoin can break $24K again, there is still the possibility of breaking $25K before the end of the year. But this does not appear to be what will happen.
The first support to hold is the $20K that could be tested quickly if the uncertainty around this new strain of COVID-19 were to intensify. If the $20K does not hold, the $18.5K zone would be crucial. The bullish trend would be reversed if the Bitcoin price were to fall below $17.5K, which is the recent higher low.
As a sign of a possible change in trend due to this uncertainty, the DXY began a rebound yesterday, December 21, 2020. If this trend were to be confirmed, it could increase the likelihood of a larger correction for the Bitcoin price in the coming days.
Greater volatility could be observed around December 25. Skew, a crypto data provider, has indeed just published a tweet indicating that 102,000 Bitcoin options will expire this Friday:
Options contracts allow holders to buy or sell Bitcoin at a specific price, known as the strike price. In another tweet, Skew gives us more details. In particular, we can see that the options contracts expiring on December 25, 2020, have notable clusters around the $15K strike price and $20K strike price:
The expiration of these Bitcoin options contracts is an event that induces volatility because as the expiration date approaches, holders adjust their contracts. Traders who are in profit may also decide to receive the payout and dumper the Bitcoin.
Typically, most of the impact on the Bitcoin price occurs one or two days before the expiration date. We can therefore expect high volatility in the Bitcoin price on Wednesday, December 23, and Thursday, December 24, i.e. tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.
Finally, in addition to this, there will be the expiration of $2.3 billion of Bitcoin futures on Christmas Day as well. The coming days are therefore likely to be extremely volatile for Bitcoin price.
It will be an opportunity to see to what extent institutional investors believe in Bitcoin, as they may take advantage of this to buy all the Bitcoin price drops as it has been the case since the end of November 2020.
If demand from institutional investors were to calm down during the holiday season, likely, the correction expected by many players is finally taking place. | https://www.inbitcoinwetrust.net/the-fear-of-covid-19-is-back-and-this-could-trigger-a-major-correction-in-bitcoin-price-8e9cf43060b5 | ['Sylvain Saurel'] | 2020-12-22 09:37:22.145000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Investing', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Btc', 'Cryptocurrency Investment'] |
Hospital Cleaning and Pressure Washing | With everything that's going on, It is more important then ever to keep up with cleaning and sanitizing at hospitals. I run https://www.traviskingspressurewashing.com out of Pittsburgh/Butler/Indiana Pennsylvania. We offer interior and exterior cleaning and pressure washing services for hospitals in our area. Below I will list the big reasons we do what we do.
Interior Cleaning and Sanitizing
It is very important to keep a clean and safe area for foot traffic. When we are cleaning we sweep up any dirt and debris that can cause slips trips or falls. We also use an electro static sprayer to sanitize frequently touched surfaces to kill germs and viruses. We also steam clean walked on surfaces to sanitize.
Cleaning The Exterior Off The Hospitals Building
From organic growth that can damage building material to cleaning the windows. We are the go to crew for Pittsburgh hospital exterior cleaning. We also clean flat work like sidewalks to keep them safe and free of algae and gum.
Parking Lots and Parking Garage Cleaning and Pressure Washing
Lots and garages can not only present safety issues, but the building materials can fail prematurely with out preventive maintenance like pressure washing. We not only clean for those reasons but before inspections and investor visits. an investor is not as likely to donate when their money is not going toward any visible up keep.
Helicopter Pad Cleaning
It is very important to keep not only a visible helicopter pad, but one free of potential slips, trips, and falls. Sometimes more then pressure washing is need to insure a quality job. | https://medium.com/@travis16201/hospital-cleaning-and-pressure-washing-41422733d018 | [] | 2021-12-10 18:58:05.432000+00:00 | ['Hospital Cleaning', 'Cleaning', 'Hospital', 'Pressure Washing', 'Window Cleaning'] |
Using GraphSAGE embeddings for downstream classification model | If you want to learn more about the training process and the math behind the GraphSAGE algorithm, I suggest you take a look at the An Intuitive Explanation of GraphSAGE blog post by Rıza Özçelik or the official GraphSAGE site.
Using GraphSAGE embeddings for a downstream classification task
Neo4j Graph Data Science library operates entirely on heap memory to enable fast caching for the graph’s topology, containing only relevant nodes, relationships, and weights. Graph algorithms are executed on an in-memory projected graph model, which is separate from Neo4j’s stored graph model.
Photo from Neo4j GDS library documentation, reposted with permission
Before you can execute any graph algorithms, you have to project the in-memory graph via the Graph Loader component. You can use either native projection or cypher projection to load the in-memory graph.
In this example, you will use the native projection feature to load the in-memory graph. To start, you will project the training data and store it as a named graph in the Graph Catalog. The current implementation of the GraphSAGE algorithm supports only node features that are of type Float. For this reason, you will include the decoupled node properties ranging from embedding_0 to embedding_49 in the graph projection instead of a single property embeddings_all, which holds all the node features in the form of a list of Floats. Additionally, you will treat the projected graph as undirected.
UNWIND range(0,49) as i
WITH collect('embedding_' + toString(i)) as embeddings CALL gds.graph.create('train','Train',
{INTERACTS:{orientation:'UNDIRECTED'}},
{nodeProperties:embeddings})
YIELD graphName, nodeCount, relationshipCount
RETURN graphName, nodeCount, relationshipCount
Next, you will train the GraphSAGE model. The model’s hyper-parameter settings were mostly copied from the original paper. I have noticed that the lower learning-rate setting had the most impact on the downstream classification accuracy. Another import hyper-parameter is the samplingSizes parameter, where the size of the list determines the number of layers (defined as K parameter in the paper), and the values determine how many nodes will be sampled by the layers. Find more information about the available hyper-parameters in the documentation.
UNWIND range(0,49) as i
WITH collect('embedding_' + toString(i)) as embeddings CALL gds.beta.graphSage.train('train',{
modelName:'proteinModel',
aggregator:'pool',
batchSize:512,
activationFunction:'relu',
epochs:10,
sampleSizes:[25,10],
learningRate:0.0000001,
embeddingDimension:256,
featureProperties:embeddings})
YIELD modelInfo
RETURN modelInfo
The training process took around 20 minutes on my laptop. After the training process finishes, the GraphSAGE model will be stored in the model catalog. You can now use this model to induce node embeddings on any projected graph with the same node properties used during the training. Before testing the downstream classification accuracy, you have to load the test data as an in-memory graph in the Graph Catalog.
UNWIND range(0,49) as i
WITH collect('embedding_' + toString(i)) as embeddings CALL gds.graph.create('test','Test',
{INTERACTS:{orientation:'UNDIRECTED'}},
{nodeProperties:embeddings})
YIELD graphName, nodeCount, relationshipCount
RETURN graphName, nodeCount, relationshipCount
With the GraphSAGE model trained and both the training and test data projected as an in-memory graph, you can go ahead and calculate the f1 score using the GraphSAGE embeddings in a downstream classification model. Remember, the GraphSAGE model has not observed the test data during the training phase.
Using the GraphSAGE embeddings as feature input to the classification model, you have improved the f1 score to 0.462. You can also try to follow the other examples in the original GraphSAGE paper to hone your graph data science skills.
Takeaways
Connections within your data can help you increase the accuracy of your ML models
GraphSAGE algorithm can induce embeddings of new unseen nodes, without the need for re-training process
As always, the code is available on GitHub.
References
[1] Hamilton, Will, Zhitao Ying, and Jure Leskovec. “Inductive representation learning on large graphs.” Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems. 2017. | https://towardsdatascience.com/using-graphsage-embeddings-for-downstream-classification-model-4492e01ae54e | ['Tomaz Bratanic'] | 2020-12-15 02:03:35.265000+00:00 | ['Graph Neural Networks', 'Graph', 'Classification', 'Data Science', 'Neo4j'] |
Is it a startup for You? | Do you really belong to the startup? Do you really want to solve the problem?
Don’t run behind success stories. You might don’t want to do a startup you may be thinking of it because of hype.
Ask these questions before jumping into it.
Do you really want to start a startup? or you just love to develop things or doing marketing but don’t like other stuff related to startup (It may include sales speech, stuffing, speaking in public, interaction with customers, research, team-building, product+brand development, and marketing) or do you need a clear job description. (In this case, you should find a developer’s job or marketing’s job or job you want and enjoy doing it. Developing some side projects startup is not for you). Do you want to earn a lot of money? Few people see startups as a world of fortune. They will come and strike at it and earn millions of dollars. It’s true people create fortunes via startup. But if you observe every single startup that is successful they have a mission. People who want to create value not for them but for the users. They had a vision of changing the world in a better way. If your aim is only to earn a fortune. A startup is not for you. You should have a mission to change the world not to fill your and investor’s pocket. founders who are in a startup just for the money, then you will have a lot more reasons and ways to quit before your startup hit a success. or you may sell the startup to big corporations. no company ever changed the world by selling it early. If google’s or facebook’s founder’s mission was to make a fortune they could have sold their company to yahoo.
Money is a by-product; if the business is successful and clients have faith in your offerings — success will follow. — Tanya Khanna, Epistle Communications “Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.” –Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO
In this case, I will strongly suggest you get your skills honed and be a rockstar (who can compete not just in his/her area but globally). You will earn a great amount of money. Microsoft created 12,000 Millionaires. It’s clear that by doing a job. you can be a millionaire. Earn, save, and invest.
Do you need someone who can tell you what to do? In this case, get a job for you. a startup is not for you. no one will tell you what to do. not even an investor (if they do every time probably they are a bad investor). This may sound silly but I have seen many people who can’t work by themself and are aiming for starting a startup.
Still, you want to start a startup. I will advise you to find an early edge entrepreneur. work for him/her learns how they are taking an action. Try to discipline yourself to take action without external force. then you will be startup ready.
Don’t work well in stress. can’t handle stress. Just don’t do it. You will have a lot more stress than you may think of. You have to smile and have to give effective pitches at any time. If you believe in you, your solution and people that can help you than they will help you reducing the stress.
https://yourstory.com/2018/03/anxiety-stress-depression-startups
‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen’
If you fear to be accountable. No matter how good of a business you can create but many people get nervous and edgy when things start to be measured and quantified. As a leader, you will be accountable. for any failure as well as any success related to your startup and obviously, it is not a one-time thing. you can not slide it to other people.
“Leaders inspire accountability through their ability to accept responsibility before they place blame.” ― Courtney Lynch
You don’t feel comfortable around strong opinions (maybe against you). You may have to work with the same people who have strong opinions on something that you may don’t like. In the early founder’s dictionary, you will not be able to find the word ‘work-life balance’. because they don’t believe in this. You will have to work every waking hour no matter how efficient you are. You just want to work on interesting things But in statup you may have to clean the office by yourself. you may have to work on excel or you have to handle customers on call. you must have to do it when needed. You need stability. The startup is a roller coaster ride or box of chocolate you will never know what comes next. In my personal opinion, a lot of luck is involved in it. If you need stability join Samsung or maybe Facebook You are not getting any job, you have some idea, you think is worth billion-dollar, and people are suggesting you should start a startup but you don’t feel the startup is for you. In this case, if you will do it. It will be a big blunder. You don’t understand what a startup actually is? Do you think it is the easiest way to get fame? Do you want to be a scientist kind of yourself (I will do Asteroid mining without having any knowledge related to rocket science and physics)? Your idea does not have growth or just trying to copy-paste without creating any values or USP for business. Recently, I did research related to new startups. I found out that more than 50 startups are creating a chain of local mom and pop grocery stores. In this case, you might get lucky but most probably original will show up and your startup will fade away. You fear to work hard. This place is definitely not for you. Based on some stats you will work very hard and most probably getting failed. You are not good at making decisions. You must be extremely good at making decisions. startup = growth. to grow faster you must have to make lots of decisions each and every day.
“In this world you’re either growing or you’re dying so get in motion and grow.”
— Lou Holtz
Do you want to make a contribution to the economy? Based on data you will more likely to drain the economy rather than contributing to the economy. You want to be your own boss. In a startup, you will have thousands or millions of bosses.
“CUSTOMER IS THE KING AND I AM HIS SERVANT.” “If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the internet, they can each tell 6,000” — Jeff Bezos (Founder and CEO, Amazon). | https://medium.com/@vinayprajapati-44828/is-it-a-startup-for-you-39316ec9fec7 | ['Vinay Prajapati'] | 2020-12-23 07:52:35.462000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Money', 'Wisdom', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business'] |
Pregnancy and SPD | Pregnancy and SPD
SPD – What is it? SPD is also known as Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction and Pelvic Girdle Pain, when your joints become stiff or move because of hormones, SPD can be felt in the pubic region, groin , in the buttocks, hips and even down your thighs. You do not have to have all these symptoms to have SPD, some women only experience light symptoms and some, like me have severe SPD. SPD is something that typically happens later on in pregnancy, however, with both of my pregnancies I had this condition from 22 weeks.
With my son, I collapsed walking on the way home from work with the most excruciating pain around my pubis bone. Of course, like any worrying mum I feared the worse. After a trip to A&E, I discovered this was in fact SPD. The pain is manageable (so I am told) with physio, mild pain relief and support belts. I tried all of these methods and found physio was impossible on NHS and was told that they could give me exercises but beyond that there wasn’t much they could do. The belt helped relieved some of the pain by shifting the weight and pain relief, well you just don’t want to take too much of that whilst your LO is growing.
My daily life became a struggle, with a 4-year-old in tow and a husband with a full time job, I had to try and manage my daily tasks as best as I could. I knew from my previous experience that as the baby grew bigger, the pain would become worse. I struggled with everyday tasks, bending, attempting to get on the floor and play with my daughter, walking, driving a manual car and even taking a bath. Some days I couldn’t even manage to get to the toilet walking, I had to crawl, and attempting to get down the stairs, well some days that was impossible. I spent a lot of time alone, unable to do very much, which of course, left me very teary a lot of the time! I am not ashamed to admit I cried an awful lot during my pregnancy, my SPD was so severe, most days I really didn’t know how to cope!
As any Mum knows, you have complete Mum guilt with your first born, not only was her whole world about to change with a new Brother on the way but now I was unable to play with her or take her to the park as usual. I was grateful that she was able to carry on with her nursery school and play with her friends but the school holidays left me feeling like a bad Mum. I would think to myself, perhaps I should buy her lots of toys or just let her watch lots of YouTube (something of which is more of a treat in our house) but I knew that by doing this I would only be making a rod for my own back.
I decided I had to pull myself together and try anything and everything I could to try and resume daily life. I researched methods of helping and actually found two things that helped me greatly. I found a great Osteotherapist who worked with me and gave helpful advice and even acupuncture to relieve the pressure points. Initially after my sessions, my joints would ache a little more causing the pain to be more prominent, this settled down within a day and I managed to feel some relief and sometime would completely forget I even had SPD! Secondly was a great pregnancy masseuse who worked in my local baby shop called Bababoom, a clothing boutique which also does everything pregnancy related and beyond! My weekly sessions with Keely not only helped me and my muscles relax but helped me sleep, something of which I struggled with a lot due to the pain.
The further on in my pregnancy I began struggling to walk, the pain in my hips became so bad that every step I used to lean to one side to relieve the pain which of course made the posture worse. I managed to purchase a pair of crutches (although I know, not the most attractive look!) which helped maintain my walking ability.
Once my son was born (4 weeks early) I was able to slowly progress with the exercises I had learnt and luckily for me after a week or so the pain subsided. I would recommend for anyone struggling with SPD to try Osteotherapy and even if it is just a treat for you, a good pregnancy massage. SPD is now a much more recognised condition and there is help available. There are other Mums out there in the same positon as you and no matter how you may feel, you are doing a great job!
Follow my Instagram for my blog post and family updates:
https://www.instagram.com/holliewestall | https://medium.com/@hlwestall/pregnancy-and-spd-9883808de52e | ['Hollie Westall'] | 2019-08-24 09:29:37.268000+00:00 | ['Birth', 'Spd', 'Children', 'Babies Babies Babies', 'Pregnancy'] |
Asustor AS6602T (LockerStor 2) review: This NAS box is a super streamer | Asustor’s NAS-box offerings continue to impress, with the $399, two-bay, AS6602T (LockerStor 2) being the latest to come through the lab. It sports a more business-like look than the recently reviewed AS5202T (Nimbustor 2), and it adds M.2 NVMe slots for caching SSDs to the mix.
It’s the same high-quality, 2.5GbE product as its cousin at its core, but NVMe caching is expensive overkill for the home environment.
Design and specsAt first glance, I was far more impressed with the the business-like styling of the AS6202T than the “gamer-oriented” look of the AS5202T. The front is still black, but with a matte finish, and the all-metal shell is pewter. It reminds me of QNAP back in the day, but with more sculpting and defntely more style. It’s a very impressive-looking box.
What’s inside is equally impressive. There’s 4GB of DDR4-2400 memory and a latest- gen Intel Celeron J4125 CPU running at 2GHz. There’s a second SODIMM slot if you want to expand the memory to 8GB. And to jump the gun on the performance discussion, an investment in additional memory versus NVMe might deliver a better return than for most users.
The two 3.5-inch bays feature push-button release and are combo metal/plastic rather than the pure plastic that most boxes this price use. There are no quick-change rails, but I’ll take the small hassle of screws if it means metal over lastic.
The front of the AS6602T hosts the power button, a single 5Gbps Type-A USB port, and the typical power and drive status/activity LEDs. On the back, are two 2.5GbE (RJ45) ethernet ports that can be aggregated for better performance. There are also two additional 5Gbps Type-A USB ports, an HDMI 2.0a output, a Kensington lock port, and a barrel-shaped power jack.
Asustor Asustor outfits the AS6602T with dual 2.5GbE ports, as well as twin 5Gbps USB ports and a 4K HDMI output for external displays.
As with the recently reviewed Synology DS720+, the AS6602T has two M.2/NVMe slots for SSDs. Unlike the easy-access panels on Synology’s box, the AS6602T requires that you remove the shell and a PCIe adapter card to install them. The Synology approach takes less than a minute, the Asustor 5 to 10 minutes. That’s not really a big deal since installing SSDs is likely to be a one-time operation—if you do it at all—but it’s worth mentioning.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best NAS boxes for media streaming and client backup, where you’ll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product.OS and appsAsustor calls its Linux-based windows-in-a-browser operating system Asustor Data Master, and while it’s not quite as mature as those delivered by QNAP and Synology, it’s darn close—and getting closer.
Media-server options include iTunes, several UPnP/DLNA servers, the popular Plex media server, and the highly regarded (and very expensive) CD-quality Roon Audio Server.
Mentioned in this article Synology DS720+ two-bay NAS box (unpopulated) Read TechHive's reviewSee it In addition to FTP backup, there’s sync with online services, SMB, Rsync, and so on. Asustor also provides EZ Sync clients for major operating systems and smartphones, so you can also keep your mobile data backed up.
The Asus Portal app is required to output video to a TV or computer display attached to the AS6602T’s HDMI port. Once Portal is installed (select it during setup), you can stream, browse the web, and play movies from the box directly to said display. Resolutions up to 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) are supported.
ADM makes link aggregation/trunking of the two 2.5GbE ports super simple and, unlike with many other boxes, no special switch or router is required if you use round-robin mode. That’s unique in my experience. All told, I’d say QNAP (QTS) and Synology (DSM) should be looking over their shoulders. ADM is a worthy rival.
PerformanceSimply with SSDs or hard drives and the included 4GB of memory, the AS6602T is an excellent performer. The NVMe caching definitely improves small file write performance when large data sets or heavy usage is involved, but that’s not something most home users or even power users typically experience.
Below are the sequential throughput numbers from NAS Tester 1.7 (8GB single files), a test that’s proven more reliable recently than others for measuring sequential throughput. As you can see, SSDs (in the main bays) are fastest, followed by a bare 14TB WD Gold hard disk drive (240MBps), then the same HDD with NVMe caching. The extra step of caching will reduce write speeds slightly with the AS6602T’s 2.5GbE connection. This would not be the case with a faster 10GbE connection.
IDG Obviously, the dream scenario is using SSDs in your box, but the far more capacious hard drives aren’t far behind in sustained sequential performance. NVMe caching in this case actually hurts a bit. With a 10GbE connection, this would likely not be the case.
Caching reads of any type is far less effective than caching writes, as the drive must still seek for the data. Only with multiple requests for the same data will read caching have a positive effect. CrystalDiskMark 7 uses random reads, so those results show little to no improvement with NVMe caching over bare drive reads.
All writes are cached, on the other hand, so those will show the effectiveness of the cache. Remember that NAS boxes already use part of their onboard memory for caching, likely a gigabyte or two on a box such as the AS6602T, with 4GB on board. That will effect the results with smaller data sets.
Because of that, I ran CDM 7 with the SSDs, bare HDD, and the HDD with NVMe caching 1GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB data sets. DRAM caching is no doubt helping the 1GB through 8GB tests somewhat, but the NMVe caching does seem to help after that quite a bit. There’s a major drop-off in cache performance somewhere between the 32GB and 64GB marks.
IDG The NVMe caching definitely helps with random writes, but starts losing effectiveness somewhere after 32GB or sustained stress.
That’s good, but given that the NVMe SSDs I used are capable of 2TBps transfer rates, I was expecting more. How Asustor is implementing the caching no doubt has a great effect, but I was not privy to their methods.
For clarity’s sake, NVMe caching for hard drives, or even SATA SSDs is a well-known storage strategy than can increase performance greatly with high-end equipment or very heavy workload. But it’s a very expensive option for smaller NAS under typical end-user or small-office loads. To be fair, Asustor markets this box to power users and the SMB (small to medium-sized busness) market.
Note: testing was performed on Windows 10 64-bit running on a Core i7-5820K/Asus X99 Deluxe system with four 16GB Kingston 2666MHz DDR4 modules, a Zotac (NVidia) GT 710 1GB x2 PCIe graphics card, an Asmedia ASM2142 USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbs) card, and a Gigabyte GC-Alpine Thunderbolt 3 card. A QNAP QNA-T310G1S Thunderbolt 3 to 10GbE adapter was connected to one of the 10GbE SFP+ ports on a Zyxel XGS1210-12 10GbE/2.5GbE/gigabit switch.
It’s a great box, but will you benefit?The AS6602T is a great NAS box A bit old-school in design, but by that I mean super-solid metal construction and quality where it counts. Throw in the dual 2.5GbE, plus the healthy app environment and HDMI output and you have a winner. Indeed, all things being equal, I’d keep this in the rack over the AS5202T.
But things are not equal for the end-user. The AS6602T costs $100 more, and once you add NVMe SSDs, you’re talking a delta of at least $225. Given the minimal gain in performance, the cheaper AS5202T is a far, far better deal. Indeed, even power and workgroup users might be better off with a cheaper box with more memory rather than NVMe—depending on workload of course.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@Crystal86680047/asustor-as6602t-lockerstor-2-review-this-nas-box-is-a-super-streamer-3a1cae827944 | [] | 2020-09-24 14:53:00.428000+00:00 | ['Chromecast', 'Mobile Accessories', 'Consumer Electronics', 'Connected Home'] |
Moments of stillness | Sound of Metal - 10/10
“Those moments of stillness, that place, that’s the kingdom of God”
It is be beyond cliché to do an “in this troubling year” intro, but everyone should take the time to watch Sound of Metal and understand what “that place” means, especially during this year of constant noise for some and unbearable silence for others.
Paul Raci, who plays Joe and delivers the aforementioned line, gives a gentle, beautiful performance that welcomes the viewer into his community for deaf addicts, along with the main character Ruben, played powerfully by Riz Ahmed. Throughout the film, the viewer shares in Ruben’s journey, a journey carefully crafted by first-time director Darius Marder.
Marder exposes and subjects the audience in the opening scenes to the horrifying experience of rapid hearing loss, and every stage of emotion that immediately follows. Olivia Cooke’s character Lou, playing an important role in pushing Ruben and the audience into the next steps of managing the situation, carries the viewer to the next act.
This is where a well-executed dramatization of disability becomes a mesmerizing, poignant, and cathartic reflection of not only how disability is perceived, but of how people deal with difficult experiences in their own lives.
Hearing people will never truly understand the experience of being deaf, and addressing this, Marder has said “everyone who represents deaf culture in this movie is from deaf culture without exception.” Upon viewing, this seems apparent. This movie should be lauded as an achievement for its authentic depiction of deaf culture, and to take it a step further, it elicits an empathetic response that does not rely upon the viewer’s pity for the deaf community, disability, or even the main character.
In this film’s message, one about acceptance, adaptation, and human connection, it becomes much more than the viewer feeling for the main character’s hardships. It becomes a meditation, and in its final build up, after Ruben, flooded with tragic clarity, repeats “it’s okay” to Lou, the viewer desperately craves that final respite, the moment of stillness.
Many may not feel stillness to be a viable solution to the difficulties of their own lives in a world of isolation, but as this film profoundly demonstrates, stillness is a place to deny the constant momentum of their thoughts and lives, and accept the beauty around them through silence. | https://medium.com/@tomwambsgans/moments-of-stillness-7db5f36064a0 | ['Thomas Wambsgans'] | 2020-12-23 03:45:19.612000+00:00 | ['Film', 'Art', 'Film Reviews', 'Movies', 'Movie Review'] |
5 Ways You’re Losing Money Every Single Day | andranik.h90 — Freepik.com
If I asked you if you work hard for your money, what would you say? 99% of people would probably say they do work hard for their money; however, the sad reality is that many of these people are losing this hard-earned money every single day without ever realizing it.
How would you feel if you were losing hundreds of dollars a month and only realized it after years of ignorance? In this article, I will share with you 5 ways you’re losing money every single day!
Number 1: Paying For Unused Services
One of the great things about advances in technology is that we now have access to enough services to keep us occupied and entertained in perpetuity; however, sometimes managing all these different services can come at a cost. And this cost may be more than you would expect.
In fact, a 2018 survey showed that UK citizens waste a shocking £553 million every month on services they don’t use and may even have forgotten about, with 40% of consumers continuing to pay for services they no longer use.
Another survey found that 72% of people admit they have continued to pay for a subscription they rarely use for three months or longer, which meant that the average person is paying out more than £250 a year for services they don’t use.
Now, not shockingly, gym memberships were at the top of the list when it came to the most unused subscriptions, with 50% of the 2,213 adults polled admitting they rarely visit. TV and music streaming services were also among the most unused services, along with hobby and magazine or newspaper subscriptions.
Some 29% of people say they had forgotten they were paying for the service, and the same number keep paying for something they don’t use in case they might want it in the future. A further 28% of those surveyed say they found cancelling a subscription too hard, so they didn’t bother.
What makes this situation worse is that many people continued to pay for these unused services even as their monthly costs rose. One in four people continued to pay for a subscription without realizing the cost had increased, while 46% forget to cancel after a free trial period. Some 4% have even unknowingly continued to pay for a subscription for an ex-partner.
Obviously, the statistics around wasted subscription money are bleak, but the question we need to answer is why does this phenomenon take place? The simple answer is that many people fail to review their finances on a routine basis. If only they would have reviewed their monthly credit card statements, they would have been able to calculate how much money they were wasting on unused subscriptions every single month and make the necessary changes to save that money instead of wasting it.
Therefore, if you think you may be paying for services you rarely ever use, review your expenses at the end of this month, and you may be surprised at how much money you could be saving! | https://themakingofamillionaire.com/5-ways-youre-losing-money-every-single-day-34fc9d16074c | ['Adam Del Duca'] | 2020-12-19 17:00:28.516000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Wealth', 'Family', 'Life Lessons', 'Finance'] |
Modern Renaissance Man | A cultured man who is knowledgeable and proficient in a variety of fields. A man who can do all if he wills it. A man who does all with respect dignity and ease. This is what a Renaissance Man looked like in 14th century Florence but why have these men been confined to the days of the past? There are four ways that a man must master in order to become a renaissance man. Although they may look different 700 years in the future, mastery of these qualities allows for the resurrection of the renaissance man of the past.
The Way of the Scholar
A renaissance man is without a doubt a man with an appreciation for betterment and knowledge. The Italian Renaissance is known as a period of incredible scientific discovery. The world was changing at such a rapid pace that one had to be a scholar to stay ahead of the pace of discovery. This was an incredible time period that paved the way for the modern world. From the time of the renaissance, knowledge has increased exponentially. The age of information that we know today increases the pace of discovery more than could have ever been imagined by scholars long ago. With an endless stream of information at our fingertips, we have the ability to rekindle this scholarhood of the past. With so many entities competing for our attention let us not lose the passion for education. The men who shaped the world as we know it today had the mind of a scholar. In order to be a man that shapes the world as it is known tomorrow, we must also have the mind of a scholar.
The Way of the Warrior
The word warrior calls to mind images of battle hewn soldiers scraping and clawing for an advantage over an opponent in a field of battle. This mental imagery drawn from stories of the past provides an excellent picture of what a warrior looked like years ago. However, many of us have traded the field of battle for an office space and our weapon of choice for a keyboard. Although the battles of today may have taken on a different look, the principles of the past remain. The qualities of a warrior are what must be emulated in the life of a renaissance man. Courage, physical strength, determination and endurance prove testament of this way. These qualities must not be lost. We may not be fighting in hand to hand combat, but the world has not forgotten the warriors of the past. Much like the scholar, the warriors of the past have shaped the world as we know it and in order to become one that will carve out the future.
The Way of the Philosopher
From Socrates to Plato to Aristotle wisdom has been passed from master to pupil throughout history. These men provide a mere snapshot in the ways that wisdom has been passed down from generation to generation throughout the ages. The one thing that all wise men share is the their pursuit of wisdom. In fact, that is precisely what philosophy means — the love of wisdom! Renaissance men have ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight. Wisdom is associated with attributes such as unbiased judgment, compassion, experiential self-knowledge, self-transcendence and non-attachment, and virtues such as ethics and benevolence. In order to attain the wisdom that is so highly sought after by so many, one must seek it earnestly. Wisdom is the result of having lived. The amount of wisdom is indicative of the abundance of the life that was lived. Trying new things and expanding your comfort zone can lead to one being wise. However, in order to become a true philosopher, one must be engaged in all things while being consumed by nothing.
The Way of the Artist
The traditional view of an artist is one that exploits their creativity in a trade for the provision of their needs. The renaissance offered great works of art, but this does not mean that one must paint like Leonardo Da Vinci or sculpt like Michelangelo in order to master the way of the artist. The artist finds beauty where others may find none. Renaissance men must have the ability to look at the world and see a beautiful tapestry among seemingly ordinary and mundane scenery. Artists can be eccentric, impulsive, creative and passionate. These are the qualities that the renaissance man must implement in their lives to master the way of the artist.
Balance
The four ways: Scholar, Warrior, Philosopher, and Artist must go hand in hand. They cannot predominate the others. Instead these ways must balance one another. The Warrior without the strategy of the scholar is destined for folly. In the same way the Philosopher must learn to see the world like an artist in order to appreciate its beauty. Mastery of these four ways is not an end but rather a means to live a life more abundantly. Life as a renaissance man is within all of us and is not restricted to a specific affiliation or syndicate. It merely requires resurrection from the masculinity of the past. | https://medium.com/@marcusmallen13/modern-renaissance-man-e8b1c3286991 | ['Marcus Mallen'] | 2020-11-23 17:42:17.369000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Life', 'Masculinity', 'First Post', 'Growth'] |
3 Signs That Show You’re Good with Money | A version of this piece was originally written for and published on Business Insider
I’m a financial planner, and I specialize in designing strategies for working professionals in their 30s and 40s
Most people are experiencing a lot of transitions and milestones at these ages, and almost every decision you make or goal you set has major financial implications. Doing the right financial planning at these critical stages can make the difference between being “just okay,” and building serious wealth.
After spending over 20 years in the financial planning industry, I’ve gotten pretty good at spotting the people most likely to be successful — even before we start working on their plan. There are certain signs and signals that tend to signal when someone is good with money.
What it means to be good with your money
Being good with money doesn’t mean you know everything and never make mistakes. It doesn’t mean you simply have a lot of it, either.
People who are really good with their finances are those who are motivated to learn and who get real satisfaction from seeing a plan in action. They’re coachable and interested in getting expert opinions; they value advice from people with more experience and wisdom.
Being good with money also means you are ready and willing to course-correct when you get distracted, and learn from mistakes when they happen.
The people who tend to make the absolute most of their financial resources seem to be those who have a genuine interest in strategically using them to build a great life — whatever a great life means to them.
When I get to interact with clients who are good with money, there tend to be some common signs.
You know the limits of your own knowledge and learn from past mistakes
The clients we work with are experts in their chosen fields. They’re excellent attorneys or cutting-edge scientists; they’re pioneers in tech and healthcare, or they’re highly successful entrepreneurs heading up unique and interesting businesses.
I’m lucky that I get to work with so many brilliant, high-achieving professionals — and the ones who are the best with their money are the ones who know finance is not their area of expertise.
Instead of convincing themselves they know everything, people who are good with money can identify where their knowledge stops. Doing so allows you to seek out experts who can fill in the gaps and provide guidance, so you can continue to excel and succeed.
Asking questions is an important part of that process, too. Seeking more information and data through questions helps you grow and learn.
So does confronting mistakes head-on, rather than ignoring them. Doing this provides you with an opportunity to see what went wrong. Once you understand that, you can avoid a similar error in the future and get to a better outcome next time.
You get your motivation from what you save, rather than what you spend
Our most-successful clients are those who have an active interest in saving and investing. They’re motivated by the opportunity to grow their assets, rather than finding chances to spend what they earn.
That’s not to say spending is bad, or if you enjoy spending you’re not good with money. It’s more about the order of operations, or priorities: folks who are good with money tend to save first, and then spend with what’s left over (rather than spending what they want, and then saving if they still have money available).
Another trend I tend to see among people who are great with money is that when they do spend, they’re thoughtful, mindful, and deliberate. They spend in a way that aligns with their values, and they usually favor experiences over material things — which is shown to increase happiness and satisfaction.
And while people who are good with money may have some good debt, they almost never have bad debt. “Good” debt comes from applying leverage to access an asset that could increase in value; think things like a home you own for decades but used a mortgage to buy, or a college education that will put you into a high-paying job but required student loans to afford.
Bad debt, on the other hand, is used to acquire things that only depreciate in value. Credit card debt and car loans are prime examples of bad debt that folks who are good with money rarely have.
You’re grounded in (your) reality
People who are great with money generally understand where they stand relative to their peers — but at the same time, they don’t get caught in the comparison trap.
The best way to explain this sign might be to look at it’s opposite. People who seem to struggle with money tend to compare what someone else has to what they have… and try to spend to catch up with a perceived lack.
People who aren’t great with their money also tend to be totally divorced from reality. They may say things like, “we don’t spend that much!” while spending over $10,000 per month.
If you want to be good with money, I find it helps to understand what the average person saves and spends (or at least, what the average household with a similar income level does). That gives you a baseline to use to see if you fall above or below it.
At the same time, you need to remember that’s just a line in the sand to give you some context about your own financial life. What matters most is focusing on your specific goals, needs, and priorities, and ensuring that your finances are aligned with what matters most to you.
Want more financial advice you can actually use? Beyond Your Hammock is a fee-only financial planning firm for motivated professionals who want to use their money as a tool to build wealth and enjoy life. | https://medium.com/@beyondfinances/3-signs-that-show-youre-good-with-money-e8c09aec8d7a | ['Eric Roberge'] | 2020-12-14 18:24:40.760000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Self Improvement', 'Finance', 'Habits', 'Millennials'] |
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http://insurecostfinder.top/INSURANCE12115.html | https://medium.com/@hmoham_83794/honey-harvester-1949-production-company-dd653959dd66 | [] | 2019-09-01 21:44:53.880000+00:00 | ['Startup'] |
React Native: MongoDB Aggregation with Stack Navigation | MongoDB Aggregation
MongoDB Aggregation not only minimises syntax, the operations of which are optimised for their particular tasks, built directly into Mongo. This offers us better performance and less syntax than relying on alternative means outside of the Mongo API.
Where your CRUD operations can seem limiting to work with, the Aggregation Pipeline offers an expansion of tools for processing and grouping documents over a range of processes, and returning a result of these pipeline operations.
Single Purpose Aggregation Operations
The simplest of Aggregation features within MongoDB are what are termed Single Purpose Aggregation Operations. These are essentially complex aggregation jobs wrapped into a simple function call. There are 3 single purpose aggregation operators to note here that can be useful for a range of use cases, but more importantly, give us a feel for the additional power aggregation offers us:
// estimates document count of a collection using metadata
db.collection.estimatedDocumentCount() // gets an accurate document count in a collection
db.collection.countDocuments(query, options); // finds distinct values of a given field in a collection of document
db.collection.distinct(field, query, options);
So instead of using CRUD operators or incrementation to ascertain a document count, we can use the functions outlined above, either quickly returning an estimated count, or getting a reliable and accurate count.
The distinct() function also saves us looping and filtering, or writing complex find() statements to get distinct values of a particular field in a collection — the function will return an array of unique values for a particular field on the fly.
Where aggregation gains flexibility is in the pipeline, and the aggregate() method itself, giving the developer much more granularity of how the aggregation processes.
Aggregation Pipeline: Stages and Operators
If you can, imagine a conveyer belt that carries our data down a factory assembly line; this conveyer belt is our aggregation pipeline:
Aggregation pipeline as an assembly facility
Each worker standing at their stations at various locations down the conveyer belt will manipulate our data in some way; these workers in MongoDB terminology are called stages. At each stage, our data is manipulated — and there are a few ways we can go about doing that.
The entire library of Pipeline Aggregation Stages at our disposal are documented here in the official Mongo documentation.
Not only this, within each stage we can configure how the stage will work with the input data in question. We do this with what we call Operators. The full list of Aggregation Pipeline operators can be found here.
Stages are high level data manipulations, whereas operations are more granular calculations that can assist certain stages.
Examples of stage and operator usage
An aggregation pipeline in Javascript gives us a similar construction to the conveyer belt analogy, where each stage is listed in an array within the aggregate() function. Within each stage, we can include operations to assist in further data manipulation:
const docs = db.collection(col).aggregate([
{ $stage: { operations }},
{ $stage: { operations }},
...
])
Not all operators are used with all stages. This will become apparent in the following examples.
So theory out of the way, let’s check out some tangible aggregation examples.
A common stage used in an aggregation is the $match stage, that can filter what is returned from a document:
// fetching a range of products by category db.products.aggregate([
{ $match : { category : "programming" } }
]) > {
"_id" : ObjectId(...),
"seller" : "Ross",
"category" : "programming",
"sales" : 100
}
...
Another common stage is $group , that outputs a different structure of your documents. $group is often combined with operators to return additional calculations on the input documents, such as the $sum operator:
// returning the total products using `$sum` operator db.products.aggregate([
{
$group: {
_id: null,
count: { $sum: 1 }
}
}
]) > { "_id" : null, "count" : 42 }
The _id field of a document determines a unique output document. In the case where id is always null , there will only ever be one output document, an hence calculate the total products in its count field.
Let’s take this one step further before continuing. We will now configure _id to match a particular field value of a document, and introduce multiple stages of an aggregation by using the $group and $match stages together. Can you recognise what is being calculated?:
db.sales.aggregate([
{
$group: {
_id : "$item",
totalRevenue: {
$sum: {
$multiply: ["$price", "$quantity"] }
}
}
}, {
$match: { "totalRevenue": { $gte: 1000.00 } }
}
])
This aggregation aims to only return high revenue generating products, being products that have generated more than $1000 through sales.
Looking at the $group stage now, our output documents are unique based on the item field of our input documents. For every unique item sold, we are using the $sum and $multiply operators to calculate the total revenue made by that product. $group outputs documents of _id and totalRevenue fields only:
// $group returns item with total revenue [
{ _id: "Ross's Programming Book 2019", totalRevenue: 890 },
{ _id: "Ross's Programming Book 2020", totalRevenue: 45800 },
...
]
In the second stage, $match filters this result, only returning documents with a totalRevenue of 1000 or more. In the above case, Ross’s 2019 book will be filtered out.
If we refer to the conveyer belt analogy, we can slot in our stages and operators next to each assembler worker now — I have also added the $sample stage, that we’ll cover next:
Be sure to read the official documentation for the full operator reference, that also hosts a wealth of examples.
But What About Random Sampling Aggregation?
For our random sampling, the key stage in our aggregation is the $sample stage. As the name suggests, it returns a random sample of documents based on its input.
The input for the $sample stage is actually very simple, only requiring a size field to determine how many documents will be returned:
{ $sample: { size: <positive integer> } }
So if we wanted to fetch a random sample of products, we could simply run the following:
// return a random sample of products db.products.aggregate([
{ $sample: { size: 10 } }
])
Of course, you are not limited to only just this $sample stage. If you are curious to extend an aggregation to your particular use case at this stage of the article, see if you can do so using the stages and operators we’ve mentioned here — and others in the documentation that suit your needs.
With aggregation now understood you can summon a random list of entries for your app to display. Let’s assume we wish to display products from here, and explore how to embed these results in a React Native app via a Navigator. | https://rossbulat.medium.com/react-native-mongodb-aggregation-with-stack-navigation-f10b0179c1a7 | ['Ross Bulat'] | 2019-11-21 17:06:38.774000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Software Engineering', 'Programming', 'React', 'React Native'] |
Remote Teams Best Practices: Interview with Alex Muench, Product Designer at Doist | Alex Muench is a Product Designer at Doist, a remote-first company that builds productivity software to ‘help people do more and stress less’. Their main products are Todoist and Twist apps, used by millions of people.
The Doist team of 62 people is working from more than 26 countries! The company is well-known for being an advocate of remote work — independent of borders and time zones– as the future of work.
Alex works both on Todoist and Twist apps, and his design team is spread across 5 countries and 4 time zones. In our interview, Alex shares what it means to work on a product team spread out across so many countries and the benefit of asynchronous approach to team communication.
Aleksandra: Hi Alex, thanks for agreeing to answer our questions. How many years have you been working remotely, and for Doist in particular? Where are you based now?
Alex: I’ve been working remotely for around 4 years and for Doist a little more than 3 years. I’m currently based in Nuremberg, Germany but I’m traveling a few times a year to different places like Hamburg, Berlin, Istanbul or New York to experience remote work life there.
Aleksandra: How does your product design team look like? How many people are working in your team and what is their expertise?
Alex: Our design team is 7 people spread across 5 countries and 4 time zones from Taiwan to Portugal. 4 of us are focused on product design for both products Todoist and Twist, 1 person is mainly responsible for Marketing designs and landing pages, 2 people are illustrators, who bring a human element to both our product and marketing designs.
We decided to have product designers work on both Twist and Todoist instead of having designers dedicated to one product. That means we have more flexibility to shift resources and make sure that both products feel like part of a single family. In addition, working on both products gives us the opportunity to bring newly gained insights and improvements to the other product.
Doist’s map of where its employees are located
Aleksandra: What was/is the biggest challenge of working in a remote product team? How did you solve it? Do you have specific internal tools or practices that help to deal with these issues?
Alex: Getting everyone on the same page: Discussing and communicating clearly about our goals, current process, and what we’re working on next. I think we’re getting pretty good at it.
We work in squads where people from different teams work together on one goal/feature during a 6-week cycle. We update each other once per week with weekly snippets and constantly discuss in threads. We’re mainly using Twist to communicate.
We designed and built the app ourselves to be optimized for distributed teams. When you work across as many time zones as we do, the real-time chat tools that currently dominate the market don’t work. As a remote team, we need a more structured, asynchronous tool. Now, each squad has its own Twist channel with threads dedicated to a single subject. This gives everyone a great overview of the topics that are currently being discussed, and it’s possible to start new discussions without burying others.
When you work across as many time zones, the real-time chat tools that currently dominate the market don’t work. As a remote team, we need a more structured, asynchronous tool.
Another tool we use a lot is Dropbox Paper to document design specs. That’s the single-source of truth for UX, design, and copy. We discuss and iterate on specific elements in Paper comments.
Aleksandra: The Doist team is working across multiple time zones. How do you schedule the meetings and do you have dedicated working hours?
Alex: As a rule, we don’t have many meetings. Monday is our meeting day where each team meets for around half an hour to talk about our past and upcoming work week. These meetings are scheduled once and repeating. Other than that we have monthly 1–1 meetings with our team leads to discuss anything we want to improve or what’s been on our minds both work and non-work related.
If we see a need for specific projects, we schedule ad hoc 1–1s or other meetings. This is the exception, not the rule though. We’re all quite flexible and we don’t have many meetings that could block us. In Twist, you can see each team member’s time zone, so it’s easier to find a time that works for all of us. We always document the outcomes in Twist so anyone who couldn’t attend knows what happens. Sometimes, we’ll even post recordings of the meetings so people can watch on their own schedule.
Aleksandra: Many companies name asynchronous communication as the biggest disadvantage of a distributed team. How do you solve this problem at Doist?
Alex: I actually think asynchronous communication is an advantage. Co-located companies would benefit from a more asynchronous approach to communication. You just need to find the right people to work with. You need reliable and passionate people that you can trust and who deliver. That’s the hard part, finding those people.
Co-located companies would benefit from a more asynchronous approach to communication. You just need to find the right people to work with.
Many companies still think they need real-time communication to move fast. But if you constantly chat, how do you find actual focused time to work? Whether you’re asleep or just offline working on other things, your teammates are working and discussing decisions. If the conversation is moving in different directions when you reconnect you need to dig through everything and find what is important for you. In the meantime, the decision is already made. You have no chance to voice your opinion… There’s a disincentive to disconnect to get things done or to enjoy life outside of work.
Another problem is, that current chat apps are specialized in chatting in one-liners. What happens is that people need to constantly pay attention to the ongoing discussion otherwise they might miss important discussions. You don’t get the chance to articulate your thoughts meaningfully because you have to respond right away before the conversation moves on. The result is, people get stressed out trying to keep up and aren’t able to think through their responses fully.
Twist app
Our approach is different. We want to establish calmer and more thoughtful communication. Our time and attention are the company’s most valuable resources so we don’t require people to respond immediately to every ping. We want to make sure people are included in a meaningful way without having to follow every conversation in real time.
We want to establish calmer and more thoughtful communication. Our time and attention are the company’s most valuable resources.
Aleksandra: How often are you looking for new people to join your team? Are there any specific requirements for a remote candidate?
Alex: We’re always looking for awesome people to join us, but we hire deliberately. Headcount is a vanity metric. Before hiring, we always try to find an internal solution first. All Doisters are people with a wide range of various skills. If we come across a challenge, our main goal is to find people internally that are passionate about solving this problem and have certain expertise and/or want to grow their skills even if it’s outside of your job description. For example, after a lot of disappointment working with outside companies, we produced our last three product videos entirely in-house (even the voiceover). This also promotes self-improvement and challenging ourselves more to learn outside of our fields and jobs we’re hired for.
Aleksandra: Are there any particular benefits of working remotely from a designer’s perspective?
Alex: Whenever you’re articulating an idea and your designs, you need to document everything in written form. From problem description to visuals to prototypes. The advantage is that you automatically think more deeply about the work you deliver, you shape your communication skills on presenting ideas. By doing so, you’re already creating a document that can be shared with multiple people on the team and can be understood not only by designers but also the whole team. Sometimes I think what I’m writing is clear enough, but when I share the document, my teammates’ questions and opinions almost always uncover uncertainties that need more detailed specifications. In the end, having everything in writing helps us ship more thoroughly thought out features to our users.
Aleksandra: What would you suggest to other designers who are considering to join a remote team?
Alex: Whether or not you’re ready for remote work depends on the person. You need to be able to work by yourself, show a lot of self–initiative, and manage your own days effectively. You are your own boss, similar to freelancing. You need to develop strategies for dealing with loneliness and isolation — going to a co-working space, for example, or scheduling lunch with friends during the week.
Remote work also requires a lot of self–discipline. You need patience and ability to trust and be comfortable moving on to different topics while you wait for feedback. Patience was one of the hardest things to learn for me personally.
Written communication is very important. In my opinion, the longer you work in a remote setting where you’re forced to present your ideas clearly in writing, the better designer you become. If you present something, don’t be afraid to attach images and over-communicate every little detail. This is actually needed to succeed and keeps the design standard high. What helped me is gaining experience working as a freelancer and on side-projects.
If you’re applying for a remote job, it’s important that you’re comfortable with the team’s culture. I would recommend taking a look at their blog posts to get a feel for it. Don’t talk too much about yourself. Show interest in the company and their mission and where and how you think you could help them. Once you’ve joined a remote team, it’s important that you get used to each person’s workflow. Everybody works slightly differently and it takes time to get to know your team’s individual communication and working style. Trust me, your teammates will thank you. | https://medium.com/art-of-the-remote/remote-teams-best-practices-interview-with-doist-475ac2f77f2 | ['Aleksandra Smelianska'] | 2018-06-26 13:57:52.983000+00:00 | ['Team Collaboration', 'Productivity', 'Remote Working'] |
Feeling Invisible | Feeling Invisible
It’s 10pm on Wednesday — I’m about to go to bed when I load a news notification on my phone and see the giant headline:
“8 killed in shootings at 3 metro Atlanta spas. Police have 1 suspect in custody” (CNN)
I didn’t want to read the article but innately, I already knew that this felt personal. The next morning, I felt weird logging onto work thinking I just read another news article about a mass shooting. As the pings from teammates started to roll in and the phrases of “Are you OK?” appeared, my heart sank even deeper as the weight of the news blew past my mental block — this was definitely hate crime. One of the worst parts of the whole tragedy was how much it actualized all my worst fears about living in America as an Asian American and as a child of immigrants.
You are an immigrant Chinese kid in Boston.
Dad and Me (c. 2/5/2000)
When my family immigrated to the country, we located to Boston in the 90s. We lived in our economical Section 8 apartment in the working-class section of Charlestown. At home, we stuck to using our Taishanese, ate steamed fish, and laughed to TVB dramas. On the playground, I would play tag with the other Asian immigrant kids as we bumped to 50 Cent’s latest tracks. Beyond our familial bubble, we coexisted with our Black, Dominican, and Eastern European neighbors, exchanging friendly faces, but rarely a sentence.
Things weren’t perfect — I did not have a lot growing up so our father worked 12 hours a day hopping around different Chinese Restaurants in the city. We had our apartment broken into and our van stolen twice. We filed police reports in both instances and weren’t able to recoup any of the items. But as my parents put it, we didn’t really have the time to grieve because we were focused on how to stretch our next paycheck to survive. That was a similar story for some of the other kids in school who’s families were trying to get by. This is the America I knew growing up and it was the lowest common denominator through the 4th grade.
Get Rich or Lose Your Identity Tryin’
The earliest memory I can remember feeling alienated came from moving out to Canton in the 2000s. My father wanted to be his own employer and opened his own American Chinese Restaurant in the suburbs of Boston with my uncle. He promised better things to come as we escaped some of the crime in the city. But as I walked into that fourth grade class, it felt as if someone had dropped me onto an entirely different planet.
Being the new kid at school is hard, but being the one of few Asian kids integrating into a predominantly middle class white community is harder. Ain’t anybody ever heard of G-Unit here? Why’s everyone here so into hockey? Why are all the cars here nicer? Is everyone already friends here? Some of the students would ask me things like:
“Where are your parents from?” “What do your parents do? How did they get into restaurants?” “What’s Chinese Food like? I love Crab Rangoons”
Eventually, the comments got more snyde.
“Why do your parents work so long hours?” “I guess you should be smart at math anyway” “What’s my name in Chinese?” “Hey, you are in America, not China. So speak English”
Whether it was ill intended or not, as I reexplained my story for the tenth time, they had no real intention to get to know me or my family’s struggles up until that point. My mother would pick me up and bring me to the restaurant to sit by the front counter the entire day while she worked her second shift. Alone by the cash register, I thought to myself “is this what it is like to be an American?”
Over the years, our lives revolved around running the restaurant business. As I got older, I worked the front desk and packed orders of take out food after school because my parents could not leave me alone at home. I answered phone calls where pranksters would ask if we served “dog.” I got screamed at by customers who complained about our wait times and how we could not afford to hire one more kitchen staffer.
On one News Years Eve, I checked in with my dad one night after an intense shift close to midnight. The sweat had dried up around his bootleg Red Sox hat and the smell of vegetable oil fused within his clothes. He never openly complained but always smiled saying “we are doing this for you.” I have never talked about life purpose with my family but to my dad, purpose meant pulling out of poverty to your last tiring breath.
At school, I stopped getting invited to hang out with potential friends because my default responsibility was to work the front desk. I lost touch with my Asian friends from the city as they thought we joined the white community. Non-Asian people who knew about my situation would make comments like “your parents must be so proud to run a successful business.” But to work long hours and never have a chance to enjoy the fruits of your labor, are we really thriving? What other choice did we really have?
Representation Matters.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud to be from Boston. I can get behind our championship winning sports teams, our world class universities, or even Dunkin Donuts! But when I tell people I’m from there, they never think about my family’s restaurant — they think about Wahlburgers instead. America touts itself as a city on a hill for the rest of the world, but never humanizes those from around the world who built it.
Anti-Asian sentiment is not new in America; but it’s taken on an aggressive form during the pandemic that is akin to when some of the first Chinese immigrants landed in the 1800s. When I think about the victims in Atlanta, six of whom were Asian women, I think about how their feelings compared to my family’s fears of how racists in this country sees us: disposable.
The pandemic has dragged on but this social invisibility has dragged on longer. As our community comes together in the wake of a horrific tragedy, I hope we can continue to share more of these stories, educate our allies, and demand our representatives to chase accountability to stop anti-Asian hate.
For a long time, Asians have been virtually erased from the history books about who we are in America — today, I am ready to take back control of that narrative.
#StopAsianHate
Groups to support:
More on Boston: | https://medium.com/@danielguan/feeling-invisible-f38e689727ae | ['Daniel Guan'] | 2021-03-23 02:53:35.755000+00:00 | ['Immigrants', 'Boston', 'Stopasianhate', 'Chinese American', 'Identity'] |
Solidity Smart Contract Tutorial With Building Real-World DAPP — Part 2: Create Your First Contract | Your first contract
It’s time to write your first contract. go back to the Remix IDE. in the file explorers, there is a plus icon. Click on the icon, create a new file and name it Delance.sol or any other name that you like. the only important thing here is your created file should end with .sol.
New contract
The first thing is defining the version of solidity. we can define any version of solidity, but it’s always good to use the latest stable version. it enables new features and functionality of solidity for you. at the time of writing this article, the latest version is 0.6.9:
pragma solidity 0.6.9;
Basically, defining a contract is almost like defining a class in an object-oriented programming language. in solidity, we use contract keyword to define a contract.
In contracts, we have some public or private methods and properties. the contracts also can inherit from each other.
Now, let’s define a contract named Delance:
pragma solidity 0.6.9; contract Delance{
}
As we see in the first part of this tutorial, our contract needs the freelancer address and deadline. we should also deposit some amount of ether to our contract. the ether balance of the contract will be our project fee.
let’s create some state variables in our contract:
pragma solidity 0.6.9; contract Delance{
address public freelancer;
uint public deadline;
}
As you see, solidity is a strongly typed language. it means you need to define the type of variable.
You can also define how you can access the variable: if you want to access the variable from outside of the smart contract, you need to add the public keyword, otherwise, it will consider as a private variable and can be visible just inside the contract.
Types
There are some important types in the solidity that I like to mention them here:
string, bool, int, uint, and address
There are also some other types that we will mention later in this tutorial.
If you have experience with any other programming language, you may know about the above types. but, one of them seems to be totally new here: the address type!
In the Ethereum world, every account or contract is identified by the Ethereum addresses. All of the identities in the network can find each other using Ethereum addresses. an Ethereum address is simply a 64 character hex string: 0xE349fBbeDA6642BF459f4957b6D6AbcCBA8bA74c
In this post, we will see how we get our contract address after deploying it.
let’s back to our contract. As you saw, we define a public variable named freelancer and its type is address. it means it will store something like 0xE349fBbeDA6642BF459f4957b6D6AbcCBA8bA74c 🙂
Functions
Now, we need to write some functions to set the value of the freelancer and the deadline:
pragma solidity 0.6.9; contract Delance{
address public freelancer;
uint public deadline;
function setFreelancer(address _freelancer) public {
freelancer = _freelancer;
}
function setDeadline(uint256 _deadline) public {
deadline = _deadline;
}
}
As you see, we have to define the visibility type for functions as well as variables. The available types to define a visibility type of function are public, private, internal, and external.
Public: can be called from inside and outside of the contract
Private: only can be called from inside the smart contract. private functions are not available in derived contracts.
Internal: can only be called within the contract itself and any derived contracts.
External: can be called from outside the smart contract, but cannot be called from inside.
All of the above types can be used for variables except the External type.
constructor
If you know about OOP, you should know it’s good practice to define our necessary variables in our constructor. our contract cannot be useful without the freelancer and deadline!
As I told you, the contract is like a class in an object-oriented programming language. one of these similarities is the constructor method. Here in our contract, we can delete the last two functions and then, define a constructor and expect two properties: the freelancer address and the deadline. So, when we want to deploy the contract, we should define these two properties. an address type and a uint type. otherwise, an error will be generated.
pragma solidity 0.6.9; contract Delance{
address public freelancer;
uint public deadline;
constructor(address _freelancer,uint _deadline) public {
freelancer = _freelancer;
deadline = _deadline;
}
}
Notice the type of constructor function should always be public. we also don’t need to use the `function` keyword to define a constructor.
***Update (October 2020): In the next version of solidity (Solidity 7), visibility for a constructor is ignored unless you want to create an abstract contract. abstract contracts are just a non-deployable contract.
Our contract is not abstract, so it’s not necessary to use public keyword if we change the version of solidity to 7!
Global variables
In Solidity, there are some variables and functions which already exist globally and are mainly used to provide information about the blockchain.
The msg global variables are special global variables that contain properties that allow access to the blockchain. For example, msg.sender can return the address who has sent the transaction(let’s say sending a transaction is like calling a function, later we explain about transactions).
So, in our contract, we can define a state variable named employer with a type of address. then, in the constructor, we can get the address who has sent the transaction (the address who calls the constructor method) and store it in the employer variable:
pragma solidity 0.6.9; contract Delance{
address public employer;
address public freelancer;
uint public deadline;
constructor (address _freelancer, uint _deadline) public {
employer = msg.sender;
freelancer = _freelancer;
deadline = _deadline;
}
}
We have stored all of the important initial information in our contract. there is only one thing left. the project fee! we will explain the deposit process later in the tutorial. for now, let’s deploy our contract.
Compile
Now it’s time to use the activated plugins. first, we compile the contract and then deploy it.
let’s click on the solidity compiler icon. change the compiler version to the 0.6.9. you can also enable the auto compile option. so, Remix IDE will automatically compile the contract while you typing.
When you were ready, hit the compile button.
Deploy
after compiling the contract, click on the deploy plugin.
- Select Javascript VM for the environment.
- There are some built-in accounts with 100 ether of balance. you can select one of them.
- The gas limit has been set to 3000000. it’s good for our transaction(later we explain about gas price and gas limit)
- Leave the value to be zero, as I told, in the next post we will write a function in the contract to accept ether.
Select your contract, and fill the required arguments. here we need an address type and uint type.
_freelancer can be: 0xE349fBbeDA6642BF459f4957b6D6AbcCBA8bA74c
and _deadline can be: 123456789
Congrats, You just deployed your first contract.🥳
Now you can read the stored data from the blockchain.
Every time you define a public state variable in the contract, the solidity creates a getter function for you.
For instance, for reading the value of the `freelancer` variable, you don’t need to create a getFreelancer() function to return the freelancer value. you have already access a function named freelancer that returns the freelancer value.
In the below image, you can see the employer address is the same address that we use to send the transaction. | https://medium.com/coinmonks/solidity-smart-contract-tutorial-with-building-real-world-dapp-part-2-create-your-first-contract-e7cd4fdf4e98 | ['Behzad Pournouri'] | 2020-11-01 18:00:02.855000+00:00 | ['Solidity', 'Smart Contracts', 'Ethereum', 'Dapps', 'Blockchain'] |
Multi-label Text Classification with Scikit-learn and Tensorflow | Multi-label models
There exists multiple ways how to transform a multi-label classification, but I chose two approaches:
Binary classification transformation — This strategy divides the problem into several independent binary classification tasks. It resembles the one-vs-rest method, but each classifier deals with a single label, which means the algorithm assumes they are mutually exclusive.
— This strategy divides the problem into several independent binary classification tasks. It resembles the one-vs-rest method, but each classifier deals with a single label, which means the algorithm assumes they are mutually exclusive. Multi-class classification transformation — The labels are combined into one big binary classifier called powerset. For instance, having the targets A, B, and C, with 0 or 1 as outputs, we have A B C -> [0 1 0], while the binary classification transformation treats it as A B C -> [0] [1] [0].
The evaluation metric to measure the performance of the models is the AUC measure, which stands for “Area Under the ROC Curve.” A ROC curve is a graph showing the performance of a classification model at all classification thresholds.
Figure 8 — AUC (Area Under the Curve)
This curve plots two parameters:
True Positive Rate
TPR = TP/(TP+FN)
False Positive Rate
FPR = FP/(FP +TN)
TP = True Positive; FP = False Positive; FP = False Positive; FN = False Negative
A model’s performance is assessed after running it with 5 different seeds to try to mitigate any bias.
Scikit-learn
First of all, it is necessary to vectorize the words before training the model, and here we are going to use the tf-idf vectorizer.
Tf-idf stands for term frequency-inverse document frequency, and the tf-idf weight is a weight often used in information retrieval and text mining. This weight is a statistical measure used to evaluate how important a word is to a document in a collection or corpus.
from sklearn.feature_extraction.text import TfidfVectorizer vectorizer = TfidfVectorizer(strip_accents='unicode', analyzer='word', ngram_range=(1,3), norm='l2')
vectorizer.fit(X_train) X_train = vectorizer.transform(X_train)
X_test = vectorizer.transform(X_test)
1. OneVsRestClassifier
The estimator used was RandomForestClassifier, and since the labels are analyzed separately, the result is the average of the AUC score of the categories.
from sklearn.multiclass import OneVsRestClassifier
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier
Figure 9 — AUC score per category
AUC score: 0.517097
2. BinaryRelevanceClassifier
This method is very similar to the OneVsAll, but not the same. If there are x labels, the binary relevance method creates x new datasets, one for each label, and trains single-label classifiers on each new data set. One classifier may answer yes/no, thus the “binary relevance.” This is a simple approach but does not work well when there are dependencies between the labels.
The estimator used is GaussianNB (Gaussian Naive Bayes).
from skmultilearn.problem_transform import BinaryRelevance
from sklearn.naive_bayes import GaussianNB classifier = BinaryRelevance(GaussianNB())
classifier.fit(X_train, y_train)
predictions = classifier.predict(X_test)
print('AUC score: {}'.format(roc_auc_score(y_test,predictions.toarray())))
AUC score: 0.544241
3. ClassifierChain
This approach combines the computational efficiency of the Binary Relevance method while still being able to take the label dependencies into account for classification. On the other hand, that makes this method more expensive computationally speaking.
The estimator used is LogisticRegression.
from skmultilearn.problem_transform import ClassifierChain
from sklearn.linear_model import LogisticRegression classifier = ClassifierChain(LogisticRegression())
classifier.fit(X_train, y_train)
predictions = classifier.predict(X_test) print('AUC score: {}'.format(roc_auc_score(y_test,predictions.toarray())))
AUC score: 0.519823
4. MultiOutputClassifier
This strategy consists of fitting one classifier per target(A B C -> [0 1 0]). This is a simple strategy for extending classifiers that do not natively support multi-target classification.
The estimator used is KNeighborsClassifier.
from sklearn.multioutput import MultiOutputClassifier
from sklearn.neighbors import KNeighborsClassifier clf = MultiOutputClassifier(KNeighborsClassifier()).fit(X_train, y_train)
predictions = clf.predict(X_test) print('AUC score: {}'.format(roc_auc_score(y_test,predictions)))
AUC score: 0.564452
Tensorflow
Text classification has benefited from the deep learning architectures’ trend due to their potential to reach high accuracy. There are different libraries available for deep learning, but we chose to use here Tensorflow because, alongside with PyTorch, they have become the most popular libraries for the topic.
On the other hand, word embeddings are low dimensional as they represent tokens as dense floating-point vectors and thus pack more information into fewer dimensions. This technique normally gives a performance boost in NLP tasks, for instance, syntactic parsing and sentiment analysis. It is possible to either train the WordEmbedding layer or use a pre-trained one through transfer learning, such as word2vec and GloVe.
For the following models, the vectorization used was texts_to_sequences, which transforms the words in numbers, and the pad_sequences ensures all the vectors have the same length.
from keras.preprocessing.text import Tokenizer
from keras.preprocessing.sequence import pad_sequences tokenizer = Tokenizer(num_words=5000, lower=True)
tokenizer.fit_on_texts(data['description'])
sequences = tokenizer.texts_to_sequences(data['description'])
x = pad_sequences(sequences, maxlen=200)
Class weights were calculated to address the imbalance problem in the categories.
most_common_cat['class_weight'] = len(most_common_cat) / most_common_cat['count']
class_weight = {}
for index, label in enumerate(categories):
class_weight[index] = most_common_cat[most_common_cat['cat'] == categories]['class_weight'].values[0]
most_common_cat.head()
Figure 10 — Class weights
1.DNN with WordEmbedding
We started with a simple model which only consists of an embedding layer, a dropout layer to reduce the size and prevent overfitting, a max-pooling layer, and one dense layer with a sigmoid activation to produce probabilities for each of the categories that we want to predict.
from keras.models import Sequential
from keras.layers import Dense, Embedding, GlobalMaxPool1D
from keras.optimizers import Adam
import tensorflow as tf model = Sequential()
model.add(Embedding(max_words, 20, input_length=maxlen))
model.add(GlobalMaxPool1D())
model.add(Dense(num_classes, activation='sigmoid')) model.compile(optimizer=Adam(0.015), loss='binary_crossentropy', metrics=[tf.keras.metrics.AUC()])
Figure 11 — DNN architecture
AUC score: 0.890245
2. CNN with WordEmbedding
Convolutional Neural Networks recognize local patterns in a sequence by processing multiple words at the same time, and 1D convolutional networks are suitable for text processing tasks. In this case, the convolutional layer uses a window size of 3 and learns word sequences that can later be recognized in any position of a text.
from keras.layers import Dense, Activation, Embedding, Flatten, GlobalMaxPool1D, Dropout, Conv1D filter_length = 300 model = Sequential()
model.add(Embedding(max_words, 20, input_length=maxlen))
model.add(Conv1D(filter_length, 3, padding='valid', activation='relu', strides=1))
model.add(GlobalMaxPool1D())
model.add(Dense(num_classes))
model.add(Activation('sigmoid')) model.compile(optimizer='adam', loss='binary_crossentropy', metrics=[tf.keras.metrics.AUC()])
Figure 12 — CNN architecture
AUC score: 0.886286
3. LSTM with GloVe WordEmbedding
In this model, we will use GloVe word embedding to convert text inputs to their numeric counterparts, which is a different approach because this is a pre-trained layer. The model will have one input layer, one embedding layer, one LSTM layer with 128 neurons, and one output layer with 21 neurons (the number of targets.)
from keras.layers import Flatten, LSTM
from keras.models import Model deep_inputs = Input(shape=(maxlen,))
embedding_layer = Embedding(max_words, 100, weights=[embedding_matrix], trainable=False)(deep_inputs)
LSTM_Layer_1 = LSTM(128)(embedding_layer)
dense_layer_1 = Dense(21, activation='sigmoid')(LSTM_Layer_1)
model = Model(inputs=deep_inputs, outputs=dense_layer_1) model.compile(loss='binary_crossentropy', optimizer='adam', metrics=[tf.keras.metrics.AUC()])
Figure 13 — LSTM architecture
AUC score: 0.887574 | https://medium.com/swlh/multi-label-text-classification-with-scikit-learn-and-tensorflow-257f9ee30536 | ['Rodolfo Saldanha'] | 2020-05-08 21:21:33.333000+00:00 | ['Deep Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Neural Networks', 'Towards Data Science', 'Machine Learning'] |
Millions of Dead Fish Wash Up On Shores Around The World: Maryland, Brazil, New Zealand | At the start of the new year reports of 100,000 fish dying in an Arkansas river was shocking to say the least. In this age of environmental toxins and absolute disregard for environmental regulations, my first thoughts were that this was an isolated event. I figured once the government ran some tests the it would become clear who dumped what toxins where, and why this particular group of fish ‘Drum’ were most affected. As more info was revealed it became apparent that no single pollutant was at play.
[caption id=”attachment_3141" align=”alignnone” width=”560" caption=”The fish and bird deaths are now global and number in the millions. “]
[/caption]
A pollutant would have affected cross species. Stephens says, “Ninety-nine percent of them were Drum, which is a bottom feeder. It’s not a game fish in Arkansas.”
To make things worse, thousands of birds have fallen from the sky in Louisiana and Arkansas. Early reports showed that that they died of internal trauma mid air. Across the Atlanctic ocean reports are now coming out of Sweden that birds are falling out of the sky there. Being a good sport I was still willing to give government officials the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps these were in fact separate isolated incidents, freak of nature events.
This morning however, the media is once again flooded with new accounts of millions of dead fish washing up in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay in the U.S and on shores are far away as New Zealand. These “isolated incidents” are now a global event. Each death zone is located thousands of miles and several oceans apart. The numerous global events clearly show that the theories presented by biologists so far are ludicrous in nature. No single thunderstorm, high altitude hail, fireworks, or environmental pollutant could travel that far and cause the simultaneous death of fish around the world.
If there was ever a need for government transparency during an investigation this would be it. We now live in a world of instantaneous information sharing, in the coming days I expect to see a deluge of videos and photos from around the world showing the full scale of this epidemic. What do you think is the cause, leave a comment below?
Photo credit: Bohemianism
You can follow me here: @KevinMinott
Millions of Dead Fish Wash Up On Shores Around The World | https://medium.com/komverse/millions-of-dead-fish-wash-up-on-shores-around-the-world-maryland-brazil-new-zealand-ad19e5041661 | ['Kevin Minott'] | 2016-08-26 16:34:08.138000+00:00 | ['Around', 'All Posts', 'Bay', 'World', 'Birds'] |
Energy Storage Systems | Growth of the Market:
The market for energy storage is expected to grow at a CAGR of approximately 24.38% during the forecast period of 2020–2025. In an attempt to make the power industry more effective, a new trend in electric power production has witnessed intense development during the recent past, which is energy storage.
Factors such as growing renewable energy sector, supportive government policies and schemes for energy storage systems (ESS), and improving energy storage economics are expected to be the major drivers for the energy storage market in the coming years. However, ambiguity in the EU legislation related to energy storage systems is forcing the network operators to refrain from using the ESS, which, in turn, is restraining the market growth in such major regions.
Which sector and region dominate the market?
Increasing Demand from Residential Sector dominate the market.
The residential sector is expected to dominate the energy storage market over the forecast period. The residential usage of energy storage systems is gaining importance on account of growing need to offset the power blackouts, which result from growth in power demand from the existing power infrastructure.
Residential energy storage system (RESS) business models are still at the early development stages in most markets. However, residential customers are expected to become actively involved in modifying their energy spending patterns by monitoring their actual consumption in real time.
Asia-Pacific to Dominate the Market.
Asia-Pacific is expected to continue its dominance in the energy storage market over the forecast period. The region consists of two main types of power grids each with different characteristics and opportunities for energy storage systems. On one side are highly developed nations, such as Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, and Australia, and other major cities with advanced grids that operate reliably and utilize advanced technologies.
Several other countries, such as Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Bangladesh, have introduced the net metering program, or have made certain amendments in the program to encourage solar PV in the residential sector, thereby, creating ample opportunity for the residential energy storage market.
India is one of the most promising countries for growth in the housing sector. During 2008–2020, the market size for the housing sector is expected to register a double-digit growth rate and account for around 10% of the country’s total GDP. The growing housing sector in the country is expected to drive the demand for residential energy storage systems for uninterrupted and reliable power supply.
Click here to view and/or download the sample report. | https://medium.com/@rakeshkulkarni87/energy-storage-systems-8a6e6de832ca | [] | 2020-12-22 10:47:47.966000+00:00 | ['Energy Storage', 'Renewable Energy', 'Batteries', 'Storage Sector'] |
Wittgenstein’s Poker: The Ten-Minute Philosophy Argument that Went Down In History | The Ten-Minute Argument that Went Down In History
At around 8:30 in the evening on October 25, 1946, the philosophers Karl Popper (1902–1994) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) got into a heated argument involving a red-hot fireplace poker.
They were attending a gathering of the Cambridge Moral Science Club. The event was held at King’s College, and in attendance were famous philosophical figures of the day, like Bertrand Russel. The room was packed with about 30 or so other students and professors.
Popper and Wittgenstein had never been together in the same room before, and they would never be in the same room again.
The two philosophers couldn’t be more different. Popper, unassuming and soft-spoken; Wittgenstein loudly eccentric and charismatic.
Wittgenstein left an impression on people wherever he went. The economist John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) once said, “Wittgenstein was regarded as a sort of deity, at least in Cambridge.” When Keynes met Wittgenstein for the first time, he recalled “God has arrived…I met him on the 5:15 train.”
Despite their radical philosophical differences, Wittgenstein and Popper shared a lot in common: they both had a similar academic background having lived in Vienna at the same time during the famous Vienna circle. Both came from wealthy families. And both Jewish academics escaped Vienna during World War II, fleeing from the Nazis.
That evening, Wittgenstein, the chair of the speaker series, asked Popper to present on an interesting philosophical puzzle. But Popper, wanted to raise the stakes that evening to confront Wittgenstein’s philosophy. ‘’I admit that I went to Cambridge hoping to provoke Wittgenstein . . . and to fight him on this issue,’’ Popper wrote.
Popper’s talk was entitled: “Are There Philosophical Problems?” And for about ten minutes, a battle of philosophical perspectives raged in that small room.
In ‘Wittgenstein’s Poker,’ the authors David Edmonds and John Eidinow attempt to uncover exactly what happened that night:
“What is clear is that there were vehement exchanges between Popper and Wittgenstein over the fundamental nature of philosophy — whether there were indeed philosophical problems (Popper) or merely puzzles (Wittgenstein).”
“Vehement exchanges” is one way to put it. | https://medium.com/leakygrammar/the-ten-minute-philosophical-argument-that-went-down-in-history-81a538e4c306 | ['Gavin Lamb'] | 2020-11-28 23:54:58.700000+00:00 | ['Linguistics', 'Language', 'Philosophy', 'History', 'Books'] |
How Indian students eat abroad? | So one of my best friends’s from childhood asked me to respond to this question in blog format. So here goes…
Now when we consider India, we are looking at close to one sixth of world’s population, and I always worry if I can do enough justice to adequately represent the population. If we zoom in specifically to students, based on some dated UNESCO statistics, the total number of Indian students overseas increased from 66,713 in 2000 to 3,01,406 in 2016. This translates into 2,34,693 more students overseas in 2016 as compared to that in 2000 — at a robust average annual growth rate of 22% in a span of 16 years. 2020, of course, is different, but 2016–19 may have been comparable is my best guess. So the task at hand is to best represent a few hundred Indian students who brain drain out of the country and to figure out what and how they eat in their miserable lives as students that somehow look beautiful in retrospect when these folks join the workforce.
So, full disclosure, I am not much of a cook. Like I eat burned oats 2 of 7 days a week but cooking oats doesn't count today just as 25¢ cup noodles didn’t count as cooking when I was a grad student. And as such, that doesn’t make me qualified to comment about grad students who can cook. Also, I have trust issues with such individuals. Like all that time spent cooking could be dedicated to why you emigrated in the first place. (I, for instance, am eating a messed up Doordash order as I type this.)
So what did I eat as a student abroad? For the first semester, I drank raw eggs, milk, mixed with expired Bournvita I stocked from CSD canteen. I also had random veggies mixed with masala packs a roommate definitely scammed us about. (Paid like $100 for wholesale masala from a no-name brand that lasted less than six weeks just trying to be a good room-mate in a new country.) Point is, don’t cook with or for someone, you wouldn’t enjoy eating a meal with. Room-mates, like dates, are a hit or miss, school is over before you find the right one. Did I digress again? Sorry.
For lunch, I ate a 6-foot sub, just the cheapest veggie toppings, depending on the level of guilt that came from converting currencies. It also depended on if I was able to grab one of the three “free breakfast” granola bars at the leasing office I had picked over the other cheap student living housing properties around the university. I treated myself to Chipotle on the rare ‘A’s and for festivals, I went to the only Indian Biryani place that dispassionately asked, “Maldmidimspyzi?” and my friends always responded for me to avoid the embarrassment that came from blocking a very long line. “He will have it spicy. To-go. Thanks.” (Maldmidimspyzi? = Mild. Medium. Spicy? (minus spaces or punctuation.))
Dinners, if I got any, was canned black beans sabzi, yogurt, garlic-coconut chutney and half-burnt-semi-cooked kavan rotis. Yes, I burned the rotis. No, I did not cook the sabzi. If we got too creative and my friend, took it easy on the nutrition count we had potato sabzi. For celebrations, we made chat from overpriced packaged food kits. I never felt hungry before grad school and I rarely felt not-hungry in grad life.
Food was big deal. Home-cooked food was a bigger deal. I still am mad at my best friends for not thinking of me for the one impromptu vada paav feast they had one evening just after I left. It has been over 5 years, and I cannot find it in my otherwise-externally-attested-big-heart to forgive them. Some folks made dating choices, friends, room-mates based on who could cook or had a car.
To be fair, there were people, who could cook, and did well at academics, at sports, and were great people, regardless of gender, as there were people who were bad at everything, again, regardless of gender. As an Indian male, you will be called a sexist, for not being able to cook or asking people from the other gender if they can. Truth is cooking and driving are two essential skills to learn when you start living alone. Those are just some things very few people tell you when you hop on a plane to chase your dreams. Cooking (like driving) can be an art, chore, or a passion, regardless of gender. Not everyone is good at it and rarely people from one camp get the other. Not everyone enjoys doing it every day. Not everyone enjoys doing it just for themselves. Nor does anyone feel like doing it when they HAVE to do it. There are people who can cook (or drive) and people who can’t. Fortunately, there are options for those of us who can’t. This wasn’t necessarily the case a few years back. Unless you swallowed 25¢ cup noodles with sugared water just to stare at your muffin top in the years that follow.
So yeah, boys and girls aspiring to study abroad. Learn to cook and drive. Be kind to one another, and pick room-mates based on their hygiene. Check kitchen sinks and bathroom pots before you move-in together and life will be much better. And remember, gender has nothing to do with either skill. A non-cooking Indian male can be a feminist. I know many great women drivers, Indian, Asian. I also know a lot of bad male drivers. Let us break the stereotypes. And while we are at it, here is a product by an Indian male cook married to a great female driver. They can help you with those skills as you plan to head overseas, for “higher studies”. | https://medium.com/@metathoughts/how-indian-students-eat-abroad-2546b4852b34 | [] | 2020-12-19 22:39:48.784000+00:00 | ['USA', 'India', 'Immigration', 'Education Reform', 'Food'] |
Inversion | Inversion
Invert
Over the summer, I came across several posts that talked about a mental model known as The Inversion principal. It’s based on a simple tenet from the German mathematician Carl Jacobi — ‘invert, always, invert’ that he used to solve the most complicated problems he faced.
The idea is as follows: flip the problem upside down; start at the solution and work backwards to where you are now. Begin at where you want to end up, consider everything that got you there in reverse order. In other words: define the outcomes you don’t want and plan the path to avoid hitting them.
Inversion exercises are used to help you figure out what you need to do to get to an outcome, as well as help you become aware on things you will need to get you to where you want to go. Pitfalls to avoid, skills you need to master and issues you will encounter along the journey. You need to think forwards and backwards.
Marcus Aurelius as well as other stoic philosophers called this premeditatio malorum — a ‘premeditation of the evils and troubles that might lie ahead’ — in other words — imagining the worst case scenario. Avoiding these mistakes sometimes is even more powerful skill than actually achieving success.
Charlie Munger put it best in ‘The Power of Not Making Stupid Decisions’, in which he says: “It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.” | https://furrygoat.com/inversion-e83977acc73a | ['Steve Makofsky'] | 2020-12-10 03:24:05.278000+00:00 | ['Stoicism', 'Mental Models', 'Storytelling', 'Thinking'] |
Autocorrect in Google, Amazon and Pinterest and how to write your own one | Autocorrect in Google, Amazon and Pinterest and how to write your own one
In this text I will explain what is spell correction in the area of search functionality, how it works in Google, Amazon and Pinterest and will demonstrate how to make your own implementation from the ground up using custom search engine Manticore Search. Gregdevogo Feb 6, 2020·13 min read
“Iguanodon”, Heinrich Harder (Wikimedia)
Spell correction also known as:
Auto correction
Text correction
Fixing a spelling error
Typo tolerance
“Did you mean?”
and so on is a software functionality that suggests you alternatives to or makes automatic corrections of the text you have typed in.
The concept of correcting typed text dates back to the 1960s, says Brad Myers, a professor of interface design at Carnegie Mellon University. This’s when a computer scientist named Warren Teitelman who also invented the “undo” command came up with a philosophy of computing called D.W.I.M., or “Do What I Mean.” Rather than programming computers to accept only perfectly formatted instructions, Teitelman said we should program them to recognize obvious mistakes.
The first well known product which provided spell correction functionality was Microsoft Word 6.0 released in 1993.
Nowadays people can’t imagine their real life without messaging, searching, browsing and using different business applications: text editors, content management systems (CMS), customer relationship management systems (CRM) and others. And in all of them people do typing mistakes, forget proper spelling of words, sometimes are wrong with grammar and so on. This is absolutely fine, everybody makes mistakes. What a good software does is helping you fix those mistakes the easiest and most efficient way. There are many approaches how it can do that: both from how it looks for a user and what value it brings and how it’s made under the hood.
In this article we will focus specifically on search systems as for them it’s especially important to correct your search query before (or while) it’s processed since otherwise your search results may be absolutely wrong.
Different approaches to autocorrect
In terms of user experience we can split the approaches into 2 groups:
within the first one a system tries to correct your text right as you type it
within another, it takes it as a given and gives you suggestions afterwards
In most cases these approaches are combined so a system tries to correct you as you type and if it thinks there’s still some issue — suggests you a correction after you get the search results.
Autocorrect — corrects wrong typed query immediately
— corrects wrong typed query immediately Autocomplete — another big feature many modern sites have which is often combined with the autocorrect functionality
— another big feature many modern sites have which is often combined with the autocorrect functionality Suggestions — it’s kind of a mix of autocomplete and autocorrect which often looks like suggesting you smth a little bit different from what you’re typing in, but still making sense (see the picture below)
— it’s kind of a mix of autocomplete and autocorrect which often looks like suggesting you smth a little bit different from what you’re typing in, but still making sense (see the picture below) Highlighting of mistakes — another nice feature is mistake highlighting. It can also be done both as you type and afterwards
of mistakes — another nice feature is mistake highlighting. It can also be done both as you type and afterwards “Did you mean” — many systems recommend you refined search queries not only while you are typing, but when displaying the search results too. We call it “did you mean … ?”. In its turn there are 2 patterns:
Search by your original search query and just show you the recommended one (as Google does) Or search by the refined one and suggest to “search for <original query> instead”
As you type components:
After the query:
Let me demonstrate you with pictures how different popular sites use the aforementioned techniques.
Google as the site #1 in the Internet does everything: autocorrect, autocomplete, suggestions, mistake highlighting and “did you mean”. Google uses a prediction service to help complete searches and even URLs typed in the address bar: These suggestions or predictions (as Google names that) are based on related web searches, your browsing history, and Google’s websites ranking.
Amazon uses eCommerce oriented search algorithm called A9. What differs it from Google’s algorithm is that it puts a strong emphasis on sales conversions.
In terms of Amazon’s autocorrect implementation it consists of all the previously mentioned components, but since it’s a marketplace its suggestions ranking formula seems to include the factor of how attractive a suggestion can be to you in terms of sales.
Pinterest also has its own algorithm based on internal domain/pins/pinners relevance.
How it works
Let’s now think about how spell correction can be done. There are few ways, but the important thing is that there is no purely programmatic way which will convert your mistyped “ipone” into “iphone” (at least with decent quality). Mostly there has to be a data set the system is based on. The data set can be:
A dictionary of properly spelled words. In its turn it can be:
Based on your real data. The idea here is that mostly in the dictionary made up from your data the spelling is correct and then for each typed word the system just tries to find a word which is most similar to that (we’ll speak about how exactly it can be done shortly) Or can be based on an external dictionary which has nothing to do with your data. The problem which may arise here is that your data and the external dictionary can be too different: some words may be missing in the dictionary, some words may be missing in your data. E.g. like in these cases:
But it might still make sense for smaller data collections as then there’s a higher chance the search query will be corrected at all
Not just dictionary-based, but context-aware, like if I search for “white ber” Google understands that I mean a bear:
But if I change it to “dark ber” it understands I mean beer:
The context may be not just a neighbour word in your query, but your location, date of time, current sentence’s grammar (to let’s say change “there” to “their” or not), your search history and virtually any other things that can affect your intent.
Another classical approach is to use previous search queries as the data set for spell correction. It’s even more utilized in autocomplete functionality, but makes sense for autocorrect too. The idea here is that mostly users are right with spelling, therefore we can use words from their search history as a source of truth even if we don’t have the words in our documents nor we use an external dictionary. Context-awareness is also possible here.
as the data set for spell correction. It’s even more utilized in autocomplete functionality, but makes sense for autocorrect too. The idea here is that mostly users are right with spelling, therefore we can use words from their search history as a source of truth even if we don’t have the words in our documents nor we use an external dictionary. Context-awareness is also possible here. Another approach is to use your users’ previous search queries and/or your dictionary and/or documents to figure out some correction rules and use just them to correct new search queries. There’s even a patent about this https://patents.google.com/patent/US6618697B1/en
For all the approaches can be used different algorithms of searching and evaluation of candidate spell corrections:
From simplest like just comparison of a given word with all the words in the dictionary
Early rejects algorithms that allow to narrow down the list of candidates significantly (that we will look in details below)
Finite automatons of different kinds to improve performance of finding candidates (Lucene’s way)
Probabilistic models, e.g. Hidden Markov Model that Etsy utilize on a basis of previous search queries
To different machine learning techniques that often require large training data
Looking at how fast AI, machine learning and semantic search have been evolving lately I believe in this decade the landscape of spell correction techniques may change dramatically, but for now the above approaches seem to be most used. And most solutions are based on your existing data collection and the dictionary made up from it.
How to write your custom auto-correct
Here I will describe a part of my own experience with making a website search with help of Manticore Search. I discovered this product about a year ago while working on some clients projects and I’m still using it in few of my projects due to its lightweight and fast search with a lot of out of the box functions.
Let’s now speak about what tools you can use to add the autocorrect functionality to your system and at the same time go a little bit deeper into understanding how at least simpler techniques work.
To do that we will take one of popular custom search engines as they often provide the functionality we’re looking for. I like Manticore Search as in contrast to more known Elasticsearch, it is much more lightweight, easier to deal with as it’s SQL-native and works faster in most cases. It’s so SQL native that you can even connect to it with a standard MySQL client. They provide an official docker image, so I’ll use that to demonstrate how autocorrect works in Manticore Search:
➜ ~ docker run --name manticore -d manticoresearch/manticore
1ac28e94b3ca728fb431ba79255f81eb31ec264b5d9d49f1d2db973e08a32b9f
And inside the container I’ll run mysql to connect to the Manticore Search server running there:
➜ ~ docker exec -it manticore mysql
Welcome to the MariaDB monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 1
Server version: 5.5.21
Copyright © 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.
It ships with 2 test tables that we can use for a quick play with spell correction:
MySQL [(none)]> show tables;
+--------+-----------+
| Index | Type |
+--------+-----------+
| pq | percolate |
| testrt | rt |
+--------+-----------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Let’s check the schema of testrt:
MySQL [(none)]> describe testrt;
+---------+--------+------------+
| Field | Type | Properties |
+---------+--------+------------+
| id | bigint | |
| title | field | stored |
| content | field | stored |
| gid | uint | |
+---------+--------+------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)
and insert few documents into it. Let it be movie titles:
MySQL [(none)]> insert into testrt(title) values('The Godfather'),('The Wizard of Oz'),('Combat!'),('The Shawshank Redemption'),('Pulp Fiction'),('Casablanca'),('The Godfather: Part II'),('Mortal Kombat'),('2001: A Space Odyssey'),('Schindler\'s List'); Query OK, 10 rows affected (0.00 sec)
We can now see all our documents in the index:
MySQL [(none)]> select * from testrt;
+---------------------+------+--------------------------+---------+
| id | gid | title | content |
+---------------------+------+--------------------------+---------+
| 1657719407478046741 | 0 | The Godfather | |
| 1657719407478046742 | 0 | The Wizard of Oz | |
| 1657719407478046743 | 0 | Combat! | |
| 1657719407478046744 | 0 | The Shawshank Redemption | |
| 1657719407478046745 | 0 | Pulp Fiction | |
| 1657719407478046746 | 0 | Casablanca | |
| 1657719407478046747 | 0 | The Godfather: Part II | |
| 1657719407478046748 | 0 | Mortal Kombat | |
| 1657719407478046749 | 0 | 2001: A Space Odyssey | |
| 1657719407478046750 | 0 | Schindler's List | |
+---------------------+------+--------------------------+---------+
10 rows in set (0.00 sec)
What has just happened: when we inserted the titles not just Manticore Search saved them as is, but it made a lot of things essential for natural language processing (NLP): tokenization (to split the titles into words), normalization (to lowercase everything) and many other things, but there was one important for us which is that it has split the words into trigrams they consist from. For example “Combat!” (or actually “combat” after normalization) was split into “com”, “omb”, “mba”, “bat”. So why is that important?
To answer that let’s assume we make a mistype in “combat” and type “comabt” instead. If we now want “combat” to be found how would we do that? The options are:
We could go through our whole dictionary and compare each word with our keyword (“comabt”), then we would evaluate the difference between the 2 words. It’s called the Levenshtein distance. There are few ways to calculate it for a given pair of words, but the problem is that even if you can do that fast for 2 words it may take you a while to compare each word from your dictionary with the given word
So it would be good to compare not all dictionary words, but only those that have higher chance to be a correction for the given word. And here comes the idea of trigrams — if we split all the dictionary words into trigrams and the search keywords too we can now operate those smaller tokens to find the candidates.
So in this case what’s done internally is that Manticore Search first splits “comabt” into infixes: “com”, “oma”, “mab” and “abt” and then finds the corresponding words in the dictionary as when the document was inserted it also did the same. Since the complexity of this algorithm is not very high (much lower than comparing each word with each other) Manticore quickly finds that there’s a word “combat” which also has “com” and it’s the only candidate word. So all it has to do after that is to make sure the candidate word doesn’t differ very much from the given word. It calculates the Levensthein distance, figures it’s not greater than the limit (4 by default) and returns the candidate:
MySQL [(none)]> call qsuggest('comabt', 'testrt');
+---------+----------+------+
| suggest | distance | docs |
+---------+----------+------+
| combat | 2 | 1 |
+---------+----------+------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
In other cases, there may be more candidates. For example if you search for “combat” there is one word in the dictionary which exactly matches your query (the Levenshtein distance is 0), but there’s another which you might mean and CALL SUGGEST returns it too:
MySQL [(none)]> call qsuggest('combat', 'testrt');
+---------+----------+------+
| suggest | distance | docs |
+---------+----------+------+
| combat | 0 | 1 |
| kombat | 1 | 1 |
+---------+----------+------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)
If you enter 2 words CALL QSUGGEST only process your last one:
MySQL [(none)]> call qsuggest('mortal combat', 'testrt');
+---------+----------+------+
| suggest | distance | docs |
+---------+----------+------+
| combat | 0 | 1 |
| kombat | 1 | 1 |
+---------+----------+------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)
So how do I use this functionality in my application?” you may ask. It’s quite simple. Just:
keep sending the search query to CALL QSUGGEST after each new character
and show it’s output to the user
Here’s the log of what it would give in the case of our dataset, note the input (after “call qsuggest”) and the output (in column “suggest”):
MySQL [(none)]> call qsuggest('m', 'testrt');
Empty set (0.00 sec)
MySQL [(none)]> call qsuggest('mo', 'testrt');
Empty set (0.00 sec)
MySQL [(none)]> call qsuggest('mor', 'testrt');
Empty set (0.00 sec)
MySQL [(none)]> call qsuggest('mort', 'testrt');
+---------+----------+------+
| suggest | distance | docs |
+---------+----------+------+
| mortal | 2 | 1 |
+---------+----------+------+
1 row in set (0.01 sec)
MySQL [(none)]> call qsuggest('morta', 'testrt');
+---------+----------+------+
| suggest | distance | docs |
+---------+----------+------+
| mortal | 1 | 1 |
+---------+----------+------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
MySQL [(none)]> call qsuggest('mortal', 'testrt');
+---------+----------+------+
| suggest | distance | docs |
+---------+----------+------+
| mortal | 0 | 1 |
+---------+----------+------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
MySQL [(none)]> call qsuggest('mortal c', 'testrt');
Empty set (0.01 sec)
MySQL [(none)]> call qsuggest('mortal co', 'testrt');
Empty set (0.00 sec)
MySQL [(none)]> call qsuggest('mortal com', 'testrt');
Empty set (0.00 sec)
MySQL [(none)]> call qsuggest('mortal comb', 'testrt');
+---------+----------+------+
| suggest | distance | docs |
+---------+----------+------+
| combat | 2 | 1 |
| kombat | 3 | 1 |
+---------+----------+------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)
MySQL [(none)]> call qsuggest('mortal comba', 'testrt');
+---------+----------+------+
| suggest | distance | docs |
+---------+----------+------+
| combat | 1 | 1 |
| kombat | 2 | 1 |
+---------+----------+------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)
MySQL [(none)]> call qsuggest('mortal combat', 'testrt');
+---------+----------+------+
| suggest | distance | docs |
+---------+----------+------+
| combat | 0 | 1 |
| kombat | 1 | 1 |
+---------+----------+------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Conclusions | https://towardsdatascience.com/autocorrect-in-google-amazon-and-pinterest-and-how-to-write-your-own-one-6d23bc927c81 | [] | 2020-02-25 12:03:07.734000+00:00 | ['Search', 'Elasticsearch', 'Search Engines', 'Autocomplete', 'Spelling'] |
Can the UK Feed Itself At No Extra Cost? | Photo by Alicia Steels on Unsplash
A few years ago I went to Maltby Street Market with my fiancé. It’s the kind of place some poor content serf would call a “foodie mecca”. It does have some pretty great food and booze. It is also very expensive.
The crowd there is a mix of tourists and men who look like they’ve just nipped in on the tube from Sloane Square; all-white trousers, reflective sunnies in the summer and pullovers tied over the shoulders.
On one side of the market you have the railway line, on the other the council estates of Bermondsey (just behind the new builds is St Saviours Estate) and in the middle lots of sauced up rich folk.
We munched our food among the tourists while sitting on the pavement outside. A man approached slowly on his bicycle accompanied by his son on foot. Greasy hair under a grey cap, worn out Reeboks and a few days of stubble covering a red-blotched face.
He wobbled along on his bike while his son was throwing those firecracker cherry bombs on the floor cackling at the little explosions.
“You disgust me!” He shouted at two of the women who looked like tourists. They gave their best British impression and pretended he wasn’t there. The rest of us did the same. “There is a full-time nurse up there” he gestured to the estate “who has to go to a fucking food bank every week to feed her kids. She can’t afford to eat. You’re all disgusting.”
“Yeah!” The boy grinned while chucking another cherry bomb.
It’s the only time I’ve encountered someone in real life talk about food banks who wasn’t on the news. However, I’ve almost certainly been in close proximity to people who use food banks almost every day.
A Maltby Street scene: Freddie the pug considers buying the £16 small plate or the oysters from Essex
Food Issues
In the UK we are unable to ensure everyone is provided with enough affordable food. According to FareShare, 8.4 million people in the UK struggle to afford food. Of those, 4.7m are in severely food-insecure households. A huge 19% of children in the UK live in food-insecure households, with 10% living in severe food-insecure households. This has life-long impacts from physical, academic and mental perspectives and entrenches a cycle of inequality.
The man on the bicycle had a point. It’s a disgrace that there are so many people who can’t eat properly.
Regardless of your personal perspective on what the cause of food poverty is, I’d hope that we’d all agree that children and adults should not struggle to get food, ever.
Not Grabbing It By The Roots
There are several different paths and ideas to ensure children and adults get fed. Discourse is usually centred on food waste and charity. Attacking both of these issues are positive steps but they are symptoms of a broken system rather than the root causes.
Increasing people’s living wage or providing a universal basic income is another option and would enable people to actually afford the food they want. It’s probably safe to say that a large section of our society would suggest that “we can’t afford it”.
A New Approach To End Hunger
There is another option to end hunger for good that is affordable. It is an option which would not increase government expenditure. How? We could change how the government distributes the current subsidy to farmers by prioritising subsidies for more cost-effective foods therefore increasing the availability of all food and nutrition.
By reforming the subsidy we pay the agricultural industry, we could feed every single person in the UK for every single day of the year without changing taxation. This would not directly require an increase in taxes for anyone, it is a change within the current tax and subsidy level. Not one child or adult would have to go hungry.
The Farming Subsidy
The farming subsidies were introduced after World War 2 when the war exposed the fragility of European food supplies. In short, they were created to ensure we all had enough food to eat. Now we are failing to keep everyone fed. Therefore, the subsidy is failing.
The current system pays farm owners subsidies based on the size of their farm’s land, irrespective of what that farm produces. This means that we are not incentivising food production which is cost-effective at delivering calories and nutrients.
We currently pay farmers to simply exist without consideration of how we feed society or the negative externalities of farming i.e. its huge impact on the environment (although the government is trying to incentivise “green” practices).
Make It Cost-Effective
To be more cost-effective, we could instead use the subsidy only on food types which deliver greater nutritional value per pound spent. An incredibly simple way this could be achieved is by the government purchasing the most nutritionally cost-effective food types from farmers at market prices.
As farmers rely on the subsidy to survive, they would be incentivised to produce the cost-effective food that the government wanted to purchase.
Under this system, farm owners could continue to create whatever food they want. Private buyers e.g. supermarkets or food manufacturers could continue to buy whatever food they want. The subsidy would be used alongside private buyers as if the government were any other private customer.
To the public it would be very similar to how we experience healthcare in the UK; we are provided the NHS and we have the option of getting private treatment.
As is demonstrated below, the current subsidy of £3.34bn is already more than what is needed to buy enough food for every single person in the UK. In this scenario, the average person need not do anything. This means no extra tax, no need to donate to charity and no need to worry about food waste (although they should do the latter anyway).
If anything, this might mean less tax is required.
How Could Britain Feed Itself At No Extra Cost?
There are 2 main questions to consider with this approach:
By prioritising certain food types, do we have enough land to grow or rear all the food we require?
This one is relatively straightforward and simply asks if we have the space to create enough food to sustain our population of 66.8m people 365 days a year.
By prioritising certain food types, can we provide enough calories and nutrition for each individual with the subsidy we have without agriculture losing out?
This is where the balancing act comes in. Without raising tax and without lowering subsidies to farmers can we provide enough basic calories and nutrients to the public?
Minimum Calories & Nutrition
What are enough calories and enough nutrition? The government recommended vegetable quota of 400g of vegetables per day will be used to ensure we are providing a right balance.
For calories, the NHS recommends 2,000 per day for women and 2,500 per day for men; 2,250 for a simple average. However, this seems high when considering the average UK man’s height is 5 ft 9 inches. Using the BMI calculation, this would mean the average ideal weight of a UK man is 66kg meaning to maintain weight we would need an average of 1,859 calories per day assuming a sedentary lifestyle.
For women, the average height is 5 ft 3 which would mean an ideal weight of around 56kg. This equates to a calorie requirement of 1403 per day to maintain weight. Averaging the 2, assuming women and men are 50/50 split, we get an average daily intake of 1,641 calories per day.
While this seems small it is probably a fairly safe figure. First, around 16% of the population is under 18, these children will not need as many calories.
Secondly, the calorie minimum is based on people having a low-activity lifestyle/sedentary lifestyle and we are sadly a relatively sedentary nation. Although 60% of the population is active, exercising at least 150 minutes, the most popular activity is walking. Walking for 150 minutes per week adds about 85 calories per day to the calorie requirement for those that do exercise. This brings us to a range from 1,641 calories to 1,726 calories per day. This is generous as 40% of people are inactive.
Remember the intention here is to provide the minimum amount of food required to everyone for free so that no one need to go hungry. Also, this is an average actual calories per person could easily change on a case-by-case basis.
The Land Question
Luckily for us, the first question has already been explored and roughly (as the author puts it) answered in Simon Fairlie’s article “Can Britain Feed Itself” in Land Magazine. Simon explores many different agricultural systems and concludes that we could feed ourselves if we dramatically reduced the amount of meat we ate.
We’ll call this the Some Meat diet from this point.
From Can Britain Feed Itself by Simon Fairlie in Land Magazine
Simon goes on to find that, while we could have enough land and keep meat consumption going, albeit much less meat, a chemical vegan diet is easily the most economical. This is important as the more land we can save and make useful in other ways e.g. rewilding, new housing or renewable energy is crucial to many other initiatives and also important for offsetting any external costs of redistributing the subsidy.
From Can Britain Feed Itself by Simon Fairlie in Land Magazine
For those wondering, by “chemical” Fairlie meant non-organic. Organic systems were the least land efficient, which is one of the bigger arguments against the idea that we should all eat organic produce.
Chemical Vegan vs. Some Meat On The Land
Data from From Can Britain Feed Itself by Simon Fairlie in Land Magazine visualisation from Author. Cereals for animals are nearly the same as cereals for humans.
A vegan diet would leave us with 15.6 million spare hectares of arable land vs 7.6 million spare hectares for the Some Meat diet. That’s the size of 50 Londons or 11.3 million football pitches. That’s a huge saving and, more importantly, a lot of land which could be invested in for potentially better uses (Simon indeed challenges vegans to come up with those very use cases).
Chemical Vegan vs. Some Meat: What Can We Afford?
The Assumptions
To understand which diet we could afford, we need to put in place some basic requirements. We have the subsidy amount (£3.34bn), the UK population of 66.m, farm gate prices found in the Defra agriculture dataset, a minimum number of calories we want to target (1,641 per day), a minimum amount of protein and the minimum vegetable requirement (400g of vegetables per day) to ensure we can meet people’s nutritional needs. If we can hit these goals it would mean that everyone is fed well.
Calories per £
To maximise cost-effectiveness, we need to look beyond just the price of food and assess the calorific return on investment e.g. calories per £ spent. In other words, how many calories can we buy depending on food type?
Farm Gate Prices taken from UK Government datasets at Defra, calories from My Fitness Pal/Fairlie’s ‘Can Britain Feed Itself’, “meat” is the total of beef, lamb and poultry, “vegetables” are non-legume vegetables (mix of onions and parsnips).
A glance at the chart above should indicate which diet is going to be most successful at providing our nutritional needs. Meat, which is the average of beef, lamb and chicken, is the least cost-effective option, while oats provide the most calories per pound spent. Vegetables (defined here as a mix of onions and parsnips) are less effective at driving calories but they are a requirement from a health perspective. Potatoes don’t count (sadly), but beans and peas do contribute to the vegetable requirement.
In terms of cost-effectiveness, while beans and peas look similar to milk on the chart above, they are actually far more cost-effective, approximately 3x more cost-effective as can be seen more clearly in the next chart.
Despite the obvious cost-effectiveness of oats, legumes and vegetables we shall first explore the diets laid out in Simon’s document and attempt to optimise them where needed.
The Some Meat Diet
Let’s take Simon Fairlie’s “some meat” diet first as this is closest to what the majority of UK citizens currently consume. The amount of meat that the diet allows for is 70g of meat per day. At 2019 prices, this would mean that the meat allocation alone would cost £3.4bn, which takes out the entire subsidy alone. If we were trying to fund the amount of milk suggested (including butter and cheese), which is 1 pint per day, at the 2019 prices that would have amounted to £4bn. i.e. more than subsidy itself. (Milk and Meat Prices Found in Defra datasets chapter 8).
Cost Calculation Example
Basic cost calculation: price per kg of meat = £2.01
(70 grams per day)*(365 days per year)*(66,800,000 people) = 1,706,740,000 grams for UK population for one year
= 1,706,740 kilos
* £2.01 (price per kg)
= £3,428,306,483
The calories that the milk and meat combined would provide amounts to 19% of the total daily allocation while costing 228% of the subsidy. The diet does not work from a cost perspective because the calorific return per pound spent is not good enough when it comes to meat and dairy.
The subsidy would only cover 36% of the cash required for the Some Meat diet
The amount of meat consumed could be lowered; the number of calories that Simon Fairlie’s article accounts for is much too high at 2,767 given the ideal number of calories for a man being 1,859 calories per day to maintain that weight.
This means we could probably dial down the “some meat” diet down by a third. That leads to the meat and dairy cost alone coming in at £5bn, still hugely more than the entire subsidy by itself, for a pretty paltry amount of meat and milk (incl. cheese and butter).
Milk and meat are prohibitively expensive to sustain. Much more spending is required to buy the same number of calories compared to oats.
Further, taking into account the daily recommended allowance of vegetables is 400g per day. The cost of providing that portion, in what is one of the cheapest ways (using peas, fava beans and a small amount of other vegetables rather than just peas illustrated above), would be £1.99bn. We cannot afford to provide this small amount of meat and diary alongside our minimum vegetable requirement.
We are left with the chemical vegan diet.
Costs of the chemical vegan diet
Given the fractional costs of plants relative to meat and dairy, the UK government could quite easily provide a balanced chemical vegan diet, including the 400g recommended of vegetables per day, all within the subsidy.
Calculating Calories per £ of a food
Oats price per KG = £0.13
Calories per g = 3.9, calories per KG = 3,900
Calories per £ = Calories per KG / Price Per KG
= 3,900/£0.13
= 30,000 calories per £ Optimising how much gets spent on each food type simply looks at Calories per £ as a share of total calories per £ (shown in 3rd column in next table)
To see what’s possible let’s look at what the diet could return without the 400g vegetable requirement; option 1 purely optimises toward buying a mix of the food types which are most cost-effective at returning calories we end up with a daily allowance of calories of 2,926 well above NHS recommendations on diets for men and women. However, we are missing the nutritional variation of minimum vegetables. This would mean death by oats.
Option 2: Chemical Vegan, No Vegetable Constraints
Option 2: Chemical Vegan Prioritising 400g Vegetables
Option 2 prioritises the 400g of vegetables, using the mix of peas, fava beans and a vegetable mix, we end up with 1,833 calories per day, still above what the average UK person should eat if trying to achieve their ideal Body Mass Index of 1,641 calories per day. The daily diet is also relatively well balanced too, with oats only 13% points more than in the Some Meat diet.
Won’t somebody think of the protein?
If we compare protein supplied in the 2 diets the Some Meat option comes out on top but the Chemical Vegan, with 400g of vegetables, still provides more than enough with 36% more than what is required by the average man.
Comparison Conclusion
We could quite easily feed the citizens of this country in the UK a basic food which hits some key nutrient criteria and would help increase equality hugely when using a chemical vegan diet. Meat and dairy are not cost-effective enough and can’t be supplied within this subsidy.
No Doubt It’s Dull
Both the “Some Meat” and chemical vegan diets are a tad dull in terms of flavour. I’m a big chilli and garlic guy.
First, it should be remembered this is a minimum diet. A national minimum wage is a bit low, you can’t buy much variety in life with it, but it’s designed to get you by. This diet in the same vein is designed to stop hunger, maintain nutrition and ensure everyone starts on a level playing field. Someone could buy more if they had the means to.
Secondly, these calculations were simplified for speed. There are a lot of different variations which could be used to add greater variety and still meet the requirements put in place.
If we really wanted, the huge land saving the vegan diet would deliver could be partially used to generate crop exports at a large profit. Plants are more profitable than livestock, is fairly surprising; I thought we lived in a capitalist system? The state could easily fund the cost of production of more crops and then use the profit from exports to import more interesting flavours as well as to invest in creating more sustainably diverse crops in the UK. Also, there’s no real reason why we can’t expand our flavour profile in this country, it would just take time to develop.
In practice not everyone may take up their food allocation, in which case more of the subsidy could be used on a greater variety of food.
Time
This system could not work overnight. It would have to develop over a long time to minimise shock and bring the public on board.
Cost Implications
Price Of Meat
The price of meat would increase as any meat produced wouldn’t be subsidised. People will object to this. However, there are many harmful aspects of meat. It has a huge impact on the environment, it has a negative impact on people’s health, it isn’t as profitable as other food types like crops, it consumes more land and water than crops, and it delivers less calorific and nutritional return compared to other food types as we have seen.
If anything, given the negative externalities meat should not be subsidised; it should be taxed. The price of meat should be much higher than what it is currently. All this change would do is simply price it at an unregulated free market price.
Meat may taste good but that does that mean it should be subsidised when there are other important considerations at play?
Should supermarkets and fast-food chains reap the reduction in cost with no guarantee that the consumer gets it the benefit?
Food Revenues
If people did opt for free food in this simplified system there’d be a reduction in revenue for the supermarkets. How big this would be is difficult to say. There would still be money to be made in food processing, ready meals, drinks and other areas. How much revenue the supermarkets make by food type is something which will be explored in a later article.
Jobs
While there would be increases in certain jobs there would also likely be a reduction in the number of workers required to work with livestock. The cost of this could be minimised by making the change over time. There would be huge job opportunities on the land that would be freed up for other purposes and these could offset the job losses.
These jobs would not be drastically different to what the workers are currently doing. The new jobs wouldn’t require a farmer to become an office worker but might require a livestock farmer to work with rewilding animals rather than owned animals.
Benefits Beyond Hunger
This article focuses on the tragedy of food poverty and a way of fixing it. This, I believe is the key problem which needs to be solved. There are however some hugely positive effects that the adoption of this universal food package would generate.
The Spare Land & Other Benefits
There are many potential uses for the spare land that is generated, which could create new jobs.
Reintroducing the forest, for both the environment benefit but even commercially for sustainable timber. This would benefit the UK economy by capturing carbon, therefore making our climate change ambitions easier, and by generating income and jobs (anyone who loses farming jobs could be prioritised for jobs like these)
Reintroducing wild animals to help the rewilding. The livestock farmers who lose out could potentially be retrained to help here in helping care for the wild populations.
Housing should become cheaper as there would be an abundant supply of land to develop on.
Crop experimentation land would be less scarce so there would be more scope to experiment with what crops we grow in the UK.
Less Amazon Deforestation some of the feed we provide livestock comes from soybeans grown abroad, often in Brazil.
Land rotation constantly using the same area for crops and livestock ruins it and eventually makes it unusable. Having more space would mean we can rotate where we grow our crops more easily.
Bees surely, somehow, this would help the bees.
Textiles the UK could grow plants to supply the growing market for sustainable clothing. Another great money-spinner.
Wind and solar farms again, more land to create space for wind and solar energy.
Animal Welfare there would likely be far fewer animals slaughtered as the quantity demand for animals would go down both because meat wouldn’t be required to satiate hunger and because the price of meat would rise.
Obesity
There is a link between obesity and meat intake. A reduction in obesity spending could provide a much needed boost to the NHS budget. 1 in 4 adults are obese according to the NHS. In 2016/17 there were 617k admissions to hospital because of obesity. The NHS directly spent £6.1bn in 2014/2015 on obesity and overweight related illness. Supposing everyone adopted this diet, incentivised by the fact that it’s free, obesity could potentially be dramatically reduced and, therefore, a huge saving on the NHS meaning a net-benefit in terms of government expenditure.
Complexities
Price of Crops
By not simply giving farmers the subsidy irrelevant of their produce there would be an increase in crop prices farmers initially would not be able to supply as much quantity without the subsidy. However, there would be 2 other effects. Demand would become relatively price elastic. The government, being so large, could insist on a price point range. Secondly, there’d be a large expansion in the supply of crops as farmers pivot to thrive. This could balance out the price increase.
For those with a basic understanding of economics, this can be illustrated in the below supply and demand chart. Prices start at equilibrium P1, where supply curve S1 and demand curve S2 meet, which is where they currently are with the way the subsidy is now paid.
If we take away the subsidy, this would cause a constriction in supply as farmers wouldn’t be able to produce as much as they could at the same prices, meaning supply moves from S1 to S2. This results in an increase in price from P1 to P2 but only if the demand curve remains the same.
In reality, the demand would dramatically increase and it would become more price elastic; by being such a powerful buyer the government would be better equipped at negotiating better prices. This would lead to an expansion in demand for crops from D1 to D2.
If supply remained the same at S2 then price would still increase from its starting point at P1. There would however be a massive expansion in supply to meet the new demand for plants meaning supply would move from S2 to S3. This would lead to a reduction in price from P2 to P3.
Regardless, the effect on price might be minimal given the fact that the majority of subsidies will currently go to livestock farms. They require more land. The subsidy is paid by how much land a farmer owns, which means livestock farms will get more. This suggests that the impact on price would be minimised by the fact that crops get a smaller share of subsidies.
Overproduction
There is a risk that we create too much food and have a supply surplus. This would be mitigated by progressing towards the new system over a long period to minimise waste. There would be no need to rush to produce everything at once.
Some crops e.g. oats can store for 1–2 years. This would mean simply producing less the next year to balance the surplus.
Distribution
Costs of distribution would have to be incorporated in some way or dealt with innovatively to minimise costs. One option is to simply make it compulsory for food retailers, who would still be transporting food to sell anyway, to also take the national food requirement.
Conclusion and next steps
The UK can feed itself at no extra cost to the taxpayer if we provided a plant-based diet. The subsidy alone has more than enough to feed every single person to a basic level of nutrition if the government provided a plant-based food package. There is potential for a varied diet. Supposing people adopted the diet to make up the majority of their food, there could be huge and far-reaching benefits across society. Importantly though, this about making sure people are fed more than those other benefits.
Having read this far, I’d hope you agree that solving hunger through plant-based Universal Food Care is worthwhile and something to be fought for. I plan to develop this campaign initially by further improving and tightening the research, taking on feedback, raising awareness to eventually work on mobilising and organising people to campaign for it. If you agree that it is something that should happen, then please sign up below to be a part of it. | https://medium.com/@aaron-b-azhar/can-the-uk-feed-itself-at-no-extra-cost-5e4b621e2d90 | ['Aaron Bin Azhar'] | 2020-12-18 15:23:03.966000+00:00 | ['Food Waste', 'Vegan', 'Economics', 'Hunger', 'Food'] |
Pandemic Diaries | Its a year end journal :) Sitting in my comfort zone with hot ginger tea . I finally made up my mind to self reflect and contemplate this pandemic year — summarizing my successes, failures, and of course the new learnings.
So to put down -
A. What was the best thing I built/created?
The Best part was after a gap of 6 years as I was staying in a different location , I got a chance to be a part of every festival pertaining to different occasions celebrated with my family :) Be that rituals of makar Sankranti with traditional Bengali sweet delicacies(Puli pithe with jaggery and coconut ) or New year celebrations feasting with friends & family . Then Laddu- Gopal’s birthday and a chain of festivals starting with Ganpathi celebrations till year end ‘s biggest festivals — Durga puja and Diwali .
B. What I started doing different :)
For years, only getting limited to my new year’s resolution, I finally added meditation to my routine .I started practicing focused breathing after which I feel fresher and more focused on my work.
C. Did I learn any thing new ?
Due to the constant lockdown norms, we were forced to look at life in a new yet better way .We became accustomed to being more careful, washing our hands from time to time, wearing face masks, etc. Also, I got ample time to explore new skills, technologies, new hobbies, in short, this is evolving :). I completed a bunch of my pending certifications, got the opportunities to work on new platforms, scripting languages, etc.
D. My best comfort zone :)
Of Course I don’t like binge watching but I have spent countless weekends with Netflix and rarely amazon in my small comfort zone . Discovered hundreds of TV shows and seasons . Some of recent once are — Enola Holmes , Queen’s gambit , Unbelievable ,Locke and the Key , Social Dilemma , and many more
So to conclude the yearbook, past year was definitely a mixed bag. Lot of events, new experiences and a new outlook to life. Looking forward to the new year ahead :)
And what else ….
Sunlight in my room to kick out corona :)
Holi this year …pehchano kaun 😝😝😝
After spending couple of hours in kitchen — Lockdown special :) Fried rice and dum aloo with tamarind tang
Finally pizza at home — Pizza with thin aata crust
Diwali special dinner — Poori — Chole with chocolate burfi
Fluffy hot vanilla cake — my favorite :) | https://medium.com/@deb-ghosh/pandemic-diaries-be8487c28ce6 | ['Debarati Ghosh'] | 2020-12-26 15:10:34.762000+00:00 | ['Pandemic', 'Pandemic Diaries', 'Year In Review'] |
How to prepare the Certificate in Advanced English (C1) | The Certificate in Advanced English (CAE) consists of four papers:
Reading and Use of English (1h 30min)
Parts 1–4 contains texts with grammar and vocabulary tasks. Parts 5–8 contain a range of texts and reading comprehension tasks.
Part 1: Multiple-choice cloze — 8 questions
Part 2: Open close — 8 questions
Part 3: Word formattion — 8 questions
Part 4: Key word transformation — 6 questions
Part 5: Multiple choice — 6 questions
Part 6: Cross-text multiple matching — 4 questions
Part 7: Gapped text — 6 questions
Part 8: Multiple matching — 10 questions
Writing (1h 30min)
Part 1: Essay — 220-260 words
Part 2: Report / Review / Letter or Email/ Proposal — 220–260 words
Listening (40min)
Part 1: Multiple choice — 6 questions
Part 2: Sentence completion — 8 questions
Part 3: Multiple choice — 6 questions
Part 4: Multiple matching — 10 questions
Speaking (15min)
Part 1: Three-way conversation between two students and one of the examiners — 2 minutes
Part 2: Individual “long turn” with brief response from partner — 4 minutes
Part 3: Collaborative task — 4 minutes
Part 4: Three-way interaction between students and one of the examiners — 5 minutes
Books I recommend to prepare the exam
1. Objective Advanced
This is definitely one of the best books to prepare the exam. It is divided in 25 units, each focusing on a different topic. It provides exam tasks examples to each part and it includes a CD-ROM with extra exercises to practise.
2. Grammar and Vocabulary for Advanced
It provides a complete coverage of all the grammar and vocabulary needed for the exam.
3. Cambridge Exam Booster C1 Advanced
It focus on practising each part of the exam. This book contains 17 sections which follow the order of the exam: Reading and use of English, Writing, Listening and Speaking.
Other resources | https://medium.com/@sabfz/how-to-prepare-the-certificate-in-advanced-english-c1-8f851cc9683 | [] | 2021-01-03 17:46:29.496000+00:00 | ['Language Learning', 'English Language', 'Exam Preparation', 'Cae', 'English'] |
Wow, I was just thinking about that yesterday, Kristen. I'm so glad to read about your thought as deep as mine. I was watching YouTube and came across real love stories of transgender falling in love… | Wow, I was just thinking about that yesterday, Kristen. I'm so glad to read about your thought as deep as mine. I was watching YouTube and came across real love stories of transgender falling in love with a woman and a lesbian falling in love with a transgender. The stories led to happy marriages with children. I have almost concluded that there is no gender for souls. They get to these bodies with different anatomies, physiologies, and whatever deviations it may have. Hormones and chromosomes may not be homogenous with sexual anatomy so thereby some male bodies may not be acting accordingly or vice versa for females. And then love comes along which I believe has no gender for souls. Anyways, nobody can really come up with accurate facts about this matter because God alone can. But it's really nice to entertain ourselves with our thoughts that we believe in to further give us peace. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I'm glad I am not alone in this journey of... DEEPER THOUGHTS. | https://medium.com/@buddyclaudio/wow-i-was-just-thinking-about-that-yesterday-kristen-a468d9a65002 | [] | 2020-11-02 05:02:24.903000+00:00 | ['Gender Identity', 'Homosexuality', 'Homophobia', 'Transgender', 'Gender Equality'] |
The Biggest Lie About Success (Why I Took A Major Pay Cut) | Success isn’t a linear path.
I’ve built a careeroff of getting paid to learn about topics I like learning about. For example, I write podcast show notes for iTunes Top Rated podcasts and a multimillion dollar agency’s podcast. I spend an hour listening to a podcast and then I write an article based off of the content.
I listen, I learn, and I get a pay check.
As a freelance writer, you would assume that my next step is to start charging more for each article I write.
“Raise your rates until somebody says no.”
This is practical advice but it’s not the only advice to follow.
Yes, I should raise my rates as my skill level increases but I should also look for opportunities to learn about what I’ll need to know in six months, one year, five years, etc. from now.
This means that I’ll accept a lower paying job. For example, I recently started working with one of my client’s as her virtual assistant. I get paid $10–$15 an hour, which is a massive difference in what I get paid for writing content.
Once I explain my reasoning for this, people have one reaction.
“That’s brilliant.”
Through working with her, I’ve been able to see what a six figure entrepreneur’s schedule looks like. I’ve gotten to be the mediator between brand and influencer. I’ve been able to see rates that were previously behind a curtain. Not only have I learned what to expect as my writing business grows, I’ve learned what I need to do to make my future assistant’s job as easy as possible.
If you look at just the numbers, it would seem like I’ve failed. I’ve added a $10-$15 an hour job to my week when I’m used to getting paid quadruple.
In reality, I have never been so successful.
I work as a freelance writer and supplement my free time learning what I’ll need to know in the upcoming future, and getting a paycheck for it.
When we give success the filter of starting from $0 and moving progressively higher, we are the demise of our own potential.
Other examples of a non-linear progression that make you more successful than others:
Letting your business’s Instagram account lose followers-From the outside you have less of a following but your account has more engagement and you’re closer to having 1,000 true fansthan an account with 100,000 uninterested followers Selling everything you own and living as minimally as possible-It looks like you have nothing but you’re going to be 10x more connected to the reality of life, able to go wherever opportunity calls, and aware of the burden of material items Taking a month out of work to go and solo travel the world-You’re taking a pay cut but the personal development and life experience will put you ten fold above your peers
Our potential lies in what we don’t know.
And if that means you get paid less than your normal rate in order to learn how to do it, that doesn’t mean you aren’t on the path to success.
If anything, you are speeding past everybody else solely focused on their bank account, and not the bigger picture.
And that is the truth. | https://medium.com/@eva-gutierrez/the-biggest-lie-about-success-why-i-took-a-major-pay-cut-fbea53ed33b3 | ['Eva Gutierrez'] | 2019-01-09 16:46:00.688000+00:00 | ['Freelancing', 'Life Lessons', 'Strategic Planning', 'Success', 'Freelance Writing'] |
A Global Workshop, A Grand Reopening, and A Man Remembered | In late January, not quite two weeks ago, the Internet Archive, along with Creative Commons and Wikimedia, hosted a mini-conference to celebrate the Grand Reopening of the Public Domain. The live-streamed event took place on a sunny winter Friday at the Archive, a former Christian Science Church, not far from Golden Gate Park. The classic white edifice houses the Wayback Machine servers, along with many other projects for digital conservation — projects that “champion the public benefit of online access to our cultural heritage and the import of adopting open standards for its preservation, discovery and presentation.”
The event was hosted by Internet Archive founder and Robin Hood of librarians, Brewster Kahle, and included talks by Larry Lessig and Cory Doctorow.
Brewster Kahle with the right angle (from a tweet by Brewster Kahle)
We were celebrating the fact that for the first time in twenty years new works would enter the U.S. public domain, enabling 21st century remix and re-use of old works from 1923, like giving us all permission to sing Happy Birthday and post it on the internet without fear of litigation.
For myself, I’ve been trying to articulate the connection between advocating for speaker diversity at tech events and caring about open knowledge and preservation of the public domain.
Photo by Bronson Farr, posted by Nitya Narasimhan in #MakeTheTalkHappen, Global Diversity CFP Day, NYC, 2018
Access to knowledge is the common thread, the crux of the relationship. The networks that provide access to digital media (audio, video, images, text, research publications, code, recipes, learning materials, and more) and the circuits of tech conferences and developer events represent two types of distribution for extending knowledge and sharing new ideas. You could say that tech events are fleeting and temporal, unless documented and shared after the fact. And you could say that digital content is available 24/7, on demand, except that as the networks become fewer and more centralized, siloed, and censored, availability and choice are diminished. The great promises of the information age are breaking.
If someone else — a government, corporate entity, or other authority — gets to decide and select which knowledge we need access to, it becomes information imperialism, a form of discrimination that risks reducing access to diverse ways of thinking and seeing the world, and brings us to the brink of censorship. Innovation depends upon free and open cross-pollination of ideas.
By constraining and choking off access, we ultimately starve our own abilities, our own future well-being. There’s a very fine line between curation and contraction. Since 2016, we all know more than we ever wanted to about the dangers of filter bubbles.
So let’s never forget to celebrate and sustain the democratization of the conference circuit by the barcamp/hackathon/jsconf pioneers begun in the early years of this century. The connection between that democratization, and the work of those who fight for open content — that intersection of values — has become apparent to me in the days since visiting the Internet Archive and attending the premiere of Quantopia, a multimedia hip hop performance piece, commissioned by the Internet Archive.
Quantopia, DJ Spooky’s remix homage to 50 years of expansive Internet and the digital transformation of our world, premiered at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, an appropriate grand finale for the celebration of the Public Domain. The piece combines remixed sound, image, video, and VR to improvise and explore the generative energy of online media, and the brand-free dynamism of open culture and its artifacts. | https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/a-global-workshop-a-grand-reopening-and-a-man-remembered-2245633988da | ['Havi Hoffman'] | 2019-02-10 02:47:56.203000+00:00 | ['Open Access', 'Mozilla Tech Speakers', 'Tech Events', 'Public Domain', 'Global Diversity Cfp Day'] |
What to Expect in Angular 8 | What’s New in Angular 8
Angular 8 is finally here! Although the Angular had originally planned to release Angular 8 in March or April, it didn’t happen until late May.
With the new release now available, it’s important to understand what has changed so you’ll know how to approach Angular 8. Since Angular 7 is going to be supported until April of 2020, you may decide that it’s not worth upgrading if Angular 7 already meets all of your needs.
With that in mind, let’s walk through what is new in Angular 8.
Angular Ivy
For more than a year, the Angular team has been talking about the new Ivy renderer they’ve been working on. Although the team has spoken and written about Ivy on many occasions, we still haven’t seen an official release. Well, that’s about to change. Sort of…
The Angular team has announced that they’re going to be including Ivy in Angular 8 as an opt-in preview. Many Angular developers were hoping for a final release of Ivy, but that’s not what we’re getting in this release. A preview is a lot better than no view. Trying out the preview will let you see how well your current Angular applications work — or don’t work — with Ivy.
If you’re not familiar with Ivy, is it something you should care about? If the user experience of your apps is important to you, then Ivy is definitely something you should care about. Although the framework has made huge improvements in file size and runtime speed since the days of Angular 2, Angular apps often tend to be on the heavy side when it comes to file size and memory use.
Ivy aims to change this. Compared with the current Angular View Engine, Ivy provides the following benefits:
The code generated by the Angular compiler is now much easier for humans to read and understand
Rebuild times are significantly faster
Decreased payload size, so it will take browsers less time to download and parse your applications
Better template type checking, so you can catch more errors at build time and prevent your users from encountering them at runtime
On top of all this, Angular Ivy aims to be broadly compatible with existing Angular applications, so ideally, you’ll be able to get all of Ivy’s benefits without having to change your apps at all. There will be some bugs and hiccups, though. That’s why it’ll be helpful to try building your current Angular apps using Angular 8 and Ivy.
If you run into any unexpected errors, you’ll be able to let the Angular team know so they can either fix the issue or advise you on what you’ll need to change to be Ivy-ready. There are a couple of areas where Ivy is lacking — in particular, internationalization and Angular Universal support aren’t yet fully compatible. So if your Angular app supports multiple languages and/or uses server-side rendering, don’t expect it to be ready to work with Ivy just yet.
One other trouble spot some users have encountered has been Angular Material. Apps using Angular Material don’t seem to play well with Ivy, as of the latest Angular 8 beta. Keep this in mind when experimenting with Angular 8 (although eventually Angular Material will undoubtedly be updated to work well with Ivy).
Outside of Ivy, there are a few other changes to look forward to in Angular 8.
Additional Changes with Angular 8
One of the most important changes is what the Angular team describes as ‘Differential Loading of Modern JavaScript.’ To put it simply, this means that new apps generated by Angular CLI will now contain separate bundles for legacy JavaScript (ES5) and modern JavaScript (ES2015+). This is great news because it means that modern browsers with ES2015 support will be able to download smaller, more efficient app bundles that load and render faster than before.
The Angular team is also adding a backward compatibility mode to the Angular router which will make it easier to upgrade legacy Angular apps to modern Angular. In an ideal world, we would have all been able to upgrade our Angular 1.x apps to Angular 2+ right away.
In the real world though, this doesn’t always happen. To this day, there are a large number of massive legacy Angular apps happily chugging away, serving businesses and making users happy. They haven’t been upgraded for a simple reason: they’re working well, and there wouldn’t be much ROI in doing a complete rewrite.
The end is in sight for Angular 1.x. It isn’t going to see any new development and will only be receiving security patches until the end of its long-term support period on June 30, 2021. For teams working on large Angular 1.x apps, the time to begin the transition is now (and the changes to the Angular router will help make the transition smoother). The router updates will make it possible to lazy load parts of Angular 1.x apps inside a modern Angular app using $route APIs.
Angular 8 Support for Web Workers
A small, but welcome new feature in Angular 8 will be improved support for bundling web workers with the Angular CLI. For readers unfamiliar with web workers, they’re an important innovation in front-end development that makes it possible to farm out CPU intensive work to a separate hardware thread. This is great news for front-end developers because prior to web workers, our applications were limited to using a single thread.
There’s one catch with web workers: the code that runs in the worker can’t be in the same JavaScript file as the rest of your application. It must be separate. This tends to work poorly with tools like the Angular CLI that want to automatically bundle up your JavaScript into as few files as possible. The improvements to Angular CLI’s web worker bundling in Angular 8 will get rid of this awkwardness and set you on the path to fully parallelized web worker happiness.
The Angular CLI will be gaining another new feature: opt-in usage sharing. This will give you the opportunity to opt-in to sharing telemetry about your Angular CLI usage with the Angular team. I’ve got to applaud the Angular team for approaching this the right way.
Some other development tools share telemetry on an opt-out basis — they do it by default until you explicitly tell them not to. Some even share telemetry about how you use the tools without giving you any way to opt out of this sharing. Asking for your consent up-front is absolutely the right move by the Angular team — and I suspect many of us will happily share our usage details to help improve the development tools we use every day.
Support for TypeScript
Finally, Angular 8 is going to include updates to the latest and greatest versions of Angular’s dependencies, which include tools like RxJS and TypeScript. Although this might seem like a tiny improvement, it’s also a welcome one. Keeping up with TypeScript, in particular, is great because the TypeScript team always seems to pack useful new features into every release.
Although there’s nothing stopping you from manually upgrade to the latest version of TypeScript in your projects, it’s great to see that the Angular team is keeping up with everything that TypeScript has to offer and that new apps generated via the Angular CLI will also use the newest version of TypeScript by default.
Angular Benchmarks
Hearing about features is nice, but a big part of the reason many of us upgrade to new versions of Angular is to get a free performance boost! With that in mind, let’s compare Angular 7.2, and Angular 8.0.0.
The benchmark was run with a new app created with ng new and built with ng build --prod . The benchmark itself was done using Chrome’s audit tab, using the ‘Applied Fast 3G, 4X CPU Slowdown’ setting to simulate running on a mobile device.
As with any benchmark, you’ll want to run it on your own code to see if upgrading will help you, but this simple benchmark will give us a baseline performance comparison between versions.
Angular 7.2
A production build with Angular 7.2 resulted in a main.js weighing in at 240KB. The performance numbers were as follows:
Angular 8.0.0
The final release build of Angular 8 resulted in a JavaScript bundle roughly the same size as Angular 7.2: 250KB. That size only applies for older browsers that don’t support ES2015, however.
In Angular 8, the build process creates two separate bundles: one for older browsers, and one for modern evergreen browsers with full ES2015 support. For modern browsers, the total bundle size is 170KB. That’s a large improvement, especially for users loading your app via slow mobile connections.
Here are Angular 8’s benchmark results:
That looks good! We got a pretty nice performance boost over Angular 7.2.
Angular 8 Conclusion
As we’ve seen, the additions to Angular 8 aren’t huge outside of Ivy. Although they’re absolutely nice to have, they certainly aren’t critical for most applications. If you want to try the Ivy preview, the official Angular Ivy guide will tell you everything you need to know.
With that in mind, should you upgrade your apps to Angular 8, or stick with Angular 7? In nearly every case, the answer is yes. You should upgrade them. Since there aren’t any large breaking changes, in most cases your applications with work as-is without any changes. With the additions to enable differential loading, you’ll get noticeable performance gains for free.
More importantly, upgrading to Angular 8 will enable you to ensure your apps are ready for Ivy. Although Ivy is only an opt-in preview in Angular 8, the time to start checking for Ivy compatibility is now. If your apps are going to need changes, it’s better to find out immediately than to wait and find out that your apps just stop working in Angular 9 or 10 when Ivy becomes the default, and the legacy Angular View Engine is dropped.
GrapeCity has a complete set of JavaScript UI components and powerful Excel-like JavaScript spreadsheet components. We have deep support for Angular (as well as React and Vue) in our products and are dedicated to extending our components for use in modern JavaScript frameworks.
You can read about the complete history of Angular here.
by Ryan Peden
Originally published on GrapeCity.com | https://medium.com/grapecity/what-to-expect-in-angular-8-940b217b63cb | ['Grapecity Developer Solutions'] | 2019-06-06 18:51:00.709000+00:00 | ['Angular', 'JavaScript', 'Angularjs', 'Technology', 'Web Development'] |
12 Chicago VCs You Should Know About | Chicago is quietly becoming a hotbed of venture capital that fuels technology startups — not just in Chicago but across the country and in a wide range of industries. For example, did you know that Calm, SpaceX, and Coinbase all received funding from Chicago VCs? There are dozens of top VCs in the area that anyone in the startup world should know about, especially those in healthcare, marketplaces, and logistics.
To give you a taste of why these VCs and their startups matter — not just in Chicago but to innovators and investors from coast to coast — here’s my overview of some of the region’s key VC players and an example deal from each of their portfolios. It’s important to note that there are several other under-the-radar Chicago VC firms as well, and I’ll cover them in the second part of this two-part series on VCs of Chicago.
7wire Ventures
A venture firm focused on healthcare, 7wire Ventures has a unicorn in its sights. Livongo Health, which received an $800 million valuation last April, combines data science with behavioral signals to help patients see a positive clinical impact on their chronic health conditions. Founded by Glen Tullman, the former CEO of Allscripts and Managing Partner at 7wire, the startup has a wealth of expertise in not only healthcare but in how to fuel startups to positive exits.
Chicago Ventures
Also creeping toward unicorn status is G2 Crowd, a very high-profile investment for Chicago Ventures. G2 Crowd closed a $55 million Series C last year to help expand the company worldwide. An enterprise software marketplace, the startup is a smart bet for Chicago Ventures. G2 Crowd has dual headquarters, one in the Bay Area, close to top tech talent and venture capitalists, and one in Chicago, close to a huge swath of Fortune 500 companies that can use G2 Crowd to evaluate software. Moreover, the company’s co-founder and CEO Godard Abel has ushered startups to positive exits before.
HPA
Another investment in a repeat entrepreneur is HPA’s backing of Catalytic. Like G2 Crowd’s Godard Abel and Livongo’s Glen Tullman, Catalytic CEO Sean Chou previously helped lead Fieldglass to a $1 billion exit. Catalytic develops people-friendly automation software that frees up humans from working on mundane processes to instead focus on value-add business contributions. Its recent $30 million Series B led by Intel and previous backers like NEA will allow the company to expand globally.
Hyde Park Venture Partners
Hyde Park Venture Partners has made some strong bets in Chicago’s logistics industry, most recently with FourKites. Just last month, the company closed a $50 million Series C round. HPVP was an early believer in FourKites and the company’s ability to achieve its aggressive growth plans. Moreover, FourKites is one of several Midwest-based startups that have received substantial dollars to innovate in the logistics industry.
Jump Capital
Jump Capital, which invests in a wide range of sectors including enterprise infrastructure and FinTech, kicked off the new year strong by co-leading a $20 million Series C investment in EdTech startup BenchPrep. A platform that allows educators and training program providers to create more engaging learning environments for students, BenchPrep is based in Chicago but also received strong support from coastal investors.
Lightbank
Founded by Groupon co-founders Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell (who’s also the CEO of Uptake), Lightbank continued to back Tempus. Lefkofsky is the CEO of Tempus, a unicorn that raised a $110 million Series E round last year and is now valued at $2 billion. The Chicago-based healthcare tech startup uses genomic sequencing technology to more successfully battle cancer and will use its new funding to expand to additional illnesses.
Listen Ventures
Also in the healthcare space, Listen Ventures was an early investor of Calm, an app that provides its users meditation techniques that increase mindfulness and help put a focus on mental health. Based in San Francisco, Calm is focused on leveraging technology to make the world healthier and happier. The startup, which reached unicorn status in its latest round announced last month, is a perfect match for Listen, which focuses on consumer products and goods that have a strong focus on branding.
MATH Venture Partners
In a similar “peace of mind” play, MATH Venture Partners recently backed IoT startup Jiobit. Jiobit allows parents to monitor their children’s — and pets’ — locations with a small tracking device and corresponding mobile app. A Chicago-based startup, Jiobit took on $6.5 million of new funding in November of last year.
OCA Ventures
Our last notable investment in the healthcare category is OCA Ventures’ backing of Regroup. Regroup is an integrated telehealth and telepsychiatry startup that is innovating to democratize mental healthcare. The company closed a $5.5 million round of funding last summer to make mental healthcare available to people everywhere via video conferencing.
Origin Ventures
Shifting gears entirely, Origin Ventures invested in social media marketplace startup Cameo last year. Cameo allows users to purchase personalized shoutout videos from their favorite musicians, actors, athletes, and influencers. While Cameo is one of Chicago’s sweetheart startups, the nature of its platform ensures that it has strong connections (including an office) in Los Angeles.
Pritzker Group Venture Capital
Chicago is among the top financial markets, so it’s no surprise that Pritzker Group Venture Capital, one of the city’s most active investors, would be keen on backing a top cryptocurrency startup, Coinbase. Coinbase, a San Francisco-based unicorn that trades digital currency, also opened a Chicago office, where it can grow a technology team in the heart of a strong financial market.
Valor Equity Partners
Finally, we have Valor Equity Partners, which led a $23 million Series C round in San Francisco-based Mode Analytics earlier in February. Mode allows those who rely heavily on data to easily collect, analyze, and share that data through a connected platform. Valor Equity Partners has invested heavily on the coasts, including in well-known, high-tech companies like Tesla and SpaceX.
These notable investments by some of Chicago’s top venture firms highlight the city’s deep strengths, such as healthcare, as well as its broad reach. It’s a strong sign of Chicago’s growing strength that a lot of our capital is being put to work in our own ecosystem and has reached the point of being able to strengthen Bay Area companies as well.
Note: Several of the companies associated with each venture capital firm have received investment from other firms on the list as well. For example, HPA invested in FourKites and Regroup as well.
Originally featured in Forbes. | https://medium.com/@hydeparkangels/12-chicago-vcs-you-should-know-about-7a396d6fc88d | ['Hyde Park Angels'] | 2019-03-17 17:08:17.760000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Chicago', 'Venture Capital', 'VC'] |
5 Must Know Active Record Methods | Ordering
First up, we have the ordering method. This can be used to organize our database in a specified way. We can order, alphabetically, numerically, ascending order, descending order, etc.
How do we use it?
To use the ordering method we can call .order on a class like so:
This will order our movie instances by title in ascending order.
We should pass in an argument to specify which attribute will be used to create this order. We can also pass in an argument for how we would like the order to be (asc or desc), but if this is not specified, the order will be ascending. | https://medium.com/swlh/5-must-know-active-record-methods-7475b1578270 | ['Yahjaira Vasquez'] | 2020-06-21 10:13:23.138000+00:00 | ['Activerecord', 'Software Engineering', 'Ruby', 'Ruby on Rails', 'Coding'] |
You’re Not Getting Out of Here Alive; Why Are You Rushing to the Finish Line? | You’re Not Getting Out of Here Alive; Why Are You Rushing to the Finish Line?
On the shortness of life
Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash
“Recognize things when at their best, in their season, and know how to enjoy them.” — Baltasar Gracian
This is good advice. Peaches, babies, young love, a sun-filled day on the beach. Squeeze all you can from these experiences and learn to view them as if you are living them for the second time.
That’s right, I said the second time. Slow down. Say the things you want to say now. Avoid regrets. Pay attention. Don’t try to fill all the empty spaces — just settle into them.
Notice the way the sun glistens off the water and how the texture of the sand changes as you dig your toes down to where it’s wet and cool.
Take in the laughter of your children and their voices — they will never sound the same again! When is the last time you will hear that cherub voice say, “Ober dere” before it matures into “Over there”?
You'll not pass this way again but there will be days you wish you could.
Take mental snapshots and form perfect memories frozen in time. Memories you can pull out of the pockets of your mind and relive.
Take time now so you won’t regret the passing of time later.
When you think about a perfect day, what comes to mind? The answer is obvious. Is it a day you were hectic and harried, stressed and distracted, or was it a day when striving was set aside and you found the magic of the moment?
Where a minute felt like an hour and an hour felt like a day and the day felt incredibly full because you were in it — I mean fully and completely — in it. | https://medium.com/change-your-mind/youre-not-getting-out-of-here-alive-why-are-you-rushing-to-the-finish-line-e41e614b88b0 | ['Mary Gallagher'] | 2020-12-16 11:48:40.527000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Lifestyle', 'Life', 'Advice', 'Life Lessons'] |
I hope it is not just the people who already know that these are sinful acts that end up watching… | I hope it is not just the people who already know that these are sinful acts that end up watching "Paava Kadhaigal".
It's funny that they called it that. Since traditionally, people would have treated individuals questioning their sexuality, marrying across caste and even victims of rape as though they should be ashamed of the sin associated to them. Like they were the ones sinning.
Yet, in these stories, they are depicting the reality, that the people with the traditional values and narrow minded believes are the actual sinners.
I very much hope this came across to them and that they didn't think that Sathaar, Ponnuthayi, Sumathi or the lakshmi twins were sinners. Because they most certainly were not.
Perhaps this collection of stories should have been called "Viduthalai Kadhaigal" or "Samuthayatin Kadhaigal" - as they are about shedding light on the freedom we should all have but sometimes don't due to societal believes. | https://medium.com/@nathan8/i-hope-it-is-not-just-the-people-who-already-know-that-these-are-sinful-acts-that-end-up-watching-cdac3442509e | [] | 2020-12-24 08:36:43.658000+00:00 | ['Netflix', 'Movie Review', 'Tamil', 'Sin', 'Stories'] |
How I Succeeded in Breastfeeding | If you're a new mom, or soon to be, you might have already thought about how you might, or might not, breastfeed your baby.
According to the World Health Organization:
Breastfeeding is one of the most effective ways to ensure child health and survival… Breastmilk is the ideal food for infants. It is safe, clean and contains antibodies which help protect against many common childhood illnesses. Breastmilk provides all the energy and nutrients that the infant needs for the first months of life, and it continues to provide up to half or more of a child’s nutritional needs during the second half of the first year, and up to one third during the second year of life.
Sounds great right? You picture yourself with your baby in a big rocking chair on the front porch breastfeeding. It’s a warm sunny day and there's a nice breeze. The birds are chirping, and you can smell the spring flowers as they come into bloom…
Let me bring you back down to reality. Breastfeeding is beautiful and all, but it’s not sunshine and rainbows.
Breastfeeding is hard. It interferes with day-to-day life. It interferes with sleep and your hobbies.
But you know what else does all of that?
Raising a baby.
I’m not here to tell you how to do that though. I’m only here to offer you some of the information I learned to successfully breastfeed my almost 9 month old baby (at the time of publishing this). Please keep in mind this is my experience only and is not to be used in place of your doctor, pediatrician, or lactation consultant’s professional advice.
Please also keep in mind I am a full time stay-at-home mom. I work very part-time teaching English with VIPKid, writing on Medium, and making Youtube Videos. | https://medium.com/modern-parent/how-i-succeeded-in-breastfeeding-e4bb74df897 | ['Kristin Snyder'] | 2021-01-05 04:11:51.158000+00:00 | ['Breastfeeding', 'Motherhood', 'Parenting', 'Parenting Advice', 'Pregnancy'] |
What Exactly Does an IT Company Do? | I n the present business environment connecting with an IT company can be the greatest thing you can do for your business. Technological innovations are reshaping the world we live in. These companies offer considerable services to meet your end customers’ needs. With the increase in the use of technology, it becomes essential to have an IT team that can operate all aspects of a business. This article will go further in-depth about IT companies.
IT spending in India is projected to increase by 6% to reach the US $81.9 billion in 2021.
What is an IT company? And what exactly does an IT company offer? Do you have these questions in your mind? If yes, let’s get started by understanding these terms.
Gradually, as we are moving in a new decade, Information Technology is becoming a greater part of our life, and numerous organizations out there are relying upon these IT companies.
Anyway…… Let’s understand it simply- An IT company is a technology-based company, also referred to as an IT managed service provider for big companies who want to outsource various services for a smooth workflow in the company. Or we can say- it provides technology-related services like Hardware or Software management, Web development, Business Intelligence, Firewall services, and many more……. And it comprises professional IT specialists who are highly specialized in their field with special skills. An IT Team provides proper guidance, direction, and management on different applications.
According to CompTIA, there are more than 525,000 software, and IT services companies in the United States alone.
Well, advanced technology expansion like- Cloud computing, Artificial intelligence, Robotics, IoT, Machine learning would continue to change every aspect of human life.
However, many are not aware of the types of IT companies especially, students. You must know the difference between them while choosing a career. Not sure? Well, let’s take a look at how IT companies are classified-
Service-based companies
These companies do not provide any product or services; they basically work for other clients. As we all well know, the names of these IT companies in India. If not, so here are few tech giants for your reference:
Tata Consultancy service – Largest IT company in India.
Infosys
Wipro Limited
HCL Technologies
Tech Mahindra Ltd etc.
2. Product-based companies
These companies work on their own product and deliver the product to end-users. Some product-based companies are-
Apple
Microsoft
Google
Facebook
Intel, etc.
You got the picture, right? After reading this article, you must have got an idea about IT companies, what they do, their types. So if you are a student moving your career in the IT space and passionate to learn more about the latest technologies, good at soft- skills, it will be a great choice to go with IT companies. | https://medium.com/@kaushikit999/what-exactly-does-an-it-company-do-e74feb075292 | ['Kaushiki Tripathi'] | 2021-07-06 11:55:59.908000+00:00 | ['It Companies', 'It Company In India', 'Information Technology', 'It'] |
Naked yoga | Hi! I’m R.T. Oaks. I’m an escort working in Europe’s biggest and horniest cities. Maybe I’ve even visited yours. I’ve started a newsletter because I love writing about sex: real-life sex stories, fantasies, what my colleagues are like, my favorite clients, the worst clients… you get the idea.
Find out more and sign up to receive steamy stories direct to your inbox.
Encounter (1)
Years ago I was spending a lot of time in London, and I was hired by Timothy (or Timmy), a yoga instructor, to join a naked partner-yoga class. The client, James, was a wealthy mid-fifties gentleman who split his time between London and his country estate in Surrey. James didn’t speak much, but he seemed nice enough. Quiet, reserved, chuckled nervously. Timmy was a bit younger, 40-ish and friendly-faced. His body was smooth and yoga-toned. He did most of the talking for James.
The idea of nude yoga excited me — I love being naked, and I never had taken a yoga class. Timmy said James didn’t want sex and he promised me a lot of…hands-on guidance, so I gave him a good price.
The yoga instruction lasted about 45 minutes and was pretty PG-13. Timmy did give me a lot of hands-on attention, caressing my body when he corrected my stance; jokingly jiggling my balls, and lightly fingering my ass a couple of times. He would always announce how he was fondling me so James would look up and smile. I think he really liked to watch a bit of naughty fun. James probably went to one of those fancy British boarding schools where the boys grow into their adolescence jacking off in front of each other, egging one another on until the horniest of the lot sucks the others off. Most of his schoolmates appropriately repressed those desires and memories under a deep layer of English shame; but James’ fantasies matured with him.
Timmy led us through a few partner stretches back-to-back, butt-to-butt; and then he would flip me around and press my hips firmly forward so James would feel my soft, sweaty cock against his ass. In one pose we sat on the ground facing each other, our legs spread out to either side as far as they would go and with my feet pressed against James’ feet. Holding onto each other’s forearms we leaned forward and then backwards, feeling our inner thigh muscles pull tight. As we leaned deeper into the stretch our faces came closer to the other’s groins. Being far younger and far more flexible, I could get my face far closer to Jame’s penis than he could mine. I jokingly opened my mouth and stuck my tongue out but couldn’t quite reach. Timmy laughed. James dick gave a twitch and he giggled. When we switched and I pulled on Jame’s forearms, Timmy stood behind him, using his hips to push him farther forward and joking that he needed to get close enough to smell the sweet stench of my sweaty cock and balls.
After we were done with the stretches, Timmy told us lie on our backs for a yoga cool down, a sort of guided meditation. He took us through some deep inhale-exhales, counted our breaths, listened to our heart beat… and then he guided us through a yoga body-scan. He ask us to focus our attention on a single part of our body as he called them out one by one. Ironically, this relaxation exercise is when things heated up.
I had never done a body-scan before, so when Timmy told me to feel the tip of my hair on my head I was kinda lost. How the fuck do I feel that? I thought to myself. I guess my frustration showed on my face because Tommy came over and place his hand on the top of my head. His touch was light, almost nothing; but it was enough that I could barely feel the sensation. He said this was definitely not how a it was supposed to be done, but it might help me focus for my first time. I felt the palm of his hand rest of my forehead, and then his finger on the tip of my nose. When he ran his finger down to my lips and around my mouth I started to feel a tingling pleasure. I opened my mouth to lick my lips, hoping to taste his finger, but he has already moved it too my chin. Then he softly stroked my neck, then my chest. Caressing the right side of my chest he told us to focus our attention on our right nipple. I felt his finger run a soft circle around my erect nipple. I was already feeling a tingling but this sent a jolt of electricity through my body.
I shuddered and Timmy continued to speak in a soft voice, almost a whisper. “Relax and focus on what your body is feeling. Relax and give into the sensations.”
Ribs…belly…right hip…right buttock…thigh…knee…calf…top of foot…big toe. Timmy traced a line down my body leaving a trail of goosebumps. He tickled the bottom of my right foot before moving to the left. big toe…calf…knee…inner left thigh… He paused right below my groin. It was then I noticed that my cock was stiff, rising above my belly. My attention had been so focused on his caressing hand I hadn’t even realized how visibly turned on I was. I wanted him to touch me. His hand was so close to my balls I could feel it’s warmth. Even the hair of my sac was standing at attention, reaching for his touch.
I kept my eyes shut and felt only his touch. Slowly, achingly slowly, Timmy circled my balls with a single finger and then slowly, so slowly, followed my bulging urethra to the head of my penis. He paused and I whimpered. I could feel the tip of my dick wet with pre-cum. He finally gripped my shaft with his whole hand and placed his thumb on the head, rubbing the pre-cum around the tip. I gasped and shuddered and sighed all at the same time.
Then I felt something soft and warm envelop me. The heat radiated inwards and his tongue began lapping at the underside of my dick. It felt more intense than any blowjob I could remember. I could feel the texture of his tongue, the crease of his lips, the wet of his spit.
It didn’t take long before I could feel the beginning of an explosive orgasm. My breath quickened and I began to moan. Timmy was so in-tune with my body he knew exactly what to do and what was coming. His tongue was massaging my dick, up and down, pushing it against the top of his mouth and the back of his throat. I moaned deeper, heavier and he kept going. I shuttered, clenched my jaw, tightened my abs, grabbed at the floor and pushed up with my hips. I felt the sperm leave my balls and surge up my cock. It burst out the tip and filled his mouth. I felt hot cum all around the head of my dick, still in his mouth, and his tongue lapped it up. I felt him swallow.
Once my breathing slowed I opened my eyes. I had almost forgotten where I was. Timmy was next to me, one hand resting on my belly, the other still gripping my penis as it went semi-soft. He was licking his lips through a serene smile and then nodded towards James. I turned my head and saw James, sitting upright with his legs sprawled in front of him. His hands were wet with his own cum. I guess he had sat up to watch the action, the posh perv. He was all smiles too.
And that was my first ever yoga class.
— —
If you liked what you read, check out my substack for my archives and to sign up for my newsletter. | https://medium.com/@rtoaks/naked-yoga-3d63ecd00131 | ['R.T. Oaks'] | 2020-12-20 10:31:12.302000+00:00 | ['Gay Erotica', 'Sex Work', 'Erotica', 'Gay'] |
How to Manage Kubernetes Secrets Securely in Git | Introduction
Kubernetes has a declarative approach to managing resources. While it’s a common practice to keep the Kubernetes manifest files in a Git repository, storing and managing Kubernetes secrets has always been a challenge. Sealed Secrets was developed to address this problem.
Sealed Secrets is a Kubernetes operator that allows you to store secrets in Git. It uses asymmetric key encryption to encrypt the secrets so that only the operator in the Kubernetes cluster can decrypt them. Therefore, the encrypted SealedSecrets are safe to store in a Git repository.
In this article, we will install the Sealed Secrets operator and demonstrate how to use it.
Sealed Secrets is composed of two parts:
The Sealed Secrets operator which runs in the Kubernetes cluster
The kubeseal client-side command-line tool, which is used to encrypt the secrets and generates the SealedSecrets Kubernetes resources.
Prerequisites
kubectl connected to a Kubernetes cluster
Install kubeseal
kubeseal is a command-line tool to encrypt secrets and generate SealedSecrets. On macOS, you can install kubeseal with Homebrew.
brew install kubeseal
You can find installation instructions for other platforms here: https://github.com/bitnami-labs/sealed-secrets#installation
Create a Kubernetes namespace for Sealed Secrets
Let’s start by creating a namespace for the Sealed Secrets operator.
kubectl create namespace sealed-secrets
Deploy the Sealed Secret operator
Download the Kubernetes manifests for the Sealed Secret operator.
curl -L https://github.com/bitnami-labs/sealed-secrets/releases/download/v0.12.4/controller.yaml > sealed-secrets.yaml
As we do not want the operator to run in the kube-system namespace, we use sed to change it to sealed-secrets.
sed -i -e 's/kube-system/sealed-secrets/g' sealed-secrets.yaml
Now we use kubectl to deploy the Sealed Secret operator:
kubectl apply -f sealed-secrets.yaml
service/sealed-secrets-controller created
rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/sealed-secrets-service-proxier created
rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/sealed-secrets-controller created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/secrets-unsealer created
serviceaccount/sealed-secrets-controller created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/sealedsecrets.bitnami.com created
role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/sealed-secrets-service-proxier created
role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/sealed-secrets-key-admin created
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/sealed-secrets-controller created
deployment.apps/sealed-secrets-controller created
When the Sealed Secret operator starts, it will generate a public/private RSA key pair if it does not exist yet. Afterwards, it will print the public key which can be used for encryption / SealedSecret creation.
Verify deployment
Verify the deployment by checking the status of Kubernetes pods in the sealed-secrets namespace.
kubectl get pods --namespace sealed-secrets
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
sealed-secrets-controller-6f5785b7f-m9hmq 1/1 Running 0 20m
Create the demo Kubernetes namespace
kubectl create namespace demo
namespace/demo created
Create a Kubernetes secret
Use kubectl to create a local secret manifest file.
We need to pass the following options:
namespace=demo – Specify the namespace where the secret should live
– Specify the namespace where the secret should live from-literal – Specify the secret key=value pairs
– Specify the secret key=value pairs output=yaml – Specify the output format of kubectl
– Specify the output format of kubectl dry-run=client – Only print the secret without actually creating it / sending it to the Kubernetes API server.
– Only print the secret without actually creating it / sending it to the Kubernetes API server. > db-secret.yaml – This tells kubectl to store its output in db-secret.yaml
kubectl create secret generic db-secret
--namespace=demo
--from-literal=username=admin
--from-literal=password=Y4nys7f11
--dry-run=client
--output=yaml > db-secret.yaml
cat db-secret.yaml
apiVersion: v1
data:
password: WTRueXM3ZjEx
username: YWRtaW4=
kind: Secret
metadata:
creationTimestamp: null
name: db-secret
namespace: demo
As you can see above, the normal Kubernetes resource contains the the kev=value pair, where the value is just base64 encoded and not encrypted.
Encrypt Kubernetes secret
Use kubeseal to encrypt the db-secret . The output is a SealedSecret resource that contains the encrypted secret.
We need to pass the following options:
controller-namespace=sealed-secret – Specify the namespace where the Sealed Secret operator runs (default is kube-system)
– Specify the namespace where the Sealed Secret operator runs (default is kube-system) format=yaml – Specify the output format of kubeseal (default is JSON)
– Specify the output format of kubeseal (default is JSON) < db-secret.yaml – This tells kubeseal to take the db-secret.yaml as input
– This tells kubeseal to take the db-secret.yaml as input > sealed-db-secret.yaml – This tells kubeseal to store its output in sealed-db-secret.yaml
kubeseal
--controller-namespace=sealed-secrets
--format=yaml < db-secret.yaml > sealed-db-secret.yaml
cat sealed-db-secret.yaml
apiVersion: bitnami.com/v1alpha1
kind: SealedSecret
metadata:
creationTimestamp: null
name: db-secret
namespace: demo
spec:
encryptedData:
password: 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
username: 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
template:
metadata:
creationTimestamp: null
name: db-secret
namespace: demo
You can now add this SealedSecret resource in Git. As you see it contains the secret, but the values are encrypted. Only the Sealed Secret operator in the cluster has the private key to decrypt the information.
Apply the SealedSecret resource
Use kubectl to apply the SealedSecret resource.
kubectl apply -f sealed-db-secret.yaml
sealedsecret.bitnami.com/db-secret created
Once you apply the SealedSecret, the Sealed Secret operator gets triggered, which is using its private key to decrypt the information and is generating the corresponding Kubernetes secret resource.
Verify deployment
Verify the deployment by checking the SealedSecret and Kubernetes secrets in the demo namespace.
kubectl get sealedsecrets,secrets -n demo
NAME AGE
sealedsecret.bitnami.com/db-secret 55s kubectl get secrets db-secret -n demo -o yaml
NAME TYPE DATA AGE
secret/db-secret Opaque 2 55s
apiVersion: v1
data:
password: WTRueXM3ZjEx
username: cHJvZHVzZXI=
kind: Secret
metadata:
creationTimestamp: "2020-07-02T09:39:15Z"
name: db-secret
namespace: demo
ownerReferences:
- apiVersion: bitnami.com/v1alpha1
controller: true
kind: SealedSecret
name: db-secret
uid: 77d1231f-921c-4335-823f-643ec82fdb78
resourceVersion: "55133137"
selfLink: /api/v1/namespaces/demo/secrets/db-secret
uid: 2df6c273-ca03-4523-b45d-f9849b39b92e
type: Opaque
Summary
Sealed Secret was designed to easily fit into automated workflows such as GitOps. Once a Kubernetes secret is converted into a SealedSecret, only the operator in the cluster can decrypt the original secret. If you are interested, you can also see how we use Terraform to create and manage a Kubernetes cluster by clicking the link. With SealedSecret, the creation and update of Kubernetes secrets does not require high privileges, which makes it easy and secure. Thanks for reading! | https://codeburst.io/how-to-manage-kubernetes-secrets-securely-in-git-ff1de74db356 | ['Coder Society'] | 2020-10-27 21:56:54.496000+00:00 | ['Kubernetes', 'Git', 'Clustering', 'Coding', 'Programming'] |
Measuring Happy GMV, and why I’m over Net Promoter Score | The #1 question I got after publishing my Hierarchy of Marketplaces series is how to know if you are on the right track in Level 1 as you wait for your cohorts to mature, and whether you can use Net Promoter Score (“NPS”) to measure happiness. Honestly, I’m skeptical of NPS’s utility. Instead I recommend measuring your funnel to what I’ll call “Happy GMV”. Below I describe what that is, and then elaborate on why I’m over NPS.
Happy GMV
As you wait for your cohorts to mature, start by asking yourself “what is my best guess at the buyer and seller experience that will lead to retention?” and then measure the percentage of your potential buyers and sellers that get that experience. The GMV that qualifies is your Happy GMV.
Tracking the percentage of GMV that is Happy GMV is a useful day-to-day proxy to tell you whether you’re on the right path to Minimum Viable Happiness. The higher your % of GMV that is Happy GMV, the better your “liquidity quality”, as my partner Bill Gurley calls it.
In the beginning, the experience that qualifies as Happy GMV will be a hunch, driven by first principles and user research. For example, you could imagine for a ride sharing company starting with the hunch that on the rider side it’s an experience where a rider gets picked up within a certain number of minutes and rates the driver 4 or 5 stars. So you would measure what percentage of riders open the app and get a car within a set number of minutes, and then the percentage of those that rate the driver 4 or 5 stars. That would be your initial hunch of what qualifies as Happy GMV.
Tracking this funnel would help you see the day-to-day operational levers you need to focus on in order to increase your conversion of potential GMV to Happy GMV. Over time, as your understanding of your customers improves and you start to have statistical significance in your cohorts, you’ll be able to tune your “Happy GMV” thresholds to more accurately reflect the experience that leads to retention and keep you focused on the most important levers. I’ve heard of companies having 5+ attributes that they count that they know creates a “happy” transaction.
If you’re interested in a few real-world examples, Lenny Ratchitsky, as usual, has a great post on these happy moments.
Net Promoter Score
Net Promoter Score (“NPS”), which asks how likely a customer is to refer a company or product to a friend or colleague and then subtracts the “detractors” from the “promoters”, was coined back in 2003. It was pointing at the right idea — if a customer enthusiastically tells a friend about a product, you clearly have product/market fit with that customer, and benefit from invaluable word of mouth (and if they won’t, you’re unlikely to get them back). But how NPS is calculated makes it an easily gamed, statistically noisy measure of intent, not of behavior.
Just do a Google search on Net Promoter Score, and you’ll come across plenty of thoughtful analyses on why it’s imperfect at best and certainly not worthy of being the north star metric many believe it to be. That’s not to say customer surveys have no value, or even that the NPS survey itself doesn’t have value. Surveys are critical for understanding your customers. But be wary of the utility of Net Promoter as a score, particularly at the early stages of a company.
Personally, I’m intrigued by Sean Ellis’s Product/Market Fit survey, and am working to get more data. It seems to get more to the core to me, is better designed from a survey design perspective, and still is useful with small sample sizes.
As I talk about in the first level of the Hierarchy of Marketplaces, what’s critical for any company to keep in their purview is not just whether someone likes your product, but how much happier a person is when they use your product versus any substitute.
Ellis’s question gets to the relative happiness your product creates versus any substitute. If you make your customers happy enough, you become indispensable. That’s the key to achieving net revenue retention (and organic growth). A noisy algorithm based on how likely someone says they are to refer a friend or colleague is not.
If you’re curious, Ellis writes more about it here, and Rahul Vohra wrote a great post on how he used it to find product/market fit for Superhuman here. And if you’ve used it, I’d love to hear what you think.
Subscribe to my newsletter here: https://sarahtavel.substack.com/ | https://medium.com/@sarahtavel/measuring-happy-gmv-and-why-im-over-net-promoter-score-47a5748611bc | ['Sarah Tavel'] | 2020-10-15 17:54:12.189000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Marketplaces', 'Net Promoter Score'] |
Which Words Do We Use to Describe Our Pandemic World? | Which Words Do We Use to Describe Our Pandemic World?
Photo by AronPW on Unsplash
As marketers, we spend a lot of time carefully choosing our words. In writing the perfect pitch for a PR client — or writing an article here on Medium — words are important. And in fields like SEO — or for marketing on YouTube and other search-focused platforms — choosing the proper keywords can mean the difference between content taking off and sitting idle.
To me personally, words are important, too. My background is in Cognitive Science and Cultural Anthropology, with a focus on linguistics in both fields. I’ve studied language from both the neuroscience and cultural sides. And at Johns Hopkins University, I spent a happy year reading and analyzing every word in the 2008 Financial Crisis Inquiry Report in all its 662-page glory. So in a crisis, I’m immediately curious about the words people use to make sense of their experience.
Faced with the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic, though, it can seem impossible to find words to describe what the world is going through. What we’re facing, collectively, is something most of us have never dealt with before — the threat of contagion, the challenges of a quarantine, and the possibility (or reality) of major losses, both in human terms and economically.
Yet at the same time, especially as marketing professionals and leaders of businesses, we’re asked to communicate clearly and effectively about the pandemic — what people should do to respond, what our own companies (or clients) are doing, or even what we’re feeling on a personal level.
In many cases, we end up using the same words over and over. This can be either good or bad. The words we choose can follow patterns that customers start to recognize and that put us in line with others in our fields. Or, they can become so generic that they lose meaning — something no leader even wants to see happen to their own messaging.
Using Google Trends and other tech tools that look at words across a broad swatch of internet activity and published books, I analyzed how some COVID-19 words and phrases are being used and how those uses have changed over time. Drawing on my Anthropology background, I also looked back at a previous pandemic to see what words were used to describe it at the time, and how today’s words differ —or remain the same.
Especially in a crisis, words matter. By looking at how others are describing COVID-19, we can get a better sense of when we should use standard, familiar phrasing and when we need to communicate in a way that sets our companies and ourselves apart. | https://bettermarketing.pub/which-words-do-we-use-to-describe-our-pandemic-world-911d98e5b2da | ['Thomas Smith'] | 2020-04-20 19:06:11.538000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Marketing', 'Crisis Communications', 'Lingustics', 'Public Relations'] |
Culture-building, The Montoux Way | We call our culture “The Montoux Way”. What’s yours?
Culture is the most important thing we’re building
That’s one of my refrains at Montoux, a fast-growing, B2B SaaS start-up. At Montoux, we believe with total conviction that you don’t build truly great products or companies without an equally great culture.
But how do you build culture? The place I like to start is with values. Here, I’m sharing a simple process that we’ve followed to identify, codify and express the values of our company.
I wasn’t always a culture-builder
Before I start, a word to the skeptics out there. I used to doubt the value of spending time on company culture. I prided myself on being a productive contributor who got shit done instead of dilly-dallying with cultural fluff. Thankfully, that attitude, along with a raft of similarly ill-informed opinions forged during my early 20s, has long since died.
Last year, I chatted with the CEO of another successful SaaS start-up. He summarised his own experience in a way that resonated with mine:
Especially early on as a developer, I would way rather fix another bug or ship another feature than participate in some activity for company culture. Now, after 8 years as a CEO, I realise culture is EVERYTHING.
So, if you’re a leader who is hesitating to spend time on your company’s culture, take it from a couple of former skeptics … it’s worth it.
Getting started
When I joined Montoux, I joined a company with a healthy, positive culture and founders who were naturally attuned to creating a sustainable working environment for the team. But I thought we could do even more. I also anticipated that the team of 15 would double before the year was out and that could put the culture under stress. I therefore set out to bottle the fantastic, organic Montoux brew in order that we could keep it, enhance it, and share it with newcomers.
The recipe
As a newcomer to Montoux myself, I was cautious about missing the mark and getting off on the wrong foot. Luckily, I knew a recipe that is hard to screw up. The recipe has six easy steps and one secret ingredient.
The secret ingredient is to let your team speak for itself.
If you’re prepared to use the secret ingredient throughout the process, you have very little chance of landing on values that are misaligned with your team or your company’s ambitions. Here are the six steps:
Step 1. Call up the culture crew
On Slack and at our daily standup, I invited anyone who took a special interest in culture to join me in a fun and important project to look at our company’s values. I immediately got four volunteers, which felt just about right for a company of our size. You don’t need a large project team, especially if you’re a small company, three people will do.
If you don’t get the response you’re after, I encourage you to shoulder-tap people who seem culturally-attuned. Often, a nudge is all they need. It also pays to look at the diversity of your culture crew. As well as ethnic and gender diversity, consider:
People from different parts of the business
Spanning different geographic offices
Relative newcomers as well as long-standing members of the company (if you are old enough to have those!)
Varying levels of seniority and experience.
Significantly, I asked another person from our senior management team to join the project. Culture is everybody’s responsibility, but if you don’t have leadership that is 100% bought in, culture is on shaky ground. My partner was Gert, our CTO, co-founder, and Montoux cultural icon (a kind-hearted Dutchman with a fondness for sailing, heavy metal and a canine companion called Aiko).
Aiko, our office dog and cultural maven
Step 2. Work(shop) it!
Next, we designed workshops aimed at engaging every person at Montoux in crafting our values. Each workshop had 4–5 attendees and ran for an hour. Running five workshops took two hours of preparation and five hours to execute, with the help of a scribe from the culture crew for each session.
In each workshop, we asked the attendees to discuss the following four questions:
Why do you choose to work at Montoux? What is Montoux-y? What is in the shadow? What do we need to keep, amplify, or throw away so that our culture will evolve to meet our aspirations?
These simple questions hold they key to the kingdom and can work for any company. Let’s walk through them:
Why do you choose to work at [Company]?
Find out what’s really motivating people to be at your company. There’s likely to be both diversity and commonality and, often, overall harmony.
For instance, at Montoux, people overwhelmingly cared about having challenging work, making an impact and learning. Some of us were passionate about fixing the life insurance industry and others could be passionate about fixing anything, provided it was fixed beautifully and meaningfully. You don’t have to be the same to find common ground.
What does it mean to be [Company]-y?
This question is great for eliciting the language that people use to describe how the organisation is and aspires to be. We found there was great humanity and identity in the words people spoke. These are fantastic gems when it comes to expressing your values in a way that resonates with your team rather than in corporate speak.
What’s in The Shadow?
I LOVE this question. It borrows from Carl Jung’s ideas about human psychology and recognises that even the best cultures have a dark side. The mere act of asking the question tells your team you don’t just care about unicorns and rainbows, you care about all of the things — including the hard things.
Asking ‘What’s in the Shadow?” provides and opportunity to talk about the less desirable and often unconscious aspects of the company’s personality (what’s the consequence of prioritising X? what do we look like when we’re not at our best?). The aim is not to blame, complain or even solve everything that’s in The Shadow. The purpose is to surface the vulnerabilities of the culture that you have. Sometimes we can eliminate or minimise the downside and other times we have to accept it as a trade-off for what we value most highly. One thing’s for sure, talking about The Shadow helps your culture to be genuine and strong. It’s also an opportunity to talk about Star Wars.
Every culture has a dark side as well as a light side. Don’t be afraid to look at both.
What do we need to keep, amplify, or throw away so that our culture will evolve to meet our aspirations?
Cultures aren’t stagnant, they’re evolving. In successful start-ups, everyone who was there at the beginning has nostalgia for the early days. Sometimes we need to let go to move forward. Other times, we should hold on fiercely. At Montoux, we want to keep the spirit of the surfers and mountaineers that started our company because we know it will serve us all. But we have to let go of the ease of being a small company and embrace the joys of being a larger, multinational team. Asking this question is not only a great source ideas, it helps people to recognise that change is inevitable.
Step 3. Crunch the data
When you’re done with your workshops, you will have a bunch of data. Without much trouble at all, every comment you recorded can be tagged and sorted in a spreadsheet.
When the Montoux culture crew went through this exercise, the themes that we would shape into our 4 values almost jumped off the spreadsheet. We made all of the data that we collected available to the entire company. This meant that everyone knew they had been heard and that the values we adopted weren’t plucked from thin air or sent from on high — they came from listening our team.
Step 4. Massage it into shape
Raw data is great, but usually needs work before it’s ready to be communicated to the world. What we did was to:
Wordsmith the themes we spotted. I found it was good to do this with one other person rather than with a committee. We also named our values ‘The Montoux Way’, picking up on language that I had hear our founders using to make decisions. Literally, ‘that’s the Montoux way’ or ‘that’s not the Montoux way’.
Workshop those themes some more with our senior leadership team. I challenged that team to more precisely identify what we would need to emphasise to meet our future aspirations. (Questions like, what comes first at this stage of our business, customer or product?). Then, I asked them whether they could commit, 110%, to lead in accordance with the values we had identified. If the wider team had surfaced values that the leaders weren’t prepared to own, they would need to veto them and explain why. Moreover, if the leaders weren’t prepared to walk the talk every day, the values would be severely undermined.
Designed those themes into something beautiful. We didn’t have a designer at the time, so we got some outside help from a talented and affordable freelancer to visualise the values we had identified. Symbols are important and the ones that we created now adorn our office walls. In the process, we managed to convince the freelancer to join Montoux as its first designer. BONUS!
Finally, we prepared a slide deck that summarised each of our values. Each explained what the values mean (in the words of our own team), the upside and the shadow.
Step 5. Launch!
Now you’re done all of that great work to identify your values, are you going to just write them on a piece of paper and pop them in a drawer? No, you are not. You are going to launch them in a style befitting of one of the most important products your company will ever produce, because that’s what they are.
A certain amount of ceremony is important and symbolic. What you do should fit with your own company culture and the values you’ve identified. If a massive party or a parade is right for your company, then that’s what you should do. At Montoux, we’re pretty low-key folks and so we designed a fun and down-to earth launch for The Montoux Way:
Here’s what we did
Found a great, off-site venue and spent half a day together
Asked (and prepared — they need preparation) four of our leaders to to launch each of our values with the team. To do this effectively, they need to speak from the heart and acknowledge The Shadow as well as the much greater upside.
Gert, Montoux co-Founder, unveils our fourth value: Enjoy the Ride
Gave everyone had the opportunity to speak and share stories that resonated with the values. Some truly moving tales were told.
Unveiled some art that would symbolise our values in both our New Zealand and NYC offices. We also turned these symbols into Slack icons which we use to express the values all the time.
Took the opportunity to have fun and get to know each other better. At Montoux, we love games, so we played “The { }And” by The Skin Deep. There was eye-gazing and everything, even with the Coworkers Edition!
Montouxvians getting down to the good stuff with The { } And
We also celebrated with our favourite symbol of success, Gelato!
New York Montouxvians with our favourite celebratory treat — Gelato!
Step 6. Keep going
Of course, identifying your values is just the first step. You have to keep using them every day to create the culture you want.
At Montoux, we’ve immediately felt the benefit of expressing our values. It’s shaped the way we think about ideas, the way we celebrate and the way we run our recruitment process. Having the values articulated means that any Montouxvian can grab them anytime and weave them into the work we’re doing.
That’s it
Sound easy? Sound fun? It is. And what’s more, it has a massive ROI. If you give it a try, I’d love to hear the results.
Huge thanks!
Thanks to culture-builder extraordinaire Simon D’Arcy, for helping me to formulate the recipe and encouraging me to write this blog. Also to Caneel Joyce for her wisdom. For amazing culture-building resources, check out culture-builder.com and for the best of the best advisors to support your journey, look up Simon or Caneel! | https://medium.com/@toniemoyes/culture-building-the-montoux-way-e985a73d796c | ['Toni Moyes'] | 2019-06-09 23:21:02.420000+00:00 | ['Values', 'Montoux', 'Startup Culture', 'Leadership'] |
by Martino Pietropoli | First thing in the morning: a glass of water and a cartoon by The Fluxus.
Follow | https://medium.com/the-fluxus/thursday-hug-me-95b05f32771d | ['Martino Pietropoli'] | 2017-11-09 01:38:14.520000+00:00 | ['Hugs', 'Humor', 'Comics', 'Thursday', 'Cartoon'] |
Payment Security Market Worth $43.76 Billion By 2025 | The global payment security market size is expected to reach USD 43.76 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc., progressing at a CAGR of 12.3% during the forecast period. Rising need for PCI DSS (payment card industry data security standard) compliance and adoption of digital payment mode by consumers are likely to stoke the growth of the market. The payments industry is going through a movement of infrastructure transformation, which is essential to compete efficiently with non-bank trendsetters and address progressing customer requirements.
Over the past few years, major economies have modernized their payment infrastructures and many others are scheduling to upgrade. Digital payments aid merchants in maintaining continuous compliance with PCI DSS, which is further anticipated to bolster the growth of the payment security market. In March 2015, World pay noted over 133,000 fraudulent transactions reported, which interpreted stolen card details being used every 20 seconds. Thus, payment security providers help its customer’s systems to protect itself from threats and aim to provide secure businesses by getting them to comply with PCI DSS. Therefore, the payment security market is estimated to be driven by the adoption of PCI DSS compliance.
Fraud detection and prevention solutions hold the largest share in the overall market. These solutions provide various fraud analytics solutions such as big data and predictive analytics. Big data and predictive analytics helps to detect and avoid frauds.
Click the link below:
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/payment-security-market
Further key findings from the report suggest: | https://medium.com/@marketnewsreports/payment-security-market-18095e01a69f | ['Gaurav Shah'] | 2020-02-07 10:59:20.646000+00:00 | ['Encryption', 'Prevention', 'Security', 'Fraud', 'Payments'] |
A better EDA with Pandas-profiling | A world full of bad data
Mostly in Data Science, data we collect aren’t as clean and complete as available datasets on internet, designed and prepared for the application of machine learning models. Mostly, data comes from external sources, is not well structured or is simply incomplete, and it’s your job to make this data welcoming and usable!
While data scientists are aware of the importance of data quality, this is not necessarily the case for business leaders. They focus more on adopting technology as early as possible to maintain a competitive advantage and often have little understanding of the practical aspects. This means that people use everything in their datasets and hope for the best, under the pretext that quantity can compensate for quality.
Because of this difference of mindset, a data scientist spends 80% of his time preparing data sets before modelling.
Why 80% of his time? There’s missing values, unbalanced data, column names without any meaning, deduped data, outdated data and other reasons. Awareness of the importance of data is recent. As a result, even if the trend is reversed, the data is rarely easily accessible and well structured.
The consequence of a bad dataset is simple and logic: predictive models made with these datasets will have low accuracy and low efficiency. Train a model with incorrect data will create a bias and your results will be far from reality. A bad model is a model unable to be deployed, so its a loss of money for the company developing the model.
A car built with rusted pieces will not drive correctly or at worst, not drive at all… and nobody wants to use or buy a rusted car!
So, your dataset is an essential key to your project. Its technical and economic success depends on the quality of data you selected. During a machine learning project, skipping this data evaluation step can lead to a considerable waste of time and you will have to start your project over again from the beginning. It seems logic now data scientists spend so much time investigating and preparing datasets! | https://towardsdatascience.com/a-better-eda-with-pandas-profiling-e842a00e1136 | ['Thomas Gey'] | 2019-07-23 15:41:50.072000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Python', 'Machine Learning', 'Pandas Profiling', 'Exploratory Data Analysis'] |
Getting Better Performance From Docker On Mac OS | I had used Docker For Mac too for a limited time. However, I had lots of filesystems accessing related performance issues and then decided to return back to my initial setup based on docker-machine.
Let’s simulate the issue before setting up the environment if you’re still a Docker for Mac user.
Simulate The Issue:
Create a large file to be copied to a container in order to see how slow it is.
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=large_file.dat bs=1g count=1
Check the file size:
$ du -sh large_file.dat 1.0G large_file.dat
Create a new container from any Linux image:
$ docker run — name demo -d alpine:latest /sbin/init
Copy the file to the container filesystem from the host machine disk. I preferred to put time command before docker cp in order to see the time spending.
$ time docker cp large_file.dat demo:/. docker cp large_file.dat demo:/. 4.40s user 5.81s system 18% cpu 55.276 total
Solution
Basically, you can install a virtual machine and expose docker engine service to outside. Docker CLI can execute all the commands anywhere you want. In my case, I built the whole setup by hand regarding VM, docker, and filesystem. However, I think using docker-machine is more than enough and easy to explain for me also :)
Please don’t forget to uninstall `Docker for Mac` from your Mac device if you already installed before. You can check the following Stack Overflow post regarding uninstallation process:
Requirements
* Virtualbox (https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads)
* Docker Client (https://docs.docker.com/install/linux/docker-ce/binaries/#install-client-binaries-on-macos)
* Docker Machine (https://docs.docker.com/machine/install-machine/)
Let’s get started!
Create a new machine for docker with docker-machine
$ docker-machine create --driver virtualbox default
Evaluate the environment variables produced by docker-machine with the following command, in order to tell the current Docker host to docker client.
$ docker-machine env default export DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY=”1"
export DOCKER_HOST=”tcp://192.168.99.100:2376"
export DOCKER_CERT_PATH=”/Users/ibrahimgunduz/.docker/machine/machines/default”
export DOCKER_MACHINE_NAME=”default”
# Run this command to configure your shell:
# eval $(docker-machine env default)
You can simply call `eval` with the command above.
$ eval(docker-machine env default)
That’s it.
You can add those environment variables into your bash profile (.bashrc) to be able to use that machine after each restart.
Let’s apply the first test again. | https://medium.com/developer-space/get-better-performance-from-docker-on-mac-os-3b5e4152482d | ['İbrahim Gündüz'] | 2019-11-25 11:23:29.325000+00:00 | ['Performance', 'Mac', 'Docker'] |
12 Questions To Think About Before Starting School in the Fall | Even though it’s the middle of summer, it’s not unusual for me to begin thinking about the first day of school and wondering what my year will be like. I question what lessons I will start with, what books we will read, and special projects we will take on.
This year is different. Yes, I am still wondering and questioning, but the focus is not on the specifics of the curriculum and lesson plans. My thoughts are centered on how we are ever going to make it work as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage on.
Just a month ago, after receiving guidelines from our state’s Office of Public Instruction, our district made the decision to open up as “normal.” But the situation has changed and they are reconsidering.
A One-sided Poll
Our superintendent recently sent out a poll to district staff and parents asking about their preferences: all-day in-school classes, all virtual learning classes, or a hybrid with some days at school and some at home.
Although teachers were included in the poll, the questions were definitely geared to the parents.
The district office wanted to know if they felt safe sending their children to school, questions about childcare, class/school schedules, and concerns about children’s mental and physical health.
There were many other questions. Too many to list here. It is obvious the school district cares deeply about the families they serve.
Teachers have many questions.
But what about the teachers and other staff members who may be putting themselves at risk by returning to the classroom?
As a high school teacher of students with learning disabilities, I have many questions. My questions delve a little deeper. In the trenches, how is this going to work? kind of deeper.
To some, these questions might seem trivial compared to the big problem of how to best educate our students. But if you have ever been responsible for instructing a large group of children, you will understand how much impact the seemingly minor things have.
Photo by Julian Wan on Unsplash
1. How will I ensure all students will wear masks while at school?
This question has been discussed. A lot. But there are several more questions attached to it that also need to be answered.
For instance, who provides the masks?
I know from experience, you cannot count on the parents or the student to bring their own masks. Not on a daily basis. They forget. It gets too costly. Or they assume the face masks will be provided by the school.
I’m not trying to disparage parents. I am one. But it’s the reality.
If the district supplies the face coverings, which they should if they want to guarantee students have access to them, it’s going to be expensive. An additional hit to the budget many schools didn’t plan on. So, more than likely, some other line item is going to have to be cut.
It’s not unusual for teachers to purchase supplies for their classrooms and students. I spend hundreds of dollars a year on paper, pencils, markers, rulers, art supplies, and food for my kids. I can’t imagine the additional cost of supplying face masks to those students showing up without their masks or losing their face coverings throughout the day.
Which brings my next related question. What do we do about students that continually misplace or remove their masks in class? What about the students that just flat out refuse to wear one?
Do we interrupt our teaching to deal with the student? Send him to the office? Send him home?
Photo by F Cary Snyder on Unsplash
2. Who monitors the handwashing?
Frequent and thorough handwashing is one of the requirements of returning to the classroom whether it is full-time or part-time.
Not every classroom has a sink. Mine doesn’t.
How do I guarantee the handwashing is getting done? Do I need to take classroom time to send students out one by one to wash up? I think this may be one of the most difficult requirements to monitor.
3. How do I know if a student has taken his temperature?
If a student must take his/her temperature before coming to school, how will I know if it has actually been done?
If the student takes his temperature at school, who is responsible for overseeing that? Will it be done by the teacher as the child enters the classroom, or will their temperature be taken as they come in the front door?
Will I be required to keep a record of student names and temperatures? And what do I do if a student does have a fever?
4. What happens if a student displays symptoms while at school?
Imagine that a student arrives at school with a cough and a fever of 100 degrees. Do you send him home? Or does he just go to the sick room? Will he be required to be tested for COVID-19? What happens if you are unable to contact a parent?
If a student (or a staff member, for that matter) does test positive for COVID-19, does the school close? Or do you just quarantine his classmates, the bus driver, the kids on the bus, and his teacher?
5. How does this affect my sick leave?
This may seem like a selfish question, but it has been on my mind. If one of my students or colleagues comes down with the virus and I am asked to quarantine for two weeks, will it be taken out of my sick leave?
Would it be possible for me to teach from home if I am not ill? Or will I have a substitute teacher? Just how will that work?
6. Who does all the cleaning in my classroom?
For years, I have been buying my own disinfectant wipes. My school doesn’t supply them and the custodians do not generally wipe down desks and tables and cabinets.
But I do. At the end of every day.
The new guidelines suggest teachers clean the classroom several times a day. I’m assuming this responsibility will fall on the teacher. It makes sense.
But who supplies the wipes? Will this be done during instructional time? During breaks? How often is “several times a day?”
7. How will we monitor social distancing?
Most students are very social creatures. They want to be together. Keeping kids six feet apart all day is going to be one enormous task.
Even if you have desks and tables set apart, students have a way of getting too close to each other. And they like to share: books, pencils, food, and ideas.
I find students like to work together, collaborate on projects, help each other out on assignments. They benefit in so many ways when working in small groups. Is there a way to still allow that and social distance?
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
8. Will we eat lunch in the classrooms?
One suggestion to help with the social distancing issue is to have students eat their lunches in the classroom.
This would eliminate the crowd in the cafeteria. But, oh boy, what a mess in the classroom.
It also makes me wonder if the students will be sent one at a time to the cafeteria to get their lunch or will the lunch ladies be bringing it to our door?
Our district has an open campus policy during lunchtime. Students can go downtown to get lunch rather than eat in the cafeteria. Will that end?
Will students be required to take their temperature again if they leave and come back? How will we know if they maintained social distancing and wore their mask while they were off-campus?
9. When will teachers take breaks and have lunch?
With all the monitoring of temperatures, handwashing, and social distancing, I wonder when I will be allowed a break.
Will we hire extra staff to monitor the halls? Or will we have rotating breaks?
If students are eating lunch in my classroom, I will need to be there to supervise. When will I get my lunch break?
I realize I can eat with my students, but like most teachers, I use my thirty minutes for making copies, correcting student work, contacting parents, or collaborating with other teachers.
10. What do we do about “non-academic” classes?
Think about a PE class of thirty hot, sweaty kids. It doesn’t sound very safe. Perhaps there are ways around that with smaller groups of kids and split PE activities.
Photo by Nguyễn Hiệp on Unsplash
It may not be so easy to figure out how to make art, shop, band, and music class work when students are sharing tools and materials or taking off their masks to play an instrument and sing.
I am sure assemblies, field trips, clubs, and sports will continue to be on hold until the pandemic is over or a vaccine is created. And neither one is likely to happen before school is scheduled to begin.
11. How do I provide one on one instruction?
There are times when a student needs a little private coaching. How will I maintain social distancing and still provide the necessary support the student needs?
I can imagine many of my high school students getting upset if I stand six feet away to give them the extra explanation they need on an assignment that everyone else seems to get.
12. What about the relationship between emotional well-being and learning?
Research shows and teachers are well aware, children do not learn well under stress. It is going to be a mighty big task for teachers to make students feel safe and comfortable while also taking their temperatures, reminding them to leave their masks on, wash their hands, and keep away from their friends.
I’m not saying we cannot create a stable environment for learning, but it is going to take time and work. When we first return to school, the priority may not be book work, but heart and mind work.
My Same, but Different, Role
I understand my role as a teacher will look different. I will be a nurse, counselor, custodian, data collector, and lunchroom monitor. They are responsibilities already incorporated, but unwritten, into my job description. I’ll just be doing it to a much larger degree.
That is not so much what I am worried about. The questions I have are related to the day to day workings of the classroom and my job, in particular. Questions that seem to raise more questions.
They may seem like minor things. But they need to be addressed before school begins. If the proper protocols are not in place when school starts, it will be hard to enforce them later.
Then the health and safety of students and staff will be at an even higher risk.
My Personal Suggestions
The more structure and clear routines we have in place in the beginning, the faster our students, our families, and our staff will get used to them. The practices will become just a part of our school day.
Personally, I am very worried about school starting “as normal” in the fall. It is going to look and feel very different from previous years. We won’t be jumping right back into our textbooks.
I think as teachers we will need to focus on three areas: teaching students to follow the health and safety protocols, develop relationships and work on students’ mental and emotional well-being, and provide instruction on how to successfully use and manage distant learning tools/systems.
Because chances are high that we will be returning to some form of virtual learning before the pandemic ends. We need to address the possibility.
We need to be prepared, to lessen the confusion and establish some kind of normalcy around either situation, class at school or class at home. This must happen before any learning can take place. | https://medium.com/ninja-writers/12-questions-to-think-about-before-starting-school-in-the-fall-40cb1cabf127 | ['Mikey Sackman'] | 2020-07-18 12:01:01.303000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Culture', 'Health', 'Family', 'Education'] |
Integrating Mpesa API with a Flutter App | Money transfer is one of the essential services Globally. Just imagine you went for a vacation and you discovered you ran out of cash in the middle of an island and for some reason you lost your credit/debit card. What would you do? The situation is quite unimaginable right? Well 😄, here is where mobile money transfer comes in. People will always need money to purchase goods or to pay for services and this process involves money movement from customer to a service provider(C2B), between a business to a client (B2C) or even between Business to Business(B2B). MPESA is a Mobile money transfer service in Kenya owned by Safaricom, that assists in sending money from C2B,B2C and B2B. In this article we are going to learn how to integrate Mpesa API by building a simple Flutter App that pays bill to The Safaricom Lipa na Mpesa online ShortCode.
Note: This article assumes you already know the basics of Flutter, in case you are new to Flutter, checkout this article:
Setting up your Safaricom Developer Account.
There are pre-requisites you’ll need for the development and you will get them from your Safaricom Developer Account after the setup. They are:
Consumer Key
Consumer Secret
Test Credentials for Development
STEPS
1. Create Safaricom developer account
2. Create a new test app.
Next, create your test app via this link. In this step, give your app the name you desire, in this tutorial I’ll use mpesa_flutter. We are going to use the Lipa Na Mpesa SandBox so that’s what to select on the product list.
3. Get the Consumer Key and secret
Upon creating the test app, you will get the consumer key and consumer secret within your app’s keys. These are the credentials that you’ll use in initiating the MPESA instance.
4. Get Test credentials
These are the Safaricom test credentials . You can get them from here
https://developer.safaricom.co.ke/test_credentials
In this article we’ll use the Lipa na Mpesa online shortcode 174379 and the Lipa na Mpesa Online PassKey, the passKey is randomly generated and you can get yours on the Test Credentials
The Test credentials are only valid in Development environment as shown below:
To use this on Production environment, you will need real/valid credentials as described here
5. Request Body Parameters
There are sets of parameters required for the request body for the Lipa Na Mpesa Online API . To get an overview of the parameters from Safaricom documentation, check the link below:
BusinessShortCode: The organization shortcode used to receive the transaction. (We’ll use the Lipa na Mpesa Online ShortCode — 174379, you can get it from your test credential in step 4 above).
Password: The password for encrypting the request. This is generated by base64 encoding BusinessShortcode , Passkey and Timestamp .(In this Demo we’ll use the Lipa na Mpesa Online passKey, you can get it from your test credential in step 4 above)
Timestamp: The timestamp of the transaction in the format yyyymmddhhiiss .
TransactionType: The transaction type to be used for this request. Only CustomerPayBillOnline is supported.
Amount: The amount to be transacted.
PartyA: The number sending the funds.
PartyB: The organization shortcode receiving the funds.
PhoneNumber: The number sending the funds.
CallBackURL: The url to where responses from M-Pesa will be sent to.(If you don’t have a specific callback URL and you wanna try this on test first, create your test callback URL from http://mpesa-requestbin.herokuapp.com/?ref=hackernoon.com and click the Create a Request Bin button.) This will navigate to this page from which you can now copy the Bin URL.
AccountReference: Refers to the M-Pesa PayBills account name eg My Clothline/Shop
TransactionDesc: The description of the transaction.
Now that you have your app set on Safaricom Developer Account, its time to to add the functionality of making payments on your app. You’ll be doing that in the next section. | https://medium.com/podiihq/integrating-mpesa-api-with-a-flutter-app-4428ea9fd83b | ['Maureen Josephine'] | 2021-02-07 18:33:06.247000+00:00 | ['Mpesa', 'Dartlang', 'Mpesa Integration', 'Flutter', 'Dart'] |
Deploy Interactive Real-Time Data Visualizations on Flask With Bokeh | Part One
The first step is to do pip install bokeh and pip install Flask to get the Bokeh library and Flask library installed to your Python instance. Create a file called app.py and start with the following code:
The variable source is used to represent data in a way that is standardized for Bokeh elements. We will pass our data into that object, which is fed to the Bokeh figure. It is structured as an object, mapping keys to an array of values. We will later see how we can directly access and manipulate this using CustomJS .
Next, fig represents a Bokeh visual component. The tooltips parameter sets what is displayed in the display box that is shown when you hover over a point in your visualization. The tuples of this array are structured as ("NAME TO DISPLAY", "@COLUMN_NAME_IN_SOURCE" . To edit how large individual points on the graph appear, you can edit the size parameter in fig.circle() . Keep the x , y , and color parameters the same because we will see how those can be conditionally changed later.
The axis_label variables control what is displayed on the X-axis and Y-axis of the visualization. In our case, the X-axis will measure the IMDB rating of a movie and the Y-axis will measure the Rotten Tomatoes rating. We will later see that (obviously) there is a positive correlation between the two.
Now we can implement the following code to pass some data into our figure and display it in our browser:
Until Part two, we will be using an array of five example dictionaries featuring various movie-related properties. We are eventually going to be retrieving 3,000 real-time records from EasyBase.
The properties being set in source.data are Bokeh’s reference as to where in the graph an element should be displayed, along with how it should appear visually. As stated before, the structure of this variable is a dictionary mapping all of our attributes to a corresponding array. For this reason, we are using the inline array construction syntax to grab and pull each property from our data into its array.
We can see where these elements are used in our Bokeh figure: x , y , and color are passed into the fig.circle() method, and title and genre are passed into the tooltip (we will use released , imdbvotes , and genre later). Feel free to alter the values in each array. For example, if you want the color of dots to correspond to its genre, color = ["#FF9900" for d in currMovies] is where you would do that, or perhaps color = ["#008800" if d['genre'] == "drama" else "#FF9900" for d in curMovies] .
Last, output_file points to where you want your later figures to be saved. show(fig) saves the figure at this location and opens it in your browser.
Run this file and you will be presented with: | https://medium.com/better-programming/deploy-interactive-real-time-data-visualizations-on-flask-with-bokeh-311239273838 | ['Michael Bagley'] | 2020-10-30 16:28:37.130000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Flask', 'Data Visualization', 'Bokeh', 'Database'] |
Learn Decorators in Python in 5 Steps | Learn Decorators in Python in 5 Steps
Add additional functionality to one or more functions
Foto von Dids von Pexels
Intro
As we dive deeper into Python, we see many interesting features. One of them is decorators. As it is known, the ability to use many features exactly when we need them takes us forward. So let’s take a closer look at decorators in this article.
1. What are Decorators?
Python has a concept called decorator that allows you to take advantage of the extra functionality quickly. Decorators are structures in Python that allow the use of other functions included in a function separately. This makes it easier to add additional functionality to one or more functions.
When we want to use a simple function more functionally, we encounter two kinds of problems:
The new function is added to the old function. However, in this case, the problem arises of not recalling the original function. When you copy all the old code and create a brand new function that you added later, you will have to recreate the entire functionality. This is also not an ideal way.
So we need a more functional code structure that is both included in the function and has the option to be used when deemed necessary.
Something like the following defines decorators:
2. Which function does it perform?
If you are particularly interested in creating Web pages in Python, you’ll love using this. Because in Flask and Django, which is a more popular frame than Flask, you can prepare your web page in a way that is compatible with decorators.
In real-life applications, you may not often see decorators achieved with most code builds. Especially in popular Python frameworks, it is sufficient to just add ready-made decorators to your projects.
However, in this post, we would like to discuss what is the basis behind decorators.
image created by the author
3. What are the advantages?
We can list the advantages as follows:
Avoiding designing complex code blocks
Creating faster workspaces with less memory
Facilitating the use of automatic functions related to the frontend in a certain order
Using new code quickly within a function
The decorator with the ‘@’ sign is used in the top line of the function and can be disabled (converted to the comment line) if it is desired not to affect the subfunction. So it can be controlled depending on how much and how you want to work with the original function.
Then it’s easy to delete this in just one decorator line if you don’t want that extra functionality.
4. How can I understand better?
Check the examples below to better understand its usage.
First, let’s try to understand how it can be used by defining a simple function by assigning it to another variable:
When we call the function, we get the result as follows:
When we assign this function to another variable, we again get the same result:
Now let’s delete the main function first:
And then let’s call x again:
Even though the original function has been deleted, x is still running. This is how the Python function allows assigning to another variable.
Well now let’s go ahead and try to understand it with another example.
Let’s examine the code blocks that have other functions. For example:
As you can see, Python did not recognize the sub-function in the result section. We’ll use print to achieve this:
We have also shown the indented function. Now let’s add another function.
When we call the welcome () alone, which we defined in hello (), we actually get an error for it:
So we can make below to call the functions within the ‘hello’ function separately:
Or if we call it with the default name in the function, Kurt to give the other option:
As you can see, we were able to view only sub-functions. This; is the idea of returning another function within a function.
Let’s give another example:
Now let’s define a new function as if we needed a decorator. I’ll call this func_needs_decorator:
Now let’s combine the two with a variable:
Now let’s see if we can get the same result thanks to the new_decorator we created. For this, we will make use of the special syntax used in the display of decorators, namely → @.
If you wish, you can get rid of it thanks to the comment line with the open-close logic. Then it will look the same as before:
Essentially, what decorators do here is surrounding.
5. What are the examples of its applications?
As we briefly mentioned above, let’s discuss some of its applications for Flask.
For login requirement: It facilitates the structure of the code that queries the real person’s fulfillment of the opening instruction for a login process. For example, we can see this while repeating the password and authentication section before logging in when the required condition is not met.
For ideally cache: Let us assume that an initialized cache object exists. If you are also curious about creating a cache, you can get information from here. When you want to keep the cache usage limited, decorators can be adapted to what they want to do here.
After generating the cached key, it calls the desired time and memory usage according to this key. Then the original function enters the environment after the decorator for the other state. Thus, the decorator provides the advantages of using limited memory.
For auto template: In addition, template maker decorators are also widely used today. Basically, it allows the values obtained from the view function to be returned in dictionary format. In this use, decorators act as automatic formers.
For flexible endpoint: When you need a distribution dispatcher, it appears when you want to adopt the ‘werkzeug.router’ system to more flexible work. In the distribution of the URL address with ‘Rule’, the endpoint decorator is included in the parenthesis by synchronizing the index. | https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/5-steps-learn-to-use-decorators-in-python-cf5ef20e17ff | ['Kurt F.'] | 2020-12-22 15:28:01.483000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Coding', 'Programming', 'Python', 'Data Science'] |
Hear Me: a documentary following a Christian college student’s struggle with same-sex attraction | This past semester I was asked to participate in a documentary one of my students was helping create. The film is called HEAR ME and tells the story of Moody student Colby Adams.
I was incredibly impressed and touched by Colby’s openness and boldness to share his experiences. Sam, Jessica and Nathaniel did a phenomenal job creating this. It is a powerful part of the conversation and I hope it is an encouragement to those who watch. Which you should do so here: | https://medium.com/processing-life/hear-me-a-documentary-following-a-christian-college-students-struggle-with-same-sex-attraction-70fee84ff71a | [] | 2016-07-01 03:26:29.054000+00:00 | ['Faith', 'Grace', 'Gospel', 'God', 'Church'] |
Internet Marketing Company Chicago | Are you looking for a top marketing agencies?
If so, choose a Chicago, IL based firm, Mabbly.
The company specializes in integrated digital marketing campaigns, one of the selected few in US. For more information, please follow this link: mabbly.com
To improve your business’ chances of success in today’s world, you need to make sure that you are as visible as possible in the online world. When you have achieved this, it is going to ensure that as many people can find you as you need, and that leads to a significant growth in your business.
For help with that, it is always important to make sure that you have the best possible digital marketing agency by your side. If you are currently on the lookout for such an agency, you should check out Mabbly.
Mabbly are data-driven creatives who really know how to create a real, human connection between your company and your customers. With their help, your online presence can be curated to be as powerful as you would hope, thereby ensuring a steady influx of customers and clients in the future.
At Mabbly, you will find experts who can assist you in every aspect of the digital marketing journey. That includes web design and development, social media marketing and more, so if you are in any need of help with any of that, they are the team to look to first and foremost.
To find out more about Mabbly and their services, don’t hesitate to get in touch. They are always happy to hear from prospective clients with ideas and those who just want general help with getting a marketing campaign off the ground in as strong a way as possible. With Mabbly’s help, your business can grow. | https://medium.com/@mabmably/internet-marketing-company-chicago-542cdec1950d | [] | 2021-12-27 14:10:03.724000+00:00 | ['Chicago', 'Advertising', 'Marketing'] |
How to Own Up to a Mistake at Work | How to Own Up to a Mistake at Work
Don’t panic. Just follow these steps.
Photo: NicolasMcComber/Getty Images
This isn’t about job-ending screwups. This is about not realizing a presentation was due today. This is about accidentally cc’ing a client on an email they definitely shouldn’t be reading. This is about the medium-size mistakes that make the day way more difficult than you, your boss, and your team thought it would be.
In moments like these, it’s always tempting to reach for excuses: you were given bad information, you never got the email, whatever moves the spotlight off of your own role in the screwup. But more often than not, shifting blame only makes you look worse. And as far-fetched as it may seem in the moment, it is possible to admit your mistake without shredding your reputation. In fact, owning up to it may be the only way to emerge from the situation unscathed. Here’s how to pull it off.
As crisis managers say: Get out in front of it
If it will take a while to get under control, or if you need to loop in a manager or client to reach a resolution, then have the conversation as soon as possible. “Withholding knowledge of an error may often be judged more harshly than the first,” says career coach Rebecca Fraser-Thill, director of faculty engagement at the Center for Purposeful Work at Bates College. “The first mistake was likely unintentional and may be excused due to that. The second mistake of withholding information is a willful decision and is much harder to explain away.”
And no matter how good a liar you are, you’ll almost certainly get caught at some point, making the situation a bigger deal than it needs to be. Think of this moment as a character test. “Everybody makes mistakes,” says executive coach and career-change consultant Maggie Mistal. “The question is: What do you do when the mistake has happened? What kind of person are you? That’s when you show your true colors.” This is a chance to prove that you’re a person of integrity. Take a deep breath, don’t give in to a fight-or-flight mentality, and draw confidence from the fact that owning up is the right thing to do.
Be specific
“The best way to start is to be straightforward and explicit about your mistake, stating in clear, factual language what happened, and any known consequences,” says Fraser-Thill. If, for instance, you overlooked a shipment to a client and the client is now considering switching to a new vendor, you can relay that matter-of-factly, and add, “I own this mistake and understand that it’s my responsibility to deliver our client’s satisfaction. And then say how you think it should be fixed. Don’t grovel. Just show that you understand the scope of what went wrong and a way out.
Manage on both sides
One important exception: If you’re in a management role and your employee is the one who’s messed up, take responsibility. You don’t need to pretend you made the mistake yourself, but if it’s your job to manage this person, then their failure may be seen as yours, too.
“It’s the best kind of manager that says, ‘Listen, I’ll get to the bottom of this. I will understand what happened. If it was our fault, I’ll let you know and we’ll fix it,’” says Mistal. “That’s what you get paid for. That’s what management is.” Throwing an employee to the wolves isn’t just a sign of poor leadership. It can also damage the trust between you and the rest of your team.
Avoid accusatory language
If there was a communication breakdown or something else that led you down a bad path, try using “I” statements to point them out, which helps you sound less accusatory and more like you’re just trying to be genuinely helpful. For instance, “instead of saying, ‘You didn’t let me know that the turnaround time was so tight,’ you can instead make an observation like, ‘I notice that turnaround times are not always communicated clearly,’” Fraser-Thill says. Then phrase the solution to give yourself more ownership over it. In this case, you could say something like, “Going forward, I’ll be sure to ask questions so I understand the timing.”
Don’t apologize
A sincere apology can go a long way, but you should do it sparingly at work. “It can undermine your confidence if you apologize too much,” warns Mistal. Instead, try expressing your gratitude to convey a similar sentiment, which frames it in a much more positive way. “You can say thank you for understanding, thank you for your support, or thank you for correcting this,” suggests Mistal. Also: It’s annoying. Why are you apologizing when you have a problem to fix? Speaking of the problem…
Fix it
You’ve explained what happened and how you’ll do better. Now it’s time to act on it. When there’s a problem, all a manager really wants is a solution — not a long-winded explanation, not a guilt-ridden mea culpa, but a tactical plan. Execute that plan and then move on, and everyone else will, too. | https://forge.medium.com/how-to-own-up-to-a-mistake-at-work-d9be25892bb5 | ['Deanna Pai'] | 2019-09-25 13:35:57.369000+00:00 | ['Scripts', 'Work', 'Mistakes', 'Succeed', 'Leadership'] |
Fast EDA in Jupyter & Colab notebooks using Sweetviz 2.0 | Fast EDA in Jupyter & Colab notebooks using Sweetviz 2.0
Image by author
Sweetviz is an open-source Python library that generates beautiful, high-density visualizations to kickstart EDA (Exploratory Data Analysis) with just two lines of code!
In addition to detailed feature analysis, it stands out from other EDA packages by providing:
Target analysis: shows how a target value (e.g. “Survived” in the Titanic dataset) relates to other features Dataset comparisons: e.g. “Train vs Test” and intra-set “Male vs Female” Correlation/associations: full integration of numerical and categorical data correlations and associations, all in one graph and table
For an in-depth look at its insights & features, check out this Medium article.
Sweetviz can now be integrated in notebooks
New with version 2.0 is that these visualizations can now be embedded in Colab/Jupyter-style notebooks (in addition to the original standalone HTML reports). This is a long-requested feature that improve its usefulness and usability for many users.
This article will go over the details of this integration, as well as the other main new features of the package: report scaling and vertical layout.
👀 Companion notebook & documentation
Note that all code in this article, as well as extensive usage notes, are contained in an example Colab notebook that can be found here.
📡 Installing & importing into a notebook
Just like from a regular IDE, unless sweetviz is already present in the environment, it must be installed. This is carried out using pip with the line !pip install sweetviz . Then simply import it as usual using something like import sweetviz as sv .
📰 Generating an integrated report
The major new feature of sweetviz 2.0 is that reports can now be embedded inside any notebook, instead of being restricted to an external HTML file.
To generate an integrated notebook once a report object has been created, use the show_notebook() command instead of the previous show_html() . Please note that show_html() is still available, and has been upgraded as we will see below.
Width, height & scale parameters
Since any report must be made to fit inside an existing notebook, and each person has their own preferences and hardware setups, show_notebook() has multiple options to both scale the report and the window through which it is displayed.
Note that the size of the window (given by the w and h parameters) is independent of the size of the report itself (given by the scale parameter), so scrollbars will be present if the window is not as large as the report. This is generally the case since reports are mostly much taller than a single window.
The parameters to show_notebook() are thus:
w: this is the width of the window through which the report is displayed. It can either be in pixels w=900 or as a percentage of the width of the notebook w="100%" .
this is the width of the through which the report is displayed. It can either be in pixels or as a percentage of the width of the notebook . h: this is the height of the window through which the report is displayed. It can also be in pixels, or h="FULL" , to stretch the window to the full tallness of the report. Note that the “full” option is often clamped by the notebook software and may not work.
this is the height of the window through which the report is displayed. It can also be in pixels, or , to stretch the window to the full tallness of the report. Note that the “full” option is often clamped by the notebook software and may not work. scale: this parameter drives the scale of the report itself. It is given using a fractional number, e.g. scale=0.8 . Note that this new parameter is also available with show_html() for HTML reports .
this parameter drives the scale of the report itself. It is given using a fractional number, e.g. . Note that this new parameter is with for . filepath: this optional parameter will cause an HTML report to also be generated in the current working folder. However, contrary to show_html() , a browser will not pop up to display it immediately.
Note that if these parameters are not present, the defaults will be used (more on these below).
# Some examples!
comparison_report.show_notebook()
comparison_report.show_notebook(w=1500, h=300, scale=0.8)
comparison_report.show_html(scale=0.9)
The “Layout” parameter: going vertical!
Two variations of the expanded detail information for the target variable “Survived”: in the Widescreen and Vertical layouts. Image by author.
Another significant customization feature is the addition of a new “vertical” layout. The previous default was “widescreen” which took a lot of horizontal real estate, even with the new “scale” parameter. This was especially an issue in notebooks, which often have less horizontal room to work with.
To remedy this, an additional layout parameter was added both to show_notebook() and show_html() . To use it, simply add the parameter layout='vertical' or layout='widescreen' to either command.
🧬Specifying your own default presentation: .ini override files
Once you find a scale and layout that work for you, it is easy to set up the defaults for your future notebooks. All default parameters are contained in the sweetviz_defaults.ini file that comes with the installation of the package. Although editing that file itself is possible, it is a bit more tricky and gets overwritten every time the package is reinstalled, which happens more often when working with some notebook environments in the cloud.
An easier way is to set up one (or multiple) “override” INI files and load up the relevant one in the beginning of your notebook, right after your imports. To load an override INI, simply activate it using the following:
sv.config_parser.read("My_Override.ini")
From the sweetviz_defaults.ini file, the most useful possible values to override are:
[General]
; Set this to 1 to support Chinese, Japanese, Korean characters
use_cjk_font = 0
[Output_Defaults]
html_layout = widescreen
html_scale = 1.0
notebook_layout = vertical
notebook_scale = 1.0
notebook_width = 100%%
notebook_height = 750
[Layout]
show_logo = 1
[Type_Detection]
; Numeric columns will be considered CATEGORICAL if fewer than this many distinct
max_numeric_distinct_to_be_categorical = 10
; Text columns will be considered TEXT if more than this many distinct (CATEGORICAL otherwise)
max_text_distinct_to_be_categorical = 101
; Text columns will be considered TEXT if more than this fraction are distinct
max_text_fraction_distinct_to_be_categorical = 0.33
Note the [Output_Defaults] section containing the default layout, scaling and positioning for the HTML and notebook reports.
INI override notes & example
It is best to load overrides before any other command, as many of the INI options are used in the report generation.
Values in the INI are separated with a header (e.g. [General] ). Always set the header before the value, otherwise there will be an error.
). set the header before the value, otherwise there will be an error. Note the double ‘%’ if specifying a percentage string (see notebook_width ).
The override INI does not need to contain every value, and could be something like:
[General]
use_cjk_font = 1
[Output_Defaults]
notebook_layout = widescreen
notebook_scale = 0.8
Conclusion
Through notebook integration, multiple layouts and report scaling, sweetviz can now generate insightful reports that can be used in a much wider variety of environments. As I mentioned in the beginning, for an in-depth look at the various analysis possible with the package, you can find a Medium article here. I hope you find it as useful as I do! | https://towardsdatascience.com/fast-eda-in-jupyter-colab-notebooks-using-sweetviz-2-0-99c22bcb3a1c | ['Francois Bertrand'] | 2020-12-15 22:25:25.527000+00:00 | ['Colab', 'Sweetviz', 'Jupyter', 'Eda', 'Pandas'] |
My P.G. Guilty Pleasures | “There are no such things as guilty pleasures, there are only pleasures,” says Emma Thompson in her latest movie, Late Night. I can relate to that! Redefining my guilty pleasures, of which there are many, into simple pleasures could relieve so much stress. It’s stressful to fight against those tiny pleasures we secretly enjoy when we anticipate the judgment of others.
I don’t feel guilty at all for my daily dose of chocolate, because it provides magnesium and all sorts of health benefits. I’m giving my bones a treat as I munch my 72% dark chocolate. See how I’ve rationalized it away? But I do feel guilty when I make my lemon shortbread.
Lemon shortbread
I often ask my family if they want a pan of shortbread for a sweet snack. Even as they shrug their shoulders and shake their heads, I’m pulling out the ingredients to make my favorite dessert.
Is this a guilty pleasure because I’m making it for myself under the guise of being a great mom? Definitely! Is this a healthy snack? Can’t rationalize that away.
But…it’s a comfort food. It reminds me of my childhood and baking with my mom. Each morsel is buttery, sweet, and covers my fingertips with a delicious oily feeling. Eating these bite-sized desserts is a sensory pleasure of taste and smell. It’s a win-win even if I feel guilty about eating most of them.
Enjoying a ‘siesta’.
As a Spanish teacher, my students inevitably ask about ‘la siesta’. I remind them the best way to learn about something is to experience it. And I’m quite the expert with ‘la siesta’/nap.
A 20 or 30 minute afternoon“siesta” on a rainy, cloudy or stormy day is on my list of guilty pleasures. A siesta any day works!
Taking a break or short nap to escape from the duties of the day is regarded as an important tool to maintain alertness and re-charge energy. There are multiple anecdotes of famous nappers such as Winston Churchill, Lyndon Johnson and even Salvador Dali, my favorite Spanish artist.
So, if Churchill had an afternoon nap included as part of his non-negotiable workday schedule, I can enjoy a short afternoon siesta from time to time. I just have to stop feeling guilty.
Cozy mysteries
And my favorite guilty pleasure? Instead of spending hours creating perfect lesson plans or grading papers, I pull out a cozy mystery book, an easy and quick-read, preferably with an adorable cat to help the protagonist solve the crime.
I tell myself I’ll read just a few pages or so and rationalize I need a break. And if a family member happens to walk by, I smile sheepishly. Do I feel guilty? Absolutely! One reason I feel guilty is that it’s not “good literature’ or even a famous mystery author I’m reading. Forgive me, Louise Penny! I’m one of your many ‘Gamache’ fans!
But sometimes I just need an easy read that is entertaining, a bit formulaic yet pulls me into a small town, completely different world from mine, where a mystery is solved and romance blooms all in less than three hundred pages. This new genre of ‘cozy mysteries’ is perfect. They provide a change to rest my mind, shake off my puritanical work ethic, and enjoy a few hours of relaxation.
Guilty or Pleasure?
These ‘guilty pleasures’ are my three favorite ways I use to balance my work and personal time. And as this stress-filled year draws to a close, I reflect on how I want to change my mindset for the coming year.
One intention is to release the guilt in “guilty” feeling. It’s time to accept these pleasures as important in my life. I am renaming them as simple joys, for this year has reminded me the importance of treasuring each day as it comes.
Good-bye, guilt. Hello, to an afternoon of munching on shortbread while reading my latest cozy. | https://medium.com/weeds-wildflowers/my-p-g-guilty-pleasures-80a0aa5b1ea6 | ['Thalia Dunn'] | 2020-12-21 01:02:54.090000+00:00 | ['Lifestyle', 'Writing Prompt Response', 'Challenge', 'Weeds And Wildflowers', 'Self Improvement'] |
Voice Your Own Opinion in Your Writing or the Message May be Lost | Has anyone else noticed the increasingly clear mandate from editors requiring writers to provide existing sources of verification and validation for the opinions and ideas expressed in their stories?
Why is it suddenly necessary for writers to authenticate their articles by making reference to supportive sources, especially when the only purpose for using such qualification is to legitimize their content as a derivative extension of prior work?
What happened to spur suspicion in the gatekeeper’s minds, causing them to summarily dismiss our writing efforts unless authenticated by a pre-existing and supposedly superior source?
I suppose there’s some minimal level of logic behind this protocol.
For example, if we’re writing about the design of diesel engines and have no experience or knowledge about the topic, it would be appropriate to do the research and rely on the education and experience of others — experts with an understanding of the subject.
But what about writers who have a treasure trove of knowledge, background, and personal experience and can competently offer fact and experientially-based opinion without the need to justify their content by using third-party, “expert” endorsement?
I realize I’m ranting a bit
But it seems rather limiting and constrictive to disallow content based on guidelines that imply, often without merit, that we don’t know what we’re talking about. And unless we can cite corroborating source material from someone with an accepted approval rating, our articles are dismissed as irrelevant or inaccurate.
After digesting this concept, my internal radar went off the scale — accompanied by warning flags.
This requirement all but eliminates the sharing of original thought.
In an article by writer, blogger, and podcaster Seth Godin, the author offers several valid points and conclusions regarding subjective gatekeeping and the often unintended result of suppressing original thought and its effect on the learning process.
Here’s an excerpt from his piece:
“You don’t need “expertise” to create useful work.” “. . . Credentialing lulled us into false confidence about who was actually an expert. The fact that you have a degree doesn’t mean you have insight, experience, or concern. You’ve acquired a piece of paper, but that doesn’t mean you care. “Today, we can go beyond the credential and actually see your impact. We can create a body of work and a community that understands the impact we’re capable of.”
Kudos to Seth for bringing to light what many of us have already learned and instinctively understand: Life is an open school room, and those deemed as credible sources remain credible only until someone proves them wrong.
And yes, I realize the inclusion and reference to Seth’s article may appear to be in counterpoint to my premise.
However, it is his on-going and generous work that inspired my thinking and, ultimately, this article. He deserves to be acknowledged as my source of inspiration, as opposed to using his authority to substantiate personal opinion, or exploiting the reference as a “prop” to satisfy the prerequisites of publication.
Doing the work — being creators who make unique and original contributions by sharing our perspective, opinion, and knowledge with others — is the very definition of originality. Without it, there is no creativity — and no place for new ideas to form.
Preventing readers from hearing unique, distinctive, or even unusual voices limits the formation of new thought and new ways to connect ourselves to the universe — and to each other. Even worse, it places us on the slippery slope of negligence in our responsibility to convey an important message: Think for yourself.
So write your story. Do the work.
Then deliver your words, experience, and knowledge to the world. Your audience will find you — and decide whether or not they want to hang around.
“People like us do things like this.” — Seth Godin
© 2020 Jill Reid. All Rights Reserved.
Discover more tips and strategies for developing a positive mindset and achieving personal success in Real Life
Jill Reid is the author Real Life: We breathe, We sleep, We eat … And in-between, We Live and founder of Pathway to Personal Growth. Her books and articles explore life, happiness, self-improvement, health, productivity, relationships, and personal success strategies. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/jill-reid-how-to-stay-true-to-your-work-6f650706d63c | ['Jill Reid'] | 2020-11-19 05:54:39.744000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Productivity', 'Work', 'Writing', 'Writing Tips'] |
Launching Grenades in Unreal with Gameplay Ability System: Part 1 | Getting Started
Prerequisites:
Unreal Engine 4.25+
Visual Studio 2019, please install C++, .NET and UWP development packages.
Download Paragon: Wraith character pack from the Marketplace. This character pack is a free. [https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/paragon-wraith]
The setup for the Gameplay Ability Plugin was covered many times in different tutorials, so if you read them before and already have a setup running, you can skip to the “Cutting A Corner” part where I did something different and simple in contrast to other tutorials. If it is your first time, then it will take you a few copy/paste to get running.
Start by creating a C++ Unreal Project using the ThirdPersonCharacter template. After creating the project, you need to go to the Edit→Plugins and enable the Gameplay Abilities plugin, then close the Editor.
After closing, open the YouProjectName.Build.cs file in Visual Studio and include the following dependencies. I’ve highlighted all added code in bold for clarity.
using UnrealBuildTool; public class SimpleGAS : ModuleRules
{
public SimpleGAS(ReadOnlyTargetRules Target) : base(Target)
{
PCHUsage = PCHUsageMode.UseExplicitOrSharedPCHs; PublicDependencyModuleNames.AddRange(new string[] { "GameplayAbilities", "GameplayTags", "GameplayTasks", "Core", "CoreUObject", "Engine", "InputCore", "HeadMountedDisplay" });
}
}
First, we need to declare the AbilitySystemComponent in the ThirdPersonCharacter.h (ASimpleGASCharacter in my project and AYourProjectNameCharacter in your project) header. To keep it organized, you can declare all your component properties in one place.
/** Follow camera */
UPROPERTY(VisibleAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category = Camera, meta = (AllowPrivateAccess = "true"))
class UCameraComponent* FollowCamera; /** Gameplay Ability Component */
UPROPERTY(VisibleAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category = Abilities, meta = (AllowPrivateAccess = "true"))
class UAbilitySystemComponent* AbilitySystemComponent;
And on the bottom of the same header file let’s add a getter:
public:
/** Returns CameraBoom subobject **/
FORCEINLINE class USpringArmComponent* GetCameraBoom() const { return CameraBoom; }
/** Returns FollowCamera subobject **/
FORCEINLINE class UCameraComponent* GetFollowCamera() const { return FollowCamera; }
/** Returns Ability System Component subobject **/
FORCEINLINE UAbilitySystemComponent* GetAbilitySystemComponent() const override { return AbilitySystemComponent; }
Then declare a StartupAbility property. Once we create our ability blueprint, we will drag and drop it into this property field in the Editor.
public:
ASimpleGASCharacter(); /** Startup Ability to Grant on BeginPlay */
UPROPERTY(EditAnywhere, BlueprintReadWrite, Category = Abilities)
TSubclassOf<class UGameplayAbility> StartupAbility;
To initialize and grant Ability on the startup, add the following code to the BeginPlay method.
void ASimpleGASCharacter::BeginPlay()
{
Super::BeginPlay(); if ( AbilitySystemComponent && HasAuthority() )
{
if ( StartupAbility )
{
AbilitySystemComponent->GiveAbility( FGameplayAbilitySpec(StartupAbility.GetDefaultObject(), 1, 0) );
AbilitySystemComponent->InitAbilityActorInfo( this, this );
}
}
}
A ThirdPersonCharacter.h doesn’t have BeginPlay declared out of the box, so we should not forget to add these in the header file somewhere in the protected section, above the rest of the methods there.
protected: void BeginPlay() override; void PossessedBy(AController* NewController) override; /** Resets HMD orientation in VR. */
void OnResetVR();
Finally, add the RefreshAbilityActorInfo() method as our character is possessed by a default character controller on the startup.
void ASimpleGASCharacter::PossessedBy(AController* NewController)
{
Super::PossessedBy(NewController); AbilitySystemComponent->RefreshAbilityActorInfo();
}
Make sure your project is set as a Startup Project in VS. Press F5 to compile and run the Editor.
Cutting a Corner
Now let’s do something different from the rest of the tutorials and skip a binding part where we bind the ability activation to the input mappings in our ThirdPersonCharacter.cpp. Instead, we jump directly to our Blueprint class and set it up in an easy way, and here are a few reasons why: | https://medium.com/@denismakesgames/launching-grenades-in-unreal-with-gameplay-ability-system-part-1-3179f38f3730 | ['Denis Savosin'] | 2020-11-18 12:43:27.901000+00:00 | ['Prototyping', 'Game Development', 'Unreal Engine', 'Unreal Engine 4', 'Programming'] |
Presenteeism: The evil flip side of absenteeism | For years, companies have discouraged absences in the workplace. However, being present when unfit is increasingly becoming the new Frankenstein of the corporate world.
It’s Monday morning, the alarm just went off and you need to get ready for work. However, this is not your average Monday morning. Your body hurts and you don’t feel well at all. In just a blink of an eye, the question pops up in your mind: To go or not to go? To be absent and sick at home or to be present and sick at the office? No worries, regardless of what you do, either choice will generate a cost for your company.
For a long time, however, companies have seen absences as the only problem to solve in the workplace. While available data is often contradictory, the attention that companies have placed on excessive absences at work (absenteeism) seems to be working. In the UK, for example, and according to the 2018 Health and well-being at work report produced by CIPD and Simplyhealth, there has been a significant downward trend in average absence rates from 7.7 days in 2011 to 6.6 days in 2018.
That should be good news, right? Not too fast. While absenteeism seems to be falling, the number of people going to work while unfit (presenteeism) has significantly increased in the last years. In fact, only in the UK and “within the space of eight years, the number of people suffering from presenteeism has tripled,” argues Professor Cary Cooper, President of the CIPD.
Both absenteeism and presenteeism pose significant costs for companies. But how do you know if your employees are adopting one behavior or the other?
What is employee absenteeism?
According to The Balance Careers, a provider of financial services, absenteeism is “a pattern of missing work in which an employee is habitually or frequently absent from work.” Behind that behavior, there are many reasons that can be grouped in two main categories:
Planned absenteeism — Excused absences granted by the employer such as annual leave, vacation time, government services leave or planned medical treatments. Unplanned absenteeism — Unplanned/emergency absences that can be involuntary (e.g. unavoidable illnesses, injuries) or voluntary (e.g. taking care of relatives, low job satisfaction).
Considering the above, your focus should be placed on unplanned absenteeism as a behavior that emerges from two key factors: the ability to attend (e.g. having an unexpected injury) and the motivation to attend (e.g. being overly stressed at work).
What is presenteeism at work?
Presenteeism is a pattern of going to work when not feeling good physically or psychologically, something that has a negative impact in the employee’s productivity as well as that of the company or organization the employee belongs to.
While presenteeism is on the rise today, the study of this phenomenon has significantly changed in the last fifteen years moving from over-engagement in the workplace to showing up at work when ill.
In his essay in The Cambridge Companion to Presenteeism at Work, Eric Gosselin argues that most people treat presenteeism today as a phenomenon that requires two variables: “the worker having a health problem and still being present at work despite that condition.” However, Gosselin says that such an idea overlooks a very important aspect related to presenteeism: the lack of productivity inherent to this phenomenon.
Because of that, Gosselin argues that the following three conditions are necessary in order to consider a worker’s behaviour as presenteeism:
1. Be ill (physically or psychologically).
2. Be at work.
3. Exhibit decreased productivity.
Similarly, in the foreword of Professor Hesan Quazi’s book on presenteeism, Professor Wee Chow Hou states that this phenomenon has been viewed from two different angles:
Sickness presenteeism — The practice of coming to work despite illness, injury, anxiety, and so on, which results in reduced productivity.
Non-sickness presenteeism — The practice of working long hours without the real need to do so.
With that being said, your focus should be placed on dealing with sickness presenteeism, which is also compatible with the conditions exposed by Gosselin.
However, we can add to this analysis another condition that can be considered a precursory practice to presenteeism: unconsciously favor quantity to quality. When people aren’t necessarily sick but they go to work out of fear of losing their jobs or simply to show that they are good employees, they are favoring quantity over quality and that behavior can easily lead to presenteeism.
A new threat: Leavism
Parallel to absenteeism and presenteeism, it is worth to say a word about leavism. As defined by Professor Cary Cooper, “leavism” occurs when an employee uses his/her leave time to get work done. Considering that everyone needs time to rest and recuperate especially in today’s work environment, leavism can severely affect the health and well-being of individuals and incidentally the productivity of the company itself.
Unfortunately, leavism is a very general practice today. For instance, the Health and Well-being at Work report found out that two-thirds of companies in the UK noticed leavism among their employees.
A holistic approach to absenteeism and presenteeism
Traditionally speaking, absenteeism and presenteeism have been studied as two isolated phenomena. However, nowadays more people are in favor of a holistic approach where you can bring together these two behaviors. In his essay about presenteeism, Gosselin provides two reasons that support that approach: the complementarity effect and the substitution effect.
The complementarity effect suggest that one behavior follows the other. Going to work sick (presenteeism) at some point will probably transform into absenteeism and vice versa. In fact,
“presenteeism today can be considered a warning sign of future absenteeism.”
On the contrary, the substitution effect says that if one phenomenon takes place, the other doesn’t occur. In other words, you are either present or absent from work. However, the direction of the substitution has been interpreted in only one direction, “with absenteeism behavior replaced by presenteeism behavior.”
In one way or the other, we can see that there is a strong link between both behaviors. As stated by Gosselin, absenteeism and presenteeism are “behavioral variants originating from concurrent realities”.
An article on presenteeism published in the blog of the Canadian company Solutions & Co. argues that “presenteeism is the result of the valorization of diligence at work aimed at reducing absenteeism, in comparison to which it is still excessive — proportionally and inversely opposed.” In other words, presenteeism “is the flip side of the coin.”
There is only one problem with that coin, though: each side has a very different cost! In fact, while data is often contradictory, everyone agrees that the costs of presenteeism are a lot higher than the costs of absenteeism, which is quite alarming considering the dramatic increase of the former during the last years. Presenteeism is, indeed, the evil flip side of absenteeism. Is there any way to fight that? Of course! And the best way to do it is by building a corporate culture that is focused around your employee’s well-being. Only by doing that, you can effectively deal with this new corporate Frankestein. | https://medium.com/management-business-intelligence-by-beebole/presenteeism-the-evil-flip-side-of-absenteeism-907426591e80 | ['Carlos Quintana'] | 2020-03-04 11:17:46.585000+00:00 | ['Human Resources', 'Employees', 'Employee Engagement', 'Management And Leadership', 'Workforce'] |
Caravaggio, The Calling of Saint Matthew, 1600 | Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism. He made the technique a dominant stylistic element, darkening shadows and transfixing subjects in bright shafts of light. Caravaggio vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring violent struggles, torture, and death. He worked rapidly, with live models, preferring to forgo drawings and work directly onto the canvas. His influence on the new Baroque style that emerged from Mannerism was profound.
The Calling of Saint Matthew is a masterpiece depicting the moment at which Jesus Christ inspires Matthew to follow him. It was completed in 1599–1600 for the Contarelli Chapel in the church of the French congregation, San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, where it remains.
The painting depicts the story from the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 9:9): “Jesus saw a man named Matthew at his seat in the custom house, and said to him, “Follow me”, and Matthew rose and followed Him.” Caravaggio depicts Matthew the tax collector sitting at a table with four other men. Jesus Christ and Saint Peter have entered the room, and Jesus is pointing at Matthew. A beam of light illuminates the faces of the men at the table who are looking at Jesus Christ. | https://medium.com/@bjunior/caravaggio-the-calling-of-saint-matthew-1600-599d740c65ad | ['Benjamin Júnior'] | 2020-12-21 20:43:24.177000+00:00 | ['Caravaggio', 'Art', 'Painting'] |
Quick Start to VSCode Plug-Ins: LSP protocol initialization parameters | By Xulun
After learning how to complete the LSP code, we can try to build a running LSP system. But before that, let’s consolidate some things first. So we have introduced you the handshake process of LSP initialization previously in this tutorial series. Well, now we can receive the client’s initialization parameters, such as the capabilities, in the connection’s onInitialize function.
connection.onInitialize((params: InitializeParams) => {
let capabilities = params.capabilities; return {
capabilities: {
textDocumentSync: documents.syncKind,
// Tell the client that the server supports code completion
completionProvider: {
resolveProvider: true
}
}
};
})
But, hang on, before we get too much into that, let’s take a look at the content of the LSP initialization parameters with a diagram:
Now, let’s take a look at these definitions:
interface InitializeParams {
/**
* The process Id of the parent process that started
* the server. Is null if the process has not been started by another process.
* If the parent process is not alive then the server should exit (see exit notification) its process.
*/
processId: number | null; /**
* The rootPath of the workspace. Is null
* if no folder is open.
*
* @deprecated in favour of rootUri.
*/
rootPath?: string | null; /**
* The rootUri of the workspace. Is null if no
* folder is open. If both `rootPath` and `rootUri` are set
* `rootUri` wins.
*/
rootUri: DocumentUri | null; /**
* User provided initialization options.
*/
initializationOptions?: any; /**
* The capabilities provided by the client (editor or tool)
*/
capabilities: ClientCapabilities; /**
* The initial trace setting. If omitted trace is disabled ('off').
*/
trace?: 'off' | 'messages' | 'verbose'; /**
* The workspace folders configured in the client when the server starts.
* This property is only available if the client supports workspace folders.
* It can be `null` if the client supports workspace folders but none are
* configured.
*
* Since 3.6.0
*/
workspaceFolders?: WorkspaceFolder[] | null;
}
We classify the above information, as shown in the following figure:
It can be mainly classified into the following three types of information:
Information related to the operating environment, such as information about the path and the process.
Capability information.
Some auxiliary information, such as trace settings and user-defined information.
The path information can only be obtained when a directory has been opened in the VSCode where the plug-in is running. So let’s suppose the directory opened is /Users/ziyingliuziying/working/gitlab/cafmode/server , then the result returned by rootPath is /Users/ziyingliuziying/working/gitlab/cafmode/server . The result returned by rootUri is file:///Users/ziyingliuziying/working/gitlab/cafmode/server
Next, workspaceFolders is an array of WorkspaceFolder . Each WorkspaceFolder is an object composed of name and URI. Take the above example as an example: The name is "server" and the URI is file:///Users/ziyingliuziying/working/gitlab/cafmode/server
Original Source | https://medium.com/@alibaba-cloud/quick-start-to-vscode-plug-ins-lsp-protocol-initialization-parameters-5aac1c64bdc3 | ['Alibaba Cloud'] | 2019-10-17 05:26:19.476000+00:00 | ['Development', 'Tutorial', 'Vscode', 'Programming', 'Alibabacloud'] |
How digital streaming media change our habit of consuming entertainment? | Have you watched The Mandalorian’s recent episodes, completing The Breaking Bad series, or maybe binge-watching on Euphoria? If you already watched them, you’re completely catch-up with the movies and series that are inevitably rising and becomes so popular nowadays. Do you wonder what can cause these kinds of entertainment becomes skyrocketed and demanded highly? Almost of us may think that these are the new way to enjoy entertainment in this digital era. Yea, it is true. But there is some reason why people are slowly moving into digital streaming media as their primary entertainment provider.
As we’re living along with the internet connection and the development of technology, it must be normal for people to keep up with the latest thing they can reach. The rise of internet consumption has changed how people do their activities, from interacting with other people on message apps and social media, shopping on e-commerce, and enjoying online entertainment. I bet we all already familiar with nowaday’s streaming entertainment for music, videos, podcasts, and movies like Spotify, Deezer, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Anchors — you named it. We are slowly moving into more “digitalized” products rather than staying with the conventional ones. If you were born in the 1970s until the 1990s, you may spend most of your free time watching television programs or play console games to fulfill the entertainment needs. Television is already dominated household entertainment until the late 2000s alongside cinemas and video players. The time before the internet may make you divide your time to enjoy things. Fortunately, gadgets and the internet can provide us entertainment that fresher than in the past.
What makes streaming media having more demands than conventional ones?
Content
Media is made for delivering content for the consumers. As televisions and radios had their own scheduled programs to be broadcasted, we as their consumers can’t decide which programs we want to watch or listen to. We can only pick the one that “close enough” to our needs instead of filtering them. Back at the time, the only way to choose content that fitted with our need is by buying VHS cassettes or CDs to be played by ourself. Otherwise, we can only enjoy what television programs available on the screen. With online streaming media, we can have more authority over the content we consume. Take a look at Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime, for example. We can choose which movies or series that fitted with our taste. Pick one kind of movie, and the build-in AI algorithm will suggest to you other movies or series related to it. It also works on Youtube videos and Spotify songs. Youtube algorithm can filter what kind of videos you may like and get rid of others you may not be interested in, based on videos you have already watched. Spotify will suggest some songs and albums that are related to the genres you play the most. The contents provided by these digital streaming media platforms can act like they knew the consumers, thanks to the AI and algorithm within them. People find out this feature can help and ease them to decide which kind of content they want to consume. This is why people are more preferred digital streaming media to their old TV or radio network.
Photo by David Balev on Unsplash
Devices
In the past, our granddad and grandma used radio to fulfill their necessity for information and entertainment. With the lack of technology by only hearing sounds that comes from radio announcer. Then comes television that can display visuals and audio, so it is more enjoyable to receive information or enjoy entertainment. As the technology evolved and became advanced, gadgets like computers, smartphones, tablets, and smart TV have eased us to enjoy the available entertainment around us, from a weighed boxy television to a small screen smartphone that fits in our pocket. This technological advancement seems pretty important to change our behavior to enjoying entertainment. We have already become a gadget-oriented society as we spend hours of our daily activities on the screen. People enjoy watching videos, movies, and listening to their favorite songs streamingly because it is way simpler today. Just connect your gadgets to the internet and enjoy them!
In the past, our granddad and grandma used radio to fulfill their necessity for information and entertainment. With the lack of technology by only hearing sounds that comes from radio announcer. Then comes television that can display visuals and audio, so it is more enjoyable to receive information or enjoy entertainment. As the technology evolved and became advanced, gadgets like computers, smartphones, tablets, and smart TV have eased us to enjoy the available entertainment around us, from a weighed boxy television to a small screen smartphone that fits in our pocket. This technological advancement seems pretty important to change our behavior to enjoying entertainment. We have already become a gadget-oriented society as we spend hours of our daily activities on the screen. People enjoy watching videos, movies, and listening to their favorite songs streamingly because it is way simpler today. Just connect your gadgets to the internet and enjoy them! Experience
Do you ever feel annoyed being intercepted by ads while listening to your weekly billboard music on the radio? or lost your patience on 15 minutes-long household ads on television? Sometimes it distracts us from enjoying things. We can’t simply eliminate those ads because it was the main income for these conventional media to survive beside their ratings. The good side is you wouldn’t be found these annoying ads on streaming media platforms. It can happen because the most common streaming media contents are ads-free. A subscription is usually needed to enjoy this kind of entertainment. Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime had their own bundling subscription package that customers can choose from. Spotify and iTunes also had subscriptions to get premium accounts that can be used to get rid of the ads and download music directly to the device. By subscribing to the providers monthly or yearly, consumers can stream a lot of entertainment on streaming media platform without any distraction. It could enhance the consumer experience to enjoy things more hassle-free.
In recent years, the customers considered screen resolution and audio quality as the reason for their subscription. As 4K and the upcoming 8K high definition display quality flooded the market, streaming media also adapted to chase these resolutions to be implemented within their products. High-quality audio like Dolby Digital also becomes the new standard of music, movies, and videos provided by these platforms.
Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash
Access
Access to enjoy entertainment is way easier nowadays. As the gadget and technology improvement that already explained above. No need to stare into your living room TV to watch comedy or reality show again. You can have it while riding the bus way back home after office on your smartphone. If you felt unproductive at work, you can play your favorite songs streamingly from your computer website instantly to boost your mood. Our gadgets’ simplicity with the improvisation of internet speed can sparks joy to anyone, anywhere, and anytime. Didn’t have any smart TV? Don’t worry, and you can improvise your old TV by adding Chromecast or android dongles, and voila! Now you can stream your favorite series on it. Everything could be easily accessible with a stable internet connection. Moreover, we hope that the 5G connection could boost the streaming speed in the upcoming years.
Access to enjoy entertainment is way easier nowadays. As the gadget and technology improvement that already explained above. No need to stare into your living room TV to watch comedy or reality show again. You can have it while riding the bus way back home after office on your smartphone. If you felt unproductive at work, you can play your favorite songs streamingly from your computer website instantly to boost your mood. Our gadgets’ simplicity with the improvisation of internet speed can sparks joy to anyone, anywhere, and anytime. Didn’t have any smart TV? Don’t worry, and you can improvise your old TV by adding Chromecast or android dongles, and voila! Now you can stream your favorite series on it. Everything could be easily accessible with a stable internet connection. Moreover, we hope that the 5G connection could boost the streaming speed in the upcoming years. Cost-Worthiness
Quality comes with a price. Indeed, almost all streaming media platforms- except the pirated ones- come with a subscription. If you look closely and compare the streamed and the conventional and free media content will be much different. In TV programs, you may find slapstick jokes, low-budget serials, or opera-soap dramas. It is used by these conventional media platforms to cut the budget to the minimum they can to produce content. The result? Cheap and slightly non-professional content consumed by almost all people. They may focus their production funds on the news and information programs because it has the highest rating on television. In streaming media platforms, they already put subscriptions to their consumers before they can access the contents. Customers pay a subscription to enjoy things isn’t without any reason. Most streaming media platforms provide content like videos, series, or movies by buying the original creators' license. They also join the game by creating their own series or movies on a “real” budget. Take a look at Netflix, HBO, or Amazon Prime originals. They were creating their own movies and series with a guideline from their customer’s interest pattern. They provide quality over quantity. It builds customers’ perspective towards these streaming media as eligible platforms that they worth spent their pennies on.
Quality comes with a price. Indeed, almost all streaming media platforms- except the pirated ones- come with a subscription. If you look closely and compare the streamed and the conventional and free media content will be much different. In TV programs, you may find slapstick jokes, low-budget serials, or opera-soap dramas. It is used by these conventional media platforms to cut the budget to the minimum they can to produce content. The result? Cheap and slightly non-professional content consumed by almost all people. They may focus their production funds on the news and information programs because it has the highest rating on television. In streaming media platforms, they already put subscriptions to their consumers before they can access the contents. Customers pay a subscription to enjoy things isn’t without any reason. Most streaming media platforms provide content like videos, series, or movies by buying the original creators' license. They also join the game by creating their own series or movies on a “real” budget. Take a look at Netflix, HBO, or Amazon Prime originals. They were creating their own movies and series with a guideline from their customer’s interest pattern. They provide quality over quantity. It builds customers’ perspective towards these streaming media as eligible platforms that they worth spent their pennies on. Pandemic shaped society.
The last thing but had the most impact on the streaming media rise is definitely this year’s coronavirus pandemic. As we are currently passing through this pandemic disaster from early February until the end of the year, everybody seems physically and mentally impacted by this hard time. The pandemic makes countries and nations strictly limited physical contact, suggested social distancing, and released lockdown policies. Most people are now spending their daily activities at home, but still connected online, thanks to the internet connection. This pandemic already changed our behavior on consuming entertainment too. We are no longer watch the latest movies at the cinema or attending our favorite music concert easily. What we can do is now streams all of these entertainments online, from our home. Even teachers taught the course for their students online. This makes streaming media increasingly skyrocketed this year. People are now spending their money more on their internet bills and online media subscription. We are heading into a digitalized citizen soon.
Photo by Michael Oxendine on Unsplash
The effect for both consumers and distributors
There are some positive points we can get from the presence of streaming media platform. It is definitely impacted both the consumers and the providers. As the consumer, we can have more choices on the entertainment provided with eligible content. We can filter what we really want to consume and not wasting our time watching unwanted content. The key to gain consumer satisfaction is convenience. It is convenient to enjoy things related to customer interest, convenience on payments and subscriptions, and convenience on media accessibility. All of that enjoyment already packed into one. For creators, artists, providers, and distributors could gain more benefits from this streaming media thing. As this pandemic already crashes almost all business types, digital workers are still standing through this hard time. The internet and digital-related companies are making more millions of profit. Digital companies were actually not impacted directly by this pandemic. They even become the backbone of other companies to survive through this pandemic by providing and assisting them in making a profit from digital platforms. Selling products from websites, online orders, even making transactions digitalized. Artists, creators, and crews who worked on entertainment also positively valued, joining the streaming media market. They would to still have their jobs or even be flooded with jobs as the demand for this streaming media still raised higher through times.
There are many types of entertainment you could found around — the conventional or more modern and digitalized ones. As time and technology rolling, people are slowly moving into the digitalized one. It is up to you to choose which kind of entertainment that suits you the most. Are you ready for a change? Or stick into the old one?
Looking for the right partner for your digital transformation? Let’s talk or visit Glovory.com now!
Contributor: Abdul Hamid | https://medium.com/@glovorytech/how-digital-streaming-media-change-our-habit-of-consuming-entertainment-c1e57ed12ba0 | ['Glovory Tech'] | 2020-12-16 07:39:48.117000+00:00 | ['Digital Goods', 'Digital Content', 'Content', 'Streaming', 'Digital Transformation'] |
Trump’s Military Coup Moment Has Arrived | If you’re not slightly terrified, filled with a state of unease at the present moment, you should be. What’s so special about this moment, you might ask? One can only guess at what must be going on in the mind of U.S. President Donald Trump, as he contemplates his options. Over the past five years, anyone with a sound mind and rational thinking capabilities has been downright alarmed at the president’s autocratic tendencies, his complete inability to understand the basic functioning of our government, and his insistence on using the proverbial broad sword of the military where the surgical precision of political savvy is necessary.
If there was ever a time that many of our fears would be most likely to materialize, this would be it. As President Trump scrambles to buy time and figure out a way to overturn the legitimate election that unseated him, the President who’s shared all of the traditional hallmarks of the autocratic tendency is looking for any way to cling to power. And Trump has a lot of unsavory characters in his orbit these days.
Between Sidney Powell, the lawyer who stood in front of the nation and talked about “releasing the Kraken” before espousing a series of conspiracy theories that sought to explain why Trump lost the election; and Michael Flynn, the disgraced former National Security Advisor who now spends his free time talking about a military coup on live TV; it’s safe to say the better characters in Trump’s inner orbit have jumped ship.
Senators like Mitt Romney have long stood against Trump’s antics. And now even Bill Barr, Trump’s hand-picked attorney general is fleeing and making statements that distance himself from the President’s lies and undemocratic pronouncements.
It seems like just days ago I was reporting on Michael Flynn’s live TV interview where he said the President could just install the military in the battleground states where he didn’t win, force them to hold another election — one where Trump, not Biden would win — and thus steal the election from the duly elected President-elect Joe Biden. That was bad enough.
But the three members of Trump’s dark inner circle had a meeting Friday morning, Trump, Powell, and Michael Flynn, where they discussed Sidney Powell being elected to the position of a special council to uncover perceived election interference, interference that there’s zero evidence for (and all evidence points in the opposite direction). But beyond this, Flynn apparently may have raised the point of implementing martial law, using the military to functionally enact an American coup.
While Senator Romney and others decried the meeting and said there’s no way possible any of this would fly, it is alarming to stop and think, “We’re here.” We’re at this point, the do-or-die moment, as Trump stands before the American Rubicon, barely treading above water in his last 700 hours in office (at the time of this writing). He’s likely desperate, confused, and volatile.
This may very well be the first moment in Trump’s life where he’s met a problem he can’t buy, lie, or cheat his way out of. The voters have spoken. His sentence has been finalized. He’s committed to being a one-term President who oversaw several of the biggest catastrophes in American history. Not only that, he stoked the flames of each, from COVID-19 denialism to anti-mask rhetoric, to fanning the flames of the George Floyd protests and sending in unmarked federal troops to clash with protestors (and rioters, to be fair) in the streets.
Make no mistake, the stuff Michael Flynn has been talking about over the last few weeks are dangerous. He said Trump could give the order to steal voting machines in order to hold a new election, a mock election, functionally undoing the vote of the American People.
And Trump asked about the idea, poking around for details that might help him in his quest to remain president at all costs. Trump seems to have forgotten the raging pandemic that’s claimed over 300,000 American lives.
One has to wonder what’s going through the minds of these people. Can they not accept the fact that they lost? For me, it’s hard to put myself into the mental state of the kind of person who would burn down the Republic because they couldn’t handle losing, but it seems that Trump, Flynn, Powell, and the surprising (read: alarming) amount of followers who’ve still clung to the Trump brand like a fading trend they’d invested their life savings on, are just those kinds of people. Incapable of accepting reality as it is.
The Republican Party Chair of Arizona is even urging Trump, in those words, to “cross the Rubicon,” an obvious reference to Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon River and starting of the Roman Civil War of 49 B.C. This is just one more statement in a long lineage of Confederate apologetics and civil war rhetoric. None of this is new for much of the Republican base. It makes me wonder…
What are they really thinking? What are they really planning? And could it really work? For what it’s worth, I think we have a good hunch about what the answer might be to the first two questions. And fortunately, to the last question, I think it’s just about next to impossible. Trump would have to find military generals willing to carry out such commands in his name. Here we’d have a draft dodger ordering career military to essentially undo the American nation. Something tells me that conversation wouldn’t go over so well.
There is also the problem of checks and balances, something that was thankfully built right into the American system. “He’s leaving Washington with a whole series of conspiracy theories and things that are so nutty and loopy that people are shaking their head wondering what in the world has gotten into this man,” said Senator Romney about these final weeks of the Trump presidency.
Romney followed up by saying, “It’s not going to happen. That’s going nowhere. And I understand the president is casting about trying to find some way to have a different result than the one that was delivered by the American people, but it’s really sad in a lot of respects and embarrassing.”
I can’t see how this doesn’t inch us closer and closer toward the moment where they finally declare themselves, along with their own social media networks like Parler, their own media channels with partisan facts, and entire ecosystem of hyper-partisan eco chambers, to be a separate country altogether. Or, even worse, to be “the real United States.” But the real question still lingers…
Where does this all go? What does this point to? Will it just be a fracture in the Republican Party, a surface-level shift as the party rebounds post-Trump? Or does this signify a larger, deeper fracture in our society as a whole? Time will tell, but I suspect that with the separation of truth and dogma as such with hyper-partisan media, it’ll be more of the latter. Assuming Trump can’t pull something off. But it’s scary that Trump’s military coup moment has arrived and the discussions about such a coup are literally underway. | https://medium.com/@joemduncan/trumps-military-coup-moment-has-arrived-9737caad1f79 | ['Joe Duncan'] | 2020-12-21 18:58:56.945000+00:00 | ['Military', 'United States', 'Election 2020', 'Trump', 'Politics'] |
How to Age Effectively — Tips for Longevity | How do you approach aging? Do you greet each birthday with a smile? Are you afraid of becoming a senior citizen? Maybe you don’t think about it at all. Old age is a long way off.
No matter how old you are, it’s never too early to start preparing for your future. In this article, we’ll review some simple ways to keep you healthy as you age. We’ll also discover that you don’t need to be afraid of getting older. In many ways, the best is yet to come.
How Smiling Can Keep You Alive
We’re going to start with an easy one.
A genuine smile can light up the room. It can also help you stay healthy in old age.
In Better With Age, Alan Castel discusses a study where researchers reviewed old baseball cards. They then divided the players into three categories:
The researchers then went back to see how long each of the players lived. The men who had no smiles lived to be an average of 72 years old. The half smilers made it to 75. The players with full, genuine smiles lived to be 80.
Of course, smiling might not cause a longer life, but expressing happiness and having a positive attitude are correlated with longevity.
How Physical Exercise Trains Your Body and Your Mind
There are few activities more important than physical exercise. Getting the blood flowing can help prevent a wide range of diseases, keep you at a healthy weight, and reduce stress.
Starting at around 50 years old, a part of the brain called the hippocampus starts to shrink. The hippocampus’s main job is to help with memory formation. A declining hippocampus is also associated with declining executive function and depression.
Walking just three times a day can help prevent mental decline. For bonus points, walk with someone else and make it social!
In one study, one group of elderly adults was assigned to walk 40 minutes, three days a week. After one year, their hippocampi grew by 2%. Both control groups (one assigned to stretching and one assigned to non-activity) each had hippocampi that shrunk by 1%.
It appears that cardiovascular exercise can help stop or even reverse age-related mental decline.
In The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge explains how physical exercise can help jumpstart neurogenesis-the creation of new neurons. The brain’s ability to adapt to new situations- neuroplasticity -is also linked with cardiovascular exercise.
You don’t have to be running marathons to get the benefits. As seen in the study above, even a walk outside can make a big difference.
If You Want to Stay Sharp, Never Stop Learning
When we grow up, we’re faced with new situations all the time. New material in school. Evolving social structures. Learning the ropes when we start our careers.
However, if you’re not careful, you can get complacent. While it can be comfortable to coast once you’ve settled into life, it’s not good for your health.
In The Brain That Changes Itself, Doidge explains that while physical exercise creates neurons, learning something new helps those neurons last longer. In addition, lifelong learning is associated with lower rates of dementia.
To keep the brain sharp, you can:
Read about unfamiliar topics
Learn to play an instrument
Learn a new language
Memorize poems
Learn to dance
A dance class offers a learning opportunity, exercise, and social interaction. The trifecta!
Mix it up and become a student of life. Getting outside your comfort zone keeps your brain on its toes and encourages increased neuroplasticity.
Try switching up your habits. Brush your teeth with your non-dominant hand. For bonus points, brush your teeth on one leg! Then you’ll be training your body and mind at the same time.
Learning new things can also expose you to other people, which is another great way to keep yourself healthy as you age.
Social Relationships Are Critical to Healthy Aging
Communicating with friends and family can work wonders. In Better With Age, Alan Castel explains that older adults with a social life tend to outlive those who are more isolated. Plus, staying social is associated with lower dementia rates and higher immune system function.
Staying connected can also help keep older adults happy. In one study, social interaction helped prevent depression in older adults. However, only face-to-face interactions really worked. Talking on the phone had modest effects. Texts and emails didn’t help at all.
Staying social is especially important after retirement. Older adults should make an effort and get out into the world. Human interaction is key.
The best activities combine social activity with physical exercise and learning something new. A dance class is an excellent example of an activity that checks all three boxes. Maximum brain protection.
Relax. It’s All Going to Work out.
Relax. You have a lot to look forward to.
While getting older might seem scary, there are many benefits. Studies have shown that older adults are consistently happier than those in middle age. While younger adults tend to focus more on negative information and material goals, the elderly focus on positivity and social goals. It’ll get better!
With age comes wisdom. Older adults tend to be more effective at controlling their emotions, not jumping to conclusions, and learning from their mistakes.
In any case, worrying about the future won’t make it any better. Acceptance of one’s circumstances is a reliable marker of life satisfaction as we age.
In fact, in Better With Age, Castel explains how having a negative outlook on aging is associated with higher rates of dementia and cardiovascular disease. On the other hand, staying positive and feeling younger is associated with a healthier lifestyle as an older adult. Just take a deep breath. You’ll be fine.
We should be thankful for what we have and stay present in the moment. We don’t need to fear old age.
“I am an old man, and I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened” — Mark Twain
Perhaps the best course of action is to accept your circumstances while also preparing for the future. Be sure to get physical exercise, keep learning, and strengthen your relationships. Life is a wonderful journey. You have plenty of time left. Make the best of it. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-age-effectively-tips-for-longevity-430954c8f62c | ['Michael Bjorn Huseby'] | 2019-11-08 04:27:13.854000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Longevity', 'Aging', 'Mental Health', 'Science'] |
Gradient Descent | In our day-to-day lives, we are optimizing variables based on our personal decisions and we don’t even recognize the process consciously. We are constantly using optimization techniques all day long, for example, while going to work, choosing a shorter route in order to minimize traffic woes, figuring out and managing a quick walk around the campus during a snack break, or scheduling a cab in advance to reach the airport on time.
Optimization is the ultimate goal, whether you are dealing with actual events in real-life or creating a technology-based product. Optimization is at the heart of most of the statistical and machine learning techniques which are widely used in data science.
Optimization for Machine Learning
Accuracy is the word with which we are most concerned, while we are dealing with problems related to machine learning and artificial intelligence. Any rate of errors cannot be tolerated while dealing with real-world problems and neither should they be compromised.
Let us consider a case of self-driving cars. The model fitted in the car detects any obstacles that come in the way and takes appropriate actions, which can be slowing down the speed or pulling on the brakes and so on. Now we need to keep this in mind that there is no human in the car to operate or withdraw the actions taken by the self-driving car. In such a scenario, suppose the model is not accurate. It will not be able to detect other cars or any pedestrians and end up crashing leading to several lives at risk.
This is where we need optimization algorithms to evaluate our model and judge whether the model is performing according to our needs or not.
Optimization may be defined as the process by which an optimum is achieved. Optimization techniques are performed on the training data and then the validation data set is used to check its performance. Here we will talk about a optimization technique gradient descent
Gradient Descent
The whole concept of Gradient descent is to minimize the cost function of a ML model
It uses the below formula to minimize the cost of a function
I know I know this is not going to make sense if I just throw some formulas and call it a day
So let’s take step by step
First let me explain you how a ML model works and what a cost function is
Machine Learning Model
Consider a bunch of data points in a 2 D space. Assume that the data is related to the area and price of a group of houses. We are trying to predict some kind of relationship between these quantities so that we could predict the price of some new houses afterwards given the area of the houses. This is essentially a simple example of a supervised Machine Learning technique.
Let us now draw an arbitrary line in space that passes through some of these data points. The equation of this straight line would be Y = mX + b where m is the slope and b is its intercept on the Y-axis.
Predictions
With a known set of inputs and their corresponding outputs, a machine learning model attempts to make predictions according to the new set of inputs.
Error
The Error would be the difference between the two predictions.
This relates to the idea of a Cost function or Loss function.
Cost Function
A Cost Function/Loss Function evaluates the performance of our Machine Learning Algorithm.
A Cost Function/Loss Function tells us “how good” our model is at making predictions for a given set of parameters. The cost function has a curve and a gradient, the slope of this curve helps us to update our parameters and make an accurate model.
Let’s say, there are a total of ’N’ points in the dataset and for all those ’N’ data points we want to minimize the error. So the Cost function would be the total squared error i.e
Now a question may arise,
Why do we take the squared differences and simply not the absolute differences?
Because the squared differences make it easier to derive a regression line. Indeed, to find that line we need to compute the first derivative of the Cost function, and it is much harder to compute the derivative of absolute values than squared values. Also, the squared differences increase the error distance, thus, making the bad predictions more pronounced than the good ones.
Gradient Descent in Action
So as you may have got the idea till now We need to minimize the cost function which will also result in a lower error between the predicted values and the actual values which also denotes that the algorithm has performed well in learning.
How do we minimize this?????
If we look carefully, our Cost function is of the form Y = X² . In a Cartesian coordinate system, this is an equation for a parabola and can be graphically represented as :
As mentioned above the cost function is of the form
Now in order to minimize the function mentioned above, firstly we need to find the value of X which will produce the lowest value of Y (in this case it is the red dot). With lower dimensions (like 2D in this case) it becomes easier to locate the minima but it is not the same while dealing with higher dimensions. For such cases, we need to use the Gradient Descent algorithm to locate the minima.
Now how would you reach the minima the redo dot
Consider that you are walking along the graph below, and you are currently at the ‘green’ dot. Your aim is to reach the minimum i.e the ‘red’ dot, but from your position, you are unable to view it.
Think of gradient descent as hiking down to the bottom of a valley.
The equation below describes what gradient descent does: b is the next position while a represents his current position.
Δf(a) is nothing but the cost of going from point a to point b
Where as gamma in the middle is the Learning Rate ie in our analogy of moving down the mountain is how big of a step you should take
IMPORTANCE OF THE LEARNING RATE
How big the steps are gradient descent takes into the direction of the local minimum are determined by the learning rate, which figures out how fast or slow we will move towards the optimal weights.
For gradient descent to reach the local minimum we must set the learning rate to an appropriate value, which is neither too low nor too high. This is important because if the steps it takes are too big, it may not reach the local minimum because it bounces back and forth between the convex function of gradient descent (see left most image below). If we set the learning rate to a very small value, gradient descent will eventually reach the local minimum but that may take a while (see the right most image).
HOW TO MAKE SURE IT WORKS PROPERLY
A good way to make sure gradient descent runs properly is by plotting the cost function as the optimization runs. Put the number of iterations on the x-axis and the value of the cost-function on the y-axis. This helps you see the value of your cost function after each iteration of gradient descent
If gradient descent is working properly, the cost function should decrease after every iteration.
When gradient descent can’t decrease the cost-function anymore and remains more or less on the same level, it has converged.
Conclusion
The point of this article was to demonstrate the concept of gradient descent. We used gradient descent as our optimization strategy | https://medium.com/@hemangikinger15/gradient-descent-30d899e2eeae | ['Hemangi Kinger'] | 2020-10-11 18:11:41.310000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Ml Gradient Descent', 'Gradient Descent'] |
Is Qi Gong a Religion? | For many, Qi Gong is not only a catalyst for powerful emotional and energetic transformations but also a spiritual transformation. In Qi Gong, the word “spirit” is translated as “shen.”
Shen actually has many different meanings — consciousness, mind, heart-mind, spirit, thought. Given Qi Gong’s far-reaching impact on human consciousness, many practitioners end up asking themselves how Qi Gong fits into their religious or spiritual beliefs.
In most Qi Gong classes the emphasis is on the health and healing experience, and often, the question of religion is left out of the conversation. Many practitioners will encounter one or several of the following questions: What is Qi Gong in relation to God and spirituality? Is Qi Gong its own religion? What’s the relationship between Taoism and Qi Gong? Does Qi Gong conflict with Christianity or any other region? These are healthy preponderances, and questions that this blog will seek to answer. Before delving into these questions, let’s set the foundation about where Qi Gong came from.
Origins, Foundation, and Practice of Qi Gong
Qi Gong originated in ancient China and was a way for people of all classes and backgrounds to tap into their own inner potential for health and vitality. Put simply, Qi Gong is an exploration and cultivation of who we are as humans. Practicing Qi Gong doesn’t require any specific set of beliefs, and in fact, you don’t even need to believe in Qi (although you probably will once you feel its effects). Qi signifies the aliveness within. Do you believe you are alive? What name do you want to give that aliveness? In China, it was called Qi. Believing in Qi is like believing in air. Both are invisible, both sustain and support life, and both are so apparent that we often don’t notice them.
So no, Qi Gong is not a religion. Rather, it is a practice that does not need to imply anything whatsoever beyond your own experience. Long before doctors were prescribing medicines and surgeries to deal with ailments and sickness, Qi Gong practitioners were using their own innate energy to regulate their energy and heal their bodies and minds.
Another foundational element of Qi Gong is that it is practiced from the inside out. This means that Qi Gong can be absolutely anything you want it to be. It is completely your own practice, and a way for you to relate to your body, mind, and spirit. Many people find that Qi Gong takes them on unfamiliar internal journeys into their bodies, feelings, and thoughts. Since we all relate to similar feelings and experiences of energy, it is often helpful to have an experienced Qi Gong teacher guide you through practices to help you realize yourself more clearly. This doesn’t mean that someone is telling you what is real or what you should believe, it simply means that a teacher might be able to help point you in the direction of yourself. By tapping into the energy and uniqueness that is already inside, you can join millennia of practitioners who all shared the same intention for health, vitality, and self-awareness.
Relationship Between Qi Gong and Religion
We’ve already discussed that Qi Gong is not a religion, but a practice of self-exploration and growth. Oftentimes, discovery of self leads to religious or spiritual awakening. On occasion, a devoutly religious person may say “I am a dedicated Christian/Muslim/Jew/Etc…, how can I share a spiritual practice with others who have different beliefs.”
A psychologist may point out that we each have our own schema of reality, and each person will experience the world through his or her own set values and beliefs. This just means that each person will have a little different experience of Qi Gong, and that is completely okay. Again, Qi Gong is simply the study and cultivation of who we are, so it’s actually completely impossible for us all to have the exact same experience of Qi since everyone is different. Obviously, religion plays a big role in determining worldviews, so it is only natural for religion to influence the experience of Qi. If a Christian experiences Jesus in connection to Qi, that is completely legitimate, and if thoughts of the Buddha are felt by a Buhhdist, that can be embraced as well.
What Qi Gong is not, is a set of rules that tell you how to live. Qi Gong may help you to discover truths within yourself, perhaps even via a specific religious context, but Qi Gong does not tell you what should or should not do.
Since Qi Gong does often awaken self-realization and help people to become aware of their truest intentions, many people do integrate Qi Gong into their spiritual or religious practice. In fact, many people of all religions find that Qi Gong is an excellent complement to their relationship with the divine. It’s very normal for the practice to enhance one’s connection to a belief or religion that is already established. For others, they may decide that Qi Gong is simply a useful tool to let go of stress and get some exercise, and that is completely okay also.
Taoism and Qi Gong
Those who are slightly more experienced may wonder about the relationship between Taoism and Qi Gong, since many higher-level lessons talk about Taoist teachings. Although many Qi Gong practices are based on the same understandings that Taoist texts discuss, there is nothing that is specifically religious about the practice. Similar to Qi Gong, Taoism is not a set of rules or beliefs that tell you how to live, but rather, it is a way of seeing causality in the Universe. Understanding Taoist principles can be helpful in Qi Gong because each person is their own microcosm of the entire universe.
Some people do practice Taoism as a religion, but it is not exclusively that. There are many people who say they appreciate Buddhist psychology and meditation, but in a conversation, they are adamant to clarify that they don’t consider themselves a Buddhist. Recognizing the merits of a way of looking at the world does not mean you need to ascribe to its teachings. It is completely possible (and healthy) to continue cultivating whatever religious or spiritual path you are on, while practicing Qi Gong in the way that best serves your individual needs.
Conclusion
In conclusion, a healthy approach to Qi Gong is one in which practitioners put themselves at the center of the practice, and allow their own truths to channel through it. As an exploration of the self, Qi Gong can be a great way for you to gain greater insight into mind, body, and even religion (if you want to go there). Just as gravity can be felt and experienced by people of all religions, so can Qi. Hopefully, this discussion has cleared some questions for you, or perhaps stirred some thoughts about what you want Qi Gong to be for you. Just remember, if you’re ever confused about what Qi Gong should be, just turn your gaze inward and you’ll always be right.
If you’re interested in learning more about how Qi Gong can help you connect to your personal truth and experience greater joy and vitality, be sure to check out the Free Two-Week Qi Gong Trial. | https://medium.com/@holdenqigong/is-qi-gong-a-religion-66de8b58075e | ['Holden Qigong'] | 2021-09-14 17:47:23.568000+00:00 | ['Qigong', 'Coffee Times Movement', 'Religion And Spirituality', 'Wellness', 'Health'] |
Sentiment Analysis of a Youtube video (Part 2) | This is the Part 2 of the series of implementation of Sentiment Analysis. If you haven’t read the Part 1, I would suggest you to read the “Sentiment Analysis of a Youtube Video”. In this part we will be cleaning our text data to get meaningful insights.
QUICK RECAP
We are performing Sentiment Analysis on the below youtube video part by part. We are taking the video on “The uprising of India’s farmers: What’s behind the protests?” published by Global News.
This video is about “Farmers in India have been rallying for months against three agricultural laws enacted Sept. 20 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. The Indian government has argued the changes will give farmers more freedom, but farmers are concerned the new laws will drive down their products’ prices with no safeguards to protect them against corporate takeovers and exploitation. But the crisis in India’s agricultural sector is nothing new as the industry has been suffering for decades.”
PART 2: CLEANSING THE DATA
Cleansing the text data is very important as it can contain many unwanted characters. This cleaning can go forever as it is not like a numerical data where data cleaning often involves removing null values and duplicate data, dealing with outliers, etc.
There are some common data cleaning techniques in text data, which are also known as text pre-processing techniques.
Common data cleaning steps on all text:
Make text all lower case
Remove punctuation
Remove numerical values
Remove common non-sensical text (/n)
Remove emojis
In previous article we have successfully scrapped all the comments of the above youtube video through the Youtube API. In this part we will be cleansing our data to get meaningful insights from it.
Step 1: Import the data from the “response.json” file
We got our response in json format. I saved it in a file named “response.json”.
We have imported our json data into “response” variable. This step is not mandatory. I have done this because I just saved the data so that I can work on same data which I got in my previous article. If I again ran the API, it would fetch me newest comments. You can directly go to the step 3.
Step 2: Putting response data into Data Frame
Remember: This is the same code we used in Step 3 of Google API in part 1 article.
We will get our data frame “df” as shown below:
Step 3: Cleaning — Round 1
In our “Comments” column we have several emojis used by the comment author which needed to be removed. In line 3, we have deleted those emojis.
There were also some numbers present in the comments which are unnecessary. So we removed it in line 4.
There were some special characters needed to be removed like,
: , @ , * , ) , period(.), $ , ! , ?, comma(,) , %, “
These characters we have removed in line 5.
Round 1
After performing all the cleaning in round 1 we saw the data which still had some of the special characters. So we need to perform round 2 of cleaning process.
Step 4: Cleaning — Round 2
There were still some emojis left after round 1 of cleaning. Those were 💁🌾 😎 ♥ 🤷♂. So we removed those in line 2 in below code.
There were also some special character left which needed to be removed. This was removed in line 3.
Round 2
After performing round 2, we find there were some new line characters present in the comments and also some leftover special characters. This we removed in round 3.
Step 5: Cleaning — Round 3
The new line characters present in some of the comments were removed by line 2.
‘ , 🇵🇰 , ; , ! special characters left in both rounds were finally removed at line 3.
Round 3
We got our dataframe shown below.
But we forgot our first step of cleaning which says that make the text in lowercase. Let’s do it in another round.
Step 6: Cleaning — Round 4
Till now, we have cleaned our data by removing unnecessary comments, special characters, numbers and emojis.
The only thing left is to make all the comments in lower case.
Bingo! Now we got our data frame ready to be used for next part.
Let’s assemble all the codes together from Part 1 article and this article.
This completes the cleaning part of the data. I have only applied most common cleansing step which everyone does. You can apply other cleaning steps like removing of Stop Words etc. To achieve better results you should try to clean your data as much as possible. It will enhance your analysis.
In the next part we will see the concept of Subjectivity, Polarity and how they are used. We will also form word clouds to visualize commonly used words in the comments by different users.
Stay tuned for next part!! | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/sentiment-analysis-of-a-youtube-video-part-2-9621b8f77e12 | ['Amit Ranjan'] | 2020-12-15 16:35:07.107000+00:00 | ['Data Cleaning', 'Naturallanguageprocessing', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning', 'Sentimental Analysis'] |
IcedID aka #Bokbot Analysis with Ghidra. | The first stage, or how to unpack IcedID?
If we want to unpack this file ourselves, then we can look at the OA Labs video tutorial, which is available there or follow the instruction below.
Briefly to unpack this sample:
Set breakpoint on VirtualAlloc method
2. Launch sample and wait for the debugger to stop on this method, and then look at the allocated memory address (the address is returned by VirtualAlloc $EAX).
Once we have this address, set a breakpoint on the initial bytes of the address and wait until the program write data to this address.
3. As we can see at this point, the initial bytes of the allocated memory area begin with 4D 5A (MZ). It means that there is the second stage of the sample.
4. We save the memory to a file and and now we have a copy of the second stage to analyze.
The second stage
After unpacking the file and then previewing the generated pseudocode in #Ghidra, we can see the following flow.
In line №15, the argument from parameter “-q=” is retrieved.
If this parameter is not present, the code beginning on line 17 is started.Further parameters are checked.
Why does he do it ?
The process under debugger, creates the a new process which is not debugged. It is one of the way to escape from the debugger.
We have several options to debug the new process.
Ps. For instance I looked at what parameters it is run “CreateProcessA” and again execute the malware with the additional option under the debugger.
“C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Temp\5.exe” -q=[int]”
for example:
“C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Temp\5.exe” -q=412588568”
Once these argument checks have passed the next interested function to analyze is FUN_004011be().
This function contains a simple decryption algorithm, that begins at address 004011d5. Here there is a loop, which gets value from the address [00403000+ESI].
Then the bitwise shift operation is performed to the right. Then the lower bits of $EAX register is downloaded. The value of the AL register indicates the element number from the second data set “0123456789ABCDEF”
In the next step, the value from the address [00403000 + ESI] is taken again and the “AND” operation is performed.
AND EAX,0xf, the retrieved is lower bits of $EAX register
The AL register value indicates the element number from the second data set “0123456789ABCDEF”
This algorithm has been replicated in python below.
key=file(‘data3.txt’).read()
tab=file(‘data2.txt’).read()
ind = 0
res = []
p=””
for i in key:
first_poz = ord(i)>>4
second_poz = ord(i)&0xf
res.append(tab[first_poz])
res.append(tab[second_poz])
ind+=1
if ind > 1107: # while (uVar5 < 0x454);
break
for i in res:
p=p+i
print(p)
An example of the output is shown below.
Using the debugger we can verify the output from our script.
Afterwards, the “q” parameter is generated.
The next step is to run the process again with the parameters that were checked in the above conditions (-q=[int]). In the second start of the process, after passing the conditions, we come to the function.
create_self_process_with_additional_params() (org. FUN_0040124a()), which launches a new process of svchost.exe
Anti-debugging, or GetNativeSystemInfo.
Before the creation of the svchost process the malware uses an anti-debugging method. Malware uses a known method to this end called “GetNativeSystemInfo” (User32.dll).
The method is called in a function FUN_00401706(), which is called in FUN_004015a9()
According to the documentation MSDN we can obtain SYSTEM_INFO structure
The code shows that the returned value is compared with 0x9 which means the comparison of the processor architecture.
PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_AMD64x64 (AMD or Intel) = 9
Once the malware executes the svchost process it injects a final stage of itself into the process. I will cover this technique and continue out analysis in Part Two. | https://medium.com/@dawid.golak/icedid-aka-bokbot-analysis-with-ghidra-560e3eccb766 | ['Dawid Golak'] | 2019-06-25 21:14:24.389000+00:00 | ['Ghidra', 'Debugging', 'Reverse Engineering', 'Malware Analysis', 'X32dbg'] |
How to protect yourself from psychological issues like PTSD during coronavirus pandemic? | Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is most commonly found in people who are facing bad experiences during Covid-19 like loss of dear-ones and witness severity of the disease by patients.
The beginning of a new year 2020 brought an epidemic disease that put whole world to adopt new lifestyle to keep themselves safe. This wave of pandemic urge people to experience unemployment, social distancing and witness huge number of deaths etc. By experiencing worse situations in life people are facing many psychological health problems like anxiety, depression, frustration, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), acute stress disorder and Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) etc. Post-traumatic stress disorder is most commonly found among people due to widespread of pandemic Covid-19. People suffering from PTSD might experience distressing recollections, distressing dreams, illusions, flashbacks, difficulty sleeping, irritability and poor concentration etc. The most common reasons for people suffering from PTSD are; some have previous history of mental health issues that make them more vulnerable to post traumatic stress disorder as well as sudden changes in daily life routine like social distancing, survivors of deadly disease, witnessing deaths of dear ones and phobias have also affected mental health of individuals.
Causes of PTSD
In present era most of the people around the world are experiencing many mental health issues including anxiety, frustration, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) etc. People with previous history of mental health problems are more susceptible to develop symptoms of PTSD. Due to the spread of Covid-19 new problems are emerging, people already showing symptoms of acute stress disorder. When they exposed to worse experiences, so it converts into post-traumatic stress disorder.
People are experiencing social distancing which has changed their normal routine of going to office, schools, and colleges. People are limited to their homes and are not able to meet their family and friends that has made them stressed, frustrated, and depressed. The quarantine has great influence on the mental health. Daily life routine has taken new turn which has disturbed people severely. Almost all the world is under the lock down, the entertainment areas like restaurants, parks, casinos, and shopping malls are closed. So, it made the life of people hard. They found nowhere to refresh their minds and release stress. As a result, when people encounter with severity of the disease already present stress symptoms trigger PTSD.
The survivor of corona virus needs to consult with psychotherapist to conform that they are mentally healthy as well because the survivors experience isolation, medication, and fear to die. They witness other patients in worsen state in ventilators. They observe the severity of the diseases and its pain. They witness many deaths in front of them. Such bad experience leaves a deep effect in their mind. The person who is survived from corona virus, always try to avoid all bad memories related to his quarantine period. Also, he can develop feelings of regret that many patients died in front of him, but he survived. Such thoughts can make him restless and anxious. As they pass such a bad experience that effected their soul deeply, they develop symptoms of PTSD like distressing recollections, flashbacks, difficulty sleeping and poor concentration etc.
Many people lost their loved ones due to Covid-19. Many families of most effected area of corona virus experienced death of two or more members. The death toll is increasing day by day that spread fear among people in higher level. The death of dear ones leaves a deep impact in life of people. Some people lost head of their family whom they depend financially, thus the left family members might be anxious about the upcoming difficulties they might face in future. Few lost their mothers whom they get affection and unconditional love, the loss of such person influences the life of remaining members. People lost their fathers, mothers, uncles, grandparents, and friends. The separation of such important figures of life disturbed people very badly. Individuals who have encountered separation of dear ones can develop PTSD easily.
People are afraid that they might become victim of coronavirus that give arousal of many phobias. They can develop phobia of catching germs from others or the phobia of death if they caught disease. While watching many people catching disease in front of them, they became petrified. Thus, they develop hyper-vigilance and exaggerated startle response. When these symptoms prolong, they urge restlessness, irritability, and illusions. Countries where more deaths are caused due to Covid-19 like America, Italy, Spain, UK, and China etc. fear of death is also increased. These fears may lead to PTSD among people.
REMEDIES
During Covid-19 pandemic, its possible to develop psychological problems but one can use few strategies to cope with such problems:
· People can release their stress by adopting healthy habits like go to sleep in time, get up early in the morning and do exercise.
· Meditation is one of the best techniques to keep mind sound and peaceful. Take 10-15 min in morning, sit on a peaceful corner of your home, close your eyes, and concentrate. It can be helpful to release stress and anxieties.
· Healthy eating habits keep you physically and mentally healthy. Try to eat nutritious food including carbs and vitamins (e.g. grains, fruits, vegetables, milk and nuts etc.).
· If you are experiencing serious mental issues like anxiety, depression or suicidal thoughts etc. you can contact SAMHSA’ s National Helpline. It is providing 24/7 free and confidential services.
· One the effective technique used by psychotherapists is Psychological debriefing. It is a form of crisis intervention that has victims of trauma talk extensively about their feelings and reactions within days of critical incident. It is based on the assumption that such sessions prevent or reduce stress reactions. They are often applied to trauma victims who have not yet displayed any symptoms at all as well as those who have. | https://medium.com/@hamzaarshad0988/how-to-protect-yourself-from-anxiety-during-coronavirus-pandemic-b19a898968e5 | ['Hamza Arshad'] | 2020-07-20 08:33:14.788000+00:00 | ['Anxiety', 'PTSD', 'Coronavirus'] |
I’m a Squirter and It’s Not as Great as You Might Think | Roughly 1/3 of women say that at some point they’ve experienced “squirting,” often used interchangeably with the term “female ejaculation.” Though most say it has only happened once or twice.
In the realm of guys’ sexual fantasies, being with a “squirter” probably ranks right up there. “Gushers,” or women who squirt regularly or a lot at a given time, can be considered utter figments of imagination, and women who do squirt may need a high level of comfort plus ample clitoral or G-spot stimulation to get there even once.
I’m a “gusher.” I squirt every time I have a clitoral orgasm (and I very easily have them), and the amount of liquid I release varies. I have told all my partners beforehand (I used to say I was warning them) because for people that have never been with a squirter before, it can be…surprising.
It is such a regular part of my sexual experience that I do not feel satisfied without one. Vaginal penetration feels amazing if I have one right before, and it is always how I want to end a sexual encounter.
I didn’t discover I was a squirter until I was in college because I would find myself regularly holding back when I masturbated. When I finally did for the first time, I had a lot of shame around it. None of my friends talked about basically wetting the bed when they came, so I felt like there was something wrong with me.
Thankfully, porn and some enthusiastic partners helped ease my sense of uniqueness, but being a “gusher” has its share of drawbacks:
1. It’s messy.
American sex guru and co-author of the original G-spot book, Beverley Whipple says that typically, the amount of fluid released is around “half a coffee cup-full.” Other experts say some women can produce a quart of liquid at one time.
For this reason, squirting is messy. You have to be mindful of the surface you’re having sex on, and your bed must have a waterproof mattress cover and you must have spare clean sheets at all times. My current partner and I make sure to bring towels to bed with us too, but sometimes stopping to reach for a towel or changing position or place can seem like it’d kill the mood, so we just don’t want to. Therefore we may end up throwing the comforter, sheets, and mattress cover into the washer or trying to mop up the couch at 9 o’clock at night.
We are hoping that purchasing a blanket like this one (waterproof and fleece) will help cut down on the mood-killing and laundry bills.
2. It can stain.
French gynecologist Samuel Salama and his colleagues studied 7 women who report producing large amounts of fluid at orgasm. While two women’s fluids showed no difference chemically from their urine, the other five had a small amount of an enzyme not detected in their initial urine sample that they believe is part of “true” female ejaculate.
So sometimes when women squirt, it’s pee, or it’s close to pee, or it’s pee mixed with female ejaculate, or it’s just female ejaculate, which is another non-clear liquid altogether.
Depending on my diet, hydration, the time of the day, the cycle of the moon, etc. (as in, I really have no clue), what I squirt might be yellow, clear, or milky-white. I can usually expect to see some color on light-colored sheets or towels after I orgasm, but more often than not, it’s clear.
3. Not all guys are into it.
The reason why I said earlier that I used to “warn” guys is that I’ve had a few partners that just weren’t into it. It’s not that they were turned off per se, but it was obviously not their thing.
Taking special precautions like grabbing towels or moving from couches to beds so no living room furniture is stained wasn’t something they liked doing. A couple of times they told me it straight up “ruined the vibe.” And they never excitedly watched me get myself off either.
What I discovered is that some guys liked the novelty more than the reality. Once the novelty wore off and they realized it‘s sort of this thing that requires extra steps, they weren’t necessarily on board for it being a repeat endeavor, which sucked because it’s what I enjoy doing a lot.
4. Some sexual positions are a no-go.
69 is totally out. The reason why? If I’m on top and my partner makes me squirt, it’s going to go up his nose, and the last thing I want to do is drown my partner. If he’s on top, then I might get him in the eye. Talk about a mood killer!
Despite these drawbacks, squirting is an integral part of every single one of my sexual experiences. It’s intensely satisfying, and I don’t hate or have shame that my body is…umm….more expressive than other women’s when it comes (pun!) to orgasming. Being a squirter does require a little more forethought and negotiating with my partner, but that’s the nature of every sexual relationship.
Thankfully, I have a partner today that loves that I do this and is willing to deal with the drawbacks to bring me all the pleasure I want.
Read more here: | https://medium.com/sexography/im-a-squirter-and-it-s-not-as-great-as-you-might-think-6c40bf041e99 | ['Tara Blair Ball'] | 2019-06-03 15:32:09.415000+00:00 | ['Sex', 'Women', 'Dating', 'Relationships', 'Sexuality'] |
DreamTeam Токеномика 2020 | Follow DreamTeam.gg to find a good squad, improve your skills and join the challenges in Apex Legends, Call of Duty, Fortnite, League of Legends and CS:GO.
Follow | https://medium.com/dreamteam-gg/dreamteam-tokenomics-2020-ru-2c8166278727 | [] | 2019-12-11 14:22:48.260000+00:00 | ['Токеномика', 'Блокчейн', 'Стартап', 'Киберспорт', 'Токены'] |
Identikit of the new head of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb | Abu Obeida Yousef Al-Annabi, the second man in the fear-based oppressor association Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, prevailing over Abdel Malek Droukdel. The head of the gathering was slaughtered by the French armed force last June while he was actuating the focusing of French interests in the Sahel and Libya because of its military help claims.
French and American powers in northern Mali murdered the head of the AQIM in an airstrike. The Algerian psychological oppressor Mubarak Yazid, called Abu Obeida Youssef Al-Annabi, was selected as the emir of the association five months after the fact. Countless contenders joined the jihadist cell in the Sahel locale, otherwise called the gathering for the Support of Islam and Muslims on the Coast.
The fear-based oppressor action of Al-Annabi
On Saturday, November 21, the American “SITE,” had practical experience in radical developments, reported that it had gotten a tape affirming the arrangement of the new psychological oppressor. Annabi, 51, has been top of the Senate, the coordinating assortment of Al-Qaeda, since 2011. Since the year 2010, he has impelled the young people of the Sahel and Sahara to join what he calls a jihad against France.
On April 25, 2013, in response to the French military mediation in Mali, he approached Muslims around the globe to assault French interests all over, on the grounds that, since the principal day of the hostility, they became real focuses, as the Muslim Brotherhood association asserted. In January 2016, he again compromised the French powers in Benghazi while encouraging the Libyans to battle against the General Command powers drove by Marshall Khalifa Haftar.
He restored his assault on the French presence in the Sahel district in a meeting with “France 24” in May 2019. After the association called to internationalize jihad, the United States put it on the boycott of worldwide psychological oppressors in September 2015. At that point, in February 2016, the United Nations Security Council included AQIM on the rundown of people and substances focused by sanctions for their support in financing, sorting out, encouraging, getting ready, or submitting psychological militant acts or exercises.
The root
His pseudonym “Annabi” returns to his foundations in the Algerian city of Annaba, where he was included since the 1990s in fear-based oppressor demonstrations of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat during the purported dark decade. As per the American Center for Combating Extremism, Annabi included similar works inside the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat before it took the name of Al Qaeda in the Maghreb in 2007.
After two years, in November 2009, he got away from an unavoidable passing during a snare by the Algerian armed force in Bouzguin, in the Kabyle district. As indicated by against illegal intimidation specialists, Annabi was the second man in the association in rivalry with Droukdel. His call to grow jihad in the Sahara and the Sahel in 2010 was, as per a few investigators, an indication of an endeavor to hold onto the authority. While the open battle between Al Qaeda and Daesh presumably will proceed in the locale, after furious fights between them, which brought about many passings.
The repercussions of the French arrangement
The new improvement comes after the proceeding with repercussions of a French arrangement with Al Qaeda, as per which in excess of 200 fear based oppressors were delivered last September, and payment of 9,000,000 euros to an aggressor bunch for the arrival of three European prisoners.
Algerian security powers captured one of the assailants, however, they delivered him as a feature of the arrangement. In a video recording distributed by the Algerian Ministry of Defense, he said that he is making an impression on the gathering of Algerians who are as yet in northern Mali to re-visitation their nation of origin, Algeria. | https://medium.com/@brettkinnunen56/identikit-of-the-new-head-of-al-qaeda-in-the-islamic-maghreb-dd4f79835797 | ['Brett Kinnunen'] | 2020-11-25 08:47:42.490000+00:00 | ['Al Annabi', 'Islamic Maghreb', 'Al Qaeda', 'Terrorism', 'Algeria'] |
I’m giving Linux Mint a try after abandoning Ubuntu earlier this year. | I’m giving Linux Mint a try after abandoning Ubuntu earlier this year. Toward the end of last year, I recycled an old laptop into an Ubuntu machine to play around with .NET Core and Docker in Linux, and I was very impressed. It had been a long time since I’d last touched Linux, and for the most part everything worked right out of the box.
Hardship began when I tried to use it for virtual school in Fall 2020. It was wildly frustrating to not have feature parity with Linux variants of apps like Zoom while teachers were instructing to do specific actions that weren’t available.
The real deal-breaker was printing, though. I spent a day trying and just couldn’t get it working, so I rolled back to Windows. Imagine my delight when the first thing I saw upon logging in with Mint was “adding printer.” How wonderful! | https://medium.com/@adamprescott/im-giving-linux-mint-a-try-after-abandoning-ubuntu-earlier-this-year-d806f5eb01ea | ['Adam Prescott'] | 2020-12-24 00:50:26.721000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Technology', 'Productivity', 'Linux', 'Programming'] |
Debug Web Applications With HTTP Client | TechAffinity | Debugging is one of the core skills of any developer. It is essential to be able to fix the errors in web applications and API services. For this reason, you need to have a good understanding of the HTTP Client and HTTP Server. By knowing the right tools, you can debug web applications to a great extent using HTTP Client.
What is Debugging?
Debugging is the process of finding out and then fixing errors within a program. It also fixes all the issues that hinder the flow and stop the smooth running of a software program. For a web application, the first step in debugging is reproducing the issue. Next, you need to send out API requests. This causes problems since you need to do some HTTP manipulations and most browsers prevent you from doing so.
This requires the help of effective debugging tools. Some of the components of a powerful debugging process, such as interactive debugging, unit testing, integration testing, etc. Some web browsers have their in-built developer tools that you can use to debug APIs. So, it becomes unnecessary to write your debugging tool.
What is HTTP Client?
HTTP Client is any device that sends requests to a server in HTTP format and receives a response from the same server. HTTP is an application protocol that sends rules on how to communicate over the web. If you are looking to communicate through the internet, the most common medium of communication is the HTTP, HyperText Transfer Protocol. Using this distributed means of communication, you can connect and transfer data using the web.
Difference between HTTP Client and Server
HTTP Clients are often web browsers, and HTTP Servers are often proxies to application servers. The relationship between the HTTP client and server is a conversational one, where the HTTP client sends a request to the server, and the server responds.
For example, your smartphone may be connected to the internet using an HTML client, and the HTML server may act as proxies to the application server. They serve as HTML, CSS, Python, among others.
Debugging APIs using HTTP Clients can be done in two ways.
Using Command-line HTTP Client Using Web Browsers
Debugging with Command-line HTTP Client
HTTPie is a command-line HTTP client. Its goal is to make command-line interface interaction with web services as user friendly as possible. It offers a simple HTTP command to send HTTP requests using a natural syntax. HTTPie can normally be used for testing, debugging, and interacting with HTTP servers.
Best Features
It has an expressive and intuitive syntax Formatted and colorized terminal output Built-in JSON Support Supports HTTPS, Proxies, and Authentication. Provides Linux, macOS and Windows Support Supports Customs Headers. You can send an arbitrary custom data request Supports Python 2.7 and 3.x Forms and File Uploads Documented
The requester is a command-line client that captures and combines the features of three other command-line clients, namely HTTPie, Postman, and Paw. It has been configured to work only with Sublime Text Editor. It is built for speed and simplicity. It is cross-platform and built for teams.
Best Features
Support for JSON schema Requests Collections and History. Colorized output with automatic syntax highlighting. Full GraphQL support Forms and file uploads. Customizable headers. Export requests to cURL and HTTPie, import requests from cURL AB-style benchmarking tool Runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows. Clear error handling and error messages.
It is available as an extension for Firefox and Google Chrome.
Main Features
Authorization headers with Basic or Auth2 authentication. View request history. Perform requests with any method, URL, body, and custom header Test and Debug APIs
Paw is an HTTP client that allows you to send the APIs. It has a native macOS interface that lets you test APIs and deploys new ones. There are the free trial version and the paid version at $49.99 with a forever license with one user on up to three machines at a time.
Main Features
Exclusively built for the macOS. Fully featured Visual Editor and HTTP toolset. Supports JSON schema Fully compliant with Swagger and RAML descriptions. Built for teams and as powerful as Git for version control.
Postman is one of the most popular HTTP clients for debugging web applications. It is also a collaboration platform for API development.
Main Features
It has a powerful graphical user interface. History of requests. Detailed API documentation. Full GraphQL support within Postman. Flexible API monitoring. Supports Automated testing with Collection runner. Supports split-stack development Supports a variety of payloads including JSON and HTML
NetTool is a free network and web debugging tool. It has been designed with a special emphasis on web apps and web services. Unlike the other tools, it has two components, the TCP tunnel, and the HTTP client. It can be used to monitor a web application’s accuracy, performance, and uptime. It can also be used to manipulate an application’s network messages.
Main Features
Provides support to commonly used network protocols. Performs SSH certification verification. Included in nix distribution Supports building and deploying scripts in testing and deployment environments.
Fiddler is a cross-platform web application debugging proxy which you can use to manipulate web sessions. It can decrypt HTTPS traffic and display web application requests. With Fiddler, you can create and customize your HTTP requests. Furthermore, the cookies, headers, and cache directives are transferred between client and server.
Main Features
Web session manipulation Security testing Web debugging Performance testing HTTP/ HTTPS traffic recording Customization facility
Charles proxy again is one of the most popular debugging tools. It is an HTTP proxy and works by routing local machine traffic through it. It can work on any smart device, any OS, and PC if you get it properly configured. It can be used for SSLSSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a standard technology behind establishing an encrypted connection between a web server (host) and a web browser (client). proxying, AjaxAjax is a set of web development techniques using many web technologies on the client-side to create asynchronous web applications. With Ajax, web applications can send and retrieve data from a server asynchronously without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page. debugging, breakpoints, etc.
Debugging with Web Browsers
Though Internet Explorer is not effective in dealing with severe web API related development issues, it can be used to check for crash reports. It is also useful in checking for error and defective codes.
Though Internet Explorer is not effective in dealing with severe web API related development issues, it can be used to check for crash reports. It is also useful in checking for error and defective codes.
The web developer tool by Apple Safari comes with a web inspector tool. This makes the process of debugging a web application so much simpler. It has an interface with a Responsive Design to view web pages, their orientation, and resolution.
Chrome developer tools are built directly in the browser and allow you to edit pages very quickly. You can inspect APIs in no time, and this reduces stress significantly.
Conclusion
The process of debugging web applications is not an easy one and needs a certain level of expertise and skill. These HTTP client tools need to be used well to solve the issues in the right way.
At TechAffinity, our team of experts is skilled in delivering web development services that are tailored to meet the needs of your business. In case of any queries, feel free to send them to [email protected] or schedule a meeting with our team. | https://medium.com/@techaffinity/debug-web-applications-with-http-client-techaffinity-e7759ba5412b | ['Tech', 'Marketing Blogs Techaffinity'] | 2020-05-14 18:45:08.205000+00:00 | ['Http Client', 'Debugging', 'Web Applications'] |
The Almost Job that Wasn’t | A few days ago I thought I had a UX job. Finally, after a year of searching during a pandemic, there was a positive result of the career pivot I’d invested my life savings into…
Credit: Jude Beck Unsplash
There are plenty of “mysterious forces beyond our control” and our brains have a tough time processing things that feel unfair.
My personal definition of success is absolutely controlled by emotion. For instance, my self-image immediately changed for the better upon accepting the offer, and my confidence multiplied just in those few weeks.
I felt prettier! Every day was the best hair day, I had a pep in my step and many reasons to smile. I began dressing trendier again even while stuck at home, I felt the need to express my fashion sense instead of wearing PJ pants.
I felt like all my dreams would come true. I could visualize buying a home in 3 years, being a dog mom, and finally hanging my great grandmother’s beautiful Asian art prints I’d inherited.
Credit: Morgan Sessions Unpslash
I felt smarter. Someone accepted me as a professional, fought for me, and WANTED me on their team in a really important role. It felt so good to be taken seriously instead of, “you don’t have enough professional experience, and 10 years of Graphic Design doesn’t count”.
I felt more organized. After accomplishing something so huge I felt like I had the power to do anything. I began keeping better organized in my room, the apartment, and on my computer.
I’m realizing that my employment status doesn’t directly touch on any of these things, yet they noticeably changed. It’s my mind playing the association games and pulling those connection strings.
How might I change the often negative association patterns of my perception?
Credit: Clark Van Der Beken Unsplash
How I feel about myself and how successful I feel changes depending on my mood. That sucks! In order to disrupt this internal self-damaging pattern, I’ve got to solidly remember a few facts about myself. These hold true regardless of any feeling or outside circumstance.
1. I’m beautiful and aging well! Dressing cute will lift my mood, so just save the PJ pants for the weekend.
2. My dreams aren’t going to change, and I’m not going to stop reaching for them, EVER.
3. I am smart. I’ve graduated from intense educational programs, made great decisions to move forward, and have true grit in continuing to learn, practice, and network.
4. I’ve never been organized, but that is a skill I’m working on. Minimal changes can affect my life overall over time so baby steps.
This concludes the most personal content I’ve ever written and shared. I hope not to feel so afraid to express myself openly in the future. Thanks for reading ❤ | https://medium.com/@alissamarr/the-almost-job-that-wasnt-92ccc6d584e5 | ['Alissa Marr'] | 2020-12-19 19:55:02.565000+00:00 | ['Perception', 'Job Hunting', 'Vulnerability', 'UX', 'Growth'] |
Myths and Facts of the Dayak Tribe, from the occult topoison chopsticks | the Dayak Tribe’s. Let’s get to know more!
When they hear that the government has decided to move the capital city to Kalimantan, some people might think of the Dayak tribe. Yes, because the Dayak tribe is one of the original tribes who inhabit the island. Apart from Dayak, there are Banjar, Malay, Paser, Kutai, and others.
The Dayak tribe is one of the most famous tribes in Indonesia. Their way of life is very different from the life of modern Indonesian society. However, what they did was to preserve culture and live a life that was passed down from their ancestors.
The Dayak tribe has a history of making the Netherlands confused when they colonized our country. They even succeeded in making the soldiers of the windmill country ‘go home’. Many interesting stories even smelled of myths related to the Dayak tribe as follows:
1. Ghost troops
When the Dutch colonized Indonesia and came to Kalimantan, they were afraid because the land of Borneo had a frightening army which they called ‘The Ghost Warrior’ aka ‘Ghost Forces’.
There are those who theorize that the ghost troops are actually soldiers of the Dayak tribe, but there are also those who say that the ghost troops are ‘Panglima Burung’, a spirit that is deeply trusted by the Dayak tribe whose job is to protect all Dayak tribes.
According to the story of the Dayak people who lived in colonial times, the Dutch were afraid of the Dayaks because of their war skills. The Dayaks attacked the invaders using chopsticks and sabers, which, if used, would have cost their lives.
Meanwhile, if a Dutch bullet hits a Dayak, the victim will be cured with the help of a local sikerei (shaman) in a matter of days. That is what ultimately made the Dutch leave Borneo.
2. Poison chopsticks
In colonial times, when the Dutch were familiar with the technology of pistols and bullets, the Dayak people only fought them with chopsticks. The weapon used by this method is known to be poisonous and deadly.
According to the Tarantang Petak Belanga Community Trustees, the Dutch colonialists often said they had to face the ghost troops, because their arrival was always sudden and so fast.
Poison chopsticks can indeed defeat his opponent in a quite sadistic way. Usually, the chopsticks will be pointed at the neck. Once stuck the chopsticks, the victim will convulse to death. This deadly thing happened in just a few minutes.
3. Mandau, the deadly machete
Mandau is a kind of machete that Dayak men always carry around. Even though there is no danger or war, carrying a mandau has become a habit and an obligation for Dayak men to be on the alert.
However, there are several rules for using the mandau, one of which is that the mandau cannot be used to threaten and can only be used to defend oneself.
Mandau also should not be removed carelessly from its sheath, it is said, if the mandau has come out of the nest, inevitably there will be victims who die.
Not a few eye witnesses say that the saber can fly and kill its prey just like that, because this machete does have magical powers.
4. occult science
Before some religions entered the land of Borneo, the Dayak tribe actually adhered to animism. They worship ancestral spirits as well as perform rituals of worship on these spirits.
It is said that the magic of the Kalimantan people is sent through the median wind or known as ‘poison paser’. When the poison paser has entered a person’s body, that person will experience itching all over the body.
The skin will be dry as if it was inhaled by the bones themselves, and the itching sensation is not only felt on the skin, but also feels down to the bones.
The knowledge that is sent through the visible media is what makes the mystery in Borneo even thicker.
5. Dayak
Tattoos Tattoo for the Dayak tribe is a tradition that has its own meaning. The tattoo culture of the Dayak tribe is one of the oldest in the world. Tattoos are also a record of life.
The making has been done since the beginning of birth, when a girl or boy enters adulthood (puberty), during marriage, and even moving house procession.
Meanwhile, men who have participated in the war and managed to kill their enemies will receive additional tattoos as pride.
Dayak tattooing still uses traditional tools, so it is no less painful than modern tattooing.
7 Dayak ethnic groups The Dayak
tribe, like other tribes in Indonesia, is not only one group. Even if investigated further, there are no less than 405 sub-tribes that have different and varied characteristics.
However, in general there are 7 clumps of Dayak tribes living in Kalimantan as follows:
1. Kayaks Ngaju
Dayak Ngaju (Biaju) are Dayaks who live in the Kapuas, Kahayan, Rungan Manuhing, Barito and Katingan river basins or in the Central Kalimantan area, South Kalimantan, as well as the southern part of West Kalimantan. Dayak Ngaju have sub-tribes Ngaju, Bakumpai, Katingan, Meratus, Tomun, etc.
The characteristics of Dayak Ngaju:
1. Still adhere to the Kaharingan religion, such as the Tiwah ceremony or the ceremony for delivering ancestral spirits.
2. The dominant color used is red.
3. The fabric is made of bark.
4. And use hornbill feathers and ruai as a headdress.
2. Apo KayanApo Kayan
DayakDayak is a Dayak tribe originating from the Upper Kayan River and the Usun Apau highlands, Baram, Sarawak. Currently the Apo Kayan Dayak are spread in the areas of East Kalimantan, North Kalimantan, northern West Kalimantan, and Sarawak, Malaysia. The sub-tribes included in the Apo Kayan family are Kayan, Kenyah, Bahau, Kelabit, etc. In Malaysia, the Dayak Apo Kayan are known as Orang Ulu.
Characteristics:
1. Long ears.
2. The colors are black, white and yellow.
3. Tattoos all over the body a sign of social status in society.
4. There are beads that cut out on the hornbill feathers.
3. IbanIban
Dayak Dayak, also known as Sea Dayak, is a Dayak family located in the northern area of the island of Borneo. Dayak Iban spread in the northern part of West Kalimantan, Sabah, Brunei, and most of them are in Sarawak. In terms of the Iban Dayak language, it is similar to the Malay language. The sub-tribes of the Iban Dayak are Mualang, Seberuang, Melanau, and others.
Characteristics:
1. Tattoo all over the body symbolizes one’s experience.
2. Entertaining guests with tuak.
3. the women’s clothes are decorated with metal.
4.Klemantan
DayakDayak Klemantan or also known as Dayak Darat inhabit the western area of the island of Borneo. Dayak grass is scattered in the upstreams of rivers in West Kalimantan and Sarawak, Malaysia. The Dayak Darat in Malaysia are known as the Bidayuh people. The sub-tribes of Dayak Darat are Kanayatn, Bidayuh, Ketungau, etc.
Characteristics:
1. Very well known for its hospitality with newcomers.
2. colors are dominated by black, yellow, red, and white.
3. In the area where there are many human-like carvings called Pantak.
5. Dayak Murut
Darat Murut are a group of Dayak originating from the northern highlands of the island of Borneo. Dayak Murut are scattered in the areas of East Kalimantan, North Kalimantan, Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei. The sub-tribes of the Dayak Murut are Okolod, Keningau Murut, Paluan, etc.
Characteristics:
1. has a famous dance, namely the Mangunatip dance. The word Magunatip is taken instead of the word “atatip” which means to press between two surfaces.
2. Men’s clothing made of bark or woven cloth, with a headband and bird feather ornaments.
3. Women’s clothing is predominantly black and decorated with knick-knacks of various colors.
6.Punan
DayakDayak Punan is a family that inhabits East Kalimantan, North Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, West Kalimantan, and Malaysia. The Punan Dayak have sub-tribes of Hovongan, Penan, Uheng Kareho, Punan Murung, Bukat, etc.
Characteristics:
1. Known from a nomadic or nomadic lifestyle.
2. Simple clothes.
3. The musical instrument that is usually played is the flute.
4. Elongate the ears.
7. Ot Danum Kayaks
The Ot Danum family or Barito family is a Dayak family that includes all Dayak tribes in Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, southern East Kalimantan and southeastern West Kalimantan. There are those who argue that the Dayak Rumpun Ot Danum group is the parent of the Ngaju Dayak family, but sometimes the two families are separated. The sub-tribes of the Dayak Ot Danum are Ma’anyan, Tunjung, Benuaq, Lebang, Undan, etc.
Characteristics:
1. It can be seen from the important ceremonies, there are some Dayak tribes using the buffalo as sacrificial animals.
2. During the ceremony, the shamans use necklaces made of various wooden ornaments, beads, bones and so on.
3. Clothes of various colors, sometimes some Dayak tribes use coconut leaves as a headdress.
There is so much diversity in Indonesia. Only in the Dayak tribe there are so many things that we may not know. The more we get to know them, the easier it will be to make friends and live together.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. | https://medium.com/@cepifikri29/myths-and-facts-of-the-dayak-tribe-from-the-occult-topoison-chopsticks-d731f19b9fc7 | ['Ce Pi Fik Ri'] | 2020-12-27 06:43:43.930000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Tribes', 'News', 'Mystery'] |
AmazonBasics 360-watt Standby UPS review: You’ll find better values in this space | The AmazonBasics 8-outlet uninterruptible power supply (UPS) supports up to a rated 360 watts of attached equipment, which it can provide with enough battery power to run a modest computer system with a smaller monitor for about 3 to 10 minutes. This delay lets a computer shut down automatically using built-in features in the operating systems or software provided for macOS and Windows if electrical power isn’t restored quickly enough.
This is a standby UPS that produces a simulated sine wave—the change in voltage from negative to positive and back in alternating current (AC) power—so it’s not recommended for most modern computer systems that use a power supply that requires a smoother, or “pure” sine wave output from a UPS. Standby UPSes also have a short delay in cutting over from line power to their internal battery, which for some equipment can be too long.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best uninterruptible power supplies, where you’ll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product.Instead, consider this AmazonBasics UPS just as an option for keeping networking hardware going during a power outage, as well as blocking surges and bolstering power during brownouts to equipment. That could include a broadband modem, Wi-Fi gateway, and ethernet switch that consume less than 100 watts of power combined.
That would allow this unit to bridge quick outages and keep power running for as long as 20 minutes based on Amazon’s estimates. (Look up the specs on devices or at manufacturers’ sites for all the equipment you want to connect to the battery-backed outlets and add their wattage together to get a maximum load factor.)
[ Further reading: The best surge protectors for your costly electronics ]Amazon offers a wide array of products in its AmazonBasics line-up that trade a non-Amazon brand-name manufacturer label on the box for ostensibly a lower price for something of high quality. That promise falls short here. While this unit works as expected, it’s not price competitive with brand names that offer more: more features, more power, and a longer warranty.
Amazon This AmazonBasics UPS can delivery battery power to four of the devices plugged into it, and its offers surge protection on all eight of its outlets.
Provides the basics for network devicesThis is a standby UPS, which kicks in battery power as it’s needed, including when line-voltage slumps (a “brownout”) and to provide juice during an outage. It also includes protection against short leaps in voltage in the same manner as a standalone surge protector.
This kind of UPS is cheaper than a line-interactive model, which conditions power continuously, and it can supplement power sags and remove minor surges without leaning on the battery. A standby unit should have the advantage of lower cost, and should work just fine in most normal conditions. However, because it takes longer to kick in power than a line-interactive UPS, it may not switch over to its battery fast enough to prevent a computer from crashing.
Amazon equips the UPS with eight outlets, four of which are connected to both surge protection and backup power, while the other four provide just surge protection. This is typical for UPSes, allowing you to get two kinds of benefits in one model.
The outlet pattern is a little close together if you have several devices that rely on the wall-wart style of DC adapter. The UPS has one outlet in each group of four that’s 2.25 inches away from the next group of three, which are spaced 1.25 inches apart. Outlets are spaced correctly for standard 2-prong and 3-prong cords used in electronics.
Simplicity is the watchword on this model, which has a single button on the top that powers the unit on and off, and also manages some alarm-sound settings. Its LED lights up green in normal use and flashes (along with beeps) when it’s in battery mode and when its battery is about to be depleted.
It lacks an alert for wiring faults, a nice extra on most UPSes that can alert you to dangerous home-wiring issues.
Glenn Fleishman / IDG An onboard alarm can sound to warn you when the devices you’ve plugged in the AmazonBasics UPS are receiving power from its battery.
This Amazon model produces a simulated, “stepped” or chunky sine wave for alternating-current (AC) power output, as noted earlier, instead of the smooth sine wave that comes out of a wall socket—and which can be produced by slightly more expensive UPS models. A simulated sine wave can interact poorly with computers that use modern power supplies with active power factor correction (PFC), which use power more efficiently and can automatically adjust voltage without manual switches or modifications across power systems used in different countries.
For voltage correction and short periods of time, a stepped sine wave is not likely to cause substantial problems, but the power supply might produce a high-pitched whine. If you have expensive hardware or experience frequent power sags and short outages, however, pick a pure sine wave UPS, often a feature of line-interactive UPSes. It’s worth the often only slightly higher price with modern UPSes to avoid the potential of power-supply damage. Line-interactive units also switch over to battery power substantially faster than most standby units, preventing the possibility of a computer crashing due to a short absence of juice.
Check your computer system to find out if it uses active PFC; it’s sometimes listed in a technical specifications list by the manufacturer, but often you have to dig to find the information. A power supply that automatically switches among voltages used by different countries’ power systems without requiring a switch to be set is almost certainly using active PFC.
If you wind up using the UPS with a computer, you can connect it via an included USB cable and install software provided by Amazon, or rely on options built into the operating system. This includes notifications when power sags, when the battery kicks in, or when the battery is running out of juice, as well as triggering an automatic shutdown.
Glenn Fleishman / IDG This AmazonBasics UPS won’t restart after it fully depleting power.
The software Amazon offers provides additional statistics and other controls beyond that built in to macOS and Windows. While Amazon product reviewers said the software allows tuning certain low-level electrical features, that feature wasn’t present in the latest release. The software also isn’t mentioned in the included manual and must be downloaded from the UPS product page at Amazon, where the link for macOS and Windows versions are in small type.
Amazon often contracts third parties to make its AmazonBasics-branded goods, and CyberPower is the creator of this UPS, which closely resembles some CyberPower models. Like the software branded by CyberPower, the AmazonBasics download for macOS isn’t released using a standard, secure method Apple offers to prevent malware installation, and which costs a developer a mere $99 a year to participate in. Mac users will find themselves baffled trying to launch the software, which requires a special sequence in macOS to bypass security precautions that prevent such “unsigned” software from running.
While the AmazonBasics model works with Windows and macOS power-management features, an extra feature of the custom software is that it lets you directly configure some audio settings for when the UPS beeps or produces a continuous sound. The hardware power button allows access to only a few of those features. (A more up-to-date version of the software directly from CyberPower offers more features and appears to work fully compatibly.)
Amazon offers a fairly paltry one-year limited warranty that includes repair or replacement of the device for manufacturing defects, and repair or replacement of up to $75,000 of properly connected covered electronics if damage occurs while the UPS is appropriately connected to power. Owners have 30 days from an incident to file a claim. The warranty details are not included with the product, but only available as a download from the Amazon product page.
At the price Amazon offers the AmazonBasics eight-outlet, 600VA/360W UPS, you should instead consider a competing product from the white-label manufacturer who produced this model for Amazon: CyberPower. The eight-outlet, CyberPower ST625U Standby UPS (625VA, 360W, 8 outlets) costs almost exactly the same, has two USB charging ports you won’t find on the AmazonBasics model, has more conveniently placed and oriented outlets, and it comes with a robust three-year warranty. CyberPower includes a later version of its UPS management software, but it suffers from not being a properly signed app in its macOS version as well.
The bottom lineThe AmazonBasics 600VA, 360W, 8-outlet Standby UPS is a solid-enough product, but has nothing going for it at its price compared to its peers.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@christo97690739/amazonbasics-360-watt-standby-ups-review-youll-find-better-values-in-this-space-f1c91789f2bc | [] | 2020-12-21 08:49:23.436000+00:00 | ['Surveillance', 'Lighting', 'Music', 'Chargers'] |
广度优先，从子节点找到到根路径的sql | 这是以前在公司遇到的一个问题，避免sql语句的递归，提高效率
/*
注解：
以前遇到过一个同事，在处理树的时候，在sql语句里面用递归，造成性能非常低下。
在遇到sql处理树的时候，可以采用以下方法，用循环来解决。
主要思路：
找到Cateogry的Parent插入临时表，在临时表里做遍历，每到一条记录，都做一个操作：将它的parent select出来，插入临时表，最后，将临时表join Cateogry表。
*/
set ANSI_NULLS ON
set QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
go
ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[Proc_GetCategoryPath]
@CategoryID uniqueidentifier
AS
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM dbo.sysobjects WHERE ID=object_id(N'#_Name') AND OBJECTPROPERTY(id, N'IsUserTable')=1)
DROP TABLE #_Name
/*建一个临时表*/
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[#_Name] (
[ID] [bigint] IDENTITY (1, 1) NOT NULL,
[ParentCategoryID] uniqueidentifier NULL ,
[CategoryID] uniqueidentifier NULL ,
[OrderNum] [int] NULL
) ON [PRIMARY]
/*do insert*/
INSERT INTO #_Name
SELECT
[Category].[ParentCategoryID],
[Category].[ID] AS CateogryID,
[Category].[OrderNum]
FROM
[Category]
WHERE
[Category].[ID] = @CategoryID
order by [Category].[OrderNum]
DECLARE @ID BIGINT
SET @ID = 1
DECLARE @Parent uniqueidentifier
SET @Parent = (SELECT TOP 1 [ParentCategoryID] FROM #_Name WHERE ID = @ID)
WHILE (@Parent IS NOT NULL and @Parent <> '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000')
BEGIN
INSERT INTO #_Name
SELECT
[Category].[ParentCategoryID],
[Category].[ID] as CategoryID,
[Category].[OrderNum]
FROM
[Category]
WHERE
[Category].[ID] = @Parent
order by [Category].[OrderNum]
SET @ID = @ID + 1
SET @Parent = (SELECT TOP 1 [ParentCategoryID] FROM #_Name WHERE ID = @ID)
END
/*end do insert*/
SELECT [Category].*
FROM #_Name
JOIN Category ON [#_Name].[CategoryID] = [Category].[ID] | https://medium.com/jinweijie/%E5%B9%BF%E5%BA%A6%E4%BC%98%E5%85%88-%E4%BB%8E%E5%AD%90%E8%8A%82%E7%82%B9%E6%89%BE%E5%88%B0%E5%88%B0%E6%A0%B9%E8%B7%AF%E5%BE%84%E7%9A%84sql-67ae23293f81 | ['Jin Weijie'] | 2018-08-16 01:54:44.271000+00:00 | ['Sql', 'Path', 'Iteration'] |
When Life Winks | Should you follow it?
Happy Saturday everyone. Knees weak, palms are heavy, there’s vomit on his spaghetti already…yeah rapping’s not my thing. But when I wrote the subtitle of this post I was reminded of Eminem’s opening lines to his song Lose Yourself.
Anyways, if you’re scratching your head wondering what the heck a life wink is, they’re coincidences, plain and simple. But sometimes coincidences are taken to another level. The ones that make you think Whoa. That was TOO weird.
Those are life winks. Do they have meaning? Who the hell knows, but I choose to believe they do. Some people think that’s bull, but I think moments like those are an opportunity to tune into what life might be trying to tell you in that moment.
Full disclosure, this post was inspired by a book called when GOD winks by SQuire Rushnell — and no that’s not a typo, the Q in his name is actually capitalized. Don’t let the title fool you or turn you off, this is not a book on religion as I originally thought it was. I only gave it a chance because it was gifted to me by a friend. And I’m really glad I did because I think the subtitle better reflects what the book is all about: How the Power of Coincidence Guides Your Life.
It’s hard to not sound like I’m going all fairy dust on you here, but I’ve always felt like I was pretty good at listening to life in those little moments — choosing a major, moving away to another state, people I’ve met — things like that. I mean, what’s the worst thing that can happen anyways? Even if you run into issues, it’ll make for a hell of a story later on.
So, I’m not writing this post to tell you what you should do in life’s peculiar moments, just what I do. I follow these little whispers and see where it takes me.
Could I come to regret that decision later on? Oh definitely. Always a possibility. But an unlikely one in my opinion because if you’re the type to take action on a whim you’re also probably the type to treat the repercussions as an adventure.
When life gives you pause, ask yourself why and then say what the hell. Usually we regret inaction more than action anyways. Take a moment to tally up the number of things you regret not doing compared to the number of things you regret doing. I think you’ll find the former is larger than the latter.
Do your future self a favor and start to make the latter larger than the former. Alright, enough with the cryptic language. Enjoy the rest of your day peeps. | https://medium.com/@geofflane/when-life-winks-3995305c5682 | ['Geoff Lane'] | 2020-12-19 20:56:12.932000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Life Lessons', 'Inspiration', 'Decision Making', 'Adventure'] |
Growing up in post-Blackout London | It was very pretty and very green. Grass went all the way from the wall right up to the edges of the big, glass building in the middle. It must have been seventy stories high and it sat on top of an old red-brick building, a little bit like the ones near the market, but far bigger. The houses near the market were long and tall, squatting next to each other in rows. This one was much wider, almost as wide as our entire block, but it wouldn’t have been tall without the skyscraper. Grandma once tried to explain to me the difference between a high-rise and a skyscraper, but I hadn’t fully understood what she was saying until that moment. It looked like it could really cut the sky open with its pointed tip. I bet you could see the whole world from the top.
I wondered if perhaps this was the world outside of the city that grandma had told me about. It was difficult to say. The grass did stretch pretty far, but the wall and the city were still on all sides. Maybe this was a bit of the outside but inside the city. I made a mental note to ask her when I got back.
Steps climbed up towards the red-brick house. Steps not stairs, I decided. Each single stair would be much higher than these steps. These steps seemed more decorative than functional. I wondered why the builders even bothered to put them in. It’s not like the families who lived in this house needed to be a little bit higher, they had a skyscraper; and it didn’t look like this road was likely to overflow with toilet water like ours did sometimes. My nose wrinkled instinctively at the memory.
Staring up at the house and the skyscraper on top of it, I felt suddenly uncertain. There didn’t seem to be any papers flying around here. I got the feeling that I shouldn’t just walk into someone’s house without knowing anyone inside. What if they thought I was trying to steal something?
And so, like this, I froze, staring up at the house, one foot stretched out ready to climb the steps into it.
While I had been busy wrestling with my own conscience and the morality of entering a house unannounced, an old lady emerged from between the open doors. She must have been my grandmother’s age, perhaps a little bit older — her hair was whiter but thicker, arranged nicely in a ropey coil around her head, her skin was more wrinkled but also a little lighter, a pale woody beige — as she got closer, her eyes glinted from beneath heavy lids, just like my grandma’s. She smiled and I smiled back.
“Hello,” She said. Her English sounded a little bit like mine, but softer, like someone had rubbed the edges from her words. I pondered this for a moment before hurriedly returning her greeting.
“Hello.”
“What are you doing out here, all alone?” She asked, looking around as though trying to locate someone who might claim me.
“I’m looking for words.” I said, letting my eyes slip away from hers to look at the house once more.
“Words? What kind of words?”
“Hmm, I like long ones best, but it doesn’t really matter.” I admitted, “My grandma can’t write anymore, so I have to find words that we can use to tell stories, otherwise — ” I choked a little, surprised by my own emotion. I swallowed it, annoyed. “Otherwise there will be no stories and that would be sad.” I concluded with a little nod of my head.
“I see…” The old lady looked thoughtful. “Would you mind waiting here one moment? Perhaps I can help you.”
I nodded several times in quick succession to show her I meant it and planted my feet firmly at the base of the steps. I would not be going anywhere.
By the time the old lady returned, I had sat down. The walk had tired me more than I’d thought, my stomach ached with emptiness. I almost hoped that she’d conveniently forgotten my quest for words and had come back instead with something for me to eat. She hadn’t.
“Oh, good.” She said. “You’re still here.”
I stood up hastily, brushing the back of my trousers with one hand.
“Now, I don’t know exactly which kind of words you like, but this — ” My heart almost stopped as she spoke. “Has lots of stories.”
It was a book.
A whole book.
Thick, but not heavy, I held it in my hands as though to judge how many stories might be inside. The outside was shiny black with a blue moon peeking out from behind three big mountains — one tall and two small, just like the big door. Its name was emblazoned in thick silver letters across the top. I sounded them out: S-I-L-M-A-R-I-L-L-I-O-N.
My mouth had fallen open as my finger traced the letters.
The woman gazed down at me with a strange look on her face.
“Is it…” I started, but swallowed the words before they made it out. I tried again. “Is it for… Me?”
“Of course. I read it more than a hundred times, I don’t really need the book anymore.” She smiled, clasping her hands in front of her. “Words are powerful.”
I glanced up sharply.
“The words in this book saved me from many things.”
I looked down again in awe. This book, a real book, was mine.
I opened the first page. Someone had written a message on the inside cover.
Anna… A little piece of home to carry with you wherever you go.
The old lady had already turned and was making her way back up the steps.
“Missus… Are you Anna?” I called up after her.
She turned, smiling. “Yes, that’s me.”
I didn’t want her to go, but I didn’t know how to make her stay. “My name’s Wren, I’m Wren. That’s me.” | https://medium.com/the-open-bookshelf/growing-up-in-post-blackout-london-4b1b07db7d54 | ['Abbey Heffer'] | 2020-05-30 21:37:01.613000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'London', 'World', 'Fiction', 'Books'] |
I Escape Stress With More Stress | I Escape Stress With More Stress
Adrenaline is my antidote
Photo by George Pagan III on Unsplash
I suffer from the kind of stress that’s immune to meditation. Sitting quietly or “relaxing” only makes me feel more anxious. I find I only really feel better if I put my body under more stress like going on a run, watching something scary, adding to my to-do list, etc.
I’m not sure this is healthy per se, but it is, apparently, normal. In 2018 Ashley Abramson wrote in Forge about the concept of “calming up” instead of calming down. The idea is that some people need stress to destress. It’s in part credited to psychologist Peter Levine, a trauma specialist, who in the 1970s researched why animals can shake off life-or-death experiences in the wild without any long-term effects. His argument is that the physical nature of animal stress, like trembling, helps them discharge from an aroused state.
People might be similar in some ways. Abramson writes:
Doing something scary in a controlled environment — whether that’s a more physical thrill, like riding a roller coaster, or something mental, like watching a horror movie — can be another way to constructively work through your stress. Research has shown that doing something risky can help you process the emotion by reframing it as something positive. Releasing adrenaline in a controlled environment helps you see for yourself that despite negative physical sensations, you are, in fact, safe.
I shared my love for “calming up” on Twitter, and it was interesting to see people’s responses. “My old therapist was from Levine’s school of thought and honestly it’s done me a world of good,” one person shared. “When people ask ‘why do you love horror if you have bad anxiety’ here’s why.”
I’m not a horror fan, but I do find it relaxing to watch fictional crime procedurals. If I’m being honest it’s basically the only television I watch. After a particularly stressful day all I want to do is binge Vera, a British crime drama that follows an obsessive chief detective who tirelessly solves crimes and is “driven by her own demons.” I can’t quite call my obsession with Vera escapism because the show is not aspirational. Vera is unglamorous, lonely, and drinks too much. The rural English countryside is beautiful but people keep getting murdered. And yet the hour-long adrenaline rush is like an antidote.
Yet, as Abramson’s story points out, the point of “calming up” is not to just experience adrenaline, but to process stress. Experts say that ideally, you think about what’s stressing out, you experience a stimulating activity, and then you work to calm down afterward and “remind yourself that you are safe”.
This week I am stressed about the pandemic, the election, and the future of democracy. I will watch lots of Vera, go for a run, and obviously vote. Hopefully, I will calm down. Hopefully, I will be safe. | https://alexandra.medium.com/i-escape-stress-with-more-stress-5f61106ab2e0 | ['Alexandra Sifferlin'] | 2020-10-27 23:04:17.642000+00:00 | ['Mental Health'] |
WORKING MOTHERS: 5 SCENES, WHY I’M TIRED OF THE CONVERSATION, WHY IT’S HAPPENING, AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT | This is my first real and vulnerable post on anything having to do with motherhood (a topic I never thought I would touch). But please see my motherhood disclaimer post if there’s anything here that’s offensive, just know I care and I’m trying.
5 SCENES
SCENE 1
While sitting in my Mom’s living room, discussing what Brandon and I are going to do about childcare after having split it evenly (as evenly as possible) for the past 7 months:
ME: If I didn’t have kids I would probably work 80–100 hours a week because I love it so much and feel such a drive. Right now I’m working around 25–35 depending on the week but I would love to work more like, 50? We’ll just figure it out once we’re back in Australia, Brandon starts a 9–5 again, and Sloane is in school…
MOM: But what about your little girls? You know, they’re only little once.
SCENE 2
On a rare morning hike with a friend alone:
FRIEND: I feel guilty when I leave my kids.
SCENE 3
On a video chat with a client, who currently has children:
CLIENT: I want to be an artist and a mother.
SCENE 4
Scrolling on Instagram:
GRAPHIC “I hope my kids will remember that mommy tried. Even when she was tired or stressed. I hope they know I did it all for them”
SCENE 5
On another video chat with a client, trying to figure out her ideal work/life balance:
CLIENT: So I need to have summers and holidays off because the kids get out of school, and Wednesdays because my youngest gets out early….
ME: So when are you going to work?
Checking in
So how are you feeling after all these scenes? Read on to see how they continue, why I’m tired of these conversations, why it’s happening, and what we can do about it.
SCENE 1
MOM: But what about your little girls? You know, they’re only little once.
(CONT’D)
ME: See this is what I think is the problem. If a father said “I’m really wanting to work more” or “I’m so passionate about what I do and want to put a lot of time into it.” They’re not told “but what about your little ones?” It’s celebrated for them. It’s encouraged, “follow your dreams!”. For women, at most, it’s shamed, in the least, a question they need to answer.
SCENE 2
On a rare morning hike with a friend alone:
FRIEND: I feel guilty when I leave my kids
(CONT’D)
ME: I feel guilty for not feeling guilty.
SCENE 3
On a video chat with a client:
CLIENT: I want to be an artist and a mother.
(CONT’D)
ME: If you have kids, you’re a mother. There’s nothing you can do to stop being a mother no matter what happens. But if you don’t create art, you’re not an artist.
SCENE 4
Scrolling on Instagram:
Quote “I hope my kids will remember that mommy tried. Even when she was tired or stressed. I hope they know I did it all for them”
(CONT’D)
ME: Am I doing it all for them? Do I have to do it all for them? Do I hope that my Mom did “it all” for me? Or do I hope that she did “some of it” for herself.
SCENE 5
On another video chat with a client, trying to figure out her ideal work/life balance:
CLIENT: So I need to have summers and holidays off too because the kids get out of school, and Wednesday’s because my youngest gets out early….
ME: So when are you going to work?
(CONT’D)
CLIENT: Right, well, my kids have….
ME: Your kids are fine, you’re a great mom! It’s time to prioritize your work. So, when are you going to work?
CLIENT: [tears]
WHY I’M TIRED OF HAVING THESE CONVERSATIONS
Guys, I’m tired. I’m tired of having conversations with women that I would never, never, ever have with men. I’m tired of all the bad, burdening, boring, deflating, feelings. I’m annoyed with the guilt. I’m frustrated with the obsession we have with being “a good mom” “having it all” “finding balance” “time management” and “self-care”. None of it exists and it’s all in our heads.
WHY IS IT HAPPENING?
But what’s putting this insane burden on us? Here are some of reasons, big and small I could think of:
The Patriarchy — Let’s face it. It’s the patriarchy that’s brought us down and we’re still seeing the effects to this day. I don’t care if you think you’re equal to men, you’re not, and your paycheck reflects that — especially if you have children.
Biology — We go through the marvelous burden of not just creating and growing the wonders that come out of our vaginas (or in my and many other cases sliced out of our belly’s) but then we feed them from our breasts (or not). It’s not just by culture that we’re the default parent, it’s by nature, at least in the beginning, but then, for a lot of parents it sets the tone for the rest of parenthood.
Religion — I was raised very religious and in that religion, gender roles and women not working weren’t just cultural, it was written doctrine (framed and placed on your wall), “fathers… are responsible to provide the necessities of life… Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children”. How do I feel about women who are viewed as the primary care givers? Not great. As a teenager, how did that shape the vision of my future career? What career? How have I seen that shape those women that I was raised with? Most of the religious women I was brought up with either don’t work, or work part-time. I don’t have one friend from my teen/college years that works a traditional full-time job (that I can think of).
Branding History — Working Mothers has a branding problem and I think that has to do with two things 1. the opposite — mothers who don’t work and 2. have you ever heard or said the term “working fathers”? I have, only to make the point that we never say it. Back to point #1 — mothers who want to be stay-at-home, if that’s their thoughtful, intentional choice and they want to do it, great. The only thing my Mom wanted was to have children and stay home. She was such a good Mother, I was raised with such unconditional love and I respect her so much.
But here’s the deal, in 1978 when my mom became a mother she wasn’t a mother, she was called a “home-maker”. That includes stuff way outside children. It’s soooooo different. Today women who choose to stay home full time are “stay-at-home mothers” or SAHM on message boards who have DD’s, DH’s and photoshop their HPT’s to get early results.
I’m not saying that women in the past had it better than women today (obviously there’s been research on all of the depression of the 50's). So why do I think these semantics are so important? Because a woman who was a “home-maker” had a project, she had an identity outside another human. Something that she could create, have control over and be creative. Mothers, who are SAHM’s, identity is wrapped up in another human, who will ultimately decide what to do with their own life. All their projects, ideas, creations is now away from a physical space (home) and onto a physical human (child).(Ester in this Slate article knows what I’m talking about)
I think this is a massive problem.
And think about if all women became SAHM’s then we’re just raising women to raise children but really raising women to raise men to do all the other things in life.
So to conclude — we need a brand change for working mothers (i dunno maybe just women who work who have children? however we refer to fathers that work — let’s aim for that). We also need a brand change for the SAHM — because it’s affecting all of us.
Culture — America shows the way it feels about mothers who work by having the worst maternity benefits of any developed country in the world and little to no government subsidy for childcare. Again, you can thank the patriarchal government for that.
Ourselves — I’m not going to do too much blaming here but really we need to take some responsibility. We need to reassess our language, be careful with our judgements, assumptions of other people and views of ourselves.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
Protest — some options.
Change your language — semantics matter. Language is powerful. Let’s try to be more thoughtful about how we refer to ourselves and one another.
Accept the fact that you have to have childcare — Why can’t I just work when the baby sleeps? One time a friend and I were discussing a mutual friend that was expecting a baby. She was showing her around the nursery and house. They went into the office, she pointed to a bouncer placed next to her desk and said, “And I thought this is where the baby could stay occupied while I worked.” We both laughed, not in a patronizing way, but in a way that was like, “Yea, we were there once.” It’s such a hopeful thought. But I’m telling you: It. Can. Not. Be. Done. Your child has a routine, and then doesn’t have one and then changes it in 3 months. And then even when you think there is a routine, decides on the day of your deadline/important phone call/meeting that they’re not going to take a nap, or need you desperately and the TV will not distract them (don’t get me onto screen-time guilt, I still struggle with it myself).
Wrap your head around the cost of childcare, weigh your options — The best advice I have for any new parent that has been working from home before kids or wants to start working again is, get childcare involved as early and as often as possible. The earlier you can mentally process, budget and save up for childcare costs, the better. Let’s do some math:
A nanny costs $13–17/hr for one child and $15-$18 for two. (I have no idea for 3, I don’t know anyone who has had 3 kids under 5 years old and worked). A full time nanny, 5 days a week, 8 hours a day is ~$2200 a month. Australia — I’m looking at $20/hr — so ~$3200/mo.
An average daycare in America is anywhere around $1000–1700/mo. Australia, in my neighborhood in South Melbourne I’ve been quoted $135 a day — ~$3100/mo
“But I’m only making X amount a year, I can’t afford childcare.” I get it, we’re in a serious childcarecrisis. But the cost of childcare isn’t your burden alone, it is a shared cost. “‘It is logical for couples to decide that the person who earns less, usually a woman, does more of the household chores and child care,’ Ms. Kerr said. ‘But it’s also a reason women earn less in the first place. That reinforces the pay gap in the labor market, and we’re trapped in this self-reinforcing cycle,’ she said.” (Quote from NYT)
And in the long run, taking yourself out of the workforce costs you more money. How much money? There’s a calculator for that.
Working for me isn’t an option. I have urges. I have desires. I have ideas that the world needs. And I need them out, out, out of me. I can’t do that if I’m a SAHM. I can only do that if my partner and I swallow the childcare cost pill, get some great support systems in place, know our children are loved and will be just fine, have ongoing talks about how our marriage can be more egalitarian, so I can do the work that I know I was born to do, or in the least give myself the space to discover it.
You need the space. We need the space.
Tell me tell me tell me — are you tired of the conversation? Are you in the middle of it? Are you navigating it? Do you have it figured out? Any other reasons we deal with this? Any other ways we can fight it? | https://medium.com/@hey_85612/working-mothers-5-scenes-why-im-tired-of-the-conversation-why-it-s-happening-and-what-to-do-7414de819b84 | ['Nikki Ricks'] | 2020-01-16 00:07:08.137000+00:00 | ['Working Parents', 'Feminism', 'Parenthood', 'Working Moms', 'Motherhood'] |
Getting Busy in the Gig Economy: How to get More Calls on WhenHub Interface | Getting Busy in the Gig Economy: How to get More Calls on WhenHub Interface WhenHub Mar 21, 2019·7 min read
It’s the gig economy. Everyone has a side hustle. Everyone is freelancing. With the cost of living going up and the ability through technology to do more with less, people are starting to get creative. There has never been a better time to jump on and off the clock at your leisure and make work revolve around your life instead of the other way around. There are many platforms available to help you make a bit of side income, but what if you already have a career, or you don’t have the time to sit in a car all day to deliver food or people? What if you only have 15 minutes or one hour or just want to be at home? Well, that’s where WhenHub Interface comes in.
MAKING THE MOST OF THE TIME YOU HAVE
Do you have a few minutes during lunch to talk to someone about what you are best at? Do you have a bit of time while you are walking your dog to share your knowledge? WhenHub Interface allows you to maximize your time throughout the day to take calls from people who have questions about the fields you are an expert in.
Alternatively, what if you need to talk to an expert? What if you are editing a digital photo or looking at a clogged pipe in your sink. You can just contact an expert on Interface in real time and get custom answers to your questions. That sure beats going on YouTube and searching a million videos about Photoshop or clogged pipes to find the one that sort of resembles the issue you are having.
Even better, Interface even has licensed physicians practicing telemedicine. You can currently talk to a doctor in real time about anything from serious health issues like cancer to finding out if you sprained your ankle in Zumba Class. Of course, you still may have to visit a hospital at some point, but if you can save a visit or two and avoid the huge lines, well… enough said.
GETTING YOUR SIDE HUSTLE ON
When you are ready to show the world your expertise on Interface we have a few tips for you that will help you get way more gigs. Follow these steps and don’t look back, because your phone may be ringing off the hook pretty soon.
A PICTURE SAYS A THOUSAND WORDS
When you don’t have a lot of time and you are scrolling through your social media feed, what stops you and makes you click on a profile? It’s usually the image. Try having a nice clear professional looking image of yourself that relates to your area of expertise. Full body shots or images of objects are fine as well, but make sure they really relate to your expertise. Your face will be the best conveyor of trust, but if you absolutely must have an image of something else, make sure it is clear and that it really speaks to your abilities.
BUT WHAT ARE YOU REALLY GOOD AT?
Now you have a great image, but what else will make you stand out. Apart from a professional image, people are looking for clear expertise topics. Try not to be a jack of all trades and list everything you can think of. Try to list only what you truly feel you are an expert in, or at least what your top expertise is. If you have twenty different expertise topics listed, you just might give off a desperate vibe. Don’t worry, you’ll have enough room in the rest of your profile to go into more detail about the other things you are great at.
IT’S ALL IN THE NAME
WhenHub is all about connection and part of that has to do with names. Think about how you look for businesses on the internet, you probably are going to pick a business person who lists their first and last name instead of something like “Kermit the Frog”. Unless you are actually Kermit the Frog, you probably should use your real name or at least a real sounding nom de plume. Sure, there are exceptions to every rule, so if you aren’t going to use your full name, then put some thought into a name that fits with what you are an expert in.
IT’S NOT A GET RICH QUICK SCHEME
On WhenHub you get to charge what you think your services are worth, but potential clients will also get to decide, based on your profile if they want to pay your rate. Try to be realistic when deciding on your rates. You may even want to consider donating your time for free until you have enough solid ratings to merit asking for money. In the end, stay competitive and think about what others in your field of expertise are charging and why someone would pay you the same, more or less.
GETTING THE WORD OUT
Let people know you are on WhenHub. Share it on your website, blog or social media channels. We even wrote a recent blog post on how WhenHub now has a profile button available that can be placed on websites to tell everyone that you are available to share your expertise. WhenHub is also offering a Donation Button for one time and ongoing subscriptions, so your followers can support your ongoing work. Promotion is the name of the game and this can be as big or as small as you need it to be.
LET’S SCHEDULE IT
WhenHub gives you the ability to post a public schedule of your availabilities. That way, if you have an extended period of free time and you want to maximize it, post your schedule in advance. Again, share your schedule on your blog or your social media. If people see on Monday that you are available on Saturday, they can plan in advance to talk to you.
YOU MAKE THE CALL DURING THE CALL
Sure, you can share your expertise on WhenHub from anywhere. You can be having your morning coffee or out to lunch or walking your dog, but just think about how your client will perceive you during the call. Because you decide when you are available, you can dress more appropriately when you know you will be talking to clients. How does someone in your area of expertise dress? What is the appropriate setting for your expertise; an office, the woods, a laboratory? Think about that before you are ready to take calls. Walking your dog during a call might be a great idea if you run a dog walking business, but it might be a bit tacky if you are a grief counselor. Just do what is appropriate and what will keep people coming back, referring their friends and giving you high ratings.
Also, if you are using the mobile app don’t lean in too close to the camera, keep it an even distance from your face and don’t let the camera obscure parts of your face. It just looks weird. Make the person calling you feel like they have your full attention and you aren’t distracted.
INTRODUCING THE NEW FREE TOPIC OF THE DAY
In order to help you get started promoting your expertise, WhenHub Interface is starting a Free Topic of the Day Campaign. Twice a week we will feature a free expert topic, meaning that WhenHub Interface will not charge the usual 20% fee for calls that experts receive for that whole day. All experts in the topic of the day will get to keep 100% of the fees they charge. On top of that when the monetary value of your call comes out to at least $10 USD (or WHEN Token equvalent), WhenHub Interface will also give both the caller and the expert an additional 500 Free WHEN Tokens. Experts get to share their expertise and get paid for it and callers get to learn more about the topic of the day and get paid to do it.
Now that is a deal that just can’t be beat.
Our first Free Topic of the Day is Wednesday March 27, 2019 in the topics of Telemedicine and Cancer Immunotherapy. Mark your calendars!
IT’S UP TO YOU
Finally, and probably most important is have fun. It sounds cliché, but generally, if you are speaking about something you are an expert in, that will automatically create a strong engagement and you’ll exude a natural enthusiasm with your caller. This already makes your job easier. Being really into what you are talking about will make you a better expert, but make sure you also listen to your caller and answer their questions. Sure you are excited to talk, but remember that people will call you with specific questions and they may not have all day to sit and chat, especially if they are paying.
Just do the best you can and with each call you’ll get better and better. Who knows, maybe your field of expertise will be helping people become successful on WhenHub.
We look forward to having you on the platform, whether you’re an expert or just have questions for an expert. We’ve got a lot of cool stuff happening soon and we want you to be a part of it.
First Free Topic of the Day is Wednesday, March 27, 2019, for the topics of Telemedicine and Cancer Immunotherapy | https://medium.com/@whenhub/getting-busy-in-the-gig-economy-how-to-get-more-calls-on-whenhub-interface-ec5165a3ba20 | [] | 2019-03-28 19:12:21.209000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Side Hustle', 'Freelancers', 'Consulting', 'Gig Economy'] |
The True Meaning of Spirituality | The True Meaning of Spirituality
Fulfilling the needs of the spirit within the tripartite man
Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash
Having defined the beginning of our ascetic struggle as the battle between humilty and pride, Archbishop Averky now turns to a discussion of man, specifically, how to define the components within man.
St Paul says, For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb 4:12). Here, we can see how “soul” is differentiated from “spirit.” This differentiation between “spiritual” and “worldly” is found in many places in Sacred Scripture. Therefore, the Church has determined that a person’s nature has a triple makeup, consisting of a body, a soul, and a spirit, with the highest being the spirit.
I mentioned the differentiation between the spiritual and the worldly in my previous post, but I was surprised to see the categorization of the soul closer to the flesh than the spirit. This is because, as Hebrews 4:12 points out, the soul and spirit are two distinct things.
The activity of the soul is directed towards the fulfillment of the demands of temporal life.” Therefore, the soul is a lower principle compared to the spirit in a person and is closely connected to the body and to the life of the body. … As we see, a person is tripartite. How does each part function in our nature? God created the body of the dust of the ground (Gen 2:7) and thus the body belongs to the earth.
Taking the words of Hebrews, Archbishop Averky posits a three-fold man (since the soul and spirit are distinct). The body being the third piece, is the lowest of the three, which should surprise no one.
The soul is given by God as the life-giving force of the body in order for the body to function. All actions and all movements of the soul are so diversified, so complex, so intertwined with each other, so mutable, and frequently difficult to discern, that it is common to separate them into three categories for convenience: thoughts, feelings, and desires.
The soul, then, on this tripartite distinction, is that which gives rise to our mental faculties. This seems to make the most sense of the Greek term for “soul” used in the Bible, which is ψυχή, or psyche, which most english speakers will instantly recognize as a term referring to the mind.
We already know what the life of the body consists of: self-preservation and perpetuation of the species. The life of the soul consists of satisfying the needs of the mind, feelings, and the will. The soul wants to acquire knowledge and experience a variety of feelings.
Another principle is laid out here: each part of man has its own needs. The body has its bodily needs, the soul has its psychological needs. Obviously, then, the spirit has its spiritual needs.
This higher principle in a person is the spirit, and its origin is divine. This is the power which God breathed into the face of man, having completed His creation.
The spirit is the “breath of life” breathed into man during creation. This also explains why the Greek term for “spirit”, πνεύμα, is often translated as “breath” depending on context.
Now it should be clear what the spiritual life consists of, in contrast to the life of the soul and body. The spiritual life consists of satisfying the needs of the spirit, and the needs of the spirit consist of a person’s striving towards God, seeking for living communion with Him, and the desire to live according to God’s will.
With the above, we now have a working definition of “the spiritual life”. While some of the distinctions made in this chapter seem somewhat ad hoc, it makes sense when comparing the ascetic to the modern man:
Modern man frequently does not differentiate between the actions of the body, the soul, and the spiritual life, thus mixing them up, creating total confusion. … This has happened because the self-confirming spirit of human pride has become the dominant spirit of our times.
So, the spirit of pride we learned about in chapter one is just that: a spiritual pride. Attempting to fulfill the spiritual need for God with the false god of self leads to disasterous results.
The spirit yearns for God and, unable to find a means of escape for its aspirations under the violent pressure of the crude oppression of human pride, the spirit satisfies itself by substitutes, which are invented by the same human pride in order to calm it. In place of authentic religion, the spirit is given some nebulous philosophical teaching, or theosophy, or spiritism. In place of the Church, it is offered the “temple” of science, or the theater, ballet, etc. — anything from worldly life, capable of fully captivating the person. This kind of forgery, the substitute for spirituality by something emotional, is a defining characteristic of our times.
This is true on its face. We need look no further than the world around us to see that which we attempt to use as a means to fulfill ourselves. Yet even many Christians are fooled into thinking those worldly things are “spiritual”. Megachurches thrive off if this vague spirituality which in many cases amounts to little more than emotional manipulation (and a near 100% turnover in membership every half-decade, but I digress). Thus, we must have some way to determine what is spiritual and what is forgery.
How, in fact, can we tell the difference between a natural state and a genuine spiritual one? A genuine spiritual state is always totally passionless, so exalted that it lifts a person above the earth, not offering him any worldly sensations. On the other hand, every natural, worldly state, no matter how elevated it may be, will, without fail, stimulate some worldly, carnal sensation — for example, rapid heartbeat, pleasurable scintillation of the nerves, goose bumps
This is a clear and objective line drawn. If an experience stimulates the passions, it is not a “spiritual” experience.
This overwhelming dominance of emotionalism in contemporary people explains why genuine, strict church singing, which satisfies only spirituality, is bewildering and boring for the majority
Indeed this is often the case. Genuine spiritual activity is seen as boring to us. We want to be excited, to get “filled up” with our spiritual experiences. But this isn’t just limited to Christians, the entire world has seemingly been captivated by a pursuit of the passions.
The very pulse of modern life is nervous, refusing to allow a person any solitude for self-examination, creating an atmosphere hostile to leading a spiritual life.
Self-examination requires solitude. It requires “down time” for reflection and prayer. This is why as the world has become increasingly “busy” it has become increasingly prideful. Our busying activity is always about tending to our fleshly needs rather than spiritual ones, this the result is a decreasing spirituality and an increase in the need for our fleshly desires.
This is also behind the modern-day spiritualized movements like minimalism, some forms of veganism, “mindfulness”, and others. The attempt to satisfy our spiritual needs in these ways is counterfeit; for a time such things will bring happiness or a sense of purpose, but ultimately they lead to pride, as can be evidenced by any number of hacks making money travelling the world (with thousands of dollars of filmmaking gear) telling people how to live with less, PETA activists, self-proclaimed gurus, or health-and-wealth “gospel” preachers. | https://medium.com/toe-in-the-bosphorus/the-true-meaning-of-spirituality-82c4bb12d153 | ['Pete The Skete'] | 2020-11-23 14:06:54.567000+00:00 | ['Religion', 'Christianity', 'Faith', 'Spirituality', 'Orthodoxy'] |
Hayat | in In Bitcoin We Trust | https://medium.com/@cba-says/hayat-e9e2ddbce86b | ['Ceyhun Burak Akgül'] | 2020-12-22 20:40:20.842000+00:00 | ['Türkçe', 'Turkish'] |
Painted Dogs | The African wild dog faces formidable environmental and survival problems.
By
Oliver T. Spedding
The war against the carnivore has been won by the human being.
Only remnants of once widespread species remain.
In South Africa, Botswana and, until recently, Tanzania where all the wild dogs of the Serengeti were wiped out by an epidemic disease, the African wild dog faces almost certain extinction.
The African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), also known as the “painted dog” is now an endangered species with only three populations left on the African continent.
These small populations are highly vulnerable to epidemic diseases, environment disputes and conflict with other wild animals.
These highly intelligent and communally orientated creatures are the cousins of the very domesticated animals that we have selected to be our companions during all the stages of our lives.
African wild dogs were previously known as Cape hunting dogs and were once widely spread over sub-Saharan Africa.
Until recently these animals were unjustly and systematically exterminated in predator-control endeavors, accused of cruel and prolonged killing of their prey, devastating new areas of wild life that they invade by wanton killing of more than they can eat and of cannibalism.
All the above accusations are false.
The African wild dog is one of the speediest dispatchers of prey amongst all predators, the only time that there may be a surplus of food is when simultaneous chases are successful and wild dogs consistently tolerate and care for wounded or badly injured members of the pack.
That wild dogs practice cannibalism is absurd.
Packs of wild dogs can vary from a single pair to as many as 40 or 50 dogs for short periods of up to a year and are constantly changing membership as new packs are formed.
This changing of membership is determined by the availability of food, the size of the available territory and the size of competing packs.
Each pack has a dominant pair and only this pair successfully reproduces.
HUNTING
Hunting is usually done in two periods each day; at dawn and at dusk.
Subordinate adults are usually the most successful and experienced hunters and although they initiate most chases, they often make kills by themselves and then return to summon the pack.
As the pack moves through its territory, individual adults may opportunistically chase prey but essentially the group chases down larger prey with the result that all the members are able to share the kill.
Another advantage of group hunting is that wild dogs share their habitat with other species that may be larger and more dangerous and run the risk of losing their kill if it is not devoured quickly.
As a group they are also less likely to be ambushed as there are always members who watch for ambushing predators while the others are eating.
Also, the more members there are the more resistance they can put up.
The size of wild dog home ranges average 400 to 450 square kilometers but there are various factors such as the availability of food, the condition of the habitat and the number of competing packs that influence the size.
As wild dogs are nomadic they travel huge distances every day.
COOPERATION
During the time when pups are born the behaviour of the pack changes dramatically.
After the heavily pregnant dominant female has selected a potential den site, usually an unused den that may have been used by ant bears, warthogs, hyenas, leopards or even snakes, she disappears underground and remains there until a few days after the pups are born.
Once the pups have been whelped the habits of the pack change and the distances that they range are greatly reduced.
After a successful hunt the dogs feed and return to the den as quickly as possible where they feed the mother and her pups by regurgitating meat.
Each member of the pack therefore plays an important part as a carrier of food from the kill to the static reproductive hub.
Eventually the dominant female leaves the den to join the hunt and leaves a “baby-sitter” at the den who is responsible for seeing that the pups do not leave the den should a predator such as a lion approach.
When the pups reach three or four months they persistently try to follow the hunting pack and although they are discouraged with growls they eventually are able to witness the hunt visually.
At this stage the school of life — experience — begins for the pups and they learn about hunting and avoiding dangerous predators from the behavior of the adults.
There are always distractions such as vultures, flowers and tortoises and this can lead to them losing their lives.
The death rate of pups up to the age of one year is over 60 per cent. By the time the pups are one year old the dominant female is pregnant again.
Should a pack become too successful and be unable to provide sufficient food, many of the young adult wild dogs between the ages of one and three years leave their birth pack, find their own mates and attempt to reproduce independently in the hope of establishing a new pack.
In this way a pack comes full circle.
PLAY
The concept of play amongst animals in general is a behavior that is difficult to define but it seems that the main benefit is the development and coordination of the muscles by chasing, tackling and wrestling.
The disadvantages of play are mainly injuries, with leg injuries being the most devastating, and the danger of attracting the attention of lions and other predators.
The play process changes as the pups grow.
Initially their play consists mainly of learning about the physical world by playing with objects, and is often a solitary venture, but this soon changes to social play with play fighting the most common form.
It is very noticeable in this form of play that the mouths of the players are held wide open so that biting and tearing are very unlikely.
Play fighting then develops into chase play which mainly consists of chasing others, typically through long grass and shallow pools of water.
This type of play develops the speed and coordination of the pups and helps to teach them the rudiments of hunting and capturing prey.
PREDATOR
As wild dogs, together with honey badgers, cheetahs, foxes, hyenas, jackals, leopards, lions, cheetahs and many others, fall within the taxonomic order Carnivora, they eat only fresh meat and very little else.
As hunters they are efficient and effective and stalk their prey silently and stealthily, focusing on medium-sized antelope such as the impala.
Occasionally they will also prey on some of the larger species such as kudu, tsessebe, wildebeest, zebra and buffalo.
This demonstrates just how efficiently they work as a pack although a large proportion of kills are accomplished by individual dogs.
The early morning hunt begins with the dogs that ate the least from the last kill urging the others in the pack to prepare for the hunt with small yips and twittering.
As more and more dogs rise, a certain amount of playing takes place as a form of greeting.
The pack then sets out in what appears to be a random direction.
Initially the pace of the pack is slow as it wanders through the bush.
Gradually the pace increases to a steady trot that appears to have the function of loosening the muscles.
This is followed by an easy loping run that shows the readiness to seriously pursue potential prey.
Although it may appear that the pack hunts cooperatively, this has never been confirmed.
Once the intended prey, usually a small herd of impala, has been sighted the dogs stop and observe it until the entire pack has grouped.
They then spread out, focusing intently on their quarry with their heads held low and surreptitiously watching what the others are doing.
The chase only begins when the prey takes fright and breaks into a run.
Wild dogs are known to reach speeds in excess of 60 kilometers (37.3 miles) per hour when chasing prey.
Although several dogs may chase one impala, more often several impala are chased individually.
Chases of several miles have been recorded but on average most kills are made within 500 to 800 yards.
The method of wild dogs dispatching their prey has been wildly distorted and has been described as eating their prey while it is still alive.
This is incorrect as it is in the best interests of the wild dogs to kill their prey quickly so as to reduce the risk of serious injury from the struggling animal’s dangerous horns and hooves.
The killing by wild dogs is quickly accomplished by disembowelment; the dogs tearing into the soft underbelly of the prey with razor-sharp teeth and extracting the liver, lungs and heart within seconds.
Within a very short period of time the carcass is dismembered, the dogs functioning like a well organized team.
When a successful hunter returns to the pack there is much excitement with the young dogs begging persistently for regurgitated meat.
After a short rest the hunter then leads the pack to the site of the kill.
At the kill the adults spread out in a fan several yards from the carcass and facing outwards to watch for any approaching hyenas or lions and allow the young pups of up to a year to feed.
Giving priority access to the kill to the young in the pack contrasts with the behavior of other carnivores but, because they are supported by the dominant pair, wild dogs accept this practice obediently.
This disparity of access results in various levels of motivation amongst the older dogs for the next hunt as they may only end up with a bare bone to chew.
As a result, many of the older and lower priority individuals are often forced to seek their own prey, away from the pack.
Hunting is not without risks though.
Apart from the danger of horns and hooves, racing after prey through thorny bush and tall grass is very dangerous as are the myriad springhare holes and other deep depressions.
Mortalities from leg injuries in any wild dog pack are second only to lion-caused mortality.
The success rate of wild dogs when hunting varies considerably with the average being one full-sized antelope for every chase.
Obviously the bigger the pack the more food it requires.
An average size impala will feed a pack of eight to ten adults with nothing being wasted.
Should a pack grow too large to feed itself, dogs are motivated to hunt independently.
These are usually the older siblings and subordinate adults and it is not unusual for them to form smaller packs.
Wild dogs are susceptible to losing their food to pirate scavenging hyenas and marauding lions.
Against hyenas, the dogs must be greater in numbers as they are on average one third of the weight of their adversaries.
With lions the case is much more severe and lions are the major cause of wild dog deaths.
Even if challenged by a lone lion, wild dogs quickly surrender their food.
A lion can fatally maim a wild dog with a single swipe of its powerful paw.
Wild dogs are predators for a small part of each day and only when they are hungry and hunting.
They are not aggressive towards humans.
We need to respect wild dogs for their ability to work hard and play hard, how they raise their young, how they protect themselves and how effective they are as hunters.
PREY
Although the impala antelope is their main prey, wild dogs have been known to prey on scrub hares, large birds, zebras, warthogs and all species of antelope.
Under extreme hunger stress they will sometimes eat carrion. Impala are not particularly fast, size-wise they are perfect for wild dogs and they are predominant wherever wild dogs are found.
When it comes to the impala’s defense, on open ground they can consistently outpace wild dogs; however in bush-covered areas they are at a distinct disadvantage as this tends to slow them down considerably.
Wild dogs are visual hunters and if a dog loses sight of its quarry, it immediately gives up the chase.
Some impala successfully evade capture by running into bushy areas and then quickly changing direction.
As long as the vegetation isn’t too thick this tactic is quite successful.
Another tactic is for some of the impala to stand perfectly still while the majority are fleeing.
This ploy is based on the fact that the pursuing dogs are focused on chasing the escaping impala.
Impala are extremely social animals and are seldom seen in groups of less than twenty.
The costs of group living are increased competition for food, increased risk of disease and an increased risk of falling prey because groups are more noticeable than individuals.
The benefits are an increased chance of identifying predators through superior vigilance, a decreased likelihood of being captured and an increased probability of escape during the confusion of an attack.
This theory is called “dilution effect’ and is based on the fact that a predator can only catch one individual at a time.
Therefore, in a group of two, the individual has a fifty per cent of being caught whereas in a group of fifty the odds are reduced to one in fifty.
Age is also a factor and younger animals are more likely to escape capture than older and slower animals.
WILD DOGS AS PREY
Crocodiles, lions and hyenas represent a constant threat to wild dogs, with lions being the single most significant natural cause of death in healthy wild dog populations.
Lions actively pursue wild dogs, regardless of whether they are hungry or have cubs to protect.
With this in mind it is likely that wild dogs live in packs for the same reason that impala live in herds; to reduce the pressure of lion predation.
This is borne out by the fact that usually only one dog is killed during any lion attack.
The idea of African wild dogs as prey seems to contradict the image that they are bold and remorseless carnivores.
Wild dogs have to contend with the same pressures as the animals that they prey on.
As an integral link in the food chain, they have also developed avoidance activities and social behavior as a means of survival.
PRESSURE
The future of the African wild dog remains unsure.
Like all of the wild life species across the world, the main obstacle threatening their survival is the continuous loss of wilderness habitats.
This competition for resources is the direct result of the rapidly growing human population coupled with the accompanying threat of domestic animal diseases.
The question that we need to ask is: “Is the conservation of wild animals important?”.
The answer is that all the living things on our planet are important simply because they are here.
Their value cannot be defined in monetary terms.
Because of their numbers, needs, resourcefulness and technologies, the human being controls the future of the biological world.
The African wild dog is Africa’s most endangered large carnivore and has stolen the hearts and enriched the souls of all who have experienced their way of life.
Their cooperative nature, innocent curiosity, the similarity of their behavior to their domesticated cousins, their favoring of their young by yielding to them priority access to food, their ability to exist harmoniously and their consideration and concern for the pack as a whole are traits that create a paradigm of collaboration not seen anywhere else in the wild life arena.
Illustrations — Oliver T. Spedding
Source of information — RUNNING WILD — Dispelling the Myths of the African Wild Dog by John McNutt and Lesley Boggs — ISBN 1 86812 666 8 Published by Southern Book Publishers. | https://medium.com/@ohteecreative/painted-dogs-5f8e2c7b3840 | ['Oliver Thomas Spedding'] | 2020-12-12 05:48:42.687000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'Animals', 'Dogs', 'Wildlife', 'Africa'] |
A Tribe’s Fattening Room Culture and How It Affects the Women Involved | A Tribe’s Fattening Room Culture and How It Affects the Women Involved
The fattening practice is prevalent amongst the Efik and Ibibio people of Cross River State, Nigeria. It is otherwise referred to as the 'Mbodi’, an age-old cultural practice that has existed for years.
The practice requires young ladies to be kept and fed for months before they get married. According to this tradition, the lady in question is fed in large amounts before marriage.
“Mbodi is a rite of passage which subjects women of marriageable age to undergo the process of body fattening. In most cases, Mbodi goes with circumcision.” — Ibiene
What is the fattening room process all about?
Before the feeding begins, the girls are put through some rituals such as shaving off their hairs and putting brass rings around their ankles.
On the day the fattening begins, palm oil is rubbed all over the young lady’s body and she is thereafter put in a secluded room where she is to sit on a mat. This room is also known as “the fattening room”; a place where the would-be bride would prepare for marriage, motherhood, and family life.
After some time, she is taught basic etiquette like how to receive visitors and welcome relatives. The process of fattening usually lasts for about a year.
Sylvester Odey, director of the Cultural Center Board has explained that the fattening room is like a kind of school where girls are taught about motherhood.
The daily routine is to sleep, eat, and grow fat.
Asides from eating, fattening also comes with an all-round beauty treatment that involves rubbing the lady’s body with massage oils and native chalk.
During this time, the young woman isn’t allowed to receive any visitors and interaction is also forbidden, except with elderly matrons who teach the would-be brides how to be successful mothers and wives.
As for how much fat is permissible, there is no laid down rule or particular standard. However, the bigger the bride, the better.
With this culture, beauty mostly lies in gaining weight. It doesn’t matter whether the lady is hungry or not. She is constantly fed, not minding if she likes it or not.
The Efik/Ibibio people believe that fattening comes with the following advantages:
It is a sign of privilege and wealth. A lot of lessons are learned during the process. For instance, financial lessons, folklore, and other related traditions are taught during this time. Pampering is also part of the treatment as it is considered to be a good time for relaxation.
Significance of the fattening room culture
In certain parts of Africa, a rotund figure is a sign of good health and wealth. In these places, the general belief is that such body type commands respect and honor from others.
Going to the fattening room is a service that some couples voluntarily opt for before getting married. In most cases, it is done after the bride price has been paid and the would-be husband can also share in the financial burden to pay for the fattening services such as cooking and other related expenses.
While recounting her experience in the fattening room, Happiness Eden, a former visitor to the fattening room said:
"In the morning, you eat ...after eating, you can take a bath. From there you can sleep, you sleep, you wake up, you eat, you sleep."
Concerns about being in the fattening culture
Although this practice places importance on a woman’s rotundity, it is done regardless of health implications such as obesity and other dangerous health conditions.
The ladies involved are usually given heavy food rich in carbohydrates and fat. Some may not find this process easy as they would have no choice but to eat as much as they can, irrespective of their appetite.
As the HubPages website puts it:
“They are usually overfed and must eat even when they don’t have any appetite, the process is grueling, forced and can be mentally and physically tasking.”
While it may be considered a voluntary act, some prospective brides are forced to do it to preserve their tradition. There is the tendency to get mocked by other community members who may feel that a family is financially incapable if their female child(ren) do not go through this rite of passage.
The restriction from the outside world and lack of physical contact also pose to be a problem because, during this time, the ladies are only allowed to sleep, eat, and do nothing more.
Younger girls who are not of marriageable age are also allowed to be involved, but only as a coming-of-age ceremony. It helps prepare them for womanhood. Nursing mothers can also partake if they wish to gain more weight.
Although this practice is gradually becoming extinct due to western influence and its health implications, it is still in practice in some communities. | https://historyofyesterday.com/a-tribes-fattening-room-culture-and-how-it-affects-the-women-involved-1ef4e59ff528 | ['Yewande Adeleke'] | 2021-06-10 11:03:00.165000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'History', 'Writing', 'Africa', 'Tradition'] |
Does Buying Instagram Followers work? | On Instagram, the whole lot is associated with the range of followers you have on your account. It is the way that you obtain credibility and proving that your voice things amid all of the noise. The hassle is, in order to get Instagram followers, you want followers.
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This is how Buying Real Instagram Followers can help you radically change you from a barely heard whisper into a voice that things to the millions of Instagram users. Stop wasting your time and spinning your wheels. Buy your first set of Instagram followers today and watch as your account is transformed. | https://medium.com/@alexisas0143/does-buying-instagram-followers-work-4004f0b68be | [] | 2020-02-20 07:06:47.525000+00:00 | ['Social Media Marketing', 'Instagram Marketing', 'Instagram', 'Buy Instagram Follower', 'Digital Marketing'] |
Wrestling Dunn Right | Wrestling Dunn Right
In an act of selflessness, Washington Township junior scholar athlete Jack Dunn volunteered to compete against a wrestler with disabilities last month. Ryan Lawrence Jan 10, 2019·4 min read
Washington Township High School junior Jack Dunn volunteered to wrestle an autistic student athlete from Howell High School last month, putting aside his personal record to give his opponent an opportunity. (RYAN LAWRENCE, The Sun)
If you’re a rabid South Jersey high school wrestling fan, December was a tough month.
At one school (Schalick, in Pittsgrove Township) a program was canceled for the remainder of the young season after a heinous hazing incident. At another (Buena Regional, in Atlantic County) an athlete was made to cut off his dreadlocks because the referee, coaching staff and administrators all managed to fail him at the same time.
It was easy for other stories to get lost in December, including one involving a Washington Township High School junior named Jack Dunn. But Dunn’s story — a positive one in the midst of a tumultuous month — is surely worth telling, too.
The 17-year-old Dunn, a scholar-athlete who also stars for the Minutemen in football, volunteered to wrestle a special needs student from Howell High School at the John and Betty Vogeding Tournament in Paulsboro during the first weekend of the season on Dec. 15.
Dunn, despite losing his first two matches earlier in the day, stuck to his word and took the mat against his Howell opponent. It was perhaps the most admirable performance for a prep wrestler who technically went 0-for-3 on the afternoon.
“Obviously I didn’t go to my full extent — I wanted him to win — I tried to just make him happy,” Dunn explained. “That’s all. I wasn’t thinking it like I was trying to doing anything special. Just wrestle. And at the end of the day, he’s going to win.”
Washington Township head coach Eric Ring said the Howell coach had brought up the idea during a coaches’ meeting before the start of the tournament, hoping someone would volunteer.
“I thought of Jack right away, I knew he’d 100 percent do it,” Ring said. “I’ve known him for a long time, I teach at the elementary school (Thomas Jefferson), I know him and his whole family. He’s all-conference in football, captain of the wrestling team, he just got inducted into the National Honor Society, he’s in the orchestra — he plays the cello. He’s literally the epitome of what you want in a student and a student-athlete. He’s as well rounded as they come.”
Washington Township junior Jack Dunn practices with senior Daimere Wilson-Turner in a recent wrestling practice at the high school. (RYAN LAWRENCE, The Sun)
Although Dunn’s story didn’t spread quite as much as the other two aforementioned
South Jersey wrestling stories in December, it did gain traction when the Minutemen coaching staff posted a video of the bout on their Twitter account. The video tweet got more than 200 retweets, more than 1,000 likes, and nearly 42,000 views.
“(It was great), especially around the holidays,” Ring said. “We obviously didn’t anticipate it doing that (going viral), we post a lot of stuff on Twitter, but once that caught on we were excited to show sportsmanship and show off Jack Dunn a little bit.”
Dunn has been unaffected by his quasi-internet celebrity.
“A bunch of people (have complimented me) and I appreciate it, but I don’t even think about it like that,” he said. “I just did it to make someone else happy. … I always try to be a leader. I guess I just want to set a good example.”
“He’s literally the epitome of what you want in a student and a student-athlete. He’s as well rounded as they come,” Washington Township coach Eric Ring said of junior Jack Dunn. (RYAN LAWRENCE, The Sun)
Dunn is doing just that for his school, his wrestling team, and for his younger siblings, too. His younger brother, Connor (eighth grade), and younger sister, Casey (seventh grade), will be following him into Washington Township in the next two years.
Dunn credits his parents (Nicole and Seth) and his faith for his maturity and selflessness.
“I’m firm believer in religion so I look at the Bible and I try to follow that,” Dunn said.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
“I just try to set an example for people,” he said. “Wrestling isn’t my №1 sport and I’m not the best wrestler, but I work hard at it. I know other people work hard, so I’d hope that have the same opportunity that I have.”
Dunn was recently named first team All-Olympic Conference, third team All-South Jersey, and third team All-State Group 5 for his work as a left tackle on the Minutemen football team. With a schedule full of honors courses and a strong GPA, Dunn shouldn’t have any trouble with his goal of continuing to play football at the next level. He’s had interest from Patriot League schools (Bucknell and Lehigh) and Ivy League programs, too — he was invited to a junior day event at the University of Pennsylvania this month.
“I’m looking at engineering and psychology,” he said, “those are my big (interests) now.”
But his high school graduation is still more than 16 months away. Until then, Dunn will continue to set a positive example at Washington Township High School.
“He’s literally a coach’s dream,” Ring said. | https://medium.com/@rlawrence_14688/wrestling-dunn-right-83a4c73c8b7e | ['Ryan Lawrence'] | 2019-01-10 21:47:21.549000+00:00 | ['New Jersey', 'Wrestling', 'High School Sports', 'Sports'] |
How to find Naviaddresses? | Naviaddress gives an opportunity to transform a language-specific address and place description into digitized and searchable information. A couple of digits in a Naviaddress combine a postal address, information about a business and a webpage.
This approach has the potential to revolutionize the traditional way we identify, locate and share addresses worldwide. Here’s a simple step-by-step guide on how to find any existing Naviaddress using the website, mobile app or Telegram bot:
Using the website:
I. If you have a direct link to a Naviaddress, click on it and the Naviaddress card will be opened automatically on our website.
II. If you have a name or a description of a Naviaddress, then follow the instructions below
Step 1.
Open the search bar on the website’s right upper corner.
Step 2.
Enter the name or the description in the search bar.
Step 3.
Click on the Naviaddress you are looking for to expand its contents.
III. If you have a digital address of a Naviaddress, then follow the steps below.
Step 1.
Find the search bar on the website.
Step 2.
Enter the digital address in the search bar.
Step 3.
Click on the Naviaddress you are looking for to expand its contents.
*Please note below how to type the digits.
*To find a Naviaddress page of an event, put a number sign(#) before the address code.
Using the Naviaddress mobile app:
I. If you have a direct link to a Naviaddress, click on it and the Naviaddress card will be opened automatically in the Naviaddress mobile app.
II. If you have a name, description or the digits of a Naviaddress, follow the steps below.
Step 1.
Click on the magnifying glass in the lower left corner.
Step 2.
Enter the name, description or the digits in the search bar.
Step 3.
Click on the Naviaddress you are looking for to expand its contents.
Using the Telegram Bot:
Step 1.
Start the bot @NaviaddressBot by typing “/start” or clicking the start button.
Step 2.
If you have a name or a description for a Naviaddress, send it to the bot and it will give you a direct link. You can also search for Naviaddresses of events using their name or description.
Step 3.
If you have a digital address of a Naviaddress, send it to the bot and it will give you a direct link.
Naviaddress patented technology allows to transform a language-specific address and place description into digitized and searchable information. A couple of digits combine a postal address, detailed last-mile directions and a webpage. Create your own Naviaddresses for your home, office, country house, weekend retreat, fitness center or your business and share them with one click.
Naviaddress App:
Android
iOS
🔹Resources & useful links: | https://medium.com/naviaddress/how-to-find-naviaddresses-cf3a1aade86f | [] | 2019-03-27 17:43:09.128000+00:00 | ['Guides And Tutorials', 'Search', 'Smart Address', 'Telegram', 'Apps'] |
The ECOMI App for Android Is Live on the Google App Store! | A major milestone in the ECOMI project timeline has just been reached- the beta launch of the ECOMI App on Google Play! This companion app integrates seamlessly with the ECOMI Secure Wallet, simplifying and redesigning the way we interact with the cold storage, and the blockchain, to safely store your private keys for crypto, DApps, and NFTs.
The ECOMI App is LIVE in Google Play
But First- a Little Info on the ECOMI Secure Wallet
With more than $2 billion lost to hacks, scams and other malicious attacks in Q1 2018 alone, the ability to easily and secure your private keys has never been more important. In fact, a lack of understanding, and an overcomplicated process has been one of the main barriers to mainstream adoption of blockchain technology. Until now.
The ECOMI Secure Wallet- and ECOMI App- solve these issues with a number of innovative solutions.
It is a true cold storage wallet. That is, connecting to the Secure Wallet does not require a wired connection. Rather you connect with the Secure Wallet via an encrypted bluetooth connection, such as pairing it with your smartphone. This ensures it is impermeable to man-in-the-middle attacks, screen capture virus’s and other malware. Thanks to a sleek design and the removal of a wired connection, the Secure Wallet is truly portable. You no longer need access to a laptop/PC to access your cold storage, allowing you to use your crypto to make instant trades, transfer tokens, or pay for goods and services on the fly. The Secure Wallet is designed with additional security features, such as the need to physically interact with the card to confirm transactions. This is as simple as visually confirming the transaction, and pressing the red button to approve it. By requiring physical interaction/confirmation, the Secure Wallet is safe from remote attack. The launch of the ECOMI app marks a turning point in the way we interact with the blockchain, and drastically simplifies our interactions with cold storage, allowing for the immutable protection of your tokenised assets.
Introducing the ECOMI App!
The ECOMI app strikes a perfect balance between the easy-to-use app interface and ECOMI’s cold storage solution (the Secure Wallet), to fully utilise the immutable nature of the underlying blockchain technology. You use the ECOMI app in the same way you use your existing smartphone applications. This was an intentional feature of the ECOMI Ecosystem, designed to bring you blockchain solutions in a familiar and user friendly manner.
Catch the first images of the ECOMI app in Google Play
Setting up Your Secure Wallet has Never Been Easier!
Available immediately on Android, and soon to be available on iOS (thanks to regulatory updates from Apple) you can get the ECOMI app simply by visiting the google app store and downloading it. If that seems too hard, simply follow this link to get your first look at the amazing ECOMI app!
Then, the process to set up your Secure Wallet and pair to your smartphone is not only simple, it is intuitive. Using an encrypted bluetooth connection, you pair your Secure Wallet in the same way you would pair any other bluetooth device! We’ll release more detailed set-up instructions when the Secure Wallet begins to ship.
For now, just know that ECOMI couldn’t be more excited to have our app go live, and want to send a huge congratulations to our entire development team!
For our wonderful community- it won’t be long before we begin shipping the Secure Wallet to our crowdsale participants! To get your hands on one for FREE, and before the rest of the crowd, simply head to ecomi.com and join the ECOMI crowdsale!
You’ll receive a FREE Secure Wallet with OMI token purchases of $500 USD or more, and the best news is we are now accepting fiat (USD) payments= even less hassle in purchasing your OMI tokens!
To show your appreciation for the app release, please hold down the clap button on this article and join us on Telegram so we can keep you updated on everything ECOMI- who knows, we might even give out some free Secure Wallets! ;) | https://medium.com/ecomi/the-ecomi-app-for-android-is-live-on-the-google-app-store-9ea2123f869f | [] | 2018-08-17 06:00:29.064000+00:00 | ['Security', 'App Development', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Apps', 'Bitcoin'] |
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