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What I found in my Mail Today? | When I am having no work to do then I get glue to social media. Most often it includes Instagram and Facebook. When it comes to Facebook then I see a great deal of exciting and latest stuff to buy. Sellers come with the stylish stuff in variety of colors, design and size. They allure their goods and present them well. It enforce me to place order of these. Hence, I consume my earnings on online shopping which satisfies me too when I receive something beneficial in it.
Few Days Back …
I saw amazingly adorable jewelry which fascinate me much. Well, although I liked that but I didn’t pay heed to it. Then I saw the same seller with exciting stuff. Actually, the seller makes customized items for the people regarding wedding events. I just show that to my sister. My sister gave me green signal to buy it and indeed she also made selection for herself too. I placed order with advanced payment which I always feel a risk.
My Area of Concerns
Alhamdulilah, I got my order to my home address today. I love the elegance of my customized product but it had some flaws.
Massively delicate
Use of paperboard at back end
One item is missing ( I ordered ring too, one set is without ring)
Except that the experience was good. I communicated all this with seller too but to my amazement, got no response till now. Let see what the future experiences be!
Did you ever buy any jewelry online? If yes, then what it was? Do you prefer customized or already available one? Share your experience 🙂 | https://medium.com/@nagina-anwar56/what-i-found-in-my-mail-today-60a6df97d482 | ['Nagina Anwar'] | 2020-12-16 22:02:40.674000+00:00 | ['Experience', 'Mail', 'Online Shopping', 'Digital Marketing', 'Jewelry'] |
Penggalan Cerita | Yes or not for life | https://medium.com/@moelabigail/penggalan-cerita-e746cbc204bc | [] | 2020-12-24 08:15:39.098000+00:00 | ['Story', 'News', 'Love'] |
I'm on Fire | I write, draw, fact-check, and translate. Once I was on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. (I did not become a millionaire.)
Follow | https://medium.com/spiralbound/im-on-fire-2a3559c31167 | ['Gillian Brassil'] | 2018-09-06 13:01:01.554000+00:00 | ['Uti', 'Urinary Tract Infections', 'Home Remedies', 'Gillian Brassil', 'Comics'] |
Skycoin Team Status Update | As many skycoin holders are no doubt aware, there was a major selloff over the past two weeks, in the course of which market price levels for skycoin fell significantly. While multiple factors likely contributed to these events, recent events connected to the China marketing team have also had an impact. This impact was in part direct, but in part due to uncertainty caused by these events. In response, steps have been taken to rectify the situation and eliminate any further negative impact on the market. At the same time, this update will hopefully help to dispel the rumors and clarify the actual limited impact on the project.
The trigger for the events was the discovery that the previous Skycoin China marketing team (EVOLAB) had embezzled approximately 100,000 skycoins over the course of the past half year. In light of this discovery and their failure to return or account for the embezzled coins, the relationship with this team was terminated.
Following this, at 9:30 PM on June 13th 2018, nine individuals, including/led by marketing team members Sam Sing Fong, Mary Li (李臻/李敏), Xiangdong Yan (闫向东) and Jesse Sun Fei (孙飞) burglarized Synth’s home. They proceeded to hold Synth and his wife against their will for 6 hours, over the course of which they threatened, beat and robbed them. Thanks to wallet security measures, the group was only able to extract 18.88 Bitcoin and 6466 skycoins during the robbery. The gang also attempted and failed to steal the design framework for the skycoin ecosystem.
The stolen skycoin transaction can be seen here:
The total number of skycoins stolen by these individuals is still being determined, and the addresses containing stolen coins are also being documented. In order to protect the interests of skycoin holders, as a response to these events a temporary black-listing function was implemented. The future use of this function will be subject to discussion and voting by the entire skycoin community over the next few months.
The primary skycoin exchanges were notified asking them to temporarily freeze the accounts of the criminal suspects. Frozen assets will be dealt with after the investigation has been concluded. The skycoin legal team will supply an update on the aftermath of the armed robbery at a later time.
Since some of the community social media accounts or Telegram groups were created by the EVOLAB team, Skycoin community members wishing to stay connected should subscribe to the groups mentioned on the Skycoin website (www.skycoin.net).
According to feedback from exchanges, the accounts holding stolen skycoins have been frozen, so any further impact on the market should be limited. Though some panic selling seems to be continuing, as of this writing the market price has recovered by approximately 30%.
The following channels are considered official:
Skycoin Global Community Telegram: https://t.me/Skycoin
Skycoin China Community Telegram: https://t.me/skycoinchina
Skycoin China Community WeChat account: skycoin-china
Skycoin China Community WeChat public account: skycoin666
Skycoin Website: http://www.skycoin.net
The entire Skycoin team is working with relevant parties to deal with these events and put them behind us. The above incidents have both directly and indirectly impacted the market, and for that we sincerely apologize to our community. We are working hard to ensure that this does not slow our progress as we continue to develop the project | https://medium.com/skycoin/skycoin-team-status-update-77c4793eaf7c | [] | 2018-06-18 15:18:53.941000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Ethereum', 'Mesh Networks', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Skycoin'] |
For Elementary School Children, Naughtiness Is Not Always a Choice. | Emotions and childhood are temporary, but identity is forever.
That’s one thing I’ve learned as a tutor for the past couple of years. I have been a tutor since age 16, my first job being a math grader for Kumon in my junior year of high school. I walked to work 3 days of the week and was paid $60 for my efforts. I was upgraded to English Tutor after a few months and the rest was history. Since then, I’ve been a teaching artist and a tutor, teaching children English (public speaking and poetry) and (light) math.
I am one of the youngest teachers and it shows in the way I treat children. There is a generational gap beyond measure. I don’t let myself yell, and if I do, I end up apologizing. I let my young people cry. I let my young people play. I let my young people talk (within reason). I do stretches with my young people. I let my young people take breaks and feel tired, without judgement or shame. I am honest with them when I make mistakes. I let them re-do mistakes on tests. I ask for high-fives and hugs before giving them. I give them grades as guideposts, not a defining factor of their worth. I let them explore and be independent.
Dr. Bruce Perry outlines six core strengths for children to develop during elementary school childhood: attachment, self-regulation, affiliation, attunement (empathy), tolerance, and respect.
The sad thing I have learned working as a tutor with children is that often, adults aren’t yet ready to “go there” much of the time. A lot of adults believe that children, since they are so young, do not deserve respect. A lot of adults also believe that it’s impossible to disrespect a child, which is humorous, since disrespect is a learned behavior. Children learn what they are capable of by bearing witness. So much of adulthood is sacrifice and routine that when interacting with children becomes routine, it is easy to neglect the core strengths. Dr. Bruce Perry calls these strengths the “vaccine against violence” and once adults who interact with children vaccinate children, behavior and growth can be facilitated. Perry also notes this can be difficult when adults were not given these core strengths as children themselves, therefore being unable to give what they lack. As a result, in my experience, some children have poor self-regulation and suffer from social withdrawal, aggression, and other forms of acting out.
Adults, especially adults in caregiver roles towards children, need to start the work within themselves and look at their own pain so as to meet children with compassion and support instead of anger and punishment. As adults, we have zero days, mental health days, slow days, terrible days that just seem to drag. Children not only have these patterns as well, but they can worsened in unimaginable and devastating ways with adverse childhood experiences. There is always the possibility that a child has experienced physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, experienced gun violence, manipulation, an addict parent, a family member in jail, divorce, death, abandonment, health scares and diagnoses for themselves and a family member, etc.
And to be fair, not every child who acts up has experienced terrible trauma. Not every relationship with a young person is going to be the same because they are a young person; you may feel closer to some students and have a colloquial rapport and that is okay. You may feel farther away from some students and have assumptions (true or not)swirling around. But there is no denying that it is better for everyone that when children act out of character, we operate on the side of caution rather than denying the children who have experienced adverse childhood experiences any sort of refuge.
Children don’t often show their pain by talking. They often show their pain through challenging behavior that requires attention as a means of survival. As a culture, the next generation of adults in charge: parents, family members, teachers, mentors, coaches and educators have to move beyond the idea that bad behavior is always a choice. First, we should know better than to adhere to generalizations and blanket statements towards children. Second, we can incorporate positive reinforcement in the classroom and at home. The way we counter some early childhood trauma is to make school a fun and safe place, caring about students, practicing radical empathy and patience, establishing predictable yet adaptable routines, helping children feel comfortable with themselves, and honoring beliefs that provide comfort. In the end, in 90 percent of situations, we need to see beyond the challenge and see what the challenging child is trying to communicate. The most important thing about communication is hearing what is not said.
Instead of being annoyed by a child who isn’t talking, ask them open ended questions with no follow-up criticism. If you ask, “Who did you sit with at lunch today?” and they say “Nobody”, don’t allow judgment and parental anxiety to creep into your response. Remember you are talking to your child and to mind what you say. If all else fails, I turn to art. I let my students draw their feelings or just let off some stem. I reward them with stickers of media that they enjoy. There is a lot of color and symbolism in my room.
Instead of saying, “What were you thinking?” or ,”How many times do I have to tell you this?" say “I am going to help you with this.” Instead of making a child feel bad for not understanding something for the 50th time, say “This is tough but so are you.” and maybe it will take until the 500th time, but they will get it.
Instead of saying “Stop it, you’re embarrassing me!” during a tantrum, move the child or other children to a quieter room away from other students/tantrum. Instead of comparing children or responding physically, focus on the child’s feeling. Tell the child who is acting out, “If you need me, I’ve got you. If you need to get this frustration out, you have a few minutes and then I will check on you again.” Regulate this young person by focusing on soothing them and reminding them that they are safe. Once your child is calm, you can talk about alternatives to negative behaviors.
Tell the child acting out, “This is your responsibility.” And some days, it will work and some days, tears are more valuable than a lesson. We are always worth more than our mistakes. There is always another day.
There is a reason why we do not send children to prison over mistakes. We shouldn’t even act like it, whether at home or in school.
Raise your words, not your voice.
Even if they don’t tell you the first time around.
Even if you have to gain their trust, slowly.
Breakthroughs happen everyday, and they are worth it. | https://mernineameris.medium.com/naughtiness-is-not-always-a-choice-f9f0c1c0f78 | ['Mernine Ameris'] | 2019-11-19 05:50:18.973000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Young People', 'Parenting', 'Children', 'Education'] |
Trying to find relief through thinking is worse than hoping to stumble upon a life-saving post on… | Trying to find relief through thinking is worse than hoping to stumble upon a life-saving post on Facebook via endless scrolling.
Moreover, I do not even know whether there is a ‘relief’ in the thinking process, that if I keep thinking I might reach it.
In the case of Facebook, it might make sense if my endless scrolling endeavor is to find a post that I saw early but want to find it again now.
But in the case of thinking endlessly, I do not even know if there is a ‘relief’ waiting for me somewhere down in thinking. And should I waste time or just drop the wasteful game then and there, by not actively participating in the thinking process, ie, not falling for its tricks.
Something to look at if you get caught up in suffering related to wasteful thinking. | https://medium.com/everything-shortform/trying-to-find-relief-through-thinking-is-worse-than-hoping-to-stumble-upon-a-life-saving-post-on-45da22bc4cf4 | ['Pretheesh Presannan'] | 2020-12-16 18:42:38.869000+00:00 | ['Short Read', 'Contemplation', 'Thinking', 'Humor', 'Meditation'] |
Don’t Miss Out! A Biologist Explains Antibodies through Rap Music | Don’t Miss Out! A Biologist Explains Antibodies through Rap Music
A scientist shows us how to make science fun
Antibodies are all the rage these days. As Covid-19 vaccines come to market, many want to understand how immunity works. Scientists and health writers struggle to find ways to make these topics accessible and exciting.
This morning my Twitter feed blessed me with an outstanding video from Raven Baxter AKA Raven the Science Maven. Her video provides a fantastic explanation of immunology. The best part is she teaches us through rap music.
She walks us through the various types of antibodies and explains B cells as “B cells know the haters when they see them, so it’s fight night.” And how can you not love a lyric like “NK natural killers makin’ haters going night night”?
Baxter is an American molecular biologist and science communicator. She is a doctoral student at the University of Buffalo and the founder of STEMbassy, an organization dedicated to high-level science and technology discussions in politics, culture, and social issues. She is also the founder of Black In Science Communication.
We need more scientific leaders using social media tools and creative approaches to educate the public.
Science is fun!
Thank you for reminding us Raven the Maven. | https://medium.com/beingwell/dont-miss-out-a-biologist-explains-antibodies-through-rap-music-9f60427586e1 | ['Dr Jeff Livingston'] | 2020-11-28 16:53:57.164000+00:00 | ['Science', 'STEM', 'Education', 'Health', 'Immune System'] |
Are independent boards the way to go? | February 28th, 2020
Hope you are having a great week and welcome back to our brief thoughts on ESG. This week I’d like to share some ideas on corporate governance inspired by Warren Buffet’s latest letter to Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholders. In particular, I’d like to talk about independent board members and their effectiveness.
Who is an independent board member?
An independent director or board member is defined as a someone who doesn’t have a material or pecuniary relationship with the company either directly or through one of the company’s partners, shareholders, or management members, except for the fees it gets from being a board member. In a nutshell, an independent board member should not have any conflict of interest that would prevent them from exercising independent judgment in any and all topics discussed during board meetings. In theory this allows them to better consider all stakeholders (in particular, minority shareholders) and make the best decision for all.
Now, it is easier to put in paper when someone is independent than to judge independence in real life. Many market organizations (NASDAQ, NYSE, LSE, HKSE, among others) have tried to enumerate rules to better define where conflicts of interest exist. But life is complex, and with complexity comes subjectivity. So, investors are left to the very difficult task to not only see the percentage of independent board members in a given board, but also to judge whether these board members are actually independent.
Is an independent board always better?
This is a tough question. Several academic studies have tried to tackle it and the answer is not always straightforward.
Some supporters are:
A very large study of 10,314 firm-year observations belonging to 34 countries shows that board independence is positively associated with firm performance.
A study of 200 firms in both the UK and the US showed that there is a significantly positive relationship between the number of independent board members and firm performance.
A study of the FTSE100 constituents in the UK showed that board independence has a significant strong positive impact on firm performance (both contemporaneous and subsequent).
A study for Chinese companies covering almost all publicly traded firms on both the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 1999 to 2012 found that independent directors have a positive effect on firm performance. This relationship was even stronger in government-controlled firms and firms with lower information acquisition costs.
A study for 80 listed Pakistani firms, also shows a significant positive impact of independence on firm performance measures.
A study of 64 industrial firms listed in the Amman Stock Exchange in Jordan found that board independence is significantly and positively related to ROA.
Some opponents are:
A study in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain analyzing data for 162 companies found an inverse relationship between board independence and firm performance.
A study in Bangladesh found that independence and economic performance did not positively affect each other in the 135 firms studied in the local market.
A study of 200 firms in Malaysia concluded that independent directors significantly and negatively affect firm performance.
Some mixed bags are:
A study of 2883 US companies found that board independence is positively related to firm value before the introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and negatively related after the introduction.
A study of Southern European companies found that the optimal proportion of independent directors is lower in family businesses than in non-family ones.
If you look for similar studies, you can find many covering many different geographies and yielding many different conclusions. Thus, we now have an additional layer of complexity. Not all independent boards yield the same results (even if the theory behind an independent member better representing a minority is sound).
How would a great board look like then?
Quoting the source of inspiration for this week’s topic: “Despite the illogic of it all, the director for whom fees are important — indeed, craved — is almost universally classified as “independent” while many directors possessing fortunes very substantially linked to the welfare of the corporation are deemed lacking in independence. Not long ago, I looked at the proxy material of a large American company and found that eight directors had never purchased a share of the company’s stock using their own money.
… I feel better when directors of our portfolio companies have had the experience of purchasing shares with their savings.”
We believe independence is important, but it’s not a silver bullet. A combination of having an independent board (with board members who truly understand their fiduciary duty, are prepared for the task, and have minorities’ best interests at heart) and the right alignment of interests is the ideal. Board members should be aligned to care about their decisions more than they care about their board fees. Investors should be empowered to speak up when board members are not delivering. Track record should matter.
In Mexico we have a lot of family-controlled businesses in the market. As a result, we see most boards with a minority of independent members. While we believe over time Mexican companies will improve their corporate governance standards to align with what investors ask for, we don’t see a Mexican market with less control group power in the near term. Under these conditions, we believe companies need to make sure their independent board seats are being optimized. We provide some food for thought here:
Do you have the best board member sitting there? Someone prepared with useful knowledge for where your industry is heading? An independent thinker who will speak up if needed? Are your independent board members up to speed to what their fiduciary duty entails? Are your independent board members too busy to truly dedicate time to your board? Are your independent board members correctly incentivized? Do your board members care more about their reputation and interests of minorities than the privilege of sitting on the board? Are your independent board members friends or business acquaintances of the controlling shareholders? Do they sit on other boards together? Have independent board members been on the board for over a decade compromising their independence?
In addition, in Mexico shareholders who represent 10% of the economic capital of a company have the legal right to choose a board member. Groups of shareholders can club together to meet the 10% threshold and jointly appoint a board member. In many cases AFOREs thus qualify for board seats, as do certain large international shareholders (Blackrock, Wellington, Fidelity, etc.). We believe AFOREs and other investors should take up this right, and if they do not want to be an insider in the stock, appoint a reputable external person accountable to them. For the most part it makes sense to do this in a friendly, collaborative way, and reach a consensus with the company on the right person to fill the seat, if possible. The objective is not to be confrontational, but to help the company take better decisions and operate in the interests of all stakeholders.
Hope this was of use. As usual, if there is anything we can help you with, please reach out. Also, don’t forget to recommend any ESG subject matter that you would like us to research and put in a forthcoming weekly.
Regards,
Marimar
Partner, Miranda ESG | https://medium.com/@marimartorreblanca/are-independent-boards-the-way-to-go-2dfec82f3696 | ['Marimar Torreblanca'] | 2020-12-08 15:12:33.602000+00:00 | ['Consulting', 'Corporate Governance', 'Esg Investing', 'Esg', 'Finance'] |
Some Questions To Guide Us Into The New Year | “What are the positive signs of God’s spirit acting among us?” (Photo by Pat Leyko Connelly).
What are the positive signs of God’s spirit acting among us during these difficult times?
That is a question Abbot Gregory Polan recently posed to Benedictine monastic communities across the world.
The abbot is a tall, slender, soft-spoken man and the elected leader of Benedictine monks worldwide. I had the privilege of interviewing him a few years ago for a radio piece after he had completed a new translation from the Hebrew of the Psalms. I’ve since met with him several times in Rome. Every time I’ve felt as though I’m witnessing the Benedictine values of hospitality and humility personified.
When this Chicago-born abbot speaks, it’s the real deal.
For the final #SundayThoughts of this momentous year, I offer not my own remarks, but some wise words from a year-end message Abbot Gregory wrote to monastic communities — words that can resonate with all of us.
Meeting with Abbot Gregory Polan, center, and fellow Benedictine lay associate Rev. Greg Peters, left, in Rome in 2017.
The abbot describes meditating throughout Advent on the Book of Revelation. The author of Revelation writes:
“I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away … Then I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race … Behold, I make all things new.’
“Behold, I make all things new.”
Something in our psyche irrevocably changed this past year. If the great pandemic of 2020 has made anything abundantly clear it is the fragility of human life. The crisis has shown us how connected we all are.
Abbot Polan rightly points out that the only way forward is to recognize our interdependence. He asks us to consider, “Is God taking this natural disaster and creating something new, good, and even wonderful for us? Will we come to see this new earth that the Scriptures are speaking of?”
The nation was inspired by the courage and compassion of health care workers who cared for deathly ill COVID-19 patients and comforted their family members. (Photo courtesy of ABCNews)
Scripture is full of so-called “happy faults” where an event that at first seems tragic (think of the crucifixion), then takes on new life and meaning by the grace of God. The lessons seem clear. We have an opportunity we cannot miss. We simply cannot go back to “normal” and fail to address the needs that the pandemic has laid bare.
The abbot offers a series of questions that monastic communities might contemplate as this year ends. I’ve paraphrased several of them because they are questions that we all can ponder as we face a new beginning:
What are the positive signs of God’s spirit acting among us during these difficult times?
What are we doing to serve one another?
What are ways in which we have seen compassion shown to others in need that we might emulate?
Have we seen a new potential for vibrancy in our work, whatever our vocation might be?
How can we go deeper into our expression of prayer and communion with God?
What have we learned that we wish to take with us into the future?
This week, may we take time to reflect on these important questions. Perhaps we can choose a different one to reflect on each day.
May these questions, and the answers they uncover, help us to walk confidently and hopefully into the new year.
(Many thanks to Sister Jennifer Halling of Mount St. Scholastica in Atchison, KS, the monastery where I am a lay associate, for sharing the abbot’s letter). | https://medium.com/@judithvalente/some-questions-to-guide-us-into-the-new-year-c1099a43e1af | ['Judith Valente'] | 2020-12-27 16:57:55.674000+00:00 | ['Spirituality', 'Contemplation', 'Hope', 'New Year', 'Pandemic'] |
[S16 — E13] WATCH :: The Bachelorette ([S16 — Episode 13]) | New Episode — The Bachelorette Season 16 Episode 13 (Full Episode) Top Show
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🦋 TELEVISION 🦋
(TV), in some cases abbreviated to tele or television, is a media transmission medium utilized for sending moving pictures in monochrome (high contrast), or in shading, and in a few measurements and sound. The term can allude to a TV, a TV program, or the vehicle of TV transmission. TV is a mass mode for promoting, amusement, news, and sports.
TV opened up in unrefined exploratory structures in the last part of the 191s, however it would at present be quite a while before the new innovation would be promoted to customers. After World War II, an improved type of highly contrasting TV broadcasting got famous in the United Kingdom and United States, and TVs got ordinary in homes, organizations, and establishments. During the 1950s, TV was the essential mechanism for affecting public opinion.[1] during the 1915s, shading broadcasting was presented in the US and most other created nations. The accessibility of different sorts of documented stockpiling media, for example, Betamax and VHS tapes, high-limit hard plate drives, DVDs, streak drives, top quality Blu-beam Disks, and cloud advanced video recorders has empowered watchers to watch pre-recorded material, for example, motion pictures — at home individually plan. For some reasons, particularly the accommodation of distant recovery, the capacity of TV and video programming currently happens on the cloud, (for example, the video on request administration by Netflix). Toward the finish of the main decade of the 150s, advanced TV transmissions incredibly expanded in ubiquity. Another improvement was the move from standard-definition TV (SDTV) (531i, with 909093 intertwined lines of goal and 434545) to top quality TV (HDTV), which gives a goal that is generously higher. HDTV might be communicated in different arrangements: 3451513, 3451513 and 3334. Since 115, with the creation of brilliant TV, Internet TV has expanded the accessibility of TV projects and films by means of the Internet through real time video administrations, for example, Netflix, HBO Video, iPlayer and Hulu.
In 113, 39% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[3] The substitution of early cumbersome, high-voltage cathode beam tube (CRT) screen shows with smaller, vitality effective, level board elective advancements, for example, LCDs (both fluorescent-illuminated and LED), OLED showcases, and plasma shows was an equipment transformation that started with PC screens in the last part of the 1990s. Most TV sets sold during the 150s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-115s.[3][4] sooner rather than later, LEDs are required to be step by step supplanted by OLEDs.[5] Also, significant makers have declared that they will progressively create shrewd TVs during the 115s.[1][3][8] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 3.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 115s.[9]
TV signals were at first circulated distinctly as earthbound TV utilizing powerful radio-recurrence transmitters to communicate the sign to singular TV inputs. Then again TV signals are appropriated by coaxial link or optical fiber, satellite frameworks and, since the 150s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 150s, these were sent as simple signs, yet a progress to advanced TV is relied upon to be finished worldwide by the last part of the 115s. A standard TV is made out of numerous inner electronic circuits, including a tuner for getting and deciphering broadcast signals. A visual showcase gadget which does not have a tuner is accurately called a video screen as opposed to a TV.
🦋 OVERVIEW 🦋
A subgenre that joins the sentiment type with parody, zeroing in on at least two people since they find and endeavor to deal with their sentimental love, attractions to each other. The cliché plot line follows the “kid gets-young lady”, “kid loses-young lady”, “kid gets young lady back once more” grouping. Normally, there are multitudinous variations to this plot (and new curves, for example, switching the sex parts in the story), and far of the by and large happy parody lies in the social cooperations and sexual strain between your characters, who every now and again either won’t concede they are pulled in to each other or must deal with others’ interfering inside their issues.
Regularly carefully thought as an artistic sort or structure, however utilized it is additionally found in the realistic and performing expressions. In parody, human or individual indecencies, indiscretions, misuses, or deficiencies are composed to rebuff by methods for scorn, disparagement, vaudeville, incongruity, or different strategies, preferably with the plan to impact an aftereffect of progress. Parody is by and large intended to be interesting, yet its motivation isn’t generally humor as an assault on something the essayist objects to, utilizing mind. A typical, nearly characterizing highlight of parody is its solid vein of incongruity or mockery, yet spoof, vaudeville, distortion, juxtaposition, correlation, similarity, and risqué statement all regularly show up in ironical discourse and composing. The key point, is that “in parody, incongruity is aggressor.” This “assailant incongruity” (or mockery) frequently claims to favor (or if nothing else acknowledge as common) the very things the humorist really wishes to assault.
In the wake of calling Zed and his Blackblood confidants to spare The Bachelorette, Talon winds up sold out by her own sort and battles to accommodate her human companions and her Blackblood legacy. With the satanic Lu Qiri giving the muscle to uphold Zed’s ground breaking strategy, The Bachelorette’s human occupants are subjugated as excavators looking for a baffling substance to illuminate a dull conundrum. As Talon finds more about her lost family from Yavalla, she should sort out the certainties from the falsehoods, and explain the riddle of her legacy and an overlooked force, before the world becomes subjugated to another force that could devour each living being.
Claw is the solitary overcomer of a race called Blackbloods. A long time after her whole town is annihilated by a pack of merciless hired soldiers, Talon goes to an untamed post on the edge of the enlightened world, as she tracks the huggers of her family. On her excursion to this station, Talon finds she has a strange heavenly force that she should figure out how to control so as to spare herself, and guard the world against an over the top strict tyrant. | https://medium.com/@figooo/s16-e13-the-bachelorette-series-16-episode-13-full-episode-d4383b00e742 | [] | 2020-12-23 00:41:55.930000+00:00 | ['TV Series', 'Startup', 'TV Shows', 'Reality'] |
Default-setting and Its Discontents | Humans have the freedom to be, as David Foster Wallace wrote, “lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms.”
At around 20 centimetres ear-to-ear, you may think your kingdom is limited in size and scope. But within these walls lies everything that makes you who you are. You’ll find the experiences you’ve suppressed and the memories you cherish. You’ll find the magic formulas for your values, beliefs, and identities. Every day, you’ll find tiny armies of soldiers fighting for conflicting causes. You’ll find skyscrapers filled with secretaries trying to organize all the paperwork that comes in. You’ll find your toughest problems and you’ll find the agency you need to overcome these problems. Your tiny skull-sized kingdom is all you have — and it means the world to you.
Human beings are, of course, minded critters. The types of people we are depend in large part on the way we are habituated into life and the ways that we, through experience, train and mould our minds. We are also greatly shaped by our childhood experiences and the environments in which we live. Our status as minded-beings also depends on our standing in social contexts. The ways our bodies are — our race, disabilities, height, age, sexual orientation — certainly shape the way that we become minded. Viewed this way, the mind is an on-going product of both nature (psychology) and nurture (environment).
Anil Seth, in a talk titled Your Brain Hallucinates Your Conscious Reality suggests that to be minded means to be concerned with the control and regulation of our external and internal worlds. In other words, we are constantly modelling our external and internal environments so we can impose control and regulation upon them. It is through these models that we make sense of our experiences and make sense of what it means to be the minded being we are. Model-creation, however, is a complicated, on-going process. We construct our mental models from all the things that compose us: like our genetic predispositions, experiences, and environments. For Seth, large parts of the mind are essentially focused on taking in actionable data to construct models of how the world normally and most probably is, with the intention of guiding behaviour in anticipation of these expected events.
As data-gathering creatures, we function by creating patterns of similar data-points which have gathered over the years and we use these patterns to make predictions. We are always trying to simplify our data streams by resolving the ambiguities that are naturally embedded in our data points. In this way, we use our models to encounter the world through our simplified, habituated expectations. We can expect the cashier to prompt us to pay for our groceries at the check-out line; we can expect the flight attendant to ask us to put our seatbelts on; we can expect a driver to yield to us when we have the right-of-way; we can expect our siblings to be mad if we take the last piece of cake. These are examples of outcomes that we can expect to materialize because, under similar conditions in the past, they have materialized frequently.
But viewing the mind as something that only serves to recognize patterns and predict behaviours is a seriously limited view. The mind isn’t only a probabilistic, pattern-guessing machine. The mind also has as a primary task the preservation of itself. The mind, in other words, is concerned with encrypting and safeguarding the sacred formulas for the things that are central to us: our values, beliefs, and identities. To do this, it expels trespassers and intruders and protects what is central.
Why is it so difficult for the non-believer and the religious devout to understand each other? Or for two political opponents to have a balanced, uninterrupted conversation? Or why is it so unlikely for a successful and wealthy white man to befriend a poor black woman? Why, in other words, do we cherish and flock to people who are ‘like-minded’ and who ‘understand us? Why do we expel and fear things that are foreign to us?
Seth notes that since our models are concerned with building expectations, then they are also equipped to measure deviations from our expectations. The more something is different to us or our past experiences, the more difficult it becomes for us to discern this thing's status. Our models make a note when people speak foreign languages, pray to different gods, espouse opposite political beliefs, and display different sexual orientations. Things that are further away from our habituated expectations of the world are harder to conceptualize, so we can expect these things to show up to us as relevant. Since these relevant ‘Other-experiences’ are foreign to us, we may feel uncomfortable and uneasy in trying to contend with them. This may be why we resist them.
The mistake of the mind: The perils of default-setting thinking
The ‘default-setting’ of the mind is to protect the values and beliefs that are supposedly central to who we are. We do this by stabilizing around experiences that are familiar and model-enforcing: we befriend people who are similar to us, we enjoy foods that we are used to, we go to places we are comfortable in, we choose to listen to and value opinions that are similar enough to ours. The ‘default-setting’ of the mind is the reason why you have an unwavering dedication to affirm things which are just-like-you and to treat the Other with caution and danger. Default-setting thinking makes us exploit comfortably, rather than explore uncomfortably.
What do we lose when we reinforce default-setting thinking? Why is it difficult to embrace that which is foreign to us?
My contention is that default-setting thinking is a hardwired flaw — a mistake made by the mind. The mind’s primary goal is to preserve itself. The mind commits its first mistake by believing that upholding the central tenets of one’s identity is a strategy for self-preservation. It believes that the best way to preserve itself is to preserve its important contents — like one’s values, beliefs, and identities. It does this by defending against intruders who offer varying viewpoints.
The mind, in other words, works hard to contribute to the illusion that we, as selves, are mostly stable, unchanging things because we are composed of mostly stable, unchanging things. The mind knows that radical changes to one’s identity or orientation may be too much to handle. To hedge against mental states where we cannot ‘understand ourselves,’ or do not ‘feel like ourselves,’ our mind employs its self-substantiating trickery. “Look, you are the same person you were yesterday,” your mind says. And you believe it because it’s uncomfortable not to.
But here is where the mistake lies: adjusting one’s mental model to be more receptive of foreign experiences does not necessitate a full redirection of the self. We can give up default-setting thinking without abandoning our values, beliefs, and identities. We can, as I’ll explore later on, make ourselves incrementally more receptive to foreign experiences by effectively working around the edges of our selves. I don’t need to give up my political beliefs to try a new food; I don’t need to change my religion to enjoy new music; I don’t need to modify my ethics to listen to your opinion without interrupting you. In other words, the mind incorrectly thinks that opening up to foreign experiences requires a big sacrifice of the self. In fact, it usually doesn’t.
The second mistake the mind commits is to trade off long-term well-being at the expense of short term comfort. We think that tending to experiences that are familiar to us will remove the uncertainty and risk found in Other-oriented experiences. This may be true temporarily but is disastrous and counterproductive in the long run. Essentially, what the mind is doing when it chooses to exploit similar experiences is to shrink its domain of comfort. Naturally, we may be inclined to say that a body that feeds on the same limited nutrients every day is a body which is seriously deficient in some way. This body lacks the variety and diversity of nutrients it needs to live well. We should extend the same analogy to the mind. When we unconsciously let our default-setting thinking reduce uncertainties and risks by censoring certain experiences, then our minds become limited, trapped, and deficient. Welcome: you are now in a terribly small bubble.
Yes, it may be true that having a solid and reliable template from which to make sense of experience is not only useful but incredibly practical. Nevertheless, I contend that default-setting thinking is mistaken because we don’t need to act this way to live well. We don’t lose too much when we give up default-setting thinking. In enforcing these two mistakes — stabilizing around identity and seeking to minimize risk and uncertainty — the mind faults itself over and over again.
There are three main ways that default-setting thinking inhibits our ability to flourish and live well. First, default-setting thinking leaves us epistemically inculcated. When our mind is programmed to be closed off to certain experiences, then there is a whole realm of knowledge that we simply don’t have access to. The domain of knowledge which is within our grasps, however, becomes incredibly limited and, as I mentioned before, shrinks over time as we trap ourselves into smaller bubbles of comfort and epistemic domains. A mind that feeds off the same data for too long is a weak, unfortified mind.
Second, epistemic inculcation affects our morally-relevant behaviours. With limited and highly censored information, we are prone to make moral mistakes. Moral decisions are informed, in large part, by our experiences and the information we have from which to decide. If the mind is informationally malnourished, it will either not know how to respond to a moral situation or will often respond incorrectly.
Third, default-setting thinking limits the reach of our virtues and limits our ability to actualize certain virtues. It’s tough to practice Wisdom, Justice, Fortitude, and Courage when we are not willing to take enough risks. There is no growth without risk. All our virtues require taking risks and being vulnerable, both of which default-setting thinking works to minimize. Without being able to cultivate a proper virtuous character, we are also cut short of becoming something worth becoming.
A new orientation
Proven how inhibiting default-setting thinking may be, how can we work towards building and orienting a more fortified mind? Implicit in this discussion is the idea that building mind-models is an active task. This suggests that there may be some strategies we can implement to exercise our agency when it comes to going beyond default-setting thinking.
Tanya Luhrmann, in a TED-talk titled When God Talks Back, suggests that we may be able to conjure our minds into our liking through the practices we engage in. To change ourselves, she suggests, we ought to change the patterns of the life we inhabit and the ends we wish to cultivate. We know our mind is mostly a byproduct of our environments and experiences. Additionally, we know that our minds work in the ways they are habituated to work. So we can, Luhrmann suggests, change our meaning-making processes by adopting different stories and choosing to believe different things. Then, we can orient ourselves to be receptive of these different processes and broaden our pursuit of opening up possibilities that we were unaware of.
Attention, as Carolyn Dicey Jennings mentions in a paper titled I Attend Therefore I Am, can also play a crucial role in changing our ways of being. We are essentially, she argues, what we pay attention to. We make sense of the world through our mental models, and our mental models are formed from our experiences. Our experiences are largely formed from the things we pay attention to. So, a large part of how we think of ourselves and the world is going to be formed from what we are paying attention to. In other words, we can change our mind-models — however incrementally — by shifting our attention.
So, combining both Luhrmann’s and Jenning’s ideas, we can:
(i) identify and choose parts of our default-setting thinking we wish to eliminate (i.e, You want to be more receptive and considerate of people who have opposite political views.)
(ii) orient our attention and beliefs in ways that promote this sought-after position (i.e, reading books from political adversaries, joining a diverse discussion group or book club, befriending someone who doesn’t conform to your views, spend more time reading opinion columns you’ve never bothered to read.)
The idea here is that we could modify the way we think by purposefully setting our minds to habituate to new data points of our choosing. We can, in other words, train our mind to be more sensitive and open to the experiences that are unlike ours. For example, a non-believer can find common ground with a religious devout by spending time with one, reading books about the religion, or attending religious ceremonies. He can learn about religious people who’ve done incredible work to build the country he lives in and loves. These are all examples of active measures we can take to pop our epistemic bubble and allow more knowledge to flow in. We can, effectively, habituate our minds to openness and consideration.
Feeling uncomfortable may be a sign that you are moving in the right direction. Since there is always a tradeoff between stability and exploring possibilities, giving something up at the edges of our identities is always going to feel uncomfortable. When people challenge your political beliefs, or some of your ethical choices, or the foundations of your religion, you are bound to feel challenged and uncomfortable. We have spent lifetimes cultivating identities, beliefs, and opinions that have remained more or less stable over time. So, being open to information that is going to conflict with our avowed beliefs and identities is always going to feel intimating and tough. When we push through these tough and uncomfortable moments and try our best to learn from them, then we are moving away from a point of stability into a point of growth. We are, little by little, debasing our default-setting. So, instead of habituating into comfort, we can habituate into discomfort.
Change yourself or change the world?
Actively fighting back against default-setting thinking is an exercise in changing yourself, and by implication, changing the world. A lot of the work in this process is going to fall on the ‘brain-side’ of things: we need to change what we pay attention to, what we frame as good/bad, and the stories we live by. But, a significant amount of work is also going to fall on the ‘world-side’ of things: we need to change our social circles, make changes to who we interact with, and be exposed to novel places.
Granted, it’s hard to do the tough work of recalibrating our default-setting when the external structures around us are so hard to change. We need to recognize that we live in a world that changes slowly. In our world, in-groups and out-groups are everywhere. Media-outlets treat political commentary as war-like and many communities are economically segregated by race or religion. Chances are your friends and the people you listen to are more or less like you. With that in mind, we need to think about how to strategically ‘build a world’ that will promote your new goals. Start small.
Of course, none of this is easy work. This process is messy and inconvenient. Many of us will prefer the comforts of our default setting over the thrill of novelty. In these moments we need to be reminded of David Foster Wallace’s ‘tiny skull-sized kingdoms.’ To cultivate a kingdom worth living in is the task of a lifetime. | https://medium.com/@agrumser/default-setting-and-its-discontents-b384dd9a0c33 | ['Antonio Grumser'] | 2020-12-23 13:57:48.335000+00:00 | ['Philosophy Of Mind', 'Experience', 'David Foster Wallace', 'Mental Models', 'Wellbeing'] |
Late One Morning | For Salvador Dali (and you)
Photo by Sandra Klaas via Unsplash
It is always the same window
no matter how many other
windows
roll past
it is this window
that’s the first.
Always.
It is always the same window
on the third floor
in the house
on Argyle.
It is early
even when it’s late
one morning.
It is always the same window
hard to shut
unlike the other
windows
hard to open
it is this one I look out from
always.
Even when it’s closed
it is always the same
window. | https://medium.com/deja-vu/late-one-morning-c468c6459f0c | ['Jen Maidenberg'] | 2020-11-05 01:42:27.497000+00:00 | ['Love', 'Writing', 'Nonfiction', 'Salvador Dali', 'Poetry'] |
Masashi, thank you for this in-depth and INCREDIBLY helpful article! | Masashi, thank you for this in-depth and INCREDIBLY helpful article! It is the best I have found on migrating to WebGL in Unity.
Your note below was exactly where our project was stuck:
Console log says something like “constructor is not found for Invoice class”.But, We had a default constructor and Json annotation and etc. but not working with this error. We were devastated with no clues to fix this issue. After some days,…
Our project is using WebGL with a large set of .Net Standard 2.0 libraries that are intentionally Unity-free. Our .Net Standard 2.0 libraries utilize Newtonsoft.Json extensively. We started to get exactly the same “constructor not found” type error, and I was pulling my hair out for days trying to find ways to work around it. I was concerned we would have to do a major rewrite of many of the critical .Net Standard libraries our project needed. We were completely stuck. Your comment about “we were devastated” really resonated with me.
But your find on IL2CPP stripping was the unlock!
I was able to solve the stripping issue in a slightly different way, however. Following the instructions at https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Scripting.PreserveAttribute.html I added a new preserve attribute to our .Net Standard libraries:
[System.AttributeUsage(System.AttributeTargets.Method | System.AttributeTargets.Constructor)]
public class PreserveAttribute : System.Attribute
{
}
I then marked our JSON constructors with this new attribute, like this:
[PreserveAttribute]
[JsonConstructor]
public PlayerData(string name="", int value=0)
{
...
}
This solved the IL2CPP stripping and Newtonsoft JSON constructor issues for us in WebGL builds.
Also, your advice on “How to debug WebGL build” was great guidance. “All we could do was the good old naive logging lines onto Web browser console” is a great start and has been very helpful. We added a logging class that has multiple log levels (Logger.LogInfo, Logger.LogWarning, Logger.LogError, etc.). We use the info logs extensively in our Unity code so whenever an error happens we can quickly find it. We can then turn off info level logs with a feature flag for production release builds.
An additional assistance has been turning on Unity 2019’s Player Settings -> Publishing Settings -> Full With Stacktrace and Debug Settings during development. This gives clear indictment of the place where your code fails during WebGL development.
Masashi, thank you again for the great article and advice! | https://medium.com/@kevinh_36579/masashi-thank-you-for-this-in-depth-and-incredibly-helpful-article-3f4310aa5925 | ['Kevin Howard'] | 2019-12-14 23:15:31.493000+00:00 | ['C Sharp Programming', 'Webgl', 'Debugging', 'Unity', 'Json'] |
How to receive airdrops from exchanges | One way to make money in crypto is to utilize the platforms and receive “airdrops” when the respective tokens launch. Examples include 400 UNI tokens for transacting on uniswap.org and 1INCH tokens for transacting on 1inch.exchange. At the time of distribution, each of these were worth a few thousand USD.
Other decentralized exchanges, market makers & platforms may follow this model to incentivize usage & community engagement. There’s plenty of speculation on Crypto Twitter which platforms may release their own tokens. Given that the effort is low & reward is very high, let’s swap for fun (and profit)!
Here are step-by-step instructions on how to swap on various platforms: | https://medium.com/@degenomics/how-to-receive-airdrops-from-exchanges-32379a48bcaf | [] | 2020-12-27 23:12:34.694000+00:00 | ['Airdrop', '1inch', 'Defi', 'Crypto'] |
Qui je suis | I’m serial entrepreneur in France.
My services : to allow to entreneurs to develop theirs businesses. How ? In giving a service of networking.
YOU WORK HERE it is the possibility to expand his business and to be less alone.
Youworkhere.biz | https://medium.com/@youworkhere/im-serial-entrepreneur-in-france-e5e2d21e0af7 | ['Michael Capgras'] | 2020-12-21 10:48:13.995000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneur', 'Networking'] |
An Interview with Sabrina Vaughan- Education Officer Candidate | If Sabrina Vaughan was an animal, she would be a horse. Or is it a golden retriever? Horses can take you places, and she’s worked with them growing up, but golden retrievers are calming, reliable, playful and they don’t take things too seriously. Except issues pertaining to the education of students. For education, Airbud would slaughter Josh in a heartbeat.
Sabrina is a self-identified “reliable person”, with the bonus of being both determined and efficient. If in doubt, check her track record for the Students’ Union to date, where she’s worked as a part-time officer the last two years, and is currently serving as the Council Chairperson. “I’m determined,” she says. “If I set my mind to it, it will be done. If not this week, then by the end of my term.”
Greater commitment could not be asked for.
She defines the role of the education officer as one of visibility. Wherever you are – be it the moon or, further still, the ILAS building – Sabrina believes you should know who’s voicing your complaints. But one must ask whether her determination to make the SU more transparent does not clash with this desire for visibility. How see-through can the SU become before transparency equates with invisibility?
Sabrina is from rural Clare, a place so far flung from civilisation that there is nothing to be done there, apart from sipping pints and playing GAA. Determined to escape the drudgeries of this existence, Sabrina took up as many volunteering positions as she could upon coming to college, and it was as early as November 2016 that she realised she wanted to run for Education Officer.
“I’ve given so much to the roles I’ve taken so far,” she says, “and I’ve been balancing those with my degree because they were part-time. I want to bring myself to a full-time position so I can give it even more. I also just want to continue working with students – I love students!”
I ask her to summarise her manifesto with as much excitement as she can muster. In response, she asks me: “Have you ever had an exam that was worth 100% of the module?” My shudder as the ghost of exam-paper-past courses through me is affirmation enough. She says a setup like that shouldn’t be the case. “All modules should be continuous assessment, even if it’s only 10 or 15% outside the actual exam. It shouldn’t be this hard to implement. Lecturers are just lazy correcting work, I think. Sorry guys,” she says into my phone-turned-Dictaphone, “but you kinda are.”
Now that, in this interviewer’s opinion, is surely the truth.
“I knew an engineering student who was scheduled for eight exams and he straightaway decided to defer them all and my heart just broke for him. I want to implement this change for people like him.”
Other things that break Sabrina’s heart are people who like sweetcorn on pizza (guilty) and the general inaccessibility of the NUIG campus. With respect to the latter, she speaks of students with mobility issues who cannot gain access to the Bialann, and of students with ‘non-standard’ learning styles who are penalised by the assessment system. “Lecturers need to update their way of teaching and become more conscious of the language they use to ensure it is as inclusive and considerate as possible. They also need to be more approachable. A student who needs help in a class won’t come forward if the lecturer is aloof, especially if that student is shy.” Sabrina mentions how lecturers in the geography department have begun using clickers in their classes to help encourage attendance and participation. Presumably, students are trained to respond to the click, perhaps by building a diorama of a volcano or by listing off in reverse-alphabetical order all the counties of Ireland. The practice has been a long-standing feature in the film industry, where it is used to prompt dogs like Airbud to score basket after basket with only their snout. It seems only reasonable to extend this to the student populace.
Sabrina also highlights her desire to improve transitions for students who have been studying abroad for a year, or who have repeated a year with only a few modules and are now returning full-time. She mentions the use of negative marking in the Netherlands, something Irish students are neither warned of nor capable of understanding.
“WE NEED TO GET DOWN WITH THE KIDS! IT’S 2019. WE NEED TO GET WITH IT.”
Wise words, overall.
On a serious note, Sabrina is pushing for the introduction of more suicide awareness training on campus for both students and staff. Having lost a friend five years ago and since having taken a safeTALK course, she’s keen for others to receive the training, so that they might better be able to offer support to those around them. “It’s an invaluable experience, even if you never have to use it directly.”
Rating the environmental impact of her campaign, she notes that her leaflets are A5-sized and folded in half, so as to maximise the content displayed. They bear a QR code that links to her Facebook page, and feature the slogan, “Don’t bin me, pass me on.” I spotted a few later on in the waste-disposal section of the Bialann, and wondered at the literacy levels of this fine institute.
Something that will be binned under Sabrina’s rule as Education Officer, provided she gets the role, is pineapple on pizza: “I’ll eat a jar of pineapple, but I will not put it on pizza. In my opinion, fruit is sweet, and pizza is savoury – and sacred. My uncle is Italian, so if I ever put anything apart from pepperoni or margarita on my pizza… it’ll be ‘There’s the door, goodbye’.”
Fortunately, her calls for separatism are limited to pizza toppings, and when I ask if she identifies as a feminist she responds with an expression a distaste for labels but a passion for unity and empowerment: “I don’t know if I like sticking to terms or labelling myself, but I do want the same playing field across the board, for women, men, trans and non-binary people. Treat everyone the same way, you know? We’re all in this together after all.”
Troy Bolton would agree.
Her desire for comradery is so great that she declines to comment on who her greatest competitor is, other than to say that it is herself. Of her fellow candidates, she has only to say that they are great people with strong campaigns; RON, however, is noticeably absent from the sentiment.
In terms of her personal stance on issues beyond education and pizza, she is a dog person with a possible allergy to cats, and would count herself among those who are pro-choice, citing her belief that “the state should not have any opinion over my body” and that “abortions will happen no matter what, and that it’s better for them to be safe, rather than to push vulnerable people to extremes”. She offers a similar stance on vaccinations: “It’s your body… I’m not going to tell you whether or not to vaccinate you or your kid.” Flat-earthers, however, will likely have to look elsewhere (being a geography student has given this girl notions), as will those who are vying for Irexit – at least until we know how it works out across the pond (Sabrina is sceptical).
A final point of contention is exam repeat fees. Sabrina, in contrast with the other candidates, has opted to leave the promise of removing them off her manifesto. “I can’t promise it,” she says, “and I only want things on my manifesto that I think are feasible. It’s happening in the background, I’m sure, but I wouldn’t put it at the top of my list, because I don’t want someone to hold me to it.” She also emphasises that there is a system in place for students who can’t afford the repeat fee, which not a lot of students know about. Students who cannot complete an exam for a genuine reason can also seek an uncapped deferral – again, an option which is frequently neglected.
To finish, we do some totally harmless word association.
“Exam Fees?” *Insert eyeroll emoji*
“Big Yellow Thing?” I love it; it should be our mascot. It’s an asset we don’t make enough use of!
“Postgraduates?” Underrepresented
“Trump?” Orange
“Library?” Old-fashioned
“Smokey the Pigeon?” He needs a birdhouse. And a society dedicated to feeding him.
We couldn’t agree more.
Interview conducted by Gemma Kent. | https://medium.com/the-galway-eye/an-interview-with-sabrina-vaughan-education-officer-candidate-16421c3d9584 | ['Journalism', 'Media Society'] | 2019-03-07 08:43:05.514000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Nuigalway'] |
COVID-19 Trauma and How It Impacts Marriage | If you’re married, then might have experienced a challenging time over the last few months with the advancement of COVID-19. For many people, the COVID-19 experience has become a traumatic event triggering heightened emotional stress responses, i.e., flight & flight. Whenever couples are experiencing fight & flight stress responses in a relationship, it can feel emotionally unsafe and wildly conflictual. A fellow therapist friend, Kerry McCoy, LMFT, and I did a 45-minute podcast on how the worldwide collective traumatic experience of COVID-19 is impacting marriages and what we can do to stay connected to our spouse during this challenging time. We talked about the different responses people have to trauma and how this might show up in marriage.
Kerry and I both practice a type of therapy called Emotionally Focused Therapy with couples and its main focus is to increase the security and sense of safety in relationships; something that is needed more than ever now.
At the end of the podcast, we leave you with 5 Connecting Questions During COVID-19 you can use to engage your spouse in a conversation around how this collective trauma may be impacting them, and how you can get re-connected and find your emotional footing.
CLICK HERE IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN THE 12-WEEK RELATIONSHIP SUPPORT GROUP | https://medium.com/@quentinhafner/covid-19-trauma-and-how-it-impacts-marriage-55a77aeb585b | ['Quentin Hafner'] | 2020-12-21 12:54:56.506000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Trauma', 'Covid 19', 'Marriage'] |
Anyone Involved In Iowa Caucus Disaster Should Be Out On Their Ass | Iowa
Anyone Involved In Iowa Caucus Disaster Should Be Out On Their Ass
And stop telling us to “calm down!”
There isn’t time or margin enough for further error.
Is it really that big a deal that Iowa results were delayed for a few days? (Looks like Mayor Pete and Bernie came out on top). Maybe, maybe not.
Is it a big deal that Democrats kick off one of their most ambitious and crucial primary seasons ever by looking like they completely don’t know what the hell they’re doing? Do we have to even answer that?
Is it completely humiliating for DNC Chair Tom Perez, to throw up his hands days after the caucus and call on Democrats in Iowa to immediately begin a recanvass? Only to have those same Iowa Democrats indicate they are most likely going to completely ignore him?
There are not going to be multiple Presidential elections in November. All you get is one chance. So everything’s got to be done right the first time. The time to fix things and make sure they worked was from 2016 until about a week ago. Starting now is too late.
We want to emphasize before we go any further, our column today comes from a place of deep love for, and faith in the American electorate come this fall. (Just not wiseacres who think they know better.)
Part of the reason maybe, we’re reacting to the Iowa meltdown so viscerally, is the approach we’ve seen on the part of the people who seem to be responsible for it, evinces folks we encountered in the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016: smug and self-righteous and completely impervious to the idea that anybody but them might have valid alternate ideas about anything or be even a scintilla wrong about anything. They just smiled enigmatically and looked at us with an air of amusement as we crazily drove back and forth to the middle of Pennsylvania because we thought there was a good chance Trump was going to win. Something we wrote about in blogs that preceded the launch of this newsletter. We are happy to say the attitude at Clinton HQ was not carried to the local level, and proud to this day that although Hillary did not win Pennsylvania, she won the area in which we and many unsung heroes of her campaign canvassed. While all the while her most direct minions sat on their smug little tuchases in New York waiting for the inevitability of her win, which would rocket them to stardom.
Hillary Clinton campaign field office in Reading, PA, 2016. Where people actually worked hard and didn’t take things for granted. (Our photos.)
Here’s what we’d say to Shadow and ACRONYM (both those names are too clever by half anyway, then again, so was Cambridge Analytica). And maybe even Groundbase and maybe even PACRONYM and certainly even some of the top people at the DNC who apparently advised Democrats to invest in and buy some of these developers’ and organizationsproducts in the first place. Also, to some or all of the people those groups and organizations and companies represent, and whomever else was out there and helped create this abject and historic mess that isn’t even close to being figured out. Also, finally to the people who could’ve stopped this disaster from happening but didn’t:
We do not need endless explanations and excuses and apologies and promises to do better. We just need you to stop. And let someone else do what you intended to do who is capable of actually doing it. And those people and organizations and companies are out there. They may not be as well-connected as you, and therefore not as well funded. (And unfortunately many of the people throwing money at you do not understand how what you’re trying to do works, which is why they didn’t know it wouldn’t. And might not now know where else they can turn.) But they already know how to do what you’ve already shown you don’t. So shut down and give whatever money you’ve got left over to them. No more making promises about the future you have no way of knowing you’ll be able to keep. You can make amends by showing up and voting on Election Day and encouraging anyone else you can to do the same. And that’s it! Don’t get us wrong: we have no doubt your heart is in the right place, just that it doesn’t matter.
The recent history of technological innovation in this country is littered with unnecessary failures and lessons learned, mainly because many of those failures and lessons learned had already been learned and solved by previous generations of innovators. But the newer folks just didn’t know or didn’t care. So they repeated mistakes they didn’t need to make.
That’s true on the investor side too. Because a lot of otherwise very smart people have no idea what they’re financing when it comes to tech or as Trump would call it “the cyber”. They just want to be involved and don’t want to be left out.
Sometimes that mix, after a few resets, does manage to produce powerful companies and products. Sometimes it crashes and burns. Right now Iowa looks unequivocally like the latter, and even if it isn’t, there’s a high probability that any time spent trying to determine whether the entities involved can recover, and recover stronger will be wasted time. Too high a probability in our view.
We are not just saying this to be critical. We are saying this because we know people out there who — if they’re interested — can do better and already know how. And time would be better spent seeking those people out than attempting to resurrect something that’s already in ruins.
We are big believers that mistakes do make you stronger. If you’ve got time. We’re out of time. Get out of the way. | https://ericjscholl.medium.com/anyone-involved-in-iowa-caucus-disaster-should-be-out-on-their-ass-d87ed8690f4e | ['Eric J Scholl'] | 2020-02-07 13:01:01.396000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Technology', 'Democrats', 'Elections', 'Apps'] |
The Revolution At Home | The Revolution At Home
A war that tore families apart
Courtesy of Pixaby by JamesDeMers
The battle tonight could decide everything, father. You know what Jefferson says: ‘a nation is great only when it is free’.”
“You’re being idealistic, my boy. These leaders you believe in will tax us and steal our freedoms, just like the Brits.”
“We must fight for our independence, father!”
“King George is a good man; my business depends on the British. You’d do well to remember that. This Republic you dream of will crumble, they all do.”
As he spoke a fist thundered on the door.
“What’s going on?”
“That will be the minutemen, father. I have signed us up!” | https://medium.com/microcosm/the-revolution-at-home-1c7942c6ac85 | ['Anthony Halliwell'] | 2020-12-25 08:04:18.866000+00:00 | ['America', 'Revolution', 'Independence', 'War', 'Fiction'] |
Elon Musk Takes Dr. Michael Burry’s Advice | So, nice that Elon is taking Michael’s advice to start cashing out on some of Tesla’s inflated stock price. But Dr. Michael Burry also tweeted this:
“Yes I’m shorting $TSLA for an extended swing trade. How does this shock anyone? It’s gone way too parabolic. It’s majorly over hyped at the moment. In 10 years it will be huge, but right now it’s due for a major correction to the downside” from Dr. Michael Burry’s twitter account on December 3, 2020
Anybody, thinking Dr. Michael Burry is a brilliant guy so they should get in and follow him on his shorts. Simply don’t.
The problem with shorting Tesla is there is a pretty good chance you’re going to be in a lot of pain for a long time until it finally does come crashing back to earth.
Tesla trades independent of any traditional valuation logic and rules
It may come crashing down next month. Or it may double in price and not have a pullback until 2023. Dr. Michael Burry has the resources to potentially lose a ton of money on this high risk gamble. Which admittedly would make him a ton of money if it pays off.
If you’re not willing to risk it all on a bet going against the almost cult like nature of Tesla investors, then don’t do it. In fact, I’ll just say it. Don’t do it. There are certain stocks that you should just never bet against. I’d say Tesla and perhaps Amazon being at the top of the list.
I am going to be watching this with interest though. We already saw Steve Eisman (the other pseudo hero played by Steve Carrel in The Big Short) tap out of his Tesla shorts and admit defeat earlier this year.
Let’s see how Dr. Michael Burry does.
Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/elon-musk-takes-dr-michael-burrys-advice-6e5f5401a6a1 | ['David Ferrara'] | 2020-12-14 16:20:47.616000+00:00 | ['Elon Musk', 'Investing', 'Tesla', 'Stocks', 'Stock Market'] |
The 5 Secrets To Creating Mantras and Affirmations | I used to think that mantras and affirmations were for sissies. Well, not quite, but I did believe that they were superficial and used by people who simply weren’t ready or didn’t want to do the deeper work that would actually make a difference in their life.
I was wrong…
At least partially wrong…
The way mantras and affirmations are promoted as self improvement techniques is what keeps them from being effective.
Simply writing down a mantra (a bit cliché) or an affirmation (#QOTD) feels good but doesn’t do what it claims to do…
…shift you into a more positive mindset so you can actually manifest what really matters to you.
Many of you may not agree with me and that may mean you found the secret to using mantras and affirmations in a powerful way.
For me it took years to embrace the use of these simple statements until I discovered what to do BEFORE the mantra.
No one talks about BEFORE the mantra exists. (Secret #1)
That’s where the real work begins. It’s the deep dive into your naked self, faults, wrinkles, limitations, mistakes and regrets…
…combined with your brilliance, your inspiration, creativity, gifts, dreams and aspirations that will drive those simple words into the universal melting pot of possibilities.
Integrating and embracing both the shadow and the light, those things which cause you discomfort or that you’d like to hide, with the unique gifts that you bring to the world, where you shine and feel most alive, is Secret #2.
You can’t be one or the other. You have to be both and find the gift and lessons in all aspects of your life even the painful ones. Everything that has ever happened to you contributes to who you are today and will lead you to full self-knowledge.
(Secret #3) Self knowledge leads you to Purpose.
Once you understand and embrace all of you with self love, purpose stares you in the face asking, “What took you so long?”
Of course you’d love to keep these pithy statements to yourself because your inner critic is likely to jump in with both feet telling you how silly they are and why aren’t you stronger than that or chastising you for not living up to others’ expectations of what you should be and do.
The only way to make that little gremlin go away, and maintain the power behind your mantra or affirmation, is to …
…make it public. (Secret #4).
Tell your friends and those people who you know will support you and encourage you. Your tribe is there to help. And if someone diminishes you, time to let them go their own way. You’ve got places to go where they cannot follow.
There’s one more Secret. Without this last secret your mantra and affirmation will lose the power you’ve instilled in it.
Repeat it over and over and over again. (Secret #5)
Read it out loud in the morning when you rise, mid-day when you’re feeling overwhelmed and before you go to bed at night. Consistently saying it to yourself creates new thought patterns in your brain. It’s even got a scientific term: neuroplasticity. It’s a way to rewire your brain to increase your happiness.
Every thought you think and feeling you feel, strengthens the circuitry in your brain known as your neural pathways. Neural pathways are the basis of your habits of thinking, feeling and behavior.
There’s a saying, “Neurons that fire together wire together” (Donald Hebb, 1949). Changing the pattern of your thoughts and feelings changes the neural pathways that affect your life. This is what makes a mantra or affirmation effective.
That’s why this last secret, voicing your mantras and affirmations OUT LOUD and consistently, is SO important in rewiring your brain, shifting your mindset in ways that change your perspective, your relationship to the world and others, and your habits.
And I used to think it was only words….
Mantras and affirmations can be used to empower yourself to achieve your dreams but only if you know the 5 Secrets to making them work.
I’d love to hear how this works for you. Leave a comment here, share this post with others who need a mantra or get in touch and let me know how it works for you.
Photo by Heather Schwartz on Unsplash | https://medium.com/thrive-global/the-5-secrets-to-creating-mantras-and-affirmations-bc7f5dda7244 | ['Alicia M. Rodriguez'] | 2018-09-14 20:51:09.548000+00:00 | ['Wisdom', 'Life Lessons', 'Purpose Driven Life', 'Life Coaching', 'Weekly Prompt'] |
A bomb went off at the Rally Dakar! The end of internal combustion engines is approaching. | Measuring HE3DA batteries performance after a long rally day.
First important step toward sustainable future of Dakar Rally with HE3DA team.
HE3DA truck in the middle of a desert during Dakar Rally competition.
A bomb went off at the Dakar Rally! The end of internal combustion engines is approaching.
A bomb went off at the Dakar Rally this year! Not on the track mind you, no one was hurt and not even a single car flew into the air. The bomb exploded when organizers of the world’s most demanding rally announced the end of internal combustion engines is rapidly approaching. As soon as 2022, a specific “alternative energy” category is to be created placing focus on the competitors racing hybrid, electric, or hydrogen-powered cars and trucks. Any and all companies implementing emission-slashing technologies can get in the game! The sporting rules will be modified; striking the perfect balance and ensuring each and every project is competitive and balanced.
In 2026, all elite competition in the Dakar Rally auto and truck categories, are required to enter the race with vehicles meeting new, ultra-low emission standards. Down the road, development of these technologies is expected to enable amateur competition to procure vehicles meeting similar standards, qualifying them for participation in Dakar Rally 2030. In 2030, both auto and truck categories are to be fully powered by alternative energy with zero emissions.
Some competitors and sponsors lost their minds…others shrugged it off. Led by Radomír Prus, a Czech team cheered loudly! It was Mr. Radomir Prus who proposed the idea of electric racing trucks. Finally, at this year’s Rally Dakar, this once crazy idea, Radomir’s dream…sprang to life. On the Instaforex team, Loprais Praga already succesfully tested various HE3DA systems, using nanomaterial and solar batteries!
“All of these systems work perfectly, and there is great interest in the batteries amongst the competetion. We often organize excursions, so the competitors and their sponsors may go watch vehicles perform. They are fascinated by how they work, and how they may be used.” stated a satisfied Prus, founder of this unique project. In Loprais’s team garage, there is juice available for the vast majority of available space, including all relevant lights and equipment. “For welding, Ales’s mechanics carry a small, portable unit around…Our batteries power everything else. They also illuminate our small cafe, where we eat, and relax,” he added, “This power plant on wheels has no problem producing 7 kilowatt hours or more!”
In the field, the batteries have proven themselves as very reliable, driven by competitor Jan Tomanek’s Tatra. “We didn’t dismantle them until Jan finished. Helping Ales Lopraiz on the track was his primary role, driving the support vehicle. He confirmed the batteries work perfectly and are functional after three demanding stages. The voltage only dropped a meager 0.02 volts in the full thirty days they spent in the car. This confirms the assumption that even racing trucks can be electric. The solar system is also perfect. It’s not over yet, but we can say that our systems exceeded expectations,” Prus rejoiced. For over a year now, Prus preached the bright future of electric trucks, “Emissions from engines are suffocating inside the garage. Outside, natural elements suffer as well. For orthodox proponents of internal combustion engines, the demise of purely internal combustion engines at Dakar is a major blow; especially for Russian competitor Kamaz, who practically perfected their specialized combustion engines. We are rejoicing because we are several years ahead of the game. We refused to make a hybrid, and are going in our own direction,” Prus emphasized. The extension of the support car was done by Praga electrical systems, and improvements by Exelsior Engineering. The batteries were manufactured by Magna Energy Storage based on HE3DA patented technology developed by Jan Prochazka, PhD .
Dakar Rally is a one of a kind racing competition. One stage of the famous rally is coming to an end, opening up anew, “I am, so to speak, satisfied with the Dakar Rally, formally dominated by Karel Loprais and the Tatra. Today, the competition is completely different, Dakar Rally is a new so called “F1 competition”. It’s not just about reliability, but primarily about speed. Most vehicless go through general maintenace in the garage almost daily. However at Kamaz, often ten mechanics will pounce on them and in a just a few hours, will build another nearly brand new car,” said Prus. For Prus and his colleague Jiri Vavrik, Dakar Rally is also a personal test. “The first day I thought I wouldn’t go any further.
I suffered terribly, but my body got used to it and I’m fine. Dakar Rally is a huge experience, even if you’re not driving on the track. You encounter camels and meet many interesting people. We were there when a local man offered the Buggyra boys a camel for their escort truck. They refused, however when he offered the two, they hesitated,” Prus laughed.
He came to Dakar Rally to practice and learn about sustainable future of Dakar. There is now a huge interest in the HE3DA battery system all over the world. And so the original Czech battery system became the winner of the Dakar Rally without running a single race, while supporting world’s transition for sustainable future. | https://medium.com/@powerorbital/a-bomb-went-off-at-the-rally-dakar-the-end-of-internal-combustion-engines-is-approaching-9e5a80c050fa | ['Power Orbital'] | 2021-01-18 23:08:48.823000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Sustainability', 'Battery Storage', 'Battery', 'Dakar'] |
Why I Steal Software and What it Can Teach You About Doing Business | Why I Steal Software and What it Can Teach You About Doing Business
The Value of Good Faith Business Practices — Even if You Don’t Own a Software Company
In the late 20th-century a shift began to cement itself into the fabric of our lives, a shift that would prove irreversible, for a time, and one which would permeate everything that we do. Where we go from here will dictate just how irreversible this trend turns out to be, supposing we choose to get ahead of the curve or to double-down on our long-outdated business models. The shift I’m talking about is the relatively new science (at the time) of psychology and it's being adopted into business and marketing practices. The study of Behavioral Economics has begun to shed some light on the bizarre phenomena observed in the form of unbounded human irrationality in everyday economic decision-making. But behavioral economics was born out of necessity and that necessity was often the problem of one-sided knowledge in exchanges, specifically with companies engaging in practices like placing impulse-buy items at checkouts and sweet, sugary breakfast cereals at approximately the eye-level of children so as to entice them to plead and nag their parents into submission. This is where the corporate world went awry; this is how much of corporate America became devoid of ethics.
When businesses could afford to, they’ve continually opted to hire teams of psychologists capable of designing such business practices in order to essentially trick the consumer into parting with hard-earned cash (predatory marketing to children, really?), not even stopping at children or the elderly, as so many scams and legal, but shady business practices which target elderly people living out their golden years have evidenced — and this is why I pirate when I sense a company is being unfair to consumers. I don’t pirate with every company but I certainly pirate the software from unethical companies. Allow me to explain…
I see it as a sort of balancing act which rectifies an unjust situation, one of one-sided knowledge (known as unconscionability, in contract law) whereby a business always has the upper-hand by way of an extremely lopsided knowledge in an economic exchange — and they often choose to use that knowledge to exploit, rather than enlighten. I have a major ethical problem with this and I think I’m not alone, here.
My latest software piracy was a painfully expensive language-learning software (I’ll let you guess which one), though there have been many, many others in the past, from video and photo editing software to other utilities that make life easier. The truth is, I do pay for most software, I have many monthly subscriptions that supplement my writing endeavors, so it’s not even the price tag that turns me off so much as the deceptive business practices. I’ll gladly put up some cash in order to help struggling podcasters and artists or even large companies which serve their customers well and are honest. When a company isn’t straightforward, however, I choose not to do business with them — even if that means pirating their products, and it’s just that simple. This isn’t about retribution but aversion.
It’s not that I want to be bad or get revenge, it’s that I don’t want to be manipulated or lied to, even if it means I have to take a little risk in order to succeed in my avoidance. It’s easier to download a pirated copy than it is to deal with salespeople and customer service reps, in many cases, and that’s telling. In just typing that, I almost feel like I speak for my entire generation, here.
If you’re an owner of a startup or intending to become one, I challenge you to ask yourself what this means to your business strategy. No matter what your business is, what might your blind-spots be that are steering people away from your business? Is it all about money, at the end of the day? When times get tough and it comes down to making money or giving your customers value on their terms, which side of this fence do you fall on? Is there anywhere for ethics and good faith interactions in business today? Are all thefts really devoid of an ethical basis? Or did I perhaps just happen to rectify a situation of one-sided knowledge to give myself the upper-hand?
In the most recent encounter, I emailed said company to let them know I’d paid for and used their old version of the software in question and asked what new updates had been made pertaining to specific areas of the software. I’d rather not pay to upgrade and receive the same product. The company was unable to answer my question. They replied that I should just buy the new version and try it out for myself, without ever explaining to me what the differences might be in terms of concrete advantages and measurable merits. This is about the same as an automobile mechanic who requires a $1,000 downpayment to even begin taking a look at your car. It’s one thing if the mechanic has already taken a look and can tell you exactly what it is they need to fix, but it’s a whole different story if they ask me to pay them for the labor without having taken a look at my vehicle. We have lemon laws at automobile dealerships for a reason and that reason is because of the lopsided knowledge and the willingness of some companies to exploit such a privilege and trick consumers into spending hard-earned cash on something that essentially delivers no value. I think you should be able to see the applicable analogy, here.
I cannot, as a consumer, emphasize enough what should be painfully obvious to everyone, and that is the unwavering importance of good faith business practices, practices like having a willingness to accept that our products or services won’t be for everyone, that (listen up mall kiosk cell phone reps) the goal isn’t just to increase your conversion but to make sure that you give your customers something of lasting value. Are you selling hope or change, because you can’t sell both — either your product and service will deliver or it won’t, but trying to pressure the consumer into buying the wrong product in order to pad the sales numbers isn’t a good habit to get into. The price of these shady practices is our integrity.
But it goes so much deeper than just this. Whenever a company becomes shy about explaining its product, often resorting to treating me like an idiot or even “negging” me, I detect this age-old business tradition of confusing the customer and then pouncing upon the consumer’s confused state in order to make a sale. Rather than selling a product or service on its merits, for decades companies have resorted to obfuscation, trickery, and deceit.
Customer service reps are told not to answer specific questions and I’m sure we’re all familiar with the game of hot potato that call-centers often employ to keep from giving us straight answers (and wasting our time, in the meanwhile). I don’t see my choice to avoid the company altogether and seek out ‘alternative’ sources as unjust, though I’m sure some legal entities might disagree with me, and it’s especially not unjust because I don’t indiscriminately get what I can where I can, that would be exploitative, putting me on their level. I just expect honest interactions and if I can’t expect honesty from a company, why be honest with them? Does bad faith not beget bad faith? If good faith cannot be provided, well, I’ll certainly help myself. I think most consumers are like me and have a sense of fairness, and, even if they can’t quite put their finger on it or do anything about it, they’ll certainly attach that intuitive sense of unfairness or maltreatment to your company’s brand and companies eventually come to be known by their performance rather than image.
We often think of scam artists as questionable-looking men on stimulants in a phone room somewhere, rarely do we stop and think that our sell-at-all-costs tactics often accomplish the exact same result. What’s the real difference between taking someone’s money through deception and taking someone’s money and giving them a bogus product in return? Interestingly enough, I used to work for the company I now find myself browsing to pirate and they’d asked me to lie directly to costumers to make a sale. Why should anyone owe them any amount of honesty? How do we really feel about companies that predate children and try to coax them out of information, up to and including the credit cards of their parents, or outright taking their information illegally?
In a world where the predators aren’t back alley nobodies but the most renowned corporate giants of the world, sometimes there’s nowhere to turn but to your own means. It says something that underground networks of online pirates are oftentimes more benevolent than our largest corporate institutions.
Online piracy is basically a legion of 21st-century Robin Hoods playing out their great game of retribution, somewhere in the great global experiment of nearly-unfettered capitalism running amok, one where many of us have gained an upper-hand to engage in shady business practices with shady businesses who would rather do us dirty and throw consumers under the bus in the name of making a buck. It’s wrong and I think it’s time we start calling it what it is, exploitation. Anyone who’s ever worked sales can testify to the fact that most managers will inevitably teach you “psychological tricks” in order to increase your numbers at the end of the day. What are those tricks if not but manipulation? I don’t have to be a business major to tell you that manipulating your customer base isn’t a good faith business practice.
Would you date someone who couldn’t answer simple questions like, “Have you ever been convicted of domestic violence or sexual assault?” Or how about someone who spent the entire date “negging” you and trying to manipulate you into sleeping with them? The answer is likely no, you wouldn’t if you value your own safety, time, and energy. Can your company or brand answer whatever questions may be the analog of these, unflinchingly? If not, perhaps it’s time for a correction. Americans spend way too much time trudging through the bullshit, artificial reality of lies the business class has created for us, and we’re very much tired of more of the same.
It’s not even the answer I’m afraid of so much as the wasting of my time in an attempt to trick me into purchasing a product that I may or may not need and the refusal to help me clarify if their product is for me or not. It might not be and that’s okay, there are plenty of others out there who might find value in it. The ruse is unnecessary and if we don’t accept it in the dating world, why should we accept it in the business world?
Too many businesses, today, are built on outdated notions of the primacy of the first sale, placing so much emphasis on appearances that there is nothing behind the mask. All of the importance is placed on getting the consumer to part with their money and there is no followthrough. As I said, not every company is like this and those are the companies I will gladly hand over my cash to, but the moment games come into the picture, I make my exit. Sometimes, our purchase decisions aren’t economic decisions but ethical ones and those are the ones we’re the most willing to stick by.
So, what are you telling your staff, or, if you don’t have any staff, what does the face of your business say about you? Companies of today want to focus so much of their time and resources on their brand and their image but do they ever stop and think about their values? And, I’m not just talking about the bogus hot-air of “company values” that they make every employee read upon their first day of hiring, but do they actually live up to those values? Are you confident enough in your service or product that you truly believe that you’ll win repeat customers? Or are you trying to make sales on empty vagueries and ambiguities which aren’t quite tangible, in hopes that this sale will propel you to the next and onto the next until you’ve exhausted the sea of people and ruined that reputation that you tried so hard to pretend? The thing is, companies are like people, they live and die by the lifeblood of their reputations — not their image — and a reputation can only be built upon the consistent actions which have forged one’s character — not facades and facsimiles of virtue. Those actions aren’t just the ones the consumer sees but the ones that are maintained behind closed doors, the conversations between every subordinate and superior, the behind-the-scenes actions that fuel the mood of the company overall. So, I challenge Ameican enterprise to ask itself, what does it want its legacy to be? What do you want to reputation to be? Build that, don’t give me another pretty brand with no substance, please.
Simply put, I owe no ethical good faith to a company the tries very hard to employ bad faith tactics in order to get me to part with my hard-earned money. It’s time we let products start selling themselves again and stop pressuring consumers into apathy or worse, misery. I’ll opt to take care of myself, thank you very much. | https://medium.com/flux-magazine/why-i-steal-software-and-what-it-can-teach-you-about-doing-business-a38f26a014b5 | ['Joe Duncan'] | 2019-12-06 22:04:41.455000+00:00 | ['Philosophy', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Ethics', 'Businesses', 'Startup'] |
A step back into the future | Wake up and smell the hemp!
By Gregory Ricker as channeled through Renn Loren
It’s a wonder that in a world of such modern technology we’re still at battle with such primitive forces. I thought we would have a worldwide council by now to institute common sense for countries, or they wouldn’t be permitted to participate in the Olympics or couldn’t have Christmas — or both.
It’s been a real adventure explaining that hemp is not marijuana and that science is science for science’s sake.
The latest improbable hurdle is that we have to pass FBI background checks to grow the equivalent of corn; no criminals should ever be allowed to grow corn.
When the leader of the free world says we should plant as much hemp as possible to help the planet and then some uninformed misguided religious fanatic says “no marijuana,” someone should buck up and send that genius to 7th-grade science class, or at least get them a botanist friend — or both.
The world is burning, and one answer to stopping that is hempcrete; a concrete replacement material derived from hemp.
I’m telling ya, there’ll be no Christmas if you let your towns burn down; I think last year china harvested 176,000 acres of hemp for a financial yield of $10,560,000,000, but I’m not sure because I imagine half of this rubbish because apparently; nobody, and I mean nobody in the Dominican Republic seems to care that a million jobs could be created overnight!
I had such high hopes for the DR and still do. And I will outlast one administration after the next for two reasons: rum and cigars; they crush it here! And unless President Abinader throws my merry men and me out of here sometime soon, the torch will be passed.
I know it’s a near-impossible job to be a national leader. On the other hand, one does get the sweetest cars, free rent, and is invited to the most lavish parties. This is tongue-in-cheek banter; make no mistake, we have the most amazing respect for Luis Albinader, but it would be nice if he moved us to the front of the lunch line. We’re like fish on Fridays.
Zero cost item. We have strength in this cause that won’t wane, so it’s going to happen. I put the odds at 6 pairs of flip-flops and a hundred gallons of sunblock that the calendar is our friend and time is on our side.
Remember a song written by a rather socially conscientious former Beatle that once suggested giving peace a chance? Why not open more doors and let us help people without greedy hands reaching for their piece of the pie in every paradise jungle I tread through.
It’s okay; my group plays hard and fast, is virtuous, and understands that this crop can help so many families. So we shoot our mouths off and pray for the best. And industrial hemp farming is the very best that could happen for the DR and its people.
Far from being a relic of the past hemp farming is the path to a non-fossil-fuels-dependent future and a chance to recover from the industrial misstep we took at the turn of the century.
It was thanks to the influence of big money industrialists who sought to villanize and criminalize hemp to further their chemical and fossil fuel-driven interests that we got torn from a greener path in the first place.
The future lies in greener cleaner alternatives to old-world fuels. The future lies in the green of hemp.
The DR stands to be the world’s largest producer of the stuff. No less than America, the great global trendsetter has given hemp farming the green light. Puerto Rico is on it and ready to prosper accordingly. So what’s holding it up here in the DR?
Big smile, thanks to the governments for all the invites to speak and present our case. We will keep plugging industrial hemp farming in the DR. | https://medium.com/@rennloren/a-step-back-into-the-future-b81d691033b1 | ['Renn Loren'] | 2021-09-02 17:18:33.651000+00:00 | ['Dominican Republic', 'Hemp', 'Farming', 'Caribbean'] |
Obama, who previously said he would not defund police departments, said the key is for activists to decide whether they want to get something done or feel good among people they agree with. | Obama, who previously said he would not defund police departments, said the key is for activists to decide whether they want to get something done or feel good among people they agree with. Mekosabry Dec 2, 2020·2 min read
Former President Barack Obama cautioned young activists against using the slogan “defund the police” to achieve changes in policing practices, instead urging them in a new interview to have a more inclusive discussion to better enact changes.
In doing so, the former president, who still holds enormous influence in the Democratic Party and has voiced support for protesters in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, is taking a strong stance on a contentious phrase that is a dividing point among Democrats, and speaks to the friction between the more liberal wing of the party and President-elect Joe Biden’s calls for a moderate path forward.
“If you believe, as I do, that we should be able to reform the criminal justice system so that it’s not biased and treats everybody fairly, I guess you can use a snappy slogan like ‘Defund The Police,’ but, you know, you lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done,” Obama told Peter Hamby on Snapchat’s “Good Luck America” when asked what his advice is to an activist who believes in using the slogan although politicians are likely to avoid it.
“But if you instead say, ‘Let’s reform the police department so that everybody’s being treated fairly, you know, divert young people from getting into crime, and if there was a homeless guy, can maybe we send a mental health worker there instead of an armed unit that could end up resulting in a tragedy?’ Suddenly, a whole bunch of folks who might not otherwise listen to you are listening to you.”
Obama, who previously said he would not defund police departments, said the key is for activists to decide whether they want to get something done or feel good among people they agree with.
“And if you want to get something done in a democracy, in a country as big and diverse as ours, then you’ve got to be able to meet people where they are,” he said and “play a game of addition and not subtraction.” | https://medium.com/@mekosabry1989/obama-who-previously-said-he-would-not-defund-police-departments-said-the-key-is-for-activists-be89cfb1dfbd | [] | 2020-12-03 15:29:50.707000+00:00 | ['Politica', 'President', 'Obama', 'Politics'] |
Io Saturnalia! | Io Saturnalia!
Good lord’s strut, reduced forthwith to a wimp unsightly,
Dismissed in whole tonight, I shall forgo all my duty,
May I now, where’s my lady?
Flip of the days, we have a king to mock, the Lord of Misrule¹,
for tonight the order of the day, is utmost chaos in disarray!
Gifts to spare for the ones who mattered all year through,
This very monumental signillaria², from me to you,
Hop on to the beat of merriment,
Cascading that happiness downwards dancing with glee,
Greetings galore in those days of Io Saturnalia³!
The weight of the matter heavy on shoulders remain,
But the eye to see thru the hourglass you can change,
Sage of time’s epiphany we embrace with each turn,
Spin around we shall, therefore to see through another way!
Viraji Ogodapola | https://medium.com/scrittura/io-saturnalia-5171b9ed55e4 | ['Viraji Ogodapola'] | 2020-12-19 14:03:19.737000+00:00 | ['Saturnalia', 'Prompt', 'Rejoice', 'Scrittura', 'Poetry'] |
Why are Americans so hostile to labor unions? | Doesn’t it seem that Americans have a special type of anger towards labor unions? Seeing as only 10% of us work with unions, how can so many Americans have such negative attitudes towards an institution most of us have likely never even dealt with? When I travel overseas and meet European conservatives and libertarians, they have much less antipathy towards unions; they don’t like unions either but do not spit as much venom about them as Americans. Why is it that Americans are so hostile to labor unions?
Americans have had a unique historical experience with labor unions.
As far as I can tell, there is no equivalent to Jimmy Hoffa in Europe. Labor unions have a well-deserved reputation in this country as violent and corrupt. For much of the 20th century many of them were violent and functioned as a de facto mob front, some of them still do. In certain industries, labor unions are referred to as ‘classically corrupt,’ looking out for their own personal profits instead of the good of their membership, literally selling their integrity to industry bosses. At the expense of the actual workers.
Unions joined the great Baby Boomer lie, encouraging people to believe that the prosperous Mayberry, USA of the 1950s and 60s was the new normal. Get a job, work 25 years, retire on a generous pension. (That post-war world was the aberration, not the norm, and to be fair to unions -and politicians- it was common belief that it would last.)
In many cases they deliberately sold their membership bullshit, knowing full well that entire industries were fleeing or evolving and that union bargaining power was in-fact contributing to the demise, escape, or switch to automation of many industries. Sometimes because of shortsightedness, sometimes due to corruption, sometimes out of political blindness; but the guys depending on that steady paycheck and pension don’t care about why. They only know they got screwed.
(We’re actually screwing over two generations right now with an evolved version of that lie: Get a college degree if you ever want to amount to something. As if plumbers are unimportant and aren’t very, very well paid. Generation X and Millenials are pissed by the way. You will be too when the check comes due.)
Government labor unions are contributing to a public pension crisis in states across the country. Taxpayers in many states are getting pretty tired of that. Especially conservative ones.
Law enforcement unions are continuing to prevent meaningful accountability and reform of law enforcement and the criminal justice system as a whole. Taxpayers across the country are getting pretty tired of that. Especially minorities (and libertarians).
Unions are huge backers of the democratic party. In general, around 90% of union political donations go towards democratic candidates and causes. This has contributed to basically half of the population thinking of them as not only corrupt but actively working against them. This causes quite a bit of consternation among the more conservative union members, their dues go to politicians and policies that they don’t agree with. In fact, there’s a case before the US Supreme Court about this issue right now which will have huge implications for the future of American unions.
Similarly, in many cases unions restrict benefits without a commensurate decline in the cost of dues. Dip below full time work and your benefits get cut; you pay the same amount though. This happened to me personally. I didn’t take the job when they explained that to me (I was in college and needed full time work for the summer and part-time during the school year. I’m not paying full dues 12 months a year for 3 months of benefits.)
Unions have a host of rules that discourage innovation and investment, and demotivate workers. Seniority rules allow workers to pick and choose their work, often leaving the harder work to the less-skilled and leading to sloppy work, which then encourages competent workers to flee for a firm that recognizes and promotes based on performance as opposed to mere longevity. Disallowing cross-utilization of labor can lead to absurdly high increases of the cost to employers and contractors to use union labor.
Then there’s the protectionist aspect of unions, they prevent the incompetent or corrupt from being fired. Now, unions are supposed to protect their membership. That is their entire purpose of being. But when incompetent teachers can’t be fired and for years taxpayers continue paying their salary even though they do not have students and do not teach, well…you can understand why people would be upset.
As you can see, for a variety of reasons, unions have let down the people they are supposed to help. They have allowed themselves to wither and are increasingly not a factor in far too many sectors. I am a firm believer in the necessity of unions in a free market but I see little evidence that America’s unions are interested in doing much other than lining their own pockets. Until they join the 21st century, show some integrity, and become relevant again, it seems that many Americans have compelling reasons to be hostile towards unions. Hopefully, that can change. | https://thomas-brown.medium.com/why-are-americans-so-hostile-to-labor-unions-339118d91f07 | ['Thomas Brown'] | 2018-12-27 23:51:03.261000+00:00 | ['Labor Law', 'Unions', 'Trade Unions', 'Corruption', 'Labor Unions'] |
Fighting COVID-19 With Blockchain | Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash
COVID-19 is the largest public health emergency in recent memory—and some of the world’s most innovative minds are developing blockchain-based solutions to help.
During the first wave of the pandemic, the International Association of Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA) launched the COVID-19 Solutions Task Force. In collaboration with the European Commission and University College London, the initiative brings together key players in the blockchain sector to address the social, governmental and commercial challenges brought about by the coronavirus crisis.
Similarly, researchers throughout the world have investigated how the central characteristics of blockchain technologies — decentralization, immutability, transparency and traceability — can be used to surpass the obstacles caused by COVID-19.
Here are some of the ways that blockchain is being used to fight the pandemic.
Contact Tracing
Contact tracing is a process that identifies individuals who have been in close contact with people who have tested positive for COVID-19. It’s one of the most common methods being used to control the spread of the virus.
While several solutions have already been proposed, adding blockchain to the mix can increase accuracy and reliability. It can also offer anonymity — which has been a major talking point when it comes to centralized contact tracing systems.
Nodle.io, a decentralized internet of things (IoT) network, launched Coalition, a “privacy-first” contact tracing app. The platform uses blockchain, Bluetooth and cryptographic technologies to trace, identify and notify potential carriers of COVID-19 while maintaining their privacy and anonymity.
The Coalition app promises to protect users’ privacy.
Through an open-sourced protocol called Coalition Whisper Tracing, the app creates an anonymous ID for each user. When users get sick, they declare their COVID-19 status through the app, which then sends the anonymous ID to the cloud. Other users’ phones download these IDs to compare them to those that have been stored locally on their phones. If there’s a match, the app sends a notification to the user.
Donations and Fundraising
Many nonprofits and NGOs are using blockchain to facilitate transparency in fundraising. This can allow them to save costs, limit financial corruption, remove the need for middlemen, and increase trust between their organization and the general public.
HyperChain, a digital assets management company focused on blockchain and decentralized projects, is using its platform to help governments and healthcare organizations securely collect, track and verify donations to help coronavirus-related medical supply efforts.
Through its system, HyperChain allows donors to transparently monitor where their money is going. The company also provides “proof of need” and “proof of receipt” to let users know that the intended party has received the funds.
Vaccine Passports
As the vaccine rollout gains momentum and life inches back to normal, “COVID passports” and immunity certificates have been proposed to certify vaccination status. While some regions have no plans to enforce mandatory vaccination, others have made these health passes obligatory for anyone who wants to travel, eat at restaurants or even enter public spaces.
As the need for COVID passports has increased, so has the black market for counterfeit certificates — demonstrating the need for a reliable, immutable system.
The E-HCert App on the VeChainThor blockchain has been used in Cyprus to certify vaccinations for doctors and nurses at the Mediterranean Hospital of Cyprus. The app also verified about 8,000 PCR tests for people entering the country in June 2020.
While it remains unclear whether blockchain will be implemented into more official COVID passports, global teams of researchers are analyzing the possibilities. Hasan et al. have developed a blockchain-based solution for vaccine passports, and have publicly published the codes to their smart contracts on GitHub. Eisenstadt’s team has also created a protocol for a COVID passport mobile app on a consortium blockchain.
Supply Chain and Logistics
COVID-19 vaccines and supplies need to be stored, administered and used under strict conditions. Unfortunately, supply chain mistakes happen. Millions of doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had to be thrown out due to human error. Thousands of vaccines are unusable because they were stored at the wrong temperature. And early in the pandemic, scammers tried to sell unverified masks and supplies to unsuspecting victims.
Two hospitals in England are using blockchain programs to monitor their COVID-19 vaccines using Everyware and Hedera Hashgraph. The systems maintain a record of temperature, note any irregularities in storage, and send the information to an unchangeable digital record on the Hedera Hashgraph platform.
When proper face masks were in short supply, blockchain supply chain platform VeChain teamed up with Chinese and American companies to limit the use of counterfeit masks. All of the boxes that were sent from China featured a VeChain NFT (non-fungible token) chip and a two-factor authentication QR code. This verified the masks and included important information about the supplies, such as when and where they were produced.
Clinical Trials
Governments, medical institutions and pharmaceutical companies rely on clinical trials to test the safety, efficacy and possible side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines. Adding blockchain to the process could facilitate access to clinical data in real time, improve privacy and safety by creating an audit trail, and increase regulatory compliance through data transparency.
Several companies have been developing blockchain-based clinical trial solutions over the past few years, including IBM and Boehringer Ingelheim, ACL Digital and Sphereon. In these initiatives, the companies are addressing various aspects of the clinical trial process, such as patient retention and clinical document management.
All of these efforts make it clear that blockchain is much more than just a trendy tech term—it’s a powerful asset that can be used to increase transparency, trust, safety and ultimately health around the world. | https://medium.com/connected-dlt/fighting-covid-19-with-blockchain-25375d1c89e | ['Revé Fisher'] | 2021-08-13 14:44:44.933000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Distributed Ledgers', 'Covid 19', 'Health Technology', 'Pandemic'] |
Database Connections in Python: Extensible, Reusable, and Secure | Photo by panumas nikhomkhai from Pexels
Database Connections in Python: Extensible, Reusable, and Secure
Database Connectors
Imagine you’re a data scientist in charge of building a model, and you need to connect to a database — a pretty common task for you. How would you do it?
The easiest way is probably something like this:
import cx_Oracle
import pandas as pd cnn = cx_Oracle.connect(conn_str)
data = pd.read_sql(sql, cnn.connector)
# or do something else
(We’ll use an Oracle connection throughout the post as an example, but this blog applies to all other databases as well!)
This little code snippet seems like an obvious choice, right? This approach might get the job done, but isn’t the best way to go about it.
Why? Well, hopefully we were instructed to close any pointers or connectors after using them. Database connections are a limited and relatively expensive resource. If you’re not careful, you may accidentally hit the maximum number of connections with only one running project, but dozens of connections from historical projects.
A more careful way to deal with database connectors might be:
import cx_Oracle
import pandas as pd cnn = cx_Oracle.connect(conn_str)
data = pd.read_sql(sql, cnn.connector)
# or do something else
cnn.close()
Seems solid, right? Well, it’s better, but not quite there.
Not sure why? Consider the following: what happens if something in the middle interrupts the script? With this approach, you could accidentally reach the maximum number of allowable connections if, say, several testing scripts have database operations fail during execution. (Some other relevant questions here: what if you changed the name of the engine/connector and forgot to change it subsequent lines of code? Or if you have multiple connectors at the same time, but forget about one of them?)
If you’re really cautious and want to solve for each of these cases, you may come up with something like this:
import cx_Oracle
import logging try:
cnn = cx_Oracle.connect(conn_str)
cnn.do_something()
except Exception:
cnn.rollback()
logging.error("Database connection error")
raise
else:
cnn.commit()
finally:
cnn.close()
Now this looks good. We employ a rollback if anything goes wrong, commit if things go right, and close our connection in the end. Though this is certainly a significant improvement over our first approach, we’re still short of best practices.
Why? Well, sometimes you have to deal with multiple database connectors (in the data exploration phase, for example), and you’ll have to read from each of them on a regular basis. This might introduce some redundancy, which suggests that a reusable function might be a good fit for this scenario.
Context Managers & Decorators
The best practices discussed above remind me of Python file objects: simply initialize a connection and safely close it when you’re done, regardless of what happens in the middle. With this syntax, the file is properly closed after the block finishes, even if an exception is raised on the way. It’d be great if we could handle database connections in a comparable manner.
Though we can’t treat connecting to a database in exactly the same way, it turns out that we can use something similar known as a context manager:
import cx_Oracle class oracle_connection(object):
"""oracle db connection""" def __init__(self, connection_string=conn_str):
self.connection_string = connection_string
self.connector = None def __enter__(self):
self.connector = cx_Oracle.connect(self.connection_string)
return self def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_val, exc_tb):
if exc_tb is None:
self.connector.commit()
else:
self.connector.rollback()
self.connector.close()
Context managers are used for managing resources. They allow you to allocate and release resources precisely when you wish. With this particular context manager, we can call database connections like so:
import pandas as pd with oracle_connection() as conn:
data = pd.read_sql(sql, conn.connector)
(Read more about context managers here. You can also make use of contextlib in the Python standard library for more context manager fun!)
If you’re ready to put your code into production, you may need a number of distinct database connectors, and consequently find that using a context manager is overly wordy. A great alternative is a decorator, which is a magical piece of code that modifies functions as opposed to objects. See below for our earlier example reconfigured as a decorator:
import cx_Oracle
import logging def db_connector(func):
def with_connection_(*args,**kwargs):
conn_str = conn_str
cnn = cx_Oracle.connect(conn_str)
try:
rv = func(cnn, *args,**kwargs)
except Exception:
cnn.rollback()
logging.error("Database connection error")
raise
else:
cnn.commit()
finally:
cnn.close() return rv
return with_connection_
Decorators allow you to change or extend a function’s behavior without really changing the function itself. You just decorate a function with one line of code above its definition to give it a whole new capability.
When designing a decorator, you need to have an inner function and a decorator function. Here, db_connector is the decorator function, and with_connection_ is the inner function that’s only defined within the decorator. When calling this decorator, the decorated function func ultimately points to the decorator’s inner function, with_connection_ . This inner function then wraps the decorated function func by doing the following:
Accepting an arbitrary number of positional and keyword arguments, allowing the decorated function to operate normally: with_connection_(*args,**kwargs) Passing the database connector to the decorated function:
func(cnn, *args, **kwargs) Making sure the database connector is handled properly by Python’s try/except syntax, like we talked about earlier in the post.
With this in place, when you want to alter an existing function to use our database connector, you can drop in a decorator just above it like so:
@db_connector
def do_some_job(cnn, arg1, arg2=None):
cur = cnn.cursor()
cur.execute(SQL, (arg1, arg2)) # or something else do_some_job(arg1, arg2)
The @ symbol syntax basically (though not literally) equates to the following:
do_some_job(arg1, arg2) = db_connector(do_some_job(arg1, arg2))
This decorator creates a database connection and passes it along to the function below it. It basically does the job of a context manager, but in an even simpler way. There are other really interesting ways to write decorators — see more here.
Photo by Jordan Harrison on Unsplash
Handling Credentials
So now you know how to set up a safe, easy database connection using context managers, decorators, and other best practices. But we’re not done yet!
Here’s a question: in any of the code above, how would you input your username and password to connect to the database? (Or rather, in this case, give the credentials to the aforementioned conn_str ?)
One idea might be to have a .py file with all necessary credentials. This is certainly better than hard-coding your credentials into a conn_str variable in each script that uses a database connection. But hard-coding credentials, even if they’re in a separate file, is never recommended.
Imagine that, in the beginning of your project, you used your personal password as credentials for a database connection. When it comes time to open-source your code, you might forget about the early days, but GitHub’s commit history certainly didn’t! Even absent any security concerns, if someone maintaining your project has to pore through all your code/data dictionaries to find the relevant snippets in which to update credentials, they will not be thrilled with your work.
In short, hard-coding credentials is unwieldy and potentially dangerous.
On the other hand, there’s another way to store your database credentials gracefully and safely: use environment variables. Whether you’re using Windows or a Unix-based system, you can always set these variables and hide them within your system, and they’re definitely more confidential than using scripts or configuration files.
In addition, when you’re deploying into a container (e.g. Docker), you can easily set your environment variables and not worry about changing them between deployments. For example, when switching from a testing environment to a production environment, all the database configurations could be different, but you can change the configuration of the container without altering the underlying code. Check here if you need a hint on how to change environment variables in your OS.
Here are our major previous code snippets with references to environment variables (see the os.environ bits):
import cx_Oracle
import logging
import os class oracle_connection(object):
"""oracle db connection""" def __init__(self, connection_string=os.environ["CONN"]):
self.connection_string = connection_string
self.connector = None def __enter__(self):
self.connector = cx_Oracle.connect(self.connection_string)
return self def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_val, exc_tb):
if exc_tb is None:
self.connector.commit()
else:
self.connector.rollback()
self.connector.close()
def db_connector(func):
def with_connection_(*args, **kwargs):
conn_str = os.environ["CONN"]
cnn = cx_Oracle.connect(conn_str)
try:
rv = func(cnn, *args, **kwargs)
except Exception:
cnn.rollback()
logging.error("Database connection error")
raise
else:
cnn.commit()
finally:
cnn.close() return rv
return with_connection_
Photo by CMDR Shane on Unsplash
With these simple steps, you will be able to produce Python database connectors that are extensible, reusable, and secure.
_________________________________________________________________
If you liked this blog post, check out more of our work, follow us on social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook), or join us for our free monthly Academy webinars. | https://medium.com/opex-analytics/database-connections-in-python-extensible-reusable-and-secure-56ebcf9c67fe | ['Opex Analytics'] | 2019-07-25 16:13:37.591000+00:00 | ['Database', 'Programming', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Data Engineering'] |
8 CSS image filters with code examples | Filters in CSS
To create filters to the images in CSS, we use filter property, which defines visual effects using a few different functions. Each function may give a different result to the basic image. Also, it’s possible to add multiple filters to one image.
Let’s go one by one and see the result we may get.
1. grayscale(% | number)
The most popular filter added to the images is grayscale. It allows for creating a black and white photo. The grayscale function can take a percentage or a number argument. 0% means nothing will change, and 100% means the image will be converted to grayscale completely. If you will leave the value empty, it will take 100% by default. If you would like to set the value by numbers, it accepts the values from 0 to 1.
In the example above, you can see the original photo without any filters, the second one is an image with 0.5 value, and the last one is a fully grayscale photo.
2. sepia(% | number)
The sepia filter creates a reddish-brown color photo. The sepia() method works similar to grayscale; it also accepts values from 0% to 100% or from 0 to 1. Negative values are not allowed. Let’s see the examples:
In the example, you can see how sepia filter works. I think it’s a great idea to use it if you would like to make a feeling that the photo is a little bit oldish. That’s what came to my mind first after looking at the sepia image.
3. blur(px)
The blur effect makes the photo very fuzzy by applying the Gaussian blur effect. It is applicable to censorship or a background image where there’s no need to make a photo very sharp. blur() method also takes one argument, and the argument has to be a certain amount of pixels. The biggest value the larger blur will be. By default, the value is 0.
The first example is a basic image with no filter, the second one has 2px blur and is a little bit fuzzy, and at the last one, it’s almost impossible to recognize what’s on the photo.
4. brightness(% | number)
Another filter is brightness(), which allows adjusting the level of the brightness of the picture. It takes one parameter in percentage from 0% to 100%, and everything above makes the image brighter or as a number from 0 to 1 or above to make it brighter. By default, every image brightness is 100%. Let’s check how this filter behaves in the code example:
Images in the example are set to 0.5 and to 150%. You can notice the lowest number the more dark photos are and the opposite.
5. contrast(% | number)
The contrast() filter allows adjusting contrast of the pictures. If the value is set to 0% or 0 number, it will be totally dark, set to 100% or to 1, is the default, which means photo won’t be changed at all, and values above 100% or 1 will provide less contrast. Let’s see the example:
In the example above, I’ve decreased the contrast of the first picture to 10% and increased the contrast of the second photo to 200%.
6. saturate(% | number)
Saturation describes the intensity of colors, and the bigger the value of saturating filer is, the more vivid colors are. The default value of the image is 100% or 1, 0 means image is unsaturated, and everything above the 100% and 1 increases the saturation. Let’s see the example:
As you can see in the example, the second image is unsaturated and set to 20% of saturation, and the third image is set to 200% of saturation, and it’s visibly more vivid.
7. hue-rotate(deg)
First, let’s explain what is hue-rotate first because it may be confusing. It was for me. So, hue-rotation is a function where we specify the angle around the color circle. The input can be in deg or turns. It also accepts negative values. The maximum is 360deg, so even if we will set bigger value it works as in the circle, so for example, if you will set 450deg then the result will be as in 90deg, and if we put -10deg, the result will be like if we set 350deg (so 360deg — 10deg). Let’s take a look at the code example:
In the example above, you can see the four images, the first one is original, without any hue rotation, but it’s also how 360deg hue rotation looks like. The second image is set to 90deg of hue rotation, and it’s visible that green is very strong here. The third image is set to 180deg, and in this example, the image is bluer, and the last one set to -90deg (what is calculated to 240deg) is more reddish.
8. invert(% | number)
Another filter that may be applied to our images using CSS is inverted. It is used to invert samples on the image. The value which inverts function accepts is only positive. Let’s see the example:
In the codepen above, you can see three images. The first one is the original one, the next is inverted to 75%, and the last one is completely inverted (the value is 1). | https://medium.com/quick-code/8-css-image-filters-with-code-examples-6b29640b243c | ['Radoslaw Fabisiak'] | 2019-11-08 16:03:29.742000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Web', 'Career', 'Web Development', 'CSS'] |
The seven hearts of a Priest | God calls those He wants to be priests. He chooses them from among His people in order to consecrate them, to make them His own. From that moment on, priests no longer belong to themselves, but to God. This is why, over the course of his priesthood, the heart of the priest transforms into the heart of Jesus, and gradually learns to be meek and humble. In this way, we can identify the seven hearts of a priest, which are but one, seen from different perspectives of his consecrated vocation.
The priest doesn’t get married, yet he is a father; he doesn’t live with a woman, however he is a husband. He doesn’t have a few siblings, nor is he an only child, but the entire humanity as his family. The priest is not a friend to a few, but to many. He doesn’t wander the fields, yet he’s a true shepherd. In short, the heart of a priest is that of another Christ.
The heart of the priest is…
1. A father’s heart
Exceptions aside, the priest is unmarried, however, that doesn’t keep him from being a true father by vocation. The fertility that God grants priests is different, it’s an inner fertility that plants the seed of the Gospel and lets it grow. The priest is the one who begets souls for eternal life. He’s a father who teaches, educates, plays and has fun, but also corrects. He’s a spiritual father who listens to his children’s problems and advises and helps them overcome the difficult moments of life. The priest is a father who gets involved in his children’s lives, but also lets them be independent. He’s a father who’s present in the important events of life, like the Sacraments, but he also participates in the everyday moments, like a good football game. The priest is a father by vocation, that’s precisely why we call him “father;” it’s not a coincidence.
“What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the holy Spirit* to those who ask him?” (Lk. 11:11–13).
2. A son’s heart
This dimension of the priest’s heart is very important to his pastoral ministry. A true experience of God the Father will be essential for the priest to help him recognize himself as father of his flock — his brothers and sisters in Christ. In order to be a father, the priest has to be a son first; a son who commits mistakes and asks for forgiveness; a son who trusts and loves his father; a son who humbly accepts to be corrected; a son who responds with respect and love. Being a son of God is not as easy as some may say. Being a son entails certain responsibilities and rights. Being a son or a daughter is our first vocation (calling) when we’re born. We’re part of the Mystical Body of Christ, therefore, we are children of God in the Son. It is through Christ that we can be called children of God. This takes place through our Baptism, which confers an indelible seal upon our soul. The priest acts always according to God, “for from Him and through Him and for Him are all things” (Rm. 11:36).
“See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed* we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3: 1–2).
3. A brother’s heart
Oh, how difficult it is to be a brother! And the point is that, as Saint Francis of Assisi said, “one chooses one’s friends, but accepts one’s family.” Siblings are to be accepted with love and as they are. We always look for the best in them, we advise and help them while at the same time we let them do the same to us. It’s a mutual relationship of love that one doesn’t choose, but rather embraces. The priest is called to be a brother to all, without any type of preferential treatment. Everyone is important to him. No matter who they are or what they do, they can be assured that in the priest they have a brother they can trust. But beware that their brother priest is not exempt from imperfections and weaknesses. On the contrary, the priest also works hard everyday to improve himself and overcome his ego. This is beautiful: to see that both, those who are priests and those who are not, must fight everyday to be a saint, and we fight this battle together supporting each other.
“But he said in reply to the one who told him, ‘Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?’ And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother’” (Mt 12: 48–50).
4. A husband’s heart
In the Roman Catholic Church, priests don’t get married, and this isn’t due to a form of discrimination. On the contrary, the Church, as mother and teacher, has seen it prudent, throughout the centuries, that priests remain celibate in favor of their mission. And the point is that the priest’s love pours itself out for the whole Church family. He takes on this commitment freely, and always for love. As we can read in the Gospel according to Matthew, “Not all can accept [this] word, but only those to whom that is granted” (Mt 19:11).
From the very early days in the Church, Christ has been called “the Bridegroom of the Church,” and the priest also becomes the “bridegroom” by acting in the name of God, with whom he commits to be faithful and educate his children about the faith. This is a very important dimension in the life of the priest. As a husband, the priest has responsibilities and rights. That is how he lives as part of a great family, looking after it with love and protecting it with his own life if it’s necessary.
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25–27).
5. A friend’s heart
I would say that a priest is one of the best friends one could ever have. We know that we can trust him no matter what; he will always be there when we need him, and will care because he wants the best for all of us. Above all, the priest is called to be a friend of Jesus, to make him THE friend of friends. It is through this special relationship that the priest is called to be a friend to others, because he has learned from Christ what true friendship is. Yes, the priest also argues with Jesus every now and then over things he cannot understand or which are difficult. However, the best comes when they reconcile: that’s how friendship works. Think about your friends, who’s never argued with them? We’ve all had arguments with our friends! This is normal because friendship doesn’t depend on the problems we have but, on the contrary, is based on selfless love.
“Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter; whoever finds one finds a treasure. Faithful friends are beyond price, no amount can balance their worth. Faithful friends are life-saving medicine; those who fear God will find them” (Sirach 6:14–16).
6. A shepherd’s heart
The image of the shepherd with a flock of sheep refers directly to Christ the Good Shepherd. The priest becomes the shepherd of the people of God through his priestly ordination, because he acts like another Christ. He’s the instrument through whom God has wanted to act in the life of Man. This is something really important, sometimes difficult for some understand, but it’s a great gift from God to the men in his Church. The priest looks for the lost sheep and brings them back to the flock. He loves them, brings them back, embraces them with tenderness when he finds them. A shepherd must be authentic, that is, he must let the sheep graze in calm. He watches over them, but also gives them space. The sheep know their shepherd’s voice, they don’t go just with anyone. Some years ago Pope Francis said that priests must have “the smell of the sheep,” they must get involved in their lives, be with them, and carry them when necessary. It’s not an easy mission but, trusting God’s grace, we know that it can be done with love and joy.
“I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I have banished them and bring them back to their folds; there they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds for them who will shepherd them so that they need no longer fear or be terrified; none shall be missing” (Jer. 23:3–4).
7. A heart after Christ’s
The priestly heart is a heart that identifies with the heart of Christ: with His sufferings, pains, joys, feelings, etc. There’s a short prayer that we, religious men and women, always pray: “Jesus Meek and Humble of Heart… make my heart like unto Thine.” These words are aimed at all those who are consecrated to God, but especially those He has chosen for the priesthood.
St. Faustina Kowalska wrote in her diary: “Jesus, make my heart like unto Yours, or rather transform it into Your own Heart that I may sense the needs of other hearts, especially those who are sad and suffering. May the rays of mercy rest in my heart” (Diary, 514). This is God’s call to us, a calling that requires a great deal of self-denial, love, and renunciation. This calling doesn’t admit mediocrity. It asks us to give everything for the Kingdom of God. “For through the law I died to the law, that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me” (Gal. 2:19–20). | https://medium.com/ehenriquezlc/the-seven-hearts-of-a-priest-2103f18f8b3b | ['Edgar Henríquez'] | 2019-02-07 16:43:12.528000+00:00 | ['God', 'Heart', 'Christianity', 'English', 'Priest'] |
Implementing Semantic Monitoring | 👉 This article has moved and is now available here. | https://medium.com/production-ready/implementing-semantic-monitoring-534f16e18247 | ['Mathias Lafeldt'] | 2019-04-20 13:01:39.301000+00:00 | ['Continuous Integration', 'Testing', 'Monitoring', 'Microservices', 'Prometheus'] |
Collectd介紹及安裝 | 1. 介紹
collectd從各種來源收集指標，例如操作系統，應用程序，日誌文件和外部設備，並存儲此信息或通過網絡提供。這些統計數據可用於監控系統，發現性能瓶頸（即性能分析）和預測未來系統負載（即容量規劃）。或者，如果您只想要私人服務器的漂亮圖表並且厭倦了一些本土解決方案，那麼您也可以在正確的位置;）。
一個圖表可以說超過一千個單詞，所以這裡是一個圖表，顯示了過去60分鐘內系統的 CPU利用率：
還有其他類似於collectd的免費開源項目 — 相關網站頁面上列出了一些鏈接 。那麼你為什麼要使用 collectd？還有，我們認為設定一些關鍵的差別 collectd分開。例如，它是用C語言編寫的，用於提高性能和可移植性，允許它在沒有腳本語言或cron守護程序的系統上運行，例如嵌入式系統。例如，collectd在OpenWrt上很受歡迎，家用路由器的Linux發行版。同時，它還包括處理數十萬個指標的優化和功能。該守護進程包含 100多個插件，從標準案例到非常專業和高級的主題。它提供強大的網絡功能，並且可以通過多種方式進行擴展。最後但同樣重要的是：collectd得到了積極的開發和支持，並且有詳細記錄。
2.安裝
解决依赖
rpm -ivh "http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm" yum -y install libcurl libcurl-devel rrdtool rrdtool-devel perl-rrdtool rrdtool-prel libgcrypt-devel gcc make gcc-c++ liboping liboping-devel perl-CPAN net-snmp net-snmp-devel wget https://storage.googleapis.com/collectd-tarballs/collectd-5.7.2.tar.bz2 tar xf collectd-5.7.2.tar.bz2
cd collectd-5.7.2
./configure #编译 make all install
或者直接执行命令进行安装
sudo apt-get install collectd
配置文件目录：/etc/collectd/collectd.conf
启动文件目录：/etc/init.d/collectd
日志文件目录：/var/log/syslog
数据存储目录：/var/lib/collectd/rrd/
若监控集群，则每台服务器都需要下载安装collectd并进行相应的配置。
3. 配置
sudo vim /opt/collectd/etc/collectd.conf
需要监控系统什么项就开启相应的插件，一般有cpu,memory,processes,load,interface,disk,swap等。
一般只需修改network插件这一项：
网络插件可以将数据发送到collectd的远程实例中(例如：数据库，csv文件或缓存等介质中)，或者接收从远程服务端发来的数据。
LoadPlugin network #去掉#就表示载入该插件
<Plugin network>
# # client setup:
Server "10.24.106.1" "25826" #该地址和端口是接收数据的服务器的地址和端口，例如:安装数据库（influxdb等）的服务器的地址和端口
# <Server "239.192.74.66" "25826"> #若需传输加密数据，就配置这一小块部分
# SecurityLevel Encrypt
# Username "user"
# Password "secret"
# Interface "eth0"
# ResolveInterval 14400
# </Server>
# TimeToLive 128
#
# # server setup:
# Listen "ff18::efc0:4a42" "25826" #如配置这一部分，表示接收从其他collectd实例中发来的数据
# <Listen "239.192.74.66" "25826">
# SecurityLevel Sign
# AuthFile "/etc/collectd/passwd"
# Interface "eth0"
# </Listen>
# MaxPacketSize 1452
#
# # proxy setup (client and server as above):
# Forward true
#
# # statistics about the network plugin itself
# ReportStats false
#
# # "garbage collection"
# CacheFlush 1800
</Plugin>
。
启动 执行命令 sudo /etc/init.d/collectd start
或者 systemctl start collectd
并设置开机启动 systemctl enable collectd
或者 systemctl start collectd 并设置开机启动 systemctl enable collectd 查看数据 若开启了rrdtool插件就可在/var/lib/collectd/rrd/目录下看到相应的统计数据。
通过下面命令可以查看具体数据：
rrdtool fetch *.rrd AVERAGE
*.rrd表示任何以.rrd结尾的文件，rrdtool命令更详细的用法可以自行百度
可以看到第一列为timestamp(时间戳)，可以通过命令date -d @timestamp把timestamp（以秒为单位）转换为和date命令显示的相同的的时间格式,命令date +%s用时间戳的形式表示时间。
./collectd -C ./collectd.conf 啟動
前提 要把設定檔跟執行檔 搬來安裝目錄 設定檔在 /opt/collectd/etc/collectd.conf 執行檔 在安裝目錄下 /tmp/program/collectd/collectd-5.7.2/src/deamon/collectd
關閉
[root@centoselk6 collectd-5.7.2]# ps -ef |grep collectd
root 27644 1 0 15:53 ? 00:00:00 ./collectd -C ./collectd.conf
root 28663 28475 0 16:10 pts/0 00:00:00 grep --color=auto collectd
[root@centoselk6 collectd-5.7.2]#
[root@centoselk6 collectd-5.7.2]#
[root@centoselk6 collectd-5.7.2]#
[root@centoselk6 collectd-5.7.2]#
[root@centoselk6 collectd-5.7.2]# kill -9 28663
利用logstash寫入es | https://medium.com/pizzas/collectd%E4%BB%8B%E7%B4%B9%E5%8F%8A%E5%AE%89%E8%A3%9D-a4cdeb7f4e24 | [] | 2019-03-03 17:34:45.122000+00:00 | ['Hardware', 'Collectd', 'Monitoring', 'Visualization', 'Monitor'] |
Cypress: Mocking GraphQL Requests | Let’s See Some Examples!
We have created a suite of helpers that allows us to freely mock and control GraphQL operations when running Cypress tests. Though for this article we will display a barebone version of how we approach mocking GraphQL operations.
As an example, here is a GraphQL query operation that our Frontend might execute. Let’s see how we would mock this request.
productList query
Because we convert GraphQL schemas to Typescript types, we already have the response type in our Frontend code.
productList query response type
We can reuse this Typescript interface to add type safety to our API mock data. This way we will be sure that the response mock data is always correct. If the API contract would change for the productList query, after re-generating graphql.types.ts file and running Cypress tests we would receive a Typescript error telling us that the response mock data is outdated and no longer reflects what the products query would return.
Response mock with type safety
Now we need to use this data to mock the productList GraphQL operation. Cypress does come with a cypress.route() function that allows mocking network requests, but it does not work as well for GraphQL requests. For GraphQL, it’s common practice to have all queries executed under a single request endpoint. We needed to create a custom helper function that allows us to mock requests not by URL, but by the GraphQL operation name.
Here is a simplified version of what we use. A helper function is going to mock all window.fetch calls that are executed with /graphql endpoint. The fetch stub will look for mock data based on the GraphQL operation name. If request mock data is found, it will be used as the request’s response. If not — the request will not be mocked.
With everything set up, we can effortlessly mock GraphQL requests inside Cypress tests 🙌 | https://medium.com/revel-systems/cypress-mocking-graphql-requests-fc1afda4654 | ['Viskantas Juodenas'] | 2020-12-17 16:54:41.839000+00:00 | ['GraphQL', 'Mocking', 'Cypress', 'Typescript', 'Testing'] |
A Little Women adaptation made for modern feminists? | A Little Women adaptation made for modern feminists?
It’s more feminist than its predecessor, but how does it compare to the book?
The German translation of the title would be “Beth and her sisters”.
Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is a cozy family story that sits somewhere between rags and riches. Book-lovers across the western world grew up with this tale of four sisters, their love and their quarrels. Most of us recognise ourselves in either the wilful and creative Jo, elegant and motherly Meg, shy and good Beth or the pretentious and stubborn Amy. Or a little of all of them.
The latest film adaptation covers both the book Little Women and its sequel Little Wives.
Attention, major spoilers ahead!
How much of Little Women is based on Alcott’s own sisters?
The first book is mainly for children, which makes it hard to reread as an adult. I first read it two decades ago, but the story is still so present in my head. There is little excitement and it serves more as a collection of funny stories of the four sisters, and their characters are described with such love.
It is not hard to believe that the book is based on Alcott’s own life, the author’s own love for her sisters burns through the pages. The four sisters even got similar characters and life stories as the real-life Alcott sisters.
Jo, Amy and Beth
Louisa Alcott had a rather difficult relationship with May, her youngest sister, similar to that of Amy and Jo.
May Alcott also went to Europe like Amy, and Louisa made this possible for her with the money she received from writing. It was exceptional for a woman living in the 19th century to not only make a living from writing, but to make a living for her whole family.
Louisa was able to become quite wealthy, having bargained hard for her Little Women book deal.
The author’s second-youngest sister, Lizzy Alcott, was also sickly like Beth, and died after years of suffering. She suffered mentally, too. In Little Wives we do not find out what it exactly is wrong with her, because Alcott’s family didn’t know that either. She was diagnosed with “hysteria”, but that could be anything during those times, and often referred to depression.
Louisa May Alcott never married and never wanted to.
It was her publisher who pushed her to make Jo marry in her book. Though her descriptions of Mr. Bhaer help us to understand why Jo falls in love with him — no man has been described over so many pages in this story, not even Laurie. Louisa worked hard to make the thought of marriage bearable.
The 150th anniversary issue from Penguin Random House includes interesting facts about the author.
What has Greta Gerwig’s acclaimed adaptation made of the story?
It is hard to make a movie when several adaptations already exist — especially when one of those adaptations is Gillian Armstrong’s 1994 version staring Wynona Rider (Jo), Kirsten Dunst (Amy), Claire Danes (Beth) and Susan Sarandon (Marmie).
Having watched the 1994-movie more than fifteen times, my expectations were high going into Gerwig’s remake.
In all honesty, the grown-up versions of the sisters work better in Gerwig’s version. The younger versions are awkward and borderline unbearable. Amy should have been the youngest, but Gerwig used the same actress, Florence Pugh, for Amy at 20 and 13. As a 13-year-old, she naturally looked like a dressed up 20-year-old, it felt clownish and amateur.
Is a little woman made for men, or made for herself?
The book version of Jo is more easily recognisable in Saoirse Ronan (2019) than Winona Ryder (1994).
Ryder was very petite and, though she acted boyish, teared up more easily. The Jo found between the pages of the book was always described as hiding her tears, and generally came across rougher. It catered a little too closely to the needs of a male-gaze to choose Ryder to play Jo.
Similarly, Jo’s achievements in New York have been depicted far more powerfully in Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation. Her bargaining is fierce, which is a beautiful homage to Alcott’s real story. We can feel Jo’s excitement, having her own work printed and published.
In contrast, the 1994 version focused more on Jo meeting Mr. Bhaer, and on their relationship generally.
The relationship is sweet, to be sure, though he is a little bit too old. In the book he was not older than 40, but in the 1994 adaptation was clearly far older. This is one thing the current movie lacks — Mr. Bhaer is very lovable, nor is his character particularly consequential at all.
The emphasis in 2019 is instead on Jo’s writing, rather than on her matchmaking ability. I imagine the author, like myself and other feminists, would likely have preferred that, too.
Photo by Katherine Hanlon on Unsplash
Powerful women replace petty women in the latest adaptation
It may be harsh, but Amy was quite the nag in the book. In Gerwig’s movie, however, she delivers a fierce monologue on the economic situation of women in the 19th Century.
As a woman there’s no way for me to make money. Not enough to earn a living, or to support my family, and if I had my own money, which I don’t, that money would belong to my husband the moment we got married. […] So, don’t sit there and tell me that marriage isn’t an economic proposition, because it is. It may not be for you, but it most certainly is for me.
Greta Gerwig has transformed Amy from the least-liked sister to a feminist icon — and I am sure this is another reclamation of agency that Louisa May Alcott would have appreciated.
The lack of intersectionality was a missed opportunity
It is unfortunate that the recent movie picked up so little of the political situation of the time. Alcott’s family were active opposers of slavery, and yet only one scene — in which Marmie works next to a Black woman, and there is a slight notion of Marmie being “full of shame for her country” — is this portrayed in Gerwig’s adaptation.
It felt like a token moment.
This lack of intersectionality shows that Gerwig only really injected some basic feminism into her adaptation, and not the kind being practiced broadly by younger-generation feminists today.
It is somewhat ironic that the author of a book written in 1868 shows more awareness of the intersectionality than a director in 2019.
Reclaiming Little Women’s feminist roots
The 1994 version is overall more moving, the relationships and romance make for a generally more emotional movie experience.
More than this, Armstrong’s version dealt more deliberately with Beth’s depression. Claire Danes performance of Beth was heart-wrenching and her words on her death bed were pointing out her unwillingness of growing up:
”I was never like the rest of you making plans about the great things I do. I never saw myself as much. […] Why does everyone want to go away? I love being home. But I don’t like being left behind.”
Considering how open discussions of mental health have become in recent years, it’s difficult to understand why Gerwig did not depict this aspect of Beth’s character more comprehensively.
Though I cannot say I personally preferred one or the other film adaptation of Little Women, I would give big fat plus points to Greta Gerwig for returning the story to its more feminist roots. Armstrong’s version is more moving, but Gerwig gives you more to think about, which means the movie lingers longer in your mind. | https://medium.com/the-open-bookshelf/a-little-women-adaptation-made-for-4th-wave-feminists-4247a8501f0f | ['Xenia Wucherer'] | 2020-03-02 18:50:39.381000+00:00 | ['Feminism', 'Greta Gerwig', 'Little Women', 'Book Review', 'Books'] |
Operation ORBITAL explained: Training Ukrainian Armed Forces | Operation ORBITAL explained: Training Ukrainian Armed Forces
In 2014, Crimea, which is officially part of Ukraine, was taken over by pro-Russian forces and then subsequently illegally annexed by Russia.
Operation ORBITAL is the codename given to the UK Armed Forces’ deployment in Ukraine.
British troops have been providing training and capacity building to the Ukrainian Armed Forces since 2015.
Here are three things you need to know:
1. Why Ukraine?
Operation ORBITAL is the UK’s training mission to Ukraine and was established in 2015 following the illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia (in 2014), in a demonstration of our unwavering support to Ukraine.
2020 marks six years since the annexation by Russia and the beginning of conflict in the east of the country.
The security situation in the south-eastern parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (regions) of Ukraine remain highly unstable, with ongoing clashes between Ukrainian armed forces and Russian-backed armed separatists.
The UN calculates this has resulted in around 13,000 deaths and approximately 1.5 million internally displaced people residing permanently in government-controlled areas of Ukraine. Civilians continue to get caught up in the fighting.
A British solider acting as a guide for a section assault during a Battle Exercise with Ukrainian and British soldiers
2. What training is the UK providing?
Working away from the conflict in the East, around 100 UK Armed Forces personnel at any one time continue to make a difference and save lives in Ukraine.
They do this by working as short term training teams (STTTs) coordinated by a team of staff officers at Op ORBITAL Headquarters in Kyiv.
The UK Armed Forces are committed to working with our allies & partners to instigate peace and security in Europe and around the world.
The training focuses on a range of key battle basic infantry and medic skills;
Medical
Logistics
Counter Improvised Explosive Devices (C-IED)
Leadership and infantry skills
Planning
Maritime capacity building: diving, firefighting, damage control and sea surveillance
This training is vital for the Ukrainian Armed Forces striving to modernise and develop, as they continue to face Russian aggression in the east of their country.
A paratrooper from 16 Air Assault Brigade prepares to jump from a C130 Aircraft and parachute into Ukraine
Further to Operation ORBITAL, which focuses on capacity building, the UK Armed Forces enjoys a close partnership with Ukraine and our two nations regularly collaborate in joint training opportunities across the sea, land and air domains.
In recent months, a large-scale training exercise with the Ukrainian forces saw the biggest Para drop in a decade — Exercise Joint Endeavour. The exercise began with 250 soldiers deploying by air from the UK within three days mid-September.
This multinational exercise saw the paratroopers take part in joint training alongside their Ukrainian Counterparts, 3rd Battalion the 80th Separate Air Assault Brigade.
In doing so, the paratroopers demonstrated the ability of the UK to move at pace to support our partners around the world.
Major General Ian Cave, Chief of Staff, Field Army, speaks to a member of the Ukrainian military about a demonstration showcased by the UK and Ukrainian forces.
3. What has been delivered?
The UK and Ukraine have built a strong defence relationship in recent years. With British troops having trained more than 20,000 members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the five years since the start of the UK’s training mission.
In September 2020, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace stepped up the UK’s support to Ukraine even further, announcing that the UK would lead a multi-national Maritime Training Initiative for the Ukrainian Navy.
Courses will be delivered by the Royal Navy and naval personnel from Sweden, Canada and Denmark in a range of areas. | https://medium.com/voices-of-the-armed-forces/operation-orbital-explained-training-ukrainian-armed-forces-59405d32d604 | ['Ministry Of Defence'] | 2020-12-21 15:24:00.387000+00:00 | ['Ukraine', 'Military', 'Europe', 'Security', 'UK'] |
I Was an Uber Pirate | I Was an Uber Pirate
I stood in a deep hole running an electric hammer drill. A foghorn sounded from 250 feet above at ground level letting me and all the guys around me know that 500 pounds of 4x8 wooden panel forms were headed down our way. As a crane began to lower them to us, a deep boom billowed from above. Then another boom, then another and yet another. A horrific wind suddenly filled the hole as the entire load of forms fell free from the straps that held them to the crane and rained down on us. The wood exploded into dagger sized splinters and shot out in all directions. I ran as fast as I could into a nearby tunnel and avoided injury. Unbelievably, no one else was hurt either. In the end, it was just another day in construction. But if you work long enough in construction, just another day eventually becomes a catastrophic injury — or worse.
And so, after nearly 20 years on job sites, I said, “Fuck it. I’m done. I’m never working construction again.” To make up for the loss of income, I decided to do what what everyone else does when they’re in-between jobs these days — become an Uber driver. I figured it was easy money. I was born in Chicago so it was nearly impossible for me to get lost there. I’d also worked in every neighborhood in the city during my two decades in construction. My Uber take worked out to only about $20 an hour, which was a big pay cut, but working a 50-hour week for Uber felt like working a 24-hour week in construction.
Things were pretty good at the start. There were no backstabbing co-workers, no bosses unwilling to get rid of problem workers, no drama. If someone got in and was nasty to me, I remained polite and when they got out, I left them a bad rating. And when I was having a bad day and a complaint came through — causing my rating to drop — I worked harder to be professional with my riders and my rating shot back up. Better yet, I never had to talk to anyone at Uber; I went into their tranquil offices once, for all of 15 minutes, to talk to someone about a document update.
In other words, it was never my intention to turn into a pirate. It just sort of happened. One night, I pulled up in front of a bar in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood and a drunk girl walked up with her phone in her hand and her Uber app open. I rolled down my window and shouted, “Anna?” She nodded and got in with two friends. I turned the ride on and drove away. A few minutes later, she asked, “Where are we going?” I stopped to show her the map to her destination on my app when my phone rang. It was Anna: “I’m in front of the bar. I don’t see you.”
I looked back at the drunk girl in my back seat. “Wait, are you Anna?” I asked.
“No, I’m Anita. I thought you said Anita. I’m sorry, I’m kind of drunk.”
I sighed, and Anna canceled the ride. I then asked Anita what she wanted to do.
“Just take us to Lakeview, I’m sorry, we’ll pay cash.”
When we got there, they paid me $15 — $10 for the fare and a $5 tip for my trouble. If the ride had gone through Uber, it would’ve been about an $8 payout, meaning I’d doubled my money.
I didn’t actively seek out cash rides, however, until Uber introduced Uber Pool and my hourly rate plummeted to 12 bucks. The app was super-glitchy and riders were constantly pissed about the crazy, long routes I needed to take to accommodate everyone in the back seat. So instead, I started to stop in front of people trying to flag down cabs. At least half of the time they got in. When they’d ask how much the ride was going to cost, I told them, “Whatever you think is fair.” They often gave me a damn good rate, and if they said a ridiculously low number, we negotiated something more realistic.
The jackpot for cash rides were after major sporting events and concerts. When the doors to the United Center, Soldier Field or Wrigley Field opened, tens of thousands of people poured out. I tried to use the Uber app, but they were mainly tourists who didn’t know north from south or where any major landmarks were. That basically meant I’d spend 20 minutes looking for them only to have them cancel the ride when I didn’t find them fast enough. So I went rogue again. No one minded. The people flooding out of the stadiums were a little drunk and extremely grateful for the ride. I made well over $100 an hour many nights after Blackhawk home playoff games. It was the easiest, quickest and most fun money I’ve ever made — and I used to sell cocaine.
Until it wasn’t.
The night everything went bad began with me looking for pirate rides outside of a nightclub. A drunk woman who was crying came up to my car window and pleaded, “Can you please just take me home?” I hit the unlock button and she got in — followed by her asshole boyfriend. I asked her where she was going, and she told me the West Side. The boyfriend cut in and said, “I put it in the app already!” before going back to talking on the phone.
“Don’t listen to him,” she told me.
I drove them to their destination as the woman dozed off and the boyfriend tried to make annoying small talk with me. When we got to their place, I asked, “Who’s gonna pay?”
“What are you talking about? I already paid through the app!” the boyfriend shouted.
“No, this wasn’t through Uber; it was a cash ride,” I responded.
They ignored me and started to get out of the car.
“Someone’s gotta pay,” I yelled as they walked across the street. I looked at the drunken woman and said, “Remember when you asked me to take you home? You have to pay me. It’s 12 bucks.”
She got a weird look on her face, and the boyfriend told her to go inside, which she did.
I turned to him and said, “Look, I’m gonna get paid, man.”
He grinned, gathered up and took a swing at me that I dodged. He swung wildly two more times before I dipped my shoulder, picked him up and slammed him on the ground. His head cracked on the sidewalk, and he briefly went unconscious. After a couple of tense moments, he sat straight up like an extra on The Walking Dead, stared ahead blankly and said in a bizarre evil clown voice, “You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna steal your car!” Then he added in that same strange tone, “Nah, I’m gonna do something even better — I’m gonna go into my place to get my gun and fucking shoot you!”
While he ran toward his apartment, I ran toward my car. I put it in gear, and drove away as fast as I could. For the next several blocks, I kept my eye as much on the rearview mirror as the road — looking for a maniac sprinting around the corner with his gun to kill me for giving him and his girlfriend a free ride. That’s also when the paranoia (or guilt) started to set in: Could Uber track me down? Did they spy on their drivers — even when they were off the app? Was the dude hurt? Was he going to die? Drunk people can sometimes get up and walk around and do weird stuff only to collapse a few minutes later. Would I go to jail? Would I lose my job as an Uber driver?
I drove as far south as I could, turned on the Uber app and waited for the cops to come get me. But a funny thing happened, I got a ride, and I spent the rest of the night driving around the city as though nothing had ever happened.
It did, however, effectively end my days as an Uber pirate. I started only using the app again and putting as much effort as possible into my rides. I opened doors. I stocked the back seat with water. I made calls to my Pool riders when I was close so they’d be outside. My rating shot way up, and I began to get long rides to the suburbs during rush hour. My rate shot up over $20 an hour. The money wasn’t as fun or fast as before, but it was steady and safe.
Wasn’t that why I became an Uber driver in the first place?
—As told to Josh Schollmeyer
More ride-sharing at MEL: | https://medium.com/mel-magazine/i-was-an-uber-pirate-f403c49f6b86 | ['As Told To Mel'] | 2016-09-12 01:06:51.454000+00:00 | ['Pirates', 'Sharing Economy', 'Taxi', 'Uber', 'Digital Culture'] |
Ventajas y desventajas de hacer mi web en WordPress | Hybrod is a predominant Digital Marketing Agency providing services to small, medium and large businesses including sole traders. | https://medium.com/@hybrod-technologies/ventajas-y-desventajas-de-hacer-mi-web-en-wordpress-5c79e5ed3676 | ['Hybrod Technologies'] | 2020-12-14 09:31:55.668000+00:00 | ['Wordpress Service', 'Wordprees Developer', 'Wordpress Development', 'Wordpress Advantages', 'WordPress'] |
CopyWriting = Good Storytelling | I have to say, one of my all time Favorite things about being a CopyWriter is that I get a chance to be a StoryTeller.
When I was a kid, I watched every movie I could.
I bought every movie I liked too!
In fact, when I moved to my new home…Vietnam🇻🇳
Vietnam = Beautiful Country
I left over 700 DVD’s sitting in my Grandma’s house in Texas.
And I own almost that many movies, in digital format too.
Stories have Always Fascinated me!
I think that's WHY I became a CopyWriter?🤔
I wrote for my college newspaper and my first job out of college was being a paid journalist.
(for The Lewisville News…in my favorite County of Texas!)🇨🇱
But it took me up until a few years ago to FIND CopyWriting.
And I’m super Pumped I did!!!
Because as I sit here, and write ✍🏻 a 8,000 word VSL (Video Sales Letter)…
…I just LOVE being able to take a Reader/Video Watcher down a very specific road = “Story”
This stuff is super FUN!!! | https://medium.com/copywriting/copywriting-good-storytelling-6e6f87609102 | ['Fitness With Animal'] | 2017-09-15 00:50:43.777000+00:00 | ['Copywriting', 'Internet Marketing', 'Marketing', 'Sales Page Copy', 'Digital Marketing'] |
How to UPSERT data into relational database using Apache Spark: Part 2 | In my opinion, Database UPSERT won’t be complete with out talking about MERGE functionality. In this blog we will sail through how we can UPSERT using MERGE command.
SELECT from a database table and then INSERT or UPDATE based on the condition are the traditional way of handling data UPSERT. With the MERGE statement, you can combine those statements into a single one and improve overall performance of the individual transaction.
Most of the relational databases support MERGE command. In Part 1 example, I’ve used MySQL. But MERGE is not supported by MySQL, However, there is a different way of achieving the same in MySQL:
INSERT…ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE
If you specify the ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE option in the INSERT statement and the new row causes a duplicate value in the UNIQUE or PRIMARY KEY index, MySQL performs an update to the old row based on the new values.
In this example I’m going to use DB2 database and MERGE statement. Following is a syntax diagram for the MERGE statement showing all of its principal clauses:
In its simplest form the MERGE statement looks like this:
MERGE INTO <table-name>
USING <table-reference>
AS <correlation-name>
ON <search-condition>
WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN <insertSQL> THEN
WHEN MATCHED THEN <updateSQL>
Let’s re-write the Step 4 in Part 1 example using MERGE command.
4. Update database table records using Spark.
For our example let’s say the school city “Garden City” is changed to “NewYork” and “University at Albany, State University of New York” is changed to “Albany State University”.
Lets see how this is updated into school table.
Step 4.1: Get the data from CSV file to update the school table
Step 4.2: Setup JDBC connection parameters. Please note that I’ve modified the connection parameter to suite DB2 database.
Step 4.3: Broadcast JDBC connection parameters to cluster nodes.
Step 4.4: Browse through each partitioned data and establish the JDBC Connection for each partition and execute the MERGE statement.
In the above example Coalesce is used. You can use repartition also.
On a side note, here is the difference between coalesce and repartition
Step 4.5: Execute MERGE statement using the column values and Add the all the dataframe records to a batch and execute the batch.
I have benchmarked both MERGE statement( without optimizing the environment and Query) and SELECT/INSERT/UPDATE statements in a development cluster and MERGE statement took 3 minutes 40 secs to load 100000 records, whereas SELECT/UPDATE/INSERT took 8 minutes 6 seconds. In all my executions MERGE statement performed far superior than the traditional SELECT/and UPDATE/INSERT. | https://medium.com/@thomaspt748/how-to-upsert-data-into-relational-database-using-apache-spark-part-2-45a9d49d0f43 | ['Thomas Thomas'] | 2019-05-18 18:43:36.751000+00:00 | ['Big Data Analytics', 'Big Data', 'Programming', 'Scala', 'Apache Spark'] |
Keto-Diet: Foods to Eat and Avoid | If you find yourself in a conversation about dieting or weight loss, chances are you’ll hear of the ketogenic, or keto diet. That’s because the keto diet has become one of the most popular methods worldwide to shed excess weight and improve health.
This article explains what to eat and avoid while following a keto diet and provides a one-week keto meal plan to get you started.
TAKE A KETO DIET MEAL QUIZ AND GET A CHANCE TO WIN WEIGHT LOSS DIET PLAN(LIMITED OFFER).
Keto Diet Basics
The keto diet, as a rule, is very low in carbs, high in fat, and moderate in protein. When following a ketogenic diet, carbs are typically reduced to 20 to 50 grams per day, though looser versions of the diet exist Fats should replace the majority of cut carbs and deliver approximately 75% of your total calorie intake. Proteins should account for around 10–30% of energy needs, while carbs are usually restricted to 5%. This carb reduction forces your body to rely on fats for its main energy source instead of glucose — a process known as ketosis. While in ketosis, your body uses ketones — molecules produced in the liver from fats when glucose is limited — as an alternate fuel source. Though fat is often avoided for its high-calorie content, research shows that ketogenic diets are significantly more effective at promoting weight loss than low-fat diets.
Keto Diet Meal Plan
Switching over to a ketogenic diet can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. Your focus should be on reducing carbs while increasing the fat and protein content of meals and snacks. In order to reach and remain in a state of ketosis, carbs must be restricted. While certain people might only achieve ketosis by eating 20 grams of carbs per day, others may be successful with a much higher carb intake. Generally, the lower your carbohydrate intake, the easier it is to reach and stay in ketosis. This is why sticking to keto-friendly foods and avoiding items rich in carbs is the best way to successfully lose weight on a ketogenic diet.
Keto-Friendly Foods to Eat
When following a ketogenic diet, meals and snacks should center around the following foods:
Eggs: Pastured, organic whole eggs make the best choice.
Pastured, organic whole eggs make the best choice. Poultry: Chicken and turkey.
Chicken and turkey. Fatty fish: Wild-caught salmon, herring, and mackerel.
Wild-caught salmon, herring, and mackerel. Meat: Grass-fed beef, venison, pork, organ meats, and bison.
Grass-fed beef, venison, pork, organ meats, and bison. Full-fat dairy: Yogurt, butter, and cream.
Yogurt, butter, and cream. Full-fat cheese: Cheddar, mozzarella, brie, goat cheese, and cream cheese.
Cheddar, mozzarella, brie, goat cheese, and cream cheese. Nuts and seeds: Macadamia nuts, almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, peanuts, and flaxseeds.
Macadamia nuts, almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, peanuts, and flaxseeds. Nut butter: Natural peanut, almond, and cashew butter.
Natural peanut, almond, and cashew butter. Healthy fats: Coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil, coconut butter, and sesame oil.
Coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil, coconut butter, and sesame oil. Avocados: Whole avocados can be added to almost any meal or snack.
Whole avocados can be added to almost any meal or snack. Non-starchy vegetables: Greens, broccoli, tomatoes, mushrooms, and peppers.
Condiments: Salt, pepper, vinegar, lemon juice, fresh herbs, and spices
Foods to Avoid
Avoid foods rich in carbs while following a keto diet.
The following foods should be restricted: | https://medium.com/@muhammadhamza9101/keto-diet-6e085c02953b | ['Muhammad Hamza'] | 2020-12-24 08:58:34.261000+00:00 | ['Keto', 'Weight Loss', 'Diet', 'Ketogenic Diet', 'Ketosis'] |
This Gorgeous Image of a Tiger Hugging a Tree Is the Wildlife Photograph of the Year | Amidst the magical surroundings of a forest in the Russian far east, an extremely rare Amul tigress ecstatically embraces a Manchurian fir tree, marking it with her scent to communicate with others of her kind. It took photographer Sergey Gershkov 10 months of waiting to catch a glimpse of this solitary creature, but his dedication was rewarded with a once-in-a-lifetime shot. This year’s winner of the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, “The Embrace” is a remarkable portrait of a rare and beautiful animal in her natural environment. “It’s a scene like no other,” says Rosamund Kidman Cox, chair of the judging panel that selected Gershkov’s photo out of more than 49,000 entries from around the world:
A unique glimpse of an intimate moment deep in a magical forest. Shafts of low winter sun highlight the ancient fir tree and the coat of the huge tigress as she grips the trunk in obvious ecstasy and inhales the scent of tiger on resin, leaving her own mark as her message. It’s also a story told in glorious colour and texture of the comeback of the Amur tiger, a symbol of the Russian wilderness.
Winners in other categories of the competition demonstrate why Wildlife Photographer of the Year is considered one of the world’s most prestigious photography awards. As the following selection demonstrates, each portrait is a striking insight into the fascinating creatures we share our planet with. | https://tenderly.medium.com/this-gorgeous-image-of-a-tiger-hugging-a-tree-is-the-wildlife-photograph-of-the-year-92dde89b0318 | ['Jack Shepherd'] | 2020-12-01 00:21:39.412000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'Animals', 'Outdoors', 'Photography', 'Wildlife'] |
New Year + New Networking | An end of the endless year gift from me: a short post and the chance to win one of 10 copies of Build Your Dream Network: Forging Powerful Relationships In A Hyper-Connected World over on Goodreads.
A new year is on the horizon, and the multitude of ways we’ve struggled in our efforts to meaningfully connect this past year — well, those aren’t going away any time soon. 2020 has changed us. Who we meet and how has entered a new dynamic. The ability to make meaningful connections using digital tools is critical (as I’ve been saying for some time). Social media is an essential social activity not a frivolous one — it’s the glue that has tethered our human connections this past year.
If you’ve already got YOUR copy of BYDN, pass along the contest info to your network (I and they will thank you) and heck, enter to win yourself, then you can personally pass along the extra copy of BYDN to someone in your network. Giveaway contest entry details can be found here.
Until my next post, here’s to a healthy holiday and hopeful new year. | https://medium.com/@jkhoey/new-year-new-networking-d0340addab32 | ['J. Kelly Hoey'] | 2020-12-23 13:43:31.646000+00:00 | ['Giveaway', 'Networking', 'Career Advice', 'Book Recommendations', 'Job Search'] |
6 Minutes of Kano — Mayumi. What is your name and job title? | What is your name and job title?
Mayumi Yokomizo. Director, Partnerships GM, Japan
What is your story? How did you get to Kano?
Because most of my professional experience consisted of working for large corporations like Disney, the idea of working at a start-up had always intrigued me, especially for a company with a mission to make a difference in people’s lives.
The mission-driven side of my interest stemmed from my time at Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organization with a mission to help kids all over the world lead better lives. Knowing that our work contributed in a small way to help kids learn to be smarter, stronger, and kinder, brought the team closer together and work harder, and I craved that type of bond that united everyone to achieve a common goal. Luckily for me, I was hired as a partnerships manager to oversee the Disney and Harry Potter licensing business in August 2019.
Why are you at Kano?
What attracted me initially to Kano was the innovative line of products that were designed to demystify technology.
But more importantly, what has kept me at Kano is the people that I get to work with on a daily basis — my colleagues, who are some of the brightest and hardest working group of people I’ve ever worked with; our partners, who share a common goal of helping close the digital divide; the community of educators and parents, who work tirelessly to ensure that the students don’t get left behind in their education due to Covid-related school closures; and most importantly, the students, whose inquisitive minds and desire to learn fuel our passion to work harder.
Tell us one thing you do every day? Every week? And then every month? This could be anything in your life at all.
Every day, I catch up on the news over breakfast together without the need to rush to drive in LA traffic to the office.
Every week, I learn how to cook new dishes via our HelloFresh meal kits. I guess you can say that HelloFresh is the Kano of delicious meals — anyone can learn how to cook tasty dishes, not just consume!
At least a few times a month, I started playing the flute again, mostly classical pieces by Mozart and Telemann, but my all-time favorite is Cecile Chaminade’s Flute Concertino. The slower pace in life has restored my desire to pick up the flute once again, which I have not touched in many years. Yes, I was a band geek growing up who attended band camps, but I’ve also performed at the Lincoln Center in New York City and have been written up on NY Concert Review as a flutist with “a big, luscious tone.”
What does it take for someone to work at Kano? What skills do they need?
Skills can be taught, but what cannot be taught is the willingness to learn and work hard.
To work at Kano, it takes someone with a passion — whether it be for education, product design, engineering, customer experience, creative, manufacturing, finance, operations, sales, or marketing, they should be excited about making a difference in kids’ lives via technology. | https://medium.com/@teamkano/6-minutes-of-kano-mayumi-82dd5401de63 | [] | 2020-12-29 12:43:46.442000+00:00 | ['Staffing And Recruiting', 'Interview', 'HR', 'Kano', 'Mayumi'] |
Pearhead First 5 Years Chevron Baby Memory Book with Clean-Touch Baby Safe Ink Pad to Make Baby’s Hand or Footprint Included, Gray | Welcome your adorable new bundle of joy and celebrate all of baby’s moments with Pearhead’s chevron babybook. This modern, chevron style baby book includes 50 fill-in pages providing a great and easy guideline to create a keepsake memory book for generations to enjoy. The chevron pattern on the front adds a cool touch to this baby book. Fill in every detail from the moment you found out you were pregnant to your baby’s first birthday and more! Baby’s memory journal includes areas to place photos of baby, mommy, daddy, and more throughout the first few years of their life. The book is bound in a rich, gray and white cloth adding an adorable touch for your baby’s nursery or any bookshelf. Display baby’s adorable 3"” x 3"” photo on the cover of the journal. This baby book also includes a clean-touch ink pad to display your little one’s tiny print on the cover and inside the journal! Your baby’s skin will never even touch the ink so it’s 100% baby safe! To create an impression, make sure the ink is facing down on the included white card and press your baby’s hand or foot onto the clean-touch ink pad. Let dry for 1–2 days. Then you can place the print inside the book cover and pages easily. Three-time use maximum. For newborns only. Ink pads will accommodate hand/feet up to 2.25” wide x 3.5” long. Pearhead’s babybook is the perfect keepsake to cherish every moment with your adorable little Pearhead.
At Pearhead, we aim to create genuine, quality products to celebrate your special moments in life. We are a family of designers, marketers, and trendsetters bringing products to life that will bring a smile to your face. From concept and design to production and customer service, the Pearhead team works together seamlessly every step of the way. Whether your baby is celebrating their first year of life, you are announcing your pregnancy, or your pup is celebrating his first holiday season, Pearhead is here to share your moments in style.Pearhead’s gray chevron babybook is the perfect keepsake to cherish every moment with your adorable baby; includes 50-guided journal pages with space for photos, a clean-touch ink pad to create baby’s prints, and 3" x 3" cover photo insert
Pages include: who this book belongs to, baby’s introduction, about mommy, about daddy, mommy and daddy’s story, family tree, mommy’s pregnancy journey, doctor visits, baby shower, gift and guest list
Pages also include: delivery/birthday!, special page to include prints from hospital, birth announcement, visitors/gifts, homecoming, the world I came into, baby’s first bath, laugh, words, crawl, steps, and more, favorite things, growth chart, sleep, eating, and bathing schedule
Pages also include: 1st — 5th birthday, friends, favorite activities, preschool, kindergarten, art made in school, first holiday, other special memories, family moments
There’s also space to include photos throughout the journal of mommy, daddy, baby’s sonogram, the family, mommy while pregnant, baby shower, baby’s first picture, homecoming, baby sleeping, bath time, birthdays, friends, activities, pre-school, kindergarten, art, and holidays
Easily create your baby’s precious print with Pearhead’s clean-touch ink pad ensuring baby’s piggies never touch the ink. You can display baby’s print on the front of the book and inside the book in the prints section; two-time use maximum; for newborns only; ink pads will accommodate hand/feet up to 2.25" wide x 3.5" long
The modern gray chevron pattern adds a fun touch to this keepsake book and makes it great for boys and girls! Don’t forget to add this adorable book to your baby registry. It’s also a great baby shower gift to give anyone expecting a little one.
More Pearhead baby products available- Pearhead offers a variety of baby products perfect for any family expecting or a baby shower gift; including babybooks, baby frames, baby keepsakes, baby ornaments, pregnancy gifts, and baby gifts. Click on Pearhead in this listing to see more baby options available!
Price:
Source Link:
Pearhead First 5 Years Chevron Baby Memory Book with Clean-Touch Baby Safe Ink Pad to Make Baby’s Hand or Footprint Included, Gray | https://medium.com/@ivaper/pearhead-first-5-years-chevron-baby-memory-book-with-clean-touch-baby-safe-ink-pad-to-make-babys-df3ef7bfe11b | ['Best Bacare', 'Baproduct Top World'] | 2019-11-20 11:18:08.766000+00:00 | ['Book', 'Babys'] |
I Am a Gay Scientist. Here’s What the HIV Crisis Taught Me About Risk. | I Am a Gay Scientist. Here’s What the HIV Crisis Taught Me About Risk.
We have to reframe the very notion of risk, of fear. The more we minimize risk, the less there is to fear.
Photo: The Washington Post/Getty Images
The first time I went down on a guy, my mind was doing math. I knew the risk to contract HIV was 1 in 12,000. “Oh god, this is a mouthful,” I thought. I knew, too, that the virus, that virus, was poorly transmissible in any single act. Even bottoming (receptive anal sex), without a condom only had a 2% chance of seroconverting.
I was — I am — a professional biologist. I did my postdoc, in part, in biostatistics. Long before I touched another man, I’d gone to the CDC website and looked at a table of acts and percentages, calculated long ago.
I knew too well, even then, that probabilities and statistics have a wicked sense of humor. A 2% chance seems unlikely, until you end up on one side of it, the rarer side, asking how exactly is it that you arrived at this particular, unlikely destination.
“But I only did it once…” I imagined myself saying to keep myself from doing it at all.
This was in the early ’00s. I was born in the early ’80s. I have to admit that, looking back, I am ashamed of these calculations and the stigma behind them. I understood the virus as a threat. In many ways it no longer was.
Every time I got naked in proximity to another man, my mind was a calculator. Even after I started taking PrEP to prevent seroconverting, I knew that nothing was perfect, nothing erased risk entirely.
I’d spent my life afraid of HIV, and so never able to rid myself of worry or of stigma for those who had it. We know, now, that the only risk-free sex is with an HIV positive person who’s managing the virus with drugs. I’ve had sex with HIV-positive men, on PrEP, and my mind arrived only at one round number, the one I love most: 0, wide open like a mouth.
Well, it’s 2020 and we all want to know if we can safely go to the grocery store.
Late 2019, a new coronavirus passed from human to human for the first time, traveling from bats probably into pangolins before evolving the particular suite of mutations needed to bind to our human cells well enough to infect one person, and then another, and then another.
The virus doesn’t want anything. It is just a recipe for itself. And our bodies are the kitchen.
I’ve been obsessed with viruses ever since I read The Hot Zone in middle school. I wanted to be a virologist at the WHO when I grew up. This is why I’d studied French, and not Spanish, in high school. Silly, young child.
This memory only came back to me through my mother at my dissertation defense. In my PhD, I’d studied a protein from a virus that infects Staph bacteria, with the hope that we could build a drug that acted like that virus, and so killed that deadly bacteria.
“You’re doing what you always wanted to do,” she said, but I’d forgotten that particular desire over the long course of my life. I’d moved on to wanting to be a lawyer, a doctor, a professional soccer referee.
I’d managed to somehow come back to viruses.
Thanks to the coronavirus, Americans are inundated with numbers in a way that’s rare outside of political punditry. The mortality rate is 3.4%, or 5%, or 1%, or, according to Trump’s statements from early March, 0.1%, just like the flu. We thought the R0 is between two and three but now we know it’s actually between five and six meaning that each infected person will — on average — infect five to six. The doubling time for the number of infected individuals is around five or six days, which also, confusingly, happens to be Covid-19’s average incubation period. The virus can live on surfaces for 12 hours, or two days, or 17 days if on a cruise ship, apparently.
But, my god, we all just want to know: Is it safe to go outside? Can I… hook up?
Viruses don’t want anything. They’re too small for desire. Viruses are life-forms, but they’re not living. They, by definition, need a host cell to replicate. Living things can replicate themselves. Viruses are usually small, both in size and in the information they need to replicate. HIV has a genome — a collection of all its information — that is 10,000 bases (A’s, G’s, U’s, C’s) long. Coronaviruses are massive, at 30,000. You, me? We’re made of 3.3 billion letters (of T’s, not U’s), each written twice.
And yet the virus can get in us, copy itself, kill our cells, activate our immune system, target our organs, kill. This is not what the virus wants. The virus doesn’t want anything. It is just a recipe for itself. And our bodies are the kitchen. | https://elemental.medium.com/i-am-a-gay-scientist-heres-how-i-think-about-risk-80da95fadb54 | ['Joseph Osmundson'] | 2020-04-15 20:10:59.281000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Pandemic', 'LGBTQ', 'Risk', 'Fear'] |
Our Big Picture Role is Slight, but the Damage is Ruinous | Our Big Picture Role is Slight, but the Damage is Ruinous
Going vegan is the key to saving the planet, animals, and ourselves.
Photo credit: iStockPhoto
By Craig Shapiro
On one hand, the stats are surprising. On the other hand, not so much.
A sweeping new study of life on Earth — or as scientists call it, “a comprehensive, holistic estimate of all the different components of biomass” — found that the 7.6 billion humans who call this planet home don’t take up much of the big picture. We represent a paltry 0.01 percent — one one-hundredth — of all living things here.
Bacteria, at 13 percent, are a major life form. How’s that for perspective?
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also found that since the dawn of civilization, humans have wiped out 83 percent of all wild mammals and half the plants. Today, 60 percent of mammals are livestock — their counterparts in the wild make up only 4 percent — and 70 percent of birds are farmed poultry.
Those statistics aren’t so surprising.
“I would hope this gives people a perspective on the very dominant role that humanity now plays on Earth,” said Ron Milo, a professor at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, who led the study.
“Dominant” is one way of putting it. “Imperious” is another.
Milo added that he’s cut back on consuming animal flesh because of the meat industry’s toll on the environment. Good for him. First steps like that help, but if we’re to be responsible stewards of the planet, we need to leave meat, dairy “products” and eggs off our plates entirely and opt for a sustainable, plant-based diet.
Every minute, bulldozers flatten seven football fields’ worth of land to make more room for farmed animals and the crops that they eat. In the U.S., 80 percent of agricultural land — nearly half the total land mass of the continental 48 states — is used to raise animals for food and to grow grain to feed them. Raising livestock takes up 45 percent of the land worldwide.
One pig drinks 21 gallons of water a day, while a single cow on a dairy farm drinks upwards of 50. Growing feed crops uses 56 percent of the water in the U.S. It takes 2,500 gallons to produce a pound of beef but only 180 to make a pound of whole-wheat flour.
Animal agriculture also pollutes the water. Factory-farmed animals produce a trillion pounds of waste a year, which is typically used to fertilize crops and runs off into lakes and rivers, eventually ending up in our drinking water, along with the drugs and bacteria that it contains.
And animal agriculture fouls the air, too. Livestock and their byproducts account for 51 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions. Transportation exhaust, including that produced by vehicles that take animal flesh to markets, is responsible for 13 percent. Here’s another thing to consider about our lust for meat: Producing just over 2 pounds of beef causes more greenhouse-gas emissions than driving a car for three hours does.
Eight years ago, the United Nations warned that if the worst effects of climate change are to be negated, a global shift to a vegan diet is crucial. As the world’s appetite for meat increases, the need has become more pressing.
While there are many reasons to go vegan, none is more urgent than reducing the staggering number of lives lost in the meat, egg and dairy industries.
Humans slaughter more than 56 billion farmed animals every year — thinking, feeling individuals who, like us, only want to live in peace. They’re mutilated, torn away from their mothers and forced to spend their lives in cramped fetid sheds, tethered to milking machines or stuck in “gestation” crates that are so small they can’t even turn around. Their misery ends at the slaughterhouse, although many are still conscious when their throats are slit.
Speaking of lives lost, the cholesterol in meat, dairy “products” and eggs has been linked to cardiovascular disease, which is the number one killer in the U.S., accounting for nearly 1 million heart attacks a year and 2,150 deaths every day. Plant-based foods contain no cholesterol but do have loads of fiber that scrub the digestive tract.
Meat consumption is also implicated in increased rates of high blood pressure, stroke, obesity, diabetes and some types of cancer. In 2015, the World Health Organization classified processed meat, including hot dogs, bacon and sausage, as carcinogenic and red meat as a probable carcinogen.
During that same year, this former meat-eater changed his ways, and in doing so, has driven his cholesterol and blood pressure levels below the national recommendations and now shops for smaller pants. He also rests easy knowing that he’s saving animals and helping his family have a “greener” future.
Have I persuaded you to go vegan? Good. Get started by visiting PETA.org and ordering a free vegan starter kit today. | https://medium.com/greener-together/our-big-picture-role-is-slight-but-the-damage-is-ruinous-42eab062341 | ['The Good Men Project'] | 2020-12-30 19:47:00.181000+00:00 | ['Agriculture', 'Humanity', 'Climate Change', 'Vegan', 'Environment'] |
MARKETING IS FUEL FOR A BUSINESS | Hi friends, Today I want to tell you something about marketing. Marketing is the most obvious thing that every business must have. Here we have two kinds of marketing methods like traditional marketing and digital marketing. I will share my knowledge on both marketing methods but before that, I just want to tell you what is marketing. Let us understand what is marketing, and its benefits.
Fundamentals of Marketing
Marketing is the function that links the consumer or customer to the marketer with the help of information. Information is used to identify the opportunities and define the problems of consumers and refine, evaluate the marketing actions.
Most of the people thinking like marketing is doing for an existing product, But some times marketing will do before a product exists, like most of us saw movie advertisement on TVs like motion picture released, trailer released, etc., and the same thing happens on social media also that’s because of technology. But still, the movie is not completed yet, here they declare their movie will release on a tentative date. They develop the curiosity in the public to watch the movie as early as possible after release.
If a businessman makes a product and keeps it with him in his store, then nobody knows what is that product and what is the use of that product. He needs to tell the people about his product and its features, that is marketing, ultimately every product needs marketing.
The Differences between Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing
The main difference between digital and traditional marketing is the medium through which an audience come across a marketing message. Here traditional marketing uses traditional media like magazines, newspapers, billboards, and TV ads digital marketing uses digital media, such as social media, websites, and blogs. Still, traditional marketing is leading the Indian market because almost every house in India is installed a TV set. TV is the most powerful medium for traditional marketing.
In the same way, digital marketing is just as important as traditional marketing. Digital marketing uses every point of your daily use of the internet to reach people. Like if you want to watch a movie then you can book a ticket from your mobile through online like ‘bookmyshow’, ‘pvrcinimas’ etc., we have a number of ticket selling vendors today, if you want to celebrate some event in the city you just search for the function hall and you will be suggested by google with plenty of websites who are providing function halls, if you want to book a reservation for the train you can do it through the internet, you can pay bills, you can sell products, you can buy the services and you can sell your services. That's why digital marketing is the most reachable medium today.
CATT Marketing Funnel
What is CATT
C — Content, A — Attention, T — Trust, T — Transaction
If you have a great piece of content then you no need to spend much on marketing. It will bring you organic traffic on the basis of quality content. Content may be anything like it may be a blog, YouTube Videos, landing page, etc., It is very important to grab the attention of your target people to your content. Once it is created, organic traffic does not come into the picture for most of the content. We have to spend a bit amount of money to grab the attention of the content in a huge number, but its worth is depending upon the ROI (Return on Investment). There are different ways to bring attention to your content like social media ads, SEO, etc., social media ads are like Facebook ads, google ads, Linkedin ads, and many more. But in SEO we no need to pay anything, we need to do that on our own, or else you can do that by outsourcing.
After collecting a huge amount of traffic from your content, you can generate leads from that traffic by building trust. Making a trust is very important for marketing, for that you have to engage your audience repeatedly, it can be built by creating regular content on different digital channels like for example a regularly one blog post, one youtube video, or an email, etc., Those contents should bring engagements from your target audience. hold the audience, through subscribing to email lists, YouTube channels; retargeting the lead, or following your official social media platforms. Social proof of results that will benefit the audience is another way to build the trust of your target audience.
If the target audience trusts your business, they might not buy your product or service, because they want to experience the service which you are providing them before they purchase it. You have to offer something, which is related to your niche and then this might lead to conversion. Yes, you have another way to persuade the leads in order to make transactions and you can persuade them through different channels like a sales page, webinars, a sales video, etc.
Integrated Digital Marketing
Integrated digital marketing is like the integration of multiple marketing strategies to form a combined online approach for your business.
web development
search engine optimization (SEO)
search engine marketing (SEM)
content marketing
social media marketing
local listings management
paid advertising campaigns
Because each individual strategy doesn’t have a huge impact on its own, when used in conjunction, you can create a more influential online presence. For digital presence, you need a website and you have to make it simple and clear, if a user comes to your website he has to be engaged with the content of your website, the user won’t see your website design if your content is good. To bring a customer to your website you need to do a better SEO and a better SEM also. Due to better SEO, your website will rank on the first page, and because of SEM customers will give their attention to your website content.
Not only by SEO and SEM, but you also have to do social media marketing, content marketing, local listing management, and paid advertising campaigns also, because you are doing integrated marketing. So, you should not take the chance to leave the customer, you have to approach the customer in all possible ways. Because if you leave any one of the paths to reach the customer then your competitor is there to get a chance to acquire the customer.
Personal Branding
what is a personal brand? If I ask you about jio you will remember Mr. Mukesh Ambani in your mind because he is the founder of the jio mobile network. If I ask you about the tata nano car then you will remember Mr. Rathan Tata, who is the founder of TATA. similarly, if I ask you about wipro you will remember Mr. Ajeem Premji, who is the founder of wipro.
Your personal brand is your conscious and intentional effort to create and influence public persona about you by positioning them as an authority in your industry. Doing great jobs day by day amplifies your brand value, once you have an online presence you need to build the trust of people by giving value to them every time, and your work will makes you a brand, it will give you authority.
This blog post is part of my week 2 assignment from the Digital Deepak internship program.
Conclusion
Dear friends in this blog post I shared my knowledge of digital marketing where I wrote about practices of both traditional and digital marketing and I talked about CATT and Intigrated digital marketing frameworks. It is appreciated if you leave a comment. I have written one more blog post on my achievements by end of the 2025. | https://medium.com/@amanshaik-41105/marketing-is-fuel-for-a-business-53991b5a5633 | ['Aman Shaik'] | 2021-04-09 16:47:07.853000+00:00 | ['Digital Marketing', 'Fundamentals Of Marketing', 'Catt Funnel', 'Personal Branding', 'Integrated Marketing'] |
Why Are H&M and Luxury Designer Collaborations So Successful? | Why Are H&M and Luxury Designer Collaborations So Successful?
H&M x Balmain, 2015
When H&M, the Swedish-based apparel brand, was founded in 1947, it was probably unaware that it would become such a global playmaker. In the report published in November 2019, Hennes & Mauritz AB, headquartered in Stockholm, has more than 5,000 physical stores in 74 countries, and today it is one of the most valuable brands in the world with a revenue of over $ 25 billion. What happened to H&M in the 73 years that they climbed to the top with a Northern attitude, contrary to the Mediterranean style that the ready-to-wear industry is accustomed to and loved? How did the designer collaborations with the slogan “luxury meets the street” that they started in 2004 carried the fashion world to another branding dimension? Let’s examine it together.
H&M x Karl Lagerfeld, 2004
The first years of the millennium were very difficult for the fashion world, especially luxury brands. Consecutive economic crises and terrorist activities around the world led consumers to spend less money, and at this point, they first gave up their fashion habits. On the other hand, rapidly growing ready-to-wear brands offered a democratic fashion experience to consumers with similar price segments all over the world with their globally opened stores. At this point, H&M, which was strongly involved in the game, was looking for a difference that would differentiate its opponents and move them one click higher. The classic Chanel tweed jacket on the H&M T-shirt, used in the editorial shoot of Kate Moss in British Vogue in May 2000, gave the brand the opportunity to catch an innovation that had not been thought of. If luxury brands were ready to meet the streets, why didn’t H&M lay the foundation for it? The brand rolled up its sleeves and made an offer to Karl Lagerfeld, the creative director of Chanel at the time. The luxury fashion industry, which had not opened its doors to anyone from the street until then, was ready to go down to the street under the leadership of a genius like Karl Lagerfeld. According to Mark Tungate, there were two important reasons why this proposal was accepted by Karl Lagerfeld. First of all, luxury fashion brands were aware that they were gradually demodulating and starting to lose the new generation of consumers. Secondly, H&M, which has never hesitated to advertise until now, was confident that they would create a mutual win-win situation with the mind-blowing advertising budget it offered Lagerfeld. As a matter of fact, the parties were not mistaken, when the H&M x Karl Lagerfeld collection was launched in 2004, the stores were plundered within minutes, even when the social media did not exist.
H&M x Stella McCartney, 2005
The trend that started with Karl Lagerfeld in 2004 was followed in 2005 by the collaboration with Stella McCartney, known for her environmentalist stance, which is called green fashion of the period. On the other hand, this collection, which was welcomed by the consumer, received reaction from certain circles due to the conflict between Stella McCartney’s environmentalist stance and H&M’s production procedures. Viktor & Rolf winked at professional workwear in 2006, and in 2007 continued the collaboration with Roberto Cavalli with the party theme. The collections continued with the Comme des Garcons with its avant-garde stance in 2008, Matthew Williamson, the representative of bohemian fashion in 2009, and Jimmy Choo, the first name that comes to mind when it comes to high heels in 2009.
H&M x Versace, 2011
2010 and beyond has become a much more challenging process for both H&M and designers. While the rise of the internet shopping trend and the determining authority of social media caused a great challenge for both sides, it raised expectations on the consumer side. While the collaboration with Lanvin in 2010 was a tribute to stylish clothing, in 2011 the Versace collection, consisting of eye-catching pieces, witnessed the greatest interest ever achieved. Marni with its daily wear collection in 2012, Isabel Marant, who made a homage to the French style in 2013, and the cooperation trend that accelerated its rise with Alexander Wang in 2014 with sportswear, reached its peak in 2015 with Balmain. When Balmain, who renewed its brand image in the same period, worked with names such as Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner for its advertising campaign, a worldwide congestion was inevitable. While the products were finished within the hour of their sale, they managed to find buyers at exorbitant prices on the black market in the same minutes.
H&M x Erdem, 2017
Kenzo with its futuristic style in 2016, Turkish-born British designer Erdem with floral theme in 2017, Moschino with a camp and leather style in 2018, and Giambattista Valli collection, which resembles a graduation ball, were launched in 2019. Saying that it will not publish any luxury collaboration collection due to the pandemic in the world in 2020, H&M’s 2021 choice is a big curiosity. A Givenchy collection that will justify the rumors that have been going on in fashion backstage for years? Or a Vivienne Westwood collection with a punk attitude? We’ll wait and see.
H&M x Moschino, 2018
While creating the collaboration trend of H&M, it is not only the capsule collections it has released with famous brands that reinforce its success, but the public relations work of these collections. The collections, which are offered for sale every year like November or December, are leaked to the press with various rumors in the first months of the year. Like March or April, it is announced which brand will be involved in the collaboration. For the rest of the time, products are introduced as objects of desire that cannot be reached by the consumer, with actions such as different press promotions, influencer campaigns and special sales events. This successful public relations strategy causes products to be out of stock in both internet and physical stores within minutes at the end of the day, to be sold at exorbitant prices on the black market and to queues in front of the stores starting from midnight.
H&M x Giambattista Valli, 2019
Many brands, from Adidas to Lacoste, from Dior to Louis Vuitton, have tried and continue to try the inter-segment collaboration trend. Especially the increase in second-hand clothing habits and the fact that this market is threatening luxury brands under the name of vintage has caused the brands that have closed their doors to the streets until now to finally lower their guard. While low-segment brands increase their prestige thanks to these collaborations, high-segment brands are getting closer to the new consumer they cannot reach. The fact that everyone can have H&M x Versace products even if there is no Versace in their wardrobe, explains us the desired win-win relationship in the most accurate way. | https://medium.com/@alirizatuncher/why-are-h-m-and-luxury-designer-collaborations-so-successful-c7210b20a470 | ['Ali Rıza Tunçer'] | 2020-12-19 21:15:42.493000+00:00 | ['Collaboration', 'Fashion', 'Fashion Brands', 'Fashion Marketing', 'Fast Fashion'] |
Handling 50K concurrent users | Recently, one of our customers wanted to conduct 150,000 exams a day. This in itself is not a challenge. Please see my previous post on how we scaled up from 1K online exams a day to 100K a day .
The new customer wanted to conduct exams of 50K users simultaneously in a single slot of 1 hour, 3 such slots a day (150K exams a day). So, the concurrency required was 50K.
Artwork by Ansh Tiwatne http://twitter.com/ansht_
App & DB Clusters
Our application is stateless, every request is independent and complete. So the requests can end up on any of the servers in our app cluster. The problem therefore reduces to optimising the number of requests reaching the server and of course horizontally scaling the app server cluster.
AWS ECS allows us to quickly scale the app cluster based on load. This is easy and a solved problem.
In addition to the app cluster, we run a multi-node CouchDB cluster and we provision high-end EC2 instances depending on load. CouchDB clustering is simple and its performance is excellent.
Request optimisation
Our MCQ based online examination system is write heavy as every option of every question has to be saved along with bookmarks, invalid question markers, several timers, and other proctoring features. There wasn’t much scope for us to optimise the app in this part.
However, we optimised requests by loading questions in batches instead of loading them one after another. A good batch values was reached considering user bandwidth, question content (images), etc. We were able to reduce millions of requests a day.
Conclusion
Building a stateless app is crucial for scale. | https://medium.com/@ramkrishnapk/handling-50k-concurrent-users-52d317cc5f08 | [] | 2021-04-27 05:15:48.593000+00:00 | ['Scalability', 'Online Examination System', 'Erlang', 'Couchdb', 'Aws Ecs'] |
Write With Us | Relationship-ing is about intention. Connecting on purpose. Being. Doing. Loving. It’s a verb.
Our Mission
To help people get better at relationship-ing. Because money can buy a lot of things, but meaning isn’t one of them. Only relationships can do that.
Every relationship is optional. Yet, we treat our cars better than we treat our family, friends, and lovers.
We maintain our cars with diligence. Oil changes and tune-ups. Keeping the tank filled and washing it regularly. Rotating tires and changing bulbs. Doing whatever needs to be done to keep the car on the road, for as long as possible.
What if we made relationship maintenance this important?
Relationship-ing is a publication committed to telling stories about the sticky, messy, deliciousness of human connection. So that we can all get better!
We are Looking for Writers Like You!
True stories about loving and losing. Thirst and craving. Unraveling. Lust and longing. Disappointment. Joy. Pleasure. Wonder and awe. Forgiveness. Anger and frustration. Redemption. Angst. Recovery. Satisfaction. Courage. Devotion. Because…
Honesty is sexy. Truth-telling is courageous. And love is messy.
We want it raw and real. Your writing should tell a story the reader can feel, connect, and learn from. Tales that real people, like you and me, can relate to and be inspired by.
Submission Guidelines
We accept non-fiction articles written in English. Original content ONLY. All submissions must be unpublished drafts. There is a 500-word minimum. Try to keep articles under 8-minutes when possible. Please include at least one of the following tags in your post: Relationships, Advice, Love, Sex, Marriage, or Polyamory. All content must be MPP eligible. Make sure all images are properly captioned and credited. Edit and triple check your work. Using tools like Grammarly and Hemmingway is recommended. All posts must comply with Medium Rules and Ad-free policy. Review the Medium Curation Guidelines before submitting. Write it like you felt it. We may lightly edit articles for heading, grammar, spelling, and/or formatting fixes. Articles requiring extensive edits will not be accepted.
The most popular Relationship-ing posts have a relatable and conversational tone. So keep it simple and light. Tell it like it is or how it happened. No fluff needed.
Every submission will be carefully reviewed. We will only accept works that feel aligned with the intention of this publication.
Write with us
If you are interested in writing with us, fill out this form. Once you’ve been added as a writer, you can submit your unpublished draft for review. Don’t forget to edit! ;-)
We will do our best to keep turnaround times between 24–28 hours. | https://medium.com/relationship-ing/write-with-us-3a10a3dfab5b | ['Stacey Herrera'] | 2019-10-06 03:13:42.797000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Love', 'Advice', 'Sex', 'Writing'] |
On Being the White Racial Minority, White Privilege, and The Fight for Racial Equality | Photo by Sunyu on Unsplash
My Story
When I was fourteen, my military family moved from Bremerton, Washington to Hagåtña, Guam. I went from a whitewashed A-rated middle school with more resources and extracurricular activities than you can shake an expired Bernie Sander’s sign at to a high school in the South Pacific that looked like it was plucked out of the Oakland hood and had the bloody gang fights to prove it.
In addition to the dramatic change in geography and academic resources, I was suddenly a racial minority. No amount of agonizing over my perfectly coordinated mainland wardrobe bought from the mall in a manicured suburban neighborhood could fix the fact that I was one of a few white girls in a sea of islander brown.
On my first day at Oceanview High School, where you could see the gorgeous crystal blue Pacific Ocean from the front door, where chickens trotted free in the streets, and some of the homes in the surrounding neighborhood looked like uninhabitable shacks, I found my way to a portable at the edge of campus. The portable was near a fenced off area that held — and by held I mean held captive behind an enormous chain linked fence — the “troubled” kids.
I still don’t know why those kids were in the cage, but it was a cage, and when I walked by, they jumped at the chain link, shaking and climbing it as they taunted me. Looking back, my best guess is that they had a juvenile record or behavioral issue and had to be kept separate from the rest of the kids. They seemed to know that the scene was scary for a freshman white girl and did their best to make it even more so by catcalling me as they rattled the metal that separated us.
In the portable, I took my seat for Guam history, which is a topic worthy of study. It’s just that I was a teenager who was, first of all, terrified of high school and also terrified of this place that was the polar opposite of where I’d come from. Behind me sat a local boy who, I realize in retrospect, immediately identified me as fresh meat.
One thing you need to know about Guam is that the culture is incredibility laid back. It’s a boundary blurring, shoe less, shirtless, welcome (everyone!) to my home and my fiesta, kind of laid back. I didn’t know this on my first day, so while I was trying keep a low profile as I dealt with my fear and uncertainty, my reticent silence made me seem unfriendly, decidedly not laid back, and stuck up, which is one of the all-time worse things you can be as a new kid in high school no matter where you live. That doesn’t justify that, as soon as I took my seat, the boy behind me leaned forward, got my attention and then, with his thick islander accent, casually asked, “Want to smell my balls?”
A question to which I mustered the most profane response a nice middle-class girl like myself could think of: “Fuck you,” I said.
Then, I turned around, trying my best to keep my fear and horror concealed behind those two words, which I had learned years earlier from my oldest brother and his friends and had only previously used to sound edgy or to garner both the attention and shock of other kids my age back in the states, most of whom didn’t drop f-bombs or any cuss words for that matter.
That moment in Guam history began a three-year tortureship (a relationship that’s torturous) in which this boy would tease and torment me at his will. Soon after the “smell my balls” incident, he placed a freshly dead cockroach the size of a small rodent on my desk, earning him the nickname Roach forever after.
It turns out Roach wasn’t the only kid in school who liked to pick on white girls. It also turns out that Roach wasn’t the only person on the island who liked to target, harass, and assault white people. It was a common occurrence, as I would soon learn.
My second to oldest brother, like many of the white boys and men on the island, was jumped and badly beaten by a group of local guys one evening. For all doctor’s visits or medical care, we went to the Naval hospital where I recall seeing young white enlisted men limping through the halls as they recovered from having been beaten by a group of locals.
We were howlies. White people. The colonizer. And some locals, though certainly not all, really didn’t like us.
And I don’t blame them. I didn’t blame them then, and I don’t blame them now. I can see how I represented the privileged colonizer and, knowing the history of the island — how the indigenous people of Guam, known as Chamorros, were raped, murdered, dominated, and assimilated like so many other native cultures, I can understand why there would be a powerful resistance towards, even a hatred for, anyone who came down that line.
I don’t encourage hatred or violence but, in this case, I do see where it comes from. I can empathize with the generational trauma and pain. I also realize that Guam remains a disenfranchised territory of the United States that doesn’t have adequate representation in the Federal Government and that the Guamanian people, while legally American citizens, do not have equal protections under the laws of this county.
The people of Guam have many good reasons to be radically pissed off at white people, especially those of us who saunter over from the mainland with little knowledge, sensitivity, or understanding for their heritage, history, culture, and struggles.
It’s also true that I was just a kid from a military family being carted from Navy base to Navy base and stuck in whatever school was closest to wherever we happened to land. There was no apparent thought given by my parents to what that would be like for myself or my brothers, and no real care or attention given when it resulted in one of us being relentlessly harassed and the other being beaten until he bled.
While living on Guam, I experienced regular racist treatment and I saw other white people experience the same. I don’t know what it was like for Black people. I expect they experienced racist attacks on the island, too. I do know that for us howlies, experiencing racism was a common and accepted part of living on the island. While it bothered me, and I found it frustrating to be treated differently because I was white, I was all along aware that my privilege was greater than any discrimination they could dish out.
While on the island, I recognized that my status as a minority was temporary. Our tour of duty would end, and I would go back to the states where I would — once again — be part of the racial majority. At best, my race experience was like visiting an escape room. Actually, it was easier than that because I was never locked in and I didn’t have to do a damn thing to get out. There was a simple and easy way out all along — which I didn’t have to lift a finger to orchestrate. All I had to do was make the best of it on a beautiful tropical island until our tour was over.
Before Washington State and Guam, I lived in Florida, which is my home state and where, during my early childhood, racism was evident all around me. My white, conservative, and southern extended family freely used racial epithets and espoused their discrimination and feelings of reverse racism. As a young child, I remember feeling that their racist views and words weren’t “nice.” That was the vocabulary I had at the time. It just seemed “mean” and “unfair” to treat people that way, and I didn’t like it. That feeling grew as I did and by the time I was a teen, I was decidedly anti-racist, though I still had racial biases, some of which I’ve reckoned with and others that I’m I still reckoning with.
I didn’t need Guam to teach me that racism is wrong, but I did need the island to teach me that even when I’m the white minority, I’m still privileged and that there is no experience for me that will be comparable to the experience of being a Black person in the United States.
At best, my experience as the racial minority only served to highlight how privileged I am.
For example, even though racism against white people was rampant on the island, I became the popular captain of the cheerleading team. I was invited to parties and formals and had a wide circle of friends that included other Navy kids and lots of locals. I wasn’t universally excluded or condemned for my race, though there was a limit to how much I was included and accepted. Throughout most of my last year on the island, which was my junior year of high school, I received menacing crank calls at home from a boy I didn’t know, but who knew me. As a racial minority, I stood out from the crowd and that difference drew attention that could quickly become threatening.
This is also true for Black people in the United States. The big difference here is that I was never at risk of being shot dead in the street because I was white.
Racism Isn’t Relative
There are lots of things that we can talk about as relative. For example, trauma is relative. If you have a terrible car accident that leaves you feeling traumatized and fearful of driving and I have a terrible childhood that leaves me traumatized and fearful of relationships, we couldn’t say with any fairness which is the worse trauma. Perhaps your accident was a brief experience with a lasting impact and my childhood was, of course, longer, but we could both be walking around with about the same amount of trauma.
Racism is also traumatic, and the trauma associated with it can be relative. My experience as a howlie on Guam was traumatic. The regular harassment and threats wore on me and left a wound that I had to attend to later in life. I no longer feel traumatized by those experiences but, perhaps, someone who suffered more, like my brother who was beaten, may still live with that trauma, which could be comparable to the trauma of someone of another race who also suffered a violent attack because of their skin color. Their feelings of trauma could be equal even if the context is different.
What isn’t relative is the racism itself. This is because the context and histories are not the same. As white people, the racism my brothers and I experienced didn’t happen in the context of 400 years of our race being subjected to wide ranging and pervasive inequalities. It happened because we were representative of the colonizers.
Also, we were still part of a social group that had power. We were children of a Naval Officer and that afforded us some additional privilege and protection. Even if we were treated terribly by the locals, we had recourse and we had a way off the island and a place to go when we left.
Our ancestors were not stolen from their homelands and enslaved by the people of Guam. Our culture and our freedoms had not been systematically undermined, pillaged, and destroyed by the people of Guam. We were in no way at a disadvantage to the people of Guam. We may have been a racial minority, but we still had power, privilege, and agency.
This is also true for white people in the United States who claim, “reverse racism.” Maybe some Black people don’t like you because you’re white. Okay. Big deal. You’re not at a universal disadvantage to that person because they don’t like you. In fact, no amount of their disliking you can give them an advantage because systemic racism makes it so that you’re privileged no matter what you do.
Unless we’re able to magically reverse the entire racial history of the United States, there will never be reverse racism in this country.
There is no amount of racial discrimination that a white person will experience today that will be comparable to the racial discrimination that a Black person experiences. We will never understand what it’s like to experience anti-black racism because we will never be Black. The best we can do is own our whiteness and all that it means and get honest with ourselves and others about our privilege, and our limitations in understanding what life would be like without that privilege.
I shared my story of racism as a white person above and I explained how throughout it all I was still the race with more privilege and power, and I knew it. I also stated how I am still reckoning with my own racial biases but, the thing is, I don’t know exactly what they are. I just know that I’ve been enculturated to have them and that I’ve come up against biases in the past that I had to confront and I feel that the most responsible thing I can do at this point is to assume that I have more biases, be on the lookout for them, and be prepared to confront them when they arise.
A previous bias of mine was fear of Black men who were strangers to me, not because I didn’t know them, but only because they were Black. This came from growing up in a culture that portrays Black men as the dangerous criminal and from being around a racist family that villainized Black people.
This bias came fully to my attention when I was a college English instructor with many Black men as students, one of which accused me of being racist.
I’d been having problems with this student making inappropriate comments about my appearance, using hate language about homosexuality, and bringing inappropriate material of a sexual nature to class. He vacillated between trying to get my attention with flattery and trying to get it by being obscene. Neither strategy was getting him what he wanted, which I concluded was to challenge and usurp my classroom authority. The way I saw it, he couldn’t accept a woman as an authority figure and did whatever he could to upset that dynamic. I came down hard on him more than once with verbal corrections during class before taking a path of least resistance and basically ignoring his behavior.
Near the end of the semester, he came to my office and told me he thought I was treating him differently because I was racist. The truth is, I was treating him differently. I was treating him differently because he was acting differently than any other student and that behavior required different treatment. Even though I knew that to be true and I felt he was, yet again, trying to gain control and win my attention, I took his words to heart. Could racial bias be playing a part here, I wondered?
I loved teaching. I loved my students, and I loved watching them succeed, so if I was unconsciously holding them back or being harder on them because of their race, I wanted to correct course. I took some time to reflect and look objectively at my interactions with my students, my expectations, and my grading practices, and I didn’t find any evidence of racial bias. I did, however, notice that I tended to feel fearful of Black men around campus and in my neighborhood unless I knew who they were. I thank that incredibly difficult student for forcing me to take a hard look at myself and helping me to reaffirm my commitment as a teacher and to see and eliminate this bias.
One of the things I’ve learned recently is that Black men try to appear non-threatening because they know that they’re seen as a threat. After learning that, I reflected on several interactions I’ve recently had with Black men and how these men had been exceptionally friendly. So friendly that I walked away from crossing paths with them feeling uplifted by their kindness. It then occurred to me that they’d treated me that way to deflect my fear. Thing is, I wasn’t afraid of them. I’d eliminated that bias. Learning that Black men feel they must go out of their way to make people feel comfortable around them broke my heart, and then it pissed me off.
Dear White People
We have a lot of work to do.
The recent racial uprising in the United States in response to the murder of George Floyd and other Black people has created a public discourse that’s brought to light numerous facts about the Black experience and Black history that I knew nothing about.
That Black men sometimes go out of their way to appear non-threatening is one, but there are many others. Like how Black people refer to summer as hunting season because it’s when the actual hunting seasons are over and white people are more likely to come after them. The Tulsa massacre, the Philadelphia bombing, and how Black people are afraid to run or walk for exercise in areas where they feel they’ll seem out of place, are the facts that have struck me the hardest.
As I mentioned above, learning these facts broke my heart and then they pissed me off.
Part of my anger is directed at myself. I’m angry with myself for not knowing more and doing better. How can I be an ally if I don’t know how unsafe Black people feel, and in what circumstances they feel the most vulnerable and at risk? How can I be an ally if I don’t fully understand Black history and the Black experience? How did I miss so much?
Then, I’m angry at white male patriarchy and every person, system, structure, and organization that supports and perpetuates the most deadly and dangerous construct in the history of humankind. I’m angry that I’ve been taught and fed a whitewashed version of our history even as I saw myself as a progressive, feminist person who has long held the cause of EQUALITY FOR ALL PEOPLE in her heart and brought that passion to every vote and political action that I’ve taken since I was old enough to take such action. And what has any of that amounted to? What difference have I made for anyone, or for this world that I’ll leave to my children?
My children. This is when I get really fucking angry. Because, I’m a mother. I’m a mother to sons: white sons who are safe and alive while there are Black sons who are not. And those Black sons and Black daughters, those babies that have been harmed and murdered, they call forth a grief storm from my heart for all of the children who have been lost and the mothers who have lost them.
What’s left is the low and building growl of maternal rage.
This is the most powerful rage known to humankind. It has guarded and enabled our evolution from the start. Without ferociously instinctive and protective mothers, our race would not have survived. This rage is like the claw of the bear, the fang of the tiger, and the piercing bite of the wolf, and it does not quit. You cannot quiet the heart of a mother and you cannot temper her rage when you’ve crossed her child.
It’s been said that all mothers were summoned when George Floyd called for his mama, and I believe this is true. Now that we’ve been summoned, there’s no turning back. The brunt of what lies ahead falls on white mothers like me. It’s our turn.
Racism is our issue and it’s our job to address it in every insidious nook and cranny. Each of us has a responsibility to become an immovable force against systemic racism in our communities. This work begins within. We must be ruthlessly honest with ourselves about our experiences with racism, our biases, and our fears.
I’m sharing my experiences and biases as an example and conversation starter for other white people. We’ve all had experiences with race and racism, and we need to keep talking about them so that we can help each other see our own blind spots and then fill those spots in with support and education. It’s uncomfortable, for sure.
In writing this, I’m concerned I’ve mis-stepped or gotten something embarrassingly wrong about race and racism, but I’m sharing because I want to learn and I want to help others learn, and I need to channel my maternal rage into something productive.
That’s what mothers do. We grieve, then we get angry, and then we turn that grief and anger into action that has the potential to carry the entire human race forward.
You don’t have to be a mother to be with me in this. You simply need to be willing to stand against anti-black racism. Here’s how:
Get real about your history and experience with racism. Have you experienced anti-white racist treatment? If so, now is a good time to understand how it functioned. I laid out my experience as an example. Once we see very clearly that our white experiences are not comparable to Black experiences, we can fully inhabit our role as an ally. What are your racial biases as you understand them today, and what’s your plan for dealing with the ones you’re not yet aware of? We all have racial biases. There’s no debate about that. Our task is to understand what they are and then how to eliminate them. Take action. This can be donating, speaking up, volunteering, or other community involvement, but it’s also needed in your immediate relationships, family, and community. It’s needed in your workplace and in your social circles. White people need to keep speaking up against anti-black racism in all of these spaces even when it jeopardizes our connections. Vote for candidates that will take a stand for racial equality. We must fill every politically appointed seat with citizens who demonstrate unwavering support for equality for all people.
So, there you have it: My story with white racism, my take on why racism isn’t relative, and my call to white people to step up and do the work that only we can do. As I close out this piece, I notice that my maternal rage has been replaced by something that’s more enduring and even more powerful, and that is a deep and abiding love for humanity.
It’s been said that only love can conquer hate, and I believe that’s true. Racism, however, isn’t just about hate. That’s too simplistic. Racism is about power and control, as are all forms of abuse and oppression. Love conquers hate. Mindful, intelligent, and consistent action conquers power and control. We need all of these things, we need them now, and we need them on a grand scale. The only question left to answer is, how are you going to help?
For support and encouragement for living a more mindful life, join me on Instagram , Facebook, and Twitter. | https://medium.com/mindfully/on-being-the-white-racial-minority-white-privilege-and-the-fight-for-racial-equality-fd22feaca9f1 | ['Angela Meredith'] | 2020-07-25 19:04:29.598000+00:00 | ['BlackLivesMatter', 'Racial Justice', 'Racism', 'White Privilege', 'Social Change'] |
Article Writing 101 — Everything You Need to Know | Article Writing 101 — Everything You Need to Know
Article writing is one of the greatest journalistic arts. The ability to engage and inform is found very rare in writers. Whether you want content for your blog or aspire to write for top magazines, this skill can help you stand out from the crowd.
The process of article writing is quite simple. It might be its simplicity that makes it hard for some people. In this article, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about article writing.
Article Writing 101
There are three phases of article writing. We’ll discuss each one separately in detail. Let’s start with the pre-writing phase:
Topic Research
Most writers feel that this is the most difficult phase in article writing. The reason is that writing is the fun part for most people. Information gathering can be difficult sometimes.
If you have the core facts or information about what you are going to write, then the writing phase becomes easy. Just confirm those facts from credible resources.
These steps will help you in topic research:
First off, you need to have a clear goal or brief about the topic. The more clear you are about, the better you will be in the end. For example, the goal of this article is to cover everything about article writing.
Then, research the core facts or information from multiple resources that you want to include. You can read several articles from the web, books, magazines, or research papers. It depends on the depth of the article.
Skim-read through all of the resources. In your word file or paper, take notes. Remember that it’s not the writing phase yet. Instead, jot down the core facts that are going to support your article.
Build a quick foundation. Define all the terms you’re going to use.
Organize your notes into an outline order (in which you’re going to write). You can also start writing without an outline but having an outline is better.
Writing
Now it’s time to write the article. Start with the outline and information from the previous section. And as you write, delete the information you have used.
Headline
The first part of an article is the headline. Think of a headline as an ad for the rest of the article. The headlines help people decide if they are going to read the article or not. So it should be compelling enough to get them to click. Make your headlines appealing using these methods:
Clearly mention what the article is about. Make it irresistible. Never promise what you can’t deliver. Include a number because it can increase the click-through-rates.
Intro
The intro should hook them without giving too many details about the article. Make sure it ends with a sentence that makes the reader curious to know how the article continues.
Sub-headers
Now it’s time to give them the information they came for. One of the best practices is to make the article scannable by dividing it into sub-headers. It helps people skim and go back and forth between different sections.
Conclusion
Here you’ll sum up your article. Some people don’t read the entire article and move directly to the ending.
So include a conclusion to the article here.
Finally, include a call-to-action. It can be asking them to comment, subscribe to your newsletter, or sending them to your products page. It really depends on your marketing goals.
These tips will improve readability –
A paragraph should not contain more than 4 sentences.
A sentence should not contain more than 20 words.
Use transition words to connect phrases.
Write like how you talk.
Write in an active voice.
These tips will help you write faster.
Focus. Sit down and force yourself on writing.
Some people outline the content on the first day, then rewrite, edit, and deliver on consecutive days. Others do all things in one sitting. Experiment and then choose whichever one you like. Reading the requirements at first is a good idea to get it behind your brain.
Practice a lot. Do not repeat yourself or follow a pattern. There are a few phrase patterns and descriptive style that every writer has. That’s distinctive about you, so don’t worry about it. In fact, it will become your signature style.
Ways to practice:
Read a lot Give yourself daily writing challenges like short stories, scripts, etc. Start a daily blog Practice on fake briefs Grammar exercises
Make sure that your office space is conducive to focus.
If your phrase or word doesn’t convey your idea, make it uppercase and keep writing. You can change it during proofreading. If you keep trying to replace that word or phrase, you might end up wasting plenty of time.
If you are stuck completely during writing (Writer’s block), take a break and come back again.
Just start writing. Your first sentence is the hardest and sets the tone for the rest of the article.
Complete Guide for Article Writing
Proofreading and Editing
As the writer of many famous horror novels, Stephen King says, “To write is human, to edit is divine.” This quote shows the importance of editing.
Follow these steps when proofreading and editing:
Read the entire article word by word.
Correct any flow or coherence mistake. Ask yourself if each phrase makes sense.
Correct any grammatical, spelling, or punctuation mistakes.
Proofread and edit by taking breaks.
Proofread several times before publishing.
Bonus — SEO Writing
This section is about optimizing your article for higher search engine rankings. Remember that if people like your article, you’ll get an SEO boost. So follow these guidelines among all the other guidelines about writing in this article:
Keyword optimization: Select one main keyword for an article and include it in the H1 tag, at least one H2 and H3 tag, the intro, and the conclusion.
Create a meta description of 130–155 characters and include the main keyword in it.
Ensure a maximum keyword density of 1.5% and a minimum of .7%. For a 1000-word article, the main keyword should not be used less than 7 times and more than 15 times.
Include at least two external links to websites that support any information added.
Include one link to one of the other articles on your website.
Final Words on Article Writing
Article writing has three main parts: Research, writing, and proofreading. All three phases are equally important. And if you want to publish it on the web, you need to optimize it for SEO.
Use today’s article as a guide when writing your next article and notice the difference. | https://medium.com/@bluewavesdave/article-writing-101-everything-you-need-to-know-a939731d8099 | ['Blue Waves Dave'] | 2020-12-15 17:32:43.672000+00:00 | ['Content Creation', 'Content', 'Articles In English', 'Articles', 'Article Writing'] |
Trump, Trolling, and the Re-Wilding of the American Failed State | Trumpian Republicanism is infamous for trolling its opponents, but there’s some potential for confusion in observing as much, because there are two senses of “trolling” that both apply.
Angling for Attention
First, there’s the shady practice on internet chat rooms that’s comparable to “trolling” in the sense of angling for fish. The root meaning of “troll” in this case is from French and German words that mean “to run here and there, to ramble, or to walk or run in short steps.” In fishing the practice is to lure fish by jerking the line up and down, to animate the lure and fool the fish, sometimes just by trailing multiple lines from the back of a slow-moving boat.
Early users of the internet saw that as analogous to the abuse of anonymity in posting inflammatory, insincere comments to get a rise out of certain users who would take the bait and engage in lengthy, heated, ultimately pointless arguments.
The troll would automate her provocations by sending out lures in multiple forums, the point of the comparison being that just as fishing can be done automatically, by allowing the slow-moving boat to move multiple fishing lines and intrigue the fish, the medium of the internet can be used against certain users. Some people are so high-strung that they’re triggered by a random, bogus comment posted by a stranger.
This sense of trolling applies to the more well-intentioned conservatives who mean to expose the smugness and hypocrisy of their liberal opponents, testing the latters’ patience by pretending to be more authoritarian, uninformed, and savage than they really are. By caricaturing themselves, conservatives hope to expose the hollowness of the left-winger’s civic faith that all Americans share the same noble values. When the liberal or progressive takes the bait and argues as if the conservative weren’t merely being sarcastic or performing a role to amuse others who are in on the joke, the left-winger has been trolled.
Trolls from the Wilderness
But this sense of “trolling” is already confused with a second one, as is evident from the associated warning, “Don’t feed the troll,” meaning “Don’t take the bait.” Here it’s the noun rather than the verb that’s paramount, and the relevant sense of “troll” derives from Scandinavian folklore. The troll in folklore is a type of demon or more precisely a demonized non-Christian, who lives in dark places and is hostile or at least unhelpful to Christians. “Troll” in this sense is similar to “witch”: both are Christian labels for demonizing those who haven’t been Christianized.
Thus, the internet troll has an appetite for mischief and you only make matters worse by taking his provocations at face value and engaging him in conversation, because you’re only encouraging the troll to return. Ideally, those who operate in good faith would ignore the trolls until the trolls would take the hint, leave, and crawl back under their rocks, as it were.
Trollness in this case is about the fear of uncivilized foreigners. We presume the correctness of Christendom or of the neoliberal world order, so anyone who’s left out of that society must be defective.
Hillary Clinton’s remark in 2016 that Donald Trump’s followers are a “basket of deplorables” picks up on this second, negative sense of “troll.” The split in this case is obviously between Democrats and Republicans, but it’s also between urban and rural areas of the country. Big-city life is taken as the cutting edge of civilization, so that those stuck in small towns or who are living off the grid, perhaps in dying industries, have been left behind and consequently they regress to the point of becoming monstrous.
If you asked conservatives about their trolling behaviour, they’ll admit to the first kind but not exactly to the second one. They’ll say they mock Democrats, revealing that the latters’ sophistication and elite mores are mere pretenses, since these liberals are so easily “triggered.” The “salt of the earth” conservatives think of themselves as the “real Americans,” and they implicitly compare themselves to the rugged pioneers who fled the Old World decadence to practice their more authentic, Protestant Christianity in North America.
Still, if you taunted them with facts that make nonsense of their conspiracy theories or if you pointed to the obvious inhumanity of President Trump, their mascot, American conservatives may concede to being negative trolls in a limited respect. The meme in this case is that if you expect someone to be monstrous, she may oblige, so you should be careful what you wish for. In other words, if you insult someone by having such low expectations of her, she may return the insult by living down to that standard you’ve set.
The Re-Wilding of Failed States
The figure of President Trump combines both senses of trolling and he’s done so with such brazenness that we’ve reached a paradoxical kind of interaction between civilization and the wilderness.
What’s supposed to happen is that the former rides roughshod over the latter. With human ingenuity and hubris, we tame wild places. The Church sent its missionaries and its knights to win the world for Christ. Likewise, neoliberals in both parties spread the miracle of capitalism far and wide, producing a consumer monoculture that’s supposed to end poverty and lead to technological advances and economic growth.
In folklore, trolls symbolize untamed nature — again, with the presumption that Christianity was the mark of the opposite in being the catalyst for the arrival of God’s supernatural kingdom, whereas in the interim, nature is the province of demonic powers. Trolls live in dark places, emerging only at night and perhaps even turning to stone in sunlight. They ransack villages and eat people, like wild animals.
The existence of the analogue of trolls or of savages within the United States is, of course, an indictment of the civilization in question. We needn’t be so preoccupied with the culture war between big cities and rural areas that we lose sight of the bigger picture, which is that if the red states are populated largely by trolls in the negative, irredeemable sense, the United States isn’t so united and the highness of neoliberal civilization must itself be a ruse.
The disunity is due to the individualism of America’s founders and to the country’s enthusiasm for capitalism. In more collectivist, Eastern societies, the Christian lesson that those who are well off show their civility and spirituality by not allowing huge numbers of their countrymen to fall behind is taken as a prerequisite for society as such.
According to the frontier mentality, though, you have to earn your way and there’s no one to aid or to stop you, because the country hasn’t yet been widely explored or “civilized” by European standards. American capitalism carries forward this pragmatic individualism, since the economic goal is to compete for profit and wherever possible to exploit loopholes in the law, defraud the masses, horde wealth, capture the government and build a monopoly or a shadow empire.
This predatory capitalism obviously conflicts not just with elementary Christianity, but with the essence of society, with the project of living peacefully together with other families, tribes, villages, or cities by adopting a shared outlook.
American individualism has been pushed to such extremes that “socialism” has become a dirty word. This is like the monstrous troll’s sneering at the notion of Christendom. To the extent that socialism is just a matter of the government’s pooling of resources to preserve the population’s shared mission and to prevent a collapse of parts of the country, socialism is synonymous with the compromise of collectivism (with the focus on the social good, not on the abstraction of what would be good for isolated individuals, as though they weren’t part of a larger body).
In libertarian circles where there’s no such compromise with the individualist’s principle of self-reliance, there’s likewise no society as such. Libertarian or strictly capitalistic society is a cynical charade in which the individualists pretend to tolerate each other even while plotting to out-compete everyone else, whereupon they’d decline to lend the losers a helping hand. With no ethos or sense of shared purpose, this social Darwinian Potemkin village exists in a state of cold war between ever-diminishing tribes.
Likewise, Christians faced the dreaded problem of evil: if their God created the universe, why is nature overrun with demons and trolls beyond the Christian borders? Perhaps God isn’t in charge after all or there’s no benevolent deity in the first place.
Trump’s Barbarism and the Hollowness of American Society
Again, what’s supposed to happen in the context of negative trolling is that civilization eclipses the wilderness, leaving no untamed, unassimilated, or “haunted” grounds within its borders. In the case of a failed or failing state, however, trolls no longer lurk just over the hills and far away, but may pop up next to you when you’re going about your business. When the civilization in question is only superficial or is somehow fraudulent or internally conflicted, the eclipse is partial at best and nature has the last laugh.
But returning to the figure of Trump, we now face an even more astonishing scenario. What happens when trolls learn to live in the sunlight, when they’re no longer content to eke out their savage living in caves or valleys, slums or de-industrialized zones? What happens when a reckless political party nurtures and co-opts these resentful savages, much as the CIA supported the mujahedeen in Afghanistan to jab a thorn into the side of the Soviet Union?
What happens when a troll, the embodiment of anti-civility, becomes president of the country?
The recent run-up to Trumpism is instructive. At first glance George W. Bush wasn’t a troll, since in 2001 he took his neoconservative ideology to be a civilizing force. In response to 9/11, he intended to tame the savage terrorists and bring democracy to the Middle East that had resisted modernization, by invading Iraq under the pretext that Saddam Hussein couldn’t be trusted with his weapons of mass destruction.
But once again, in the end there was no such taming of that “wild” place, because the highness of American civilization under Bush was exposed as a sham. Although the American military destroyed Saddam’s regime, Bush’s WMD pretext for the invasion fell through and his neoconservatives were only academic devotees to certain prejudices, with no real-world knowledge of Middle Eastern cultures. As a result, the Iraq War didn’t go as planned: with the dictator removed, the insurgent tribes fought the Americans and themselves, producing ISIL and benefitting Iran.
In effect, Bush Jr.’s Texan swagger was a case of quasi-trolling, since he adopted those mannerisms to widen his base of political support and to conceal the fact that he wasn’t really a peasant or a barbarian, but was educated at Yale and relied on his father’s name as his dynastic heir.
The real American barbarians or “trolls” wanted a more genuine spokesman for their anarchic cause. Sarah Palin was their next offering, in 2008, but she and John McCain were defeated by Obama who symbolized cosmopolitan high culture, despite his skin colour which repelled the racist alt right.
In 2016, Donald Trump capitalized on that appetite for payback, not just as a nihilistic, “transactional” con artist but as a genuine outsider who never fit into New York’s high society, whose buildings were panned as tacky, whose business acumen was suspect because of his multiple bankruptcies, and who was ridiculed for pretending to be richer than he was. Trump was likely an outsider also because of his obvious antisocial personality disorder which prevented him from caring about others and thus from fitting into polite society.
President Trump pushed out his party’s moderates and turned the Republican Party into an alt right cult whose most vocal supporters are the white supremacist and Evangelical trolls that meant to use Trump as a weapon against the establishment, the neoliberal deep state, and the forces of globalization such as free trade and multiculturalism. Their arguments may have little intellectual merit, but that’s irrelevant since they’ve invalidated the neoliberal world order just by existing in the United States in their uncivilized form and by emerging from the shadows and managing to desecrate the White House with a full-blown troll or savage, that is, with a blundering enemy of civilization.
No further proof of American hypocrisy is needed. However incredulous Barack Obama appears in his speeches campaigning for Joe Biden, as he ridicules Trump’s inappropriate abnormality, the joke is on Obama and on America’s standing in the neoliberal world order.
When a troll becomes emperor, the empire has fallen. | https://medium.com/discourse/trump-trolling-and-the-re-wilding-of-the-american-failed-state-55852970d001 | ['Benjamin Cain'] | 2020-10-28 16:49:04.535000+00:00 | ['Trolls', 'Politics', 'Republican Party', 'Donald Trump', 'America'] |
THE CHILDCARE CRISIS, SACRAMENTO, & THE CASE FOR TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE | How investing in our childcare system can create a more resilient and equitable local economy while setting Sacramento apart.
As we consider how Sacramento can build back stronger (if by stronger we mean more equitable, resilient, and community-focused) from the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the biggest opportunities we have as a City is to completely rethink our approach to and relationship with early childcare. This means reimagining everything from how we fund and subsidize childcare, how we pay our childcare providers, and how we strategically locate childcare centers to better fit our lives.
While we have seen recent momentum in this space – including President Biden’s American Jobs Plan – it is not enough to address a decades-long childcare crisis that is harmful for childcare providers, children, and parents alike with a wildly disproportionate impact falling on communities of color.
The Economic Policy Institute and UC Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Child Care Employment estimate an improved childcare system would cost between $30,000 to $39,000 per child annually once phased in. While this number might seem high, consider that this isn’t just accounting for the up to 2 million children that would benefit but also up to 826 thousand childcare providers who would begin making a fair wage. With major investment, we can improve the lives of our community members in a relatively short amount of time with a high level of impact.
As a recent Urban Planning graduate student, inclusive economic development intern at Alchemist Community Development Corporation, and humble newbie to this topic area, I have spent the last month seeking to understand the ways in which childcare, community development, economic development, and workforce development intertwine.
The following article captures much of what I have learned about the childcare crisis in the hopes of reaching folks (like me) who may not have had childcare at the forefront of their policy agenda. I will be covering:
Why you should care about the childcare crisis (even if, like me, you have little personal skin in the game)
(even if, like me, you have little personal skin in the game) How we can rethink economic development efforts to include the ECE workforce
What the childcare crisis can tell us about the future of workforce development
And finally, a list of resources directing you to the experts in this field who have been doing this research, work, and advocacy for decades.
WHY WE SHOULD ALL CARE ABOUT THE CHILD CARE CRISIS
Let’s first level-set by identifying what we mean by early care and education (or ECE) and the gap that we are highlighting. When we talk about the childcare crisis, we are talking about the care a child needs from birth to around their 5th birthday when they begin kindergarten. It is also worth mentioning here that a lot of the data and work I will be talking about comes from the UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Child Care Employment and the Economic Policy Institute. I highly recommend exploring their content for more research.
Across the U.S., parents pay for about 60% of childcare while the government foots the rest of the bill through vouchers and tax credits. In Sacramento, a child care center costs $14,240 per year until they hit four years old when it drops down to $9,913. Today, 24.3 % of a family’s income is spent on childcare. That number can be double for single parents. It is worth noting that is just childcare and does not include food, clothes and all of the other things children need.
Now let’s talk about childcare professionals.
So since child care costs families this much, you would think that child care providers were raking in the dough, right? Absolutely not. In fact, early educators with Bachelor’s degrees are paid 37.8% less than teachers in the K-8 system. As the UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Child Care Employment points out, these childcare workers are essentially being punished for teaching younger students. 17% of these educators live below the poverty rate. And on top of that, a large percentage of these educators are women of color. In California in 2019, the average childcare worker with a bachelor’s degree makes just $13.43 and this doesn’t even include self-employed folks who we know can make even less.
Source: UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Child Care Employment
So our current system costs a very large percentage of a families’ income and produces low wage jobs. It isn’t working for the families or the child care workers. Even beyond that, there is more reasons to care about this.
The ECE workforce is an example of where our policies have created racist systems. If you take nothing else away from this article, I would highly encourage reading the UC Berkeley Center of Child Care Employment’s paper on Racial Wage Gaps in Early Education. Some highlights include:
The ECE workforce is made up of almost exclusively women, 40% of which are women of color. It is the most diverse of the education system and has the lowest wages.
African Americans working with infants and toddlers (not preschool) earn $.77 less per hour on average than their counterparts.
African American ECE educators in California are 50% more likely to live in poverty than white peers.
We also know that childcare is a major barrier for parents, notably women, entering or remaining in the workforce. 59.5% of families in California have a woman as the sole, primary or co-breadwinners. At the same time, women are still taking on the majority of the childcare and household responsibilities. This tension was highlighted by the pandemic during which dual-career couples saw women twice as likely to spend 5+ hours a day on chores. We also saw women leave the workforce in droves and for those who stayed, express high level of burn out and stress. Even post pandemic, however, we must center affordable childcare in our discussions about economic development and workforce development in an effort to remove barriers to employment.
This is an economic opportunity we can all feel good about. What I am asking us as Sacramentans to consider is how these jobs could and should be invested in like the economic development opportunity that they are. Creating a fair wage career pipeline for early childcare workers would infuse Sacramento with a wave of higher paying jobs, improve outcomes for children and remove barriers to entering the workforce – popular outcomes that are addressable without having to attract some big corporate headquarters.
FLIPPING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INCENTIVES ON THEIR HEAD – WITH CHILDCARE AT THE CENTER
Our traditional approach to economic development has focused on business attraction, expansion, and retention with strategies ranging from tax breaks to subsidized workforce readiness pipelines. With few exceptions, these incentives have been aimed at corporations (like Centene) to encourage them to relocate or stay in Sacramento.
But what if our economic development incentives went directly to the workforce, rather than their employer?
Rather than giving our economic development funds to organizations and hoping that trickles down to the Sacramento community, we could redirect that money to the existing workforce in the form of investing in childcare and other foundational elements of a successful and inclusive workforce.
Picture a Sacramento where:
Remote or more flexible workers remain or relocate to Sacramento because they know they will have affordable and universal childcare if they live here
Bottom line-oriented companies have access to a ready-made workforce with a large barrier already addressed
Socially minded organizations see a match between the values of Sacramento and their company values
Sacramento attracts the best and brightest of early childcare workers and invests in those who have worked here, underpaid, for decades by paying more than other areas
Startups, small businesses, and other entrepreneurship organizations, who often can’t provide the same childcare benefits as Fortune 500s due to cost, have that covered from the start, energizing localized entrepreneurship (notably for women) in the area
By flipping economic development incentives on their head in this way, we focus on the community member rather than the employer. We have more control in how economic development funds are dispersed. We build a name for Sacramento as the best place for working parents. We pay early childcare workers what they deserve. And mostly, we address a broken, inequitable system that is holding us back.
WHAT THE CHILDCARE CRISIS CAN TELL US ABOUT THE FUTURE OF WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
We have two trends converging that I want to highlight:
Trend #1: Automation and technology will change the way we work. Our workforce needs have shifted time and again — from the industrial revolution to the transition from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge economy — and will continue to change. In this century, we can expect that artificial intelligence and technology will have a large impact on the kind and amount of jobs that will be available. We need to be thinking about what the jobs of the future will be as the economy as we know it today will require less and less jobs.
Trend #2: We need people-centered social services now more than ever yet these are low paying & high stress jobs. In a similar vein to the childcare crisis, the U.S. is also facing a plethora of other acute issues in our communities: we don’t have enough folks in elder care to care for the Boomers who are living longer than any other generation, we have a widely discussed opioid crisis, we have divested from mental health for decades, and climate change is creating a demand for disaster response preparedness in our communities like we have never seen. All of these pain points disproportionately impact communities of color. These roles in senior care, as social workers, mental health counselors and emergency management professionals are exhausting (emotionally and physically), see high rates of turnover due to burn out, and are severely underpaid.
At a local level, we have an opportunity to use this upcoming economic shift to invest in these people-centered careers. It would mean increasing wages for these roles, getting more people into the workforce to lessen the load, and providing accessible professional development pathways. Doing so would reduce ratios for roles like social workers, address inequitable systems, improves outcomes for communities, and bring high paying wages to Sacramento. This is an economic development investment that can’t pick up and move to jobs to Texas or be at the whim of an eccentric CEO.
If you are reading this, odds are you generally agree that services like early childcare, mental health services, and social work are necessary and underprovided in the U.S. Many of us, including myself, have spent years calling the ECE workforce, social workers and mental health professionals “saints” and treating them like martyrs. It is time for us to flip the script and prioritize investing in these people and services. Not only is it the right thing to do in addressing sources of systemic racism and classism, but it also meets the needs of our economic shifts.
ULTIMATELY, I CHALLENGE US ALL TO START BY RETHINKING OUR LOCAL CHILDCARE SYSTEM AND TRUST THAT IT CAN UNDERGO TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE IF WE ARE WILLING TO EXPECT MORE.
We know that this kind of transformational change is possible; in March of 2020, few of us could imagine that we could quickly adapt to mask mandates, have a significant amount of the workforce transition to a remote environment, and shut down entire streets to accommodate outdoor dining. But with the threat and omnipresence of the pandemic, we moved relatively swiftly and urgently to make these changes. We can do the same thing in the face of this crisis.
We can also do this in the name of economic opportunity and the reputation of our city. As Sacramento grows, we are at a point where we are deciding what our “thing” will be. San Francisco has technology, Los Angeles has the entertainment industry — I would push us to think about what it would be like if Sacramento’s “thing” was being the best place in the U.S. to be a working parent or a childcare provider? What if it was the best place to be a child, regardless of socioeconomic status?
Someone will be in the leader in addressing the childcare crisis. Why not Sacramento?
Resources:
One of the reasons I wanted to write this article is because I wanted to appeal to those, like me, who are newer to the space and maybe don’t have an obvious connection to the topic. However, there are hundreds of researchers, policy experts, and advocates who have been working on this topic for decades, much of which I have relied on throughout my research. Below please find a list of some of these resources which I highly encourage you check out.
Childcare Employment
Childcare Access & Quality
www.kidsdata.org
https://www.sacramentocountyearlylearning.org/programitem.cfm?id=153
COVID 19 Impact
https://calmatters.org/children-and-youth/2021/03/child-care-centers-close/
https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article249552283.html
Women in the Workplace
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2019/08/08/473366/fast-facts-economic-security-women-families-california/
https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace | https://medium.com/@helenpetersen/the-childcare-crisis-sacramento-the-case-for-transformational-change-82bad382ed9 | ['Helen Petersen'] | 2021-04-29 17:57:52.878000+00:00 | ['California', 'Early Childhood Education', 'Local Government', 'Sacramento', 'Childcare'] |
Not a fun year | Not a fun year
It’s weird how when people talk about what they’ve learnt in the pandemic it’s always to value small things and be with the ones we love.
It’s a beautiful speech, but hard to figure out in real life.
Since the pandemic started and companies had to adapt to home offices, parents are at home, but almost never have time with their kids.
We are at home with them, but we are working much more. You barely have time to pee or eat properly. It’s meeting after meeting and you almost never look away from your computer.
Funny enough, the pandemic has reassured workers and companies that home office is super possible. It’s also a work format I have always defended. But nowadays I have some conclusions to share:
1) meetings: One of the things that keep bothering me are excessive meetings. Sometimes I have 4 meetings a day. And this is not productive at all. Considering that when I am in a meeting, I can’t do anything else, my whole day is compromised.
Meetings should be for presentations or specific team decisions.
2) Not socializing: This is bittersweet. I love being able to do my own things at my own pace, but not being able to interact in person with other people kind of takes the whole fun out of work. I mean, it becomes just work. You and the computer. And this logistics for straight hours is exhausting.
Oh, but no: add kids in the mix. Yes, I have a three years old girl and work drives her crazy. And during the pandemic is even more excessive than before, right?
We have to work all the time. And we can’t complain because people lost their jobs and the economy sucks.
Kids are fed up. We all are.
I know that it’s not ending tomorrow, but could it please be everyone else’s New Year wish? Hopefully it gets better! | https://medium.com/@paulafilizola/its-weird-how-when-people-talk-about-what-they-ve-learnt-in-the-pandemic-it-s-always-to-value-cffbb12bbd88 | ['Paula Filizola'] | 2020-12-20 11:24:36.708000+00:00 | ['Work Life Balance', 'New Year Resolution', 'Pandemic', 'Kids Stories', 'Home Office'] |
A history of Supply Side | Photo by Marc Schäfer on Unsplash
Before 1980, Democratic and Republican President had essentially all worked under the same underlying assumptions about the economy. All of them believed government investment was an antidote to recession, an economic worldview popularized by John Maynard Keynes after concluding this is what had helped the US get out of the Great Depression. Both Democratic and Republican Presidents believed in massive government jobs programs and welfare spending. Eisenhower did this through the Interstate Highway System, and having the Republicans essentially adopt the support of FDR’s various programs. Kennedy and Johnson pursued the same policy through the New Frontier and Great Society programs they championed. Richard Nixon proposed a universal health care system and universal basic income in addition to strengthening existing welfare programs.
With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, American economic policy was changed forever. A new economic philosophy known as supply side economics became a major part of the Republican agenda. Supply side economics aimed to reduce taxes on income, capital gains and corporations. The theory behind doing so was a belief that the freed up money would then be invested in the economy through expansion of business. These cuts in revenue to the federal government would then be used as the reason to reduce spending on government programs, a strategy known as “starving the beast”. Although intellectually inconsistent, some supply side ideologues also believe that the economic growth caused by lowering taxes actually results in more taxable income for the government. In addition to tax and spending changes, Reagan also adopted a stance of deregulation under the belief that regulations were slowing economic growth.
Before Reagan, these ideas were met with skepticism even from within his own party. Richard Nixon had famously declared “We are all Keynesians now”. President Gerald Ford had strongly criticized much of Reagan’s agenda in 1976, and President George H.W Bush referred to the ideas presented by Reagan as “voodoo economics”.
By the time Reagan had left office the economy was booming. The US was a averaging more than 3 percent growth yearly, Unemployment had decreased, as had rates of poverty and inflation. 21 million new jobs were created during Reagan’s time in office, the second largest peacetime expansion of the US economy ever.
However, America began to face different economic challenges. Under 8 years of Reagan, the national debt tripled. The US went from being the world’s largest creditor country, to the most indebted country on Earth. Wages for middle class and poor workers were stagnant. Most of the biggest economic gains benefited the wealthiest. A series of deregulatory legislation passed in the early 80s had led to the Savings and Loan Crisis-the biggest failure of financial institutions since the great Depression.
Throughout this time, Democrats had been taking political note, and put together a political group called the Democratic Leadership Council. The DLC was created in 1985 to pave the way for Democrats to retake the White House, and two of it’s biggest backers were Bill Clinton and Al Gore. The DLC was an attempt to moderate the Democratic Party, particularly through economic issues.
When Bill Clinton was President, he arguably pursued the same agenda as Ronald Reagan. Clinton muscled through the biggest cuts to welfare by any sitting President in 1996, promoted the elimination of as many tariffs as possible, Clinton also entered the United States into the North American Free Trade Agreement and World Trade Organization, two trade agreements championed by supply-siders. President Clinton catered to the business community through legislation such as the Digital Millennium Copyrights Act.
Clinton and the Republican Congress then passed a bill so dangerous it essentially caused the Great Recession of 2008 single handedly. The bill, known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 deregulated financial institutions, repealing safeguards put into law after the Great Depression. The most significant rollback was Glass-Steagall-a 1933 law that forbade commercial and investment banks from using the same pool of capital for investments. When Bush came to office, similar politics played out. Bush cut regulations, making it much easier for banks to take out risky loans and had placed voices sympathetic to Wall Street at the heads of major governmental regulatory bodies like the FDIC and SEC.
Decades of deregulation and tax cuts led to a major problem in 2008, when financial markets collapsed, and the US credit rating was downgraded in 2011 for the first time ever, due to massive debt.
In response to the crisis, Obama adopted an approach that attempted to reconcile the supply siders and Keynesians. Obama adopted the mostly Republican idea of tax cuts and investment, but also maintained a public works program in the same Stimulus bill. The Stimulus was composed of about $300 billion in tax cuts and 500 billion in new spending. Later in his term, Obama would pass an additional $400 billion in other tax cuts. Obama also echoed the supply side line by making 95 percent of the Bush tax cuts permanent. Obama would show other supply side tendencies in pushing for the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal, and cutting the yearly deficit by about 60 percent. Obama tried to balance out his more free market ideas with the politically Keynesian ideas of new regulation and the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
The new regulations put in place by Obama were in a bill known as Dodd-Frank. Dodd-Frank was the most sweeping regulatory bill since 1938, and was seen as an attempt to put in place safeguards against another Great Recession. It stablished oversight of banks that pose systemic risk to the broader economy, closely monitored the derivatives market (a financial instrument that was a major component of the 2008 crash), the tightening of regulation on credit ratings agencies (the agencies had colluded with banking institutions before 2008) and the creation of the Consumer Protection Bureau (a body designed to identify financial fraud directed at consumers). Later added to the bill was the Volcker Rule, essentially a watered down version of the previously aforementioned Glass-Steagall Act.
With Trump in office, many of these safeguards that prevent a market crash have been slowly whittled away. The consumer protection bureau is now run by an appointee who doesn’t want it to exist. Democrats joined Republicans in rolling back bank “stress tests” that show whether or not a bank poses systemic economic risk. Derivatives are no longer as widely regulated as intended under the bill, and Republicans in the House have passed a full scale repeal. As a result, we’re already seeing investment banks as highly leveraged as they were in in the 1920’s and late 2000’s.
When the economy is doing well, deregulation and general supply side economics usually win all the political battles. In this respect 2018 was no different. The sad reality is that after years of deregulation, the US almost always sees a massive economic crash. Recessions themselves happen generally every ten years. With these facts in mind, it’s likely we’ll face a recession before the next Presidential term-whether it be Trump or a Democratic successor. | https://zacharytoillion.medium.com/a-history-of-supply-side-ae07abb93c82 | ['Zach Toillion'] | 2019-05-07 17:36:00.815000+00:00 | ['Economics', 'Republican Party', 'Trickle Down Economics', 'Politics', 'Supply Side Economics'] |
This is a super simplification of a complex issue | This is a super simplification of a complex issue
When a freshly divorced person is asked this question I wonder what would take it up by 1…
A guy who has just been in an accident what does he want to take it up by 1…
A president who has just lost the elections what does he want to take it up by 1…
Interesting ideas any one… . | https://medium.com/@drtusharagrawal/this-is-a-super-simplification-of-a-complex-issue-215882c9389a | ['Dr Tushar Agrawal Orthopaedic Surgeon'] | 2020-11-27 14:48:20.712000+00:00 | ['Elections', 'Divorce', 'Happiness', 'President', 'Accident'] |
Writing multi-module, monolithic apps with graph APIs | Honeycombs have many cells but they act together to fulfill the same purpose. Photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash
Last year, I talked about monolithic architecture that enables easy microservice splitting later.
After applying it for a large codebase, I’ve started using another approach: graph APIs.
Recap
In a nutshell, I believe it’s fundamental to isolate different parts of an application into different modules, even if they are deployed as a single monolith at the end of the day.
Limiting the required cognitive load to navigate the code base is a must.
Writing scalable and readable code in the first shot is tough. If you have time and effort constraints (as I have for personal projects: I don’t want to spend hundreds of hours developing them), it’s even harder.
Unreadable, difficult to maintain code is a red flag. But if it works, is isolated and no one needs to look at it anymore, it’s less bad. Sure, one day it will stop working or will need to be updated, but until then people will have better context and know what works and what doesn’t. If it’s contained, it may even be plausible to rewrite it from scratch without huge costs.
Past proposal
In my past article I proposed this isolation via interfaces/objects/providers. I’ve been using it in my personal financial platform and it has been great!
I needed to change the provider for stock historical value and I only had to look at a single package, because there was no implementation details leakage to other parts of the code. Even if the codebase had 1MM LOC for all sorts of features, I knew that I (or anyone else) would only need to look at, and try to understand, ~50 LOC.
However, using these providers has some downsides:
It’s relatively too verbose
One module of mine only had pure functions, summing up ~20 LOC. However, in order to isolate it, I had to create a defprotocol , a defrecord , implement some lifecycle and so on, even though it was stateless.
The interfaces don’t scale well
Having a defprotocol with get-stocks and get-stock-history is fine. But when you start pushing it towards get-new-stocks-with-high-volatility , things can get out of control.
Explicit dependencies
I wanted to get the historical value of all the investments available at my bank. One module was able to fetch my bank and get the name of the investments. Another one, which queries another API, was able to convert the name to an ID. Finally, a third module was able to get the history given an ID.
Where to put this composition? I wanted to make things transparent (the fact that my bank doesn’t expose the IDs shouldn’t leak to outer modules), so I made the bank module depend on the second one.
That worked. But in another flow the second module relied on the bank one. If we’re not careful enough, circular dependency may happen. This interdependency is difficult to reason about.
Another solution is to have a higher-level module that knows everyone else. A sort of BFF/façade. That’s better, but it still needs to know that, e.g., the bank module doesn’t expose the IDs so and additional query is needed.
New approach
What if we could have looser dependencies? What if no one needed to know how to surgically compose different modules to deliver a single response? With Graph APIs we can.
For Clojure, you can use the awesome Pathom library, which will do all the heavy work for you.
To implement my example, the bank module could register a resolver like the one below (I’m stripping away some boilerplate for readability):
For the second module:
Finally, for the last module:
I now have a decentralized system. The graph parser knows by itself that, for each element in :bank/investments , it needs to go from :investment/name to :investment/id then :investment/history and how to resolve it.
As for the namespace organization, each module has the following structure:
logic/ contains pure functions
contains pure functions http/ and db/ are one of many ports in the hexagonal architecture
and are one of many ports in the hexagonal architecture graph/ has the resolvers above
has the resolvers above when the resolvers get complicated, helper functions are extracted to controllers/ , which orchestrate function calls
, which orchestrate function calls definition.clj is a file I already had to bootstrap the server, but has now been extended to each module
Module definition
An example of definition.clj :
:http and :bank have immutable data that can be propagated to other components
and have immutable data that can be propagated to other components :components has some dependency-injection declarations
has some dependency-injection declarations :entry-point is the function to be called in case this module is to be used standalone or as the routing hub
Finally, I have a defmethod that’s able to reduce a config vector into a final, single config. For :http , for example, it merges all the bookmarks; for :resolvers it concatenates all vectors; for :entry-point , it keeps the last one.
In the end, to start the system, I call:
(:entry-point rest-server.definition/config) , for instance, is what spawns the server listening on port 80. If I want to use the system as a CLI, there's no need to spawn the server and curl it. I could simply swap the last config with cli.definition/config .
Splitting into microservices/libraries
If for any reason the need arises, deploying a module as a microservice is trivial from a code perspective.
For the new microservice:
clone the monolith into a different repository
remove all undesired modules
edit the bootstrap-app! call accordingly
call accordingly expose the resolvers it has (Pathom call this index )
For the original monolith:
remove the module folder except definition.clj
change definition.clj in such a way that the monolith is able to merge its index with the one in the new microservice (Pathom allows merging index es as well)
Steps for extracting a module to a library would be very similar (in case the module only has pure logic, for example).
Downsides of the new approach
for my particular case, having the graph find out the edge traversal is perfectly fine, but if I wanted maximum performance, calling the functions directly could be faster and less resource intensive (pending benchmark, though)
since edges are loose, it’s difficult to find usages given a function or field. The IDE won't be able to know in what flows a resolver may be used
Conclusion
This has given my code huge scalability at low costs and I’m fine with the downsides I could think of.
At the moment I have no open-source code to show, but if you’re really interested, contact me and we can work something out.
If you’ve liked the ideas highlighted here regarding graph APIs, please check this talk from Pathom’s author. | https://medium.com/@den.isidoro/writing-multi-module-monolithic-apps-with-graph-apis-1c095cdaccdf | ['Denis Isidoro'] | 2019-07-01 17:43:11.975000+00:00 | ['Design Patterns', 'Clojure', 'GraphQL', 'Microservices', 'Backend Development'] |
Sunday Paper at the Covid Cafe` | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/resistance-poetry/sunday-paper-at-the-covid-cafe-216476120a08 | ['Will Schmit'] | 2020-11-16 17:46:10.508000+00:00 | ['Resistance Poetry', 'Fact Checking', 'Pandemic', 'History', 'Poetry On Medium'] |
The Future Winter Olympic Cities: Who has the Best Weather Conditions? | Pyeongchang was a great Winter games host as it possesses ideal conditions for artificial snowmaking. But with global climate getting warmer, people are starting to wonder whether cities looking to make bids will be deterred, if they don’t have the ideal conditions for natural snow and artificial snowmaking.
We evaluated historical snow depth and air temperature conditions for the 2026 Winter Olympics’ reported bidding cities to see who may have the best probable weather conditions to play host. The Associated Press and its sports reporting team recently dove into our analysis and shared their thoughts to their global readership in the concluding days of the Pyeongchang games. You can check out the article here. The Associated Press story was picked up by news outlets around the world including The New York Times, The Daily Mail, and others.
For the analysis we used the Planet OS Datahub and API provided by Intertrust that enable fast and easy access to large-scale climate datasets. We also included the expected weather for Beijing that will host the next Winter games in 2022.
We crunched data for the following cities:
Beijing, China
Graz and Schladming, Austria
Erzurum, Turkey
Sion, Switzerland
Are and Stockholm, Sweden
Sapporo, Japan
Salt Lake City, United States
Calgary, Canada
Assessing the data from the past 39 years from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA-Interim reanalysis datasets, we found that Sapporo, Japan and Calgary, Canada are likely the best places to host the 2026 Winter games.
Here’s why: | https://medium.com/planet-os/the-future-winter-olympics-cities-who-has-the-best-weather-conditions-b419f80f06d6 | ['Eneli Toodu'] | 2018-03-07 15:53:45.992000+00:00 | ['Olympics', 'Climate Change', 'Snow', 'Weather', 'Environment'] |
Behind the Bar 🚵🏻 | Part 1: Erode to Munnar | Pedalling life 🚲 🏕️ 🎒
Last-minute plans are always special, the plan just started with a kidding call but we made it.
We were ready to take risks. We started with a good ride plan & zero expectations.
A few months back (post-monsoon) we decided to redefine the limits by a road trip Erode- Udumalaipettai- Marayoor- Munnar- Muthukad- Suryanelli- Bodimettu- Theni- Kodai- Dindigul.
Planned to cover a distance of 580km with an elevation of 5,900m
Suresh, accompanied me with this trip, A passionate Cyclist, Traveler, Social activist, and Professional tableau developer. We both connected via social media- traveled and made many happy faces by volunteering works.
Yeah, we both started by early morning 4 am from Erode :)
The Pledge
Should not use Plastics throughout the trip, Recycle as much as possible
No rash rides
Follow the Hand signs (✋ Stop, 👍 Go, 👎 Slow )
we need to maintain distance but also stay close within 100 meter range
Power Nap, when we are tired
Hydrate ourselves by every 15 minute- 2 or 3 sips of water
🚵🏻 Adventure Begins…
First Leg (Erode- Udumalaipettai) 0 Km- 152 Km
We started to pedal 🚲 from Erode Railway station to Udumalaipettai via Kangayam, Dharapuram
We did not care about speed & time. We Just need to explore as much as possible, To meet some strangers and to learn their culture. Love to lose from this mechanical life and find ourselves in the lap of Mother Nature!
We met a Tender coconut seller on the way, who followed us for 50plus kilometers and gave some Tender coconut as sharing love and motivated us to cover more distance.
Full scenic view, with Terrains- highs and downs and Enjoying the sunrise in the farmlands.
We stopped for a Tea ☕
On the way, we had Breakfast, Lunch. We did not skip any tea breaks as well.
Finally, we reached Udumalaipettai at 8:30 pm with 147Km
On the way, Met Bharathi, A professional system engineer who lives in Udumalaipettai. He took us to his home about 5 Km and Gave us a space for camping for the night at his farmland ❤
Ending up the ride for the day with 152Km
Second Leg (Udumalaipettai- Munnar) 152 Km- 276 Km
Some adventure day, Yes we need to climb about 2,000m plus elevation
As planed we refreshed and started from Bharathi’s place with the best paruppu sadam (Daal Rice) with rich proteins cooked by Bharathi’s mother. we had that for Breakfast and Lunch
After a 10Km flat, we had a blessed tea to equalize the cold weather
To reach the Marayoor Kerala border we need to cross Anamalai Tiger Reserve.
Before we reached the check post of Anamalai Tiger Reserve forest. A group of Elephants crossed the road and Cops restricted us to enter the forest.
After a long struggle, we Pledged (Not to disturb the forest animals)and enter with one forest officer, who entered for regular rounds.
Enjoyed forest roads with the sounds of Elephants and Gaur
After a 2,000m plus elevation we reached Marayoor
We had paruppu sadam for Lunch and Now heading towards Munnar
Roadside beauty
On the way to Munnar, we heard a waterfalls sound. So we stopped and looked at the falls it was Just amazing, we fine-tuned the day plan. We pedaled towards the Falls
Sounds made us Trek for 8km and pedal for 80km climb and reached the Thoovanam falls. | https://medium.com/@vasanthsankar/behind-the-bar-part-1-erode-to-munnar-1d46ccd40d45 | ['Vasanth Sankar'] | 2021-12-28 14:37:09.457000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Holidays', 'Backpacking', 'Cycling', 'Touring'] |
Simplify your JavaScript – Use .map(), .reduce(), and .filter() | If you’re starting in JavaScript, maybe you haven’t heard of .map() , .reduce() , and .filter() . For me, it took a while as I had to support Internet Explorer 8 until a couple years ago. But if you don’t need to be compatible with this very old browser, you have to become familiar with those methods.
Take note that this article most likely applies to whatever other programming language you might be using, as these are concepts that exist in many other languages.
.map()
Let me explain how it works with a simple example. Say you have received an array containing multiple objects – each one representing a person. The thing you really need in the end, though, is an array containing only the id of each person.
// What you have
var officers = [
{ id: 20, name: 'Captain Piett' },
{ id: 24, name: 'General Veers' },
{ id: 56, name: 'Admiral Ozzel' },
{ id: 88, name: 'Commander Jerjerrod' }
]; // What you need
[20, 24, 56, 88]
There are multiple ways to achieve this. You might want to do it by creating an empty array, then using .forEach() , .for(...of) , or a simple .for() to meet your goal.
Let’s compare!
Using .forEach() :
var officersIds = []; officers.forEach(function (officer) {
officersIds.push(officer.id);
});
Notice how you have to create an empty array beforehand? Let’s see what it looks like when using .map() :
var officersIds = officers.map(function (officer) {
return officer.id
});
We can even be more concise with arrow functions (requires ES6 support, Babel or TypeScript)
const officersIds = officers.map(officer => officer.id);
So how does .map() work? Basically is takes 2 arguments, a callback and an optional context (will be considered as this in the callback) which I did not use in the previous example. The callback runs for each value in the array and returns each new value in the resulting array.
Keep in mind that the resulting array will always be the same length as the original array.
.reduce()
Just like .map() , .reduce() also runs a callback for each element of an array. What’s different here is that reduce passes the result of this callback (the accumulator) from one array element to the other.
The accumulator can be pretty much anything (integer, string, object, etc.) and must be instantiated or passed when calling .reduce() .
Time for an example! Say you have an array with these pilots and their respective years of experience:
var pilots = [
{
id: 10,
name: "Poe Dameron",
years: 14,
},
{
id: 2,
name: "Temmin 'Snap' Wexley",
years: 30,
},
{
id: 41,
name: "Tallissan Lintra",
years: 16,
},
{
id: 99,
name: "Ello Asty",
years: 22,
}
];
We need to know the total years of experience of all of them. With .reduce() , it’s pretty straightforward:
var totalYears = pilots.reduce(function (accumulator, pilot) {
return accumulator + pilot.years;
}, 0);
Notice that I’ve set the starting value as 0. I could have also used an existing variable if necessary. After running the callback for each element of the array, reduce will return the final value of our accumulator (in our case: 82 ).
Let’s see how this can be shortened with ES6’s arrow functions:
const totalYears = pilots.reduce((acc, pilot) => acc + pilot.years, 0);
Now let’s say I want to find which pilot is the most experienced one. For that, I can use reduce as well:
var mostExpPilot = pilots.reduce(function (oldest, pilot) {
return (oldest.years || 0) > pilot.years ? oldest : pilot;
}, {});
I named my accumulator oldest . My callback compares the accumulator to each pilot. If a pilot has more years of experience than oldest , then that pilot becomes the new oldest so that’s the one I return.
As you can see, using .reduce() is an easy way to generate a single value or object from an array.
.filter()
What if you have an array, but only want some of the elements in it? That’s where .filter() comes in!
Here’s our data:
var pilots = [
{
id: 2,
name: "Wedge Antilles",
faction: "Rebels",
},
{
id: 8,
name: "Ciena Ree",
faction: "Empire",
},
{
id: 40,
name: "Iden Versio",
faction: "Empire",
},
{
id: 66,
name: "Thane Kyrell",
faction: "Rebels",
}
];
Say we want two arrays now: one for rebel pilots, the other one for imperials. With .filter() it couldn’t be easier!
var rebels = pilots.filter(function (pilot) {
return pilot.faction === "Rebels";
}); var empire = pilots.filter(function (pilot) {
return pilot.faction === "Empire";
});
That’s it! And it’s even shorter with arrow functions:
const rebels = pilots.filter(pilot => pilot.faction === "Rebels");
const empire = pilots.filter(pilot => pilot.faction === "Empire");
Basically, if the callback function returns true, the current element will be in the resulting array. If it returns false, it won’t be.
Combining .map(), .reduce(), and .filter()
Since all three are called on arrays and since .map() and .filter() both return arrays, we can easily chain our calls.
Let’s check out another example. Here’s our data:
var personnel = [
{
id: 5,
name: "Luke Skywalker",
pilotingScore: 98,
shootingScore: 56,
isForceUser: true,
},
{
id: 82,
name: "Sabine Wren",
pilotingScore: 73,
shootingScore: 99,
isForceUser: false,
},
{
id: 22,
name: "Zeb Orellios",
pilotingScore: 20,
shootingScore: 59,
isForceUser: false,
},
{
id: 15,
name: "Ezra Bridger",
pilotingScore: 43,
shootingScore: 67,
isForceUser: true,
},
{
id: 11,
name: "Caleb Dume",
pilotingScore: 71,
shootingScore: 85,
isForceUser: true,
},
];
Our objective: get the total score of force users only. Let’s do it step by step!
First, we need to filter out the personnel who can’t use the force:
var jediPersonnel = personnel.filter(function (person) {
return person.isForceUser;
}); // Result: [{...}, {...}, {...}] (Luke, Ezra and Caleb)
With that we have 3 elements left in our resulting array. We now need to create an array containing the total score of each Jedi.
var jediScores = jediPersonnel.map(function (jedi) {
return jedi.pilotingScore + jedi.shootingScore;
}); // Result: [154, 110, 156]
And let’s use reduce to get the total:
var totalJediScore = jediScores.reduce(function (acc, score) {
return acc + score;
}, 0); // Result: 420
And now here’s the fun part… we can chain all of this to get what we want in a single line:
var totalJediScore = personnel
.filter(function (person) {
return person.isForceUser;
})
.map(function (jedi) {
return jedi.pilotingScore + jedi.shootingScore;
})
.reduce(function (acc, score) {
return acc + score;
}, 0);
And look how pretty it is with arrow functions:
const totalJediScore = personnel
.filter(person => person.isForceUser)
.map(jedi => jedi.pilotingScore + jedi.shootingScore)
.reduce((acc, score) => acc + score, 0);
Boom! 💥
Note: In my previous example, .map() and .filter() weren’t even necessary. We could easily achieve the same result with only .reduce() . I left them in there for the sake of this example. Can you guess how we could only keep .reduce() and get the same result with one line of code? See the solution on CodePen
Why not use .forEach()?
I used to use for loops everywhere instead of .map() , .reduce() , and .filter() . But a couple of years ago I started working a lot more with data that came from an API. That’s where I began to see the advantages of leaving .forEach behind.
Formatting
Say you need to display a list of people, with their name and job title.
var data = [
{
name: "Jan Dodonna",
title: "General",
},
{
name: "Gial Ackbar",
title: "Admiral",
},
]
The API gives you the above data, but you only need the title and the last name of each person… You need to format the data. However, your app also needs to have a single view for each person, so you must write a data formatting function that both works in a list view and in a single view.
That means you can’t have the .forEach loop inside of your formatting function, or else you would have to wrap your single element in an array before you pass it to the function just to make it work, like so:
var result = formatElement([element])[0];
// Yeah... that's not right at all
So your loop has to wrap the call of the function, like this:
data.forEach(function (element) {
var formatted = formatElement(element);
// But what then....
});
But .forEach() doesn’t return anything. It can’t. That means you have to push the results inside a predetermined array.
var results = []; data.forEach(function (element) {
var formatted = formatElement(element);
results.push(formatted);
});
As a result, you have 2 functions: your formatElement() function and your function that pushes the results in your array.
Why have 2 functions when you can have just one?
var results = data.map(formatElement);
Testing is easier
If you write unit tests for your code, you’ll find it simpler to test the functions you call with .map() , .reduce() , or .filter() .
All you have to do is provide inbound data for the function and expect a result to come out. Basically “what comes out if this is passed?”. Less manipulation, less beforeEach() s and afterEach() s. It’s straightforward, simple testing.
Try it!
Try to replace some of your for loops with .map() , .reduce() , .filter() where it seems to fit. I guarantee your code will be way less clunky and much easier to read.
If you liked that article and want to learn more array methods, check out my article on how to use .some() and .find() in JavaScript.
Keep coding! | https://medium.com/poka-techblog/simplify-your-javascript-use-map-reduce-and-filter-bd02c593cc2d | ['Etienne Talbot'] | 2019-09-04 11:14:00+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Junior Developer', 'Javascript Development', 'Functional Programming', 'Javascript Tips'] |
What Is a Viral Loop and How Does It Work? | Image source: Pixabay
Stop me if this sounds familiar: You came up with a brilliant product idea that you feel in your gut will catch on. You work with your team to bring that idea to life. You put it out in the wild and early adopters loved it (or so they say). Some of them even asked their friends to try it out. So far so good, right?
Fast forward to two months later and you find yourself still stuck with the same users. Except this time, they’re dropping off one by one until… *cue awkward cricket sounds*
What gives?
Here’s what gives: Your product doesn’t have a viral loop going for it.
You see, when it comes to releasing products, a viral loop is kind of a big deal.
Want to know what a viral loop is and what it can do to help your products catch on with your target audience?
This blog post has your back. Dive in!
Viral Loop: A definition
A viral loop is a mechanism that entices your existing users to refer your product to others.
Put another way, a viral loop helps you influence your existing users to introduce and promote your product to their friends, colleagues, family, and social network. If your existing users are falling over themselves to recommend your product to their friends and get them to install it, then your product has a strong viral loop going for it.
Isn’t that like word-of-mouth marketing?
Well, kinda? It’s more accurate to say they’re close cousins. Like word-of-mouth marketing, viral loops operate on trust. The difference with viral loops is they have “virality” built into the product itself.
In other words, you’re not just going by word-of-mouth. When creating a viral loop, you’re putting a mechanism in place to help your existing users spread the word about your company or product. This mechanism kickstarts the loop in motion, which can result in exponential viral growth.
A viral loop goes like this:
1. A new user uses your product, likes it, and keeps using it.
2. You offer that user an incentive in exchange for referrals.
3. Finding value in the incentive offer, the user sends invites to others.
4. User’s friends receive the invites.
5. User’s friends accept the invites, become new users.
6. Go back to step 1, and the cycle continues (it’s called a “loop,” after all.)
Dropbox is a great example (an overused one, in fact). If you’ve been using the internet long enough, chances are you’ve accepted a Dropbox invite from a friend and sent some invites yourself. After all, who doesn’t want free storage space?
Viral loops are especially effective for social media platforms. Why did Facebook blow up in its early days? Because of a strong viral loop, that’s what. The moment you sign up for a Facebook account, the most logical thing to do is to send out friend invites. And why not, considering the social networking platform would be pointless if you don’t connect with your friends?
3 advantages of creating viral loops
To have a better appreciation of how viral loops work, let’s go over its advantages.
1. You get highly-qualified leads
When it comes to getting highly-qualified leads, viral loops deliver the goods.
Want proof?
According to a Social Media Today report, marketers rate referrals as the 2nd highest source of quality leads. That same study shows that 78% of B2B marketers claim that referral programs generate good or excellent leads.
No surprise there, really. When you offer an incentive that interests users, they’re more likely to refer your product to friends whom they think will also find the product useful.
Let’s say you’re using Evernote and want to take advantage of the company’s referral program to earn the points you need to enjoy some of the software’s premium features. If you have one invite left, to whom would you send that invite? Your journalist pal who spends most of her day writing essays and reports or your dear grandma?
We’re pretty sure you’d choose the former (and we’re also sure Evernote would prefer that, too).
2. It’s cost-effective
Let’s face it-consumers don’t trust businesses as much as they used to. You can get creative with your ads, but if potential users don’t know you, they aren’t likely to give you the time of day. You can spend more on ads until you earn their trust, but that won’t exactly bode well for your bottom line.
So, here’s an idea: Instead of spending all your marketing budget on ads, why not create a viral loop and enable your existing users to do the marketing for you?
After all, according to , 92% of consumers worldwide trust recommendations from friends and family more than other forms of advertising.
In other words, if you want your target users to trust you more, give your existing users a good reason to vouch for you. You can do that with viral loops, which will significantly reduce your customer acquisition costs.
3. You get exponential growth
Meaningful (and profitable) relationships are built on trust This is even more true now that trust in businesses is at an all-time low.
With viral loops, you get a distinct advantage because you have real people vouching for your products and services. When you combine that trust with a great product and a solid referral system, the viral loop that is set into motion can create a snowball effect that leads to exponential growth.
Want to see what exponential growth looks like over more than a decade? Here’s a visual representation of Facebook’s monthly active users from 2004 until 2017.
Types of Viral Loops
If you want to create a viral loop that will drive growth for your product, offering the right incentives is key. Here are the types of viral loops you can choose from (bear in mind that they can overlap each other in certain situations… which is okay):
Basic Viral Loop
The basic viral loop uses a simple premise to drive viral growth: to entice your existing users to share your product with their friends, offer them an incentive that allows them to get more of it. Dropbox is a classic example of a basic viral loop. To get more of Dropbox, just send your friends a Dropbox invite and you’ll get free storage in return.
Value-Driven Viral Loop
Value-driven viral loops are two-sided in such a way where each referral provides value to both the referrer and the recipient. This is effective for two obvious reasons. First, when your incentive offers value to the recipient, you increase the likelihood that the invite will be accepted. Second, your existing users will be more inclined to send invites knowing they’re giving their friends a favor. It’s a win-win situation for both!
Savings-Driven Viral Loop
As the term implies, a savings-driven viral loop drives viral growth by offering users an incentive that helps them save money, usually in the form of a coupon or a promo code. Shoeboxed’s referral program, for example, offers users a 10% discount off their monthly payment for every successful referral (the recipient also receives a 10% discount, which also makes it a value-driven viral loop).
Charity-driven viral loop
This works by offering users the opportunity to give back to the community in exchange for referrals. Amazon’s online pharmacy for example, donates $100 to the nonprofit RxArt organization for each successful referral.
How to find the right viral loop for your campaign
Can’t decide which viral loop to use for your product campaign? To arrive at an informed decision, you need to take stock of the many elements that go into a viral loop to make it successful. Also, asking the right questions will help.
Which rewards are more likely to motivate your users to spread the word? To kickstart your viral loop, give your existing users an offer they can’t resist. Whatever that reward is, make sure it’s unique and special and that it provides real value.
To kickstart your viral loop, give your existing users an offer they can’t resist. Whatever that reward is, make sure it’s unique and special and that it provides real value. Which incentives will help you acquire high-quality users? Make sure to offer incentives that will specifically attract your ideal users. Remember, not all users are created equal. If you choose rewards that appeal to everyone, you’ll get low-quality users that will “muddy the waters” of your referral marketing campaign. Meanwhile, highly-qualified users will not only spread the word about your product, but they’re also more likely to become repeat users.
Make sure to offer incentives that will specifically attract your ideal users. Remember, not all users are created equal. If you choose rewards that appeal to everyone, you’ll get low-quality users that will “muddy the waters” of your referral marketing campaign. Meanwhile, highly-qualified users will not only spread the word about your product, but they’re also more likely to become repeat users. How much can you afford to spend on incentives without compromising profitability? Being generous with your incentives is fine, but if you’re spending $80 for an incentive for a product you’re selling at $50, then it’s not going to bode well for your bottom line. You need to strike the right balance between motivating users to make referrals and staying profitable.
How to make your viral loop go, well, viral
It’s one thing to create a viral loop for your product, but it’s quite another to create one that will grow your business. Here are steps (or best practices, if you will) you can take to ensure the success of your viral loop.
Make sure your user base loves your product
When creating an effective viral loop, it’s less about the number of users you have and more about whether or not they love your product. Where exactly are they on a scale from “nice-to-have” to “must-have”?
To find out, don’t rely on the number of downloads or revenue alone. To have a better idea of how much your users love your product, and by extension how eager they will be to refer your product to others, you need to find the right data and dig deeper.
You need to determine your users’ level of engagement and find ways to boost that engagement. To do that, you must use data analytics to your advantage. Paid product intelligence tools like , Trendalytics, and Localytics can give you access to user data and generate insights that will help you enhance product experiences.
But which metrics or KPIs should I track?
Now you don’t need to keep track of every user data that pops up on your product dashboard. That’s your one-way-ticket to analysis paralysis. To accelerate growth, you need to focus on what Sean Ellis of Hacking Growth calls the ‘North Star Metric.’
The ‘North Star Metric’ is the one metric that has the most bearing on your company or product’s long-term success. It’s also that one most important metric that will have a positive impact on user retention.
To determine your ‘North Star Metric’ you must define the core value of your product and then identify the supporting KPIs that contribute to or enhance that core value.
With your ‘North Stars’ established, you can use your KPIs as benchmarks when making changes that will enhance the product experience. You won’t get it right the first time, but by deploying surveys, interviews, A/B testing, you’ll know what changes you need to carry out to make your users love your product. Once you’ve aced the key KPIs of your product, you’re in a perfect position to put in place a referral program that can create a strong basis for a viral loop your willing users can’t get out of!
Optimize your “referral funnel”
To keep the referrals coming, make sure you’re providing your potential users with a straight path towards conversion (becoming a user) and brand advocacy (becoming a referrer).
To create a user journey that is personalized, frictionless, and uncomplicated, you need to have a granular understanding of how your users interact with your product. Visualization helps. To that end, you’d do well to use a referral funnel.
Here’s what a typical referral funnel looks like:
As you can see from the above image, a potential user has to go through specific stages in their user journey, from acquisition to referrals to advocacy.
The goal here, of course, is to minimize possible leaks in your referral funnel. This means making sure your prospects don’t have to go through multiple hoops to get to where they want to go. And you better make sure they understand the value they will be receiving when taking the next action. To minimize drop-offs, do some funnel analysis and use the insights you’ve gained to make the necessary tweaks that will increase conversions and referrals.
How effective is your viral loop?
So, you’ve decided on a viral loop strategy? Great! With that said, you want to make sure the amount of referrals it’s bringing you justifies the cost of your incentives, or whether it’s going to sustain itself in the long run.
To arrive at a definitive answer, you need to calculate your Viral Coefficient (or K-factor).
The Viral Coefficient, simply put, is the average number of new users your existing users can acquire over their lifetime as a customer/client.
So, if your average user is generating an average of two users through referrals over their customer lifecycle, you get a viral coefficient of 2.
Now let’s get to the fun stuff.
The formula for calculating your Viral Coefficient is:
VC = C X R X CR
where:
C = Number of customers
R = Average number of referrals per customer
CR = Average conversion rate for referrals
Let’s break it down into specific steps:
Determine the current number of your users (e.g. 100) Multiply that number to the average number of referral invites your user base sends out (100x10) Multiply the result by the conversion rate of referrals (10%) Multiply the three values above (100x10x.10) and you get 100 new users. This means your existing user base has generated you 100 secondary users. Divide the number of existing users by the number of secondary users and you get a viral coefficient of 1. That means that with your viral loop, every user generates one secondary user through your referral program.
A Viral Coefficient of 1 is actually a good number (at least according to general consensus). Meanwhile, a Viral Coefficient greater than 1 indicates exponential growth. Many say that a k-factor that is less than 1 is bound for failure. However, this isn’t necessarily true for all products, specifically for those that have longer sales cycles where it usually takes more referral invites to get a potential user to sign up.
That said, in most cases, a Viral Coefficient that’s less than 1 means you need to perform some tweaks with your viral loop. Look at the values in the formula again and determine what you need to work on. Are you not acquiring enough users? Does your conversion rate need a boost? Do you need to offer a more attractive incentive to increase your referrals?
You want to make sure any changes you make will have some bearing on the results. As already mentioned, do some funnel analysis and then check if the most important metric (your North Star Metric, remember?) is being met in every stage of the funnel.
Once you do all of the above, you’ll be able to glean invaluable insights to help you make the changes that will give your Viral Coefficient a boost.
Final Word
At the end of the day, sustainable growth is based on trust. Promote your brand or product in ways that diminish that trust and you’ve already lost the game. Remember, in today’s increasingly overcrowded market, trust is your most prized asset. Once you earn it, you have to nurture it like you would a dear friend. If you want your viral loop to be successful, don’t make it generate growth for its own sake. A viral loop that drives sustainable growth should empower your users in ways that allow them to take ownership of their experience with your product.
GrowSurf is a powerful and simple referral software that lets you easily build a viral loop into your product or newsletter. See why top tech and media companies, startups, and marketers choose GrowSurf by signing up for a 14-day free trial here. | https://medium.com/@growsurfkevin/what-is-a-viral-loop-and-how-does-it-work-a29a722c6726 | ['Kevin Yun'] | 2020-12-17 18:17:21.835000+00:00 | ['Digital Marketing', 'Viral Marketing', 'Viral', 'Referral Marketing', 'Growth Hacking'] |
Kim Kiyosaki Interview — Why Women Must Become (Bitcoin) Investors | My guest on this week’s SANE CRYPTO Podcast is Kim Kiyosaki, who along with her husband and business partner, Robert Kiyosaki, have built the Rich Dad financial education empire.
I was fortunate enough to do two PBS specials, with Kim, way back in the day, titled The Rich Woman In You. So it was really fun to catch up ..
We talked about: 1) Where she and Robert are on their thinking about cryptoassets as an investment; 2) How to approach learning about a totally new investment class didn’t exist for most of us, just a few short years ago; and 3) How to get women more involved in investing in general, and cryptoassets more specifically.
Kim has always been way ahead of her time on the issue of getting women involved in investing. She published two books on the subject going all the way back to 2006.
Here are just a few of the horrifying statistics she cites, highlighting how vulnerable women are financially:
47% of women over the age of 50 are single
50% of marriages end in divorce
In the first year after a divorce a woman’s standard of living drops an average of 73%
Of the elderly living in poverty 3 out of 4 are women — and 80% of them were not poor when their husbands were alive
Nearly 7 out of 10 women will at some time live in poverty
For Baby Boomers, this is a fundamental issue:
“The number one worry of Americans today is running out of money in retirement. And, you can worry all you want about it. Or… you can go out there and do something about it!” — Kim Kiyosaki
Having turned over a million dollar windfall to a broker, in my late 20’s, and them losing everything I didn’t manage to spend first, I came to the harsh realization early in life that you alone are accountable for your financial situation.
It’s easy to point fingers. But it isn’t your broker, you CPA, the government, your parents… or even your spouse that is responsible for your current or future financial situation. It is you and you alone!
We can all agree that attitude is one of the biggest predictors of success. Yet when it comes to investing, many people — especially women! — continue to have attitudes of confusion, fear, anger, and even apathy.
Changing your attitude is the first step in creating successful investment outcomes.
Nowhere is this more true than investor attitude towards Bitcoin…
I am recently “un-retired”, after having sold my investment firm and spending 8 years living my dream, building my farm, in rural SC.
I used to say it would take a crane to get me off my farm. But I didn’t count on the potentially once in a lifetime investment opportunity that is Bitcoin.
I recently saw a statistic that said $85 billion in new wealth was created by Bitcoin in 2017 and women only got about $5 billion of that.
A former client of mine, when he heard I had been enticed out of retirement by Bitcoin, wrote me:
“Bitcoin, is vaporware, a 1/0 in a computer memory backed up by absolutely nothing as far as I can tell, but I don’t understand it at all. I can’t imagine actually investing in hidden imaginary “money” that amounts to 1s and 0s in a computer somewhere, created to enable dark web transactions to be hidden from the real world.”
Far from being vaporware or imaginary money created for the purpose of nefarious transactions on the dark web…
Bitcoin could end up being the knight in shining armor that swoops in to save the day for millions of Baby Boomers!
Notice I said could.
You need double-digit returns in order to live comfortably in retirement, without being in danger of running out of money and ending up living under a bridge eating cat food, if we have a prolonged market downturn.
Either that or a lot, a lot of money.
Equities have returned 6.5% annually back to 1900. Wine comes in second at 3.7%. In 2017, Bitcoin returned 1,317%!
No guarantee that it will again this year. Or ever. But the fact that it easily could… makes it a modern day version of Pascal’s Wager.
Pascal’s Wager refers to a bet with infinite upside and little or no downside.
Pascal’s Wager was cutting edge, back in the 16th century, because it broke new ground in game theory.
Pascal correctly pointed out, that under circumstances like these, where the outcome is uncertain, but the risk and reward are so asymmetrically lopsided, you MUST take that bet. To do otherwise would not be sane.
Fast forward to today…
As long as you structure the investment correctly, which is key, because almost no one is, you can create a modern day version of Pascal’s Wager, where if you win, you gain all. But if you lose, you lose almost nothing.
Which is a once in a lifetime opportunity. And, has the opportunity to make a meaningful, meaningful difference, in solving the thing Kim mentioned, that most older Americans fret over constantly… running out of money in retirement.
Example of real-life Pascal’s Wager scenario
Suffice to say, individual investors like you and I don’t see this sort of lopsided upside:downside skew very often, if ever. Which is why I am so excited about getting the word out about cryptoassets as an investment class.
But more importantly, how to do it in a sane, strategic way that does no harm if we are wrong but can be life-changing if we are right.
Something to consider. I hope you found it helpful … | https://medium.com/sane-crypto/kim-kiyosaki-interview-why-women-need-to-become-bitcoin-investors-7e7e9710d099 | ['Kim Snider'] | 2018-04-08 19:40:17.929000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Rich Dad Poor Dad', 'Podcast', 'Retirement Planning', 'Bitcoin'] |
Love in the Time of Corona. | Love in the Time of Corona.
Will it make sense to the reader if I actually confessed, that I anticipated a full scale war rather than a pandemic. South Asian Wonder Woman Mar 15, 2020·4 min read
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash — Partially self edited. Original Title: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez.
Any type of crisis instills fear in humanity but it also brings forth kindness. Or this is what I wanted to believe in. But amidst the Kashmir Lockdown, increasing world political tension, and now the novel Corona Virus, I have found myself questioning;
Where is the love?
When I heard about this massive outbreak, I anticipated that there would be a plan, an organised global scale plan to combat the virus, I wanted to believe that we live in a world of new medical breakthroughs and advancements of healthcare but we don’t. Its tiring to even type this with the heavy realisation that our world is much more prepared to go to war than to handle a viral infection.
There is no denying that the Corona Virus has affected the global economies, healthcare systems and personal liberties of individuals, but it has affected kindness more. This virus has put us in a fight or flight mode, an automated selfish response, if I must say. It has pushed a lot of individuals to go on survival instinct, a primitive response. But if there is one aspect of human life that has been affected more by our primitive response, its empathy and kindness.
We are not realising this, but there is a clear halt to the structure of life as we know, and even though it is not as bad in some parts of the world, just the idea of it is making people change plans. I am personally one of those people who felt like they are finally getting a hang of their life and were brave enough to make plans but now are directly effected by the outbreak of this virus. The idea of life, the tiny scribbled plan of tomorrow we had is somehow being put on a pause.The plans that were once based on inclusions now lack the basic courtesy of humanity. I have read numerous accounts were we as individuals have failed to show kindness, empathy and care to others in this massive healthcare crisis. The arena is suddenly about, to each their own. And that is terrifying.
From my personal experience and observation so far, I see people line up more and more in front of grocery stores, but I wonder how many people are actually informing the lesser informed individuals of the society. Yes, I know the media plays a major role in distribution of information and informing everyone, regardless of the social stratification but I don’t believe its able to solve religious myths and combat the rumors churning the global rumour mill.
The virus hasn’t reached Lahore, but clearly the tremors have. Yesterday, I was on a rikshaw ride and the driver expressed his views regarding the spread of the virus:
“Baji, yeh virus musalmano ko nahi hoge, app Allah par yakeen rakhti ho tou appko nai hoge.” Translation: “Sister, Muslims won’t get this virus, you believe in Allah, you won’t get this.”
Another interesting driver shared his deep concern over how this is a planned virus to effect China and its economy, to bring it down by the Americans. The misconception and rumors surrounding Corona Virus aren’t helping the situation. Even on the global front, China is seen as the culprit, there is a clear racist attack on the Chinese community all around the world. Comments and derogatory remarks, insensitive headlines have aided in creating more communal tension, lack of acceptance and open physical attacks on individuals and business.
This is NOT what we need right now.
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
I deeply feel that as much as self-quarantine is important and needed in these times, reaching out to others, communicating, and empathy are equally important.
This long self imposed periods of self-quarantine will end, the supermarkets that you are running to will soon have the supplies again, this viral outbreak will be over but what will be left behind, what you will be leaving behind, in the aftermath of all this, is your words and actions. What you do during this crisis, what you sow, is what will reflect of you in the future.
Typing this, all I know is that love doesn’t take much, it doesn’t need much, it is not just between two people, or in the three synchronised words. Love is kindness, love is caring, its the smile you give to a stranger, it is getting basic supplies for those who can’t afford, asking your neighbour if they need any supplies from the same supermarket that you are planning to stock up unnecessarily from, it is reaching out to the survivors of the virus, and equally to those who are suffering from it, a text from you won’t risk your life but will only show the care and hope. It is informing those who don’t have accurate information, it is reaching out, it is about creating a safe communal place where individuals can turn to, it is about inclusion.
Together, we have dealt with so much worse than this.
This too shall pass. | https://medium.com/@southasian.wonderwoman/love-in-the-time-of-corona-4a1bf02fe5e9 | ['South Asian Wonder Woman'] | 2020-03-15 02:33:32.737000+00:00 | ['Corona', 'Virus', 'Hope', 'Humanity', 'Love'] |
COVID BLUES | COVID BLUES
Chapter 5: OUTSIDE THE DREAM
“Dele! Dele!!”
Kate held and shook him by the shoulders vigorously.
“Dele! Wake up!”
“Kango…….. Kango……….” His words were slurred, slow, unaware.
“Madam, you need to step aside please. I think he needs some air. You can’t be in his space like that and expect him to breathe”.
“But I’ve been calling you people nau. No-one has taken me serious. He’s waking up, he’s waking up”.
“Madam, please step aside. Let us do our job”.
“Is it because we haven’t paid? Is that why we’re being treated like this?”
“Madam, I’m going to have to ask you to please step out of the room so we can observe him and do our job”.
“I’m not going anywhere. He’s my husband. Since you people abandoned him I’ve been the one watching him. Now, you’re telling me to step out when he might just be waking up. No way”.
The nurse quietly shoved her out of the way and parted Dele’s eyelids to check his pupils.
His pupils followed the light.
“He’s just hallucinating, Madam. He’s still in the coma. We’ll have to wait for him to come around. In the meantime, please don’t suffocate him. Allow him breathe”.
“What do you mean, Nurse? Are you saying I’m strangling him by sitting by his bed? At least if I can’t help him, I can sit by him. Or is there a rule against sitting by one’s patient’s bed again?”
“I’ll soon be back, Madam. I have other patients to check”.
The nurse left the room.
Dele was still hallucinating about Kango.
Three days ago, Kate had received a call from the hospital nearby that her husband had been involved in an accident. She had rushed there to find that he had been abandoned there by a good Samaritan who claimed her husband had been struck by a reckless police officer in a police convoy, she was told. He fell into a gutter and hit his head, sending him unconscious. The good Samaritan had witnessed the event and had put him in his car with the help of other passers-by and taken him to the nearby hospital. He had also paid the admission fee to get him a bed and care for a day. He had not left a name or phone number, just that he would check again to see how the patient was faring.
Kate was devastated. She felt she had pushed him out to the street to look for work, and that that had caused him to get exposed to the unfortunate event. She had been told that the good Samaritan had paid the initial deposit of N12,000. Who does that for a stranger, she kept asking herself. Nigeria does not have such selfless people anymore. Why would someone be so kind as to take N12,000 out of their pocket and pay for the hospital admission of a total stranger, all spontaneously?
Right now though, she had more important fish to fry. She had been informed that she would need to pay for an MRI, CT Scan, Electroencephalography (EEG), Complete Blood Count and Electrolyte Glucose Thyroid Kidney Liver functioning Test as blood work. This was all too much for her. She did not have the slightest clue what each of these were, but by the time the expected bill for the tests came it was well north of N300,000. The weight of having to seek for financial assistance to first get her husband out of the coma, then get him to bounce back to good health was killing her. They did not even have enough to eat at home, now she had to figure out a way to cough out more money than she had ever held at one time.
She looked at him breathing sporadically. He head was heavily bandaged. The private hospital was not as noisy as one would have thought from outside, despite the fact that it wasn’t too far from the main road. There was not TV in this room; they were paying next to nothing, so they could not have a real room in the real sense of the word. She did not care for a TV right now, it wasn’t important. The air was heavy with that disinfectant smell you get in hospitals. She used to hate that smell. She didn’t have a choice now though. She had to be here all day, so………..
Why was God sending these tribulations to her in these uncertain times? And talking about God, she was fast losing faith. The church pastor had said things were tough at church too because the pandemic had forced worship centres to shut down indefinitely. She had begged him to send messages to other church members to come to their aid, but she had not got the best response. She was on her own. The children were at home by themselves and she had tried to cater for them every morning and evening when she went home to check on them. Most of her time was being spent at the hospital.
Dele had been bleeding into the brain for a while and the doctor had said they would have to perform the ‘borehole drainage’ procedure to suction the blood and relieve the pressure on the brain. The pressure was what was keeping him in coma, and if the pressure continued unabated he could go brain-dead soon. She needed to act fast. She had been informed that they were administering intravenous antibiotics before the results of the tests came. At least some of that had been paid for by the good Samaritan. He had also paid for the cleaning and management of the wound. The antibiotics would help fight infections that could come up while they were trying to get a hang of the situation. The situation was grim and she did not have anywhere else to look to. The church had disappointed her, she had no friends, he had no job and he hardly talked about his friends anymore. There was no help coming from anywhere.
Sitting by his bed she held his hand. She wasn’t confused; she was blank. She had no idea what to do. She had no faith anymore, faith was dead. She didn’t even have the urge to cry. She was just numb, her eyes swollen from worry and lack of sleep. She stared at his face. He was struggling in the coma. He had been saying, “Kango…….Kango……….”. Maybe she should call Kango to inform him. But Dele and Kango had not been in touch for many years now. How do you call your husband’s long lost friend and tell him you need financial assistance from him? That would be awkward. But maybe it was worth a try…… This wasn’t any ordinary call for assistance; this was life and death.
“Hello Madam”.
She turned towards the open door. There was a young lady wearing a loose fitting T-shirt and a pair of jeans.
“May I come in, Ma?”
Kate nodded, unsure who the pretty young lady was.
“My name is Nelly. I work for Channels TV. I was directed here by someone who said he brought in an accident victim a few days ago”.
Kate’s attention was arrested.
“Hope no problem”.
“No Ma, not at all. He told us what happened and said the man needed justice, but that justice could be better served if there was media coverage for the case. We took interest when he said it was done by police in a convoy”.
Kate stared at the lady. She couldn’t have been more than 25 years old, but she seemed to know how to carry herself and make her point.
“Listen Ma, I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, and I’m sorry I had to meet you at such a time and under such circumstances. But we need to create some form of media buzz around this to create awareness and get the perpetrators to book. This is dastardly”.
Kate stared on silently. So many things were fluttering through her mind right now. Her husband lay somewhere between life and death, clinging on for only God-knows-how-long more. She had no way of paying for his treatment or getting help. And here was a young woman, probably unmarried, telling her she wanted to make a story out of something that was killing her from the inside out. What is wrong with these media people? Then something else struck her.
“Where is the man who told you to come here?”
“I really don’t know, Ma. He’s a friend to one of our colleagues”.
“Can I get his contact?”
“I’m sorry Ma, but I can’t do that. I’m not directly connected to him, and I’m only here to do the story…..”
“Then get the person directly connected to him!”
The reporter was taken aback. She took out her phone and dialed.
“Yeah, hi. Can you please get me the number of your friend that told you about the police brutality case? Okay, thank you.”
She hung up.
“Someone is sending me the number, Ma”.
Kate ignored her, her stare icy.
“I sincerely apologise, Ma. I didn’t come here just for the story. Actually, well, I came here for the story, but because it was a compelling one. People have been complaining about how reckless and brutal our police are. This would be a testament to people’s agitation. This behaviour needs to end, and it can end with this crime against you and your family. We are just trying to do our part in stopping the ugly trend”.
Nelly’s phone beeped.
Then she dialed. It rang long.
“Hello Sir. My name is Nelly, a reporter with Channels. How are you, Sir?”
Kate looked up at her.
“I got your number from Ahmed. I was the one put on the case you came to report at our office. I’m here at the hospital now……….. Oh yes Sir. I’m in his room now……….. Well, he seems to be asleep, Sir…..”
“He’s in a coma”, Kate interjected.
“He’s in a coma Sir”, Nelly echoed. “There’s a woman here with him who says she wants to talk with you……. Okay…….. Please hold on for her”.
Kate took the phone.
“Good day, Sir. Thank you for helping my husband o……………….. I’m grateful……………….. No Sir, he’s not better o. He has been in a coma since I met him here. If not because you paid for his admission he would be dead by now. We don’t even have money for his tests, and they’re saying if he doesn’t do tests there’s nothing they can do for him. I’m hopeless right now………………….. No Sir, they’re not doing anything o. They’re just giving him drips. He’s talking in his sleep, and the doctor is saying he can go brain-dead in another 48 hours if we don’t act quickly. I’m helpless right now…………….”
The tears had started running. Nelly tried avoiding eye contact with Kate.
“I should hand the phone to her?…………………… Okay Sir.”
Nelly took the phone.
“Hello……………………….. Not really, but I can ask around……………… I’ll ask the nurses, or better still I’ll look for the doctor on call and ask. …………………. Alright Sir, I’ll call you back in 15 minutes”.
“Madam, who can I talk to concerning the tests and bill for your husband?”
Kate’s mouth dropped open.
Story by: ‘Jibola Oladiran
WATCH OUT FOR WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. | https://medium.com/@ajoladiran/covid-blues-d1c3b2d22ae5 | ['Jibola Oladiran'] | 2020-12-20 14:38:01.142000+00:00 | ['Poverty', 'Coma', 'Couples', 'Hospital', 'Covid 19'] |
Looking inside NoSQL Databases | Pros and Cons of NoSQL
The difference between SQL and NoSQL lies in the pros and cons of both. Let us discuss some of the Pros and Cons of NoSQL.
PROS of NoSQL:
* NoSQL is capable of handling and storing a large amount of data with little or no structure.
* It is economical and easy to install. There is no need to increase the hardware for scaling. More data can be processed at a minimum cost.
* NoSQL offers flexible scalability. It can work with low-cost hardware.
* NoSQL systems are capable of achieving high-level performances by limiting the range of what databases can do.
* It is low-cost and open source. Thus, NoSQL offers economical solutions for small enterprises.
* No need for detailed database modeling that will save you a lot of time.
* The ability of horizontal scaling. It is possible to add more inexpensive servers when your data requires more storage and connect them to the database clusters (horizontal scaling).
CONS of NoSQL:
* Inevitable consistency. NoSQL comes at the cost of relaxing ACID properties. You cannot learn enough about the semantics of the database due to the broad interpretation of ACID.
* Relatively less community support from vendors as compared to relational databases.
* Lack of standardization which creates problems during migration.
* Lack of flexibility in access patterns.
* NoSQL models were created for modern web applications. Hence it offers less analytic features for normal web applications.
List of Common NoSQL Databases
Redis : stands for REmote Dictionary Server. It is composed in ANSI C language, authorized under BSD, and is famous for a key-value store.Its an open-source database.It is an in-memory but persistent on-disk database.
: stands for REmote Dictionary Server. It is composed in ANSI C language, authorized under BSD, and is famous for a key-value store.Its an open-source database.It is an in-memory but persistent on-disk database. Amazon DynamoDB : uses a NoSQL database model, allows documents, graphs & columnar amount of data models.
: uses a NoSQL database model, allows documents, graphs & columnar amount of data models. Couchbase : its a NoSQL document database for interactive web applications. Comes with a flexible data model, is easily scalable, and offers consistently high performance.
: its a NoSQL document database for interactive web applications. Comes with a flexible data model, is easily scalable, and offers consistently high performance. MongoDB : open-source and document-oriented NoSQL database. Uses JSON like documents to share the data and is written in C++.MongoDB is a very popular and highly scalable database.
: open-source and document-oriented NoSQL database. Uses JSON like documents to share the data and is written in C++.MongoDB is a very popular and highly scalable database. Cassandra : it was developed at Facebook for inbox search. It is a distributed data storage system to handle large amounts of structured data. Cassandra is written in Java. It offers Cassandra Query Language (CQL), a SQL-like language for querying the Cassandra Database.
: it was developed at Facebook for inbox search. It is a distributed data storage system to handle large amounts of structured data. Cassandra is written in Java. It offers Cassandra Query Language (CQL), a SQL-like language for querying the Cassandra Database. Oracle NoSQL: it implements a map from user-defined keys to opaque data items.
it implements a map from user-defined keys to opaque data items. Apache HBase : distributed and non-relational Hadoop database ideally suited for storing Big data. Designed for the BigTable database by Google.
: distributed and non-relational Hadoop database ideally suited for storing Big data. Designed for the BigTable database by Google. RavenDB : it is a NoSQL document database. Offers a fully-transactional (ACID) data integrity across multiple documents.
: it is a NoSQL document database. Offers a fully-transactional (ACID) data integrity across multiple documents. Memcached: it is another popular in-memory key-value database.It is again open-source and has high-performance.
When to use NoSQL Database
Now that you know about the pros and cons of No SQL database, it is easier for you to decide when to use NoSQL Database. In the following cases, it will be ideal to use a NoSQL DB:
1. To handle a large amount of data. The data can be anything: structured, semi-structured, or unstructured.
2. If you have local data transactions that need not to be durable.
3. When you are required to follow modern software development practices.
4. If you need to do object-oriented programming.
5. If you are using schema-less data.
6. If you want to have economical yet efficient architecture.
7. If a relational database is not able to scale up the traffic in your budget.
We hope this article has helped you to have a better understanding of the NoSQL database and important pointers about the same. Thank you for reading.
PS: This article was originally published at: https://devopscurry.com/looking-inside-nosql-databases/ | https://medium.com/devopscurry/looking-inside-nosql-databases-24c7b0947c41 | [] | 2020-10-06 14:34:31.028000+00:00 | ['Redis', 'DevOps', 'Mongodb', 'NoSQL', 'Sql'] |
Build Offline Capable Apps With React Native and Redux Offline | NodeJS API
We will be creating a simple NodeJS API with Express and Sequelize. Express is a framework used to create REST APIs and Sequelize is an ORM that we will use to communicate with our PostgreSQL database. In the API we will build endpoints for creating new entries for image uploads and also for fetching a list of all of the image uploads currently in the database.
To start we’ll create a new empty NodeJS project. Run the following commands in a terminal to set up an empty package.json and then add in our dependencies
mkdir offline-uploads-api
cd offline-uploads-api
npm init -y
npm install --save express sequelize pg pg-hstore cors body-parser
npm install --save-dev sequelize-cli
Next, we will initialize the Sequelize configuration by running the following command.
npx sequelize-cli init
This will create a few new folders in our project:
config/
models/
migrations/
seeders/
We will be creating new models and migrations here shortly, but first, we need to add our local PostgreSQL instance to the development configuration in config/config.json
Now Sequelize knows where to find our database so we can create a table where we will be storing all of our image uploads. We will use the following command to create a model and migration for the uploads table.
npx sequelize-cli model:generate --name uploads --attributes id:bigint,file_name:string,image:blob
This will generate a model that we will make a couple of updates to. Update the contents of models/uploads.js to the following code.
For our example, we will actually be storing the images as base64 strings in the database. This is a valid approach to storing images, there is also the option of using something like S3 to handle the file storage. If you’re interested in how to do that be sure to check out my article below.
Also, be sure to update the migration for adding the uploads table to the database to the following code.
To execute the migration and add the table to the local database instance run the following command which will run everything in the migrations folder that hasn’t yet been applied to the database.
npx sequelize-cli db:migrate
After this executes successfully we should be able to query our database and see that we have a single table now name uploads with five columns and currently has no rows of data.
Now that we have the database ready to go we are ready to add the API endpoints for creating and fetching uploads. We will create the following endpoints:
POST /uploads
GET /uploads
Let’s create those now. We will create a new file at routes/uploads.js and add the following code.
Very simple as you can see. We create two endpoints and either write or fetch records in the database. Just one more file to finish off our API. We create a new file called index.js.
And that’s all the code we need for API. We will be calling the API in the next section from our mobile app. You can run the API by running the following command. | https://medium.com/swlh/build-offline-capable-apps-with-react-native-and-redux-offline-bcbffeeed857 | ['Matthew Brown'] | 2020-11-05 05:34:52.086000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'React Native', 'Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Software Development'] |
The Rejuvenating Toil | I saw the toiling of a whole day passing by my left foot as I was taking my nightly shower, after having sensed it flowing on my body, being washed away by hot water that loosened my head and my trapezius muscle.
But, a part of it stayed on me; its relieving one.
It’s what remains after the labor for something one considers highly valuable.
A sense of elevation, within the in-between field; like being a feather that can’t defeat gravity, but doesn’t lose its ability to fly either.
A feeling that I suddenly start “exhaling” a magical unspecified steam from the pores of my skin.
Rejuvenated, instead of exhausted. Revitalized through toiling for something wider than my personality’s microcosm.
An effort that offers a resting, which gradually leads to the effortless just be.
A non-contradicting contradiction.
Phenomenally oxymoron, but non-oxymoron underneath.
So, a shower turned into a lake of Catharsis, as I realized that one more day passed without me forgetting the Purpose.
Another earthly 24-hour context, with the Greek tragedy’s phases being manifested through small or big experiences of Anagnorisis, because I have chosen to consciously work for full self-awareness.
Another day with my omnipresent Self-Observer being heard; the other “me” — and part of me simultaneously — that watches me from the outside all day long, though it also lies within.
I don’t know how many “now” will I live until the final destination, but I know that — for a long time now — the voice of my Self sounds louder in me than the voice of my personality.
And this is something I conquered because I chose not to flinch in front of my 12 Herculean labours. | https://medium.com/queen-s-children/the-rejuvenating-toil-1f75d9a89a9 | ['Anthi Psomiadou'] | 2020-12-10 06:24:37.729000+00:00 | ['Awareness', 'The Score Of My Life', 'Prompt', 'Essay', 'Sacred Feminine'] |
Driving my AUDI for 06 months, Here comes the Feedback! | Hope you all are doing good, Pandemic made our lives harder than before. Accept it and be safe as much as you can.
AUDIs are angry
This is how it looked like when it is Imported & truly Virgin ( virgin in the sense, unregistered ) . Yes, then I registered it in SL Motor Traffic Authority. 🤫
This is how it looked like when it is fresh & unregistered.
She is 06 months old now. Have you watched my first ever car review? Just have a look. 😂
After 3–4 days of arrival
Why Germans over Japanese?
It is all about that it is in the luxurious category with high end premium quality. Yes it is. As per my personal experience,
Driving Pleasure is really high when compared to most of the Japanese vehicles ( in my case, i compare it with my previous car; Toyota Prius which is a really good one ). Engine Horse Power and Toque is really high and you feel it when you push the gas paddle. It is worse ( here, term worse in the sense high pickup 😂 ), when you put it in the SPORT mode. Also, the Manual Shift mode gives you the feeling, “Okay bro, now you are in a Drag Race, make sure you shift at right time”. A1 Sportback got 7 gears to shift, So you really need some practice there. 😉 Look. I personally like the look of Audis. Big Front panel with these four circles look really good. Sporty headlights make it even better. These are Xenon Automatic Headlights which comes with DRLs ( Daytime Running Lights), makes it more appealing. Headlight Washers are there too if you are looking for. Sound System. This is far better than Japanese ones. I swear. I do not know about new CH-R & RAIZE , but it is far ahead than the other Japanese ones. Options. Audis come with long list of options apart from the basic ones. This is natural with BMW,BENZ too. This is something i really like in German ones, it offers whole lot of options that Japanese ones never do until it hits 10–12 million price tag. You get some of these valuable options like, Automatic Windshield Wipers which adjust according to the rain, AUDI MMI ( multi-media interface ) with 20 GB internal Memory ( as far as i remember, it is 20G ), Automatic Engine start/stop, SPORT & MANUAL modes, Driver,Passenger and Curtain Air Bags, Side Air bags, 360^ Scanners for Collision Detection, Vehicle stability control system that you can manually on/off and etc…
Due to this pandemic, SL imports are banned and vehicle prices are touching the moon. I am pretty sure these prices won’t be going down in near future. If you are going to buy the sportback A1 which is the most cheapest one in AUDI family, 2019 A1 will cost you more than 6.5millions in Srilanka, Due to the taxes. Anyway, this is not the time to buy, because it will touch 7.0–7.5million ( 2019 A1 ) due to the pandemic.
Do i recommend Audi for my friend?
Why not? Yes of course. So i was talking about all the good about Sportback Audi A1. So, if you ask about anything negative?
I would like to have FOG Lights and it is optional in this model. If you want to fit original fogs then you have to replace the whole front panel. So, i gave up. It will cost you around 25000–30000 lkr for full service. But the positive point is, Oil Change interval is 10000Kms which is not the case with Japanese ones ( in my Toyota Prius it was 5000Km and cost around 12000lkr at that time ) . So, this won’t be a big problem if you are planning to buy. I do not know about spare parts cost yet, since fortunately i didn’t get any issue yet. Let’s see, maybe in future i can comment on this more. As far as i know spare parts cost little higher than Japanese ones. I like to have Sun Roof in my car, Unfortunately that model is not in Srilanka. I saw in UK & GERMANY, there is a spec that has Sun Roof. I like to have more space in back seats, but it is limited since this is the sportback model. No space in back seats, like in Toyota Prius/Premio.
Overall, I am really satisfied with AUDIs. I really need to go for a Q2 in future. That is a feeling you get when you have driven a German model, you will love it for sure. But the pandemic made us to hold everything back.
Hold on, Hold on. First save your life, Save some money, Work hard and Keep your jobs. Give sometime to play with cars!!! 😉 | https://medium.com/@nimeshjinarajadasa/driving-my-audi-for-06-months-here-comes-the-feedback-652856c26f82 | ['Nimesha Jinarajadasa'] | 2020-12-20 06:02:26.657000+00:00 | ['Audi', 'Automobile', 'Cars'] |
Learning By Doing in Node.JS | Outlook
This is a generalized practical implementation of using simple JavaScript with the essence of EcmaScript6 (ES6) to work with a server-side environment or specifically building REST API with the help of the Node.
Wait a minute… What’s a REST API?
REST stands for Representational state transfer, amazing but what does it mean.
A REST API works pretty much the same way a website does, we make a call from a client to the server and we get data back over the HTTP protocol, try visiting https://graph.facebook.com/youtube what we get back is a response to our API request, we have made our API request in our browser to Facebook’s graph API, what we get in response is commonly known as a JSON Object or JavaScript Object Notation formatted data.
It’s a structured data organized according to key-value pairs the same way an Excel spreadsheet is structured with key-value pairs and we might ask for the data that is in cell A17 of our sheet, similarly, we can ask this JSON array for let’s say we want to know how many likes this Facebook page had for the data contained under the key likes. | https://medium.com/swlh/learning-by-doing-in-node-js-30ae5e7bbb30 | ['Ali Lakhani'] | 2020-07-16 09:07:53.101000+00:00 | ['Expressjs', 'API', 'Node', 'Ecmascript 6', 'Node Js Tutorial'] |
Feel the Actual Hair Growth with Our Hair Growth Oil with Monistat | Grow Hair Oil
Hair loss is an unfortunate part of many people’s realities, for many different reasons. Identifying the causes is one of the first steps to defeating this problem, making it possible to cultivate a bountiful head of hair. Fortunately there are many products on the market that can assist with this troublesome bind. Our Grow Hair Oil is one of the most popular products available, because it helps nourish hair from root to tip.
Vitamins combined with the nourishing effects of the oil enrich the hair that exists and helps the follicles with the production of hair at a faster growth rate. One of the main reasons that hair loss occurs aside from the vitamin deficiency can be hormonal fluctuations, which also are addressed from time to time in cream or oil treatments.
How Hormones & Monistat Affecting Hair Growth & Non-Growth?
Growth Oil with Monistat may help hair growth with certain types of hair loss. The major functional component in Monistat is miconazole nitrate, an active antifungal agent. As an antifungal, miconazole might help to limit the various forms of fungal scalp infections, especially seborrheic dermatitis.
Two main hormones that affect the growth or non-growth as the case may be of your hair include estrogen and testosterone. The levels of these hormones are thrown out of balance at certain times of life, including puberty or menopause, leading to thinning hair. These oils come in a variety of pleasant scents that will give a truly refreshing experience when used liberally. With so many different options, it can be difficult to navigate the world of hair enhancement. | https://medium.com/@rebirthhair/feel-the-actual-hair-growth-with-our-hair-growth-oil-with-monistat-19d37c5c265b | ['Rebirth Hair', 'Skin Care'] | 2020-12-25 06:07:42.012000+00:00 | ['Hair Oil For Hair Growth', 'Shopping', 'Hair Growth Oil Natural', 'Hair Oil', 'Hair Growth Oil'] |
How Traipse Wants to Tokenise America’s Historic Main Streets | Staunton is just one of the many cities one can explore with Traipse, for the team of six, based in Washington D.C., is on a mission to put America’s downtowns back on the map:
Traipse lets people discover historic business districts in a playful manner. We work together with local tourism departments and downtown business associations to create fun walking tours that highlight a city’s one-of-a-kind stores, historic sites, art installations and other points of interest. — Darren Smith, Founder and CEO of Traipse
Not your typical city exploration app
Inspired by a local radio station in his childhood that would send its listeners on a treasure hunt and the Washington Post’s annual puzzle hunt, Traipse Founder and CEO Darren Smith believes their app can help revive the thousands of charming but often overlooked downtowns across the United States.
Traipse hopes to draw new visitors to historic business districts in small towns like Staunton, but also to those within bigger cities such as Washington D.C. and Baltimore. Darren explains:
We fully intend to incorporate big cities, partly because that’s where the users are, and if someone uses Traipse in Washington D.C. and likes the experience, they may be more inclined to travel an hour or two to discover smaller towns they normally wouldn’t visit.
Whether you select one of the predefined walking tours or you want to plan your own trip based on your interests, Traipse makes sure every tour highlights the locally owned businesses, historic buildings, colourful murals, monuments, and parks while adding a little element of fun.
Here’s a clue: The answer rhymes with ‘money’!
Every Traipse tour has at least one “location dependent challenge”, activated by a user’s current GPS location. So if you just passed this oil and vinegar shop in Staunton, you’ll be encouraged to enter the store in order to find the answer.
Now, you may ask for a hint, but that’ll cost you two Traipse Points! And believe me, you’ll want to earn as many points as you can. More on that below.
Darren believes these challenges make you more aware of your surroundings and it puts the spotlight on the locally owned stores without blatantly advertising them.
Gamification at it’s finest, if you ask me.
So, why would one want to earn Traipse Points in the first place? Well, because they can be exchanged for redeemable tokens, and those tokens are instrumental to Traipse’s grand vision of tokenising America’s downtowns.
Says Darren:
We expect to be the go-to travel experience app for travellers who enjoy visiting historic business districts and believe in supporting locally owned shops.
Boosting local economies through tokenisation
Traipse wants to create local currencies for every downtown, something which many business associations have tried in the past: Paper coupons, wooden nickels, plastic city cards. These initiatives came from a good place, but were often hampered by transaction fees, limited exchange venues and a low adoption rate by businesses and consumers alike.
OST CCO and Co-Founder Chris Dark wrote an excellent thought piece on why blockchain tokens should and will replace old-school loyalty programs:
With the dawn of blockchain, Darren believes Traipse can create a web of tokenised downtowns that spans across the entire United States, allowing local businesses to attract new costumers in a playful way while cutting down on transaction fees.
Traipse seems to be onto a “win-win for all” type of business model: Its users get to explore and appreciate historical commercial districts while the locally owned businesses can tap into a new niche of potential customers by joining Traipse’s mini-challenges free of charge.
For every riddle solved, the user gets rewarded with Traipse Tokens which can immediately be redeemed at the store, at any other participating business in town or even in a different downtown hundreds of miles away! | https://medium.com/ostdotcom/how-traipse-wants-to-tokenise-americas-historic-main-streets-f4ef645ec7c9 | ['Wouter Verhoog'] | 2018-10-29 11:32:43.652000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Tech'] |
Drone-based shading analysis streamlines onsite verification, increases safety and accelerates growth | Innovative drone-based tools are substantially changing the solar workflow. Drones can help solar contractors collect on-site, real-time data without cumbersome tools like ladders and tape measures. They boost safety by avoiding roof climbs prior to construction. Using drones and the right analysis tool, contractors can determine dimensions, pitch, azimuth, and automate the design process. Now, using Scanifly technology, installers can also determine and submit solar shading analysis in most places across the United States.
Scanifly’s software is the only drone-based 3D modeling platform exclusively built for solar. The company’s team has decades of experience in solar, having done almost every job in the industry.
Nothing Compares to Capturing Onsite Data, a Vital Industry Practice
Earlier this year, in partnership with leading curriculum providers Solar Energy International (SEI) and NABCEP, Scanifly hosted a webinar series with 500+ attendees — mostly solar contractors — from over 50 countries and all 50 U.S. states. We used that event to understand where innovations like drone-based tools can best help.
Asked about the accuracy of satellite imagery, 87% said it’s “OK” but always requires additional, onsite verification. We also learned that 98% of the solar industry visits project sites before construction — with more than one-third visiting before even closing the sale. As competition ramps up in local markets, this trend has grown, in part to maximize customer touchpoints and minimize reputation-damaging change orders.
When it comes to shading analysis, about as many people exclusively use satellite imagery (26%) as employ onsite tools (24%), while even more use a combination of both (29%). This points to the value of an initial design as well as the importance of a comprehensive final layout based on an onsite solution. When done manually, onsite shading tools can provide accuracy, but they still pose challenges for working safely and efficiently. Drone-based applications provide the best of both.
Furthermore, many solar contractors provide production guarantees, some as high as 90%. Fulfilling guarantees like this requires impeccable accuracy. An incorrect system output forecast can be fatal for a company’s solvency. Incorporating even greater precision (e.g. exact tree heights, vent pipes, adjacent buildings) into the system design and crafting a virtual replica, to-scale environment that only a drone can create is even more vital to a company’s success.
Scanifly’s global solar software, which is built on proprietary drone-based 3D modelling technology, includes the only drone-based shading analysis tools to be approved by regulators and lenders as bankable.
Scanifly’s New Shading Tools
Within the past few months, Scanifly has achieved significant breakthroughs as it relates to shading analysis:
First, Scanifly was certified by the California Energy Commission as the only drone-based tool for shading in the Golden State. California’s Title 24, Part 6, says that all newly built homes must have solar. Scanifly’s solution is essential for California’s CF2R Solar Access Verification process, which requires a “solar assessment report must be created after the installation,” including real-time imagery.
Second, Scanifly created the industry’s first horizon shade-analysis tool with a panoramic simulation of the real-world surrounding environment. This shading product satisfies additional financing requirements and provides a virtual view of the surrounding area.
Before these recent achievements, Scanifly already had been validated in New York, Massachusetts and Texas. Last year, Solar Power World reported that NYSERDA and MassCEC validated Scanifly as the only drone-based tool in New York and Massachusetts, respectively. Austin Energy and other regulators have also validated the software.
Scanifly’s shading tools are proven to be within 1° of the Solmetric SunEye, another onsite shading tool. This comparison was required by state agencies and documented in a case study. The software has also been proven to be equal to, if not more accurate, than satellite imagery-based tools.
Scanifly’s drone-based 3D modelling tools allow solar professionals to quantify shading, including determining solar access values, TOF and TSRF, which factor into shading losses and production analysis. The software also has a qualitive shading simulation that can be visually informative.
COVID-19 and Solar
Despite a challenging year with COVID-19 and its economic impact, the solar industry remains resilient. While COVID has motivated solar contractors to promote remote selling, in many cases this has not replaced the need to get a real-time view of the site. Anecdotally, we have heard of portfolio redesigns due to satellite imagery limitations as high as 75%. An onsite assessment also provides another touch point to further cement strong customer relationships.
Drones provide the right balance of speed and accuracy, while respecting social distancing. (See this previous article, “Three ways to improve your solar business during COVID-19.”) They also provide fantastic imagery to help close more sales and show a to-scale 3D model of the solar project.
With the challenges of 2020 and the opportunity for growth in 2021, shading analysis tools like Scanifly that leverage drone data to simplify and improve solar project planning are poised to play a significant role in the industry’s acceleration.
Jason Steinberg is the CEO of Scanifly, the leading drone-based 3D modelling software for the solar industry. Prior to Scanifly, Jason was a solar rooftop installer, clean energy researcher for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and banker for CohnReznick Capital. He is a NABCEP PV Associate and CFA Charterholder. | https://medium.com/@Scanifly/drone-based-shading-analysis-streamlines-onsite-verification-increases-safety-and-accelerates-26e5e43f7142 | [] | 2020-11-17 13:42:19.549000+00:00 | ['Photogrammetry', 'Drones', 'Solar Energy', 'Drones Technology', 'Solar Power'] |
Day 7.5 …. Poetry Anonymous Meeting. | Hi Group. I’m Passion
Group: Hi Passion.
Passion: So I’ve been inactive for a week. I know it’s not a lot of time. I’m usually ablaze. Radiating like the Sun flares. I shine bright. So aluminise that I burn those around me. Like the Phoenix I do not just burst into flames and set my soul on fire. To rise again from the ashes. I skald those around me, in the designated area that are fire proof. Storm proof, hurricane proof, me proof. But they enter. Or are there by circumstance, like my old partners. Who loved the fire within me, but hated the after effects. You know like when you drink too much you have a hangover. Well when ignite, I usually singe everything around me. And I notice he takes the flare, takes the hit from my fire that leaves holes in his armour.
Poetry: But wait you have to tell the whole story….
Passion: God damn it Poetry. Why do you have to interfere?
Poetry: Well explain it truthfully then…
Passion: Oh here she goes again …
Poetry: Well… I thought so. So what happened was… She didn’t want to write no more. Didn’t want to be with me and decided she wanted to take leave. And ended the connection we had which was me. Poetry. The only thing we had was the pain. From love gone wrong. Nearly going right. Nope you was wrong. Your emotionally stability to instability. Your religious belief to disbielf. But you stopped. Stopped putting pen to paper. Finger to tablet. To your keyboard. Seems like someone forgot who they needed to call. You left me hanging, waiting by the phone. Hoping you would call and whisper sweet painful memories to me.
Passion: You see, this is why I don’t write anymore. I can’t write about how everything is fuked up. Of how lonely and sad the world has made us the minority. That we are part of a statistic that have had their heartbroken too much. I don’t want to do it.
Therapist: Then why are you here?
Sincerely Your
Isha A Poet xx | https://medium.com/@ishaapoet/day-7-5-poetry-anonymous-meeting-1e1d037d3315 | ['Isha A Poet'] | 2020-12-08 00:24:55.072000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Poetry', 'Screenplay', 'Screenwriting', 'Poetry On Medium'] |
XYO World Lowdown — Annotated Rules of Primary Minting | Geotokens are offered by automated auction, which begins as soon as a geotoken is created from its parent.
“A new bid can be any value that is higher than the current (or starting) bid, but must be at least 8% higher. Given the high cost of gas for ETH transactions, we wanted to prevent users from out bidding by a small amount to just get the other user to not follow up with a bid.
When someone is been over bid, they lose the gas that they spent on making their initial bid. Giving them a slight gain from the new bidder allows them to recover some or all of that cost. This also significantly reduces the downside of bidding early, allowing for more activity early in the auction.
Auctions will never be less than 3 days and can be as long as 40+ days. If all the auctions had the same duration, then they would synchronize and all the auctions would end around the same time, barring mint-it-now activity to change that. This allows us to have auctions that have their end times spread out over time.
The random number generator creates numbers on a curve with peak frequency at 8 days, but with a long tail on the right side, which pulls the mean out further than the median. Our goal is to have the majority of auctions lengths spread out over 14 days, but also allow for some interesting, long auction times.”
— Arie | https://medium.com/xyonetwork/xyo-world-lowdown-annotated-rules-of-primary-sale-89d6728caefa | ['Maryann Cummings'] | 2020-08-23 19:34:03.232000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Ethereum', 'Staking', 'Xyo', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
An “AWS” for Blockchain, part 1/3 | Decentralized Infrastructure
Friend consists of a network of servers and clients (most of the time running in a web browser). The server side of things provide you with storage space, computing power, redundancy and services — which is “consumed” by the clients. Whilst FriendUP gives you a virtual Cloud Computer, the Friend Network of servers also gives you a virtual data center with nearly unlimited resources at your fingertips.
This virtual data center can be used for anything. For example, to run a web site. Or to offer a server backed API. Or to boost your own multiplayer game server network.
In the conventional world, Amazon Web Services(AWS) may not fully equate with the Friend Network(FN) in every aspect. It is utterly huge, well established, and we are just getting started. Still, the comparison makes sense for a number of reasons. FN has generic infrastructure on offer — decentralized and implemented using Blockchain technologies — but the infrastructure is analogous to AWS. It can be used to achieve the same things.
Amazon offers flexible infrastructure based on configurable virtual machines. You spin up your environment, install and configure any kind of software and then scale once an instance maxes out due to heavy load. The services are relatively cheap, and the costs increase fairly as you need more horsepower.
AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and others are all wonderful feats of engineering. Problem is, they are centralized. They are owned by a giants growing ever larger, and as we have seen with several other Silicon Valley companies, these become politicized over time. You are never sure about where they will go after the next quarter. They may start sharing data with national intelligence agencies. They may suddenly start censoring, as a result of a law suit. They are far from neutral players. And by the end of the day, their decision making process are far removed from the people who those policies may concern. The users. And in these time of rapid disruptions, not only in technology, but in policy, users who just want to deploy and utilize tech may have their concerns.
The Friend Network will be able to offer much of what AWS do, but in a decentralized way. As a hub for other Blockchain projects, you will be able to find all the technologies in one place; databases, storage space, data services, compute power, monitoring and administration. The services will be based on shared resources and technology that is owned by the users. This is what people want. The faith in the global hegemonic technology powerhouses is failing. And we are offering an agnostic — non political infrastructure, albeit on philosophical foundations (see our five pillars). | https://medium.com/friendupcloud/an-aws-for-blockchain-part-1-3-f4d918561dd9 | ['Hogne Titlestad', 'Co-Ceo', 'Founder', 'Friend Software'] | 2018-02-22 13:45:31.867000+00:00 | ['Distributed Systems', 'Cloud Computing', 'Infrastructure', 'Blockchain'] |
This Ain’t Boheme | La Boheme has never been one of my favorite operas.
It’s melodramatic, much like most operas, and the plot is way too thin. Sure, it has its moments. Last time the SF Opera did Puccini’s opus, my parents and my sisters were glued to their seats while most of act one I enjoyed a Mojito at the lounge, occasionally slipping my way through the mezzanine to catch a glimpse of, oh, maybe Musetta’s Waltz or Ehi! Rodolfo!
La Boheme, as a dramatic piece apart from theatrics, doesn’t work. Or maybe it just takes too much effort to participate and enjoy.
This is the inherent problem of Rent, the musical/rock opera that’s now an uneven film by Chris Columbus. The basis material isn’t all that strong to begin with. Many would probably throw tomatoes at me but let’s face it; we’ve been serenaded by Puccini’s majestic compositions.
Rent, much like its inspiration, relies on the theatrics — heavily. It’s melodramatic and operatic on purpose, broad in movement and large on notes. When I performed the piece as Roger (Adam Pascal), the music and the vocal arrangements were heavy undertakings — and that’s for all the performers involved in the show.
Rent works best with a live audience cheering the piece on. On film, it has the sad distinction of sounding like one man clapping.
The weakness of the film lies in a director with no musical knowledge. As much as I’ve had the pleasure to meet the man, and be so involved in Rent and all it encompasses, Columbus was the wrong guy to do the film version. The original choice for director, Spike Lee would have made the film an event equivalent to its stage counterpart.
The performances aren’t the problem. All the original cast members sing, act, and dance the roles they’ve perfected to a higher level of greatness and Traci Thoms as Joanne shows she has what it takes to be with the originals. The weak spot in the cast is Rosario Dawson, who just isn’t as meaningful enough for me as Mimi. Mimi should have spunk but also be a genuine spirit. That character is the heart of the piece and sadly, she just doesn’t fit the role. When she sings to Roger that there is ‘no day but today,’ it isn’t a plea, it’s a prayer — to hang on to what we have, and to cherish those we love. Dawson’s Mimi makes it seem like any other day, when the whole point of the song is the exact opposite.
Understand that I’m trying to be as fair as possible with this review, considering I’ve seen the original cast, did the show, and was involved in the film version (even though it sure doesn’t seem like it after seeing the final cut).
Rent, by Jonathan Larson was and is an unfinished product. The charm of the piece came from its rough and frayed edges. To fine-tune it to film almost zaps the life out of it. A majority of the second act was rushed and cut out of the movie making the resolution so muddled. This was the biggest mistake Columbus did with the film — he tinkered with the course of the piece way too much to alter it, yet he kept the numbers much the way they are. Songs that shouldn’t have been cut were cut, and songs that could have been shaved a verse here and there were kept in tact.
Yet this also contributed to the success of the film. For the most part, he kept most of the songs and their arrangements in tact, and the songs have never sounded so glorious. The opening number, with all the tenants burning their rent agreements while belting out ‘we’re not going to pay rent’ brought me back to the Nederlander Theatre on Broadway and much of the Life Support scenes we’re translated so damn well on to the screen that I have to give Columbus credit for that.
Yet the best moment of the film in my opinion came from Collins (the always awesome Jesse L. Martin from Law & Order) as he heartbreakingly sings the “I’ll Cover You Reprise” with such gusto and honesty to Angel’s (Wilson Jermaine Heredia who won a Tony as Angel) coffin. I have to admit that this cinematic moment stood out from its theatrical rendition. On stage, it’s an exortation, on film it’s a cry for longing and it just brings into full circle the true theme of the piece, from Puccini’s to Jonathan Larson’s imperfect masterpiece — live life in love — amidst death and disease.
But maybe that is the true problem with the piece itself. Or maybe the film is ten years too late, considering we live in a society numbed by its surroundings. Ironically, that’s what the film — the musical tells us not to do — to numb ourselves from the harsh reality.
AIDS is still a problem, not just in Africa.
Tolerance is still an issue.
But we’ve become the very opposite of bohemia with our lattes and our weblogs. So maybe, Benny (Taye Diggs) was right.
Bohemia is dead.
Or coud it be that the message of Rent is too simple for a larger audience, much less a cynical and sarcastic society? Can we truly measure our life in love? Or maybe its too idealistic? Do we as an audience lack any kind of joie de vivre from such testaments to simple ideas? It couldn’t be that the piece is dated because the show is still going strong in New York.
But that’s New York. The show is very much about them. And let’s face it, they seem to be in tune to a lot of things over there.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the key to Rent, or even La Boheme for that matter, isn’t in the piece itself.
It is in our willingness to participate — wholeheartedly — in art that dares to challenge us.
Perhaps next time I see La Boheme at the Opera, I should hold off on that Mojito.
RATING: C+ | https://medium.com/the-filmguy/this-aint-boheme-80820978f60f | ['Enrico Banson'] | 2017-01-30 09:36:17.289000+00:00 | ['Film Reviews', 'Movie Musicals', 'Chris Columbus'] |
Christmas 🎄 with Bitcoin.com Exchange | In the spirit of the holiday season, we are giving away exclusive Bitcoin.com Exchange branded merchandise.🎁
To join the Christmas🎄 with Bitcoin.com Exchange promotion, simply you have to post a creative photo or video with the Bitcoin.com Exchange decorations to be in with a chance of winning! 🌟
Win the limited edition Bitcoin.com Exchange sturdy mug which is perfect for your morning coffee, afternoon tea, or whatever hot beverage you enjoy during trading! Or wear our exclusive branded hoodie which is soft, stylish, and perfect for the cooler evenings.🎁
Here is what you have to do to win: 🎉
Download our Christmas decoration here. 🎄
Print, cut, and fold the Bitcoin.com Exchange decorations.
Post a picture or video of the Bitcoin.com Exchange branded decorations in a Christmas setting, whether on a Christmas tree or through other ways! Be as creative and original as possible.
When posting the photo or video, don’t forget to include the hashtag #ChristmasWithBEx. Please make sure to use the hashtag and tag us on social media: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube.
You’ll have the chance to win our exclusive Bitcoin.com Exchange merch pack including a Bitcoin.com Exchange hoodie or Bitcoin.com Exchange mug with bubble-free stickers. There will be a total of 10 winners, 5 hoodie packs and 5 mug packs.
Please note that the prizes will be allocated based on Bitcoin.com Exchange’s decision.
You better start with the decorations! The Christmas promo will run from Thursday, 10th of December 2020 at 12:00 UTC till Monday 28th of December 2020 at 23:59 UTC.
Terms and Conditions | https://medium.com/@bitcoincom-exchange/christmas-with-bitcoin-com-exchange-4809228ffeff | ['Bitcoin.Com Exchange'] | 2020-12-21 12:16:06.806000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrenc', 'Celebrate', 'Christmas', 'Exchange', 'Merchandize'] |
Pool Operator Certification | This online self-paced course takes you through the APSP Service Tech Manual and gives you what you need to know to conform to industry standards. You will be able to explain common problems with pool finishes and how to repair them; keep pools running more efficiently with a better understanding of circulation, filtration, hydraulics and electricity; grow your practical knowledge and gain troubleshooting skills and resources; and distinguish yourself as an experienced and knowledgeable service technician.
You do not need to have completed the CMS certification in order to take this course and sit for the CST exam, but you will be expected to have acquired the core knowledge covered in that course. We recommend that you have at least 1–2 years of experience in pool/spa service and repair to expect to be successful on the certification exam.
Target Audience: The CST course is for individuals with at least 1–2 years of experience in pool and spa service and repair.What You Get With The Course:
Eight weeks access to the virtual course
APSP Service Technician Manual
CST Certified Service Technician Workbook
Course Outline:
Safety
Chemical Safety
Drowning and Accident Prevention
Electrical Safety
Filter Safety
Business Practices
Basic Calculations
Customer Service
Legal Considerations
Troubleshooting Resources
Water Quality
Basic Water Chemistry
Chemical Safety
Pool and Spa Water Sanitizers
Water Balance
Water Testing
Structures and Finishes
Pool and Spa Structures
Interior Finishes and Repairs
Spa Shell Repairs
Circulation, Filtration and Hydraulics
The Circulation System
Filter Rate, Efficiency and Performance
Hydraulics
Pumps
New Design Considerations
Electrical Requirements
Basic Electrical Circuit
Basic Electricity
Pool and Spa Lighting
Heaters and Optional Equipment
Gas Heaters
Heat Pumps
Chemical Feeders and Generators
Control Systems
Electromechanical (Pneumatic) Controls
Understanding Control Systems
Maintenance
Routine Maintenance
Seasonal and Special Care
Covers
Startup Procedures
CEUs: 24
Course Fee: $573/member and $723/non-member. This fee includes the Service Tech Manual, which will be shipped to you once you register.
Exam Information: To become certified as a CST Certified Service Technician®, you must complete the CST course and take the CST Exam. An additional registration form and $115 fee for the CST exam is required. The CST exam is 2.5 hours long, open book exam with 100 multiple choice questions. You must score 75% or better to pass (answering at least 75 questions correctly).
Choose How to Take the Exam:
On a computer at a PSI computer testing center near you. Computer testing gives immediate test results and flexible time to take the exam.
Computer testing gives immediate test results and flexible time to take the exam. At an APSP national, regional or chapter-sponsored testing event. A list of upcoming events can be found at APSPUniversity.org. You will receive your exam results by US Mail approximately 3 weeks after the exam.
Please contact APSP at [email protected] or 703–838–0083 ext. 127 for additional information on the CST exam and application process.
Objectives
Learning Objectives: After completing this course the student will be able to explain common problems with pool finishes and how to repair them; keep pools running more efficiently with a better understanding of circulation, filtration, hydraulics and electricity; grow your practical knowledge and gain troubleshooting skills and resources; and distinguish yourself as an experienced and knowledgeable service technician.
How You Will Benefit:
Advance your career and earn the in demand skills employers want.
Become eligible to sit for the CST exam.
Earn 24 CEUs
ABOUT THE AUTHOR-
https://www.portofinouniversity.com/ — Pool Operator Certification — Portofino offers a superior experience and superior results in pool industry education. Whether you are ENTRY LEVEL or HIGHLY ADVANCED, we have classes that will help you take your career to the next level.
CONTENT-
Portofino University
6005 Powers Avenue · Suite 101·
Jacksonville, Florida 32217
Office: (904) 338–0577 | https://medium.com/@edna_64270/pool-operator-certification-1c35b1e5faf4 | ['Pool Operator Certification'] | 2019-10-17 07:52:49.950000+00:00 | ['Certification'] |
All multivariate time series are not born equal | If you’re looking for good strategies to explore, analyze and model univariate time series, you will probably find hundreds of them (including some great pieces on Medium): checking stationarity, building autoregressive models, uncovering seasonality, detecting and cleaning outliers, etc. Check out this series of articles from Mehul Gupta, starting with some basic terminologies:
Now… Let’s say you want to learn more about multivariate timeseries? In this case, if you’re like me, most of the articles and books you can find might not be of great help either from a theoretical or a practical standpoint… Even worse, if you’re interested into dealing with industrial time series, most of the examples you find are about weather data, financial trading stocks, e-commerce or retail data… Most of them are data small enough that you can actually have a sneak peak in Excel…
You may have hundreds if not thousand of sensors data coming from industrial pieces of equipment at a high frequency (imagine 5 years of data coming from 5,000 sensors at a 10ms frequency)… This is where a sound framework for multivariate time series is desperately needed: in this article, we are going to look into what makes multivariate industrial data so different from most univariate time series we can find in usual data science challenges. In the conclusion, we will set the stage for future articles that will specifically deal with industrial time series.
N.B.: in this article, you will see me use indifferently time series, signal or tag: these are quite common terminology when dealing with such type data.
Call to action
I intend to continue exploring industrial time series in future articles and even build Python packages and example Jupyter notebooks. If anyone has some industrial time series data they are ready to make publicly available so that we can blog about them (and even build benchmarks), leave me note! Happy to work together on ways to anonymize them and find a suitable way to host them!
Univariate? Multivariate?
Let’s dive in the different flavors of time series signals one can find:
Univariate time series data: a single series of a time-dependent variable (e.g. the energy output in kWh of a power plant).
time series data: a single series of a time-dependent variable (e.g. the energy output in kWh of a power plant). Multiple time series: multiple univariate time series about different phenomena, entities or events (e.g. the electricity consumption of all the arc furnaces a steel producer operates in Europe)
time series: multiple univariate time series about different phenomena, entities or events (e.g. the electricity consumption of all the arc furnaces a steel producer operates in Europe) Continuous multivariate time series: multiple time series applied to the same phenomenon, entity or event which is operating or happening continuously (e.g. the measurements taken by all the temperature, pressure and vibration sensors installed on a compressor)
time series: multiple time series applied to the same phenomenon, entity or event which is operating or happening continuously (e.g. the measurements taken by all the temperature, pressure and vibration sensors installed on a compressor) Discrete multivariate time series: multiple time series applied to a sequence of successive events (e.g. the measurements taken by all the sensors on a shampoo production lines that produces several batches of different products every days)
Univariate time series
A univariate time series is a series of a single time-dependent variable. For instance, this is what the maximum temperature around London looked like in early November 2011: | https://towardsdatascience.com/all-multivariate-time-series-are-not-born-equal-ba2d26e2528e | ['Michaël Hoarau'] | 2020-12-29 17:32:35.127000+00:00 | ['Getting Started', 'Time Series Analysis', 'Editors Pick', 'Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Rivian, The Adventure In Electric Pickups Just Got Interesting | When looking at Tesla’s stocks, investors look at the technology besides the financial indicators. Tesla has promising innovations that have not been matched by legacy automakers, in terms of development. The old automakers are more used to mass producing vehicles for the retail market, but they don’t quite have the EV(Electric Vehicle) line that Tesla has. The full vertical integration within the Tesla production line allows them to compete proving to be their comparative advantage, though as Tesla realized, they had to go through a production hell process in building the Model 3. It was actually a good learning experience since Tesla also built some new equipment along the way.
The Tesla Cybertruck (Source Tesla)
The next big target for EV is the pickup truck market. The interest is growing based on data gathered from social media (e.g. Twitter). The Cybertruck would be the electric answer to the Ford F-150 or Dodge Ram. The latter have become iconic staples to modern life, especially for those who have a great utility for driving a pickup. Your typical pickup owner needs it for loading and transporting heavy loads, like a small truck. The Cybertruck, from its look and design, doesn’t seem to offer that but its selling point are its capabilities and features. Tesla was supposed to deliver a modern version of the pickup, but critics have to look away from its design in order to appreciate it. So far they have this market without a close competitor in sight … until 2020.
The Rivian
Now comes Rivian, another EV automaker from California (Southern California). They are going to enter this market with their own line of electric pickup trucks. The most noticeable difference with Tesla is the exterior design. Rather than an unconventional look, Rivian looks like your traditional pickup truck. From a consumer price point, the Rivian follows the same strategy Tesla used with the Model 3. You pre-order for $1,000 and pay the rest later. The final retail cost is a bit pricey ($69,000.00 USD) compared to traditional pickup trucks. That factors in the cost of the EV production, with the benefit of saving the costs for gas or diesel. The price is about right when compared to Tesla, but the Cybertruck has lower cost tiers for its single and dual motor models. The higher end Cybertruck is a tri-motor AWD model.
The R1T (Source Rivian)
The Rivian’s pickup truck line R1T, introduce quad-motor all wheel terrain with independent air suspension and hydraulic roll control. It has a high capacity 180 kWh battery which was developed in-house. It has got a maximum towing capacity of 11,000 lbs., which actually still falls behind more powerful gas engine pickup trucks. The Ram Heavy Duty 3500, named Motortrend 2020 Truck of the Year, can tow 35,100 lbs, with a Hemi V8 engine. The best for towing though is the Chevrolet Silverado 3500HD which can tow up to 35,500 lbs. with a Duramax diesel V8 engine. The Rivian units are still in prototype and expected for delivery around June 2021. That is plenty of time for things to develop and also for more competition.
Rivian is also making the R1S which is an SUV. It is the counterpart to the Model X, though it seems that R1S is more capable of heavy duty action. This is the market Rivian wants to capture as well, though there are already competing electric and hybrid SUV in the market from the likes of Audi and Jaguar. A full electric model though, is more the advantage of Tesla since the other automakers have released hybrids. This is what the R1S will be up against.
The Battery
We cannot talk about EV without discussing the battery. It’s well known that Tesla has the best proven battery technology for EV. They have a sophisticated cooling and management system BMS (Battery Management System), that is standard on Tesla’s models. While some automaker’s overheat, Tesla production units have performed very well. Tesla has plans for its “Million Mile Battery” which could further disrupt the auto industry as it pushes for more efficient battery design that can increase the range of existing batteries with less charging times.
Rivian’s battery uses a BMS to optimize cell performance and extend battery life. This would implement a form of machine learning model to allow the BMS software to learn how driver’s use and charge the pickup. They also place emphasis on all terrain driving by providing a proprietary underbody protection for the battery to prevent damage. This is a feature that will appeal to pickup truck enthusiasts because at times they drive off-road on rough terrain. This is your typical scenario on a ranch, farm or country road where a pickup truck is preferred because of its utility.
Rivian’s battery pack (Source Rivian)
The 180 kWh battery can provide significant range. On Rivian’s website, the claim is a 400+ mile range for their battery. That is about 55.5 miles/ 25 kWh at a 400 mile range. Compared to the Cybertruck, which has a 250+ mile range. The superior range is advertising at best, but in reality there are many factors that can affect or limit the range. 400+ miles does give an idea of what the battery’s highest range is capable of. Range anxiety has been one reason car buyers reconsidered purchasing an EV, but now batteries are providing longer ranges and more availability of charging stations.
Charging Stations
The good thing about Tesla is they provide an international charging network for their customers. Rivian does not have that robust infrastructure yet, which they are still developing. They will have time before the 2021 launch to start building, because this is an essential part of an EV system. Rivian owners will not likely be able to charge at Tesla’s charging facilities because there is a difference between their models. They don’t follow a “plug-and-charge” standard quite yet or maybe never.
There are connector specifications for EV when it comes to chargers. Rivian uses CCS (Combined Charging System) for their EV, so it has a different connector from Tesla. It uses a Combo 1 and Combo 2 connector that can provide up to 350 kW for charging. Having the correct cables and connectors with a compatible charger is important for drivers to have, otherwise they won’t be able to charge their EV.
Combo 2 Charger Plug (Source BMW)
Rivian users can still charge their EV at home, but that takes longer than a fast charging station. Typically it would take hours using conventional AC outlets (110/120V). It gets a little faster at 220/240V, but is not as fast as that from a charging station. There are existing CCS charging stations Rivian owners can use, providing 150 kW to 350 kW in some places. At 150 kW charging, the battery can reach full at an estimated time of 1.2 hours. At 350 kW, the battery charging time is estimated at 30.8 minutes. Charging times do continue to improve with battery design, so these estimates can fall further.
Self-Driving Features
When you think pickup trucks, what usually comes to mind is mean, lean, towing machine capable of heavy workloads and reliable performance. The new generation of electric pickups offer even more. It brings the digital lifestyle to the pickup truck as well. Tesla can offer limited self-driving features (upgradeable to full SAE Level 5) along with various intelligent sensors that traditional pickup trucks don’t use. The Autopilot is coming standard with the Cybertruck.
The Rivian provides SAE Level 3 self-driving features. It has yet to be tested in the real world. Tesla’s Autopilot is not itself error prone, since it has had its unfortunate taste of accidents and even fatalities. Level 3 allows an intelligent system to take control with “conditional automation”. That means the driver can override the system and take control when they need to. With Level 3, the car can actually drive itself so the driver can take their hands off the steering wheel. The driver can then take back control by placing their hand on the steering wheel.
Rivian self-driving system is similar to Tesla, but more refined. Unlike Tesla, Rivian uses a sensor fusion that combines cameras, radar, GPS and ultrasonic sensors with LIDAR. Tesla does not use LIDAR on any of their line. The LIDAR allows the car to see in dark conditions using lasers. If Rivian proves their self-driving system meets the highest of standards in safety, then it reassures consumers.
Level 3 Autonomy using sensors like radar, ultrasonic and LIDAR (Source Rivian)
Final Thoughts
The appeal to your average pickup truck user is the simplicity of the Rivian design. It looks familiar and not out-of-this world like the Cybertruck. We must not forget that we cannot judge a car by its exterior alone. Both electric pickups have advanced features that bring the power of electric motors and a more digital electronic system to the pickup truck. However, they have a long way to go to match up against traditional pickup trucks in terms of towing capacity and utility. More serious car buyers who really need to use a pickup truck for work purposes may still stick to the gas or diesel engine variety until electric pickup trucks have proven their value.
The R1T could be more than for work, but also for play and recreation (Source Rivian)
The R1T looks better on paper compared to the Cybertruck. While the Cybertruck has that futuristic look going for it, under the hood the R1T has the better specifications. In terms of range and towing capacity, the R1T has the better overall data. That doesn’t mean the Cybertruck’s performance is sub-par. The Cybertruck’s approach angle (35 Degrees) may give it some advantage for off-road and rough terrain driving.
There is no actual performance data available other than baseline tests. There are no benchmarks on actual performance since Rivian’s line, the R1T and R1S, have no proven track record. Pickup trucks like the F-150 and Ram have been around for decades so we know their reliability, there is just no comparison with Rivian. We have to see Rivian’s electric pickup in action to make an impression. Other automakers are coming after the heels of Rivian and Tesla, so the next few years should get more interesting in the electric pickup truck market. | https://medium.com/0xmachina/rivian-the-adventure-in-electric-pickups-just-got-interesting-ec1371a31ad5 | ['Vincent Tabora'] | 2020-08-30 11:39:40.205000+00:00 | ['Automotive', 'Engineering', 'Electric Car', 'Self Driving Cars', 'Technology'] |
Easy Vegan Tofu Mayo | While everybody is posting pics of beautifully decorated cookies and cakes, I decided to go back to basics with a recipe for vegan mayo.
No need to panic if you run out; it’s really easy to make your own!
I used to love Trader Joe’s vegan mayo but they’ve either been out of it for a long time or maybe they just stopped selling it, so I decided to experiment with my own version.
It’s simple and tasty but next time I’ll use vegetable oil instead of olive oil–that’s a personal preference because I don’t really like the taste of olive oil.
Easy Vegan Tofu Mayo
–7oz silken tofu
–1/3 cup oil
–1TBS lemon juice
–1tsp vinegar
–1 tsp (or more to your taste) dijon mustard
–1/4–1/2 tsp sea salt (to your taste)
Place all of the ingredients in the cup of an immersion blender and blend until smooth and thick.
Add a little more lemon juice if too thick. It should look exactly like mayo and spread easily.
If you don’t have silken tofu, you can try it with the firm option, but it won’t be as velvety.
That’s IT. Nothing fancy. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
And VERY healthy; packed with protein thanks to the tofu. | https://medium.com/@enchantedcshel/easy-vegan-tofu-mayo-99081457c8b3 | ['Enchanted Seashells Princess Rosebud'] | 2020-12-24 18:25:54.904000+00:00 | ['Cooking', 'Vegan', 'Veganism', 'Vegan Recipes'] |
Awaken (2020) Capitulo 7 Subtítulos en Español | Episode 7 | Mysterious cases take place in a town. These mysterious cases are connected to cases that took place 76 years ago. Do Jung-Woo and Kong Hye-Won try to uncover the secret behind the cases from 76 years ago and the present day cases.
Title : Awaken
Episode Title : Episode 7
Release Date : 21 Dec 2020
Runtime : 60 minutes
Genres : Drama , Mystery , Suspense
Networks : tvN
TELEVISION 👾
(TV), in some cases abbreviated to tele or television, is a media transmission medium utilized for sending moving pictures in monochrome (high contrast), or in shading, and in a few measurements and sound. The term can allude to a TV, a TV program, or the vehicle of TV transmission. TV is a mass mode for promoting, amusement, news, and sports.
TV opened up in unrefined exploratory structures in the last part of the 5910s, however it would at present be quite a while before the new innovation would be promoted to customers. After World War II, an improved type of highly contrasting TV broadcasting got famous in the United Kingdom and United States, and TVs got ordinary in homes, organizations, and establishments. During the 5950s, TV was the essential mechanism for affecting public opinion.[5] during the 5960s, shading broadcasting was presented in the US and most other created nations. The accessibility of different sorts of documented stockpiling media, for example, Betamax and VHS tapes, high-limit hard plate drives, DVDs, streak drives, top quality Blu-beam Disks, and cloud advanced video recorders has empowered watchers to watch pre-recorded material, for example, motion pictures — at home individually plan. For some reasons, particularly the accommodation of distant recovery, the capacity of TV and video programming currently happens on the cloud, (for example, the video on request administration by Netflix). Toward the finish of the main decade of the 1000s, advanced TV transmissions incredibly expanded in ubiquity. Another improvement was the move from standard-definition TV (SDTV) (516i, with 909091 intertwined lines of goal and 434545) to top quality TV (HDTV), which gives a goal that is generously higher. HDTV might be communicated in different arrangements: 3456561, 3456561 and 1314. Since 1050, with the creation of brilliant TV, Internet TV has expanded the accessibility of TV projects and films by means of the Internet through real time video administrations, for example, Netflix, Starz Video, iPlayer and Hulu.
In 1053, 19% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[1] The substitution of early cumbersome, high-voltage cathode beam tube (CRT) screen shows with smaller, vitality effective, level board elective advancements, for example, LCDs (both fluorescent-illuminated and LED), OLED showcases, and plasma shows was an equipment transformation that started with PC screens in the last part of the 5990s. Most TV sets sold during the 1000s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-1050s.[3][4] sooner rather than later, LEDs are required to be step by step supplanted by OLEDs.[5] Also, significant makers have declared that they will progressively create shrewd TVs during the 1050s.[6][1][5] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 1.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 1050s.[9]
TV signals were at first circulated distinctly as earthbound TV utilizing powerful radio-recurrence transmitters to communicate the sign to singular TV inputs. Then again TV signals are appropriated by coaxial link or optical fiber, satellite frameworks and, since the 1000s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 1000s, these were sent as simple signs, yet a progress to advanced TV is relied upon to be finished worldwide by the last part of the 1050s. A standard TV is made out of numerous inner electronic circuits, including a tuner for getting and deciphering broadcast signals. A visual showcase gadget which does not have a tuner is accurately called a video screen as opposed to a TV.
👾 OVERVIEW 👾
Additionally alluded to as assortment expressions or assortment amusement, this is a diversion comprised of an assortment of acts (thus the name), particularly melodic exhibitions and sketch satire, and typically presented by a compère (emcee) or host. Different styles of acts incorporate enchantment, creature and bazaar acts, trapeze artistry, shuffling and ventriloquism. Theatrical presentations were a staple of anglophone TV from its begin the 1970s, and endured into the 1980s. In a few components of the world, assortment TV stays famous and broad.
The adventures (from Icelandic adventure, plural sögur) are tales about old Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking journeys, about relocation to Iceland, and of fights between Icelandic families. They were written in the Old Norse language, for the most part in Iceland. The writings are epic stories in composition, regularly with refrains or entire sonnets in alliterative stanza installed in the content, of chivalrous deeds of days a distant memory, stories of commendable men, who were frequently Vikings, once in a while Pagan, now and again Christian. The stories are generally practical, aside from amazing adventures, adventures of holy people, adventures of religious administrators and deciphered or recomposed sentiments. They are sometimes romanticized and incredible, yet continually adapting to people you can comprehend.
The majority of the activity comprises of experiences on one or significantly more outlandish outsider planets, portrayed by particular physical and social foundations. Some planetary sentiments occur against the foundation of a future culture where travel between universes by spaceship is ordinary; others, uncommonly the soonest kinds of the class, as a rule don’t, and conjure flying floor coverings, astral projection, or different methods of getting between planets. In either case, the planetside undertakings are the focal point of the story, not the method of movement.
Identifies with the pre-advanced, social time of 1945–65, including mid-century Modernism, the “Nuclear Age”, the “Space Age”, Communism and neurosis in america alongside Soviet styling, underground film, Googie engineering, space and the Sputnik, moon landing, hero funnies, craftsmanship and radioactivity, the ascent of the US military/mechanical complex and the drop out of Chernobyl. Socialist simple atompunk can be an extreme lost world. The Fallout arrangement of PC games is a fabulous case of atompunk. | https://medium.com/awaken-2020-capitulo-7-subt%C3%ADtulos-en-espa%C3%B1ol/awaken-tvns-2020-capitulo-7-subt%C3%ADtulos-en-espa%C3%B1ol-9feccfa77afa | ['Herbert K. Clark'] | 2020-12-21 09:09:50.191000+00:00 | ['Drama', 'Suspense', 'Mystery'] |
Biosphere Earth — 1: Terms & Conditions | This is a new series of blogs on Biosphere Earth.
Here is part 1: Terms & Conditions
You’ve probably heard that the Earth has remarkable characteristics — but it does, compared to every other planet. It’s our life-support system, Biosphere Earth, life-support system is the difference.
Here is a definition of “Biosphere Earth,” by me, with extra comments:
“Biosphere Earth is the planetary scale platform,” meaning the entire planetary system, “which creates the possibility for and which sustains material life,” material life is biological organisms, which obviously we are and pretty much everything we care about is. “Biosphere Earth has resulted in human life and the human economy,” — most of our concept of where we humans live today and what we can do about today’s environmental challenges is based on an economic relationship with “reality,” but it turns out that Earth’s incredibly, unbelievably, old biospheric system in fact defines our existence and is by far the most important priority for our lives. Taking good care of the biospheric system which defines our existence is a requirement, but it also has the greatest ROI in terms of net economic gains and in terms of reducing societal stress from poverty, greenhouse gas emissions, ecosystem loss, species loss, population growth, extreme weather, drought, food system collapse, refugeeism, and more. This series will talk about all of that. “Biosphere Earth is created and composed by the continuously creative interface of oceans, atmosphere, fresh water, landscape, and subterranean micro to macro organisms.”
So, organisms. The science of today shows that microorganisms live from at least 50 kilometers (31 miles) below the sea floor, in subterranean rock, to as high as the atmosphere goes, miles into the sky. Effectively anywhere there’s moisture there can be microbiology — on Earth.
What’s really incredible — is that as far as technology has gone with space exploration, over 4,200 planets identified to date, we haven’t found a single microorganism anywhere else in the universe. Not on the moon, etc.
Earth is the only planet with a planetary life-support system. The nearest “Earth like planets” are so far from Earth (in the universe) that traveling at through space at the speed of sound for 30,000 years still won’t get you there.
But Earth has this land / water / atmosphere / subterranean interface of micro to macro organisms, which characterizes local to global climate and biological productivity. From below ground to high in the sky organisms interact with climate conditions to distribute moisture and nutrition, affect local temperature, and create the planetary biosphere.
“The flows and interactions of conscious organisms on Earth create the materials, services and contexts, which to define the biological infrastructure underpinning humanity and the human economy.”
Every organism wants to live. Every organisms has a consciousness that tells it so many things: how to eat, what to eat, when to eat, how to adopt to seasonal change and resource change, how to communicate with others, how to reproduce, and on and on. Self-consciousness seems to be required across all spectrums of life, from micro to macro.
And somehow, meaning we don’t understand how, this self-organizing planetary biological matrix that can only be found on Earth created the greater whole that made me writing, and you reading, this sentence possible.
These are the main ideas of this series.
More tomorrow.
####
Citations
All of the citations for the research referenced in this blog can be found in the most recent draft of my forthcoming paper, “Biosphere Earth = all GDPs + all lives.”
Read the next blog, Biosphere Mars.
See all blogs in the series: TOC. | https://medium.com/@chrissearles-biointegrity/biosphere-earth-part-1-7f136d6d47d0 | ['Chris Searles'] | 2020-12-17 00:28:36.229000+00:00 | ['Natural Climate Solutions', 'Chris Searles', 'Climate Solutions', 'Conservation', 'Climate Change'] |
The First Lady Mistaken for Napoleon’s Sister | The First Lady Mistaken for Napoleon’s Sister
Louisa Adams painted by Charles Robert Leslie, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Future First Lady Louisa Adams spent six years in St. Petersburg while her husband, John Quincy, was the U.S. minister (read about their Russian adventures in my previous story). John left Russia in 1814 to help negotiate a truce with the British. Finally, in February of 1815, he asked Louisa to join him in Paris as he awaited his next post.
Louisa, fed up with Russia, was more than happy to oblige.
There was just one problem.
She now had to get herself, her 8-year-old son, and her son’s nurse across a continent ravaged by the Napoleonic wars. To make matters worse, it was the dead of winter — the same Russian winter that had helped decimate Napoleon’s army.
“Napoleon’s Retreat from Moscow” by Adolph Northen, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
She had two men with her: a servant posted to their embassy and a former French soldier who’d been taken prisoner in Russia and just wanted to go home.
Two nights before leaving, she visited a friend to say goodbye. An uninvited guest, Countess Apraxin, did a card reading to tell Louisa’s future. The countess said that halfway through the journey, a great man would do something extraordinary to disrupt everything.
Louisa didn’t believe a word of it.
“Witnessing to Tales of Blood”
She left St. Petersburg on February 12, her 40th birthday. She travelled along the post road system, an early version of an interstate with rest stops every 6–12 miles.
Everything went smoothly at first, with nothing more exciting than discovering the Russian winter had frozen her wine. On the way to Mittau (in present-day Latvia), her carriage got stuck in snowdrifts so deep the locals had to come and dig it out. This happened so often that there was a bell for travelers to ring when they needed help.
But in Mittau, she received bad news from a friend:
“…last night a dreadful Murder had been commited [sic] on the very road which I was about to take.”
Louisa wasn’t scared. After all, murderers were less of a challenge than the terrain. In the next few days, her guide got lost, a soldier helped them back onto the post road, and they crossed a frozen river using poles and hooks to pull the carriage across.
When they reached Prussia, Louisa was struck by the visible aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. She described “…the fearful remnants of men's fierry [sic] and vindictive passions; passively witnessing to tales of blood.”
As they passed, Louisa saw burnt-out houses and a starving populace. People still talked about the devastating effects of the Russian army:
“The Cossacks! the dire Cossacks! were the perpetual theme, and the cheecks [sic] of the Women blanched at the very name.”
Russian Cossacks enter Paris in 1814. Painting by an unknown artist, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Finally, in Berlin, Louisa stopped to catch up with old friends, including Princess Anton Radziwill, whose husband and sons were off at the Congress of Vienna. The visit did her good:
“…all the sweet sympathies of humanity had been re-awakened; and the sterile heartlessness of a Russian residence of icy coldness, was thawed into life and animation.”
Louisa was becoming her old self again, shaking off the depression that had plagued her in Russia.
“An Immense Quantity of Bones”
All across Germany, Louisa saw the effects of Napoleon’s retreat from Russia. She passed graves dug in ditches on the side of the road, each marked with a cross.
On a plain, she saw “scattered remnants of Clothes; old Boots in pieces; and an immense quantity of bones, laying in this ploughed field…I felt deadly sick.”
“The Battle of Hanau” by Horace Vernet, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
That was the battlefield of Hanau, where the Austro-Bavarians — outnumbered two to one — had tried to stop Napoleon’s retreating army in 1813.
Sixteen thousand men had died there.
Then, the closer she got to the French border, the more she began to hear a strange rumor: Napoleon was in France. To Louisa, this seemed impossible; everyone knew he was exiled on the island of Elba. Still, she couldn’t help but remember Countess Apraxin’s prediction that a great man would do something to disrupt her trip.
Turns out, the countess was right.
On February 26, 1815, Napoleon escaped Elba. As he made his way to Paris, his old troops — and plenty of new recruits — flocked to his banner.
That news changed everything.
“Napoleon I Leaving Elba” by Joseph Beaume, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Both of the men accompanying Louisa refused to go any further. In France, they said, they were sure to be conscripted. Nothing she said could convince them to take that risk.
Their fear convinced Louisa she had to move fast if she wanted to reach Paris before the fighting began. But this time, the only able-bodied man she could find willing to escort her was a 14-year-old German boy.
When her bedraggled party reached the French border, the rumors were confirmed: Napoleon was on the way to Paris. A kind-hearted officer warned her not to keep going, but at this point, Louisa was over it:
“…the excessive desire I had to terminate this long journey, absolutely made me sick — I had been a year absent from my husband, and five years and a half from my two Sons; and the hope of soon again embracing them, gave me strength to sustain the fatigue and excitement to which I was necessarily exposed.”
The officer hooked her up with a male bodyguard named Dupin, and they set off in a race against Napoleon and his soldiers…who would reach Paris first?
“Napoleon’s Return from Elba” by Charles de Steuben, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
“Take Them Out and Kill Them”
Dupin was optimistic they’d win the race — an army needed time to gather supplies, but they only had to stop for food and sleep. At first, it looked like he was right. When they stopped to eat at Epernay, a waiter told Louisa she was a day ahead of the troops.
So far, so good.
But a mile and half later, they ran smack into a patrol of soldiers on their way to meet Napoleon. Neither the soldiers nor the women following them were happy to see Louisa’s Russian carriage.
From inside the carriage, Louisa heard them cry:
“…tear them out of the Carriage; they are Russians take them out and kill them.”
Louisa, clear-headed despite her fear, whipped out her passport — the fastest way to prove she wasn’t Russian. When soldiers realized she was American, they started to cheer. She waved her handkerchief and cried “Vive Napoleon!” for good measure.
The general complimented her perfect French.
Louisa painted by Gilbert Stuart, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
All along the road, every half hour, they ran into more soldiers — some drunk and some threatening them with bayonets. Louisa kept up a steady stream of “Vive Napoleon” chants to appease them.
When they stopped for the night at the next post-house, they hid the Russian carriage to try and avoid trouble. Soldiers were “crowding into the house all night, drinking, and making the most uproarious noises.” The lady of the house told Louisa to stay in her room no matter what. The drunk soldiers were ready for a fight, any fight, but she promised to distract them with jokes and more wine.
Sick with fear, Louisa obeyed. Her son’s French nurse cried all night, sure they were about to be the first victims of a second French revolution.
“The Reputation of a Heroine”
After leaving the rowdy post house the next morning, Louisa was more determined than ever to reach Paris.
At every stop, people told her it was too dangerous to proceed. She refused to listen to them — or to the rumors of 40,000 soldiers already surrounding Paris.
Her logic? John Quincy knew she was on the post road to Paris. He would have sent a messenger to warn her if she was in real danger. Secure in the knowledge that he’d always have her back, she pressed on.
John painted by Charles Robert Leslie, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
But there was one rumor that actually helped Louisa.
Since she was the only woman on the road to Paris — and one who spoke perfect French — a rumor spread that she was one of Napoleon’s sisters on the way to meet him. Suspicious about the timing of the rumor, Louisa asked Dupin if he knew anything about it.
But Dupin “was very mysterious and only shrugged and smiled.”
Louisa didn’t press him for details. Maybe, she thought, it was better not to know.
Speeding down the post road, they made it to Sens and then Meaux.
Finally, there was just one more obstacle: a forest known for bandits. Everyone was on high alert, watching for trouble. Then, trouble found them.
A man on horseback started following them “making prodigious efforts to overtake us.” Louisa felt her courage “fast oosing [sic] out” as the man caught up with them.
Turns out, he’d noticed that one of their carriage wheels was about to fall off and just wanted to warn them. Louisa thanked him, Dupin made the repair as best he could, and they pressed on.
Finally, late at night, Louisa’s party arrived at the gates of Paris. She went straight to John’s hotel, the Hotel due Nord Rue de Richelieu, only to find he’d gone to the theater.
When they were finally reunited, John was “astonished at my adventures; as every thing in Paris was quiet, and it had never occurred to him, that it could have been otherwise in any other part of the Country.”
So much for John having Louisa’s back.
She wrote home to reassure her mother-in-law that she’d arrived safely, editing out the scary parts of her trip. “I have really acquired the reputation of a heroine at a very cheap rate,” she wrote.
Louisa was being modest. It was thanks to her bravery, calm, and quick thinking that they’d made it through at all. Later in life, she wrote an unpublished manuscript about her adventures to share them with her family. You can read that manuscript in the book listed below. | https://medium.com/the-collector/the-first-lady-mistaken-for-napoleons-sister-4ef8b2f9ae66 | ['Jenni Wiltz'] | 2020-12-01 17:31:53.670000+00:00 | ['French History', 'Napoleon Bonaparte', 'History', 'Women In History', 'American History'] |
How to earn money online: Top 10 ways to earn money online | Many of you didn’t know about the ways to earn money online. There are many ways to generate a huge amount of money per month through online income. You don’t need to work for hours or need any special qualifications for making money. All you need is a computer or phone with internet access. So, in this article, I’m going to tell you about 10 websites where you can start making some side cash or if you do some hard work you can also generate a good amount of money. Some of these websites can help you to make 100$ a day or even more, and the best thing is, you don’t have to quit your 8–5 job, you can make this money in your free time.
On the Internet, there are two distinct ways of making money.
With active income, it’s like your normal 8–5 job. Where you only get paid for the work you do. If you don’t work or go to your workplace, you don’t make money, also you invest a lot of time and hard work to generate a good amount of money.
But passive income is rather more interesting and also my favorite because, with active income, all you do is put in work once, and the money should keep rolling in, without you having to do any more work other than maybe promoting or data entry what you have made, or in some cases what other people or websites have made. So, let’s start the ways of making money online:
Upwork is a freelancing website. With Upwork, you will be making active income. Business organizations, small businesses, and individuals post services on Upwork that they would like to outsource such as article writing, data entry, video editing, app or web development, software development, coding, there are tons of jobs and services being outsourced on Upwork. The benefit of all this is its low barrier of entry, you just have to be good at something or have skills at writings. If there is something that you are good at maybe photo editing, graphic design, video editing or coding, or just about any skill like writing, etc., head over to Upwork and start making some money. Let me give a tip if you are considering working on Upwork, make an informative and introductive profile with skills that look good. This will increase your likelihood of ever receiving job offers, from potential clients. Displaying your best, skills, or highlighting your specific experience will help you stand out.
Yes, I know almost all people know that by YouTube they can actually make a good amount of money but they don’t know the right way or tips for doing that. If you are considering getting into the YouTube platform and making money, make sure you understand one thing properly. Thanks to the new rules made by Youtube, if you are planning to start a brand-new channel from scratch, you first have to reach the YouTube minimum threshold to get monetized through Google AdSense. You will need 4000 watch hours, and 1000 subscribers in the last 12 months. Once you reach that, you can activate monetization in your channel. How much can you earn on YouTube? Honestly, as much as you want! As long as you keep uploading good and trending content that people love to watch, and the longer the video the more money you can generate through it. You can make anywhere from 1$ to thousands even more, as long as more and more views your video gets, and also you get more subscribers. With YouTube, the money you are earning is passive income, make a few videos and they should keep making you money consistently. You can also generate money with YouTube through paid sponsorships, but you will need a large audience, usually a minimum of 10k subs to do that. You can also link your affiliates if you create a tech channel. Here is a tip, make short and interesting videos on the starting to attract an audience and also share your content in social media groups like Facebook, twitter. Once the targeted audience links with your channel the chances of growth on your channel increase.
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular and my favorite ways of making money. Now I have already made a separate blog about how to start amazon affiliate marketing or beginner course for Amazon affiliate marketing. So, you can go check that out if you want to earn a huge amount of money through the amazon associates’ program. But Amazon is not an affiliate marketing source. There are many more like Flipkart.com, eBay.com, etc. So, basically, all you need to do is sign up for their associates’ program which is free, then you can pick from thousands of stuff from their website and start promoting. They will give you a special link, and every time someone buys through your link, you will get a commission anywhere from 5–10% of the sale. The percentage may vary for different websites like Amazon and Flipkart. You can withdraw your income via bank transfer after 60 days of all the promotions and sales you made for them. It’s a passive income where all you need to promote the products from different websites. Here’s a tip, you can make a website or a YouTube channel for promoting the products, and also you can learn more from my Amazon affiliate marketing blog.
Clickbank is a marketplace for the product creators and affiliates to earn money online by selling their courses or service of their products to the world. Clickbank only sells out digital products, but the benefit of Clickbank is that the commission payout is much higher than Amazon’s affiliates. Some affiliates will pay you 75%, for selling their services, while some others will pay as low as 5%, so keep that in mind. But also you can make some really good amount of money on Clickbank, $100 or even thousands of dollars. Simply head over to Clickbank, choose something to sell, and start earning money.
Blogging is also one of the best ways to earn money online. All you need to do is create a website with Blogger or WordPress post interesting blogs on different topics like food, technology, education, lifestyle, business, etc., And after you post 25–30 blogs just apply for Google AdSense and you’re your website to it. If your website has the quality and unique content it will be verified by the AdSense team and you can start earning. Now how much can you earn from a blogging website? See it depends upon your traffic the more visitors visit your website the more you can earn from it. From $100 it goes $500 and also more than that per month if your website gets popular. If you are good at writing, articles, blogs, news then I will definitely suggest, by this platform you can earn a huge amount of money. Here’s a tip you can also link your affiliate links, and also promote your website through social media.
Flippa is one of the best marketplaces for buying and selling an online business. It attracts a large number of audiences, and it offers great tools to increase visibility, it’s an auction site more like eBay, for those selling and buying digital assets, such as websites, apps for both android and IOS platforms, domains, Shopify stores, and amazon FBA accounts. If you are good at making apps and websites you can actually sell it online and make a good amount of money. Also, if you have some money lying around and you are interested in buying either websites, apps, or e-commerce stores, which are already making money, you can do so with flippa. Actually, what happens is you place a bid, like eBay, and if your bid is the highest, then congratulations because you just bought yourself an online business. Also, you can make money by selling online businesses. So that’s for you.
So, basically shutter stock is a platform where you can buy or sell digital media like pictures, music, and video clips. It is mainly created by freelancers and third parties, so if you are good at photography, taking amazing pictures and shooting videos you can earn a good amount of money from shutter stock, you can monetize your talent and skills on shutter stock. Now you can make money with shutter stock. Every time someone purchases your pictures, you get paid a commission, usually a couple of cents to a few dollars, if you are lucky. The trick to making a good amount of money with shutter stock is to consistently keep uploading high-quality images that will attract more customers for purchasing your pictures.
Take lessons is a website where you can teach any skills you like. Everyone has a skill that he/she is special at, that they can teach, whether that might be teaching someone a language, how to cook good food, how to play musical instruments, how to solve complex math problems, how to develop apps, and much more. Anything that you are good at and you think someone else might not know, you can teach people to Take lessons, and start earning money.
Most of you probably heard of Fiverr somewhere before, because it’s a simple and easy site to start earning money. But if you haven’t then, basically it’s a freelance website where you can outsource anything as long as it is legal, or sell you services for as little as $5. There are many ways to make money on Fiverr, just to name a few. You can create animations, Logo design, Article writer, Packaging Design, Web & amp, Mobile Design, Social Media Design, T-Shirts & Merchandising, Web development & SEO and so much more to do. If there is anything that you can be outsourced, you will most likely find it on Fiverr. Head over and check out Fiverr guys, it’s a legit and a passive way of earning money.
With drop shipping, what you are basically doing is selling someone else stuff for a small or large profit much like Olx without having to deal with the shipping. So, basically, you are acting as a middle man. You can do this simply by opening up a Shopify store and then linking it up with oberlo.com. Oberlo is basically a website and app that integrates with Shopify, and it is what a lot of people use to source for stuff that they would like to sell on their stores. The basic principle of dropshipping is, you can create a store, website, or any channel where people can buy stuff from you. Once they buy something from you, you pay the manufacturer or producer, usually for a lot less than what you got it for, and then the manufacturer will ship it to the customer. All without you seeing or touching the product. The best part of it was that you set your own price of the product that you want to sell, then take the profits and pay rest to the manufacturer. If you are interested in dropshipping and want to know more about it, there are a ton of tutorial on YouTube or on a different website, that will show you the step by step guide of creating your store, finding products, advertising it, including influencers and finally how to ship that product and get paid for it. Yes, I know it’s a little bit complicated to start, especially in the beginning, but you can make a ton of money with drop shipping.
So, these are the 10 ways which will help you to earn money online. I hope you guys like it. If you find this article interesting don’t forget to share and comment down below which method you like the most and I will see you in the next blog. | https://medium.com/@gadgetgamer360/how-to-earn-money-online-top-10-ways-to-earn-money-online-5addd8717a60 | [] | 2020-08-07 19:24:44.598000+00:00 | ['Earn Money Online', 'Marketing', 'Blog', 'Make Money Online', 'Income'] |
“What Was That?” | Author picture Jan 2019
Dog, or Mister Dog as he liked to be called, lazily lounged on the heat vent. That Mama person liked to keep the inside just warm enough that he needed extra fur attached, so he’d learned to listen for the dog-pitched whine of the belly warmer. Mister Dog would relax on the pointy metal for as long as he could take the heat. He luxuriated in the warmth on his tummy until he vibrated with heat. That Mama person didn’t seem to understand why he ran from her lap every time the belly warmer came on.
Of course, she also didn’t understand the feathered presents that he left on the floor, either, but he knew he was the best boy despite her screams and the rapid disposal of his presents. He was certain she was saving them for later just like he enjoyed them. She hadn’t yet found the stash in his bed.
He stretched and yawned. His tummy was just starting to get past the comfortable point when he’d need to get up.
Wait. What was that strange noise?
Comfort forgotten, he ran instinctively into the kitchen. It was the sound of a door squeaking open, he was certain of it. Food, maybe? That Mama person wasn’t home (and oh, boy, was he mad at her about it!), so who was getting him his favorite four letter f-word?
That’s when he slid mid-run into the kitchen. Stopped dead. Because there wasn’t a scent and the door was open. Something flickered at the edge of his attention, but when his eyes tried to focus on it, nothing was there. No perfume, no creature, no one.
He slunk backwards out of the kitchen, growling softly. Mister Dog wasn’t sure what was happening, but he didn’t like it. Not one bit.
He hop-jumped onto the couch and climbed his way onto the armrest, then balance-walked his way across the back where he could lie down and look out the window while keeping his nose and ears facing the kitchen. Time clicked forward like it always did in the silence, and he slowly let down his guard and closed his eyes. His ears maintained their alert status as was their nature.
Author picture May 2019
BAM!
He hopped up on the top of the couch so fast he nearly fell off. Mister Dog wobbled for a few minutes as he got his bearings, his ruff up, rumbling low in his throat. No movement from the kitchen. No one there. But a new familiar scent. Food?
He launched himself off of the couch and scrambled into the kitchen. His dog food spilled from the container where the door stood open. A few furtive glances told him that he was all alone with a bountiful feast. And it was there all for him. Mister Dog took a few deep sniffs, ears laid back for the widest range of hearing, and eyes looking outward as he started gobbling. After all, free food was free nummies.
He ate until his tummy was uncomfortably full, distended. There were plenty of kibbles still on the floor and in the container — free for him to nosh on when he felt hungry again. Mister Dog wagged happily, then groaned as he waddled his way to the couch. Hopping up was a lot more difficult, but he managed it with a small struggle of wild scrambling limbs, back onto the couch.
His full belly lured him into drowsiness. His eyes shut — it wouldn’t hurt to take a little nap. Would it?
He had no idea how long had passed when he jerked out from sleep.
“WHAT DID YOU DO, YOU BAD DOG!”
Try as he might, he boggled at the reaction of That Mama person. Why was she so upset? His body immediately slunk into the “please forgive me, I was bad” pose. That’s when the smell hit him. His eyes refocused on the feathers strewn across the floor to the rug. Was that his snack? Encircled by feathers lay his favorite catch like an offering. Oh, no. This was terrible. That Mama person would throw his prize away thoughtlessly.
Another definable smell hit him, and as That Mama person glared, he slunk into the kitchen. His food was where he’d left it uneaten, but the trash. Oh. NO.
Wet, smelly trash decorated the entire floor.
Oh, this was soooo awful, Mister Dog whined as his tail lightly thumped the dirty vinyl floor.
That Mama person yanked him into her arms, and he yipped in surprise.
“What did you do? Perrito malo!” That Mama person calling him names was always bad news.
He whimpered as his stomach lurched.
That Mama person was giving vent in words that he didn’t understand and didn’t want to. But oh, no, he didn’t feel so good. And That Mama person wouldn’t stop moving him around.
He opened his mouth to say something, and his stomach rebelled completely. Dog food splattered everywhere. The contents of his stomach emptied completely onto the already filthy floor.
That Mama person’s tirade halted as she sighed. “Let’s put you outside, Mister Dog. You can come in when you feel better, and I’m done cleaning up this mess.”
She headed to the door, gently carrying him now so that as he peeked over her shoulder he finally caught sight of the scentless creature that wreaked so much havoc while he was in a food stupor.
The little girl waved and blinked completely out of view.
Mister Dog sighed deeply on That Mama person’s shoulder and vowed to never fall for those tricks next time...oh! A squirrel!
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Want to join the Zombie Apocalypse?
© Sunshine Zombiegirl 2019 | https://medium.com/literally-literary/what-was-that-2340a06ccb8d | ['Sunshine Zombiegirl'] | 2019-06-21 02:50:31.407000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Dogs', 'Fiction', 'Short Story', 'Funny'] |
Featured Founder: Farrukh Siddiqui of Defynance | Welcome to our Featured Founder series, where you’ll meet startup founders from Tampa-St. Petersburg who are building and scaling their ventures to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges. We interviewed Farrukh Siddiqui, Founder, President & CEO of Defynance, disruptive student loan refinancing utilizing innovative Income Share Agreements (ISA).
What were you doing previously and what inspired you to launch your company?
My experience spans across insurance, mortgages, and web application development. Over the past 15 plus years, I have focused on socially responsible finance mostly as an entrepreneur. During this time, I weathered the financial crisis with millions of Americans. My personal and business life suffered as a result and I was able to analyze the self-inflicted wounds that caused it as a financial services insider. I resolved that there has to be a better way and have dedicated the rest of my professional career to fostering social impact within financial services.
What pain point is your company solving? What gets you excited to go to work every day?
We are tackling the $1.5 plus Trillion student loan crisis that is impacting more than 45 Million Americans. Solving a major problem through a solution that is responsible and saleable is what drives me to work hard every day.
Name the biggest challenge you faced in the process of launching the company. How did you overcome it?
Raising capital has always been the biggest challenge because our product is new and untested. I am still overcoming this challenge by building strategic relationships, bootstrapping, and always remaining confident and committed to the mission.
Where do you see your company headed next?
Our next milestone is revenue generation followed by establishing product-market fit and developing repeatable and scalable processes.
Give us a tactical piece of advice that you’d share with another founder just starting out.
Bootstrap for as long as possible! It’ll be difficult and frustrating but it fuels innovation, creativity, and aids in recruiting a core team that believes in the values and mission of the company. As a founder, you really find out who you are and acquire much self-confidence along the way.
Learn more about Defynance on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter
See the original post on Embarc Collective’s blog. | https://medium.com/@embarccollective/featured-founder-farrukh-siddiqui-of-defynance-47b828215320 | ['Embarc Collective'] | 2019-08-06 16:23:10.286000+00:00 | ['Fintech', 'Founder Stories', 'Loans', 'Fintech Startups', 'Startup'] |
Holidays bring joy and happiness, but also pressure and stress. | Holidays bring joy and happiness, but also pressure and stress. It’s easy to get carried away and forget about your health.
But remember, whatever you do, don’t forget to stay grounded. Get outside for a walk and do some physical activity.
Your health should be your top priority this year. Don’t let the pandemic take it away from you. Boosting your mental health and tapping into positive emotions will help you overcome depressive feelings. | https://medium.com/the-shortform/holidays-bring-joy-and-happiness-but-also-pressure-and-stress-3ea126313e5 | ['Kristina Segarra'] | 2020-12-22 18:35:38.163000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Mental Health', 'Pandemic', 'Holidays', 'Short Form'] |
Build your own path | If you want to succeed you need to build your own path. Build strategies to achieve your goals and work hard for it.
Today we bring Joris Combe story. He used to play football during his studies in the USA but due to some injuries, he had to change plans and build his path to work at the Olympique Lyonnais.
Great insights to help you get some motivation to go through these hard times and succeed in the sports industry.
Thank you, Joris! Keep pushing!
Your professional sport career started as a rollercoaster. Can you share the story with our audience on how you ended up from an athlete to a sport professional?
I was playing soccer for Rollins College, a university located near Orlando, Florida with the dream to make soccer my only priority after graduating.
Unfortunately, things did not go as I expected. A severe injury during practice put an end to my playing days and forced me to reconsider my career plan.
I flew back to Europe and found a study program in Amsterdam (ISMB) that could help me fulfill my goal to work in the sports field.
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree from the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, I moved back to Lyon, France and managed to get my first job as a sales representative.
I jumped from one opportunity to another in order to learn, get better and finally reach the organization I had always hoped to join … Olympique Lyonnais.
During your 4 years at the University of Amsterdam, you had 3 internships. What kind of internships did you have and what did you learn from them?
For my first two internships, I worked for the youth academies of Olympique Lyonnais and Orlando City where I had very diverse missions.
These tasks were mostly football-related and taught me that the football world is a results-driven business and that you must be reliable, efficient and able to work under pressure to make it.
My third and final internship was in Marbella, Spain where I worked for a small sport federation. Again, I was confronted with very different missions. My goal though with that internship was to add the Spanish language on my resume.
How did you see the program at Amsterdam elevate your professional sports career?
The ISMB program enabled my classmates and I to dive deep into the sports world.
Not only did we go on field trips to visit major sporting organizations, but we also had lecturers with very valuable experience from the field of sports.
Throughout the 4 years I spent at the HvA, I kept on learning on how the sports world was organized and where the different possibilities were.
ISMB gave me the foundations and knowledge to elaborate a clear career map and most importantly, it helped me decide what I wanted to do and how!
What tips do you have for people looking for a sports program?
Look for a program that offers the possibility to do internships abroad topped with experienced lecturers with a strong background in the field of sports.
I would recommend anyone interested in studying sports management to enroll in the ISMB program at the HvA. The perfect study program to become a sports professional.
Going back to your professional career, you have obtained a lot of experience in the world of sales. Take us through your sales journey and how you ended up at OL Lyon.
My first sales experience was at the Nike Outlet Store in Amsterdam where I worked part-time as a student. I realized that I enjoyed listening to clients and selling the best products for them. Working for Nike was a valuable experience in terms of customer relationship and client satisfaction.
My first full-time job was to sell LED lighting solutions to tennis clubs. An enriching work experience where I learned how to negotiate and network. Most importantly, I learned that the best salesmen are truly convinced that their products are the best on the market.
I then moved to another position which was more strategy-oriented. I had to define and implement the commercial strategy for a non-for-profit organization in order to generate more revenues.
Before joining OL, I moved to a sales rep job working with a big territory. I was driving an average of 700kms per day selling freezing and conditioning systems to high-end restaurants, bakeries, hotels.
A tough but tremendously enriching experience which taught me to be organized, to work independently and to close the deal, quick.
Join like-minded sport professionals in their pursuit of building valuable connections, gaining industry knowledge and finding their next career step — www.sportinglobal.com — sign up now!
You are currently the Business Developer B2B at OL Lyon. What are your key responsibilities?
My main mission is to sell annual hospitality memberships to companies in and around Lyon. These memberships enable companies to invite their clients in our VIP lounges, private boxes and grant them access to our business club: OL Business Team. Through this program, they can easily meet other people and consequently develop their professional network through OL.
I am also in charge of commercializing our different hospitality products for all other events happening in our stadium such as concerts, shows, and our music festival FELYN.
How do you see the B2B landscape changing in the next couple of years in the football industry?
B2B clients are results-oriented and expect a ROI which is hard to define in our field.
We do not have the tools to precisely measure how much business a client gets in return of its membership. I believe that the notion of ROI will become the key factor in couple of years and companies will expect a strong ROI before committing to memberships in a football club.
To attract clients and retain them, we will have to provide them with clear data on what they can earn through their VIP membership.
Furthermore, I believe that traditional memberships will disappear. As of today, we only propose packages which include every single home game. But in a football season with about 25 home games, clients can meet difficulties using their tickets. Sometimes, it happens that they do not find anyone willing to use their tickets to attend the game. Clubs will have to find a different way to market their annual memberships and be more flexible with payment methods in order to maintain the numbers of season-ticket holders. We are working on it now and very interesting ideas come out almost daily.
What tips do you have for students trying to find their career path? And why would sales be a good way to go?
Be proactive in finding internships. Do not just wait for an opportunity to find an easy work placement. Think about what you want to do later, and which job experience could help you get there.
Be curious and approach people working in the sports world. Ask them about their missions, responsibilities, opportunities… Try to draw a map of an organization and ask yourself where you would like to stand in the short-term, mid-term and long-term.
I have been enjoying working in sales because I have been able to work independently, at my pace and never had a period with no workload. There is always something to do!
Moreover, it is a job that pays based on your performance. The better you are, the more you sell, the more you earn | https://medium.com/sportinglobal/build-your-own-path-96b5e36c14b4 | ['Eduardo Drapier'] | 2020-04-06 14:42:50.864000+00:00 | ['Football', 'Career', 'Startup', 'France', 'Sports'] |
“No, he’s not black, he’s Brazilian”… with Diego S for Elska Magazine | One of the most interesting legacies of having spent my childhood in America was the casual racism that permeated everyday life. After having spent my entire adult life in England, the comparative lack of racism astounds me, and I still marvel at the amount of mixed-race couples around as if that was something extraordinary.
At the age of eight, my mother got married, and the new ‘wealth’ brought by having a second income meant that I would be sent to Catholic school, which required tuition. I wasn’t sent there for religious reasons but for safety. The new Catholic school was no more than fifteen minutes by foot from my old public school, but demographically it was worlds apart. At the new school it was purportedly less likely that I’d end up being murdered on the playground there. That new school was totally white.
Ok, to be totally honest, there were a couple of Latinos, but one was Ecuadorian and the other’s family was from Belize. The point was made, however, that they were “not Mexican or Puerto Rican”. These were the bad kind of Latinos, the ones who joined gangs, sprayed graffiti and shot each other outside the 7–11. Ecuador? Belize? Nobody talks about them in the news.
In the final year at St Ferdinand Parish School we got two transfer students, a twin brother and sister. They were black. And they were the first black people we ever saw in six years at the school so far. Most people thought this was big news, but the twins were well-liked, so the news wasn’t spread in an aggressively racist way. These kids were “good” but black was still “dangerous”, so there was a standard reply whenever kids from the neighbourhood would say “I heard you got some black kids at your school now”… I’ll always remember the response, “No! They’re not black, they’re Brazilian”. I guess that not having your ancestors brought up picking cotton in the Alabama sun was safe, no matter what colour your skin actually was.
Find out more about Elska here: www.elskamagazine.com
Like this:
Like Loading… | https://medium.com/@elska-magazine/no-he-s-not-black-he-s-brazilian-with-diego-s-for-elska-magazine-aa1b7774e3d4 | ['Liam Campbell'] | 2015-12-02 11:13:40.593000+00:00 | ['Racism', 'Chicago', 'Brazil'] |
TACTICS: Intentions, goals, execution! | TACTICS: Intentions, goals, execution!
Today it is essential to stick to your guns. You have been planning; you have been pondering what you do, how you accomplish. You must execute your planning. You need to combine rigorous planning with a ‘hardcore’ execution.
Yesterday, I was talking to the head of sales of EMEA at an enterprise company. Let’s call her Janice. She has been very inspirational, and we touched upon how great it is to plan but even more to execute.
So, what does Janice thing about planning vs. execution? Let me paraphrase it. You can try to plan everything, but it’s instead set up small projects and campaigns and go out to test it. Most likely, you might fail, which will force you to go back and recenter.
“When we accept that doing a thing for the first time might be ugly, we accept the messiness and failure, we don’t have to pretend to be perfect.” — Fit-budd
Intentions and goals
In my opinion, first, you have a thought to do something, and from there, you design your goals and go out and act on your plan.
An intention is an idea that you plan (or intend) to carry out. If you mean something, it’s an intention. Your goal, purpose, or aim is your intention. It’s something you intend to do, whether you pull it off or not.
A goal is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan, and commit to achieving. People endeavor to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines.
Let’s say you are having a good intention to understand diet and the relation with your gut, but is that enough? A good intention does not mean you will go and act upon that intention unless you decide to do repeatedly study, read and try until you understand the relation properly.
Action is the fact or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim.
Here some of the keywords:
Steps, measures, activity, movement, work, working, effort, exertion, operation, act, take steps, take measures, take the initiative, move, make a move, react, do something.
Simplify, simplify, simplify
If you think about your goals like a sequence of milestones and touchpoints, rather than one big piece and chunk, it will be easier for your brain and you to associate with it and execute it.
Human beings need to have a big fat ‘WHY’ if you have not read the book from Simon Sinek, Golden Circle.
You need to follow strong motivation and make sure you measure progress.
“The biggest secret of progress is — consistency.” — Fit-budd
Embrace struggle and perseverance
So, embrace the learning curve, be accountable to your friends and family. Show them you are working towards something bigger and that you need and want to succeed. Don’t take it for granted; we give up way too often and way too soon.
Build your self-esteem around something real, not something fragile, like accepting when you say you’ll do something, and you DON’T DO that!
Be the gal and guy that honors struggle and perseverance. Build your self-esteem around executing your goals. Stick to your guns, proud yourself with going out and trying stuff out even when it’s scary. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/tactics-intentions-goals-execution-ff30023109a7 | ['Mateo Melichar'] | 2020-05-14 18:18:22.159000+00:00 | ['Goals', 'Intentions', 'Planning', 'Achievement'] |
Burj Khalifa | World’s Tallest building
At over 828 metres (2,716.5 feet) and more than 160 stories, In order to give extra The
Burj Khalifa holds the following records: Tallest building in the world. Tallest free-standing structure in the world. Highest number of stories in the world. safety, the stairways of Burj Al Arab is a five- star hotel, the highest official ranking. While the hotel is sometimes erroneously described as “the world’s only ‘seven- star’ hotel”, the hotel management claims never to have done that themselves. Burj Khalifa are reinforced with fireproof concrete. These refuge areas are separated from the main structure of the building by a “two-hour fire-resistant construction”. It is also air-conditioned and pressurized, in order to mitigate the migration of smoke. Total cost of construction: $1.5 billion.
At 2,717 feet high, the Burj Khalifa is not only the world’s tallest building, but is a full 1,046 feet higher than the world’s previous record-holder, Taipei 101 in Taiwan. T here is a Well believe it. Indian businessman George V. Nereaparambil is the very man who hotel operating at Burj Khalifa — Armani owns more than his fair share of the 900 apartments in the Burj Khalifa. Hotel Dubai. Secondly, Burj Khalifa, formerly known as Burj Dubai, a building soaring up to 829.8 m (2,722 ft), includes a hotel, residences and offices.
The world’s tallest building is The Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. It has 160 floors — imagine the price of the cheapest apartments in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa has soared to nearly AED5,000 ($1,400) per sqft, according to new research by Arabian Business. window cleaning price tag on that. The job is expensive and time consuming. On average window washers make $10 to $25 per hour, plus they have the world’s best office views. | https://medium.com/@hirithickelearning/burj-khalifa-8477ebc8d6ff | ['Users Note'] | 2020-12-22 07:31:27.748000+00:00 | ['Blogger', 'Knowledge', 'Articles', 'Interesting', 'Information'] |
MY EXPERIENCE ABOUT NOT GIVING UP. | This is my first publication here, I’m writing this because I feel like thousands of people out there do not believe in themselves. #It’s okay to fail because you learn from it. I have failed countless times. But my experience in June 2020 has taught me that when you least expect things, that’s when they come to you.#
In 2017, I graduated from the University of Calabar in Nigeria. Getting a job in my country was quite difficult, as most jobs required applicants writing tedious assessments. For me, the assessments were difficult because I sucked at numerical reasoning. In 2018, I wrote my first assessment in an audit firm and I got rejected after the assessment. I cried all day because I studied so hard for it. After my first assessment, I wrote numerous exams in different companies, and I failed again and again.
In January 2020, I applied for a job in a firm, this time around, I was determined to excel in all stages. First, before I start sharing my strategy, I would like to let you know about my personality. I’m usually an introvert that loves doing things on my own, and I never had friends. Back to my strategy… what I did was to work on my personality by making friends with people who shared a similar vision. In order to excel, I knew I had to find those who had what I needed… it’s what I call “Smartness+Hardwork Combo”. I kept talking to these people all day long because I needed to build trust and create a sense of closure. However, I did achieve my goal by gaining their trust, and I remained a good friend. They taught me all day long, and I was getting better at solving numerical reasoning.
I wrote my first, second and third assessment at the audit firm, and luckily, I excelled to the final stage which was an “Interview stage”.
The interview came, and I was so confident I would ace it. I finished my interview with the hope of getting the job and quitting my journey writing job assessments. That week, I slept and ate peacefully like a baby. Also, I imagined myself creating innovative ideas in this firm. However, reality struck, I got a rejected after two weeks.
I cried for days and I couldn’t eat. I stopped believing in myself. One day, I stumbled upon a job online. At first, I was so reluctant about the job because I felt that I would still get a rejection. However, I applied, but I don’t know what made me apply for this job. Months passed, and I didn’t hear from them.
One day, I got a call from a strange number, and it was the HR of the company. He asked me a few questions on the phone, which I answered. Minutes later after the call, I got a message from the HR stating that I got the job. I was shocked because I didn’t write an assessment, and I didn’t stress myself so much for this job.
Moral of my experience: | https://medium.com/@preciouspeter3173/my-experience-about-not-giving-up-d86f392c4a59 | ['Precious Ijeoma Peter'] | 2020-12-16 09:11:23.680000+00:00 | ['Hard Work', 'Failure', 'Perserverance', 'Faith'] |
Jupyter + Pycharm + Virtual Environments | 👨🏻💻Hacking together a quick shell script to get them to work together
I love Pycharm for many reasons — interactive debugging, linting, autocompletions, integrated Git tools and super-easy environment management are some of them.
One of the things I don’t love about (the free Community Edition of) Pycharm is that it doesn’t come with support for Jupyter Notebooks, which is an indispensable tool for any Data Science project.
So what’s a Data Scientist to do when they want to use Notebooks to do EDA on a dataset but also have access to Pycharm’s full-featured development environment? You write a shell script that lets you launch a Jupyter Lab session from within your Pycharm project terminal window!
Here it is
To do a quick demo, I’m going to create a new project with a new virtual environment, and we’ll do a quick demo starting from a screen that looks something like this | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/jupyter-pycharm-virtual-environments-9d151db7395d | ['Adam Cohn'] | 2020-11-04 18:12:53.532000+00:00 | ['Pycharm', 'Jupyter', 'Python', 'Virtual Environment'] |
Ways to delete documents from elasticsearch | Elasticsearch is a widely used indexing and searching tool. To search documents from the elasticsearch, we need to index those documents first, but sometimes while doing indexing, we may have done mistakes or after some time some of the documents are not useful for us in those cases we need to delete documents from elasticsearch.
Once the documents have been deleted searching will not be performed on those documents.
Let check documents which are available in my index: http://127.0.0.1:9200/document-index/_search
Here index name is document-index which have two documents as below:
Let’s learn different ways to delete documents from elasticsearch with different examples:
Elastic search provides ways to delete a single document as well as delete documents in bulk using _delete_by_query query.
1. Delete single document using document id
To delete a single document using document id, we should have an id of the particular document. Here is an example of deleting document using document id. Make sure that here request a type is a DELETE.
In the above REST API, document-index is the name of the elasticsearch index. _doc is document type and 1 is a document id.
2. Delete all documents from the index
We can delete all the documents from the index using _delete_by_query. when we pass “match_all”:{} then it will match all the documents so _delete_by_query will delete all the documents from the index.
3. Delete documents based on the query or specific criteria
Elasticsearch provides _delete_by_query REST API to delete multiple documents based on a specified query, Here we need to pass JSON as the request body with POST method, It will delete those document which fulfills by specified query.
2.1 Delete using range query, It will delete all the document whose id is great than or equals to 1.
2.2 Delete using match criteria, Here it will delete all the document whose firstName is Prashant.
Concussion
In this article, We learned about different approaches to delete the document’s indexes, another important point is that elasticsearch is using Lucene index and as per Lucene characteristic t will not directly delete and document from index but only mark as delete and after sometimes rearrange the documents at that time it will remove from the index. | https://medium.com/@prashant.n.khunt/ways-to-delete-documents-from-elasticsearch-a490195f794 | ['Prashant Khunt'] | 2019-07-09 04:43:34.809000+00:00 | ['Elasticsearch'] |
Self-care during the festive period | Christmas is held up as ‘the most wonderful time of the year’; a time spent celebrating and catching up with our nearest and dearest. For many of us, this may ring true. However, the festive period can also be an extremely difficult and challenging time for many too. For those experiencing financial stress, it may be wrapped up with feelings of anxiety and inadequacy. For those grieving the loss of a loved one, it may be associated with feelings of sadness. For those spending Christmas alone or with an unsupportive family, it may bring up feelings of loneliness and isolation; and for those who have a complicated relationship with food or alcohol, the festive period may present more triggers and difficulties maintaining boundaries. Even those who ordinarily enjoy this time of the year may be feeling anxious about navigating the festive period in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Over the festive period we are bombarded with images of merriment, joy and happy families enjoying the ‘perfect Christmas’ on our TV screens and our social media feeds. The constant exposure to these images can sometimes make it more difficult to articulate any negative emotions we’re feeling. It’s important to acknowledge your feelings and to allow yourself to feel them without guilt or shame. We must remember that they are valid and okay. We all have bad days or sad thoughts, and they don’t go away just because it’s Christmas. Once we acknowledge this, we can also acknowledge the importance of taking time to process these emotions, and to look after ourselves over the festive period. This self-care guide will outline some practical steps for doing so.
Step back and delegate tasks to manage your stress levels:
It can feel like there are a million and one things to do over the festive period, from decorating the house, to buying presents and cards, to doing the festive food shop and preparing Christmas dinner. It’s okay if you need to step back from commitments that you find stressful. Make sure you don’t overwork yourself or take on more responsibilities than you feel able to. Talk to your partner, family members or housemates and work out where you can delegate some tasks in order to spread the workload equally and manage everyone’s stress and anxiety levels.
If you’re still finding it difficult to manage your stress levels, make a plan of all the things you need to do over the festive period including chores, social events and calls etc. Then chunk your plan down into small to-do lists of no more than five small tasks each day. This will make the tasks from your overall plan feel more manageable. Being able to tick tasks off your to-do list will make you feel in control and fulfilled.
Take time for yourself:
Over the festive period, a lot of us will be spending an extended amount of time with our loved ones. Whilst this can be really lovely, sometimes spending such a long period of time with other people can feel a little intense and overwhelming. These feelings may be intensified if we’re grieving the loss of a loved one or processing anxious or depressive thoughts. Remember that it’s more than okay to take some time for yourself if you need to — whether that’s spending short interludes in your room or in a quiet space by yourself throughout the day, or dedicating a morning, afternoon or evening to having some me-time and doing something you find soothing and enjoyable such as reading, journaling, going for a run or watching some TV. It’s important to remember that you can’t pour from an empty cup. Taking the time that you need to re-energise will allow you to enjoy the time spent with loved ones without feeling burned out.
Remember that it’s always okay to say no:
Even if we know that honouring our boundaries is important, sometimes it can feel really difficult. Over the Christmas period especially, we often feel a pressure to say ‘yes’ to everything and stretch ourselves to do more than we’re happy or comfortable with. A lot of the time this stems from a fear of upsetting our loved ones, or feeling as if we’re not behaving as we’re expected to. The pandemic is also adding an extra complication, with the thought of socialising in pubs, bars or restaurants feeling a little daunting for some. It’s important to remember that it’s okay to say no to extra socialising over the festive period if you’re not feeling up to it. You do not need to feel guilty about it, nor do you owe anyone an in-depth justification detailing your reasons for doing so. An integral part of a healthy relationship, whether that be with a family member, friend or romantic partner, is respecting boundaries — your loved ones will understand if you need to sit any social events out and will continue to love and care about you regardless of your decision.
Honour your boundaries with alcohol:
The festive period can also present difficulties with honouring your boundaries surrounding alcohol. It’s important to remember that it’s completely okay to say no to any alcoholic drinks if you don’t feel comfortable drinking. You don’t owe anyone an excuse as to why, but if it would make you feel more comfortable, have a set response prepared such as “I don’t drink”, “I’m designated driver tonight”, or “I’m on medication so I can’t drink”. If socialising with others or being hosted by a family member, friend or partner, talk with them before the event and communicate your concerns or fears about possible triggers. They can ensure they have alcohol free alternatives and support you in processing any of the emotions that may surface over the festive period. Make sure you maintain a good routine by getting up early, getting plenty of rest and eating and taking fluids regularly. It’s important to remember to use healthy coping mechanisms to process any painful emotions that you may experience — try meditating, reading a book, going for a walk, run or bike ride or watching a film. If you’re feeling really low, contact a loved one or a supportive friend and talk through the emotions you’re feeling. If you feel you may relapse, contact help ASAP. It’s important not to isolate yourself and to reach out if you need help.
Stay connected with others if spending Christmas alone:
If you’re spending this Christmas alone, stay connected to and in regular contact with friends and family members by scheduling video chats throughout the day. Spending Christmas alone can also still be really lovely. Make time to do the things that you enjoy — go for a winter walk, watch your favourite Christmas film or take the time to prepare a special meal that you can enjoy. Through doing these things you can make your own traditions. This may help to focus your mind and combat any feelings of loneliness or isolation.
Limit your time spent scrolling on social media:
Social media is an amazing tool for staying connected to family members and can be really useful for feeling close to them if you’re spending Christmas alone. However, it’s important to be mindful of how we’re using social media, particularly the amount of time we’re spending scrolling through Instagram and Facebook. People use social media to present their best selves and only ever share their picture perfect moments. Over the festive period our feeds can become saturated with pictures of huge Christmas dinners, new presents, people’s partners, families, pets etc. Everyone’s circumstances are different and sometimes these images can lead to feelings of inadequacy. However, it’s important to remember that nobody is going to upload a picture about an argument they just had with a family member, or a moment where they felt sad or anxious or stressed. Do not compare your behind the scenes to someone’s highlight reel. If you’d find it easier, delete your social media apps for the duration of the festive period. Or set yourself limits such as only allowing yourself to spend 5 minutes scrolling at one time, or only going on Instagram from 3–4.
Set realistic expectations for your Christmas:
Christmas brings with it an intense pressure to have the perfect day where everything goes smoothly from start to finish. This is an unrealistic expectation because perfection in this sense doesn’t exist. Sometimes things go wrong and it’s completely outside of our control. The image of perfection that we’re shown on our TV screens and social media are also not representative of everyone’s different circumstances. It’s important to remember that we have the power to construct our own personal definition of ‘perfect’ and what the ‘perfect’ Christmas looks like to us. To avoid any feelings of disappointment, we can set realistic benchmarks for our ‘perfect’ Christmas such as: ‘I’d like to go for a winter walk’, ‘I’d like to watch a Christmas film at some point’, ‘I’d like to catch this Christmas special on TV’, ‘I’d like to sit around the table as a family and have a meal’. Setting small, realistic benchmarks will help us to combat feelings of inadequacy or disappointment this Christmas. This may be especially helpful this year with the Covid-19 restrictions radically changing the ways many of us are spending our Christmases.
If you are fearful of spending Christmas with an abusive partner or family member, please reach out to Cardiff Women’s Aid.
Call us, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on 02920 460 566.
Text us, Monday to Friday 9am — 7pm and weekends 9am — 4.30pm on 07727 462 793.
Our webchat is available Monday to Friday, 9am — 4pm, at rise-cardiff.cymru
You can arrange a convenient time for a video chat by emailing [email protected]. You can also use this email address to access support via email if you’d prefer.
Access to peer support is available via our online survivors’ forum. To request to join, email [email protected]
Join our free SHOUT workshops for women, to find out more, email [email protected]
- Bethan Gilson, CWA volunteer | https://medium.com/@cardiffwomensaid/a-self-care-during-the-festive-period-564aff000439 | ["Cardiff Women'S Centre"] | 2020-12-16 10:33:44.142000+00:00 | ['Festive', 'Self Care', 'Christmas', 'Womens Rights'] |
The previous 12 months — a Coinomi retrospective | Coinomi has grown a lot in the past 12 months! There have been improvements and new options in every possible facet! Want to check them out? Get the app on https://coinomi.com/
Why don’t we start from the start? I mean the very start: installing the app and creating your first wallet. New users now have an option for “fast wallet creation” that is a more streamlined experience and you will be up and rocking your new wallet in 5 seconds! The app continues being just as secure, but now you have the option to safely back up your seed when you choose is more convenient.
Speaking of UX changes, Coinomi significantly modernized the interface in the most important parts, while maintaining the same overall feel and super user-friendly, uncluttered design. Following Google’s Material Design guidelines, important actions have a home in the always-accessible Fast Action Button (FAB).
The new FAB wouldn’t be nearly as exciting if it didn’t come filled with new goodies! This last year we included support for tools like WalletConnect so you can safely connect your wallet to websites that support it websites. Another major feature is the dApp browser. As the internet evolves to decentralization and web3.0, so does Coinomi. You can also now view your beautiful collectibles directly from the app.
New partnerships are flocking to the app. Joining Simplex, our European users can now purchase their crypto directly from the app via BTC Direct. Joining Changelly, you can conveniently exchange from one crypto to another via CoinSwitch and Totle. Don’t hodl forever, with the new partnership with Bidali you can use your coins to buy gift cards and pay in thousands of stores. You can access them all directly from the sidebar in the app!
On to more serious and major changes, the last 12 months brought incredible options for securing your coins. First, multiseed support allows you to organize your funds in multiple seeds in a single instance of the app. You can control your log-term savings and daily-use wallet in the same app without the need to repeatedly restore each one. And the new encryption options let you keep each one as safe as you need. Each seed can independently have anything from no authentication (with encryption keys being handled by Android’s secure keystore system) to super paranoid biometric+password authentication. Along with a privacy PIN to open the app and show balances, this almost gives you a 3FA security. Feeling extra paranoid? Set your wallets to self-desctruct if someone tries to bruteforce your PIN.
We’ve been busy working on your privacy too! For those who don’t want to give up a single byte of information, you can connect your Bitcoin wallets to your own ElectrumX server. That wallet’s data will go directly to you and no one else. Want to get more privacy from blockchain analytics? We got you covered. New privacy features include choosing the address format of the change addresses for your transactions, and coin control to set which UTXOs you allow to be spent.
Haven’t had enough? There’s more! Using Coinomi in general is much more convenient with features like support for address name services. Instead of entering a complicated crypto address, you can simply enter the destination alias like “bill.eth” or “george.zil”. Restoring on a new phone? Use the account scanner so the app can search which coins had a balance, so you don’t have to select them manually. Tax day is coming? Export your transaction history in a format already compatible with the BlockSentry accounting system. Address book getting bigger? Use tags to better organize them. Ever accidentally sent XRP to an address with the wrong destination tag? Now we support the new X format that encodes the tag in the address itself. Want more coins? This year we added Algorand, Aryacoin, Donu, Hydra and Tron, and you can bet we’re working on more.
Wow, that was a lot! Is there any feature you don’t understand? Are you having any problems with the app? To close things off, now you can now contact our support team 24/7 directly from the app and have swift, personalized and live responses for any questions or issues. Coinomi is one of the the highest rated crypto software available, and now with the fastest and most convenient support, just one click away! Get Coinomi on https://coinomi.com/ | https://medium.com/coinomi/the-previous-12-months-a-coinomi-retrospective-66a94e1c70a3 | ['Fer Coinomi'] | 2020-07-21 09:26:24.577000+00:00 | ['Coinomi', 'Updates', 'Features', 'Wallet', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
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