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Projects Update | This is an update on my current writing pursuits. As you know, I just finished the second book in the love and friendship trilogy, Eleanor’s Travels. I thought that after I completed this book, I would either:
Complete the sequel to my dark comedy novella, Divine Error. I was already halfway done. Start on the final book for the YA trilogy. I have the first few chapters ready.
So, what am I working on now? I am working on 3. A brand new project because inspiration struck and refuses to let go 😅 So, all my other projects are on hold while I work on this new book.
So far, this is what I know. It will be a standalone, epic, love, fantasy novel based on a mythical creature (I won’t reveal what yet). It will also be my longest project to date. I hope that it will be 90k in length, but as I have mentioned before, underwriting is my weak point… so wish me luck 😔
The good news.. if all goes well, it will be ready in a few months. I will be excited to share it with all of you. I have already work on the book cover, and it is so pretty 😍🥰
I also think I won’t do pre-order this time, and I will publish it straightaway. I am a small fish author in the large ocean of literary works, and my pre-order rates are just depressing at this moment lol 🐟🌊
Thank you for stopping by, and following me on my writing journey. | https://medium.com/@aisha-urooj/projects-update-82b69d3216b | ['Aisha Urooj'] | 2020-12-21 16:31:18.574000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Books', 'Projects', 'Goals', 'Authors'] |
Linear Regression With Gradient Descent Derivation | Pre-Requisites
The only pre-requisites are differentiation and matrix multiplication.
What is Linear Regression ?
Simple Linear Regression is basically a modelling of linear relationship between linearly dependent variables that can be later used to predict dependent variable values for new independent variables
For this, we use the equation of the line : y = m * x + c.
where y is the dependent variable and x is the independent variable
For example: We could predict the salary of a person with the years of experience of the person.
Here, Salary is the dependent variable and experience is the independent variable since, we are predicting salary with the help of experience.
When to use Linear Regression: Linear regression can be performed on data where there is a good linear relationship between dependent and independent variables.
The degree of linear relationship can be found with help of correlation.
Gradient Descent
Gradient Descent is a an optimization algorithm that can be used to find the global or local minima of a differentiable function.
Various Assumptions and definitions before we begin.
Let’s say we have an independent variable x and a dependent variable y.
in order to form the relationship between these 2 variables, we have the equation:
y = x * w + b
where w is weight ( or slope ) ,
b is the bias (or intercept ),
x is the independent variable column vector(examples),
y is the dependent variable column vector(examples)
Our main goal is to find the w and b that defines the relationship between variable x and y correctly. We accomplish this with the help of something called as the Loss Function.
Loss Function: A loss function is a function that signifies how much our predicted values is deviated from the actual values of the dependent variable.
Important Note: we are trying to find the values for w and b such that it minimizes our loss function.
Steps Involved in Linear Regression with Gradient Descent Implementation
Initialize the weight and bias randomly or with 0(both will work). Make predictions with this initial weight and bias. Compare these predicted values with the actual values and define the loss function using both these predicted and actual values. With the help of differentiation, calculate how loss function changes with respect to weight and bias term. Update the weight and bias term so as to minimize the loss function.
Implementation with Math
Example of Independent and dependent variables respectively
1 . Assumption
Let us say we have an x and y vectors like shown in the above pic (The above one is only for an example).
2. Initialize w and b to 0
w = 0, b = 0
3. Make some predictions with the current w and b. Of course, it’s going to be wrong.
y_pred = x*w + b , where y_pred stands for predicted y values.
This y_pred will also be a vector like y.
4 . Define a loss function
loss = (y_pred — y)²/n
where n is the number of examples in the dataset.
It is obvious that this loss function represents the deviation of the predicted values from the actual.
This loss function will also be a vector. But, we will be summing all the elements in that vector to convert it into scalar.
5. Calculate (∂(loss)/ ∂w)
The derivative of a function of a real variable measures the sensitivity to change of the function value with respect to a change in its argument.
We can use calculus to find how loss changes with respect to w.
loss = (y_pred — y)²/n loss = (y_pred² + y² — 2y*y_pred)/n (expanding the whole square) =>( (x*w+b)² + y² — 2y*(x*w+b))/n (substitute y_pred) => ((x*w+b)²/n ) + (y²/n) + ((-2y(x*w+b))/n) (splitting the terms) Let A = ((x*w+b)²/n )
Let B = (y²/n),
Let C = ((-2y(x*w+b))/n) A = ( x²w² + b² + 2xwb )/n (expanding)
∂A/∂w = ( 2x²w + 2xb )/n (differentiating) ∂B/∂w = 0 (differentiating) C = (-2yxw — 2yb)/n
∂C/∂w = (-2yx)/n (differentiating)
So, ∂loss/∂w will be the addition of all these terms:
∂loss/∂w = (2x²w + wxb — 2yx)/n
=> (2x(x*w + b — y))/n
So, The derivative of loss with respect to w was found to be:
(2/n)*(y_pred — y)*x . Let us call this dw.
If we perform the same differentiation for loss with respect to b, we’ll get:
(2/n)*(y_pred — y) . Let us call this db.
This dw and db are what we call “gradients”
6. Update w and b
Figure 6.1
As we can see in the figure 6.1, if we initialize the weight randomly, it might not result in a global minimum of the loss function.
It is our duty to update the weights to the point where the loss is minimum. We have calculated dw above.
dw is nothing but the slope of the tangent of the loss function at point w.
Considering the initial position of w.
Important point to understand :
In the above diagram, The slope of the tangent of the loss will be positive as initial value of w is greater and it needs to be reduced so as to attain global minimum.
If the value of w is low and we want to increase it to attain global minimum, the slope of the tangent of loss at point w will be negative
We want the value of w to be a little lower so as to attain global minima of the loss function as shown in the figure 6.1.
We know that dw is positive in the above graph and we need to reduce w.
This can be done by:
w = w — alpha*dw
b = b — alpha*bw
where alpha is a small number ranging between 0.1 to 0.0000001 (approx) and this alpha is knows as the learning rate.
Doing this, we can reduce w if slope of tangent of loss at w is positive and increase w if slope is negative
7. Learning Rate
Learning rate alpha is something that we have to manually choose and it is something which we don’t know beforehand. Choosing it is a matter of trial and error.
The reason we do not directly subtract dw from w is because, it might result in too much change in the value of w and might not end up in global minimum but, even further away from it.
8. Training Loop
The process of calculating the gradients and updating the weight and bias is repeated for several times, which results in the optimized value for weight and bias.
9. Prediction
After the training loop, the value of weight and bias is now optimized, which can be used to predict new values given new x values.
y = x*w + b
Conclusion
That’s it for Linear Regression with gradient descent.
The learning from “Machine Learning” signifies the part where the gradients of w and b are learnt and then w and b are updated.
Thank You | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/linear-regression-with-gradient-descent-derivation-c10685ddf0f4 | ['Ashwin Prasad'] | 2020-09-16 04:17:31.244000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Linear Regression', 'Math', 'Derivation', 'Gradient Descent'] |
How to Found a State? Seized and Missed Opportunities: Parallel Histories of two Post-Ottoman State Building Initiatives | Fast-backward to 1900. Imagine we are there, not knowing the future, just a small piece of it. Namely, that a non-Muslim, stateless people in the Ottoman Empire will achieve independence and statehood, sometime in the century ahead, on a territory which was Ottoman then. Make your bet: which will it be? Quite likely most gamblers, somewhat familiar with the realities of the Empire would have bet on Armenians and Armenia.
They would have been wrong and lost. It was the Jewish people and Israel. True, Armenia also gained full statehood some 70 years after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, but it was not on former Ottoman territories. Why were even well-informed onlookers so wrong? In the following pages we try to recall, in the framework of a comparative analysis the two parallel efforts by these two people.
Both lost their statehood, for close to one or two millennia and in the distant past. Consequently, both had to bear more than just occasionally the brunt of discrimination and oppression by hostile host nations. Following a glorious history of various empires and kingdoms stretching back to thousands of years, the last independent Armenian state entity, the Kingdom of Cilicia finally fell under Muslim control in 1375. Ancient Israel’s independent existence came to an end — by most accounts — in 63 BC. It was then that a long period of Roman, Byzantine and Muslim rule of those lands started, combined with the dispersion of the Jewish people to three continents.
There is no space to go into the details of the parallel history of the two nations from losing independence to around 1900, the year our story begins. Suffice to say that among the many differences and similarities one difference sticks out: the Armenian people, following the loss of independence were not dispersed in any comparable manner. As we will see later, this difference was more than a minor detail.
In the 19th century European, Orthodox subject people of the Ottoman Empire gradually regained their independence in a long process of territorial expansion, most notably in the case of Greece. In the case of Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania an ever decreasing level of limitations on sovereignty was the main feature of the process. All of these people, however, with the partial exceptions of Greeks, lived in massive and relatively homogeneous blocks on more peripheral territories of the Empire.
Two other stateless people — Jewish and Armenian — had a different demographic reality. The native Jewish population, in what was then the vilayets of Beirut and Jerusalem (Kudüs), became a marginalized and impoverished minority there, limited to some 60 thousand people only. Prosperous and bigger Jewish communities lived in three major cities of the Empire, Istanbul, Izmir and Salonika, a total of some 150,000. They, however, were not natives, mostly having come from Spain after 1492 following the Reconquista and the extensive expulsion of Moorish and Jewish people from Catholic Spain.
The “Six Vilayets”
As for Armenians, their presence in the former Armenian states’ territories, mostly the so-called “Six Vilayets” (Bitlis, Diyarbakir, Erzurum, Mamuret ul-Aziz, Van) was significant. However, they were still a minority, with the possible exception of Van where Armenians were still a relative majority at the turn of the century. Strong Armenian communities lived in many urban centers of the empire. Statistics, though, are very challenging here. The Ottoman census of 1914 put their numbers at a mere 1.16 million, while the Armenian Patriarchate’s figure was 1.914 million, over 10% of the Empire’s total of 18.5 million. (They came to this figure by correcting the presumed errors and omissions of the earlier Turkish census. This was done by local bishops and other Armenian religious leaders.) While systematic, tax-evasion generated underreporting and even some zealotry by Turkish officials is quite likely, the Patriarchate’s figures completely lacked documented methodology and sources. Consequently, the most prudent approach is to choose a middle-of-the road figure somewhere in the range of 1.5 million. (Also, some 1 million Armenians lived in neighboring Russia and Iran at that time.)
Am original, French-language Summary Chart of the 1914 Ottoman Census
The idea of the lost homeland lived on strong in both nations, both in the diaspora and in the people who stayed in the ancient homeland over which sovereignty had been lost. “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6)
“Our churches are in the hands of unbelievers, they took captives, alas, how many destroyed churches, how many new mosques built … how much blood shed…God, why are you taking revenge? … we are not statues of iron?”. This how the 14th century Armenian poet, Frik laments in his poem. The Lamentations over the lost homeland developed into the most widely circulated genre in both ecclesiastical and secular Armenian literature.
After many hundreds of years of silence, national reawakening started to take shape later in the 19th century. For the Jewish people of Central and Eastern Europe, where they lived in biggest numbers, it was the Zionist movement. This may be dated back to 1896, the year the Zionist Manifesto was published. For the Armenians, it was the mostly Socialist oriented Dashnak Party and the primarily Nationalist Hunchak Party, founded in 1887 and 1890 respectively, both outside Ottoman Turkey. Of the three, in the first decades, Zionists were the most compromise-seeking and violence-avoiding.
After this short detour, we are back to 1900, the year our imaginary betting shop is selling its tickets on the future of state-building by the two stateless people in the Ottoman Empire. Let us stress again: in the historic core territories of these two people, both within the Ottoman Empire then, there lived some 60 000 Jewish people and close to a million Armenians. It would have been easy to conclude that this was a race with one obvious underdog…
From then on, important milestones are Theodore Herzl’s countless meetings with important personalities of his era, to seek support for his “Jewish Homeland” initiative. He was even received by Abdulhamid II, the Turkish Sultan in 1901, during one of his five visits to Istanbul. Interestingly enough, while the Sultan was in favor of Jewish immigration into other parts of his Empire — the experiences with the Jewish refugees from Spain some 400 years before were by and large positive — he rejected the idea of the Jewish repopulation of Palestine. He somehow foresaw the potential for ethno-religious conflicts which this could have entailed. Then in 1917 came the Balfour Declaration. In this, for the first time in two thousand years, a World Power committed herself to support the idea of a Jewish state entity. Parallel to this, the world’s most prosperous Jewish community, the one in the USA also committed itself with ever increasing determination to this cause. The small money boxes in so many American Jewish households — as described by Golda Meir in her autobiography, “My Life” — were regularly filled up and their contents donated to help Jewish land acquisition in Palestine.
The same years were less constructive and peaceful for Armenians. There were rebellions by isolated, but not small Armenian armed groups between 1894 and 1904. These were often provoked by government actions and were followed routinely by massive and bloody retributions by the Turkish military, with armed local Muslim gangs often joining in. There were armed actions by Armenian “patriots” or “bandits”, depending on the perspective. These would qualify today as acts of terrorism, most notably the attack on the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul in 1896. There is no point in trying to parcel out blame. However, the fact remains that Armenians gradually ceased to be perceived by the Muslim majority as the “millet-i sadika” (“loyal nation”). This was applied earlier to Armenians, but later, following these developments it gave way to deep suspicion and mistrust. This mistrust was further reinforced by the traumatic experiences of the First Balkan War. In this former Ottoman subject people regained vast Ottoman territories and countless atrocities were committed against Muslim Turks in the “occupied” or “liberated” territories, again depending on the perspectives.
It is time now to catalogue the similarities and the differences at that time between these two people.
First similarities. Both nations went through the experience of national revival and formulated its desire for a national homeland, not subjected to the controls and whims of hostile master states. A strange asymmetry could though be observed here. For Armenians this oppressive master state was first and foremost Ottoman Turkey where some 45% of Armenians lived. The presence of close to a million Armenians in Russia, more than a quarter of all Armenians did not produce the same emotions. (Christianity prevailing in the Czarist Russian Empire was obviously a factor.) Armenian emigration from Turkey gained momentum after 1886. However, the diaspora outside Armenian historic core territories — split between Turkey, Russia and to smaller degree Iran — was not very significant. Less than one quarter of all Armenians lived outside these three countries.
For the Jewish people it was the diaspora outside Ottoman Turkey — all the way from the USA to Russia — where their overwhelming majority, over 95% lived. The number of Jewish people in the historic core territory, that is the two vilayets of Beirut and Jerusalem was negligible, perhaps only one in 300 hundred lived there. To sum this up it is safe to say that while the “center of gravity” for Armenians was endogenous in the Ottoman territories, for the Jewish people it was exogeneous in the diaspora.
Both people suffered discrimination and hostility, although their dynamics were somewhat different. In Turkey for Armenians it was a new phenomenon. It started in the last decades of the 19th century and its intensity was on the increase. In previous centuries it was not markedly different from or worse than what other non-Muslim “millets” (people) had to endure in the Ottoman Empire.
For Jewish people in Europe by the turn of the century emancipation was a seemingly — at least on the longer run and in Western and Central Europe — unstoppable development. Only Russia was lagging behind with her all-too-frequent pogroms, discriminatory legislation and restrictions on residence.
Both nations had an extremely strong religious and cultural heritage and were strongly rooted in their historic traditions. This resulted in a unique continuity of national, linguistic and religious identity. This continuity helped to resist assimilation which terminated the existence of so many scattered diaspora people throughout history. Also, both nations had a strong, mystical attachment to their lost homeland. Here, however, as far as demographic and geopolitical realities were concerned, strong differences prevailed.
Both nations were often culturally more advanced and better schooled than their host people. Consequently — although here other factors also played a role — many of them were engaged in non-farming activities, such as financial intermediation and certain profitable trades and crafts. This resulted in an accumulation of wealth which more often than not triggered envy and jealousy among host populations, poisoning the relationship between these communities, burdened also by their religious separation.
One very strong similarity could also be mentioned. This, however, as significant as it turned out to be for the outcome of the two state-building projects, around 1900 was still wrapped in the uncertainty of the future. Namely that these two nations, between 1915–17 and 1939–45, respectively, suffered the most brutal and lethal genocide/ethnic cleansing that the otherwise so bloody 20th century produced.
Major differences, however, were also noticeable.
As mentioned earlier, the Armenian national movement was endogenous, its basic strategy targeting a significant part of Eastern Anatolia, then — and even today — under the control of the Turkish state. It was clear even then that the strength of this movement is nearly not sufficient, so the ascending power of Imperial Russia was sought as a major sponsor to change the status quo. (It was not unknown even then that Imperial Russia is strongly centralized, not recognizing minority rights and at least in the beginning a genuinely independent Armenian state entity would not be a likely outcome.) The Armenian leadership of the two parties thus step-by-step shifted its loyalty to the Russian state while it was also opening up to the then ascending revolutionary movements there. This burned every bridge leading to a solution within the crumbling Ottoman state. All this was known to Turkish officialdom and was a somewhat “narrow path” strategy: all hopes were pinned on an eventual Russo-Turkish war. In this war the victorious Russian army would drive out Ottoman occupiers and then somehow Armenians would be in a better position to gain autonomy or perhaps even independence.
The Zionist movement chose a less narrow path strategy and showed more flexibility. Options involving support from more governments, such as the Turkish, German, British were permanently considered. Even such abortive ideas as the “Uganda Option”, relying on Great Britain’s goodwill were briefly on the agenda. Also, the declared goals of the movement were formulated very carefully, emphasis being put primarily on not much beyond promoting Jewish settlement activities in Palestine. With the wisdom of hindsight it made perfect sense: a weak movement with little means and support should not open too wide a front right in the beginning.
The Armenian movement was extremely ambitious, focusing on the mirage (or chimera?) of the various ancient Armenian empires of the past two millennia. Demographic realities on the ground had changed in the meantime. Even Armenian Patriarchate records — putting the number of their flock much higher than Turkish census data — claimed Armenian absolute majority in only one of the Six Vilayets.
1914 Armenian Patriarchate population figures for the “Six Vilayets”
As the map shows below, a clear ethnic majority — more or less corresponding to the present Armenian Republic — covered only a very small corner of former Armenian homelands, and that was mostly in Russia. Consequently, in the case of Armenia mostly unfounded demographic claims mixed with historic ones, creating a confusion and a lack of clarity of objectives.
The Zionist movement — apart from the occasionally recalled slogan of “a land without a people for a people without a land” — demographic claims could not be and were not laid, as in the core historic Palestinian area Jewish people were a tiny minority. Claims were clearly historic, based on the never abandoned idea of “right of return”. This, while being ambitious, helped to keep a clarity of vision and purposes.
The map below illustrates — again with the wisdom of hindsight — the imbalance between ambitions and realities in the Armenian case, final reality represented by the actual shape of the Armenian nation state.
Zionist claims were also ambitious, more so in light of demographic realities. However, the mismatch between chimeras of historic nostalgia and objectives and subsequent actual achievements was markedly smaller. (It has to be mentioned though that from a historic perspective it is still too early to call. Considering the dynamics of Jewish settlement activities in the West Bank, it is quite possible in the future this mismatch will further shrink. For Armenia prospects are bleaker, as the loss of the de facto, even if not de jure, control of Armenian-inhabited areas of Azerbaijan is a possibility not to be neglected.) Not that on the Israeli extreme political right there are no more ambitious ideas, dreaming about expansion and claiming historic rights over areas which have now been parts of neighboring Arab states for many decades. These, however, are anything but mainstream. Mainstream political forces are focusing their energies on securing long-term control over the West Bank and the international recognition of this expansion and, more importantly, on the internal/external security of the actual Jewish state.
The differences between a fundamentally exogeneous (Jewish) and endogenous (Armenian) state-building paths were made more dramatic by how the two genocidal tragedies of the two people impacted the future of those two projects. The Armenian tragedy simply removed the already-not-very-strong demographic claim from the equation. The Jewish tragedy by Hitler’s death machinery — which had a vastly superior coverage in world media — generated worldwide sympathy and triggered a wave of emigration. This helped to reach the “tipping point” in successfully resisting Arab attempts to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state. This tragedy, however, did not weaken decisively the strength of the worldwide diaspora, rather, it strengthened its resolve. The almost total annihilation and violent removal of the Armenian population, on which a demographic claim had been made, was enhanced by the defeat and subsequent implosion of the Russian Empire. Russia was the main — if not exactly altruistic — sponsor of the Armenian drive for autonomy and possible independence. A war which was supposed to be fought alongside Russia finally had to be fought with no allies. Armenians were on their own, with an obvious disparity of forces. (It is illustrative how from later 1917 on, with the winds of revolutionary change blowing over the trenches of the Russo-Turkish front, then deep inside Turkey, Russian and other nationality soldiers just packed up and went home. They simply left Armenians ones to man this long frontline, a “mission impossible”.) Not that the two avenues or strategies — one basically self-reliant and the other heavily reliant on support from the influential, mostly US-based diaspora — was very much a matter of choice. The Armenian diaspora’s financial weight, cultural influence and sheer numbers, not to mention their access to world media channels as they were known then, were not comparable to what was available to the Zionist movement.
With the wisdom of hindsight we know that there was one more “asset” of which the Zionist movement had much more. Namely, patience. Although it is obvious that some fights may not be avoided, it is also true that it is a great advantage to pick the time for your fights carefully, not too early. The leaders of the Armenian national movements seem to have rushed often prematurely into conflicts. The three major pre-WWI revolts between 1894–1904 (mostly Sasun, Zeitun and Van) could not be successful. They resulted in major loss of life, against some success in drawing the world’s attention to the Armenian cause. Also, the Armenian national movement has placed its bets very strongly on Russia’s victory. The war was indeed going well against Turkey, here the Russian Army made good progress, reaching by 1916 a line as far as beyond Trabzon and Erzincan, all the way down to Bitlis. In the areas occupied — from an Armenian perspective “liberated” — the Armenian national movement quickly organized itself. In particular in spots not strictly controlled by the Russian Army more than just occasionally started to settle the scores with the Muslim population. On the Western Front, however, Russia started to yield to German pressure. This eventually led to the collapse of the Turkish Front. Advancing Turkish troops continued the cycle of violence, driving out or worse any remaining Armenian communities surviving the 1915–16 expulsions and massacres.
The Zionist movement patiently limited military action to self-defense or retaliation and against only Arabs until 1939 or so. Armed actions against British Mandate Authorities started just before the war, to be frozen as the war started. No matter what the movement’s objectives were, it made little sense “to fight the enemy of my enemy”. Insurgency against the British Mandate was resumed only in the final months of WWII. By then it was clear that Britain’s interest in continuing the Mandate was declining fast. Jewish insurgents were fighting on a two front-war, against Arabs and British, both standing in the way of the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine. At that time the insurgent groups of the Jewish community, such as Irgun, Haganah, Lehi obtained clear military superiority if not against neighboring Arab states, but against the Palestinian Arab community. The use of overwhelming, close to unrestrained force was avoided until the First Arab-Israeli War. This, in its later stage, was an asymmetrical military conflict where at the price of small casualties the demographic balance of the newly born Jewish State could be quite drastically tilted towards the Jewish community.
Limited independence was a much longer-lasting experience for Armenians. The chimera of Wilsonian Armenia — it would have been a state where Armenians were supposed to be small minority, see map below — burnt to ashes as the Sevres Peace Treaty was relegated to history by 1921. Then came the chaotic period of a formally independent but very porous and tenuous First Republic.
“Wilsonian Armenia”
Finally, in December 1922 Armenia was incorporated into what later came to known as the USSR. This was certainly not a state where genuine economic development could take place and which — with its limited freedoms and lack of private enterprise — could become a magnet for the Armenian diaspora.
Soviet Armenia, 1922–1991
For Israel the precursor to full statehood, the Mandate in Palestine, see map below — what was 70 years for Armenia — was only 26 years, from 1922 to 1948.
Following full independence and years of austerity, Israel developed a very advanced economy and attracted not just investment, financial support but also a high number of immigrants from the diaspora. Unlike investment, they came mostly not necessarily from the advanced Western world, rather from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia and, in the 90s, from the former Soviet Union. Unlike earlier immigrants they were not so much attracted by the lack of discrimination, rather by the material benefits the successful Israeli state could offer. (With the downside of living in a country which is isolated in her narrower geopolitical environment and, from time to time, security threats looming over every citizen.)
The Charts below is supposed to explain it better than words. It shows how the Jewish State grew in population, which correlates with economic strength, not to mention military prowess. (I spare the reader the relevant economic data on GDP or GNP, exports and start up/high tech businesses.) Now it is hosting more than half of the Jewish people worldwide. Their number in diaspora is reduced by assimilation but also by the weakness of statistical methodology. This seems to be quite helpless in answering “who is a Jewish person” in countries where religious and national identity is fast losing ground to a more secular and cosmopolitan way of life.
The picture for Armenia is less bright. Its population growth was less dynamic than that of the diaspora. Still only some one third of Armenians live in their mother country, although — needless to say — the statistical margins of error are just as high as in the case of Israel and figures for the diaspora are necessarily rather arbitrary. Besides, Armenia is poorer than even the poorest of her neighbors (Georgia) and is also geographically isolated. Not unlike Israel she is locked in a seemingly never-ending military conflict, with Azerbaijan but indirectly also with Turkey. However, very much unlike Israel, she is the underdog with a weak, small army and with only a hesitant ally, that is Russia.
How would it be possible to sum up all the similarities and differences and draw some conclusions? How could the story of the “also-ran” overtaking and winning by a wide mile be explained? Half seriously: is there any lesson in all this for future state builders?
The explanation may be found in the physics of leverage. Armenians, due to multiple reasons, had to build their state on a very much weakened demographic basis, in international isolation and with almost no help from a relatively weak diaspora. This was like lifting a heavy weight with sheer muscle power. The builders of the Jewish State could use leverage. Consequently their effort was grossly augmented by the weight of the diaspora, as if the rules of physics were applied. The fulcrum — the staunch identification with the Land of the predecessors — was strong enough to bear this extra force. The results spoke for themselves. Just see the two statues below, it explains it all. | https://medium.com/@juliussumeghy/how-to-found-a-state-e71ab7e33cf5 | ['Julius Sümeghy'] | 2020-12-20 07:50:38.939000+00:00 | ['Armenia', 'Homeland', 'History', 'Israel', 'Turkey'] |
Podium Star: Virtual Edition | If you’ve been following Podium Star for the past year, you know that it’s been one of the most popular startup events in Korea. In 2019, we hosted 11 events and attracted large crowds to venues in Gangnam, Yeouido, Mapo, and COEX.
Podium Star at Google Campus in March 2019
But with this year’s COVID-19 pandemic, Podium Star was delayed, and then moved online. So on October 29, we used a hybrid format for our first Podium Star of 2020. Our startups gathered offline to pitch at our studio, while our judges and audience joined online. By hosting online, we’re not only helping to provide a safe environment for the startups, but we’re also able to bring new eyes from around the world to some of Korea’s hottest startups.
The global SaaS (software as a service) market, originally estimated at $68 billion, is projected to reach a revised size of $219.5 billion in just a few years. But Korea’s SaaS scene is well, underwhelming. So if more future entrepreneurs knew and invested more into SaaS solutions, it could be another boom to Korea’s startup ecosystem. So, we scouted some of the top up-and-coming startups who are creating amazing SaaS solutions for both consumers and businesses. Then we invited VCs and accelerators to take a look, including current and former executives from the World Innovations Forum in Switzerland and Walmart VC/ACs to act as judges. And we hosted it on a new and engaging platform called Airmeet. See more about the Podium Star: SaaS event here.
Here are the SaaS teams that pitched
Mobidoo: Live commerce platform that connects brands with customers Roborus: Identification platform that helps brands improve customer experience ImagoWorks: 3D dental modeling software for faster and easier visits to the dentist PayWork: Task and payment management for digital contracts Business Canvas: All-in-one tool for business documentation creation I-ON Communications: Document management for digitizing and signing contracts
David Lee wins Podium Star: SaaS Edition on October 29, 2020
In the end, our 1st place winner was Mobidoo, a live commerce platform that connects brands with customers. By winning, Mobidoo receives membership into the World Innovations Forum. This includes mentoring from the chairman as well as access to their 1,000 investors. This works out great, as CEO David Lee said they are currently raising their Series B round.
Next Podium Star
Don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn to learn about our events, including 2020’s final Podium Star on December 10, where we’ll hear from six innovative startups in the mobility space. | https://medium.com/powerpt/podium-star-virtual-edition-276b0b03fa34 | ['Jonathan Moore'] | 2020-12-21 13:00:40.350000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Korea', 'Pitching', 'Virtual', 'SaaS'] |
What Are the Simplest and Most Secure Desktop-Based Cryptocurrency Wallets? | Desktop-based cryptocurrency wallets are used for keeping the private keys of cryptocurrencies on a local computer safely.
As compared to web-based wallets, desktop wallets are considered to be more secure for storing digital currencies because they are more difficult to steal.
Nonetheless, since desktop wallets are categorized as “hot wallets” (because they are connected to the Internet), they are still inherently insecure.
Therefore, you should take extra caution to ensure their security. You can also learn how to maintain their security by watching video guides from experts.
Here are 7 simple and most secure desktop-based crypto wallets you can use.
1)EXODUS
Exodus, released in 2016, is a simple and user-friendly desktop-based wallet for storing your private crypto keys. Its interface is devoid of unnecessary complexities, which allows you to get around it with much ease. Exodus also provides 24/7 customer support.
It offers protection by encrypting your private keys and transaction details on your hard drive. You’ll have complete control of your keys.
Exodus is a multi-currency wallet. Therefore, it’s suitable if you want to diversify your storage of cryptocurrencies.
It is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac.
2)ELECTRUM
Electrum, released in 2011, is a versatile, powerful, and secure wallet for storing your cryptos on a local machine. It is a Bitcoin wallet that focuses on low resource usage to guarantee fast transactions without any downtimes.
Electrum encrypts your private keys on your computer. To enhance your security, you can use its cold storage capabilities that allow you to store your keys offline and go online with a wallet having watch-only features.
It is available for Windows, Linux, Mac, and Android.
3)BITCOIN CORE
Bitcoin core, which is the first and the original crypto wallet, provides high levels of security, reliability, and privacy.
While most other wallets are known as Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) wallets or lite wallets, Bitcoin core is a full node Bitcoin wallet. SPV wallets do not require the entire copy of the blockchain before completing transactions.
However, Bitcoin core requires that you download the entire Bitcoin blockchain on your computer before using it. Because the Bitcoin’s blockchain size is big (over 145 gigabytes) it can consume a big portion of your hardware resources.
Whereas this wallet can be resource-heavy, it offers increased security to your bitcoins. Furthermore, there is an active community around Bitcoin core that will assist you to address any issues and problems.
It is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac.
4)MSIGNA
mSIGNA is a state-of-the-art storage solution for blockchain-based digital currencies, such as Bitcoin and Litecoin. It is free and open source, and aligns with the top-notch security practices in the industry.
Whereas mSIGNA is a sophisticated tool, it is very user-friendly, fast, and inherently scalable. Some of its notable features include decentralized offline key generation, convenient multi-device synchronization, encrypted offline storage, and watch-only wallet sharing capabilities.
It is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac.
5)COPAY
Copay, released in 2014, is an open sourced Bitcoin wallet that is simple and effective to use. It allows you to enhance the security of your wallet by using multiple signatories. With this amazing feature, the group members must approve before any transaction takes place — just like a joint-checking account.
Furthermore, Copay supports the storage of multiple wallets separately. As such, you can manage different wallets without leaving the Copay app.
It is available for a wide range of platforms, including iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux.
6)ARMORY
Armory is an open source and free wallet for storing Bitcoin private keys on your computer. It focuses on cold storage and multi-signature support to provide users with increased security.
Armory’s cold storage capabilities allow you to use its watch-only wallet for viewing your Bitcoin details online. You can also set up multiple Bitcoin wallet addresses and use them to carry out separate transactions.
It is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac.
7)ETHERWALL
Etherwall, released in 2015 as an open source project, is the first Ethereum desktop-based wallet. It is simple, user-friendly, and highly secure.
You can choose to run it as a full node or thin node client. The full mode allows you to download the entire Ethereum blockchain on your computer. On the other hand, the thin mode allows you to complete your transactions without downloading the Ethereum blockchain data.
It is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac. It also supports Trezor devices.
CONCLUSION
There you go!
Those are the cryptocurrency wallets you can use on your desktop.
Do you use any of the above desktop cryptocurrency wallets?
Do you use any other non-desktop crypto wallet to keep your private keys?
Please let us know in the comment section below.
This article was originally published on the LiveEdu.tv blog.
Get LEDU Coin
Get LEDU coins now on Exrates, Livecoin, Mercatox and IDEX or join the LEDU OTC Trading program for large purchases. Read more about LEDU coins on our project page and ask any questions you might have in our Telegram group chat. | https://medium.com/ledu-tokens/what-are-the-simplest-and-most-secure-desktop-based-cryptocurrency-wallets-9d2dab02d0 | ['Dr. Michael J. Garbade'] | 2019-01-11 19:50:04.592000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Wallet', 'Ethereum'] |
Identity in the Window: Visibility and Safety | O ur Sages taught: The Hanukkah lamp — it is a commandment to place it at the door of one’s house, on the outside. And if one lives in an attic, place it in a window adjoining the public area. (Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 21a)
Placing a Hanukkah menorah in the front window of one’s house isn’t a way to compete with the Joneses next door and their electricity-guzzling Christmas light display. No, it is a rabbinic mandate. It is how we fulfill our obligations as members of the Jewish people celebrating an ancient, but relatively minor, holiday.
The story of Hanukkah is complex, and its central characters, the Maccabees, aren’t necessarily the benevolent heroes we make them out to be. At its core, Hanukkah is a story about the universal and the particular, and battle staged between the two. From the fundamentalist Maccabees, who criticized not only the king Antiochus and his rules, but their own Jewish neighbors who assimilated, adopting Hellenist culture and custom, to the Jews of Enlightenment-age Europe, who put their faith in lofty but ultimately flawed and exclusionary notions of “liberty, equality, and fraternity.” Perhaps the most well-known such theory is the declaration of nineteenth-century Russian Jewish thinker Judah Leib Gordon: “Be a Jew in your home and a man outside of it.”
Hiding one’s identity is both a privilege and a burden, one that many people do not enjoy or bear. When your identity is linked with your skin color, when the discrimination you face is connected to the wheelchair that aids your daily mobility, you cannot simply decide when to present as your particular self and when to present as what our nation calls a “person.” A person is what Jews like Gordon wanted to be: an individual living in a nation-state influenced by Enlightenment philosophy deemed worthy of possessing rights. Read: White. Read: Male. Read: Christian (or, at least, not markedly Jewish). Read: Moneyed. Read: Educated. Read: Propertied…
But this is not what Hanukkah teaches us about our Jewish identity, at least not now, centuries removed from the Maccabees. A holiday that might have been celebrated with military parades and an emphasis on conformity has become one of the most-celebrated holidays in the Jewish diaspora, including among secular- and culturally-identified Jews. It has morphed to incorporate traditions of surrounding cultures, like gift-giving, while also retaining its Jewish specificity.
In our home, Hanukkah is a chance to talk about visibility and privacy. As a queer parent, a convert to Judaism, and the ima (mom) to a non-binary child, I teach about bravery, resilience, and humility. We emphasize not the might of a military rebellion, but the miracle of the oil that unexpectedly lasted, just like the Jewish people. We use this as an opportunity to talk about the sources of sustenance, both within ourselves, our inner strength, and externally, like the support and acceptance of one community for another. We speak about the bravery it requires to risk being truthful about ourselves and resisting the pressure to hide what makes us unique to make things easier in the broader culture. We use this as an opportunity to talk about being “out,” welcoming our non-Jewish and non-queer friends and family and neighbors into our traditions (not during COVID, but usually at our annual glo-stick Hanukkah party).
But we do not use Hanukkah as an opportunity to pressure anyone to reveal an identity that is risky, and we always note that some people cannot, like the Maccabees, hide safely in a cave until they are ready to battle for something for which no one should ever have to battle: a recognition of their unique humanity, and the opportunity to live their truth in every single realm.
This, too, emerges from Talmud: “In times of danger, one places [the menorah] on their table, and it is sufficient” (Shabbat 21a).
The rabbis outline the ideal way to light the Hanukkah menorah: first and foremost, we are invited to place it at our door, the border between private and public, inside and outside. We are to place it in a highly-trafficked or at the very least visible location: in the attic window so that the people across the way will see it, or in the courtyard where all travelers will notice. And yet, the rabbis also offer an alternative: that, when visibility proves too high a risk, we keep our light to ourselves.
The thing is, the Talmud does not say, “when you’re scared, don’t worry about it; just keep the menorah hidden away.” It says, rather, “in times of danger,” you can still fulfill the mitzvah (commandment) of the holiday without risking life and limb.
How can we determine whether we are living in “a time of danger”? As a queer parent and parent of a queer child, I think it’s connected to privilege and security. Secure in my identity and living situation, I have the privilege of so-called white skin and status, the privilege of a life that looks fairly normative from the outside (a wife, two kids, a cat). I spend that privilege by proudly placing our menorahs in the window, where our neighbors across the way can see and note that we are Jewish. I spend that privilege by educating others and welcoming them into our celebrations, virtual if need be.
Hanukkah has the potential to enlighten us, as Jews, to the struggles others face when they cannot hide the parts of themselves that others denigrate. It has the potential to enlighten us to the privilege and the blessing that it is to be able to say: I deserve to be Jewish and count as a person. So should all with whom we share this globe. | https://medium.com/the-shadow/identity-in-the-window-visibility-and-safety-cb11cabfeeb7 | ['Rabbi Nikki Deblosi', 'She Her'] | 2020-12-12 14:29:33.818000+00:00 | ['Judaism', 'Visibility', 'Identity', 'Equality', 'Religion'] |
Best Mi TV Q1 75-Inch Review | With 4K Display, 30W Stereo Speakers, Built-In Chromecast | Best Mi TV Q1 75-Inch Review | With 4K Display, 30W Stereo Speakers, Built-In Chromecast Trureviews Feb 16·2 min read
HIGHLIGHTS
Mi TV Q1 75-inch with a 120Hz display
ONLY available in preferred regions
Mi TV Q1 75-inch is costed at EUR 1,299 (around Rs. 1,14,300)
With 4K Display, 30W Stereo Speakers, Built-In Chromecast, and alongside the Mi 11 flagship, Xiaomi has also revealed the Mi TV Q1 75-inch. This television features a QLED 4K display and drives on Android 10. The TV set has a 178-degree angle for better clarity, and it offers passage to more than 700,000 films and shows and over 5,000 apps. The smart remote befalls with Netflix and Amazon Prime buttons and the TV set has a built-in receiver for voice functionality with Google Assistant and Alexa.
FEATURES
Arriving at the features, the Mi TV Q1 has a 75-inch QLED 4K UHD resolution display. It comes with razor-thin bezels; 120Hz refresh rate, 1,024 color shades, 100 percent NTSC range with 1.07 billion color contrasts, and a contrast ratio of 10,000: 1. The TV is provided with 192 zones of complete array dynamic limited dimming, HDR 10+ support, and Dolby Vision. The display has a 178-degree angle for enhanced visibility in a broad area.
Mi TV Q1 75-inch has a 30W speaker system that employs six speakers. It arrives with Dolby Audio and DTS-HD. being powered by the 1.5 GHz MediaTek MT9611 processor, and is paired with 2GB of RAM and 32GB. It lasts on Android 10 software for Netflix, Amazon Prime, and YouTube. Connectivity options incorporate two HDMI 2.0 ports, one HDMI 2.1 port, dual-band i-Fi, two USB 2.0 ports, Bluetooth v5, LAN/ Ethernet, a 3.5mm audio jack, and more.
As stated, the Mi TV Q1 75-inch also has a built-in microphone for hands-free control through voice controls. It also has a created-in Chromecast.
KEY SPECS
Display
75.00-inch
Screen Type
QLED
Resolution Standard
Ultra-HD
OS
Android
Smart TV
Of course
for more | https://medium.com/@trureviews/best-mi-tv-q1-75-inch-review-with-4k-display-30w-stereo-speakers-built-in-chromecast-ae3300534829 | [] | 2021-02-16 13:15:52.895000+00:00 | ['Mi', 'TV', 'Mi Tv Q1'] |
The Month in Crypto — August 19. The News | The News
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange launched a USD backed stablecoin. The stablecoin was launched with approval from the New York State Department of Financial Services. binance
The physically-settled bitcoin futures exchange, Bakkt, was launched on the 23rd September. Despite low volumes being traded, the launch was blamed for a 15% price tumble the following day. A similar fall was seen when CME launched their bitcoin futures product in 2017. forbes
The SEC fined blockchain company block.one $24M for conducting an unregistered initial coin offering that raised the equivalent of several billion dollars. reuters
Capital
Everledger closed a $20M equity round led by Tencent with Bloomberg Beta, Rakuten and Fidelity participating. Everldeger offers an immutable ledger to secure assets like diamonds and wine. venturebeat
The blockchain forensics firm, Elliptic raised $23M led by SBI Holdings. Elliptic are known for finding the funds and actors behind several large cryptocurrency hacks. coindesk
Binance acquired the cryptocurrency exchange JEX for an undisclosed amount to boost their crypto derivatives offering. coindesk
Adoption
Deutsche Bank have joined the interbank information network, a blockchain based payments network built by JP Morgan. theblockcrypto
Switzerland’s largest supermarket chain announced the implementation of a blockchain food tracking solution to provide visibility to their supply chain. forbes
Wells Fargo announced they are trialling a digital currency for faster and cheaper internal transactions. reuters
Market:
September was a stable month until the launch of the Bakkt futures exchange on the 23rd. The day following, bitcoin slid 15% in one hour, falling through support levels. Overall bitcoin was down 12% in September, finishing the month at $8,450 USD. Ethereum performed stronger to finish the month 5% up at $178 USD. | https://medium.com/the-week-in-crypto/the-month-in-crypto-august-19-484756ff2edf | ['Alex Clegg'] | 2019-10-01 18:18:11.269000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Jp Morgan', 'Binance', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Blood and Thunder : Setbacks and Redemption in The Land of Wolves Sample Chapter #1 | “Know that a rose without thorns has never been plucked” -Shota Rustaveli, The Knight in the Panther’s Skin
I wake up to dry cracked lips and the metallic smell of blood. My face is sunken into what seems to be some old roughly furnished couch as I turn over to face my surroundings. I open my left eye but strangely my right does not. It can’t. I sit up to face a room I’ve never seen before, in a city I barely know, in a country I’ve been in for less than 72 hours. Georgia. What a place. No, not the state. Somehow I’ve never been, despite 25 years of living in the American South. Nope, we’re talking the country, nay, the Former Soviet Republic of Georgia, and let me say that it’s one hell of a place to have the worst hangover of your life.
I slowly sit up, and bring my hand up to feel around my right eye, a mass of tender, swollen flesh with pain pulsating from underneath a messy wound where the cheek bone angles beneath the eye. Opening my mouth brings wet blood back into the equation as I find myself removing my right front tooth from its lodging within a hole in the front of my upper lip. Something’s off with my whole mouth and there’s some real nasty dental work to be done, but for now my attention turns to my torso, where my rib-cage throbs with pain. Much of the front of my shirt is darkened with what is presumably my own blood.
“Shit.”
I check my things. My drawstring bag containing my phone, wallet, keys, and even the Macho Man Randy Savage notebook that I use to reference language and travel notes, is still hanging from my back, thank god. I first hope this is Ilia’s family’s home. A friend from back in the States connected us and Ilia gave me the grand tour of the area around Rustaveli Avenue.
It had been a stormy evening. Heavy rains and thunder forced us under an umbrella on a bar patio for an hour around midnight with another two-dozen club patrons. Ilia and I ducked out when the vibe ran dry and entered a boisterous bar full of drunk Georgians and expats, many of the patrons chanting “F*ck Russia” in English before subsequently handing me a shot of strong vodka every five minutes. The others in the bar had dubbed me “Tormund,” in recognition of my resemblance to a barbaric “Wildling” character on Game of Thrones. It was the ten-year anniversary of the 2008 Russo-Georgian War and emotions were running high. Stories were swapped of Georgian heroism as others cursed the aggression of their northern neighbors.
Ilia’s a fun guy, but even his eyes narrowed and his tone changed when we’d discussed the conflict. It’s a complicated territorial dispute with arguments on both the Georgian and Russian sides that I quickly find myself ill-suited to attempt to offer opinion on. Travel teaches me one thing, and that’s that I’ve got more to learn to than I have to offer in discussions like these. That being said, it seemed like a fundamentally unfair fight. Russia, the primary instigators of aggression in the conflict, had both outnumbered and outgunned Georgia many times over. Ethnic Georgians were expelled from the contested territories and Georgia lost the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, twenty percent of the entire country, by the official end of the war, with the United Nations cutting a deal that has continued to sour in the collective consciousnesses of Georgians ever since.
Unfortunately it’s quite apparent that I did not, in fact, end up at Ilia’s house. I recall making an Irish goodbye amidst the din to walk back to my hostel alone as the beverage consumption reached maximum capacity. I assume Ilia’s home doesn’t have dozens of sewing machines, racks of machinery, and strands of textiles hung from the ceilings. It also, presumably, doesn’t have a massive shirtless man in the next room working noisily a machine. Every few seconds the machine would screech and the man would swear quietly to himself before fiddling with it again.
With my one good eye I try to make sense of my surroundings. I vaguely recall the surprising sound of a crunch to the head, intense pain, an adrenaline filled flash of violence as I kicking at the knees of one of my nearby assailants, and lying up against a nearby building, blood dripping from my nose as a gruff voice yelled angrily in Georgian at the crowd around me. The last thing I remember is being picked up, carried by my shoulders, and helped into what I’m guessing this place.
I rise up from the couch and take a look around the room with dazed vision. A muddy mix of yellow sunlight streams through the windows, leaking onto the brown cement walls and grey machinery. Dust twinkles in the light as metal scrapes against metal somewhere else in the building. Dank smells of mildew, metal, and old upholstery waft through my nostrils as my confusion grows with each second. The entire scene resembles some hellish fever dream from a horror movie and the popping sounds that emanate from my bloody cheek with each movement of my jaw doesn’t ease my worries.
Bewildered and trembling, I head over towards the fat man as he fiddles with his machine, a morning radio show chattering next to him as the song ends. He seems oblivious to my waking as I slowly creep behind him, my hands held up in some sort of hopeless defense in case of further violence.
“Hello? Can I leave? Can I go?”
The old man turns around, grunts loudly, and gives me wide-eyed look. It seems there’s a language barrier, but he smiles coyly after a couple seconds before muttering something and pointing to a large metal door to my right. I try to open it but I’m too stupefied to figure it out. He looks at me with pity, pats me on the shoulder sympathetically, and yanks the heavy door open.
“Madloba.”
I timidly wave goodbye as I walk out before the iron door shuts behind me and I’m out on the street. The early morning sun glares into my face as I begin to panic.
Where am I?
Who was that?
What happened to me?
Did-
Despite the familial warnings I’d received before embarking on my trip around the globe, I’ve now been dealt an extremely tangible reason to fear. I begin dry-heaving into the gutter out of sheer panic but somehow my body holds me back from vomiting. Instead I spit out a bloody chunk of tooth amidst a spray of crimson that had been stuck somewhere in my gums.
Oof, that’s no good.
Somehow I calm myself and stand. An old woman with wispy dark brown hair up in a tight bun above her head approaches me. Her mouth agape and eyes flashing with concern, she asks me something in Georgian and reaches for my bloodied eye.
“I’m fine.” I say, stumbling as I wave her away with two thumbs up, “Just a stupid American in way over his head.”
She walks away, looking back once or twice before shaking her head and turning a corner.
There is a bizarre lucidity to walking through a city in the early morning and Tbilisi is no exception. I’m somewhere near Liberty Square, so I head towards the noise, using the fortress perched high on the cliffs to my right as a point of reference. The shops are already abuzz, peddling everything from cheap Russian vodka to tarragon-infused breads. Guns, knives, trinkets, and toys are laid out on blankets when I press through a crowded nearby park. I wander away from the crowds a couple blocks, past expensive hotels, Orthodox churches, and rows of multi-colored churchkhela nut candies hanging in doorways before I recognize my street. I walk a few blocks up the street and find the wrought-iron gate that marks the entrance to my hostel ajar.
Disoriented and drained, I shuffle past the courtyard’s half-dozen cats and pull myself up the rusted metal stairs towards the hulking red door at the top. I try the key, but I’ve totally forgotten the required finagling that the owner had shown me yesterday. In pure desperation, I slam my bloody knuckles several times against the door and sink down to sit upon on the top stairs. The cats dart around the base of the stairs, looking up at me and meowing softly. It reminds me of Richmond, of home, of that feeling of helplessness in the alley.
In… 1…2…3…
Out 1…2…3…4…
After a minute the door opens, and I hear a gasp from two young women standing above me. I start to rise, jingling my room keys towards my room, the first in the hallway.
“Are you okay?” one asks, in an accent that sounds vaguely German.
“I’m not quite sure how to answer that” I answer, “I’m definitely not doing particularly well, but I’m not sure where to begin at the moment. Anyways, I’m sorry to bother you, that door is tricky.”
“Don’t you need medical attention?”
“I’d say so.”
“Okay, give us one minute.”
They disappear into their room, whispering to each as I gaze into the person-sized mirror in the hall.
Jesus Christ, I really am a mess. My right eye is completely swollen shut and growing bluer by the minute. Below it is swollen bloody gash and a swath of bloated skin. I open my mouth and find one of my two front teeth reduced to a misshapen triangle. I’ve never chipped a tooth and good god it sure is horrifying to wake up to my first like this. My lips, nose, and neck are matted in dried blood and there’s a hole in my top lip where that broken tooth had pierced it. On my collar are two deep cuts, still wet with blood but no longer flowing. Underneath my shirt and throughout my legs are abstract paintings of bruises, a smattering of dark blue and red running down my left side. Tears start to well in my eyes at the shock of the overnight transformation I’ve undergone. This is not my finest moment.
One of them returns with some sort of medical kit as the other takes me down the hall and into the kitchen. They sit me down, unbutton my shirt, and begin dabbing at my cuts with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and gauze. My memory of the previous night is jagged at best as the more talkative of the two girls asks questions while the pair cleans my wounds.
“I was rather inebriated so I can’t claim to remember much. I just remember walking back here after the thunderstorms had let up and the next thing I know I’d been beaten to a pulp. It had been such a great night too, I can’t believe this is happening…”
She sees me beginning to panic again and squeezes my hand as her other dabs at a gash on my eyebrow. I can’t help but feel terrible for bringing them into this low-water mark of my existence.
“I’m sorry to bother you like this. I’m so sor-”
“Don’t apologize” she says while pressing a wet rag to my forehead, “We are medical students; this is nothing to us, a quick warm-up. You need help and we are quite capable, so we’ll help you.”
The other yawns and nods groggily as she gets up to throw a bloodied cloth into the trash.
“Now, you need to rest. It’s early. We’re going to get some groceries and we will return soon. Get some sleep, we will figure out what to do in a couple hours. Relax and rest.”
They help me into my room, lay me down on my bed, and leave me to rest. I message Matt, one of my oldest friends. I’d been crashing at his place in Saint Petersburg for a month prior to Georgia and my ability to find trouble so quickly is bordering on comically impressive. He chastises me for a minute but I’m glad for it. I like having people in my life that call me out on my mistakes. It’s the middle of the night back in the States, so everyone else gonna have to wait their turns. I guess there’s only one thing left to do for now and that’s getting some rest. I fall asleep to the sound of Johnny Paycheck echoing from my phone.
“I’ve seen better days
When the rain was pouring down
And she had her little arms wrapped around me
I’ve seen better days
Lord I’ve seen better days”
__________________________________________________________________
I woke up at noon to noises in the kitchen and blood on my pillow. I’ve always had trouble with grinding my teeth; my dentist says it’s stress. It turns out stress and broken teeth are a poor combination. The girls had made vegetable curry upon returning from the market and offered me some with a warning that it was rather spicy. I was starving at this point, so I delicately sipped the chunks of cauliflower through the gap of my broken front tooth with some degree of care. I shivered with each bite, tooth sensitivity turned up to ten, as the teeth adjacent to my broken one had all been knocked around a bit. After a few mouthfuls I asked what brought them to Georgia.
“To see the culture, to try the food, to get a new perspective!”
“Our school gives students breaks to travel,” the quieter of the two added.
“How about you? What brought you to this…. scenario?
“I needed a change of scenery.” I mumbled, slurping curry.
“That’s it?”
I grinned weakly and breathed deeply, figuring it as good a time as any to open up to some strangers.
“So, I’ve got a buddy in Russia who’s has been trying to get me to visit him since he moved over there two years ago. And I’ve been real burnt out, 70–80 hour weeks between three jobs, a real heavy smattering of spreading oneself too thin. I fell asleep biking home after a 15-hour workday one night and crashed into a trashcan. Around that point I figured that was enough. I needed out. Around the same time, my grandmother and my dog of 16 years died. I’d rather not get into that because it’ll just make me sad, but I’ll say this. It was a lot to handle. Life hadn’t been sitting particularly well with me and that feeling festered for a few more months until I decided to get away from it all for a bit, I didn’t want to be beholden to anything anymore.”
“So” I continue. “I took the money from my savings and what my grandmother left me, figuring I had about enough for about two to three months of inexpensive Eurasian living. I bumped around Amsterdam, Berlin, and Prague with my friend Christina before spending a month with Matt and his girlfriend Valya in Saint Petersburg. Unfortunately my Russian visa only lasted a month, and the whole time I’ve been in cities, which are nice, but I was overdue to answer the call of the wild.”
I trailed off for a minute while I let them chew on that. I fancied it a pretty inspirational story until that point, but I was slowly coming to the painful realization that I sounded supremely naïve. The worst part was knowing, as the words left my mouth, that I’d fallen into the kind travel incident that all my books had specifically cautioned against. I was the Idiot Abroad. I may not have been an “Ugly American” in spirit, but for now, as far as looks were concerned, I resembled, quite literally, an ugly American. The dark haired girl pressed an ice-pack to my increasingly swollen eyebrow.
“Go on.” She said, holding the back of my head.
“So in Russia I keep hearing Georgia is the most beautiful place in the world, a land of mountains, wine, and hospitable people. I even heard they give you a bottle of wine when you arrive, it seemed like paradise itself. I found myself entranced, so I looked up a five-day hike here in Georgia that looked remote but safe enough for a first timer, bought a plane ticket from Moscow, and here I am.”
Here I was indeed. Bloodied and barely able to stand, I’d come, ultimately, to hike the fifty-plus miles of tough mountainous terrain from Mestia to Ushguli in Georgia’s northwestern Svaneti region of the Caucasus Mountains near the Russian border. To analyze the situation from a more sober perspective than my previous night, the border situation in Georgia is one of the more overlooked conflicts of the 21st century. Georgians will tell you, despite the ceasefire, that Russian encroachment still inches further with to this day. Some families go to sleep at night in Georgia and wake up in Russia, the previous day’s barbed wire moved overnight to separate them from their own country.
Several people from home, my parents especially, had encouraged me to stick with my original plan of Budapest and Vienna for this exact reason. But that’s the classic post-college Euro-Trip half the kids from my high school had embarked upon at some point and it just didn’t sit quite right with me. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but I wanted to get off the typical American backpacker routes and into a sort of comfort with one of life’s great equalizers, nature. That grand hiking trek seemed far away now, and returning home with my tail between my legs felt like a far more likely option. Idealism has a nasty way of coming around to bite the unprepared.
“Well you’ll need to see a doctor if you want to do any of that.” One of the girls replied with no small amount of sass, “We can only do so much.”
Being able to see out of my right eye would be a start, so I thanked the girls and headed back to my room to make a call I’ve been dreading.
I love my mother a great deal and there are few things I hate more than stressing her out, but desperate times called for desperate measures. She’s worked for the State Department for a long time and has handled a litany of sticky international complications, but never one quite so personal. She was the one who worried most when I mention Georgia and not from a sense of ignorant baseless fear. She has always been quite perceptive of the geopolitical happenings of our time, is acutely aware of the extent of my belligerent naiveté, and still remembered that 2008 invasion, so she was quite expectant that I’d be rather capable of finding trouble there. She’s also a chronic worrier when it comes to her children, but don’t tell her I said that.
From their bed, my parents woke to an early morning video call.Within a half-hour my mother had charged into our family dentist’s office, me still on video chat, telling him to look at my teeth. He assured us, under significant motherly duress, that my teeth probably could survive until I get back to the States for some more extensive work. He was worried, however, that my cheek might be broken and with the throbbing pain emanating from it I was rather inclined to agree.
Bam! Within another half-hour my mom had worked her magic, and I received a comprehensive list of English speaking hospitals and clinics in Tbilisi. I’d never been so excited to hit the hospital. Dare I say, it might not have been the worst Wednesday I’d ever had. I picked one and headed over to Liberty Square to find a taxi and negotiated a cheap ride to the hospital; the bloody eye helped quite a bit. Fifteen minutes later, I found myself at an unmarked building near in the northern end of town.
I located the nurse’s desk and made the inevitable inquiry
“Hellllo, I need a doctor.”
As if she couldn’t already tell from fact I vaguely resembled a redneck Cyclops at this point, the receptionist handed me a clipboard full of paperwork, some in Georgian, mostly in English. I filled out what I can understand and was immediately pulled into a small emergency room. Screams and curses chimed from a couple booths down. A tense voice asked for more pain medicine in English and was denied. Bleak stuff.
An older doctor arrived after ten minutes with an inquisitive look on his face. He looked me up and down with puzzlement before asking me what happened.
“I’m not quite sure but I woke up like this.”
“You were fighting?” He asked, his heavy Georgian accent peppered with suspicion.
“I’m no fighter, and I definitely wouldn’t start here, but someone clearly wanted to fight me” I insisted.
He mutters in Georgian to a younger doctor. The assistant replied, and seemed to have his answer.
“We think you were, how do you say, ‘Sucker punched?’” he said, miming the punch slowly towards my face to really drill the point home, “You have a large contusion on the right side of your face where you were struck or hit the ground, but your extensive injuries make me think you were beaten.”
“But why would someone want to fight me?”
“I don’t know, maybe they thought you were Russian. I did until you spoke.”
He pointed to my large red beard, making him the fourth Georgian to have made this assumption in the three days since I’d arrived. It wasn’t entirely inaccurate, having just left a month in the motherland itself, where Russians themselves were often surprised to find out I was, in fact, an American. I’d even spoken Russian once or twice around town when English didn’t cut it, though I was starting to realize that might have been a bit of a mistake. I may never have a clear answer on what happened to me, but a case of mistaken identity and being in the wrong place at the wrong time seems the most likely at this point.
“So,” he continued, “Your teeth we cannot fix, you will need a dentist. I will give you a list of them here. Your face is badly damaged but probably not broken, cracked possibly, but it will just have to heal. Your eye will improve in a few weeks, but the swelling should be reduced to a point where you can see again within a couple days. We will change your bandages and close the wounds on your shoulder. You don’t seem to have a concussion but no drinking for a couple days just to be sure. Is there anything else?”
I’d been sporting a gratuitously infected ear for a week since I was in Moscow. I hadn’t paid it much mind; despite the fact my ear lobe had grown to the size of a small golf ball. I had faith my immune system would fix it up eventually but also figured I might as well have him take a look. He painfully grasped the inflamed ear in a gloved grip that lacked any degree of sensitivity, examining it with an incredulous look.
“You have just let this get worse and worse? No no, we must treat you. This is a bad infection, it’s right on your head, and it’s spreading! It could kill or deafen you if you do nothing and let it get worse!” He uttered in shock at the sheer belligerent stupidity of the patient sitting before him.
Covering the area around my ear in surgical paper, they warned me about the pain. Despite a small injection of painkillers, it would still be a supremely uncomfortable time. I breathed deeply, on the other side of the world, in a country I’d only really heard of two weeks ago, as a doctor lowered a scalpel towards my neck.
It is a thoroughly bizarre experience to listen to surgical implements scrape around inside your head. The sinister strangeness of the sound itself makes you wince and wet your shirt with spit as you bite down upon it like some sort of action hero. And yes, it’s painful as all hell.
Somehow, in this moment, I ceased to consider returning home. If anything I’d never felt more certain about going forward. Despite everything, I couldn’t help but feel as if I was now more prepared for the trek than I would’ve been if my introduction to Georgia had gone without incident.
Rob Schultheis, described in his 1984 memoir Bone Games an experience while injured from a climbing fall in Colorado during a storm as almost revelatory in nature. As he lay stranded on a cliff-side, he became acutely aware that if he did not act then and there he would be dead by morning. In the moments after, he was able to move in ways he thought impossible, bouncing supernaturally between the smallest of footholds down 200 feet of steep rock face before safely reaching the bottom.
He wrote, “The person I became on Neva was the best possible version of myself, the person I should have been throughout my life. No regrets, no hesitations; there were no false moves left in me.”
It was time to see if I could find that person in myself.
They sewed their incision back up and left the room for a minute. My ear had returned to normal size and I grinned at the wonders of modern medicine. A girl about my age entered the room and was sat down on the other side of my bed’s curtain. Turns out, I overheard, that she had just come back from the Mestia-Ushguli trek, the same hike I was about to do suffered a wound to her hand that got gratuitously infected. I waited another fifteen minutes for a release form, filled it out, and walked towards the door as the doctor began what sounded like a similar procedure to mine. The last thing I heard from the girl was a howl of pain as I pushed the door open. At least I’d taken care of the seemingly mandatory hospital visit in advance.
I checked myself out of the hospital, paying about seventy-five dollars for my multi-hour visit, a mildly surgical procedure, and some sound advice before walking out with an odd rhythm to my steps. Somehow I’d woken up in my nightmare traveling scenario and now I felt fine, if not a bit empowered on the same day. It occurred to me now that my own approach to this country may have been more than a bit assumptive. At this point I could dwell on whatever had just befallen me or absorb some degree of perspective from the experience. The old man from the morning that had given me a couch to crash on, left my belongings and self untouched, and didn’t ask for a thing. I had been fed and more or less healed by two strangers that didn’t give it a second thought. I knew Georgia was the second oldest Christian country in the world, but my experience already felt biblical amidst its various good samaritans.
I swiped my metro card and hopped on a train to Liberty Square. It was time to stuff my face with khinkali and a couple days of much needed R&R before beginning the Ushguli trek. Georgia’s name is potentially derived from a Persian word “gorg” meaning “land of wolves” and I was ready to see the landscape that had borne the title. Before leaving Russia, I had debated hiring a guide in the days prior after finding rumors of bandits, wolves, and even hyenas on the trail. Maybe they were up there, maybe not, but I knew now that I was going to do it myself.
The lights flickered as the train noisily hit a bump. I gazed around the car as the occupants steadied themselves.
Georgians stare a lot, I’m not one for blanket statements, but Georgians have told me the same, so perhaps I’m safe in saying that. I’d already received plenty of stares during my first two days there; being the only red bearded individual on entire train cars will do that. The stares had lost all subtlety now, and I could feel the eyes of dozens piercing into my prizefighter face. I didn’t just stick out as a potential Russian now, I looked like the craziest scoundrel on the whole damn train. Some kid, a boy of maybe ten, stared at me from the opposite seat with blank shameless curiosity. The unapologetic gawking felt oddly fitting for the moment. What was I to do with a moment as cinematic as that, could I find some shred of divine comedy? I smiled with my still-broken teeth, pointed at my eye, and told the only joke there was to tell.
“You should see the other guy.” | https://medium.com/@thelefthandpath/blood-and-thunder-a-lesson-in-humility-abroad-b1b32695e372 | ['Dylan Reddick'] | 2021-04-01 05:32:31.285000+00:00 | ['Travel Writing', 'Nonfiction', 'Essay', 'Writing', 'Creative Non Fiction'] |
Cultivating Self-Trust | Originally posted to the humhum journal.
I’ ve been recently reading Brené Brown’s book Braving the Wilderness, which explores what it means to find and experience true belonging. Brené emphasizes the importance of belonging to ourselves as central to the experience of belonging. This takes courage, and patience and begins by building a sense of self-trust. I love how she breaks down these seven elements of trust, using the acronym BRAVING which she also shares in her most recent book Dare to Lead.
BRAVING | THE SEVEN ELEMENTS OF TRUST
by Brené Brown
Boundaries | You respect my boundaries, and when you’re not clear about what’s okay and not okay, you ask. You’re willing to say no.
Reliability | You do what you say you’ll do. At work, this means staying aware of your competencies and limitations so you don’t over-promise and are able to deliver on commitments and balance competing priorities.
Accountability | You own your mistakes, apologize, and make amends.
Vault | You don’t share information or experiences that are not yours to share. I need to know that my confidence are kept and that you’re not sharing with me any information about other people that should be confidential.
Integrity | You choose courage over comfort. You choose what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy. And you choose to practice your values rather than simply professing them.
Nonjudgment | I can ask for what I need, and you can ask for what you need. We can talk about how we feel without judgment.
Generosity | You extend the most generous interpretation possible to the intentions, words, and actions of others.
Original Source
Because all of life is made up of relationships, and all relationships begin with our relationship to Self, we can nourish this relationship by building trust with ourselves. To build this trust we can examine where we trust ourselves and where we feel less trusting of ourselves, by examining the instances we felt in integrity, and when we did not.
A JOURNALING EXERCISE TO CULTIVATE SELF-TRUST
Reflect
Take a moment to reflect on the last day or so. Call to mind the micro-moments, and interactions in which you felt you showed up with integrity, and those micro-moments in which you feel you did not.
Make a list
Jot both lists of micro-moments down in your journal adding as much or little details as it feels helpful. Sometimes brevity is sufficient.
Feel into integrity
Evoke one moment within which you felt in integrity. Close your eyes and feel into the body while bringing calling forth that memory. Remember this felt sense, feeling into integrity. Knowing integrity in the body. Be here for as long as it takes to feel an embodied sense of integrity.
Feel into the absence of integrity
Call to mind one moment that you felt out of integrity and feel it in the body. Be here for as long as it takes to know this embodied experience.
Reflect
Contemplating Brene’s 7 elements of trust, consider, and journal about why you might not have felt in integrity. As you do this, do your best to release judgment and guilt by inviting judging thoughts to relax.
Re-Remember
To get right with yourself, override that misalignment by envisioning how you could have shown up with more integrity. Pay attention to your aspired response rather than thoughts of self-criticism or self-judgment — let those go. Bring again to mind those moments where you lost self-trust, and then visualize what acting in integrity would have looked like and felt like. Feel into the body.
Contemplating lightly, “responding in perfect alignment with my spirit and my values would look like this.”
Written reflection
Is there the right action that must be taken? Or was coming clean with myself sufficient?
If you want to practice connection, check out our upcoming conscious dating experiences. | https://medium.com/@humhum-space/cultivating-self-trust-41d995675fa5 | [] | 2020-12-11 01:47:00.819000+00:00 | ['Self Trust', 'Trust', 'Journaling'] |
9 Quotes That Makes My Life To Become Meaningful | 9 Quotes That Makes My Life To Become Meaningful
A meaningful life is not what you accidentally stumble upon, it's something you build into your life. Abdulkadir Follow Dec 23, 2020 · 5 min read
photo by Joshua Earle on unsplash
Its bedrock is built on so many factors such as experiences, beliefs, and core values.
The people you walk with, things you cherish, and things you are willing to let go define who you are. You need to rebuild the meaning in your life and need something to fight for. The power to build a meaningful life is in you, you just need to find a way to create one for yourself.
carefully read these quote as they serve as an eye-opener and guide to you:
1. “How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?” ― Epictetus
People often set a time when they want to start chasing their dream life like I will start when it's next year January, which they eventually will still set another goal when the initial set time elapses. Procrastination kills dreams and wastes our time without knowing the time is waiting for us. The best time to start chasing your dream life is right now.
2. “A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night, and in between does what he wants to do.” ― Bob Dylan.
To become successful we need to wake up in the morning and strive towards achieving our goals. For success to be yours, you need to be able to achieve your daily goals. This is essential to your success in life as a day passes and each goal is achieved, it shows you are a step closer to your bigger goal.
3. “It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people but care more about their opinion than our own.” ― Marcus Aurelius
We often said we love ourselves, but we let other people opinion gets into our head and let them decide for us. most people tend to please other people first because of what they might say about us instead of pleasing ourselves first. It's time you look inwardly and see what pleases your life and do it in the right way, I didn’t mean to be self-centered and neglect other people's words, but to value what you want as well.
4. “Don’t hate the game. Love the game, cause you’re in it, mate. Own the game.” ― Guy Ritchie
people pay attention to life. Dealing with life like a game makes it fun. The round of life has differing levels of trouble, however, on the off chance that you assume liability for all that you do and go about as the expert of your realm, at that point you’ll, in effect, own your life. Try not to allow others to pick your identity, entice you with common pleasures, or disclose to you that you’re adequately not perfect. Wager on yourself without fail and play the game like a hero.
5. “If you are not falling down occasionally, you are just coasting.” ― Kevin Kelly
If you want to make it, you need to be out of your comfort zone. pain is part of life. and it's what we pass through to be successful in life, if you are not ready to fall then you will never learn how to rise. Success comes with struggles and dedication and it comes with challenges you must be ready to face to be successful in life.
6. “Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” ― Seth Godin
Humans always want to look for happiness and better life somewhere, planning for a vacation, trips, and tourism. Why not create happiness and a better life in your place. You can’t escape the reality of being sad by going on vacation. A better solution is to design the life you’ve always dreamed of and lay a single brick each day until you’ve built it. This may take time, but in the end, it will be worth it.
7. “Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.” ― Lin Yutang
Not all things need to be done, we have committed ourselves to so many tasks that take our time, we can’t please everyone. In the process of commitment to achieve our goals, there are things we need to leave undone as this will hinder the main goals if we want to get all things done.
8. “When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do? Memento mori — “remember that you have to die.” All of this will go to nothing.” ― Ryan Holiday
When things get tough, what do you do? do you give up or you keep pushing. Know that the tough time will surely elapse and things will be back your way. Don't be discouraged to face the time, because after every hardship it's the ease that follows.
9.“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” ― Albert Camus.
Happiness isn’t something you find. It’s something you create and do. Happiness, much like hopelessness, is a decision. Would you like to realize why individuals are testy, negative, and have a terrible mentality?
It’s simpler to be sad than it is to be happy, and it’s simpler to continue looking than it is to decide now that you will see things in different way. It’s harder to assume the best about individuals or grin when you’re not feeling your best. Like a propensity, however, it gets simpler with time.
So stop searching for happiness, create it and you will forever be happy. Your happiness is in you, just let it out and you will see the world in its beautiful color.
Which of the above quotes really touch you in the core part of your heart? let me know in the comment below. | https://medium.com/illumination/9-quotes-that-makes-my-life-to-be-meaningful-451f3560c4e | [] | 2020-12-23 09:20:25.947000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Quotes', 'Achievement', 'Meaningful Life', 'Success'] |
Scared about your impact? | Once again a title with a tiny little ‘you’ in it to catch ~your~ attention, but I’m gonna cut straight to the chase and confess: this is about me. So let’s skip the ‘you’ and ‘yours’, because I have no idea if anyone else feels the same way. There we go: I am scared about my impact. I worry about it. If you ever read “the fault in our stars”, you will know what I’m talking about. It seems such a childish and narcissistic thing, but I do want to have an impact. So why am I scared about it? You might ask. Well, I fear that I won’t have any. I am 19 years old and therefore already over my prime in terms of geniality, and I won’t prove Goldbach’s Conjecture, I won’t write the next Harry Potter series, I won’t end world hunger. Of course, these are all terribly great aspirations, and if I wasn’t too lazy to look up the statistics I would now type out the exact (un)likeliness of any given person to have such a huge impact on the world. So should I give up? Well, I have to be honest with myself: the people around me are far more likely to have a ~huge~ impact on the world than me. There was a time when that made me really sad. I was never jealous, I just felt overshadowed. Lesser than. But that’s fine now, honestly. I know that I am not as intelligent as some of my friends. That is actually great though. They will always keep me learning. Maybe one day one of them will prove Goldbach’s Conjecture, write the next Harry Potter Series or end world hunger. I trust them with all the great deeds and Nobel Prizes. So, then, what’s my impact on this world? We’re at the beginning again. There’s this beautiful scene in “Bohemian Rhapsody” (this seems like I’m going off on another tangent, and in a way, I am, but bear with me) where Mary goes to visit Freddie in Munich and finds him sick and with Paul coming back with all these strangers to party. Freddie is afraid. I think he is worried about impact as well. He confesses his fear to Mary and she says: «You don’t need to be [afraid] because you are loved. By me, your family, Brian, Roger […] that is enough.» And it is. It is enough. Luckily, my family and friends care about me. They don’t care whether I will accomplish any great things in my life and they don’t care about mi IQ. I’m no star-ballerina, no talented violinist, no maths genie. I am me, and I have no idea what my place in this world is. Least of all do I know what impact I have or will have. But it is enough. | https://medium.com/@woolsheep2/scared-about-your-impact-ac0b807fc870 | ['Cris Jones'] | 2019-08-11 09:46:28.044000+00:00 | ['Fear', 'Overthinking', 'Existential Crises', 'Impact', 'Teenagers'] |
Allow Love to Flow From You to You | The great bounds of love
that you unknowingly shower
wherever you leave your footprints
The spontaneous laughter
The long caressing hugs
The genuine love
The sparkle in eyes
They all communicate
Much greater than words
Stop adjusting for the others
Give them time to accept your authentic version
No need to hide that giggle or tear
Be free from fear of losing someone
You can never change people
their beliefs or patterns
All you can do is
Turn to the most loving person
Stand in front of the mirror
Adoringly gaze into your eyes
Say out loud your gratitude
Express your suppressed emotions
Let the love flow
From you to you
You are the most important person
If you don’t fill this one person with love
How can you splurge it on others
Learn to say No
Accept yourself unconditionally
Become your best friend
Listen to yourself intently
This person in the mirror
is that person with whom you live 24X7
Don’t you want it to be happy
Just like your partner, child, or bestie
Treat yourself as your priority
Not selfishly
But in delightful love
Unconditionally acceptable of self! | https://medium.com/spiritual-secrets/allow-love-to-flow-from-you-to-you-d9dc0299f775 | ['Ruchi Thalwal'] | 2020-12-12 07:02:28.073000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Love', 'Life Lessons', 'Self Love', 'Spirituality'] |
LingoBlaster | LingoBlaster — I just came across this cloud based app that will rank videos in foreign languages. This app allows you to break the language barrier. LingoBlaster allows you to target and rank for the top 100 most popular foreign languages! This can triple your web traffic overnight!
Watch this video to find out more
Until now to rank your videos for multiple foreign languages, you had to create one new video for each language. You had to write the title and the description for that on your own or you had to hire a translator and after that upload each video to YouTube.
That process would take days… if not weeks… and it would be ultra expensive.
But don’t worry… what used to take weeks …will now take only seconds! And you don’t even have to upload new videos.
With only a few clicks LingoBlaster will be able to translate your videos in over 100 foreign languages and profit from this huge untapped market.
Your videos will start to rank for foreign keywords — and it is 100 times easier to rank for let’s say “Apple phone review” in German than in English… or in Bulgarian, Spanish, Portuguese, Cantonese, and all the other 100 languages featured!
Your video will stand out from your competitors because you will be the only one who will address to your viewers in their native languages… and because of that, your traffic will convert 10 times better!
With only 3 clicks you can translate all your videos and make them start ranking for foreign search-terms!
Click Here To Watch Demo Video Now!
LingoBlaster uses YouTube API and will give you an unfair advantage over all the other videos.
You will just be using a YouTube feature that is in YouTube API and anybody can use it. The thing is that, nobody does that… because manually to translate your video titles and descriptions in 100 foreign languages is ultra expensive and a lot of work!
With LingoBlaster everything is automated, and there are no costs! After you get access , you can translate as many videos as you want! This is 100% white hat technique
The potential of LingoBlaster is extremely powerful. It gives you the ability to literally manipulate YouTube results in search. The ability to rank videos in foreign languages is one the most powerful traffic generating methods.
You can make the commitment to use this powerful traffic method only for the ultimate good of your customers.
Read More About This Amazing YouTube Game Changer Here! | https://medium.com/@cheng0909x/lingoblaster-6fc21d3fa244 | ['Sudeep Chengappa'] | 2020-07-11 13:24:07.022000+00:00 | ['SEO', 'YouTube', 'Video Marketing', 'Youtube Seo', 'Translation'] |
Latest picks: In case you missed them: | Sign up for The Variable
By Towards Data Science
Every Thursday, the Variable delivers the very best of Towards Data Science: from hands-on tutorials and cutting-edge research to original features you don't want to miss. Take a look. | https://towardsdatascience.com/latest-picks-bringing-bert-to-the-field-b722d4ff6b54 | ['Tds Editors'] | 2020-12-16 14:33:18.674000+00:00 | ['The Daily Pick', 'Editors Pick', 'Machine Learning', 'Towards Data Science', 'Data Science'] |
Stock futures face backlash of Trump’s threat to hike tariffs on China. | On Sunday we saw stock futures take a sharp downward turn, a prime indicator for a lower open on Wall Street. This has all come to pass after President Donald Trump announced an increase on tariffs on Chinese goods being imported. This has also escalated the ongoing trade tensions between arguably the world’s two largest economies, and has undermined expectations for an agreement between the two nations. On Twitter the United States President said that progress in bilateral talks was insufficient, and it will lead him to hike duties on Chinese goods as soon as Friday. The tariffs that are to be put into effect were originally reserved pending the outcome of trade talks.
With pre-market trading opening on Sunday evening, Dow Jones futures saw a heavy decline of over 400 points, before paring some of those losses, in the S&P500 future index we also saw a major move into the red zone.
Donald trump a self-proclaimed tariff man, believes that the trade imbalance between the two nations can be reduced significantly with the use of import duties. The president said in a statement that growth in recent times has been effected majorly by the imposition of Chinese tariffs.
With these early warning signs for the markets, we can expect to see the S&P, the NASDAQ, and the DOW facing a rough start to trading when the opening bell sounds, this despite last week’s fantastic employment data. If Sunday’s preliminary decline carries on into Mondays trading, it could potentially threaten a rally that has been carrying the index’s new record highs.
Trumps tightening of trade taxes, could potentially be an extremely positive sentiment for those investors who hold a majority of equities, as with a pullback in the markets, it would mean less risks.
This week both nations are scheduled to meet, in what was set to be the final round of talks before reaching an agreement on tariffs. Over the majority of 2018 the US imposed 25% tariffs on over $50 Billion USD worth of Chinese technological imports, and 10% tariffs on other goods. If the US president does follow through with his word, then the current 10% tax that has been on hold so far will jump up to 25%, this may cause an equal retaliation from china. Trumps recent plan to impose more tariffs, have thrown thoughts that the two nations were close to a deal into the air, leaving investors and analysts wondering what this week’s talks will bring.
Rachel Green — Walter International
Wealth Management hong kong, Wealth Management europe, Wealth Management middle east, Wealth Management south America, stock brokerages, financial advisor | https://medium.com/@lppusuluri1/stock-futures-face-backlash-of-trumps-threat-to-hike-tariffs-on-china-2e3c698396c3 | ['Lp Pusuluri'] | 2019-05-06 10:30:58.277000+00:00 | ['Trade'] |
Life Is Short, Eat The Pasta | …how I stopped wasting time, chasing ‘skinny’
Image from Nicole Width article on TheList.com
In 2009, a reporter asked model and actress Kate Moss what her life-mantra was. She replied, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” I was 18 when I read this, a highly impressionable teen, and this mantra stuck with me.
It inspired a core belief that lasted almost a decade: to be happy, I had to be skinny.
Over the years, I went on countless diets: Weight Watchers, Atkins, Keto, High Protein, Intermittent Fasting, The Apple and Water Diet, The Master Cleanse…if you’ve heard about it on Doctor Oz, I’ve tried it. Often, when I didn’t find results in dieting, my efforts turned into disordered eating.
I would opt for calorie restriction or over-exercising, sometimes both. At very desperate times, I turned to more unhealthy and often dangerous methods on my quest to be smaller.
When I entered my twenties, I avoided social events where I knew people would be drinking alcohol, because I was threatened by the consequences of consuming liquid calories.
If I absolutely couldn’t miss an event like a wedding or a birthday party, I’d make sure I didn’t eat anything leading up to it, or I’d choose to either eat or drink my calories that evening- and you guessed it, this often ended up in monstrous hangovers, drunk ugly-crying, and me punishing myself on the treadmill the next day for ‘losing control.’
In my mid-twenties, I moved in with my then boyfriend (now husband) and these patterns weren’t my little secret anymore. My friends and boyfriend started to notice my unhealthy behavior and self-deprecating comments about my weight, and they were quick to call me out on it. Yet, none of it seemed to phase me or deter me from my behavior.
I still jumped out of bed at the crack of dawn every morning to do a spin workout while my husband, seeing the bags under my eyes, would beg me to slow down. I still continued on, even when a friend expressed her concern and frustration that I was reprioritizing dinner plans with her for a double session at the gym.
Image from Emily DiNuzzo article on Insider.com
These comments and worries were received as just distractions to me, keeping me from what I needed to do everyday, get smaller…because like Moss said, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”
My quest to be thinner didn’t just play out in my personal life, but affected my professional life as well. At a lunch break or during a lull at work, I’d be scrolling on an instagram ‘Fitspo’ page or I’d google things like ‘How many calories in an orange?’ or ‘How to lose 10 lbs before the weekend.’ I’d scribble calorie math or new-diet grocery lists on post-its and spend my lunch break making Google spreadsheets of eating plans, structuring my weekly meals meticulously, making sure to offset each consumed calorie with an appropriately assigned daily workout.
Exhausting right?
Now here is the kicker… in all this time and with all this effort, I never saw any truly dramatic weight loss, EVER. Sure, maybe 5 lbs up and down, here and there, but as I spent all my spare time reaching for model-thinness I only found unhappiness, anxiety, low self-esteem, and loneliness in my suffering.
I didn’t notice at the time, but the amount of energy I was spending on my quest to become smaller, was keeping me from relishing all the joys in my life.
Things really came to a head when I got engaged over Christmas in 2018. As a bride-to-be, I quietly kicked my weight loss efforts into high-gear. The diet-culture around being a bride ran absolutely rampant in my private repertoire. After so many years creating excuses, I finally had a ‘real’ excuse to back out of social events or squeeze in a third workout of the day. I loved playing the “Bride Card” because everyone knows that brides want to look their best on their wedding day.
Hungry and anxious, 3 months before my wedding, my (now husband) and I went out for dinner with our friends, another couple. Noticing me pushing food around my plate, my friend boisterously and almost-maternally called me out, “KAT! Why aren’t you eating?” Ah, I thought, perfect time to use the Bride Card. So, I replied, “I’m a bride! It’s crunch time with the wedding only a few months away.”
I figured my response would be enough for her to lay-off and let me pick at my sad bowl of lettuce, but my friend just looked at me straight in the eye and sternly said, “You know, I did the same thing leading up to my wedding- I dieted and exercised like crazy. It was exhausting.” She went on to tell me that a few nights before her wedding, her parents took her out to a beautiful Italian restaurant for dinner. She was avoiding carbs like the plague and her mom noticed that she begrudgingly didn’t order pasta, like she always does. (Important to note, my friend is Italian and a serious foodie) I looked at my friend not sure where her story was going. Then she continued,
“My mom said to me, ‘a bowl of pasta tonight won’t have any affect on how you look tomorrow. Life is short, eat the pasta.’ So I ordered pasta and never looked back.”
I don’t remember my response to this or how the rest of the dinner went, but I’ll never forget her story and her mom’s words:
“Life is short, eat the pasta.”
BOOM. There was the ‘Ah-Ha’ moment I didn’t know I needed.
Her mom’s words suddenly embodied all the things I had been missing out on in my life. The ‘pasta’ became a metaphor for all the joys of life I’d been avoiding. I’d been focused so much on getting skinny that I forgot how unhappy I was becoming in the process and
for the first time, I felt the weight of all the things I missed out on, because I was so focused on losing weight.
After that night, I decided it was time to adopt a new mantra. So, I traded in Moss’s “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” for “Life is short, eat the pasta.” With this mantra in mind, I started a new journey and my life began to open up.
For so long, I thought one bite of a bagel or one missed workout would send me into a spiral, ending in failure and pounds gained. So, I began to trust myself and I loosened the reins a bit. I started by taking a rest day from the gym each week. Then, I let myself have carbs on a weekday (Yep, I used to not allow myself to eat bread Monday-Friday). I even had a few pints of beer at my friend’s 30th birthday without thinking about the calories.
Little by little, I learned to trust myself and actually listen to my body and my stomach, instead of punishing and restricting them.
I engaged in small practices like this, everyday. Before I knew it, it was my wedding day. That morning as I brushed my teeth, I felt a panic and these thoughts filled my head:
“I should’ve fasted yesterday.”
“People are going to notice that I didn’t lose weight.”
“Should I skip breakfast?”
The anxiety rose and tightened in my chest. Then, I remembered that new mantra, “Life is short, eat the pasta.” Those pesky thoughts started to slip away and the anxiety went with them, leaving me completely present and focused on the pure joys of that day. The only thing that truly mattered was the incredible man waiting for me at the end of the aisle- Oh, and the gooey mini grilled cheese sandwiches we were serving at cocktail hour.
My husband and I, about to crush grilled cheese and pork sliders at our wedding >>> Photographer: Alanna Hogan Photography
Married a little over a year now and approaching 30, I am damn proud of myself for every moment I’ve succeeded in redirecting and reframing my thoughts and behavior patterns around my body and my weight, but the process certainly hasn’t been rainbows and butterflies. Spending so many years practicing unhealthy habits, living in a skewed reality, and following a set of deranged priorities, solicited a new set of challenges.
I’ve had to be uncomfortably vulnerable with my husband and close friends to build a support system. I’ve had to be brutally honest with myself, recognizing and avoiding triggers around me that could lead me back into a dangerous cycle.
Sure, I still struggle with doubt and insecurity about my body size, but those thoughts are now very rare and fleeting. I have reassigned all the energy I spent restricting food and exercising excessively, towards building my life. Social events, cheeseburgers, gentle movement, sleeping in, ice cold beer, (just to name a few), which were always a threat to me, now bring me so much joy.
No longer spending hours a day at the gym or calculating calories, I have more time to be a better friend, to connect with my family, to hone my writing skills, to educate myself on world issues, and to enjoy my marriage.
Sure, I workout and eat healthy most of the time, but I do it because it makes me feel good, not because I feel the need to be thinner.
It isn’t easy and it’s sometimes been very painful, to look back at all the time I wasted worrying about my weight — the things I could’ve accomplished, the happy hours I missed, the relationships I could’ve saved, the desserts I could’ve tasted…
But I am hopeful that my story will resonate with someone else who might be stuck in a weight loss rate race and might need a reminder that life is short and honestly, everything tastes better than skinny feels. | https://medium.com/fellowship-writers/life-is-short-eat-the-pasta-19d7c3321b08 | ['Kat Merry'] | 2021-01-04 11:02:47.672000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Self Improvement', 'Body Image', 'Mental Health'] |
Orange Culture Releases Autumn/Winter 2020 ‘The Flower Boy’ Lookbook | Adebayo Oke-Lawal demonstrates a new found-confidence and strong tailoring skills in the Orange Culture Autumn/Winter ’20 Lookbook.
After debuting its Autumn/Winter 2020 collection during New York Fashion Week dubbed ‘The Flower Boy’, Orange Culture has released its newest lookbook, which contains a vibrant array of jewel-toned separates, technical prints, and androgynous silhouettes.
Adebayo Oke-Lawal’s created Orange Culture in 2011 to voice his frustrations with the hyper-masculinity that surrounded him in his native Nigeria. The brand’s androgynous style and willingness to push boundaries led it to the finals at the LVMH prize in 2014 and a London Fashion Week Men’s collection. Being honest about his feelings allows Adebayo to create collections imbued in authenticity, which have pushed conversations about male performance further.
With the Autumn/Winter ’20 collection Adebayo Oke-Lawal’s goals are reaffirmed. Male models stand in flower beds wearing provocative leather cuts; chainmail mixes with traditional Nigerian prints; women are layered in bright sunrise-inspired silks. Each model makes direct eye contact beside the viewer, reflecting Oke-Lawal’s increasing confidence in his work and his improved tailoring skills best exhibited by the cropped extended sleeve leather top and the leather flowered men’s shirt.
View images from Orange Culture’s Autumn Winter 2020’s lookbook below and shop select styles from Orange Culture online now at The Folklore. | https://medium.com/@christineolivianoumbaum/orange-culture-releases-autumn-winter-2020-the-flower-boy-lookbook-fe76c5fa8a23 | ['Christine Olivia Noumba Um'] | 2021-03-01 13:16:15.092000+00:00 | ['Style', 'Nigeria', 'NYFW', 'Fashion'] |
Stickers and Stamps: A Bright Spot in 2020 | 2020 has been a rough year in so many ways. The relentless news cycle, ubiquitous uncertainty, social isolation, existential dread, and so much more. All amplified by social media.
The attack on the US Postal Service hit me harder than I’d expect it to. I felt driven to buy as many stamps as I could, to support the USPS.
At some point, I found myself staring at the pile of art stickers I was going to give away at conferences and shows…all cancelled because of Covid.
What was I going to do with them? Could I mail them to people?
I started with a little group of artist-friends and set up an online signup form, so they could send me their mailing addresses privately.
USPS Forever Stamps honoring Ruth Asawa
With perfect timing, the USPS was about to release new stamps honoring local artist Ruth Asawa, just as I was launching an art+data project from right in her neighborhood in San Francisco.
The process of writing little notes and addressing the envelopes by hand was surprisingly soothing. I started inviting more people to signup, and asked them to tell me when their sticker arrived. Before I knew it, I had a tiny data set of delivery times for US mail. By profession, I develop data visualizations. So, of course I started charting the data.
Patterns started emerging very early:
Distance from San Francisco did not seem to indicate delivery time,
Most US mail arrived in 2–4 days,
Slow mail in the US, was very slow,
Letters to Canada were slower to arrive than most letters within the US.
Over the months, more and more folks signed up from across the US and around the world.
Scatter plot showing that distance mail travels does not determine when it will be delivered in the US.
These charts may not be pretty, but they speak volumes to me. Yes, I love scatter plots! Especially when I start digging into data.
These show me that the distance an envelope travels through the US does not predict when it will arrive. Most arrive in 2–4 days, but some take a lot longer. The international destinations add interesting context. For one of my US recipients, it looks like it took longer than the journey of another envelope of mine to reach Australia. This pattern started to appear very early in the project, but I wasn’t sure if it would continue as the project continued and the data set grew.
In the second scatter plot, a lot of points are right on top of each other, making it tricky to see how many there were. A histogram can help with that. This one shows how many envelopes arrived in each time bracket. Most of my letters were delivered in the US in 2–4 days, with most arriving in three days.
Histogram chart, showing how long it took for my envelopes to arrive at their destinations.
While the histogram is interesting, the most common delivery time dominates the chart. It doesn’t reveal as much about our outliers…the envelopes that arrived later than the expected time of 2–4 days. To me, these are more visible in a less conventional dual axis chart with curved links.
In this chart, each line represents an envelope I mailed from San Francisco to another address in the US. The more orange the line, the longer it took that envelope to arrive.
Well, it sure does look like distance alone does not determine how long it will take for a letter to travel from San Francisco to another location in the United States. This is not surprising, given the interference with the USPS this year.
But can we see traces of this interference in our project? Can we bring personal experience back into the story? Where did I send my letters? How long did it take to get there? Time to plot some data on a map… | https://medium.com/@kristinhenry/stickers-and-stamps-a-bright-spot-in-2020-d3011afefa09 | ['Kristin Henry'] | 2021-01-02 00:33:13.317000+00:00 | ['Citizen Science', 'Us Postal Service', 'Maps', 'Art', 'Data Visualization'] |
This Valentine’s Day I Choose Me | Seems odd to write this on a significant holiday which deals with love. I am a female from Wisconsin and not sure if it is this way in the United States or in the World. Was watching 90 Day Fiance when Mursel and Anna got married on this show. This couple overcame so much such as being from different continents, language barriers, calling off the wedding as Mursel’s family didn’t agree and he went back to Turkey prior to the Visa ending and Anna’s eldest son was against the wedding. Mursel returned to the United States to finish out his 6 hours left on his Visa and they were wed. Despite the obstacles faced this couple loved one another and it was happy to see through all trials and tribulations.
People wonder why marry or try to make it with someone from another culture, different language, and a foreign country or continent. The answer I can tell you is hope. Hope for love and a happy ever after. So many of us in the United States want this for ourselves and our future and in particular I am speaking about females. Truthfully in the United States it is hard to find a man to marry or have a family together much less finding men who still value the institute of marriage. I am s happy for Mursel and Anna. Despite myself being in long term relationships, living with different men, or being engaged I can sincerely say that whom has loved me or dreamed of spending their life with me and growing old together. I used to believe it was a problem with me despite not being told directly it was a problem with me. At times Valentines Day from men is absolutely put down and as a person that values this holiday I am treated and pressured to feel dumb for the value or hope I have for the holiday. It isn’t about the money but rather the gesture and another person respecting me enough to value the holiday because I do. I want to celebrate and not be put down for that. I cannot count the number of men and times I have heard they hate the holiday or that it is a holiday from retail and Hallmark. Men will also state that they show love year round by taking care of our car for example or spending time with us however that is a different love language than women. Some women have a love language where they need to hear and see specific gestures where men will state how much they love them, can’t live without them, want to grow old together, spend their life with us because a car repair does not show us this. Men do not naturally state these things to us to tell us how important we are to them or beautiful. Throwing a bone at us where you state “I love you” on occasion isn’t enough. This isn’t due society or commercialism. This is in fact our love language and one day we would like to have that.
Many men here in Wisconsin do not believe in the institute of marriage or feel it is necessary to show romantically and to the love language of the woman how much they find us attractive or need and value us. Women start to grow numb when our needs are net met and that is after trying to discuss it and share how we feel. Men tend not to listen and do what they want to anyway which is to put down the holiday. Women tend to let this thing build up and bury it deep we are not heard, getting our love language squashed or even belittled for what our values and wants and needs may be. We are told it is commercialism only and not real because we are shown all year long. No, no we are not in the way we need to see and feel it.
I feel like the men in my life over the eyes are engagement and marriage adverse. Is this the type of men I choose, or local to the area in Wisconsin or a national and worldly phenomenon? The excuses such as so many fail with marriages is lame to not try at all or hope and wish for better. Not due to being dreamers but rather they see in their heart. So as I hear these men not want to get married, not want to share their money or home or things, to say to us it is simply due to mainstream news or pressures that we want this rather than taking a step back and acknowledging we want this prior to years of dating and monogamy passing by you should be upfront to us immediately. Don’t wait for years in to try and wear us down. Another thing I hear is why should they as a man want to spend money on a ring for us or even get married? The answer? Because you love us. Just live within your means. Ask us to sign a prenup as it isn’t your money we are after. It is love, having a family, a companion.
More and more this drives women into therapy as we are told we are crazy and we go to talk through this as it is confusing. Men won’t discuss with us mature and adult topics like marriage or engagement or living together without jabs of telling us we are crazy and we aren’t accepting them as they are. Well, it is called compromise, compassion, communication and all the things which come with adulthood. Men want to remain as islands or to not grow up and be selfish which we as women enable because over time we continue to hear we are too sensitive or even crazy. To be honest these tactics to keep your freedom lack responsibility and are abuse. To belittle us and call us names or be underhanded so that you don’t have to deal with us? Unacceptable.
Has marriage died? No. Research shows in the US and the world marriage has not in fact died. LGBTQ individuals and couples still fight for this right. Divorce rates are improving due to actions taken by people to ensure the best chances.
Women don’t want your money. We want to have a family. To love. To love you madly and without reservations. Women want this same thing in reserve. Your bad behaviors hurt us and will cause us to feel like we are insignificant, unworthy and that we need to change. Often we do feel that we have done something wrong, are not good enough, and that the problem is us. When in fact the problem is you as men. Be accountable and honest. It saves us year in therapy and self esteem.
I choose me. I choose to love myself and spend Valentine’s Day happy and practicing self care and love.
What has happened to both sexes wanting marriage? The divorce rates are simply an excuse when you can review ways to prevent this other than avoidance.
Men choose to not to want to buy us an engagement or wedding ring and pass over guilt to us for wanting something like this as a symbol of your love. We do not have other ways to date to say “taken” or to show off we are in love and are planning a future with someone. I haven’t experienced a man buying a ring for me without the incredible guilt lobbed at me, talking to me like I am below their feet and not worthy, or told that because the man doesn’t value it I should not either. This is tradition and we have been raised, as women, to desire this. As it can show love without selfishness.
Recently, I had a man tell me he doesn’t want to do this because it is unfair that men are expected to do this for women and is sexist. I felt that if they felt that way I would take it totally into consideration and if it is what I wanted, engagement, and to spend the rest of my life with this man that I would propose and ask him to marry me. So, I did ask him to take my hand in marriage and to be engaged. He still said no. So instead of throwing at us these excuses, be honest. Save us years of monogamy and try not to be so selfish about the matter. Take accountability for your feelings, emotions and desires. Even if the truth may hurt we can plan our lives accordingly and make sound judgement for ourselves and our future.
I choose myself. Happy Valentine’s Day to me. I love me with all my flaws, tribulations and trials, my kindness, my heart, and value what I have to offer the world.
Happy Valentine’s Day however you spend and value the day. | https://medium.com/@taniabehselich/this-valentines-day-i-choose-me-69ea3db4f9a6 | ['Tania Behselich'] | 2020-02-15 03:31:31.854000+00:00 | ['Love Yourself', 'Valentines Day', 'Self Esteem', 'Self Care And Self Love', 'Self Love'] |
Bokeh 0.12.15 Released | We are pleased to announce the release of Bokeh 0.12.15!
This release has the following highlights:
Addressed several WebGL bugs #6867 , #7087 , #7211 , #7681
, , , Switched to Chrome headless for tests, which will support WebGL testing #6594
Updated data source selections to be proper Bokeh models #6845
Fixed memory leaks with certain kinds of Bokeh server usage #7468
Added new glyphs for hexagon markers and hex tiles, and a new hexbin method #7638 , #4786
method , Completed BokehJS port to TypeScript #6481
Plus several other bug fixes and documentation improvements. For full details, see the CHANGELOG and Release Notes. Additionally, examples for each release are uploaded to CDN. Click here to download.
If you are using Anaconda, Bokeh can most easily be installed by executing the command conda install -c bokeh bokeh . Otherwise, use pip install bokeh .
NumFOCUS Fiscal Sponsorship
Perhaps the biggest news of this release cycle did not involve any code at all: Bokeh joins NumFOCUS Sponsored Projects. Over the years Bokeh has enjoyed generous financial support from the DARPA XData Initiative and from Anaconda, Inc. However, it has always been a goal to have Bokeh join NumFOCUS in order to place it within an even wider Open-Source Community.
Non-profit NumFOCUS helps shoulder the burden of financial and other obligations around administering Open Source, leaving project committees to decide how best to utilize available funds. The Bokeh committee is composed of:
Sarah Bird
Ryan Hafen
Andy Terrel
Jake Vanderplas
Bryan Van de Ven
Now that it is easier than ever, if you or your company find value in Bokeh, please consider making a donation to directly support its development.
Hex Tiling and Binning
The issue #4786 : Add a hex tiling glyph has been open for two years, but it wasn't until recently that all the necessary things (i.e. aspect ratio control) were in place. This release sees the addition of a new glyph. Hexagonal tilings are useful for several things including binned aggregations such as these plots of one million NCAA shots:
These were created by binning manually and using Hextile directly, however it's often even simpler. A new method for basic hexagonal binning has been added to the Figure class:
x = 2 + 2*np.random.standard_normal(n)
y = 2 + 2*np.random.standard_normal(n) p.hexbin(x, y, size=0.5, hover_color="pink", hover_alpha=0.8)
For more sophisticated use-cases, such as scaling individual tiles by another quantity, you can use HexTile directly, or look for new features based on this coming soon to HoloViews.
Selection Architecture Update
One of the most useful features of Bokeh is the ability to access and inspect the selections users make with various selection tools. For several years, this information has been available in a complicated and hard to manage plain dictionary structure:
# OLD WAYS
source.selected['0d']['indices'].flag source.selected['1d']['indices']
This has needed improvement for a long time. Happily, Claire Tang decided to tackle this issue, and now there is a proper Bokeh model Selection with meaningful properties.
# NEW WAYS
source.selected.indices source.selected.line_indices
It’s much clearer (and simpler to document) what property corresponds to a particular kind of selection. Look for selected.image_indices for image hit testing support to be added in the next release.
A quick note: Although existing code for reading selection continues to work (and will for the foreseeable future), it was not possible to maintain compatibility for writing selections. If you need to programmatically set a selection in a CustomJS or Bokeh server callback, you must use new Selection models directly.
BokehJS Ported to TypeScript
BokehJS was originally written in CoffeeScript. At the time, this decision helped Python developers without much JavaScript knowledge get Bokeh up and running quickly. However, as the project has matured, it’s become clear that other tools will help more with long-term maintenance.
Thanks to a tremendous effort by Mateusz Paprocki, I can happily report that BokehJS is now written entirely in TypeScript. The porting effort has already helped uncover some previously unknown bugs, and made core developers more effective and efficient. It’s my hope that this switch will also make BokehJS development more accessible to new JavaScript developers.
JupyterLab Support for push_notebook
A few releases ago we were pleased to announce Bokeh compatibility with the new JupyterLab project. At the time, we had the resources to get basic plots and apps functioning, but not the push_notebook feature. I am happy to report that Luke Canavan pushed new work on the Bokeh JupyterLab extension, and it is now on par with classic notebook support, including push_notebook :
Upcoming Work
As mentioned in previously, we are reaching a point of relative stability with respect to Bokeh development. The major tasks for the next few Bokeh releases are these:
Allow Bokeh app components to be individually included in arbitrary HTML templates
Finish the work to clearly delineate and standardize all modules and APIs
In addition to this, we hope to accomplish as much bug fixing, polishing, and documentation as possible in the coming few months.
As we get closer to a Bokeh 1.0 release, I’d like to thank the 287 total contributors who have helped make Bokeh such an amazing project. If you’re interested in helping out, drop by the Dev Chat Channel!
Thanks,
Bryan Van de Ven | https://medium.com/bokeh/bokeh-0-12-15-released-d1e1981bc976 | [] | 2020-07-05 16:06:03.266000+00:00 | ['Bokeh', 'Data Science', 'Open Source', 'Data Visualization', 'Python'] |
Tangled Web: Gavin Newsom, Ace Smith, California Apartment Association, and the Billionaires Who Love Them | Gov. Newsom, left, and Ace Smith
Billionaires Stephen Schwarzman and Sam Zell must love Gov. Gavin Newsom, political consultant Ace Smith, and the California Apartment Association right now. After all, Newsom, Smith, and the CAA were key players in killing two rent control ballot measures in California that Schwarzman, Zell, and other real estate heavyweights spent a staggering $163.5 million in campaign cash to stop.
Ace Smith, in particular, profited from doing Big Real Estate’s dirty work. Smith’s consulting firm raked in $105,000 for stopping Prop 10 in 2018 and $140,000 for defeating Prop 21 in 2020. Smith (pictured above) usually represents Democratic candidates, but with both measures he chose to work for real estate executives who are major contributors to Donald Trump — and have awful reputations among housing justice activists.
In the meantime, millions of other renters are still struggling to pay unfair, sky-high rents — and, as a result, face an eviction tsunami as the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic slams the middle and working class.
Billionaires Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone Group, and Sam Zell, co-founder of Equity Residential, are two of the real estate hotshots that Newsom and Smith decided to stand with. Schwarzman and Zell are among the richest people on the planet. Schwarzman, who’s been deemed a “Modern-Day Robber Baron,” is worth $20.4 billion. Zell, whose predatory business practices earned him the nickname the “Grave Dancer,” is worth $5 billion.
Their companies shelled out tens of millions to oppose Prop 10 in 2018 and Prop 21 in 2020. Both measures, which were spearheaded by AIDS Healthcare Foundation and Housing Is A Human Right, would have allowed localities to expand rent control policies in response to the devastating, and worsening, housing affordability and homelessness crises.
Schwarzman, Zell, and other corporate landlords — including Essex Property Trust CEO Mike Schall, billionaire landlord Geoffrey Palmer, Western National Group CEO Michael Hayde, and Prometheus Real Estate Group CEO and billionaire Jackie Safier, all of whom contributed vast sums to stop Prop 10 and Prop 21 — weren’t worried about seniors forced to sleep in their cars, working-class families not having the money to pay rent and medical bills, and growing numbers of college students trying to earn a degree while struggling with homelessness.
Schwarzman and his deep-pocketed cronies just wanted to maintain a rigged and broken housing market that made them shockingly rich. In the 2010s, according to Zillow, U.S. renters paid a staggering $4.5 trillion to landlords.
“On Dec. 1,” Zillow reported last year, “the nation’s renters didn’t just make their last rent payment of the year — their landlords also collected their last rent payment of what was a very lucrative decade. All-in-all, U.S. renters paid roughly $4.5 trillion in rent during the 2010s, capped off with $512 billion in 2019 alone.”
California landlords were especially making big bucks.
Zillow found that in 2019, Los Angeles renters paid an incredible $39.2 billion to landlords. San Francisco renters shelled out $16.4 billion. San Diego renters forked over $10.3 billion. Riverside renters wrote checks totaling $7.4 billion. San Jose renters paid $6.5 billion. And Sacramento renters delivered $4.8 billion to landlords. Massive amounts paid by renters.
Californians needed relief — and quick.
A statewide coalition of civic leaders, social justice groups, unions, and housing justice organizations — including U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, the California Democratic Party, and Congresswoman Maxine Waters — backed Prop 10 and Prop 21.
Yet Gov. Gavin Newsom and Ace Smith, a longtime political consultant for Democratic politicians (including Newsom), turned their backs on them. They joined forces with the billionaires and the California Apartment Association, the landlord lobbying powerhouse known for using strong-arm tactics and campaign cash to oppose renter protections in nearly every corner of the state.
It didn’t matter that California’s housing justice movement rallied behind Prop 10 and Prop 21 or that top experts at USC, UCLA, and UC Berkeley found that sensible rent control policies were key for stabilizing California’s housing affordability crisis.
In the University of Southern California’s Rent Matters report, esteemed professor and co-author Manuel Pastor wrote: “The housing crisis requires a range of strategies, [and] moderate rent regulation is a useful tool to be nested in broader strategy. It has fewer damaging effects than are often imagined, it can address economic pain, and it can promote housing stability. And housing stability matters because it is associated with physical, social, and psychological well-being; higher educational achievement by the young; and benefits for people of color.”
Regardless, in 2018, Gavin Newsom, then a gubernatorial candidate, publicly opposed Prop 10. Then in 2020, he actively campaigned against Prop 21, starring in a misleading Prop 21 TV ad and featured on the No on Prop 21 website.
Ace Smith was also an active participant: he was a paid consultant for both the No on Prop 10 and No on Prop 21 campaigns.
Smith’s firm, SCN Strategies, raked in a total of $105,000 from No on Prop 10: Californians for Responsible Housing sponsored by the California Apartment Association, according to state filings.
Blackstone Group, Equity Residential, Essex Property Trust, AvalonBay Communities, Prometheus Real Estate Group, and other corporate landlords contributed millions to the CAA-sponsored committee. (Billionaire Geoffrey Palmer and multi-millionaire Michael Hayde forked over millions to another No on Prop 10 committee.)
In 2020, Smith’s firm, now called SCRB Strategies, received another big payday to stop the expansion of rent control: $140,000 from No on Prop 21: Californians for Responsible Housing sponsored by the California Apartment Association.
Equity Residential, Essex Property Trust, AvalonBay Communities, Prometheus Real Estate Group, and other corporate landlords again delivered millions to the CAA-sponsored committee. (Blackstone Group, Michael Hayde, and Geoffrey Palmer used a shell committee to funnel millions to a different No on Prop 21 committee.)
All in all, Schwarzman, Zell, Palmer, and their high-powered gang seemingly make for strange bedfellows for Democrats Gavin Newsom and Ace Smith, particularly since Schwarzman, Palmer, and Hayde have been major contributors to Donald Trump.
According to Federal Election Commission filings, Schwarzman, Palmer, and Hayde shelled out millions either directly to Trump’s presidential campaigns or to political committees linked to Trump, such as America First Action, Inc., Rebuilding America Now, and the Republican National Committee. Since 2016, Palmer delivered $14.8 million to Trump and associated political committees. Schwarzman forked over $4.4 million since 2017. Hayde contributed $209,500 since 2016.
Rather than fight for middle- and working-class Californians, Newsom and Smith decided to join these billionaires and the California Apartment Association to stop Props 10 and 21.
Housing justice activists are still peeved at Gov. Gavin Newsom, and who knows what will happen when he runs for re-election in 2022. One thing is certain: the governor can’t dodge the fact that he helped the billionaires kill two ballot measures that would have brought urgent relief to California’s 17 million renters.
Patrick Range McDonald, the author of this article, is the award-winning advocacy journalist for Housing Is A Human Right. | https://medium.com/@housinghumanrt/tangled-web-gavin-newsom-ace-smith-california-apartment-association-and-the-billionaires-who-14c9b968d9c2 | ['Housing Is A Human Right'] | 2020-12-16 00:15:50.152000+00:00 | ['News', 'Billionaires', 'Politics', 'Housing', 'California'] |
November AI — Breakthrough in Biology after 50 years | So, November is over and I’ve come across a good list of blogs, research papers, books, and datasets that are worth deep-diving into.
This is the second part of the AI Monthly webcast, you can find the first one here.
Here’s what we are going to cover in the November AI updates:
Firstly, we’ll look at 2 interesting pieces of news that you’d have heard:
The first one comes from DeepMind. The latest version of their AI system AlphaFold has been recognized as a solution to figuring out the shape of protein structure in 3D. The second is for TensorFlow users of Intel Macs or Macs powered by Apple’s new M1 chip can now take advantage of accelerated training using Apple’s Mac-optimized version of TensorFlow 2.4 and the new ML Compute framework.
Next, we are going to go over two interesting datasets :
The first one is the Objectron Dataset by Google Research — It is a collection of short, object-centric video clips capturing a larger set of common objects from different angles. MedMNIST dataset which is a collection of 10 pre-processed medical image datasets with Creative Commons (CC) Licenses.
The second half of the blog will focus on learning and improving scientific/analytic practices. I’ve shared what books, courses, and research papers I am following these days to be less wrong about data science and AI with each day passing.
AlphaFold 2 — Solution to the protein folding problem
On November 30, DeepMind published a blog titled AlphaFold: a solution to a 50-year-old grand challenge in biology. They have solved the long-standing problem of protein folding with their latest version of the AI system called AlphaFold 2.
Proteins are indispensable to life, supporting everything we do. They are large complex chains of amino acids that help us carry molecules and decode the DNA.
Protein folding problem
This functionality of a protein largely depends on its unique 3D structure. A part of biological research has been centered around predicting the shape of the protein over the past 50 years.
Now, figuring out what shapes proteins fold into is known as the “protein folding problem”.
The solution requires accuracy of above 87 GDT on CASP competition.
It has been a well-defined grand challenge and the Protein Structure prediction center has been organizing a biennial competition called CASP(Critical Assessment of protein Structure Prediction) where they invite teams to submit their solutions.
A bit of History
The Alphafold team first entered CASP13 in 2018 with an initial version of AlphaFold, which achieved the highest accuracy among participants. They wrote a paper explaining their work and inspired the community to further make open-source contributions.
And this year they went with new deep learning architectures that brought about changes in their methods for CASP14, enabling them to achieve incredible levels of accuracy.
The AlphaFold system achieved a median score of 92.4 GDT overall across all targets. GDT stands for Global Distance Test which ranges from 0–100. DeepMind tried to explain it as follows:
GDT can be approximately thought of as the percentage of amino acid residues (beads in the protein chain) within a threshold distance from the correct position.
The team has researchers, scientists, engineers from fields of biology, physics, and machine learning, as well as of course the work of many scientists in the protein folding field over the past half-century.
Speculating the improved architecture of AlphaFold 2
What changed in AlphaFold that led to such high scores will only be clear after the research paper is published but we can speculate.
There are speculations that AlphaFold 2 uses transformers instead of CNNs and they are now using evolutionary sequences + multiple sequence alignment as part of the iterative learning process.
How big is this achievement?
While testing the AlphaFold 2 during experiments, the team has observed this structure prediction of a protein could be useful in future pandemic response efforts.
Earlier this year, they predicted several protein structures of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, including ORF3a, whose structures were previously unknown.
At CASP14, they predicted the structure of another coronavirus protein, ORF8. Experimentalists have now confirmed the structures of both ORF3a and ORF8. And they have achieved a high degree of accuracy on both of the predictions when compared to their experimentally determined structures.
I’d be publishing a more detailed blog on this breakthrough soon.
Apple’s Accelerated tensorflow 2.4
For all the model trainers using Macs, we now have Apple’s Mac-optimized version of TensorFlow 2.4 and the new ML Compute framework.
We all know that Macbook is the most preferred platform for developers, engineers, and researchers. Apple announced an updated lineup of Macs that contain the new M1 chip in November. And now Apple claims that the Mac-optimized version of TensorFlow 2.4 leverages the full power of the Mac with a huge jump in performance.
Here are a few charts that will help you get a better understanding of the performance enhancement across different Macs(Intel-based vs M1)
Now, to get started with the new accelerated tensorflow, you don’t need to make any changes to your existing projects and scripts to use the ML compute framework, all you need to do is head over to apple’s GitHub repo for the installation instructions and prerequisites.
From there, you just simply need to install the mac-optimized tensorflow 2.4 and you are done. They are saying that they’ll be making these updates easier by integrating it in the tensorflow master branch but let’s see how long it takes! | https://medium.com/dataseries/november-ai-breakthrough-in-biology-after-50-years-971f5d962a89 | ['Harshit Tyagi'] | 2020-12-10 11:11:58.497000+00:00 | ['Biology', 'Apple', 'Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Programming'] |
Unsupervised Entity Resolution using Graphs | What is Entity Resolution ?
Entity Resolution refers to the task of finding all mentions of same -real world entity within a knowledge base or across multiple knowledge bases. This can be achieved through linking and grouping.For example, there could be different ways of addressing the same person in text, different addresses for businesses, or photos of a particular object.
Motivation for Entity Resolution
In the modern world, the speed and volume of data has increased exponentially. Thus making inference across networks and semantic relationships between entities a greater challenge to overcome. Entity resolution can reduce the complexity by proposing canonicalised references to entities and deduplicating and linking entities. The applications of entity resolution are tremendous, particularly for public sector and federal datasets related to health, transportation, finance, law enforcement, and antiterrorism
Tasks in Entity Resolution
Entity Resolution Tasks
Deduplication: The process of clustering/grouping records or mentions that represent the same real world entity .
Record Linkage: The process of matching records from one deduplicated knowledge base to another.
Canonicalisation: The process of converting data with more than one possible representation into a standard form.
Reference Matching: The process of matching noisy records to clean ones in a deduplicated reference table.
Challenges For Entity Resolution
One might face many challenges while performing entity resolution on a data set. The first one being due to poor quality of data available. This is mostly to presence of unstructured data or human maintained data such as such as different spellings (cancel and cancelling), missing values (e.g., missing price ) and ambiguity . The traditional pair-wise distance approaches are less effective on noisy datasets.
Additionally, the presence of one-to-many and many-to-many relation between entities creates a challenge. For instance, a product might be associated with many prices (normal or discount), and each manufacturer is associated with many products. The heterogeneous nature of relationships brings in an additional challenge when performing collective entity resolution : to determine which kind of relationship is best suited for resolving a particular type of entity.
Graphical Approach to Entity Resolution
In this section an unsupervised graphical solution is proposed to solve entity resolution.
Illustration
Problem Formulation
Firstly, The original dataset is transformed into multiple K-type graphs , with nodes representing fields of the row entries of the dataset. Nodes are connected by weighted edges representing relationships between entities themselves as well as between entities and their attributes. The weights on edges within layer represent the similarity scores while edges between two layers are calculated using TFIDF score.
The goal is to reduce the entity resolution problem to a graph summarisation problem where the nodes representing different mentions of the same hidden entity are summarised
k sets of super nodes , where each super node denotes a cluster of same type of vertices in the original graph (S)
, where each super node denotes a cluster of same type of vertices in the original graph (S) (k C 2 ) sets of links where each weighted edge denotes the expected probability that one type of super node is connected with another type of super node (L)
k sets of “zoom-in” mappings such that each mapping denotes probabilistic mapping between vertices and super nodes.( C )
One can postulate that super nodes in summary graph need to be coherent, in other words the nodes which are clustered in a super node should be similar to each other. The explanation behind this assumption is that different mentions of the same hidden entity needs to share some similarities otherwise the problem is infeasible.
Inherent Similarity : Similarity between content of nodes
Structural Similarity : Similar connectivity patterns in the multi-type graph
To accommodate for the first type of similarity, we define the following optimisation:
equation_1
This objective function ensures that any summary graph in which two highly similar vertices (x; y) are not mapped to the same super node, incurs a penalty.
To accommodate for structural similarity, we define the following optimisation:
equation_2
Next step would be to combine equation 1 and 2 to form equation 3
equation_3
Equation 3 tends to produce more super nodes. The first term becomes irrelevant if two nodes are very dissimilar (sim(x; y) 0), whereas the second term will tend to assign structurally dissimilar nodes to different super nodes. Furthermore, the second term favours a larger number of super nodes, whereas the first term tends to condense similar nodes as much as possible. These differences introduce some nontrivial tradeoffs in the optimisation process, which allow us to arrive at good summary graphs
Methodology
Solution Overview
In this section , a solution to equation 3 is introduced. The overview of the solution is as follows :
Start with a random summary graph
Search for an improved summary graph with fewer super nodes, by crossing out one or many super nodes
The next step is to fix the number of super nodes and compute the vertex-to-clustering mapping C(Equation 4) and super links L (Equation 5)
These two procedures are performed alternately, until they reach a locally optimal summary graph
Graphs Summarisation with super nodes
We assume that the number of super nodes in the summary graph is given. With this assumption, the vertex to super nodes mapping C and the connections among super nodes L can be computed with a standard multiplicative update.The intuition of the multiplicative rule is that whenever the solution is smaller than the local optimum, it multiplies with a larger value; otherwise, it multiplies with a smaller value.
Equation_4
Equation 4 calculates the vertex to super nodes mapping.
Similarly equation 5 calculates connections among super nodes
Equation 5
Searching for Optimal Number of Super Nodes
A greedy local search algorithm is proposed that can automatically determine the number of super nodes. The intuition of the approach is to use a backward search procedure : starting with an initialisation of a summary graph, where each type of vertices is assigned to a maximum number of clusters, it repeatedly removes one or many super nodes from a summary graph with the lowest information.
Limitations
In this blog, a multi graph co-summarisation based method was proposed that simultaneously identifies entities and their connections.
The proposed method has some limitations. First, the quality of entity-resolution solution depends on the quality of the user-supplied same-type vertex similarity.
Second, if the same-type vertex similarity matrices and the observed graphs are very dense, the proposed algorithm is not scalable.
References
Unsupervised Entity Resolution on Multi-type Graphs. ISWC 2016–15th International Semantic Web Conference. 2016. Linhong Zhu and Majid Ghasemi-Gol and Pedro Szekely and Aram Galstyan and Knoblock, Craig A. http://usc-isi-i2.github.io/papers/zhu16-iswc.pdf | https://towardsdatascience.com/unsupervised-entity-resolution-using-graphs-e12f5abae0ae | ['Karan Sindwani'] | 2021-06-26 07:01:58.568000+00:00 | ['Graph', 'Optimization', 'Data Science', 'Unsupervised Learning'] |
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⭐A Target Package is short for Target Package of Information. It is a more specialized case of Intel Package of Information or Intel Package.
✌ THE STORY ✌
Its and Jeremy Camp (K.J. Apa) is a and aspiring musician who like only to honor his God through the energy of music. Leaving his Indiana home for the warmer climate of California and a college or university education, Jeremy soon comes Bookmark this site across one Melissa Heing
(Britt Robertson), a fellow university student that he takes notices in the audience at an area concert. Bookmark this site Falling for cupid’s arrow immediately, he introduces himself to her and quickly discovers that she is drawn to him too. However, Melissa holds back from forming a budding relationship as she fears it`ll create an awkward situation between Jeremy and their mutual friend, Jean-Luc (Nathan Parson), a fellow musician and who also has feeling for Melissa. Still, Jeremy is relentless in his quest for her until they eventually end up in a loving dating relationship. However, their youthful courtship Bookmark this sitewith the other person comes to a halt when life-threating news of Melissa having cancer takes center stage. The diagnosis does nothing to deter Jeremey’s love on her behalf and the couple eventually marries shortly thereafter. Howsoever, they soon find themselves walking an excellent line between a life together and suffering by her Bookmark this siteillness; with Jeremy questioning his faith in music, himself, and with God himself.
✌ STREAMING MEDIA ✌
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb to stream refers to the procedure of delivering or obtaining media this way.[clarification needed] Streaming identifies the delivery approach to the medium, rather than the medium itself. Distinguishing delivery method from the media distributed applies especially to telecommunications networks, as almost all of the delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g. radio, television, streaming apps) or inherently non-streaming (e.g. books, video cassettes, audio tracks CDs). There are challenges with streaming content on the web. For instance, users whose Internet connection lacks sufficient bandwidth may experience stops, lags, or slow buffering of this content. And users lacking compatible hardware or software systems may be unable to stream certain content.
Streaming is an alternative to file downloading, an activity in which the end-user obtains the entire file for the content before watching or listening to it. Through streaming, an end-user may use their media player to get started on playing digital video or digital sound content before the complete file has been transmitted. The term “streaming media” can connect with media other than video and audio, such as for example live closed captioning, ticker tape, and real-time text, which are considered “streaming text”.
This brings me around to discussing us, a film release of the Christian religio us faith-based . As almost customary, Hollywood usually generates two (maybe three) films of this variety movies within their yearly theatrical release lineup, with the releases usually being around spring us and / or fall respectfully. I didn’t hear much when this movie was initially aounced (probably got buried underneath all of the popular movies news on the newsfeed). My first actual glimpse of the movie was when the film’s movie trailer premiered, which looked somewhat interesting if you ask me. Yes, it looked the movie was goa be the typical “faith-based” vibe, but it was going to be directed by the Erwin Brothers, who directed I COULD Only Imagine (a film that I did so like). Plus, the trailer for I Still Believe premiered for quite some us, so I continued seeing it most of us when I visited my local cinema. You can sort of say that it was a bit “engrained in my brain”. Thus, I was a lttle bit keen on seeing it. Fortunately, I was able to see it before the COVID-9 outbreak closed the movie theaters down (saw it during its opening night), but, because of work scheduling, I haven’t had the us to do my review for it…. as yet. And what did I think of it? Well, it was pretty “meh”. While its heart is certainly in the proper place and quite sincere, us is a little too preachy and unbalanced within its narrative execution and character developments. The religious message is plainly there, but takes way too many detours and not focusing on certain aspects that weigh the feature’s presentation.
✌ TELEVISION SHOW AND HISTORY ✌
A tv set show (often simply Television show) is any content prBookmark this siteoduced for broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, cable, or internet and typically viewed on a television set set, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are usually placed between shows. Tv shows are most often scheduled well ahead of The War with Grandpa and appearance on electronic guides or other TV listings.
A television show may also be called a tv set program (British EnBookmark this siteglish: programme), especially if it lacks a narrative structure. A tv set Movies is The War with Grandpaually released in episodes that follow a narrative, and so are The War with Grandpaually split into seasons (The War with Grandpa and Canada) or Movies (UK) — yearly or semiaual sets of new episodes. A show with a restricted number of episodes could be called a miniMBookmark this siteovies, serial, or limited Movies. A one-The War with Grandpa show may be called a “special”. A television film (“made-for-TV movie” or “televisioBookmark this siten movie”) is a film that is initially broadcast on television set rather than released in theaters or direct-to-video.
Television shows may very well be Bookmark this sitehey are broadcast in real The War with Grandpa (live), be recorded on home video or an electronic video recorder for later viewing, or be looked at on demand via a set-top box or streameBookmark this sited on the internet.
The first television set shows were experimental, sporadic broadcasts viewable only within an extremely short range from the broadcast tower starting in the. Televised events such as the 2020 Summer OlyBookmark this sitempics in Germany, the 2020 coronation of King George VI in the UK, and David Sarnoff’s famoThe War with Grandpa introduction at the 9 New York World’s Fair in the The War with Grandpa spurreBookmark this sited a rise in the medium, but World War II put a halt to development until after the war. The 2020 World Movies inspired many Americans to buy their first tv set and in 2020, the favorite radio show Texaco Star Theater made the move and became the first weekly televised variety show, earning host Milton Berle the name “Mr Television” and demonstrating that the medium was a well balanced, modern form of entertainment which could attract advertisers. The firsBookmBookmark this siteark this sitet national live tv broadcast in the The War with Grandpa took place on September 16, 2020 when President Harry Truman’s speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in SAN FRAAmerica’s Got Talent CO BAY AREA was transmitted over AT&T’s transcontinental cable and microwave radio relay system to broadcast stations in local markets.
✌ FINAL THOUGHTS ✌
The power of faith, love, and affinity for take center stage in Jeremy Camp’s life story in the movie I Still Believe. Directors Andrew and Jon Erwin (the Erwin Brothers) examine the life span and The War with Grandpas of Jeremy Camp’s life story; pin-pointing his early life along with his relationship Melissa Heing because they battle hardships and their enduring love for one another through difficult. While the movie’s intent and thematic message of a person’s faith through troublen is indeed palpable plus the likeable mThe War with Grandpaical performances, the film certainly strules to look for a cinematic footing in its execution, including a sluish pace, fragmented pieces, predicable plot beats, too preachy / cheesy dialogue moments, over utilized religion overtones, and mismanagement of many of its secondary /supporting characters. If you ask me, this movie was somewhere between okay and “meh”. It had been definitely a Christian faith-based movie endeavor Bookmark this web site (from begin to finish) and definitely had its moments, nonetheless it failed to resonate with me; struling to locate a proper balance in its undertaking. Personally, regardless of the story, it could’ve been better. My recommendation for this movie is an “iffy choice” at best as some should (nothing wrong with that), while others will not and dismiss it altogether. Whatever your stance on religion faith-based flicks, stands as more of a cautionary tale of sorts; demonstrating how a poignant and heartfelt story of real-life drama could be problematic when translating it to a cinematic endeavor. For me personally, I believe in Jeremy Camp’s story / message, but not so much the feature.
FIND US:
✔️ https://www.ontvsflix.com/tv/4551-16-3/america-s-got-talent.html
✔️ Instagram: https://instagram.com
✔️ Twitter: https://twitter.com
✔️ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com | https://medium.com/@agt-2021-audition-3/americas-got-talent-recap-series-16-episode-3-agt-auditions-3-nbcs-4c3e1a28bd16 | ["America'S Got Talent", 'Auditions', 'Full Show'] | 2021-06-16 00:33:58.991000+00:00 | ['Talent', 'Reality', 'Music', 'Dance', 'Family'] |
Insólito fallo en plataforma experimental de flash loans está literalmente regalando dinero | in A Right to Retrofit | https://medium.com/@cointelegrapher/ins%C3%B3lito-fallo-en-plataforma-experimental-de-flash-loans-est%C3%A1-literalmente-regalando-dinero-72901da9d6ab | [] | 2020-12-19 14:07:24.170000+00:00 | ['Smart Contracts', 'Blockchain', 'Bugs', 'Flash Loan', 'Exchange'] |
Love these public systems! | Pegasus Design System Pro for Figma
Move projects to your users faster with a UI Kit designed for greater consistency and usability that adapts to your… | https://medium.com/@hellojohnnymac/love-these-public-systems-e5dae5556bf1 | ['John Macmenamin'] | 2020-12-04 13:10:24.789000+00:00 | ['Design System'] |
How Your Voice Works | Clearing Some Common Misconceptions
Before we begin, there are a few misconceptions that are worthwhile to clarify:
1. “Breathe Into Your Diaphragm”
Firstly, the above phrase is mentioned commonly but is, in fact, a biological impossibility — you can only breathe into your lungs. Secondly, Diaphragmatic Breathing is occurring all the time, it is not something you have to learn, although the process of breathing and strengthening of the diaphragm can be vastly improved! Simply, the diaphragm is a flat sheet of muscle, shaped like a dome, which sits underneath your lungs, to which it is joined. When the diaphragm flattens, it draws the lungs downwards creating thoracic capacity to accrue more air by creating negative air pressure. This incredible process and how it affects us can be discovered in greater detail here.
2. “I lost my voice because I was shouting too much!”
Losing your voice is actually not due to increasing the range of your decibels; neither is talking continuously throughout the day. The fact that “babies can cry for hours” and that children can scream and talk for days has a lot of weight behind it. Similarly, folks who have been singing, which is effectively shouting, in the local choir, tend not to walk out after mass spluttering and coughing.
So why is it common for adults to lose their voices more regularly?
Because adults have a lot more responsibility, and with that come life’s many pressures. The hidden costs of stress on the body wreak havoc on the vocal apparatus, which can cause:
Laryngeal Muscle Dysphonia (throat tension) Restricted or forced breathing Decremental vocal habits Poor posture
And the list goes on…
Other psychosomatic factors will also have repercussions on the voice as is seen with people who suffer from PTSD, chronic anxiety, and trauma, which often reveals itself in stammering or voicelessness.
Each of these points can lead to loss of voice so I direct you here to learn what you can do about it. Loss of voice is not, however, from talking too much, or shouting too loudly. If that were the case, there would be many hoarse children out there and parents would still have their sanity as their baby only cried for ten minutes before tapping out! However, what you’ll notice from this list is the severe lack of play, a key ingredient in keeping your voice alive and indefatigable.
3. “I can’t sing!”
If you’ve never practiced, then this may be true, but like all skills, it can be learned, and there is a ton of research out there that shows why you should for your mental and physical health; in fact, singing was shown to have greater positive effects on mood than exercise.
Now, let’s begin with how it all starts — breathing. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/how-your-voice-works-14681ee776b0 | ['Andrei Schiller-Chan'] | 2020-10-08 18:11:58.076000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Self Improvement', 'Science', 'Health', 'Psychology'] |
ETL through multiple pages of a website in Power BI | In this article, we are going to go through an example of performing ETL (Extraction, Transformation, Load) function by looping through multiple pages on a website.
For this we are going to use a website called planecrashinfo.com, which has historical data of all the plane crashes from 1920 onwards.
To start, we are going to open one of the pages randomly and extract the data of that web page in Power BI, in this example, I select 1922
Next step would be to open Power BI Desktop and load this (see below GIF)
Get Data in Power BI Desktop
In the next step, we are going to transform this data a bit,
Split the Location/Operator by line breaks [#(cr)] to make two columns, Location, and Operator.
Split the Aircraft Type/Registration by line breaks [#(cr)] to make two columns, Location, and Operator.
Split the fatalities column by / and ( into three columns i.e. Air Fatalities, Aborad, Ground Fatalities.
The next step is to define a Parameter, we can define a parameter using the Manage Parameters option in the Query editor, however, here we would use Advanced Editor and use M Code to define our parameter.
Using Advanced Editor to pass on a Parameter
To test this we can trigger the AircraftEvents function and enter some years manually, and this will create a table in the Query Editor with the data from that specific year
Now since, we want data for all the Years from this website, we would import the list of years from this website, remove the unwanted column and unpivot multiple columns into one column, rename it as “year”
Extracting year list from the website
Now since we have two queries, first one AircraftEvents, which is a functional query and second one list of all the years from the website. We need to find a way to pass this list of years to the AircraftEvents function.
To do this we will add a custom column in the Year_List query and invoke the function AircraftEvents with the argument [Year], where [Year] is the name of the column in the Year_List table.
= AircraftEvents([Year])
This will give us a custom column with many tables, one table for each year, once we expand the table we get a consolidated data table with Plane crash data of all the years.
Calling AircraftEvents table in Year_List table
Your dataset is ready for you to do cool visualizations. In the next article, I will share my PowerBI dashboard visuals. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/etl-by-looping-through-a-website-in-power-bi-a0553dcfe353 | ['Surya Prakash Garg'] | 2020-03-06 08:17:52.955000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Analytics', 'Power Bi', 'Data Visualization'] |
Forward Protocol — The Year in Review | Time flies when you are having fun, also when you’re changing the world too. As far as good years go, 2021 has been an awesome one for Forward Protocol. We were busy building and distributing the framework to solve the blockchain adoption problem that we barely had time to savor all our progress. So much has happened in 12 months, and some of it can fade into memory easily. Let’s see how much you remember.
Ready? Here we go!
Community
The community is at the center of Forward Protocol’s vision, and we make sure they understand how important they are to us. Our community is spread over Twitter, Discord, Telegram, Medium, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and we do our best to always keep them in the loop. Social media is where it all happens around here!
We crossed the 100k community members milestone in 2021; that was a highlight! We also hosted over 20 AMAs throughout the year. Our AMAs are where you’ll catch our co-founders talking about their vision for Forward Protocol, sometimes in the company of partners and other team members. You should watch out for those and in case you want to see what all the fuss is all about you can read up on our AMAs’ recap in our Medium blog!
Partners and Investors
“Success breeds success.” The Forward vision caught on pretty fast in 2021, and it is rightly reflected in our partnerships and collaborations. We made powerful friends in high places who have supported us in achieving a great deal so far.
We are not one to name names for the sake of it. Instead, here is a challenge to find a more exclusive list — Polygon, Reef, Unilend, Metis DAO, Unvest, Coreto, AcknoLedger, ArGO app, Leyline, Shavo Odadjian, KCC, Supra Oracles, HSC, Unified Council, BlockPad and more. We look forward to growing together in the next year.
Forward Protocol also closed investment deals to get our dreams off the ground. Master Ventures, Polygon, CV VC, X21, AU 21, MarketAcross, Magnus capital, Tokenova, NFT Technologies, Ardura, Octopus, Bitcoin.com and more, all contributed to our growth throughout 2021.
Forward Protocol is immensely grateful to our investors who helped us raise $1.25 million and everyone who contributed to a wonderful year.
Impressive Numbers in IDO Rounds
Forward Protocol posted some impressive stats this year too. We got listed on CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap, with more than 778,000 of you adding us to your watchlist.
We also raised $1.25 million in our private round. 20,000 of you also got whitelisted to participate in our IBO event on MahaStarter’s Launchpad, helping us raise $100,000. Our SHO on DAO Maker also reached 29.2 million DAO locked, just 400k short of the all-time record. Way to go Forward!
Kucoin BurningDrop and Gate.io StartUp and Notable Mentions
Forward Protocol also received some love from names that you already know. KuCoin’s BurningDrop knocked it out of the park. Users staked USDT, KCS and ETH assets to mine FORWARD tokens. Gate.io also shared some forward cheer to platform users, giving out 6,000,000 FORWARD tokens during their Free Airdrop Program.
Top7 ICO and ICODrops also shone the spotlight on our work. It felt nice to be recognized by blockchain heavyweights. We also managed to catch the eye of several top media houses such as Cointelegraph, Bitcoin.com, Entrepreneur, Yahoo Finance, CryptoSlate, CryptoDaily, Investing.com, Cryptopolitan and more.
For all of this support and opportunities, Forward Protocol is grateful. We look forward to exceeding expectations once again in 2022. We hope to have all of you here by our side then too!
And to those still on the fence, we have seats for you on the train to a blockchain-inspired future. Looking for a place to start, you can join our social media channels. That’s where most of the magic happens anyway.
| Telegram || Twitter || Facebook || Instagram || YouTube | |Discord| | https://medium.com/@forwardprotocol/forward-protocol-the-year-in-review-5370cb1a88a | ['Forward Protocol'] | 2021-12-31 17:23:41.072000+00:00 | ['Blockchain Technology', 'Web3', 'Blockchain', 'Metaverse'] |
Don’t Confuse the Internet with Reality | “All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.” – Marshall Mcluhan
Imagine taking out your cell phone and pulling up Facebook or Twitter, and one of the first things you see on your screen is a commercial about a product. What do you do? Do you simply ignore it and scroll down? Do you take a look at it with an open mind (maybe because you see that Cody and Tucker have liked the advertiser)? Or do you click on the icon in the top right corner and choose to hide the ad?
Anyway, now that you have either ignored or dealt with the pop-up ad, you get on with browsing and after seeing only 4 or 5 posts, there it is, another sponsored ad shows up.
Sometimes, the advertisement is actually interesting. Once you accidentally watch the ad for a couple of seconds or click on it, ads like this start showing up on your screen every time you visit the page.
Social media services provide us with plenty of potentially useful and interesting information, catering to our personal interest. But because they are so tailored to our behavior, what we get is an alternate reality built around what these platforms “think” of us.
Much of the internet is like this. With the help of cookies, sites remember our preferences during our visit, thus providing “predictions” for our behavior in the future. While this provides convenience, our perception of things is being shaped by things that are brought to our attention more or less without our consent. We have the option to hide them or ignore them one by one, but we can’t change the basic rules, which ensure that everything we see is tailored to us. This is such a significant departure from offline reality which most people fail to appreciate, even as the internet continues to grow in importance in everyone’s life.
Offline, we encounter the world as it exists on its own terms. But on the internet, different platforms are trying to project images and information at us, wrapping us in an alternate universe. This can even extend out of the virtual realm and impact our real-life actions and behaviors, if we aren’t careful and mindful.
When we go into the nature, a bookstore or a shopping mall, we are intentionally seeking something new and are open for potential mind disruptions. But, of course, we clearly don’t want that all the time, for example, when we are checking the news feeds or what our friends have been up to. What is intended to be a private moment isn’t supposed to be contaminated by irrelevancies. After all, how much do you enjoy being bombarded by unwanted information while chilling on our cozy sofa?
“Instead of scurrying into a corner and wailing about what media are doing to us, one should charge straight ahead and kick them in the electrodes.” – Marshall Mcluhan
It seems, however, that there is not much we can do to prevent our online communications and experiences from being trivia-infested. But fortunately, there are still some small things we can do, all of which will be done at a small cost of convenience. It is up to you to decide whether or not it is worth doing. Aside from that, remaining aware and vigilant of the pollution that online ads can do to us is definitely a step in the right direction. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/all-media-work-us-over-completely-404858dabc1a | [] | 2019-05-19 12:44:03.332000+00:00 | ['Internet', 'Advertising', 'Philosophy'] |
Home Remedies: Get rid of Tan on Arms In 1 Day | Holidays and tanning go together. Our hands are most affected because they are exposed to the most harmful sun rays. These sun rays will leave stains on our hand skin. This tanning can also make you very conscious, in particular in social functions. Fortunately, You can Get rid of tan on your Arms with the help of home remedies. If you want to know how to do this, read on and try these remedies at home and Get rid of Tan on Arms In 1 Day.
What is the reason behind tanging?
Sunburn is the pigmentation of the skin caused by excessive exposure to the sun. Melanin is the pigment that imparts color to the skin. When exposed to the sun, the skin produces too much melanin, making it brown. The skin often looks dull.
Contrary to popular belief, melanin Production in the skin is not just pigmentation, but Our body’s mechanism to protect the skin from the sun harmful ultraviolet rays. This requires protecting hands and preventing unnecessary sunburn. We discuss prevention techniques later in this article.
Let’s look at a few home remedies that can help to get Get rid of Tan on Arms In 1 day.
Home Remedies To Get rid of Tan on Arm
Lemon juice
Vitamin C or ascorbic acid is the main component of lemon juice. It is known for its anti-pigmentation properties and can help reduce the effects of sunburn on the skin (3).
You will need
— lemon
— water
— cotton swab
What to do
— Take the juice from the lemon and dilute it with water.
— Wet the cotton swab and place it in your hand.
— Rinse with water after 15–20 minutes.
How often should you do it?
Repeat twice a week.
Warning:
Lemon juice can cause a burning sensation on the skin. Perform a patch test before attempting this remedy. It can also increase the skin sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation. Therefore, it is necessary to use diluted lemon juice and wash it off after a specified time.
Cucumber To Get rid of Tan on Arm
In addition to their moisturizing properties, cucumbers also contain biologically active compounds that can inhibit tyrosinase activity and reverse the effects of tanning (5 ).
You will need
— A cucumber
— 1 tablespoon of aloe vera gel.
What to do
— Put a tablespoon of aloe vera gel in a blender and mix well.
— Apply this mixture to your hands.
— Rinse off with water after 3–5 minutes.
How often should you do it?
Apply once a week until the brown color disappears.
Read More =Best 5 Abs Exercises For Women In 2021 | Get Flat Belly Naturally
Honey
Honey has excellent moisturizing properties and helps tissue repair. This softens the skin. It also contains antioxidants that can repair skin damage caused by ultraviolet rays. (7)
You will need
— 1 lemon
— 1 tablespoon of honey.
What to do
— Extract the lemon juice and add honey.
— Apply this mixture to your hands
— Wash off with water after 10–15 minutes.
How often should you do it?
Repeat twice a week.
Warning:
Perform a patch test before using this remedy. lemon juice can irritate your skin.
Orange peel
Studies have shown that orange peel contains compounds that inhibit melanin production, which can reverse sunburn effects.
You will need
— One teaspoon of crushed orange peel
— Pinch of crushed turmeric
— 1 teaspoon of honey
What to do?
— Mix these ingredients into a thin paste.
— Apply it to your hands.
— Leave it for 15 minutes, then rinse with water.
How often should you do it?
Do it twice a week.
Read More = Best Remedies for Menstrual Cramps | How to Reduce Menstrual Cramps?
Papaya
Papaya extract acts as an exfoliant and can help remove dead cells from the skin (6). This will help reduce sunburn on your hands.
You will need
— 1 ripe papaya
— 1 lemon.
What to do
— 0Mix the mashed papaya and add a teaspoon of lemon juice.
— Mix well and apply on hands.
— Rinse with water after 15–20 minutes.
How often should you do it?
Repeat twice a week.
Warning:
Before using this remedy, perform a patch test because lemon juice can irritate your skin.
Turmeric
Turmeric contains curcumin, which can inhibit melanin production (10). This can lead to a decrease in melanin production, which can lead to the tanning of the hands.
You need
— 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
— 1 teaspoon of milk.
What should you do?
— Prepare and apply a bag of the previous ingredients.
— Wash your hands well with water.
How often should you do it?
Do it once a week until the brown color disappears.
Read More = Weight loss: 7 Best Homemade Drinks for Weight Loss in 2021
Tips to protect hands from Tanging.
- Wear sun protection clothing.
— Please use sunscreen before going out in the sun.
— If you are exposed to the sun for a long time, remember to reapply sunscreen.
— Always wash your hands and apply hand cream before going to bed.
We hope that with the help of the tools and techniques discussed in this article, you will soon be able to say goodbye to uncomfortable tanning on your hands. Give it a try and let us know your experience in the comments below.
Disclaimer:
This article is for general information purposes only and does not involve individual circumstances. It is not a substitute for professional advice or support, nor should it be used to make decisions. This product is entirely at your own risk and responsibility.
Source
How To Remove Tan From The Hands = (https://www.stylecraze.com/articles/7-simple-home-remedies-to-remove-tan-from-hands)
— Exploring cucumber extract for skin rejuvenation =(https://academicjournals.org/article/article1380726732_Akhtar%2520et%2520al.pdf)
— Traditional and Medicinal Uses of Carica papaya (https://www.plantsjournal.com/vol1Issue1/Issue_jan_2013/2.pdf) | https://medium.com/@curlywomen11/home-remedies-get-rid-of-tan-on-arms-in-1-day-db279f16c615 | ['Jatin Jain'] | 2021-07-06 07:47:36.095000+00:00 | ['Tanginghomeremedies', 'Homeremediesfortanging', 'Suntanging', 'Skincare', 'Sunburn'] |
How to Test Mobile Applications With Game Emulators? | Currently, there is a need for more agile application development supported by better testing capabilities across companies since mobile phone usage is escalating worldwide. We make use of phones for almost all activities ranging from socializing to shopping to doing all sorts of recreational activities.
It has immensely increased the pressure on developers and application testers. Thus, every other application that’s produced today has to go through a rigorous phase of testing to trace any bugs and ensure better performance. Moreover, mobile app testing services are motivated to find out better ways to carry out quality testing. In fact, the use of emulators and simulators are gaining popularity for their use in application testing nowadays because of the massive list of benefits attached to it.
What are Emulators?
In computing language, an Emulator is any hardware or software that enables a ‘host’ computer system to behave like another computer, usually referred to as the ‘guest’ system. It enables the host system to run a software program originally designed for the guest system. It basically refers to how a computer program ‘imitates’ another program’s architecture from a different system.
What are Game Emulators?
In gaming, a video game console emulator is a component of software or hardware that allows a computing device to emulate a video game console and run it on the guest system. Under most situations, a gaming emulator’s features can easily surpass the limitations of the guest system’s hardware like broader controller compatibility, timescale control, greater performance, clearer quality, easier access to memory modifications, one-click cheat codes, and gameplay features unlock options. It helps the system run more smoothly.
Gaming Emulators mostly work on a ROM that’s ‘read-only memory,’ which helps store a copy of the original game in the system that can be later downloaded from the cartridge into the system using special hardware.
Why Use Emulators to Test Mobile Applications?
There are reasons why most companies today are switching to the use of emulators in their businesses. Given below are a few of them
Enhanced for CI workflow
Emulators & simulators are best suited for Continuous Integration (CI) pipelines because of their scalability and ease of provision, providing you with comprehensive coverage.
Improvement In Quality
Emulators help reduce build time and iterate more frequently on your mobile applications or websites. It helps find bugs earlier and improve the quality of your application in the long run.
Cost-Friendly Mobile Test Approach
With the help of emulators and simulators, you can easily run functional tests at a fraction of real devices’ cost. With this, you can have the liberty to add real devices at the end of the development cycle when you need to test your app for real-world conditions.
Things to Consider While Testing Mobile Apps on Game Emulators
Having said all about emulators and how it can be beneficial for you as a developer to test your applications on them, you need to consider certain things before proceeding with it.
Legality & Security
While using a game emulator to test your application, you need to be sure that it does not contain any third-party software or proprietary code. You must always check with your company’s legal department for your existing rules in using software to be sure. Even if you wish to be sure, try running your emulator on a separate system, not connected with any of your company’s devices, or having personal or confidential data. Many ways are used to help you much, mimic, or secure code for temporary uses. But be sure to run the test plan with your security team first, or else you’ll be exposing your company to danger from malicious practices.
Variation in Device and Platform
Mostly the gaming emulators we use today are based on the Android operating system as it offers a variety of mobile devices for testing. iOS systems, though exist, are mostly restricted. From the settings menu in Android, you can choose a predefined device profile for any specific type of device that you wish to test on. Additionally, you can also create a custom Android profile and designate a mobile network. This helps QA engineers extend mobile app testing methods onto more available device types without adding cost to their budget.
Game Emulator Tools
Game emulators are easy on the budget and help testing applications across a wide range of devices. If needed, you can always look for a professional testing services provider that can help you make these processes smoother. Meanwhile, you can still use a range of free and paid tools available online for mobile application testing using gaming emulators. A few of them are given below
BlueStack
BlueStacks is popular android emulators that work on both Windows and iOS operating systems. It’s an app that’s routinely updated for bugs and the latest versions that can help you test your mobile software quickly. While it has been designed to support any Android application, it’s excellent for improving the gaming experiences of Android video games on Windows. One of the best features of Bluestacks is its outstanding graphic quality that helps you run high graphic games on your system with ease.
2. NoxPlayer
NoxPlayer is another free Android emulator that works for both Windows and Apple operating systems. Crafted and designed by BigNox, it is comparatively the most stable gaming emulator available in the market, with regular updates and bug fixes that help a lot in application testing. It has a faster keyboard option as it comes with keyboard mapping. It’s easy to download and is used on Windows 10 and Mac.
3. LambdaTest
Lambda test comes with a lot of choices for combinations of browser compatibility and operating systems. It’s excellent with fixing bugs in real-time with the help of its inbuilt developer tool. It has a tunnel feature that provides added benefits for testing both locally and privately hosted pages. It facilitates cross-browser testing on several mobile browsers, such as Safari, Mozilla, and Google Chrome.
4. Genymotion
Genymotion is easy to use and a handy emulator with unique features for a beginner to start with. It comes with an OpenGL graphic card that helps render 2D and 3D vector graphics that make it the fastest Android emulator of all. It’s available on multiple OSs like Windows, Linux, OS and comes with plugins for both Eclipse and Android Studio. It also allows the use of a webcam for an emulated device as a camera. ADB commands can also be performed by using the ADB tunnel.
5. Android Studio
The Android studio comes with a wide variety of tools that help developers design and build dedicated games and applications for Android, along with a built-in emulator that aids in testing your applications. However, the setup is a bit complicated for a beginner while it can be ideal for a developer. It is an intelligent software with unique features like Kotlin and Java support, besides C/C++ languages.
Technology has branched far and wide that now gaming emulators are used effectively for testing mobile applications. You can easily spot renowned software testing companies that have efficiently started using game emulators to perform testing activities. This is a transforming trend that still needs clarity and getting in touch with a professional is any day preferred. | https://medium.com/@impactqa/how-to-test-mobile-applications-with-game-emulators-d9d620960a11 | [] | 2020-12-02 11:31:28.598000+00:00 | ['Continuous Integration', 'Android Games Emulator', 'Qa Engineer', 'Mobile App Testing', 'Mobile Devices'] |
Veterano de combate de la Marina estadounidense que sirvió en Irak enfrenta deportación a El Salvador | in Both Sides of the Table | https://medium.com/nuevas-ideas-digitales/veterano-de-combate-de-la-marina-estadounidense-que-sirvi%C3%B3-en-irak-enfrenta-deportaci%C3%B3n-a-el-f76168ce36d2 | ['Revista Rectum'] | 2019-10-21 09:55:35.287000+00:00 | ['USA', 'Politics', 'El Salvador', 'Inmigracion', 'Donald Trump'] |
How to take a break from freelance writing. | How to take a break from freelance writing.
I am a freelance food writer based in Mumbai.
One of my biggest concerns when the lockdown was first implemented was that I should not feel lost and rudderless. I knew that commissioned work would be scarce in the times ahead. I had seen how protracted idleness…what we knew as the ‘devil’s workshop’ when we were kids… could mess one up mentally. I had been in there a few years back when I made the transition from being a corporate market researcher to a freelance food writer. I was in no hurry to revisit those dark days.
I furiously created self-initiated content through vlogs, blog posts, youtube cooking videos, podcasts, zoom interviews, Instagram lives; keeping myself busy through the lockdown where commissioned work was few and far between.
I was not alone at home during this period. K (my wife) was working from home and with me, the Kitty Ks too (cats we adopted during the lockdown) and we were snug and safe at home. We had friends and neighbours who looked out for us. We had food on our table. Usually very good food. We had our finances in control and a roof over our head. Our family members were safe. Including elders who stayed by themselves and for whom we were very concerned. Yes, we had many, many reasons to count our blessings.
I must admit that at a personal level 2020 is not the worst year that I have had in my life and I feel thankful for that.
I began to a feel a sense of fatigue as the months progressed, mental and physical both. Fatigue from writing, podcasting, shooting, editing, publishing, sharing. Yet, I did not want to stop. There were two reasons for that.
The ‘imposter syndrome’ as I mentioned earlier. When a bulk of what one does is self publishing, one does ponder about the substance and significance of it all.
Secondly, I enjoyed what I was doing to be honest and saw no reason to stop. There was never a shortage of ‘content.’ I wrote about what I ate and I did eat everyday. Many times to be precise. Since it was self published, I did not have to convince someone else to accept my work. It was all me. For good or for bad. So I kept sharing.
The need to take a break was impressed upon me by our yoga teacher in the online course for back pain that I took from the Sivananda Institute. Slow down, said the Namita ji. Do less. Don’t keep running all the time. Take some time to do things that you enjoy.
I started by first switching off social media apps on my phone on two successive Sundays in December. That felt good! Then I decided to take a Christmas break the way that K and her colleagues had decided to in their office. They had been working very hard through the lockdown and the idea was to stay away from work in the days between Christmas and the weekend after the first of January.
What would a ‘break’ mean for me? I did not have any clients or bosses to answer to after all.
Stay logged out of social media apps for large parts of the day, I told myself. Do not write even if you want to and feel that you have the time to do so. Do not shoot, edit and share videos and podcast.
This is how I had defined the scope of the ‘break’ and I stuck to it. For the first time in 23 odd weeks, I did not even do a #foodocracyforher interview. My weekly show on women entrepreneurs in F&B.
I felt that I was the better for it at the end of it all. | https://medium.com/@kalyankarmakar/how-to-take-a-break-from-freelancing-d14024836918 | ['Kalyan Karmakar'] | 2021-01-21 09:52:06.236000+00:00 | ['Covid Diaries', 'Food Blogging', 'Food Writing', 'Freelancing', 'Indian Food'] |
What the Georgia Runoff Elections Mean for the Environment | As the runoff elections for Georgia’s regular Senate election and their special election come ever closer, it’s important to fully understand what’s at stake.
In addition to overall control of the Senate, pro-environmental legislation for both Georgia and the U.S. at large is dependent on the results of these elections.
When are the elections and who is running?
The runoff elections for both Senate seats are taking place on January 5, 2021. Early voting began on December 14, 2020.
The Republican Senator David Perdue is running for re-election against Democrat Jon Ossoff in a runoff after neither of them received 50% of the vote in the November 3, 2020 election.
In December of 2019, the Governor of Georgia appointed Republican Kelly Loeffler to the Senate to fill the vacancy of Georgia’s Republican Senator Johnny Isakson. This led to a special election on November 3, 2020 where neither Loeffler nor her main Democratic opponent Reverend Raphael Warnock won 50% of the vote.
Why should you care?
The outcome of these elections will determine which party controls the Senate. Currently, the Democrats control the House of Representatives, but without a majority in the Senate it will be difficult to pass legislation.
If Ossoff and Warnock win, the Senate will have 48 Democrats, 50 Republicans, and 2 Independents (Bernie Sanders and Angus King). Kamala Harris as Vice President can break any ties in Senate votes.
Also, Mitch McConnell will lose his position as Senate majority leader and will be replaced by a Democrat.
Any environment-related bills will need to pass through both the House and the Senate to become a law, although Biden can use executive orders to advance his climate agenda.
What’s bad about Perdue and Loeffler?
While it’s not related to the environment, I think it’s important to note that both David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler have been accused of using knowledge from a private briefing for senators in January 2020 about the threat of COVID-19 to influence their stock portfolios and profit off the pandemic.
Loeffler and her husband bought stock in a teleworking company and a company that produces protective suits for healthcare workers, and sold Exxon Mobil stock and avoided large losses.
Perdue bought stock in the same PPE company as Loeffler, as well as Pfizer stock, the pharmaceutical company that has produced one of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Perdue’s trades were reviewed by the SEC and the Justice Department but no charges were filed. Loeffler was investigated by the Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee but also wasn’t charged. Insider trading is often hard to prove, especially with lawmakers.
In addition to their suspicious good fortunes during the pandemic, neither Loeffler or Perdue have any pro-environment statements or policy plans.
Perdue was a vocal opponent of Obama’s Clean Power Plan and the Paris Climate Accords.
What are Ossoff and Warnock’s plans for the environment?
Jon Ossoff and Revered Raphael Warnock both have dedicated sections about their environmental plans on their websites.
Both of them support important actions such as rejoining the Paris Climate Accords, reversing the Trump Administrations environmental rollbacks (especially on clean air and water), and a transition to clean energy and lower carbon emissions.
Ossoff also plans to advocate for:
Rapidly phasing in a ban on single-use plastics
Treaties to protect oceans and fisheries
Protection for endangered species and habitats
Increasing fines for spills and contaminations
Implementing stricter controls on toxic chemicals
Warnock has a strong focus on environmental justice which is influenced by his Christian faith. He has emphasized climate justice throughout his time at the Ebenezer Baptist Church and has helped organized and lead a public interfaith mass meeting on climate change with former Vice President Al Gore (a passionate environmentalist) and Reverend William Barber II.
He is dedicated to improving the lives of those who have been affected by environmental racism, most often black and brown households. Warnock wants to create new jobs during our transition to a clean and green economy, especially for those who have been most hurt by climate change.
Warnock also mentions the problems Georgia is facing in the forms of flooding and extreme weather. He promises to advocate for green infrastructure and structural reinforcement to protect Georgia’s coastline from rising sea-levels.
If you’re interested in learning more about Biden’s environmental plans that they would support as senators, check out my article.
How can you help?
Vote: Not to state the obvious, but if you live in Georgia and are eligible to do so- go vote! Every vote matters, especially in elections as close as these ones. If you know anyone who lives in Georgia, try checking in on them and ask about their voting plan.
Volunteer: Both Ossoff and Warnock have volunteering options such as phone banking on their websites. Stacey Abrams’s voting rights organization Fair Fight also offers phone and text banks to mobilize voters.
Donate: You can donate to Ossoff and Warnock’s campaigns directly through their website or make a split donation between their campaigns through Fair Fight. | https://medium.com/climate-conscious/what-the-georgia-runoff-elections-mean-for-the-environment-b77f8df83980 | ['Sarah Woodams'] | 2020-12-23 14:30:51.314000+00:00 | ['Environment', 'Politics', 'Policy', 'Climate Change', 'Elections'] |
Letting go in Greece | I went to Athens because I had been talking about it for so long, I feared it was going to soon join my pantheon of impossible dreams, former burning desires downgraded in status as they get superseded by something more immediately achievable. Athens, I thought, was a concept that deserved more than only being wheeled out to impress a wired stranger at 3am in someone else’s kitchen.
Unlike my book on Jeffrey Dahmer or idea for an app that maps local off licences, Athens was within reach with a bit of disposable income and a ‘I’ll sort it as it comes’ attitude. For a brief period in May, I was in possession of both. So I booked a Ryanair flight, sourced an Airbnb and was on my way.
Prior to arriving, I’d done almost no recon on the city. Beyond a required traipse around ‘the old bits’, I hadn’t set any firm itinerary either. This lackadaisical approach could have gone horribly wrong but it didn’t, mostly thanks to the fact that using your mobile data while abroad doesn’t cost anything extra anymore.
I could plan on the fly, soar by the seat of my pants as the mood took me. I was in Athens, I realised, to potter about, to do fuck all, to float around a city without any particular destination in mind. It was the antidote to a solid half-a-year of work, during which all I’d done was to barrel furiously towards a set goal that I didn’t even want. This trip would be one of leisurely discovery, a gentle rejoinder to the pressure of purpose.
Thankfully, Athens lends itself to this sort of approach; it almost begs to be explored by foot. Its three-million inhabitants are spread across 30+ districts in total but visitors to the city are likely to spend the majority of their time pootling around the seven neighbourhoods that make up central Athens.
My base — a sunlit, fourth-floor apartment, complete with balcony — was located on the border of Exarchia, perhaps the district with the most instant international name recognition. Shorthand labels it the ‘anarchist area’. It’s famed as the home of left-wing radical politics and resistance in Athens and the graffiti that plasters the weathered buildings lining its streets is testimony to this. Pro-communist, pro-socialist and anti-Airbnb sentiment abounds. Beware left-wing travellers; winding my way up Exarchia’s hills every morning quickly reminded me of my hypocrisies.
Evenings are when Exarchia comes to life. A small square in the centre of the district is the designated gathering point for those living in the blocks that surround it. Tourists stick out like sore thumbs but hostile glances don’t translate to anything more — it’s in the Omonia section of the city where you need to watch your back(pack). The rule of navigating Exarchia is the same as anywhere else: respect the residents and don’t be a dick. Also, wear shoes with grip, it’s extremely hilly.
A scattering of bars and restaurants litter the streets around Exarchia’s main square, including Rozalia, a taverna where I ate a cheap but cheerful meal of lamb and herby potatoes, learning that if you want vegetables in Athens, you must order them on the side. Around the corner was also Salerno, a wine bar where I had my most memorable bite to eat; a beautifully seasoned sea bass, that drew me into a war of attrition with a street cat determined to sample it too. I won but it came at the price of a scratched calf.
For those looking for the livelier nightlife spots however, Psyri and Gazi, just off Omonia (take a cab or public transport if it’s after dark) are where the major glut of trendy bars and clubs sit. One evening I got roundly pissed in one of them with my cousin, who’d arrived on a surprise vacation, before ending my night drunkenly eating mince pastries and ice cream from one of the takeaway shops bookending Psyri. Gourmet darling… you simply cannot say no!
For day activities though, I went further afield. Ticking off the Acropolis on day one meant trekking through Monastiraki, stuffed with flea markets and bric-a-brac stores, and Plaka, the most tourist-heavy area thanks to its location at the bottom of the slopes that the ancient citadel perches on.
The trend for ‘authentic experiences’ mean it’s profoundly uncool to admit you’ve been suckered in by exactly what you’re supposed to. But I adored Plaka: the narrow lanes, the sun-bleached houses, the soundtrack of buskers, plucking out traditional Greek songs in the hopes of prising a few-euros from tight-fisted tourists. It was a deeply charming place; turning a corner early on during my walk to the Acropolis revealed a 10th Century Byzantine Greek Orthodox Church aka a religious building that was both ancient and extra, two of my personal culture kinks.
Plaka’s streets also housed Da Vinci Gelato, a gelato parlour producing Instagram-friendly desserts so decadently delicious, I went back on my last day for another. The gelato was almost more memorable than the Acropolis. Which, despite my friend James’ assertion that it was open to the public at no charge, cost 18 euros to enter. Worth it for a first trip but if you happen to find yourself in Athens save your visit for a Sunday, when it’s free to go poking around the ancient stones.
On par with the gelato though was my expedition to the National Garden. A first attempt to visit was scuppered as it quickly transpired it was 1 May — International Workers Day. A heavy police presence in Syntagma, mid-point of Athens, meant the gates remained firmly closed as parades of lustily singing communists walked by.
But on my final day I was able to spend two-hours wandering through wisteria-wrapped tunnels and paths lined with palm trees. As a city, Athens is already wonderfully green — every street is lush and leafy thanks to some savvy urban planner who planted a surfeit of trees. The garden was pure paradise though: laden orange trees, water features and flowerbeds bursting with colour. Even the sad petting zoo at the centre, featuring disgruntled and jail-busting goats, was not enough to dampen the joy it brought me.
I also spent a day at one of the nearby beaches that make up the so-called ‘Athens Riviera’ — the stretch of coastal spots that Athens residents flock to every weekend. These are sorted into ‘organised’ and ‘unorganised’; ‘organised’ ones are privately maintained and visitors must pay to enter. As I was low maintenance, skint and simply in search of somewhere to soak up some much-needed Vitamin D, I opted to go to Glyfada, around 30 minutes outside of the city if travelling by cab and one-hour or so if taking the tram (extremely easy to navigate, like all of Athens’ public transport).
You can’t really quibble with a beach if it’s clean, the sea’s a nice turquoise colour and the sun is beating down. The stretch I’d chosen turned out to have no toilets but… there was the Aegean. I stayed there reading my book and rotating every hour so I was equally singed both front and back, until the sun waned enough that I even I had to admit defeat.
Riding the tram back, drunk on sunshine, I listened to Arthur Russell and stared out the window as the the city I’d dreamed so much of visiting, yet had such a vague conception of, passed by. I did not want to leave, even though all the bakeries put mayonnaise in sandwiches as standard. My escape had been wholly successful. I vowed to return, if I only for a third round of gelato. | https://medium.com/humane-traffic/letting-go-in-greece-d259a4846741 | ['Moya Lothian-Mclean'] | 2019-10-18 12:46:12.624000+00:00 | ['Exploration', 'Culture', 'Travel', 'Greece', 'History'] |
My Goals For 2021 | ‘New year new me’. Why don’t we just do it?
Image created by Neihmos (Writer)
For the first time in my life (I am 22 years old) I will take the quote ‘New year, new me’ to heart. I have decided to change myself for the better. Next year, around this time I want to look back and not regret a thing. In 2021 I won’t change my goals afraid I might not pursue them. I’d rather fail, make mistakes, and learn from them than not try at all. Here are my goals for 2021:
Graduate my Graphic Design course.
Moving abroad.
Reading 52+ books.
Get on a conversational level with the language I practice.
Forgive, Forget, Move on.
Opening an online webshop.
Grow out my hair.
In 2021 want to become the main character of the story that is my life.
What are your goals? | https://medium.com/@neihmos/my-goals-for-2021-61da612269bc | [] | 2020-12-24 23:05:58.059000+00:00 | ['Positive Thinking', 'Mindset', 'Happiness', 'Goals', '2021'] |
🎄 Epic Christmas Baby Yoda Tree 🎄 | At the end of November our daughter asked us if we could decorate our Star Wars and Baby Yoda Christmas tree and we said Why not? and we got to work.
We had several items in mind such as lightsabers, Baby Yoda ornaments and ships floating around the tree and of course a Baby Yoda on top.
Sketch of the tree according to the available area in the house
We tried to use items that we already had at home such as the Baby Yoda amigurumi that we gave my daughter last year, decorations and Christmas lights that we already had, as well as a projector, a smoke machine and an Arduino to control the sequence of lights.
Looking online, Estefanía found a Baby Yoda crochet pattern and spent a few days with her grandmother knitting 15 ornaments https://spinayarncrochet.com
Great days weaving
The result was amazing 👌🏻
For the lightsabers, we went to the center of our city to look in import stores and we found these swords for a price of 1 USD, which are powered by 3 AA 1.5 V batteries, they have a power button through which the LEDs always they are turned on without any effect and have a small horn that makes a sound.
Each saber was wired first to avoid the use of batteries and second to be able to control the dimmer and ignition sequence, likewise the speaker was removed.
lightsaber hack
Six sabers were distributed around the tree, to control them, I used an Arduino UNO via the PWM outputs to be able to control the dimmer. The additional electronics, only a 2N2222 transistor and a 270 Ohm resistor were required for each saber.
The other 3 additional transistors were used for the upper sword which I replaced the leds with an RGB led strip, a transistor was used for each color.
Arduino UNO and electronics
It is already taking shape!
For the spaceships 🚀, I put two steel cables along the ceiling with a tensioner and pulleys to move the ships to adjust the position.
The spaceships went unnoticed, so to give them greater prominence, I installed 4 MR16 led spotlights covered in green cellophane and to be able to perform a sequence of lights through the Arduino, I integrated a solid-state relay module into the system, the same one I used to curtain lights on the sides using 5 digital outputs from the Arduino.
Module SSR for MR16 and side lights
To give the effect of being in space, an RGB led strip was used in the ceiling with indirect light
Ceiling Led strip
It’s almost ready… Amazing 😱!
It’s almost ready
I share the Arduino code
Smoke machine for better effects
For the projection on the window, I had long ago seen on the internet that it could be done on a semitransparent shower curtain, but the measurements were very short 1.8 x 1.8 meters and I found only engravings and colors in local stores. I remembered that in the past days I worked in a blueberry field and the plants are covered with a whitish plastic that allows 25 to 30% of light to pass through, so I tried this material and had very good results.
Plastic covering the field
Window projection
And the final result is 😮😮😮!
Final Result :)
For Christmas dinner, we complement it with some Baby Yoda Drinks 🍷
Baby Yoda Drinks
Some picts… | https://medium.com/@ysaucedo/epic-christmas-baby-yoda-tree-bbdd60a60fa1 | ['Yair Saucedo Herrera'] | 2020-12-27 23:00:29.546000+00:00 | ['Christmas Tree', 'Do It Yourself', 'Star Wars', 'Arduino', 'Baby Yoda'] |
Distortion (Phobos book 2) by Victor Dixen | Hello Readers Happy New Year,
This review may contain spoilers for both Ascension and Distortion
Today we are going back to one of my favourite book series set in space the wonderful Phobos series by Victor Dixen. Books in the Phobos series Ascension, Distortion and Collision (18/04/2019). When I read Ascension by Victor Dixen earlier this year I immediately fell in love with it and couldn’t wait to read the next book in the series. I was lucky enough to launch the blog tour for the book in November but I was unfortunate to not have read the book before the launch.
I am so happy I took my time to read it and thoroughly enjoy it, I feel that Victors books are not to be read in a rush. Just a little housekeeping before we delve in too deep the books were originally written in Dutch and then translated into English. The final instalment will be a highly anticipated read of 2019 for me.
Having loved Ascension, I had pretty big expectations for Distortion and I was so worried about the second book as the Phobos series is a three-book series and sometimes the middle book suffers from middle child syndrome. Specifically considering the intense build-up to the second novel and the dramatic cliff-hanger ending of Ascension. I didn’t think the plot could surprise me anymore and I was so wrong.
The book starts with the momentous question: to carry on to Mars or to turn around and head back to earth?
The second instalment of The Phobos series continued to explore the development of the characters, whilst retaining their integrity and not relying on cheap plot twists just to keep your interest. the inevitable drama that was bound to ensue like most reality shows, allows the reader to get an in-depth look at the characters. A lot of the books focus is strengthening the relationships between the twelve and how the insta-love between the contestants shows their youth and sad childhoods, and how much they enjoy their current roles. I really enjoyed this but there is a part of me that thinks they still don’t really know each other. I’m thinking this is bound to be an exciting aspect in the next book or that I don’t trust anyone in book worlds either way works.
We see the Mars Pioneers landing on their new home. New layers are revealed as the book continues, the descriptions of the advertisements that the competitors made for the show is a clearrepresentation of the world and money-orientated society that they’re a part of and chose to left behind. I did enjoy the new landscape, accommodation and the farming area and how all the characters interacted with it. I found interesting and it was really easy to imagine and picture the new lives of the 12. Like Ascension, this book is complete with annotated and detailed diagrams that really help with understanding and world building
Another fabulous book from Victor Dixon, great writing, and the concept of this series still remains unique and exciting. I am beyond fully invested in this series and I need book three desperately.
I feel like so many of my questions were answered but many more questions have been created and now I’ve ended up on the edge again Victor Waiting till 18/04/2019!
L x | https://medium.com/@lauren-reads1/distortion-phobos-book-2-by-victor-dixen-ad8458224b71 | [] | 2019-01-02 09:45:32.540000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Space', 'Mars', 'Space Exploration', 'Space Travel'] |
Trust: Why AI Ethics and MLOps go hand-in-hand | Trust: Why AI Ethics and MLOps go hand-in-hand
The worst thing that can happen to your AI endeavor, is that you end up damaging people’s lives through good intentions.
Photo by lauren lulu taylor on Unsplash
The worst thing that can happen to your AI endeavor, is that you end up damaging people’s lives through good intentions.
Without proper AI ethics practices, your clever AI application could be filtering the best candidates from job applications due to their gender, you could be preventing good citizens from qualifying for loans, or your AI application might even result in children unfairly being taken from their parents.
Extreme as some of these examples sound, they have all happened, impacting people’s lives in very bad ways. Yet they could have been prevented if AI Ethics best practices had been followed by the creators of these applications.
AI Ethics has many dimensions, including:
Executive sponsorship and oversight
AI Ethics committees that create and implement best practices
AI and business professionals trained in AI Ethics
AI platforms and tools that can automatically detect and fix bias, and explain the reasons behind AI-based recommendations to humans
AI methods that enforce bias detection and explainability — this is where MLOps comes in
MLOps is often described as combining the work of the data scientists and the operations teams to manage the ML lifecycle.
I would take this a step further: MLOps, in combination with AI Ethics best practices, combines the work of the data scientists and operations teams to deliver ethical AI at scale.
MLOps involves best practices to move data science POCs to pre-production and then production, by implementing Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. How do you make these pipelines ethical? By ensuring that your MLOps best practices include:
monitoring for bias
automated correction of bias
fairness detection
drift detection
model explainability
This is how MLOps and AI Ethics combine to make AI’s good intentions reality.
To read more about Trust & AI: https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-not-only-survive-but-lead-in-the-ai-revolution-981d249f1bc7
To read more about ML Ops and the AI Lifecycle, see this great post by my colleague IBM Distinguished Engineer John Thomas: https://medium.com/inside-machine-learning/ai-ops-managing-the-end-to-end-lifecycle-of-ai-3606a59591b0
What do you think — please write in the comments what would YOU need to trust AI for your most important decisions? | https://towardsdatascience.com/trust-why-ai-ethics-and-mlops-go-hand-in-hand-5ff346669e57 | ['Dr. Susara Van Den Heever'] | 2020-09-24 14:21:24.435000+00:00 | ['AI', 'Ai Trust', 'Data Science', 'Ai Ethics'] |
Lessons of grief | Lessons of grief
In memory of Lai Hock
How often do we notice the beauty of the sunrise and sunset? But if one day the sun ceases to exist, we would all experience profound grief and regret.
My friend Lai Hock was like the sun. His being and presence was so large, he seemed he would always be around. He was always a text message away, and he often told me he would always make time for me. At his memorial service yesterday, several people delivered eulogies, sharing how they had regular coffee and tea sessions with Lai Hock, and these sessions would often run for 2–3 hours.
I wondered how he made time for so many people.
I was caught in a moment of shock and denial when I saw the news of his passing last week. It only lasted a moment, before I went into the shower and sobbed like a child. I couldn’t help but observe in the background: why was I so sad? We weren’t particularly close, so I thought, I didn’t spend that much time with him.
I learned that grief doesn’t need to have reasons. It doesn’t allow rationalising or intellectualisation. I am reminded of one of my favourite quotes:
“Love, then, is less a utility and more a preemptive form of grief. Allowing something to matter is simply another way of saying you’re going to care when it’s gone.” — Helena Fitzgerald
I wasn’t conscious of it, but grief brought it into light: I loved Lai Hock, even if the time we spent together was so very little. I was telling a friend that there is universality in the beauty of certain objects, like the beauty of a sunrise, and ever so rarely, the beauty of a human being. I loved Lai Hock because he was a great, beautiful human being, he was someone who was genuine in every inch of his presence (I can’t help but add: which is very rare in this society), and he must be one of the least judgmental person I know, or at least he worked to transcend his judgments to allow the space for compassionate responses.
Some of us mourn the loss of forests, coral reefs, whales because we instinctively understand what the loss means. I now understand we can mourn the loss of a beautiful human being the same way when we lose a magnificent part of nature. | https://medium.com/fragmented-musings/lessons-of-grief-9405986bb6ef | ['Winnie Lim'] | 2018-08-19 03:25:43.037000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'People', 'Love', 'Grief', 'Singapore'] |
AYS Daily Digest 28/10/20: A traumatic wake-up for hundreds forcibly moved to a camp in the south of Serbia | GREECE
Breaking news that arrived on the morning when this News Digest was published:
First Reception and police officers are now in PIKPA to start eviction of the camps and a move of the residents to the “old” Kara Tepe. Two buses and one military truck (to take the residents’ luggage) are at PIKPA for this reason. Lawyers and press are informed.
— AYS will report more about this, and will be publishing a Special on the topic.
Sea arrivals and pushbacks
So far this month Aegean Boat Report has registered 32 illegal pushbacks by the Aegean Sea, performed by the Greek Coast Guard, 881 people, children, women and men, have been denied their right to seek asylum, their human rights have been violated by the Greek government.
Fifteen of these pushback cases were performed by using rescue equipment, where 527 people, children, women and men were placed on a total of 30 life rafts, and left helplessly drifting at sea.
Many of these people were picked up on the Greek Aegean islands, after they had already arrived, transported by vessels from the Hellenic Coast Guard back to sea and forced onto the tent shaped rafts. In a normal world, people are rescued from life rafts, and not forced onto one and left adrift.
Moria 2.0
How violent does the humanitarian space become to the refugee population it is working to support, if every action has to align with the governing security apparatus?
Today was a national holiday in Greece, “Oxi-day”. On this occasion, the people at Moria2 have been completely locked up. Meanwhile there was a nationalist car parade organized by known local fascists. Many were shaking hands with police officers.
SEA/ITALY
Too many life vests aboard these ships
The cynical strategy by the Italian authorities to make sure that no ship can save lives and no one can reach the European shores alive is that they stop the ships that have the capacity to actually save lives.
Mediterranea reports that preposterous, unfounded and arbitrary are the motives based on political indications coming directly from Rome, which are propelling the reasons for the recent refusal to board Rescue activists and the activists and Medical Team activists of Mediterranea Saving Humans, aboard the ship as shipowner technicians.
We have sent our legal team to the right places to protest these unlawful measures, but oppositions and appeals involve expensive procedures that will last months before obtaining justice. Meanwhile, while Mare Jonio will face a series of regular, important maintenance work to the hull and motor systems, as scheduled by the Italian Naval Register, MEDITERRANEA’s operating facilities will continue to monitor the situation at sea, as we have done in the face of cases of vessels in distress and shipwrecked over the last few days and relaunching, along with other European civil organizations, a mobilization so that all ships are freed and can return to saving lives in the Mediterranean. We will not stop.
Ships have been blocked because they were carrying too many life vests, the Sea Watch team says.
BELGIUM
Belgium breached international law in 2017 when it deported a Sudanese man to Khartoum
A distressing catalogue of failures by Belgian authorities has been on display in the most recent case regarding the Belgian deportation practice, as Amnesty International has reported:
The European Court of Human Rights today found that Belgium breached international law in 2017 when it deported a Sudanese man to Khartoum without determining the risks he might face upon return and with the cooperation of Sudanese security officials, a ruling which highlights the Belgian authorities’ failure to protect people fleeing human rights violations.
Read more on the case here.
SPAIN
Call for school supplies for Melilla | https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-daily-digest-28-10-20-a-traumatic-wake-up-for-hundreds-forcibly-moved-to-a-camp-in-the-south-87ddfc5aad08 | ['Are You Syrious'] | 2020-10-29 17:47:14.706000+00:00 | ['Migration', 'Digest', 'Europe', 'Refugees', 'Serbia'] |
Nanfu Wang’s I Am Another You | I Am Another You was made by Nanfu Wang in 2017 when she was 21 years old. This is a young person’s film. Wang was on a journey of self-discovery that has no set course, no parameters, just an intrepid openness, and a camera.
One of the first shots in the film is of her feet on the beach. She just points the camera down and shoots the water washing over her sandals. It’s a very simple, even amateurish shot but it feels like a metaphor for her search. She is considering herself, her presence, and wondering where she belongs. Early on in the film, she explains “I left China to find something I’ve been looking for all my life”
Nanfu is willing to relinquish control and open herself to whatever might cross her camera’s lens and what crosses it is a young homeless man named Dylan. He is a little raggedy but very charismatic. He makes friends easily and everyone around him seems ready to give him food, money, and even lodging.
Together Nanfu and Dylan are at similar junctions in their lives. They are the same age and are both far from home. The title of the film “I Am Another You” has several possible meanings but essentially it shows the ambiguous relationship between the documenter and her subject.
Nanfu does not minimize her presence in the film. She makes no effort to be a fly on the wall. She gets involved in Dylan’s life and his decisions. She judges him and argues with him. She even allows him to turn the tables and film her.
Switching roles in the middle of a documentary is not something you see often, but once you consider it, it seems like such a natural impulse. Wang’s willingness to relinquish her power and flip position is critical to her approach. She is open. Throughout the entire film, she is honest and forthcoming with everyone she meets.
By giving Dylan the camera she is allowing him a different kind of voice than when he is being interviewed. When he is pointing the camera at her he is in control, but by filming her he is also allowing her to take some of the spotlight. She allows Dylan to insert himself into the filmmaking by letting him insert the filmmaker into the film.
Dylan and Nanfu’s mini-odyssey lasts about a week but takes up barely 30 minutes of the total film. She follows him wherever he might lead but after a week she seems to hit a dead end and so shelves the project. Later she gets an opportunity to visit Dylan’s family and decides to try learning a little more about his background.
She learns that Dylan has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and is a former heroin addict. In a fascinating re-edit of the source footage, Wang re-examines her experience with Dylan and tries to find evidence of his illness. She and her audience now have to question the original documentary and all the attenuating circumstances, and assumptions. The film calls itself into question.
Eventually, she has a chance to reunite with Dylan and explore this new information. He both accepts and deny’s his diagnosis. He recognizes some of the problems his thoughts present for him but he also feels that they are the result of a special ability instead of an illness. Regardless of how he labels himself, Dylan’s life itself is the best argument for his choices.
He drinks alcohol every day and even takes drugs on occasion but he is not desperate or out of control. He does not seem to be involved in anything illegal, and he doesn’t hurt anyone. In fact, he seems to spread joy and camaraderie wherever he goes. He admits that there are times he suffers from unwanted thoughts and feelings but that is a given with schizophrenia. Whether he was under a doctor’s care or not he would most likely have periods of mental hardship and pain.
It is important not to romanticize schizophrenia as some alternative lifestyle. One in every hundred people deal with this disease every day, and many of them suffer terribly. Unfortunately, psychologists are still struggling to find ways to help these people. Anti-psychotic medication can take away the internal voices, and the visions, but those are only symptoms. In addition, the medications come with a host of heavy side effects.
Using his own strategies Dylan seems to have created a life for himself that is primarily positive. Nanfu has a limited amount of footage of Dylan but depending on the viewer’s expectations, that footage can reveal a jovial vagabond, a mentally ill outcast, or a resourceful and creative young man finding the best possible way forward. What makes the documentary compelling is how you find whatever it is that you are looking for.
The shot in the beginning of Nanfu’s feet on the beach is a little like Dorothy’s Ruby Red Slippers. Dorothy goes on a journey to find help but eventually realizes she had what she needed all along.
The hero’s journey and the classic road movie are not about geographic travel but about an internal transformation. At the end of the film, Nanfu explains, “I came to the U.S. in 2011. I followed Dylan hoping to find something I had been searching for all my life. Along the way I have learned what I’ve been searching for exists only in the mind.” Pushing the metaphor one step further that would make Dylan the Wizard of Oz. A false prophet with a kind heart.
By following him she learns that she does not need to follow him. We don’t find out what happens to the wizard after he floats away. Dylan’s future is uncertain. His chosen lifestyle leaves him vulnerable and so does his condition. Nanfu began her journey free and open but by the end of the film, she has found a path for herself that provides stability. Dylan has no path and is not searching for anything. He is free and living in the present but with freedom comes endless possibilities, some of them good and some of them with the potential for suffering. For now, Dylan is deciding what is best for him and seems to be doing a pretty good job, but there is a difference between a willingness to face risks and risky behavior. The question is whether Dylan can navigate a future that provides the freedom he requires but is also unpredictable.
If you enjoyed this article you might also enjoy these - | https://medium.com/@36toesproductions/nanfu-wangs-i-am-another-you-e39bd7616e22 | [] | 2020-12-10 20:43:17.009000+00:00 | ['Film', 'Movie Review', 'Film Reviews', 'Movies', 'Cinema'] |
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Where to Buy Fake Canadian Dollar money? | https://medium.com/@markye201/email-50euro10-gmail-com-buy-counterfeit-canadian-dollar-cad-money-online-2ed9ba1dffb1 | [] | 2021-02-02 10:15:26.240000+00:00 | ['Style', 'Math', 'Podcasts And Videos', 'Makers', 'Product'] |
7 Best Gifts for Transgender Teens This Christmas | If you celebrate Christmas as my family does, gifts will be given all around. And teenagers are not the easiest to buy for.
If you’re struggling to find a gift your trans or gender non-conforming teen will not only enjoy but understand you’re trying to show your support, I think the following suggestions will help you out this season.
Please note: This article contains no affiliate links. This is just my attempt at helping families and friends ensure that trans teens are celebrated just as much as any other teenager out there enjoying the Christmas spirit.
#1. Books
This insightful memoir written by Jacob Tobia is just as much for teens as it is for their parents. The book follows the journey of the author and what it’s like to grow up not sure if you’re a boy, a girl, something in between, or a combination of it all.
Written by Fox Fisher and Owl Fisher, this book is both witty and informative. It includes all sorts of tips to empower your trans or nonbinary teen with confidence. It holds practical advice for transgender teens regarding coming out, hormone therapy, dating, gender dysphoria, self-care, and more.
This television show and comic book series of the same name has been a progressive series featuring many characters representing the LGBTQ+ community. Chances are your trans teen is already familiar with this one.
I love the normalcy Steven Universe applies to LGBTQ+ topics. The show treats queerness and gender fluidity as completely normal and okay — because they are! And children need to know that. — Leo Rocha
This is another fantastic tome your teenager and you will both learn from. The authors, Kathryn Gonzales MBA and Karen Rayne PhD, answer any questions you might have regarding gender. They cover mental health, physical health, reproduction, transitioning, relationships, sex, and life as a trans or nonbinary individual.
This uncensored guide is full of essential information including relatable stories from other trans teens.
#2. Wave that flag!
There are dozens of flags to represent an individual’s sexuality and gender. And you can find almost any flag represented on clothing, bags, decor, stickers, plushies, pins, hats, mugs, jewelry, bedding, curtains, and even soap.
My son’s bedroom has flashes of pink, blue, and white stripes almost everywhere you look — pillows, twinkle lights, and shelving. He even has two large trans flags anchoring his window like curtains.
For some kids, having a flag they connect with can help them feel more confident in who they are. Giving them a flag that represents them is also a good way to show them that there is an entire community out there just like them. A flag is an easy way to show them they are not alone. And not only do you support them, but there’s a whole group of people in the world who do.
#3. Games
Is your trans loved one a gamer? These dice by FoamBrain might be the perfect stocking stuffer. It goes back to showing them your support even in a small way. Your teenager will notice their gifts are adorned in their gender flag colors.
If video games are more their style check out the ‘Steel Dawn’ update of FallOut 76. This game includes a nonbinary character named Burke. The queer community is loving how Burke’s gender identity is not the only reason for their existence in the game.
Another one to check out is Dontnod’s game ‘Tell Me Why.’ It features a transgender main character! The games’ creators actually partnered with GLAAD to make sure their character accurately represented the trans community.
The character in question, Tyler, is on a trip back to his childhood hometown in Alaska after having been in a juvenile detention facility for most of his life. While he reconnects with his twin sister, they figure out together how to navigate through their past as well as how to move forward. There are moments of struggle here and there as Tyler must reintroduce himself to some, but it only serves to show how coming out is a process done throughout ones’ life, not simply once. — Oliver
#4. Chest Binders
Some trans men and gender non-conforming individuals bind their breasts. Binders are the safest way to flatten one’s breasts and finding a reputable company to purchase them from is important.
This company is awesome and popular with many trans individuals. Not only do they have stellar binders, but they are also trans-owned and -operated. If binders are what you’re looking for I can’t recommend this company enough.
Unfortunately, gc2b doesn’t yet offer swimwear, so Underworks was the company we used to purchase my trans son’s swim top. Their customer service was great and we got just what we needed.
#5. Gift Cards
Gender expression is important for most transgender teens. Why not let them update their look with whatever they want?
Just remember to grab those cards from a retailer who supports your teen as much as you do. There are companies who donate revenue to great organizations such as The Trevor Project, GLAAD, GLSEN, and Lada Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation.
One of the most important and thoughtful things you can do while shopping this season is to check if you’re spending your money with companies who care about your trans loved one. Do they support the LGBTQ+community with their hiring practices? Or do they donate to anti-LGBTQ+ groups?
Here’s a great list of retailers who care.
#6. Unique and Personalized
Etsy is the place to get both unique and personalized gifts, many that are handmade by artists and creators across the globe. Here are just a few I love that are ran by some amazing people.
Queer World has great pins created with many different flag colors as well as creative ‘membership cards’ your teen can use to ‘prove’ their gender identity.
Croquet Gay has mini octopuses and bees in an array of flag colors. And they are so super cute!
Gaby and Tali has mugs, t-shirts, and even Christmas ornaments all available in rainbow and trans flag colors your teen will love.
There are thousands of small business owners out there who happen to be transgender, gender non-conforming, allies of the trans community. Consider supporting them while shopping for your teen.
#7. Money
Who doesn’t like cash?
And some trans youth have future medical plans such as surgery they may be saving up for. Just slip it into an awesome card and remember to add your own personal heartfelt words. SayItOutProud has some beautiful cards to choose from.
If shopping is still on your to-do list, I hope you check out some of the shops throughout this article. It’s easy to show your support for the entire LGBTQ+ community by wisely choosing where to spend your money.
Whether you celebrate Christmas with gift-giving or not, showing your teenager you care about them, accept them, and support them for who they are is the best gift you could possibly give them any time of the year. Sometimes a hug and some sincere words are all you need to express your love for your teen.
From my house to yours, Merry Christmas.
Here are 10 Questions Every Parent Should Ask Their Transgender Teen.
Zada Kent is creator of LGBTQueer-ies & proud parent to her transgender son. | https://medium.com/lgbtqueer-ies/best-gifts-for-transgender-teens-this-christmas-57d883c4f7ee | ['Zada Kent'] | 2020-12-14 18:10:58.421000+00:00 | ['Teenagers', 'LGBTQ', 'Books', 'Christmas Gifts', 'Transgender'] |
6 React Books worth reading: Learning React while quarantined | In the last article, I wrote about JavaScript books and went over the selection process when it comes to choosing potential books for the curriculum as a coding teacher. In this article, I ’ll be covering books about React, React Native, and the MERN stack (Mongo, Express, React, and Node).
Photo by Hans McMurdy
Why React?
If there is a single javascript front-end library or framework you should learn, teach or adopt, it may have to be React.
Once a small library for the web, React has grown into a large and very diverse ecosystem that effectively empowers developers to learn one core “library” and apply it’s core concepts to a suite of additional libraries and frameworks to build UI components for the web, mobile apps, and even VR.
Those reasons as well as the demand and popularity of React, make a compelling argument to learn the core library and a few others. For those unfamiliar with React lets clarify a few things:
React is a library, not a framework.
It was released in 2013.
Introduced JSX, an xml like super-set of JavaScript used to describe UI’s on the web
React started gaining popularity around 2015 as the JS community was learning to adopt the newest language standards known as ES6 /ES2015.
React-Native was also introduced in 2015 further adding to its popularity.
React VR was released in 2017 and renamed React 360.
React Ionic was released in 2019
There are several different libraries and frameworks developed and maintained by Facebook with key differences.
React — The core library that the three others below are built on top of. It is a declarative, component-based library for building UI that you learn once and can use everywhere.
— The core library that the three others below are built on top of. It is a declarative, component-based library for building UI that you learn once and can use everywhere. React DOM — A library that renders React components for the web .
— A library that renders React components for the . React-Native — A framework for building native apps on iOS & Andriod .
— A framework for building native apps on . React-360 — A framework for creating web-based 360 and VR content.
There are also a few other React related projects by Facebook that are definitely worth keeping an eye on. Finally, there are countless components, hooks, libraries, and frameworks made by the greater react community such as react router, remix, react ionic, and countless others that help you build websites faster.
So if you’re excited and ready to learn React, Here are a few book recommendations to help you.
Introductory Books
The first half of this article will be concerned with books that are reasonably safe for beginners and intermediate level developers. However, they do largely assume you have a working proficiency with JavaScript. My goal here was to narrow it down to 4 books that give readers such a solid understanding of React that they are confident enough to not only build the projects in advanced books but also try and improve upon them and explain the project they build well enough to pass an interview.
By Adam Boduch, 2018
Explanations ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Practice ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Assessments ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Advanced Topics ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
If you are completely new to react, I highly recommend this book.
It’s packets full of illustrations, plain explainations and even assessments to make sure you have a solid understand of React whether you use it for web or mobile.
Surprisingly, this is arguably one of the best introductory books on the React ecosystem.
The book probably has the most visual illustrations of any other book I’ve read on React. Additionally, it has assessments that come in really handy if you need to train a team or teach students. Moreover, it teaches React fundamentals really well for several different react libraries, the core react library, react-dom for web, react-bootstrap, react-router, redux and react-native for targeting mobile apps.
Although the projects are a bit weak and it uses older versions that don’t have hooks, the book makes up for it with the explanations, illustrations, assessments, and diversity of React libraries covered. Overall, it’s a great book for beginners who know a little JS, want to learn to React, and aren’t sure if they want to focus on the web or native mobile app development.
By Carl Rippon, 2018
Explanations ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Practice ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Assessments ⭐⭐⭐ Advanced Topics ⭐⭐⭐
If you are hoping to eventually join a major company as a React developer,
I would definitely recommend checking out this book as it provides a foundation for writting clean, maintainable code using TypeScript.
Why a TypeScript(TS) book? Well, to be honest, I’m not the biggest TS fan.
That being said, if there is one introductory book I’d recommend, it would be this book. I had originally written reviews for two other introductory books and had planned to include them in this article but after reading this book, I removed them because the explanations of core react concepts are just better.
Rippon’s Book provides a great introduction to TypeScript with the first 2 full chapters (~100p) being dedicated entirely to the subject. The rest of the book explains core react concepts within the context of TS in simple but effective code examples.
In particular, the book covers core React topics such as:
— lifecycle methods & hooks,
— routing,
— managing state with Redux,
— working with forms,
— API’s and GraphQL,
— and even a bit of testing.
All of this helps give the reader a lot to build on to write clean React code and serves as a great introductory book. What the book may lack in terms of practical projects is more than made up by the depth of knowledge while remaining concise and easy for beginners to digest.
My one minor complaint would be that testing is saved until the end of the book rather than introduced closer in the beginning. It’s a bit of personal difference but I would assume the whole point of building a React app with TS, is to provide a foundation for cleaner code and better coding habits. Most coding books do this, so I can’t blame the author, however, it has the unfortunate effect of reinforcing the idea of testing as an afterthought, rather than being truly test-driven development. Although this is seemingly minor, it has the effect of giving readers less practice with TDD and consequently making them less comfortable with it.
By Carlos Santana Roldán, 2019
Explanations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Practice ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Assessments ⭐ Advanced Topics ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This book is honestly one of my favorite intermediate level books. The author is a senior engineer at Snap Inc & the book provides an indepth understanding of react under the hood.
The first two chapters do such a great job at breaking down react’s fundamentals that even my high school students found it easy to understand.
Although there are overlapping topics from the previous book, this book covers JSX and a few others in very simple terms.
Moreover, the book has a significant focus on Server-Side Rendering (SSR), performance-optimization, CSS in js, testing, and deploying a react app. Also, the examples are generally a bit more applied as opposed to concepts and theory.
By Daniel Bugl, 2019
Explanations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Practice ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Assessments ⭐⭐⭐ Advanced Topics ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I was hooked within the first two chapters.
I cannot recommend this book enough.
Coding puns, aside, it really is an amazing book. Not only does it cover react hooks but it also covers the under-the-hood working of react hooks by breaking down what useState is actually doing.
React is a trendy subject and there is a high demand for not just an understanding of react but also for having an in-depth knowledge of JavaScript. More specifically there is a demand for functional, declarative programming paradigms and even the under-the-hood working of react. Thankfully, this book does exactly this and the assessment questions at the end of each chapter definitely help test your knowledge so you can feel a but more confident about what you just read.
Advanced Project-Based Books
After you have a firm understanding of the fundamentals of React, React Native, and react hooks, its worth considering learning the MERN stack (Mongo, Express, React, Node) and maybe even a little VR for the web. Here are a few books to help you build on what the previous books covered and hopefully modify them with your own knowledge and use cases.
MERN Quick Start Guide 📖536
By Eddy Wilson Iriarte Koroliova, 2018
Explanations ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Practice ⭐⭐⭐
Assessments ⭐ Advanced Topics ⭐⭐⭐
This is a great introduction to MERN stack.
Assuming you are talking about Mongo, Express, Redux, Node…
As far as quick-start books go, this book job does an amazing job covering Express, API’s, Mongo, and Redux. The chapters are overall very well organized, even for beginners.
Most of all though, the explanations of core concepts and code are worded in plain, simple, and concise ways that even my high school students found it easy enough to follow. The express chapter, in particular, does a fantastic job of breaking down the most common middleware and how to use them.
However, in my personal opinion, the book fails to deliver when it comes to the React chapter. In fact, I honestly recommend avoiding the last chapter entirely and read Bartłomiej Dybowski’s article(s) on Server-Side Rendering in React because it does a much better job of explaining how to integrate React into Express.
By Shama Hoque, 2018
Explanations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Practice ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Assessments ⭐ Advanced Topics ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Shama Hoque’s book definitely isn’t intended for complete beginners but I would recommend it for some fun MERN stack portfolio items. Also, the good news is the second edition is coming out soon.
The book has four main projects:
Social Media Platform Online Marketplace Media Streaming Application VR game
By the end of the book, you should have at least 4 projects that are worth showing off.
Why you should sign up as a medium member?
First and foremost it encourages technical writers like myself to write more content. Second, I use the passive income from writing to put into my newborn’s college fund. So every read and every penny goes to his future. That being said, if you can afford Netflix, you can probably afford a $5 medium account so please consider signing up for a paid account
Additional Articles You May Enjoy
If you are still a bit new to JavaScript, I highly recommend checking out my last article on some JavaScript Books.
Many have heard the term ES6 by now. But very few talk about how the abandoned ES4 spec not only became ES6 but also led to the creation of Node.js and radically redefining the JavaScript language as a whole.
Additional Resources:
Below are some additional sources react recommends on their page:
About the Author
Brett “Hans” McMurdy is a self-taught developer with 6+ years of experiance in front-end, back-end and several major areas in between.
He’s currently a stay home dad who’s looking for a full time job, check out his Linkedin if you are interested in hiring him.
In the meantime, he’s working on a few cool open source projects that should make you consider sponsoring him.
1. He’s writing an open source book on JavaScript that teaches the language with node.js instead of a browser. It’s also a remote development environment powered by GitPod so you don’t need a fancy computer, just open up the book and start learning with a preconfigured environment.
2. He’s creating some simple but powerful vscode extensions.
3. He’s wants to launch a free class on Twitch when he reach 50 followers. | https://medium.com/swlh/7-react-books-worth-reading-learning-react-while-quarantined-4486ceb3e862 | ['Hans Mcmurdy'] | 2020-09-11 20:07:49.685000+00:00 | ['React', 'Software Development', 'JavaScript', 'Programming'] |
Javier Zamora and Undocuactivism: a digital humanities project on Instagram | This essay accompanies my final project for Contemporary Latinx Literature: Undocumented Subjects, taught in Fall 2020 at Rutgers-Newark University by Professor Laura Lomas.
Background by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash. Design by Jade Yeung.
In this digital humanities project I created a public Instagram (IG) account and positioned Javier Zamora’s words next to activists, artists, and academics in order to show how a poetics of resistance informs Zamora’s work. By extending Unaccompanied, Zamora’s debut poetry collection, beyond the print medium and into IG I am also attempting to reconcile the descendent gesture of the final poem in the collection. By scrolling through the IG feed a reader will find that each subsequent post contextualizes the previous, seeing juxtapositions and parallels. Taken all together, the visuals will help them generate a multifaceted understanding of political poetry. The work of Zamora resists normalized narratives of uplift and it is this resistance that parallels other undocumented artist activists of his generation who consciously use Instagram to trouble colonial and assimilationist attitudes. By using Instagram to position Zamora’s work alongside his contemporaries and canonical influences I also create a visual rhetoric of counternarratives that advances Zamora’s connection to a black American poetic and activist tradition.
AGAINST UPLIFT
When I first finished Unaccompanied I was struck by how the last poem, “June 10, 1999,” deals less directly with the speaker’s trauma, like much of the book does, and turns instead to questions about the value of poetry and the value of trauma. In this last poem Zamora writes an ars poetica in which he corrects his own memories and expresses doubt over his career choice. When he writes, “when I ride the bus / correction when I rode buses,” and “I’m tired of writing the fence the desert,” and “when will you [speaker] stop / not being that June 10,” there’s a sense that Zamora has confronted his trauma so often in the process of writing this book that he has started to wonder if poetry is changing anything for himself or for his community (79, 81, 83). With frankness he writes, “I was supposed to be . . . someone of value” (89). In the same poem series Zamora is concerned with how his grandmother won’t leave the house and in trying to write about it he seems to suggest poetry’s failure to convey this hurt. He writes, “no bullshit / no metaphor” (86). The last section of “June 10, 1999” ends with “I sit here type . . .” Then Zamora repeats the first line of the first section of the same series and eventually ends the book with, “nothing has changed” (91). Additionally, the section titles are identical, as if Zamora is cycling back to the page in repeated attempts to make language do what he wants and needs it to do. What are we to make of this despairing ending? One could easily conclude that Zamora is a pessimist or a defeatist, but I’d argue that the ending of Unaccompanied is actively resisting narratives of uplift and ascendent gestures that are often expected of poetry.
When a writer who’s been through a traumatic experience decides to share their story, like Zamora has done, they often have to reconcile how they want to tell their story and the reader’s expectations of their story. In the poetry industry the reader’s expectations often have more to do with their own desire for narratives of uplift and closure than with the poet’s actual experience of complex, ongoing trauma. In an interview Zamora spoke about his experience with Louise Glück at Stanford where he had to reconcile her expectations of him. He said, “[Glück] encouraged me to stop writing about immigration,” and went on to say,
“I might be one of those writers that always has to write about immigration. I don’t want to, but there’s something still inside of me that’s like, dude, you’re not healed yet” (Alam 00:33:15–00:34:15).
It’s possible that because of literary dissonances like these Vievee Francis, a black poet, regularly teaches a workshop called, “The Sky Is Falling: Ascendant And Descendent Gestures In The Poem,” in which students consciously question and resist the poetics of uplift. One course description reads, “We will discuss . . . how we may use various types of closure to free ourselves from received (and often gendered) uninterrogated beliefs around positivity in our efforts to write resonant, impactful work” (“Look!”). Unaccompanied troubles expected ascendant narratives of healing, and instead renders the trauma of being an unaccompanied minor as a circuitous, unresolved journey that confounds the reader’s desire for moral or political closure.
Unaccompanied reveals an open wound created by a traumatic migration experience. This “herida abierta,” as Gloria Anzaldúa would use the term, is apparent in the descendent gesture at the end of Zamora’s book. In “June 10, 1999,” Zamora writes, “I wasn’t born here / I’ve always known this country wanted me dead” (87). This admittance of survival is reminiscent of Audre Lorde, who wrote,
“For to survive in the mouth of this dragon we call america, we have had to learn this first and most vital lesson — that we were never meant to survive”
(Lorde 42). For Zamora, poetry maps the discontinuity of pain and healing, and demonstrates healing even as the cure fails. The reader is left with the open wound, the continuance of trauma even after repeated attempts at resolution; nothing has changed. And yet this stasis of healing becomes a site of political resistance because continual survival and expression is required of the poet if they’re to coalesce at all. To stop writing about immigration, as Glück has suggested to Zamora, is to plug up the wound and say that the past is done, everything has changed and America is good now; it’s time to be quiet.
UNDOCUACTIVISM AND VISUAL LITERACY
According to his Instagram, on September 9, 2019 Zamora visited the exact spot where he believes he crossed the border in Douglas, Arizona twenty years before. In the post he writes, “there was a rainbow and it started to rain. #salvi.” It was on this trip that Zamora returned to El Salvador for the first time since he was nine and was eventually able to secure a EB1 visa. If we read through Unaccompanied into Zamora’s social media we find, in fact, some things have changed — there is rain and rainbows. We find that the poet continues the stasis of healing. For immigrant artists and Instagramers such as Sonia Guiñansaca, Divya Seshadri, and Jess X. Snow the practice of resistance by way of self-care and community care is advanced in the visual and written rhetoric of their IG accounts. In this Instagram digital humanities project I position Javier Zamora’s words alongside writers and artists who embrace an intersectional practice of healing and resistance. This positioning will bridge the descendent arc of Unaccompanied to undocuactivism’s call for community care, rage, action, and advocacy.
Background by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash. Design by Jade Yeung.
Unlike other social media networks, Instagram’s potential for polyvocality made it the perfect platform to draw parallels between Zamora and other artists who resist in similar ways. I would be lying if I said that I was comforted by the resistance to closure I saw in “June 10, 1999” at first read. I had been trained to desire transcendence in poetry, too, and after I finished Unaccompanied I checked Zamora’s Instagram the way I might check on a friend I used to be close with but didn’t really know anymore. I wanted to know, how’s he doing — is he okay? I was delighted to find that he had in fact been able to return to El Salvador and had obtained a visa. These autobiographical facts don’t erase Unaccompanied’s themes of homesickness and childhood loss, but they did make me want to extend the book so that it came in conversation with Zamora’s personal Instagram and other immigrant artists on the platform. I only joined Instagram after encountering numerous poets at readings and workshops who used the platform to stay in touch with each other. I relented and finally created a personal account last year. Since I was joining late in the game and had heard friends complain about Instagram already, I was mindful of the platform’s issues with both physical superficiality and the romanticization of poetry, the latter supposedly being better than the former (Pâquet 299). Given all this, I purposely curated my feed by only following black, brown, queer, immigrant writers and artists, as well as organizations that had a mission to further social justice.
I hadn’t known it at the time but I was curating a feed full of “undocuartivism,” as Joanna B. Pérez would call it. In Pérez’s article, “Undocuartivism: Latino[x] Undocumented Immigrant Empowerment through Art and Activism,” she focuses on the activists who were prominent during the “Undocumented & Unafraid” movement in the early 2000’s and defines “undocuactivists” as “undocumented immigrant young adult activists” (Pérez 30–31, 23). The activists of the time were mostly concerned with getting the public to simply see that undocumented people were deserving of respect and the figure of the “DREAMer” was perfect for this messaging (30). In 2006, activists organized the Day Without An Immigrant boycott. At the time Zamora was a teenager and although he witnessed the historic event from the sidelines, he credits that movement for giving him the courage to write his own immigration story (Alam 00:11:52–00:13:18). Since the 2000’s, the undocumented activist movement has shifted away from this strategy of visibility and is now more concerned with an anti-assimilationist, anti-Latinidad, decentered, and decolonial rhetoric. Pérez says that the movement of the 2000’s played an “essential role in dispelling myths of undocumented immigrants while also providing spaces of resistance and empowerment for undocumented immigrants” and in many ways, today’s campaigns are still interested in this (23). However, today’s undocuactivists are more willing to “resist liberal respectability and pragmatism,” as Urayoán Noel points out (533). In Noel’s article, “The Queer Migrant Poemics of #Latinx Instagram,” he posits that “the hashtag activism of queer migrant poets such as [Sonia] Guiñansaca and [Alan] Pelaez Lopez embodies an irreverent, radical decentering of US Latinidad and its proximities to hegemonic identities (whiteness, citizenship, the gender binary, and so on)” (532). Although Pérez and Noel are dealing with two distinct periods and practices, they overlap in the way they cover the undocuactivism of Sonia Guiñansaca, a queer Ecuadorian poet and organizer from Harlem.
When I was a student at Hunter College I knew of Guiñansaca, who was two years ahead of me, but the first time I met them was probably at the launch of AMPLIFY(HER), a “first-ever zine by and for undocumented wom[x]n from the Asian diaspora” of which I was the production coordinator (“AMPLIFY(HER) Launch.”). The journal was started by members of RAISE and DRUM, nonprofit organizations that serve local AAPI communities in New York City. RAISE was specifically created by students who were supporting each other as they worked on their DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) applications, and in this sense they’re a part of the generation from the early 2010’s that benefited from DACA while also knowing that, by design, it was “exclusionary and liminal” (Pérez 39). It was this paradox that made them aware that “there was still a need to carve out spaces of resistance and empowerment,” as Pérez has said of the earlier undocuactivists (40). In 2015 Angel Sutjipto, my friend and project manager of AMPLIFY(HER), invited me to work on the journal. As a U.S. citizen I was humbled and heartened to have been a part of the project. And seeing all the undocumented artists and activists working on the project gave me hope during the 2016 presidential election. Through my network at Hunter, at AMPLIFY(HER), and beyond I encountered immigrant activists such as Guiñansaca, Jess X. Snow, and Aja Monet whose intersectional politics of self-care and resistance were two sides of the same coin. I became aware of how protest art created a “counternarrative of undocumented immigrants living in the US,” as well as counternarratives for queer, disabled, and Afro-Latinx people (Pérez 23). So naturally, when I joined Instagram years later they were the first people I followed and the first artists I thought of as I clicked into Zamora’s IG feed to see how he was doing. I should point out that I’m not attempting to queer Unaccompanied by drawing paralles between Zamora and the artists that Noel covers in his article, but I do wish to show how Zamora’s anti-uplift poetics are a kind of undocuactivism as well.
Zamora YAWP! An Open Dialogue on Creativity and the Arts at Quinnipiac University
Social media has the potential to continually upend, distort, and recontextualize narratives, but before there was social media there were projects like The Black Book. M.A. Harris and Toni Morrison worked with collectors to compile the content that eventually made it into The Black Book in 1974. In the preface, while using the book as a persona, Morrison writes,
“I am all the ways I survived . . . I am all the things I have ever loved . . . I am not complete here; there is much more, but there is no more time and no more space . . . and I have journeys to take, ships to name, and crews” (Harris).
This preface partly sparked my idea for this digital humanities project, but what really helped me conceptualize the project was thinking about the ways in which The Black Book and the goal of undocuactivists are slightly different. The Black Book was created before the 24-hour news cycle and before a generation of children watched the Twin Towers fall non-stop on TV. It was created before the rise of mass shootings and before the world watched Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and George Floyd die on camera.
Open up to any page in The Black Book and you’ll find triggering, racist images ranging from lynchings to cereal advertisements. The book was created when people said it was important to look, one must look at atrocities. Others will say for the sake of mental health, one doesn’t need to look at these images. These two schools of thought, both grounded in generational and cultural differences, are argued even more fiercely today (Jones). More recently researchers have been looking into how media and PTSD are related and studies are finding “that people can be affected vicariously, by physically watching” a traumatic event (Jones). Similarly, in an article titled “Self-Care for Black Journalists,” Patrice Peck speaks with a psychologist that “advises her Black clients . . . to unplug from social media to recover from stress and recommends they not watch videos of Black people being harmed” (Peck). Our current state of media with its autoplay violence is another reason why artists on Instagram seek to carve out spaces for empowerment that are safe from trauma. This conflict of whether to look or not look played out in 2019 after a photo of Óscar Alberto’s and Angie Valeria Martínez Ramírez’s dead bodies circulated widely in the news and on social media. Some argued that the photo could change hearts and minds, others like Sonia Guiñansaca argued that the nonmigrant Latinx people circulating the photo were “building large platforms and cultural capital on the pain and death of migrant bodies” (Noel 549). Throughout this project I remained mindful of all of these arguments and tried to stay clear of any images or text that could cause harm.
Even with its candid images of violence, The Black Book is still important because of the way it simultaneously preserves history and recontextualizes it. Howard Rambsy observes,
“Taken together, the contents of the page visually and linguistically present a horrific scene of antiblack racism. Readers are inclined to exercise both prose and visual literacy in order to absorb the implications of the text” (85).
He goes on to say that “positioning of the poetic excerpts reveals that verse could assist in defining the apparent meaning of images” (87). In some ways, Instagram requires users to exercise the same dual literacy and it is what I intended by positioning Zamora’s words next to the artists I reposted in the project’s IG feed.
METHODS
To create this Instagram digital humanities project I had to plan the IG page as if it were a marketing campaign. I researched and collected visual and textual content for the IG feed, then organized all the content into a timeline that exhibited thematic cohesion. For every feed post I had to conduct photo research, design graphics, write captions with the appropriate hashtags, write alternative text (for accessibility), and properly credit or cite any sources. I also created a Linktr.ee that directs users to the website of every artist or writer I cite in the IG feed. Additionally, I requested permission from Javier Zamora to create this project and I cleared permissions for every piece of IG content I reposted. Because these content creators already have their work on IG and the platform has an unofficial practice of users reposting content, it made sense to use IG for these reasons as well. Finally, I didn’t want the concerns of this project to appear in a vacuum so I also created story highlights that elevate organizations that have intersectional missions related to immigration rights, prison abolition, and black liberation. | https://medium.com/@jadeyeung/nothing-has-changed-undocuactivism-a-digital-humanities-project-d0eb5605090d | ['Jade Yeung'] | 2020-12-21 19:58:27.697000+00:00 | ['Digital Humanities', 'Activism', 'Undocumented', 'Immigration', 'Poetry'] |
Call Me By My Name…. Recursion | If you are new to programming, or even if you aren't, you have probably heard of a type of algorithm called Recursion and freaked out. This is normal and with time you will soon realize that the name may sound daunting, but it is really quite simple.
Russian Dolls
The simplest way to think of recursion is by using an analogy like a Russian Doll set. In order to get the the smallest doll, you have to continue to go into itself and see if there is anything else within it. Finally, when you get to the inner most doll, you can take it out and place all the other ones back in, one by one.
How does that analogy fit in with programming?
Well, let’s look at an example of how recursion would be used to solve a problem.
Puppies always make things better….here’s an infinite amount!
Recursion has 2 parts to the algorithm, a recursive call and a base case. The recursive call is the function that is going to be repeatedly called within itself, while the base case is the stopping point at which you want your function to stop calling itself. IMPORTANT: Make sure you have a base case. Without it, your program will crash due to an infinite loop.
So let’s use a math function like factorials. If you are a little rusty in math, that is fine, we will briefly go over factorials to refresh your memory. Factorials are the product of all the positive integers from 1 to n. Factorials are denoted by the given integer along with an exclamation point (i.e. 5!). So 5! would be 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1, which equals 120.
Ok, now that we quickly refreshed ourselves, let’s dive into the example.
Recursive example
Let’s break this function down to understand what is going on. We have a function called factorial, which accepts a number, n. While n is greater than 0, the function will call itself, subtracting 1 from the current value of n each time till it equals 0.
The above screenshot shows how the function works each time it dives deeper into itself. Let’s start at line 16. We make a call to the function called factorial with the number 5 as the argument. Since 5 is not equal to 0 (line 4), it skips that command and calls itself (line 8), except now subtracting 1 from 5. You can also see the function being returned is also being multiplied by n.
When we finally hit 0, we return 1 (line 5). Now is where all the math begins. The function has went 5 levels within itself before hitting 0 and now works its way back up.
Starting at line 18, we see that 1 is multiplied by the function factorial(0) which is 1, then it moves up to line 16. Factorial(1) now is multiplied by 2, which return 2. It does this all the way back up till we get to our top level which was when n === 5. The returned result would be 120.
Hopefully this helped clear up any confusion you had about Recursion. The best way to learn is by doing. So try solving some problems using recursion and over time you will get the hang of it! | https://medium.com/@davidjkirsch/call-me-by-my-name-recursion-ba67d4e7b2f9 | ['David Kirsch'] | 2021-02-09 06:22:44.529000+00:00 | ['Math', 'Recursion', 'Data Structures', 'Programming', 'Algorithms'] |
Help Doesn’t Equal Shame | “You have something wrong with you,” His voice sounded concerned and frustrated. Though I’ll have to give my boyfriend credit, no matter how upset he got, he never raised his voice. One of the most patient individuals I know.
“You either need to go to the hospital or call a doctor for help. This can’t continue. Somethings not right with you, you’re up and then you’re down.”
I shrugged, unconcerned by his words, turning back to my painting. A hospital sounded awfully dramatic (says the one who overdosed almost exactly a year ago). Eh, I didn’t need help. He was persistent and kept bringing it up. This is how I found myself a couple of weeks later on a cold January day, making an appointment with a psychiatrist to prove my boyfriend wrong.
Image from Bizarro.
Three months later, I was sitting on a couch across from Fred (fake name), outside warm sunshine was pushing out the cold. I was ready to hear it was my boyfriend who was wrong, as I told Fred everything my boyfriend had said. I also readily explained how none of my past therapists ever noticed anything.
Within five minutes I was being handed a diagnosis of bipolar. No, no, I wasn’t that messed up. That’s like a crazy person problem. I’m not crazy.
Shaking my head, I said no way, you’re wrong.
Fred asked some questions and I gave some half-truths. It would take me another year before speaking the full truth. He also pointed out my body language.
I looked down at my bouncing legs, one hand unthreading my sweatshirt, while the other hand continually unzipped my boot. A ball of motion.
Still, I said, no way, you’re wrong.
Fred said I was talking fast and hard to follow at times. Bouncing from idea to idea. I had strange ways to describe things. He suggested I was probably hypomanic or manic at that moment.
Still, I said, no way, you’re wrong.
It’s a really ugly expensive book, yet very useful.
Determined he pulled out his copy of DSM-5, explaining this was the official guide to diagnosing mental disorders. All I heard was a mental disorder. This wasn’t me.
First, he asked me about any self-inflated self-esteem or grandiose ideas.
Well….well…okay…well…there have been times I felt invincible or have been told my ideas were off the wall. My hand steadily unzipped and zipped my boot.
Second, he asked if I ever had a decreased need for sleep. How did I sleep?
Eh, only a couple of hours. I’ve never really been a good sleeper. As I dropped a gray thread onto the carpet.
Third, he asked if I’ve been more talkative or pressured to keep talking.
Yeah…I’ve been made fun of for being talkative or for talking too fast. My eyes staring past him fixated on the traffic outside.
Fourth, he asked if I ever had a flight of ideas. Do you have a lot of unrelated thoughts?
Well…I can’t sleep because my brain won’t shut up. More gray threads drop onto the carpet.
Fifth, he asked if I got distracted.
Uh…I was diagnosed with ADHD in college. The zipper frantically going up and down as I stared at the brown peeling off the boot.
Sixth, he asked if I engaged in goal-directed activity.
Umm…you mean like that time my boyfriend complained because I was cleaning the house in the middle of the night? My focus shifting towards him in curiosity, these were a lot of questions that were kind of starting to make sense.
The last question he asked was about reckless behavior such as spending or sex.
Stunned, I sat speechless. I felt targeted as I thought about the unexplained out of character behavior, engaging in spending sprees and sex sprees. All the debt. All the shame I felt about my body.
Fred explained these were the seven criteria for mania, three symptoms needed to be present for a diagnosis. He was sure I was at the end of a manic episode. He was also sure I had bipolar and ADHD.
Pink lady slipper, photo taken by me.
Walking out of his office I drifted past the budding flowers to my car and climbed in. I didn’t know what to do. My world looked different. There was a name for my chaotic confusion in my life. It would take me another seven months to fully accept it all and acknowledge it out loud.
My boyfriend’s words echoed, “You need to go to a hospital.”
Maybe, just maybe I was worse than my mind allowed me to see. Sometimes people are forcing you to get help because they legitimately are concerned, and not because they are out to get me.
Later I would learn of paranoia, which would explain why I constantly felt the one person on my side, had ulterior motives for saying things. I know now both my boyfriend and my therapist are on my side, and their words are designed to help not to hurt. A diagnosis doesn’t mean your crazy, that’s a media-fed stereotype about bipolar.
There is no shame in going to get help. And let me tell you how damn good it felt to find out I was finally normal. Within the word bipolar, I discovered normalcy. | https://medium.com/@wanderingbipolarbear/help-doesnt-equal-shame-283df1395de8 | [] | 2020-12-18 15:04:09.654000+00:00 | ['Bipolar', 'Mental Health Awareness', 'Therapy', 'Mental Health', 'Self-awareness'] |
FBI: Watch Out For Fake Job Listings — CyberHoot | The FBI released a statement in April 2021, warning of cybercriminals using fake job listings to target applicants’ Personally Identifiable Information (PII). In the COVID-19 era, over 16,000 people were reported to the FBI as scammed through fake job listings with losses totaling more than $59 million. There have been over 2,000 reports in 2021, the FBI reports.
How’s It Done?
Hackers advertise jobs the same way legitimate employers do, online (ads, job sites, college employment sites, social media), in newspapers, and sometimes on TV and radio. Technology makes these scams easier and more lucrative than ever for fraudsters. They promise you a job, but what they really want is your money and personal information. These employment scams occur when criminals deceive victims into believing they have a job or have a job lined up. Criminals leverage their position as “employers” to persuade victims to provide them with personally identifiable information (PII) or send them money.
The scammers will go to great lengths to get your information, even conducting a fake phone interview. They conduct fake interviews with unsuspecting applicants, requesting PII and/or money from these individuals. PII can be used for any number of malicious purposes, including taking over a victim’s account, opening new financial accounts in their name, or using the victim’s identity for another deception scam (fake driver’s licenses/passports).
How You’re Tricked
It can be quite difficult to spot tricksters, but this example of a LinkedIn user who reached out to KrebsOnSecurity to verify the scam might help:
On Monday, someone claiming to work with Gwin (LinkedIn ‘recruiter’) contacted Siegel and asked her to set up an online interview with Geosyntec. Siegel said the ‘recruiter’ sent her a list of screening questions that all seemed relevant to the position being advertised. Siegel said that within about an hour of submitting her answers, she received a reply saying the company’s board had unanimously approved her as a new hire, with an incredibly generous salary considering she had to do next to no work to get a job she could do from home. Worried that her potential new dream job might be too-good-to-be-true, she sent the recruiter a list of her own questions that she had about the role and its position within the company. But the recruiter completely ignored Siegel’s follow-up questions, instead sending a reply that urged her to get in touch with a contact in HR to begin the process of formalizing her employment. Which of course involves handing over one’s personal (driver’s license info) and financial details for direct deposit.
According to the FBI, the attackers request the same information as legitimate employers, making it difficult to identify a hiring scam until it is too late. Some indications of this scam may include:
Interviews are not conducted in person or through a secure video call.
Interviews are conducted via teleconference applications that use email addresses instead of phone numbers.
Potential employers contact victims through non-company email domains and teleconference applications.
Potential employers require employees to purchase start-up equipment from the company.
Potential employers require employees to pay upfront for background investigations or screenings.
Potential employers request credit card information.
Potential employers send an employment contract to physically sign asking for PII
Job postings appear on job boards, but not on the companies’ websites.
Recruiters or managers do not have profiles on the job board, or the profiles do not seem to fit their roles.
How To Protect Yourself
If you’re looking for a job or if you receive an enticing offer, it’s vital to do a little research. CyberHoot and the FBI recommend taking these actions if you receive a job offer of any kind through online interviews:
Conduct a web search of the hiring company using the company name only. Results that return multiple websites for the same company (abccompany.com and abccompanyllc.com) may indicate fraudulent job listings.
Legitimate companies will ask for PII and bank account information for payroll purposes AFTER hiring employees. This information is safer to give in person. If in-person contact is not possible, a video call with the potential employer can confirm identity, especially if the company has a directory against which to compare employee photos.
Never send money to someone you meet online, especially by wire transfer.
Never provide credit card information to an employer.
Never provide bank account information to employers without verifying their identity.
Do not accept any job offers that ask you to use your own bank account to transfer their money. A legitimate company will not ask you to do this.
Never share your Social Security number or other PII that can be used to access your accounts with someone who does not need to know this information.
Before entering PII online, make sure the website is secure by looking at the address bar. The address should begin with “https://”, not “http://”.
While these actions will help you stop the hackers from stealing your information in Employment Scams, there are certainly other actions you and your business should be taking to help secure your sensitive information.
CyberHoot’s Top 7 Cybersecurity Program Recommendations:
Take these seven actions to improve your company’s cybersecurity program:
Adopt two-factor authentication to prevent a password breach of your business’s VPN, email services, and any other critical service that is directly Internet accessible Adopt a password manager and adopt 14+ character length passwords across your company both personally and professionally for strong password hygiene Train employees monthly on a variety of cybersecurity topics, but with a focus on how to spot and avoid phishing attacks — the primary way cyberattacks occur Test employees with fake phishing test to help employees apply their training to spotting and deleting phishing attack emails Regularly backup data following the 3–2–1 backup method for backing up all your critical and sensitive data Govern your employees with a set of cybersecurity policies that outline requirements for the protection of your most company critical data Consider performing a Risk Assessment every 2–3 years against your companies administrative, technical and physical practices.
Sources:
FBI
KrebsOnSecurity
Additional Readings:
FTC — Job Scams Article
CNBC — Job Scams Increase As COVID-19 Puts Millions Out Of Work | https://medium.com/@cyberhoot/fbi-watch-out-for-fake-job-listings-cyberhoot-bd668b837ea8 | ['Ty Mezquita'] | 2021-06-02 14:46:49.487000+00:00 | ['Information Technology', 'Information Security', 'FBI', 'Cybersecurity', 'Network Security'] |
Complete Guide to Terraform: News, Updates, Tips | Photo by Ramón Salinero on Unsplash
From Terraform to DevOps: A Modern Revolution
Before we can even begin to dive into Terraform best practices, we need to take a step back and look at the modern-day revolution that is DevOps. A long, long time ago (actually, more like 10 years ago), it was once an IT tradition to have two separate teams in an organization: the development and operations teams. The development team was tasked with handling the code and design, as well as making sure the right product was deployed with functional code. On the other side of the office was the operations team, who were exclusively tasked with checking the operation of the code, its performance, and creating bug reports to fix errors. As with many silos, unnecessary workflows were created, with one team unnecessarily pushing code to the other due to communication gaps. Eventually, a new process was created: DevOps.
DevOps is a process that merges the two teams, their practices, and tools, ensuring that an organization may deliver the product at a rapid pace without compromising on the quality of the product.
Over the years, this simple process has improved and revolutionized the complete development process of a product. While initially created to remove the communication differences between the two teams, it has now transformed into a very widely used, continuous concept right from planning the product, all the way to production and then for change releases.
It’s key to remember that DevOps is about people, process, and how those operational processes can create value for developers. Another key takeaway: teams lose their most precious resource, time, when DevOps isn’t implemented or is implemented badly.
While DevOps isn’t only a set of tools, there are some helpful tools when it comes to DevOps:
Git: A developer’s best friend to track source code and changes Docker: Looking to build a containerized app? Here’s your answer. Selenium: Browser automation for testing Jenkin: Open-source automation for Continuous Integration Ansible: Automate IT and infrastructure Puppet: Open-source configuration management
These tools create the foundation for the conversation.
Terraform Best Practices: DevOps or Tools?
Should you embrace DevOps or Terraform first? Whenever such a question comes up in an engineer’s mind or in an organization, it is always important to remember that Terraform is just a tool, while DevOps is a complete process that involves skilled people. If you as an engineer or as an organization do not understand and accept DevOps first, irrespective of which tool you use, the chances of failing are higher. Therefore, when you plan to move towards DevOps as your development process, you should understand and embrace the process first and then the tool that you will be using. For a complete breakdown of Terraform best practices, check out our recent blog post “5 Pieces of Advice: Terraform Best Practices” to go more in-depth.
Terraform Tutorial Basics Pt 1: What is it?
Infrastructure as Code or IaC is the management of your infrastructure in a descriptive model, where the same source code generates the same binary. IaC enables the fact that your infrastructure is governed by the same rules as the rest of your code. This means that instead of a configuration that is managed manually, the operational infrastructure such as version control, continuous monitoring, etc., are applied to your code which governs the management of your infrastructure. As an important point in this Terraform tutorial: code is written to define the state of the new machine and does not have to be set up by your system admins.
The main advantages that IaC offers can be summarized as:
1. Efficient and Robust SDLC: The infrastructure can be scripted once and used any number of times without wasting additional time and effort on manual configurations every time. This allows developers to focus more on application development.
2. Enhanced Security: Since the complete architecture gets provisioned as code, the deployment remains constant and no additional resources have to be deployed for change approvals or review.
3. Faster speed with consistency: IaC enables the omission of manual process and hence, the wait time for the admin or operations team to set up and manage infrastructure manually gets eliminated completely. The consistency is never lost throughout the process, as any changes can be applied globally without having to worry about the system configuration changes.
4. Cost Efficient: We can have a very precise environment for our development and testing whenever we need it, and not pay for it when it is not in use. IaC also ensures the reduction in repetitive work for the engineers and also helps in reducing the cloud computation costs by taking down the unused resources and environments.
5. Greater experience for customers: By deploying infrastructure as code, we are ensuring that the same rules and versioning as the code are applied to infrastructure as well. This reduces any errors or system downtime that could occur due to a change in system configurations.
Check out Infrastructure as Code: DevOps done right for more information.
Terraform is an open-source tool that is specifically dedicated to creating, modifying, and even deleting infrastructure on cloud, focusing on “Infrastructure as Code.” It was first released in July 2014 by a Hashicorp and allowed for users who attempt to build their infrastructure to employ a declarative language known as HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL), as well as JSON. It was written in “ GO “ language and can work on most of the major operating systems such as Linux, Windows, macOS, Solaris, and so on. Over the past few years, many Terraform best practices have started to spring up from frequent users. We encourage you to explore those and keep your eyes open to any helpful resources.
HashiCorp is a pioneer in DevOps and Infrastructure as Code. They have created process improvements and revolutionized the DevOps space in highly impactful ways. The HashiCorp “boom” that is spoken about in DevOps circles didn’t happen overnight — it was 10 years in the making.
Terraform Tutorial Basics Part 2: Getting Started
1. Selecting a cloud provider
Selecting a cloud provider can change your entire infrastructure outlook. While most Terraform tutorial guides breeze past this decision, we believe that this conversation will frame your entire experience, and is therefore worth a deeper dive.
Cloud is now the backbone of an IT environment and over the years, has been helping every IT company, whether small or big, in transforming their capabilities and offering various advantages over conventional setups. One of many Terraform best practices is to first select a cloud service provider. Let’s look at a few of the major advantages that cloud service providers provide:
-Business efficiency
-Cost-benefits
-Recovery
-Security
-Reliability
-Storage capacity
-Automatic integration and updates
-Pay-per-Use
With many other benefits, selecting a cloud provider for your infrastructure is usually the right choice before you define your infrastructure configuration.
2) Terraform Commands
Once you’ve familiarized yourself with which cloud provider you’d like to choose, it’s important to learn commands as the next step in your Terraform tutorial. While many tutorials will provide you with a tedious list of commands that you may not need at first, here’s a simplified list of the top 5 commands you’re likely to use when deploying infrastructure. Visit our Terraform Tutorial Guide if you’re looking for a more in-depth explanation of each command.
3) Terraform Configuration
Any Terraform tutorial will also guide you through the configuration process. Modules create configuration files. A module is a group of resources and relationships defined between those resources (such as virtual networks or DNS records). Within a configuration file, you can find a group of modules, including a root module, where the execution process begins.
Before we dive into syntax, we want to share some Terraform best practices with you: watch syntax rules closely. Because Terraform is syntax-sensitive, it’s important to get your syntax correct early on, to avoid future problems. Syntax consists of blocks, arguments, and expressions. A block is a container that holds onto the configuration of an object or resources. Within a block, basic statements known as arguments occur. Lastly, expressions are values which you may find under arguments or see as a subsection of other expressions.
4) Terraform Advantages
Terraform has continued to revolutionize DevOps with its simple and extremely efficient ways of managing infrastructure. The simple fact that Terraform isn’t restricted to any particular cloud service provider makes it a handier tool when compared to others. This also means that it’s easier to implement Terraform best practices when you aren’t restricted to a single cloud service provider.
Some other major advantages include:
Declarative Code: Unlike other infrastructure provisioning tools, it is not a procedural tool, so there aren’t any step-by-step procedures to reach a desired state. A Terraform best practice that is built into the tool itself is to declare and inform the tool of the changes that need to be done to the current state of the server.
Documentation: The declarative language is simple enough to read and figure out the current configuration through documentation.
Vast Handling: It can not only be used as an Infrastructure as a Service, but can also be used as a Platform as a Service. It can also be used for storing variables such as tokens and encrypted credentials in “Terraform Registry.”
Client-Only Architecture: There is no need for additional security checks and having multiple configuration management servers. It conveniently uses the cloud provider’s API for provisioning the infrastructure.
Immutable: Updates to the current configuration, are recorded as a new configuration and removes the previous configuration. This avoids bugs and security threats related to configuration.
Everything is controlled on an easy-to-use command-line interface with simple commands. If you’re enjoying this Terraform tutorial and are interested in a complete list of commands, check out here.
5) Other Resources
When it comes to being a practitioner, it is always good to keep in mind a set of Terraform best practices that you may follow. If you’d like to discuss these practices or need any support, you can join our Slack community to meet other DevOps professionals and continue the conversation.
2020 Outlook: Challenges for Small and Medium Businesses
Though the usage and growth of IaC have been exponential, it is still a concept that is being figured out by many organizations on how and where it fits into their DevOps process. As a small and medium business, you may watch every Terraform tutorial on earth and still fall short of your goals. The major challenges that come up with Infrastructure as Code are:
1. Dependence on Coding: Infrastructure in such cases is highly dependent on the developer’s coding skills and their knowledge in languages such as JSON, HCL, YAML, etc., which are commonly used for IaC. This means that such efficient programming resources need to be available in the organization. This also means that simply watching or reading a basic Terraform tutorial might be difficult for those who don’t code. While Terraform documentation is clear, there’s still room for improvement to better fit the needs of small and medium-sized businesses.
2. Monitoring: As an organization, additional and efficient tools will have to be dedicated to tracking the provisioning of resources. The major tracking required here would be: “who” provisioned the resource, “what” was provisioned, and “how” much does it cost to have the resource.
3. Human Error: Though most of the process is automated, we still have humans writing the parent or source code. This leads to the possibility of minor human errors such as duplication. There is no Terraform tutorial that will eliminate human error from the equation. As a side note, we also have to make sure that the changes to the configuration have no outside interference.
While we can’t eliminate the fallibility of mankind, we can try to make Terraform easier to use for small and medium businesses, through an open-source solution that puts the power back in the hands of you, the developer. You can use our CLI to create a custom HCL file that fits your exact specifications.
We encourage you to try our CLI and provide us with feedback as we continue to grow. Through our Slack community, we’re fostering a conversation around Terraform best practices, as well as providing expert resources and opinions at your fingertips. Join our Slack community to connect with other DevOps professionals and continue the conversation. | https://medium.com/swlh/complete-guide-to-terraform-news-updates-tips-85e3b9a03ffd | ['Raphael Socher'] | 2020-10-27 22:05:38.984000+00:00 | ['Infrastructure As Code', 'Terraform', 'DevOps'] |
The Great War of Archimedes Review: If you want peace, prepare for… corruption and deceit? | The future of sea battle is up in the air?
Despite some reviews observing how the movie was bland with statistics and technical details an average viewer might not understand, there was a jewel in the dirt. The film’s attempt to show how both sides might have some merit, and demerit, was commendable. The battleship advocates stressed how Japan needed a symbol to wreck their insatiable thirst for victory, even if that meant overspending hard-earned taxpayer’s money and creating a devious deception plan to make the whole world believe a super battleship could be built for the cost of a cruiser. The film made it a point to stress that their idea was to contract the project in pieces, veiled as cruiser orders but really parts of the super battleship. Indeed, the real-life Yamato costed more than what the film portrayed. The Great War of Archimedes pegged the price at 176 million, while the actual cost of building Yamato went over 250 million yen. If Yamato was destroyed, the nation which never knew defeat since the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895 would have to face reality: they were not invincible. Meanwhile, the aircraft carrier supporters argued that the nation need not to suffer and bleed its coffers dry to learn their lesson. They viewed a decisive battle resulting to an early peace being the only path to preserving Japan’s sovereignty. Also, even at 100 million yen, two aircraft carriers could have been built for the price of one Yamato, with enough change for armaments and aircraft. Then again, the people would faint at the notion of suing for peace, especially if the military was winning anyway. This was the very atmosphere after the Pearl Harbor attack, even though it was a partial failure. Nonetheless, despite Yamamoto’s supposed noble intention (as similarly portrayed in the 2011 biopic Isoroku), it was also hinted by the film that the plan might have been a pro-war tactic at heart because victory with the decisive battle might only encourage the people to seek even more fighting, not less. The Navy particularly articulated the “southern advance doctrine” (nanshin-ron), which saw the territories south of Japan being within their sphere of influence. This was immediately seen at the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. In the six months leading to Coral Sea and Midway, Japan had conquered Southeast Asia in what appeared to be an unstoppable wave of successes. Thus, it might seem that both sides had faults to deal with.
One vital takeaway that the film did not seem to highlight was the rationale of Yamamoto’s doctrine in the strategic sense. Japan was the world’s first operator of the modern aircraft carrier with the completion of Hosho in 1921. But that was that. The Navy leaned towards creating more battleships and cruisers despite the limitations of the London Naval Treaty and the earlier Washington Naval Treaty. Meanwhile, with lighter weight, more aircraft carriers could have been built for the price and the tonnage of any one battleship. World War II eventually proved a point: the age of ship gunnery was over. Major sea battles in the Pacific did not even take warships being close enough with each other to exchange broadsides. Capital ships became more like vulnerable targets than valuable war assets. This also caused a paradigm shift from sea denial, as exemplified by Admiral Teikichi Hori (Yamamoto’s friend and mentor) in his “fleet in being” concept, to sea control. Yamamoto’s Pearl Harbor plan aimed to strike as hard as possible the United States Navy to prevent them from mounting any retaliatory offensive. While Yamamoto’s logic did not entirely fall into deaf ears, only one of the three Yamato-class ships (Shinano) became an aircraft carrier. It also arrived too late to influence the outcome of the war as America ramped up its industrial production upon entering the war. Shinano was sunk ten days after it was commissioned. Another issue for carrier-centered warfare was fitting the ships with sufficient aircraft and top-class pilots to fly them. The relative rigidity of Japan’s recruitment process, combined with its limited production capacity and America’s access to Japanese codes, helped the country fall behind in the war at sea. Then again, if this was displayed a little more in the film, the theoretical conundrum about the morality of either side would probably not have as much of an effect. Besides, the setting was the planning stage for the ships involved, not their actual use. | https://medium.com/@ariusraposas/the-great-war-of-archimedes-review-if-you-want-peace-prepare-for-corruption-and-deceit-9b27857be752 | ['Arius Raposas'] | 2021-01-31 01:40:04.106000+00:00 | ['Japan', 'World War II', 'Film Reviews', 'Movie Review', 'Mathematics'] |
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Sat Upon my Heart, an Incubus | The word ‘nightmare’ is derived from Viking folklore where ‘mara’ spirits bring bad dreams in the night and sit on the chests of the dreamers. This ‘night mara’ was probably confused with a ‘night mare’ and here Fuseli explores the linguistic mix-up, personifying both versions.
Misunderstood in its day, this represents the first time that the subconscious world of dreams is used as a direct inspiration for visual art — preceding the Surrealists by nearly two centuries. The only precedents could be paintings showing the religious visions of saints and works by Hieronymus Bosch.
Fuseli’s distinctive dark Romantic style is well showcased here and in his later variations of the theme. The Romantic movement itself was to come about as a reaction to the Enlightenment, developing out of a ‘re-discovery’ of the power of feelings, poetic inspiration, dreams, imaginings and the ultimate truth of the emotional response.
As with the Enlightenment in France, Romanticism in Britain began primarily as a literary and philosophical movement. Reflecting this, Fuseli illustrated scenes from the plays of Shakespeare and the Greek Myths. He had first visited England 1765 when he met fellow artist William Blake, becoming a friend and an acknowledged influence upon the younger artist.
After touring Europe, Fuseli returned to England where he became an associate of the Royal Academy and was then influenced by the figurative style that Blake had developed. The works of these two artists bear many similarities.
Fuseli wrote of his vivid fever dreams, often featuring combinations of erotic and frightening ingredients and in some interpretations it’s suggested that the goblin represents his primal desire for one of the several women he became infatuated with before meeting and marrying, Sophia Rawlins, who had been his model.
Interestingly, both he and Blake were associates of Mary Wollstonecraft, the educational reformist and women’s rights activist. Fuseli had painted her portrait, and reportedly had rejected her amorous advances! Notably, her daughter, Mary Shelley, authored of one of the great Gothic novels, Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818.
Perhaps the work of Fuseli had exerted an influence, as it would on the imaginative fiction of many Gothic horror writers to come, including Edgar Allan Poe, who refers to The Nightmare in his novel of 1839, The Fall of the House of Usher:
an irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm
The Nightmare made its public debut in 1782 at the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts in London where it met a mixed reaction. It’s erotic subtext and morbid associations with the demonic and diseased fascinated many who saw it and it gradually insinuated itself into the public imagination.
another version of ‘The Nightmare’ painted by Henry Fuseli c.1790 [view license]
Fuseli painted several variations to meet demand, other artists also copied it. It was reproduced as a popular engraving, often printed and hand-coloured, becoming so reconisable that it developed into a satirical ‘meme’ of the early Nineteenth-Century, used to make comments on current affairs and political figures…
A widely circulated engraving by Thomas Burke was accompanied by a poetic vignette by, father of Charles, Erasmus Darwin: | https://medium.com/signifier/sat-upon-my-heart-an-incubus-fb946d3c80e | ['Remy Dean'] | 2020-11-01 00:51:29.480000+00:00 | ['Art History', 'Painting', 'Gothic', 'History', 'Art'] |
Will Cheaters Cheat on Christmas Day? Sure | HOW TO CHEAT
Will Cheaters Cheat on Christmas Day? Sure
When you’re chasing married pussy, it’s just another day
Photo by Misty Ladd on Unsplash
I had no reason to get up early on Christmas morning, so I lounged in bed. Flipping through my phone, I noticed my main cheater account had a new email, so I checked it to find someone from Ashley Madison had messaged me. I also get Adult Friend Finder messages and alerts there.
Ok, I thought, you’ve got my attention. After all, what sort of morally bankrupt person sends messages on Christmas morning as wifey gets breakfast going and the kids or grandkids are running around? That’s not a judgment; I claim no moral superiority here, but, Christmas morning? That’s a little cold.
Curious, I logged in to see who it was and noticed there were a dozen or more requests to see my private picture, so I accepted all of them. That was at 9:14 AM; I know because as soon as I did that, they automatically granted me access to their dick pic collections.
After that messages started rolling in. I haven’t responded to any of them yet. My profile more or less says I’m closed to new applicants. However, I guess letting them see my boobs was all the encouragement they needed.
9:53 AM — Aclassydude: Meery Christmas Suzie…thanks for sending your photo…very sexy…BTW — my name is James…I will follow up in more detail after today…enjoy the day…
I’m not sure if his reluctance to say more was based on Christmas, but it seems like it was.
A modern gentleman.
10:24 AM — GudLicking: Merry Christmas
GudLicking had sent me other messages and had received my picture earlier in the month, so I guess he was checking in. I hadn’t replied.
That was nice of him I thought. I mean, it’s one thing to be reminded I’m alive because I let you see my boobs, and quite another to come back with a seasonal wish for a woman who hasn’t given you the time of day. That sort of made me feel like a bit of a bitch, but it passed.
Pro tip: As I said before, any reference to oral sex in a profile makes me think his dick doesn’t work, so when it’s featured in his profile name, Viagra probably doesn’t work either.
12:41 PM — EternalHope: Glad to hear Santa delivered for you ;)
I’d already told him I’d found someone, but he said come back if the chat dried up. The chat hasn’t dried up, and neither have I. Our last exchange was on the 15th, so here’s another one hoping I’d opened a window after shutting the door.
1:10 PM — JoeM2018: Hey there Suzie, my name is Joe. Would love to learn what makes you tick and what I can do to please you. Message me and we can chat!
This was in response to my photo access grant, which makes me feel like a tease, knowing I would not talk to any of these guys. From this guy’s perspective, I reached out on Christmas Day, so I suppose he thought he’d strike while the iron was hot. I respect the fact that he waited until after lunch. That’s usually when we all go for a rest or hide with our new toys here at home.
Sadly for Joe, I won’t be his new toy.
Also, come on Joe! Don’t use your name in your profile! Do you need to be told not to point a gun at your head? This is a rookie mistake.
Pro Tip: If your actual name is Joe M, you shouldn’t use it in your profile name. I’m sure, there are other Joe M’s out there, but they aren’t all 54-year-old 5’10” and 230 lbs Aries. Ask yourself — would my spouse recognize this profile name and these details?
If the answer is yes you are an idiot. She buys your underwear for fuck sakes, wake up!
3:30 PM — Kariokie74: Thanks for the pic. I know you have people on your dance card already. Like you, I’m over 40 and married, fit, conscientious (as much as one can be here) and can speak in full sentences.
Well! Now we’re talking! He read my profile, knows what I’m looking for, and knows I’m working on my shortlist.
(Photos: Author & Inset picture by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash )
If there was a shortlist, I’m sure a spot could open up for Mr. K. Any man reading this needs to know this is EXACTLY how to turn a woman’s crank. Brief, intelligent, thoughtful, and willing to take a shot even if the chance seems low.
If he’d have added a touch of humor, phew! I couldn’t have resisted.
I responded and we had a nice chat. He’d be on the list, no question. I told him I’ll be in touch if things don’t work out for me.
I can only speak for myself, but I need to be connected to the person I’m having sex with; otherwise, it doesn’t do much for me. That doesn’t mean I want to marry you, but I need to picture myself with you. I could picture myself with Mr. K.
10:00 PM — EyesForYou: Hello Suzie the new girl! I guess you give this access to everyone and you haven’t read my profile. Well, if my profile meets your preliminary requirements I would love to e-meet you one day and I’d love to exchange pictures.
He’s another who read my profile because my tag line was “Meet the new girl.”
Hmm? Picture exchange? He’s got one and he wants more? Why? Is this one of those “your ass is too big things?” I’d recommend leaving a picture request out of the first message because I’m not perfect, and I don’t need to hear about it from a stranger — or worse yet, be ghosted because of it.
I’m thin-skinned, and being rejected hurts even when you cheat, so I’d avoid him because of that.
10:14 PM — Finished2020: Dam that photography is one lucky guy to so yo close to you Merry Christmas
Eh? Feeling the Christmas cheer, sir? That’s ok. I know what he meant. And yes, anyone who got that close to me would get lucky if I was dressed like that.
11:45 PM — NewYearFor2021: Thank you for sharing your photo with me. You look fabulous. I’m sure you are a fun and interesting person too from the way you have written your profile..
Oh, you don’t know the half of it.
Merry Christmas!
And that was it. Think of your dad or grandpa sitting in his chair or in bed playing with his phone on Christmas Day. What was he doing? Playing a game? Ranting on Facebook? Or messaging the sexy middle-aged lady who sent him a picture of her boobs? Is he looking at your mother or grandmother while thinking about my tits?
No, probably not all of them, but I know at least eight were. | https://medium.com/sex-and-satire/will-cheaters-cheat-on-christmas-day-sure-601a779aef3a | ['Teresa J Conway'] | 2020-12-27 15:08:43.476000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Relationships', 'Satire', 'Sex', 'Adultery'] |
Seeing That Colorful Place | In a colorful world, there’s a place that can sparkle up. Filling the room with lovely colors. Feels more than just a creative moment. Looking at it as true beauty. Imagine it with some aesthetic features. Lit the place up like a sense of joy. Viewing it on a brighter side.
The place has its fulfilling moment with that artistic twist coming in. Making it more like being seen from a photograph. A photograph can put that bit of sparkle through some colors as well as black and white. Like capturing that very unique soul.
Beyond that colorful expression a place can bring out its warmth feeling. Making it more like letting these emotions out. Nurturing that mind into that feeling through something that’s soothing. Soothing enough to make a place feel like home. | https://medium.com/@jessica.milliner/seeing-that-colorful-place-e51c59931f59 | ['Jessica Milliner'] | 2020-11-13 12:55:59.739000+00:00 | ['Place', 'Colors', 'Vision', 'Visualization'] |
Wednesday | “You see, even in a stronghold of our fellow human beings we may be subject to abnormal fears that would land us in an asylum if we voiced them to another.” Thomas Liggoti
The Asylum of Human Affairs
Things are coming to a head in these days of growing dystopia. We are inundated with images of destruction around the planet. Most all of which is our own making. Yes, us, we clever humans that can’t see a good thing when it has allowed our species to flourish and take over the world, to want to form it in our own image. We peoples’ that still believe in fairy tales and think that something from the beyond will rescue us from ourselves. Sorry, folks, it’s up to us to rescue ourselves. We have the ways. No deus ex machina, no magic skyhook, to swoop down from the clouds to save the day. No wonder comic books brought to the silver screen are so popular these days. We are still children wanting a rescuer. We can’t accept that our rulers and our ways are killing us all. We are riding on the horse of the apocalypse and we are the horse.
I’m going to leave a couple of links below to help my thoughts along as stated above. I’m worried about my cat. I’m worried about Earth. I can’t not see what’s happening these days. I am stumped as to why the ruling class’s won’t do anything. Here’s one reason for all them to care. You all have to breathe too. Another: your fancy beach front properties will be underwater from rising oceans before this century is out. I suggest watching old episodes of “Miami Vice”, “Burn Notice” or “CSI: Miami”; so you can see what was before the waters washed it all away. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago won’t be worth much in 50–75 years. Too bad I won’t be around to scoff and laugh at his folly, neither will he, for that matter.
One of these links gets an essay by Chris Hedges, a sobering look at the state of things from a sociological stance. The other from Climate Activist, Dhar Jamail about Alaskan sea ice. Both of these essays are worth a look today. I’m going to concentrate on reading Husserl today. To keep my mind busy so I don’t worry about my cat and Earth. One is very close and dear to me, my cat, the other is my home, Earth. Peace, The Ol’ Hippy \/ | https://medium.com/@jrallen1200/wednesday-a06f47440167 | ['John Allen'] | 2019-09-04 16:11:59.981000+00:00 | ['Environment', 'Climate', 'Activism', 'Global Warming'] |
How to beef up your liquidity pool yields with the Beefy.Finance DApp, in Trust Wallet | Getting to the Meat of the Matter
For anyone out there who is trying to maximise their yields from the various different liquidity pools on the market, it’s a good idea to use a yield farming optimizer.
As Beefy runs on the Binance Smart Chain, it provides a slightly different experience to other yield optimizers such as yearn.finance that run on the Ethereum network:
The Binance Smart Chain has much lower fees in comparison to the Ethereum network. This means that you can move tokens at a much lower cost, improving your yields. The Binance Smart Chain utilizes Binance’s unique infrastructure, which allows for much more freedom and creativity than building purely on the Ethereum platform. The functionality and scope of yield optimizers are greatly increased. This ultimately means less work from your side and more automation from the optimizer.
So What Exactly Are They Doing Again..?
The mechanics of the platform work the same as other yield optimizers, but due to the two factors laid out above you can make real improvements to your annual percentage yield (APY).
Beefy Finance is essentially acting as an aggregator for all the DeFi projects you know and love that offer staking returns or yield from a liquidity pool.
If you were going to do it the “old fashioned” way (which to be honest still isn’t that old fashioned), you would take our liquidity pool tokens and cash them out to get our share of the pool’s transaction fees. Then you simply reinvest. But this all costs fees, time, and effort.
Beefy.Finance simply auto-reinvests your gains for you, without you having to personally pay any fees or fiddle around with each individual platform.
What does this mean at the end of the day? A higher APY! But there is a catch… albeit a very small one. You simply need to pay a transaction fee to Beefy.Finance which will in fact be smaller than if you attempted to do all of the above yourself.
The BIFI Token: There’s More to It Than Meats the Eye
The Beefy platform doesn’t just allow you to optimize your yields, you can also get more involved in the platform by holding their governance token $BIFI.
If you need a quick top up on how exactly governance works with decentralized projects, then take a look at my previous article right here.
As with all these DeFi projects, it’s easy to lose grasp of the bigger picture of what’s going on. Let’s strip it back to the bare bones again:
Beefy.Finance have minted 80,000 BIFI, with 90% of this supply to be distributed to users of the platform.
This token can be used in governance votes to decentralize the decision making process. This is a big thumbs up for those of us into the core principles of cryptocurrency decentralization.
The fees paid from liquidity pool vault users are distributed to holders of the BIFI token.
This reward is paid out by using the transaction fees gained from each vault to buy BIFI tokens from the open market every 4 hours. These BIFI tokens are then distributed to BIFI token holders who stake their BIFI in the BIFI maxi vault. That’s a lot of BIFI to digest.
In addition to all this, Beefy.Finance also runs staking pools to incentivize certain projects in the DeFi ecosystem. For example, you can stake $LINK to help improve its liquidity that ultimately helps the yield farming strategies present in the Beefy platform. Beefy.Finance have a lot more info on the topic here.
It’s a lot to take in, and a lot of mechanisms to grasp too. But when you look at it all piece by piece, you can see the potential that the platform has.
Nevertheless, it’s perfectly fine to plug in a few $CAKE tokens from PancakeSwap to simply maximize your yield. How deep down the DeFi rabbit hole you go is completely up to you.
Dive Into the Depths of Liquidity Pools As Deep as You Wish
For the past year or so we’ve all been charting new horizons in the blockchain space. Just when we all think we have a grip on cryptocurrencies, fundraising, and blockchain solutions, something else inevitably pops up.
While Beefy.Finance’s current offering isn’t really breaking any moulds when it comes to yield optimization, it is taking advantage of all the benefits the Binance Smart Chain has to offer. If you’ve been following the Trust Wallet articles so far, then you can see how this is a pretty big benefit. It’s also incredibly easy to start having a play directly in the Trust Wallet DApp browser.
For anyone who is interested in these platforms, all I can really say is DYOR (do your own research). There’s always the risk of the dreaded impermanent loss when it comes to liquidity pools, so take that into account. Nevertheless, the tokenomics and intrinsic concept on show here are exciting. Beefy is still right in the early stages having only been launched late this September, so keep it on your radar and watch out for new developments. | https://medium.com/dapp-journey/beefy-finance-beefing-up-your-liquidity-pool-yields-9adc0f5e56b9 | ['Luke Pettit'] | 2020-12-18 16:36:06.492000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Decentralized Finance', 'Dapps', 'Blockchain', 'Beefy Finance'] |
Redux or Context API: Differences between the state managers. | Redux or Context API: Differences between the state managers.
Photo by Filiberto Santillán on Unsplash
First I’d recommend you have a basic knowledge of React or any other component based frontend framework. For the last few years, thanks to Dan Abramov, Redux has been the state management solution for “big” React apps, but thanks to the new React update “React 16.3”, which added a new and improved Context API for state management.
Of course, with the release of the Context API, frontend enthusiasts and developers hinted the death of Redux
In this article, i’m going to talk about how the Context API works and the differences between the two state managers.
Note that this post is not aimed to support a particular state manager, in fact i think it depends on the developer’s preference!
first, What is State? State in React is where you store property values that belong to the component. Usually when state object changes, the component re-renders.
Note, for most frontend developers, user-inputs and events are added to state.
REDUX?
Redux is used to manage the state of a React app in a centralized place. Redux can be used on other applications although its particularly popular with React.
Redux works with a single centralized state that is not directly accessible. it also has reducer functions that is used to update global state. in Redux, actions can be used to trigger a function to run.
In Redux, there are a number of actions and action creators example of which is the redux thunk.
export const ADD_PRODUCT = 'ADD_PRODUCT'
export const REMOVE_PRODUCT = 'REMOVE_PRODUCT'
export const addProduct = product => {
return dispatch => {
setTimeout(() => {
dispatch({
type: ADD_PRODUCT,
payload: product,
})
}, 1500)
}
}
export const removeProduct = productId => {
return dispatch => {
setTimeout(() => {
dispatch({
type: REMOVE_PRODUCT,
payload: productId,
})
}, 900)
}
}
You then use your reducer to update your global state.
import { ADD_PRODUCT, REMOVE_PRODUCT } from './actions'
const initialState = {
products: [
{ id: 'p1', title: 'Samsung S10', price: 50},
{ id: 'p2', title: 'Game of thrones 3', price: 24},
// ...
],
cart: [],
}
const shopReducer = (state = initialState, action) => {
switch (action.type) {
case ADD_PRODUCT:
// Shortened! Cart updating logic would be found here
// See the example project linked above
return { ...state, cart: updatedCart }
case REMOVE_PRODUCT:
// Shortened, too!
return { ...state, cart: updatedCart }
default:
return state
}
}
A store is constructed here and passed to a wrapper that is wrapped around a root app component.
// Other imports...
import { createStore, applyMiddleware } from 'redux'
import { Provider } from 'react-redux'
import reduxThunk from 'redux-thunk'
// Other imports...
import shopReducer from './store/reducers'
const store = createStore(shopReducer, applyMiddleware(reduxThunk))
ReactDOM.render(
<Provider store={store}> { } <App />
</Provider>,
document.getElementById('root')
)
This is how Redux works on a React app in a nutshell. Now, lets go to how React’s Context API works…
WHAT IS A CONTEXT API?
As earlier said, React Context API came to solve the problem of how to manage state in a significant React app? How do you handle state which you need in volumes that are not directly connected components?
Of course, a lot of developers will decide to pass props through all the layers of React components.
const Button = props => (
<p className={props.theme.light ? 'btn--grey'> { } Click me
</p>
);
const Form = props => (
<form>
<input type="text" />
<Button theme={props.theme} /> { } </form>
);
const App = props => {
const [theme, setTheme] = useState('grey') ;
// Theme is managed here
return (
<div>
<Form theme={theme} /> { } </div>
)
};
Passing props like the above makes it harder for your components to re-use since they have to handle props that they don’t need (i learnt this the hard way lol).
This is what made Redux popular! it solves that issue and also helps us with routing via JSX.
With React Context API, you pass data through three blocks called the Context Object, Context Provider and Context Consumer.
You can define the Context object in a separate file or component. its also important to note that context is stored data.
Will React Context API replace Redux?
Recently, i asked a senior colleague (who also inspired me write post) this question, and after much consideration this is what i’d say on this.
First, there are a lot of reasons to use Context, some of which are you don’t need a third-party library, which makes for a smaller bundle and improved project and its built into React, making it more straightforward to use once you understand it basics. And hey you don’t need another package to handle asynchronous actions.
But Redux makes for other projects where Context won’t be an option.
P.S this is my first medium post so leave a clap, a comment on where you think i should improve and let me know if you’d like a part 2 containing Hooks and other state technologies. | https://medium.com/@ikechifortune/redux-or-context-api-differences-between-the-state-managers-3a9f4eac9836 | ['Fortune Ikechi'] | 2020-03-11 19:39:35.911000+00:00 | ['React', 'State', 'Context Api', 'Front End Development', 'Redux'] |
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Our accounting Packages for Small business and and Medium size business prepare documents financial transactions and makes the data accessible for reporting, planning, and tax preparation. | https://medium.com/@kate_4571/accounting-packages-for-small-business-and-medium-size-business-cb7d84bd138f | ['Kate James'] | 2021-12-12 15:25:37.316000+00:00 | ['Accounting', 'Accounting Firms', 'Accounting Outsourcing', 'Outsourcing', 'Accounting Services'] |
What Does ‘Available’ Mean? | Newly single, I wonder to myself when I’ll be ready to date again.
As I slog through the process of healing, I wonder if I can see myself being interested in women again. Or falling in love again. Or opening myself up to all that is wonderful and challenging about being in a relationship.
Will I be able to do that, and if, so how will I know when it’s time? When will I become emotionally available?
What does it even mean to be emotionally available?
And how, during a pandemic, with all its accompanying fears and anxieties, is anyone emotionally available?
To understand what emotional availability is, I tried to break down what it’s made of.
Honesty, With Yourself
Only you know how you are truly feeling. While your feelings, wants and desires, for yourself and within a relationship, will naturally change over time, you have to be able to determine what’s going on inside you.
This is more than not forcing your partner to be a mind reader, to leaving them with the impossible challenge of figuring you out. This is you doing the introspection and exploration to identify your feelings, and then acting on them.
In my last relationship, I wasn’t totally honest with myself about how me and my partner were operating. And in the times that I was, I suppressed those feelings for what I thought was the greater good.
Any relationship, any endeavor, requires sacrifice and compromise.
But you have to trust your gut. You have to know when something isn’t sitting right with you, when something feels off, and also, more positively, know when something feels great.
Being emotionally available means being able to understand and identify how you are feeling, both in the moment and generally.
It’s not easy. Many emotions, especially the tough ones, are challenging to label: sadness can be disguised as anger, frustration can emanate from depression. It takes years of trial and error to be able to do this for yourself.
But being able to diagnose your own feelings, and then being truthful to yourself about what those feelings are, opens the door to the next step of emotional availability.
Honesty, With Your Partner
Once you’re able to be honest with yourself, it’s time to express those feelings, in a way that is sincere, compassionate, direct and considerate, with your partner.
This can be so much more challenging than being honest with yourself.
With yourself, you have only your own emotions with which to wrangle. You own your feelings — and you can control the reactions to them and the consequences thereof.
Not so with another person.
What you say may upset your partner. Your honesty could lead to unpleasant conversations, days-long arguments, a back-and-forth that pushes you both to your limits.
But a partnered relationship requires honesty.
You must be able to let your partner know how you are feeling, so they can act, think, talk, respond to you in a way that is helpful and appropriate.
You can’t let the same frustrations fester over time. You must deal with them — and that means saying things that come from deep down.
I’ve struggled in my relationships with this. I often can’t tell when I should just swallow something, let it go, wait for the unpleasantness to wash over or fade away — or when I should speak my mind.
Being honest with your partner does not mean to lead an uncensored life and to speak without consideration of how your words will be received.
Just the opposite. As your relationship grows, you hopefully will learn how to have these difficult conversations.
In fact, being able to have arguments and difficult conversations successfully is one of the leading predictors or indicators of maintaining a lasting relationship.
But just as you will grow as a person the more you are honest with yourself, the more you can identify how you are feeling, so too will your relationship evolve the more you can be honest with your significant other.
It breeds trust, and it opens pathways to true sharing. It’s like an access point to your true self. And that means going to places that can make you feel uncomfortable.
Vulnerability
This seems like a cliché, doesn’t it? I admit I often struggle to understand what vulnerability is.
So what I did was think of things that make me the most uncomfortable in a relationship. The things I am most hesitant to talk about. The things that even as I think about them as I type this make me nervous.
The insecurities I have with my body.
My fears about love and relationships, and being hurt again. Just replaying the mistakes I’ve made, the failures I’ve endured (and caused), makes me clam up. Literally, I feel myself rolling in my shoulders and leaning forward as I think about it.
I bring to my head what really makes me scared and nervous in this life (which has just been magnified and seeded with steroids by the pandemic).
And then I think of sharing all of that with another person.
That’s what being vulnerable is.
This is a challenge for everyone, but for men in particular. Boys and young men are often taught to be stoic, to manage and to deal on their own, to be the lone cowboy. We are taught to be a man means being able to get through anything with strength, and that strength comes from within.
To knock that down brick by brick is often the greatest emotional challenge men face. It’s part of the reason men struggle with being honest (with themselves, and with others).
The difference between being honest with someone else and being vulnerable is that being vulnerable means exposing the emotional parts of you that arouse fear, shame, discomfort and embarrassment.
To feel that way in front of another person is to be vulnerable. To be that way in front of another person, though, also shows trust, the same kind of trust mentioned above that opens the door to greater bonding and togetherness between you and another person.
It’s not easy, but the dividends are deep.
Allocating Your Emotions
To be available means you have something to give, and that giving takes the form in sharing your life, experience and emotions with another.
Not just your emotions, but theirs, too.
Being emotionally available means you can share what your partner is feeling: their joy on their birthday, their frustration at work, their long-simmering aggravation that emanates from their family dynamics, the daily stress of getting by.
This is all just a fancy way of saying that to be emotionally available, you deeply, sincerely, actually have to give a shit about what your partner is going through.
You have to find the space within yourself to, if not exactly feel what they are feeling, then at least be beside them and go through it together.
Their pain is not your pain.
But their pain does affect you. It does involve you. As does their joy.
If you can’t experience the emotional highs and lows life throws at us with your partner, if you are dismissive of their feelings and blow them off, you’ll soon find yourself alone.
If your partner is crying, hold them (if that’s what they like). Or listen. Really listen. If they are smiling and jumping off the walls in excitement, share in that joy.
If you’ve got no emotional space for another person, that is not inherently a bad thing. There can be times (say, perhaps, during a pandemic?) when you are so flooded with your own emotions it might be hard to share emotional experiences with your partner.
But those should be the exceptions. If you’re partners, you’ll go through each other’s roller coaster together.
And this, by the way, is how I know, as I write this, I’m not ready to date again. I’m willing to allocate all that space — but not just to anybody.
For now, that space is still reserved for my ex. I am not open to giving that space of myself to anyone but her. In time that will change (I assume). If and when it does, that’s when I’ll be emotionally available again.
Knowing What You Want
This is what I’ve started asking myself now that I find myself single again. I haven’t created an online dating profile, but that’s one of the first questions you have to answer.
It seems basic, right? But it’s oh so difficult and complicated.
Just as you can be the only one who knows your honest and true feelings, only you know what you want and need out of a relationship.
It can start with the basics, like whether you want a long- or short-term relationship. Whether you are looking to get married, or date. If you want to start a family, or join one, or not go that route at all. Whether you want to move towards moving in with someone, or keeping your space and building a relationship around shared but separate dwellings.
But it goes so much deeper than that, too. Within the context of a relationship, what are you expecting and wanting out of a partner? That could range from everything as simple as just someone to go to the movies with (assuming we can go to the movies again) or someone to live with.
But you also need to know, or at least be working towards better understanding, how you operate. This covers everything from communication style to emotional needs to sexual desires to the basics of logistics, like how early you like to arrive at the airport before a flight or what temperature you like to keep the bedroom.
Whether it’s when you compose your online dating profile, or on your first date, you’ll be asked, ‘what is it you’re looking for in a relationship?’
Your prospective partner is going to want to know. And you should want to know for yourself. You can’t find what you want unless you know what you want in the first place.
Keep in mind, of course, that your wants and desires change over time, age and experience. Defining what you want is a never-ending process.
Emotional Availability During a Pandemic
All this stuff is hard, difficult, challenging, frustrating, sometimes deflating, often overwhelming, during normal times. Needless to say, these are not normal times.
Our lives have not just been thrown up in the air, sleep patterns disrupted, social outings limited to digital interactions, travel plans canceled or postponed, anxiety levels swinging back and forth like wind chimes in a thunderstorm.
We are all carrying a very heavy emotional burden: fear, anxiety, stress, grief, loss, boredom, frustration, sometimes a bit more fear.
For some, the only way to deal is by reaching out. Others withdraw. There is no one right way. There is no one way.
It feels like we are surviving much more than we are living. This is a traumatic time. And this might last awhile. Part of what burdens me is not knowing how long this will all last. I’m generally resilient, but uncertainty makes me uncomfortable.
And we are flooded with uncertainty right now.
None of us can get through this alone, even if so many of us, like me, are physically alone. We do need others to speak with, to care for, to know they care about us.
Many pieces have been written on whether now is a good time to date, or to start dating, whatever that means in today’s universe. And how to do it, if you choose to do so.
For now, in a way, I’m glad I’m not ready.
As I overcome heartache, at least I know what to look for within myself. Then, one day, maybe, perhaps, I can be open to looking for that in another person, ideally in person.
So now I’ll wait. That’s what you do, right, when something is unavailable? Wait?
Thanks to the pandemic, waiting is what we all have in common.
Have any feedback? I can be reached at scottmgilman @ gmail.com. | https://scottgilman.medium.com/what-does-available-mean-e5c9853b51ae | ['Scott Gilman'] | 2020-04-21 11:18:55.368000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Relationships', 'Emotions', 'Love', 'Dating'] |
Why Don’t (More) Americans Vote? | Why Don’t (More) Americans Vote?
If you vote, you just might be a robot. I have the math to prove it.
If you’re American, there’s a good chance you are not going to vote in the upcoming presidential election. In 2016, only 58% of the electorate actually voted. Compared to other democracies, voter turnout in the United States doesn’t even break the top 20. Americans just don’t vote. And it’s been that way since the early 1900s.
So what’s going on?
Well, first of all, let’s do some math to prove that you shouldn’t ever vote.
Here’s an equation for you:
PB + D > C
Where “P” is the probability your vote will affect the outcome of the election.
“B” is the benefits of a favorable outcome.
“D” is duty, or civic duty or any perceived gratification you get from voting.
And finally, “C” is cost. This is the time, effort, and financial cost of going through the voting process.
So in an election like the US presidential election where millions of people are voting, the probability that your individual vote will be the vote that decides the next president is essentially nil.
So we can call “P”, zero.
Times that by “B” and that makes the entire variable zero.
Therefore, what we’re left with is our civic duty vs. the effort of voting. It’s difficult to measure exactly how much we get out of performing our civic duty so we can never have a precise number for that variable. But the costs are much more salient. It takes time to go to the voting booth. We have to take off work. We have to make sure we are registered, and depending on the state, you need proper identification — which takes even more time and effort.
So if everyone is a self-interested, rational actor, voting just isn’t worth it.
This is called the Paradox of Voting.
Thankfully, human beings are hardly ever rational.
As the math says, the decision to vote is a balancing act between our desire to fulfill our civic duty and the personal cost of making the effort to vote. So any barrier, however minor, that impedes our ability to vote, makes it less likely that our civic duty will outweigh the costs.
And America doesn’t make it easy to vote.
First of all, voting laws are not uniform across all 50 states. States require different kinds of ID to vote. In some places you can vote early. Others you can’t. Some states allow mail-in ballots. Some only allow absentee voting in specific circumstances. Some states allow same day registration. Some don’t. And the rules for getting registered vary widely from state to state.
We vote on a Tuesday in the US. A weekday. So most eligible voters have to go to work. Or go to school. Voting might mean having to take off work, sacrificing some amount of your wage, or sacrificing some amount of time before or after work.
Then we have the fact that some votes are inherently worth more than others. You can thank the Electoral College for that. In fact, a single voter in Wyoming is about equal to 4 voters in California.
As the equation shows, one single vote out of a hundred million is never going to be worth much in and of itself — even if you live in Wyoming. But if you feel like you have nothing really to vote for that makes it even more unlikely you will bother voting at all.
And here’s where the two party system comes in. Nearly half of the US population doesn’t even call themselves a Democrat or a Republican. But those are the only major political parties you have to vote for most of the time.
Some states have closed primaries. This means that, to vote in the primary, you have to be a declared Republican or Democrat. If you don’t affiliate with either party, you’re out of luck. You are essentially denied the ability to vote.
Funnelling all the diverse opinions and needs of the US electorate into just two political parties has the effect of making people feel like not only their votes are worthless, but their voices aren’t being represented. That’s how limiting our political choices to just two parties can end up feeling like you have no choice at all.
There’s a saying: “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.”
But that’s not really true.
The fact is, you can complain even if you didn’t vote. Because often the reasons keeping voter turnout down are completely out of the voter’s hands.
Now I don’t want to give people an excuse not to vote. If you can vote, you should vote. But blaming the American populace for not voting is counterproductive and misguided. In many cases, the US voting system has set up the populace to fail.
Now in the face of a pandemic, rampant disinformation, and foreign election interference, voting can not only be an inconvenience, it can seem depressingly futile — even deadly.
As the Paradox of Voting illustrates, voting is deeply irrational. If human beings were perfectly logical automatons with only their own self-interest in mind, no one would do it. But we aren’t robots. Sometimes we do things that don’t make sense — like care about other people.
Because voting is only irrational if we think solely about ourselves.
If you want to know more about voting in your area of the country, checkout FiveThirtyEight’s state-by-state guide to voting.
There’s another saying: If voting didn’t matter, they wouldn’t try so hard to keep you from doing it.
So get out there and make your vote — and everyone else’s — count.
Watch the video: | https://mjosefweber.medium.com/why-dont-more-americans-vote-53d71f9500e9 | ['Matt J Weber'] | 2020-10-20 14:15:47.838000+00:00 | ['Election 2020', 'Mathematics', 'Robots', 'Elections', 'Voting'] |
Part 4 Of The Clyde, The Forgotten Reindeer Trilogy | Prompts = Timezone, Support, Island
‘Clyde?’
‘Mrs. Claus?’
‘My husband and the reindeer aren’t getting any younger. We set up rest areas ages ago but he’s so far refused to use them.’
‘What rest areas?’
‘They’re in odd timezones, like Newfoundland; eleven of them worldwide. You and I will carry liniment and aspirin in the spare sleigh.’
‘Support team, huh? Well, I’m your reindeer! Rudolph is Hollywood flash but I work for a living.’
*****
‘Ho ho ho, Chatham Islands down below. Fifteen minute rest stop.’
As nine reindeer start the descent, a voice booms from the darkness:
‘Joy to you all, ’cause Clyde is here!’ | https://medium.com/100-word-or-less-stories/part-4-of-the-clyde-the-forgotten-reindeer-trilogy-18ad080307b8 | ['Parzival Sattva'] | 2020-12-25 09:45:52.669000+00:00 | ['Flash Fiction', 'Microfiction', 'Reindeer', 'Clyde', '100wordstory'] |
EntHire Part 2: Providing an Optimal Solution to the Tech Talent Ecosystem | With the plan of building a start-up company and brainstorming on different ideas — Nikunj, Abhishek, and Anuraag had come together, but still, they were knee-deep in their work at their respective organisations. All of them were juggling between their jobs and at the same time, trying to think of the optimal way to address these inherent flaws they recently found in the Tech talent recruiting ecosystem. The time differences among their workplaces, where three of them worked, did not make their conversations easier. (Anuraag — Singapore, Nikunj — San Fransicso, Abhishek — New York)
Some days they used to talk for long hours whereas, on some, they were too occupied to even speak for days. Despite so much work, whenever they got breaks in between, they continued to work on their research and talking to Hiring Managers and TA folks to understand their problems better. They discovered that most of the companies do not have a system of training their Technical Interviewers (apart from a few giant players like Facebook and Google).
“ This void of a standardized training system invites randomness, and also allows biases in the hiring to play during the interviews.”
Then, some companies have to bear the brunt of this drawback through the bad hires every year. But the biggest problem for the businesses is the cost associated with a long drawn out recruitment.
Here the question was whether this problem in hiring was encountered by only a few companies or is it affecting the whole Industry?
To find out that if conducting technical interviews via the experienced interviewers would help small and start-up companies in getting a competent and diverse workforce, Nikunj planned to interview a few candidates.
Nikunj already had the experience of hiring from his previous company “Reflektion”, where he built a new team. He offered to interview a few technical candidates for some start-ups in his network, where he wrote extremely meticulous feedback for the candidate whom he interviewed. His feedback was highly appreciated by the companies hiring at that moment.
Encouraged by this response, the three of them thought that they could offer Interviewing as an API to the market. However, after doing market research at their end, they were not sure if this interview model was adding much value to the hiring ecosystem. Plus not everyone was willing to pay a premium for just interviewing.
Hiring problem of any company is not only the interviewing process or experienced interviewers but instead lies in being able to find relevant candidates for their openings. They soon realized that what the companies require is a pool of vetted candidates. At this point, their idea of a four-way marketplace started evolving. They decided to identify all the stakeholders in this hiring process and work towards improving communication among them to make it more efficient.
Well, the plan started taking its shape from here. But the solution was not enough for sure.
They knew that they wanted companies, candidates, and skilled interviewers in their ecosystem, and these were the three main pillars to their idea. Here comes the main challenge that was getting the traction of the best pool of candidates to visit their website and get them on board on the platform. Often, there are times when suitable and perfect candidates for a particular job are the ones who are not looking for a change or switch.
“These passive candidates are an untapped gold mine, and without the recruiters who find and inform them about opportunities, the platform would remain devoid of the talent.”
Voila! They founded the fourth pillar in their constructive idea, i.e., Freelance Recruiters, who talk to the candidates, make them aware of new attractive job opportunities and seek their interest in them
They then covered all the major stakeholders in the hiring process, including recruiters, who will help by providing the candidates.
The goal was now to improve this four-tier ecosystem further.
As they did not want to stay in the US for long, they decided to move back with an idea of working on the deep-rooted problems faced by every other Software Engineer. They like to build things from scratch and wanted to do this together as a team which became one of the motivating reasons to come together. They started interacting with more people in their network about their plans, and then their conviction about “companies not having calibrated interviewers” being a problem increased. After their exhaustive research, three of them decided to take this venture of providing vetted candidates to the companies forward.
At EntHire, we want to build the go-to place for any candidate and company to find the best match! If you are a candidate searching for jobs, fast track your application with us. If you are a company looking to build your team, reach out to complete hires within days! Shoot us an email at [email protected]
You might be wondering how they initially met? So, here is the first part of their journey- Part 1
If you enjoyed reading this, motivate us by your 👏 and if you are excited to know about their journey and what they are up to? Follow 👇 | https://medium.com/enthire-blog/providing-an-optimal-solution-to-the-tech-talent-ecosystem-10977589f4a2 | ['Ashana Sachan'] | 2020-11-27 08:56:10.741000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Recruitment', 'Talent Acquisition', 'Software Engineering'] |
Gather Around the Fire, and I’ll Tell You a Story | With movie theaters being on the verge of extinction, so too are the places humans gather with a shared purpose.
The COV-19 pandemic has altered our lives in ways that won’t truly be discernible for years, possibly even decades, to come. But each day the death toll tragically reaches new heights and stay-at-home orders continue their merry-go-round, the more Americans see communal spaces as irredeemable potential health hazards. That mentality won’t simply vanish with a vaccine, either.
And with social distancing being the name of the game for our foreseeable future, no other industry has had quite the baptism by fire this year as Hollywood. The continued distribution of content this year has arguably been the savior of sanity for all of us. As lovely as movie nights with friends and family are, they are not required to enjoy whatever new movie popped up on your Netflix queue.
While movie theaters will re-open and moviegoers will continue to fill their seats when they feel safe enough to do so, the mere option of staying cozied up in your pajamas and being able to watch the same thing as those who trekked to the theater will always be a siren song for those home-bodies amongst us. We are speedily reaching a moment in our culture where movies won’t be experienced like they used to. For some, going to the movies was seen more as a necessity to watch the latest Brad Pitt movie; a necessary hindrance to brace the traffic, crowds, and high concession prices. But for others, there are no movies without the big screen. The dark theater with its hypotonic glow is akin to a warm embrace of your creative and cathartic psyche; the world is quiet and you are uninterruptible.
But, HBO Max (the streaming service owned by its parent company WarnerMedia) has just fired the first shot that will have to be responded to in kind by all the other major studios. The other media conglomerates (Disney, ViacomCBS, NBCUniversal, and Sony) will never allow a monopoly on shared release dates — of both theatrical and streaming — of the most anticipated movies of the year. The Walt Disney Co.’s online hub, Disney+ managed to skirt the issue by demanding an additional 30 dollars on top of the monthly cost of access to their service for its release of Mulan. This tactic was both a money grab and a temporary solution to what was supposed to be a temporary problem of shuttered multiplexes.
But by making this quantum leap, WarnerMedia is saying that it’s looking to the future, and the crystal ball their executives are gazing into tells an omen of seismic shift — after a year of couch watching and comfort viewing…there is no going back. For some in Hollywood, this can be viewed as a proverbial waving of the white flag; an abandonment of the crown jewel of the filmmaking industry. And by opening this Pandora’s box, they are all but lining each theater with TNT and pushing the detonator button themselves.
Warner’s decision is yet another nail in the coffin of the shared experience. But nothing will happen if audiences don’t want it to. Capitalism does provide the consumer with some semblance of power in that regard. And TimeWarner cannot be faulted for simply looking at the markets — aka us — and making what may show itself it be a sagacious business decision. The question moviegoers must now contemplate is: are we okay with movie theaters being yet another casualty in our current convenience at all costs culture?
Now, this shift may seem like the inevitable next step for an industry that has been growing — and bordering on over-saturation — for quite some time. But movie theaters are our last line of defense against hermit viewing. Theaters are the fire we gather around, and stories are (and have always been) more powerful when shared. The visceral, emotional impact of watching a movie in a crowded theater with fellow cinema-lovers is not the same if you can haphazardly hit the pause button every 20 min; that’s just simply not how movies are meant to be seen.
Is this an over-reaction? Possibly. Ultimately, movies exist to be enjoyed. The next blockbuster will still be watched individually by millions of people across the county, and the same movie will be seen by each and every one of them. But, I would ask, where’s the fun in that? | https://medium.com/@connor-dobson12/gather-around-the-fire-and-ill-tell-you-a-story-fb799bb620b4 | ['Connor Dobson'] | 2020-12-19 18:54:50.592000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Hollywood', 'Storytelling', 'Movies', 'HBO'] |
David S. Ware New Quartet’s Théâtre Garonne, 2008 | Out November 15 on Aum Fidelity
Reviewed by John Payne
When David S. Ware passed away on in October of 2012, the world lost a sound it’s never getting back again. That sound was revolutionary, it was a tough sound, a punk-jazz sound that asks a lot of questions and can’t wait around for answers. Ware’s sax tone was a raspy, ragged, haaard-blowing, Ayler-ish thing that frequently produced a kind of fear – fear that the man was gonna explode, he’s blowing so hard. That concern is palpable on this live concert recording, Théâtre Garonne, 2008, the latest issue from the David S. Ware Archive Series on the ever-righteous Aum Fidelity label. The set showcases the fact that Ware had already been suffering the strains of the illness that eventually killed him.
The incomparable David S. Ware
Ware here is giving his all, as a kind of final statement, perhaps. Whatever the case, he goes out expressing joy, and that joy permeates these performances. He also seems determined to communicate with his audience, proffering a a freely improvised and quite noisy jazz that relies heavily on an old-school thing called melody. And not just any old melody, but in particular ones like the main theme as heard over the course of the first track, “Crossing Samsara, Part 1” and its “Part 2” reconfiguration. As on all of the album’s pieces, the quartet jabs out a Monkish, bopping theme that’s really more like a heavy rock riff, which quickly explodes in all directions.
Though the pieces expand into enormously complex sonic vistas, that nice little theme is stated very briefly, then all hell breaks loose, as if the band is impatiently warming us up before getting to the real message, the real meat of the matter, which is what a theme implies, suggests, triggers and maybe ought to be musically argued with. Right out the gate, Ware’s tone is already indicative of a pent-up, well, not rage but passion. And his passion is not pretty, it’s rough and raw and chainsaw-edged. He and his clan blast that theme to atomic bits; they’re a bad bunch, no pussyfooting. Drummer Warren Smith’s rolling, rattling toms feel their way across the unison-played theme, Ware’s rasping sax and William Parker’s double bass like spiderwebbing across guitarist Joe Morris’ mildly abstruse flights of fancy. If these three guys are roughly playing “tonal,” or in the same key, it matters not, as these initially wild sax/bass/guitar blasts are relatively short and all briskly return to the theme.
The theme is Ware’s handy devise to help listeners make sense of this densely interwoven improvised music. With “Crossing Samsara, Part 2” we have a remelodicized variation on the theme, briefly played in the same rhythm, then here quickly comes Ware’s next bullfrog-butterfly sax solo: His grinding tone, somewhat akin to Tunisian Mizwid reed instrument’s, sears through and chews up phrases deriving out of the theme, spraying a multitude of images and emotional terrains: He blows like water rushing, a plant uncoiling, a dog chasing a ball, a cat chewing a rat.
These truly probing musicians’ prodigious techniques aid enormously in their search for aural nirvana. Morris’ particle-smashing “Part 2” guitar solo stretches out in astounding flights across the neck of the guitar, creating a centrifugal force as dizzying lights spin ‘round our heads. Interesting, too, how his clean tone – dry, almost flat, no distracting effects — directs attention to the theme of the piece, little bits of it, anyway. Clean lines from especially the guitar and sometimes the sax work to emphasize the melody in Ware’s pieces, which had been obscured somewhat in his past work with pianists such as Matthew Shipp.
Shown here: David S. Ware, saxophone; William Parker, bass; Muhammad Ali on drums
As heard in “Durga,” this springboarding of heavy-duty spontaneous jazz squawking off supremely melodic thematic material (it’s “rhythmelodic,” in Ware’s terminology) graces the entire set with a balancing, even accessible feel. There is a wonderful visuality in Ware’s solo playing on this one: He takes us down to the river. When “Reflection”’s reedy opening sax solo pokes its pointy head in, a low-key guitar bit looks over its shoulder in curiosity, like, What’s up? Like the huge hum of an old turbo-prop plane, Ware’s split toned sax hovers in sustained drones, which he discovered in the course of his improvisation. In the “Namah,” an opening duo duet is all tiny parts, skittering bass over rolling, quiet drums, then guitar chords that slant over Ware’s beefy sax walls in lacy latticework. And here comes the theme clearlyback in, little shards of it scattered over the rest.
It’d be hard to overemphasize the overall mental and physical effect of Ware’s “rhythmelodic” compositions, which turn what will facilely be heard as a massive mountain of shrieking free jazz into what it’s possible to perceive as real, true songs, albeit of a super-modernized shape and size.
@riotmaterial | https://cvonhassett.medium.com/david-s-ware-new-quartets-th%C3%A9%C3%A2tre-garonne-2008-183bf38985ae | ['Riot Material'] | 2019-11-04 16:43:18.200000+00:00 | ['Jazz', 'Review', 'Music', 'Culture', 'Art'] |
Feelings. What love birds actually think… | Feelings
love and relationships
Photo by Alex Iby on Unsplash
I drink tea
You drink coffee
That makes both of us
Really happy.
Rose is pink
Sky is blue
Hence I am singing a song for you.
Leaves are green
Birds have wings
Only Gods knows
What we both are doing.
Two lines make the angle
Three lines make a triangle
I will give you two gold bangles.
Vegetables are good
Cold drinks are bad
But I will never make you sad.
you watch Netflix
I play video games
Then who should we blame?
by taking wine
you are always fine
but daily crying
and you are always mine.
I will ride you in sunshine
We will dance in the rain
At last, our relationship will gain. | https://medium.com/flicker-and-flight/love-birds-45621a078964 | ['Mike Ortega'] | 2020-09-14 19:13:15.149000+00:00 | ['Poetry On Medium', 'Love Life', 'Poetry', 'Poem', 'Poetry Writing'] |
Why And How You Should Start Journaling. | How To Start Journaling
Tips to help you get started
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
Try to write every day
Begin by setting aside a specific time of day or night to jot your thoughts, feelings, and symptoms down. Being fluent in your writing creates an easier way to track certain things.
Write whatever feels right
You may find it hard to start writing, you may not know what format you want to write in or you may wonder what you should talk about first. It does not feel natural to many people, but as you get the hang of it, it will come to you.
Make it easy
Keeping paper and a pen on you is something that can become a habit. Having your journal with you at all times can be helpful, if you are in need to write something down or express a feeling in privacy, your journal is there. Many people write their journals in a computer file.
Don't worry, use it as you see fit.
Use your journal in a way that you can benefit, no one else is going to see it unless you allow them too. Sharing your journal with someone in the same boat as you can be helpful, but you do not have to. This is your private space where you can express your thoughts and get things out when you need to.
Reflect
When the day comes, and your journal pages are full of your thoughts and feelings, you can start a new one. Do not forget to reflect back to your old journals though. This can be therapeutic and can help you realize things you did not realize before. | https://medium.com/amplifies/why-and-how-you-should-start-journaling-4c6f277925da | ['Tatiana Santana'] | 2020-12-21 04:52:06.646000+00:00 | ['Feelings', 'Mental Illness', 'Journaling', 'Mental Health', 'Self Improvement'] |
Dental Bridges: Types, Benefits, Care and Cost | What Is a Dental Bridge?
A dental bridge is a fixed restoration to replace one or more missing teeth.
It is a false tooth or teeth typically made of crowns held in place by the abutment teeth on either side of the gap.
Imitating the look, shape, and function of natural teeth, dental bridges are custom-made for every patient.
Generally made from porcelain to aesthetically blend in with the natural teeth, they require healthy teeth on either side of the missing ones.
What Does a Dental Bridge Look Like?
A typical dental bridge has:
Abutment teeth: A dentist or prosthodontist removes some structure from the abutment teeth before placement. These lend support on each side of the bridge. These anchoring teeth, or supporting teeth, can be natural teeth or dental implants.
A dentist or prosthodontist removes some structure from the abutment teeth before placement. These lend support on each side of the bridge. These anchoring teeth, or supporting teeth, can be natural teeth or dental implants. Pontics: This false tooth that fills in the gap and attaches to the crowns. Dental bridges are usually made of porcelain & attached to a metal structure for support. Some are made of all-ceramic, a combination of porcelain & other materials.
When Are the Benefits of Dental Bridges?
One can lose teeth to gum disease, an injury, decay, or a failed root canal.
If one already has dental crowns on the supporting teeth, then the dentists may recommend a bridge if the patient can’t get implants for medical reasons.
A missing tooth or teeth can affect normal life in several ways. A dental bridge works towards restoring those changes like
Restoring the smile
Restoring the ability to chew properly
Restoring the speech and pronunciation
Maintaining the shape of the face
Re-adjusting the bite to properly distribute the force when one chews
Preventing the remaining teeth from moving out of the right position
Some more advantages of dental bridges are:
A quicker procedure that doesn’t require invasive surgery, unless the bridge is supported by implants.
Faster Recovery time
More affordable option
Content originally published on Kirkland Premier Dentistry | https://medium.com/@kirkland-premier-dentistry/dental-bridges-types-benefits-care-and-cost-3ea092ff4fd7 | ['Kirkland Premier Dentistry'] | 2021-12-30 06:16:51.699000+00:00 | ['Dental Bridge', 'Dentistry', 'Dentist', 'Dental'] |
Data Focused Decision making for Organizations: A DSI Case Study | In late Spring of 2018, I was elected President of DSI (Data Science and Informatics), which is the Data Science student group at the University of Florida. We teach workshops (Python, R, NLP, ML, you name it) and grow the Data Science community. Soon after my election came this:
“What kind of idiot would I be if I ran a Data Science Organization without applying Data Science to it”
The rest of this post elaborates how we, throughout the Fall of 2018, brought the organization from the state of “we have very little data and the data we do have is unusable” to “we have an organized and useful source of data and have begun to take action from our generated insights.” Over the years of reading data science-related posts, I’ve often felt like this sort of data engineering/collection/synthesizing work is underrepresented, so here we go!
Data Sourcing
Thankfully, DSI has a history of creating sign-in sheets for our workshops with detailed information about the participants including names, emails, majors, and the extent of their programming experience. However, the data we have kept over the past 3 years has not been kept with analytics in mind, and before the data cleaning process, the set of auto-generated google sheets looked a bit like this.
One year, DSI had tracked participant’s class as a string (Freshman, Sophomore, etc), another year had years at UF as integers (1, 2, etc) without the ability to distinguish between first-year graduate students and first-year undergrads and even a third kept academic standing (Undergrad vs Grad school). We had tracked email 5 (!!!!) different ways: Email, email, e-mail, Contact (email) and E mail. These discrepancies were clearly created over the years as the executive board turned over and new people were creating sign-in sheets, which makes sense and comes from good instincts! But the end data is partially unusable as it is not analytics first.
The lesson here is: Any time spent on data intentionality is compounded 10x as the data grow. DSI has become a pillar of analytics and teaching at UF, and as the organization matured, serving over a thousand students per year, the data’s issues grew alongside.
Standardizing and Automating
Standardizing data is equivalent to asking, in our case, what do we want to learn about people who come to our workshops? The easiest way to tell what an org/company cares about is to find out what they track. Is it user growth? Repeat attendance? Demographic characteristics? Once your organization has come together and figured that out, standardization comes more naturally.
Our solution? Templated forms and the R package googlesheets. The form ensures that the same data is kept time after time, and the package automatically scrapes the sheets and pulls the data together. The new executive board is creating a better solution using login information and databases, but google sheets and a couple good R (or Python) scripts should do in a pinch.
Finally, at this point, we had a relatively clean dataset with DSI’s history over the years, and we could attempt to use this data for mission-driven organization change. This is, in my opinion, the hardest part of Data Science because you never really know if anything you’re working towards will be useful. What if we spent all this time, all this effort, for nothing? There is no a priori way to know the value of data, only a posteriori. This is really why discussing the data collection and cleaning is so tremendously crucial because it comprises 80% of the workflow. There is no business end to DSI; we teach and help because we enjoy it and find it fulfilling, and these lessons we’re learning as an organization, however cheap now, are invaluable to young data scientists in the workforce
Exploratory Data Analysis
Back to the analysis: using data to further DSI’s missions. This begs the question, what is DSI’s mission? For the first few years of DSI, it was to learn and teach as fast as we can. This has worked quite well, as, in its history, DSI has had ~2500 attendees.
This graph is cumulative attendance, but it’s pretty clear that as our content and outreach continue to improve (thanks to a much shorter feedback loop than nearly any other group at UF), students will want to learn programming skills. The breakdown of DSI attendees is expected, with the plurality being technology majors but with significant numbers from social studies, engineering (formal sciences), business, etc.
This next visualization, a histogram of return attendees, was the one that really struck the DSI exec board. A huge percentage of people who went to DSI went only for one or two workshops (85% in total).
This is rather unsurprising, as there isn’t a strong reason to attend an intro to Python workshop multiple times. DSI has done a tremendous job of being a place for learning data science at UF but hasn’t approached a different problem: creating a data science community. This created a leaky user bucket for user retention, which wasn’t our intention.
Creating Community
Starting a community is difficult for a few reasons, one being there are really only proxies for good metrics. Is having a high return rate all the evidence needed for a community? Certainly not. It seems like a necessary but not sufficient proxy for community.
We took three main initiatives in the Fall of 2018 to try and build this community. First, we created Data Gator, UF’s first data science competition in collaboration with UF libraries (if you’re reading this as a UF student, you should enter!!). Then, every other week, we came up with an event called Data Science Wednesday, where our theory was: Community = Data + Coffee + Food + Time. We’ll give students food and interesting datasets, and see what they come up with. One dataset focused on detecting poisonous mushrooms, another on playing Fortnite while high, others on bike share rides, and even one on statistics about Pokemon which produced the graph below.
And finally, after looking at the breakdown of our workshops, we found that industry-specific workshops had higher percentages of first-time attendees (in our first Natural Language Processing workshop, we had a plurality of the linguistics Ph.D. students because there were no Python classes taught by the department). We then continued to develop more niche workshops, like Statistics for Data Science, a wonderful Tableau workshop, and even an Actuary workshop, to attract different parts of campus.
Results
It’s difficult, and probably a bad idea, to evaluate changes to an organization after less than a semester. With that in mind, a few numbers popped out of the last semester. Fall 2018 was the highest attended DSI semester ever and the percentage of students who came to more than two workshops doubled.
I’m really excited about these results, not only as a potential success story of data-focused decision making at an organizational level but also with where the exec board after my tenure is bound to take the org.
Anyway, that’s the more complete story about how we did all the boring but highest leverage data work at a student org and saw some great preliminary results by looking at some nice graphs, clearly defining what we wanted, and making some changes we could measure. The exec team has some other projects they’re working on, including building a login system and proper databases for the organization and trying to make a ‘how much pizza should we order’ model to optimize our budget. There is no group at UF that I’m more excited about (find them here and attend the annual symposium at the end of the month), keep an eye on this space! As a plug, if you’re a hiring manager and you’ve made it this far, congrats! Your prize is this advice: Hire these people early because I’m sure there will be a bidding war for all of them soon enough.
Special thanks are due to Delaney Gomen, who was instrumental in the data cleaning and also was behind a lot of the visualizations. Some of this post, in presentation form, can be found here from a talk I gave at UF in the Fall of 2018 and a portion of the code can be found here.
See more analytics work like this on my website or follow me on twitter. | https://towardsdatascience.com/data-focused-decision-making-for-organizations-a-dsi-case-study-5f332a01d80a | ['Tyler Richards'] | 2019-03-13 13:13:41.034000+00:00 | ['R', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization'] |
Developing a Customised Assistive Solution: Philip’s Engineering Internship Experience | My internship with Thought-Wired started in May 2017, after I met Dmitry and James at the AUT STEMpreneur event, where they shared their experience starting their tech start-up.
My Background: From Psychology to Engineering
In 2011, I graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Science, majoring in Psychology. I thoroughly enjoyed the course, but the classes were theoretical and I didn’t feel that they would help me in developing a career outside of research in an academic environment.
Therefore, in 2012 I enrolled into AUT’s Bachelor of Engineering programme and graduated with 2nd class honours last year. Currently, I’m pursing a Master of Engineering degree with AUT. My research topic focusses on developing a software robotic controller.
Combining my background in Psychology and Engineering, I have always had an interest in the fields of Brain-Computer-Interfaces, machine learning and biomedical devices to help individuals who live with physical impairments.
Focus of my internship: Developing a customised add-on solution for nous™
In June, I started my internship with Thought-Wired and I was given the project of developing an add-on for nous that is customised for a patient with a rare, neurodegenerative disease called “Multiple System Atrophy” (MSA).
At first, I was tasked to build a standalone graphical user interface (GUI) with the functionality of capturing and analysing data from a sensory device. The original purpose of incorporating capturing and analysing signals with nous™(which captures and analyses focused attention-based EEG signals), was to utilise the remaining physical and cognitive capabilities that the patient still had, to maximise her ability to communicate with her family and the outside world.
When I first joined the project I was informed that the only physical capabilities that the patient had was tilting her neck and partially lifting her forearms. However, due to her condition, while I was still learning and experimenting on ways to capture input from her, I was informed that the patient had lost the ability to lift her lower arms, thus eliminating this movement as a possible communication method.
So I shifted my research focus to building the GUI for real-time data acquisition and analysis of signals captured from her remaining physical capability, while keeping in mind that the code should be kept as modular as possible, such that it can be easily implemented into nous’ main architecture.
Challenges with building the add-on
Building the basic structure of the GUI itself wasn’t too much of a challenge because I’ve built several throughout my studies. One of the biggest challenges when designing the GUI was trying to debug the code when there were no apparent faults in the logic or design of the code! I was baffled for several days when the GUI didn’t display the captured data in the manner that I designed it to do. The design and implementation of the code didn’t suggest any flaws or bugs when it was being checked repeatedly.
This is when I asked for Thought-Wired’s senior software engineer, Sean Carmichael, for advice on how to debug the problem that I was experiencing. After he sat down with me, and listened to how I designed and implemented my code, he suggested the bug may not be due to design or implementation flaw, but maybe something to do with hardware design or inherent capabilities of the compiler in which the GUI was written in.
After our discussions, we went over some data-sheets, experimentation and documentation, where we found that this was indeed the case! The fastest data processing rate for the compiler was significantly slower than the fastest data handling rate the hardware could handle. When we ran the GUI and hardware at the fastest sampling rate, the GUI was unable to process all the data acquired from the sensory device.
Takeaways and lessons learned
From there I found a way to work around this problem - but the biggest learning for me was the difference in applying knowledge in a real-life situation, compared to knowledge learnt within classroom/lecture settings. This is especially apparent when it comes to fault finding and understanding the underlining situation when you have little information to go off of.
Another important lesson I’ve learnt is that it’s difficult for universities to teach the practical skills required for real-world situations - even for AUT, which is renowned for taking a practical approach in educating its students. A lot of the material that universities teach students (especially in STEM related fields) becomes outdated quickly, are inapplicable in real-life situations, or are not taught extensively enough for students to immediately apply them to their job roles. For example, throughout the internship there were several algorithms that I wanted to try to implement but quickly found out that they are either too impractical to implement, or the learning curve is so steep that it is improbable to implement- especially given the time constraints of an internship.
Before I sign off, I’d like to thank everyone at Thought-Wired for providing me this chance to do an internship with them. It has provided me with valuable experiences beyond measure. Most importantly, I realised the areas that I need to work on the most, and strengthened my determination to continue a path in pursuing a professional career in the fields of BCI and machine learning. | https://medium.com/thoughtwired/developing-a-customised-assistive-solution-philips-engineering-internship-experience-593545560143 | ['Sarvnaz Taherian Ph.D'] | 2017-11-02 03:08:26.898000+00:00 | ['Disability', 'Assistive Technology', 'Biomedical Engineering', 'Internships', 'Design'] |
From Chicken Wings to Launch: Part 1 | 25 cent chicken wings.
That’s how it all started. Every Wednesday, my friend Brian and I would go eat wings, drink beer, and chat about “guy stuff”. On a particular day about 6 months ago, we were halfway through our ritual (which was eat a round of wings, have a beer, then have another batch of wings) when we spotted two people talking at the bar.
“I wonder if he’ll get her number”, I said.
“Maybe. Most likely it’ll be a fake or something.” he replied.
So we got to thinking — what if there was a way to connect to someone without the pitfalls associated with a phone number? It’s hard to remember, easy to mis-type, and once you give it out it’s out there for good. So that clingy person you met at the bar, your crazy ex-girlfriend, or upset Craigslist buyer can do whatever they want with it. The bottom line is, we all meet people on a day-to-day basis that we may or may not want to give our personal information to. Or, we just want to talk to them temporarily.
Fast forward till now. Just yesterday we finally launched Buzz — Chat Safely on the Google Play Store and Apple Appstore. It’s pretty cool, check it out here:
http://buzzmessenger.co
Some of you may be wondering — what’s it like to build a messaging app from the ground up? What was involved? What mistakes did you make? I’ll write about it next time. Or, if you can’t wait, download the app and message me directly. | https://medium.com/@frostrocket/from-chicken-wings-to-launch-part-1-5e36c43b5ea1 | ['Matthew Groves'] | 2015-10-24 21:58:06.697000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Messaging', 'Mobile'] |
Google Auto Complete React Native Maps using React Native | How to use Google Autocomplete Search API and React Native Maps in React Native to fetch user location ? Prateek Chitransh Follow Aug 23, 2020 · 7 min read
Today we will be making an Ola/Uber like address component where you can fetch a users location in three ways :
By using Google-AutoComplete Search API By Dragging a google map around a centred marker By text input entered by the user
Our aim is to have a screen which looks like this :
Google Auto Complete Search
If you are looking for a quick solution this will be really helpful and I hope you achieve more than what I am offering you using the process I followed.
Wear your anti glare glasses and let’s begin !
Step 1 : Install react-native-maps
npm install react-native-maps
The version I used at the time of publishing was 0.26.1. If you wish to install the same version so that there is no version mismatch try :
npm install [email protected]
Step 2 : Install react-native-google-places-autocomplete
npm install react-native-google-places-autocomplete
The version I used is 1.4.0.
Now in your project folder create a file : AddAddress.tsx ( You can go ahead with any name or extension as per the guidelines in your project. You might have to format the code at some points if you are using Javascript. )
AddAddress.tsx
import React from "react"; import {View,StyleSheet} from "react-native"; import MapView from "react-native-maps"; import { GooglePlacesAutocomplete } from "react-native-google-places-autocomplete"; export default class LocationPickerDemo extends React.Component<any, any> {
render(){
(<View>
</View>);
}
} const styles = StyleSheet.create({});
This is how your initial file should look like. As you can see we have imported both our libraries react-native-maps and react-native-google-places-autocomplete already to use their functionalities. MapView will help us to render the map and GooglePlacesAutocomplete will give us the search bar at top as you can see in the image. We have created a custom stylesheet as well in our component which we will be populating soon.
Next we are going to implement the map on the screen for starting off with the Google API integrations in your react native app :
AddAddress.tsx
import React from "react"; import {View,StyleSheet} from "react-native"; import MapView from "react-native-maps"; import { GooglePlacesAutocomplete } from "react-native-google-places-autocomplete"; const latitudeDelta = 0.025;
const longitudeDelta = 0.025; export default class LocationPickerDemo extends React.Component<any, any> { state = {
region: {
latitudeDelta,
longitudeDelta,
latitude: 12.840575,
longitude: 77.651787,
}
} render(){
<View style={styles.map}>
<MapView
style={styles.map}
initialRegion={this.state.region}
/>
</View>}
} const styles = StyleSheet.create({
map:{
flex:1
},
});
Next we will keep our fetch Address API ready and integrate our GOOGLE API KEY with the search API.
AddAddress.tsx
import React from "react"; import {View,StyleSheet} from "react-native"; import MapView from "react-native-maps"; import { GooglePlacesAutocomplete } from "react-native-google-places-autocomplete"; const latitudeDelta = 0.025;
const longitudeDelta = 0.025; export default class LocationPickerDemo extends React.Component<any, any> { state = {
region: {
latitudeDelta,
longitudeDelta,
latitude: 12.840575,
longitude: 77.651787,
}
} getAddress(){
//function to get address using current lat and lng fetch("https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=" + this.state.region.latitude+"," +this.state.region.longitude +"&key=" + <YOUR_GOOGLE_API_KEY>).then((response) => response.json()).then((responseJson) => {
console.log("ADDRESS GEOCODE is BACK!! => " +
JSON.stringify(responseJson));
this.setState(
{ address: JSON.stringify(responseJson.results[0].formatted_address)
.replace(/"/g, "")
});
});
} render(){
<View style={styles.map}>
<MapView
style={styles.map}
initialRegion={this.state.region}
/>
</View>}
} const styles = StyleSheet.create({
map:{
flex:1
},
});
The getAddress() function returns the value of an address that we receive as a result of the geocode api call we have made inside the function passing your key and coordinates. Next we will introduce the TextInput address in our component.
import React from "react"; import {View, Image,TouchableOpacity,TextInput,KeyboardAvoidingView,Text} from "react-native"; import { Icon } from 'react-native-elements'; import MapView from "react-native-maps"; import { GooglePlacesAutocomplete } from "react-native-google-places-autocomplete"; const latitudeDelta = 0.025;
const longitudeDelta = 0.025; export default class AddressPicker extends React.Component<any, any> { state = {
region: {
latitudeDelta,
longitudeDelta,
latitude: 12.840575,
longitude: 77.651787,
},
address:""
} getAddress(){
//function to get address using current lat and lng fetch("https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=" + this.state.region.latitude+"," +this.state.region.longitude +"&key=" + <YOUR_GOOGLE_API_KEY>).then((response) => response.json()).then((responseJson) => {
console.log("ADDRESS GEOCODE is BACK!! => " +
JSON.stringify(responseJson));
this.setState(
{ address: JSON.stringify(responseJson.results[0].formatted_address)
.replace(/"/g, "")
});
});
} render(){
<View style={styles.map}>
<MapView
style={styles.map}
initialRegion={this.state.region}
/> //Added a custom marker at the center of screen
<View style={styles.markerFixed}>
<Image
style={styles.marker}
source={require("../../assets/marker.png")}/>
</View> //Created A Footer Panel to show/enter address
<KeyboardAvoidingView style={styles.footer}>
<View style={{ flexDirection: "row", margin: 10 }}>
<Icon name="ios-home"
size={24}
color="#000000"
type="ionicon"
style={{
padding: 10,
}}
/>
<Text style={styles.addressText}>Address</Text>
</View>
<TextInput
multiline={true}
clearButtonMode="while-editing"
style={{
marginBottom: 5,
width: "90%",
minHeight: 70,
alignSelf: "center",
borderColor: "lightgrey",
borderWidth: 1.5,
fontSize: 12,
borderRadius: 5,
flex: 0.5,
alignContent: "flex-start",
textAlignVertical: "top",
fontFamily: "Calibri",
}}
onChangeText={(text) =>this.setState({ address: text })}
value={this.state.address}
/>
<TouchableOpacity
onPress={() => {}}
style={{
width: "30%",
alignSelf: "center",
alignItems: "center",
backgroundColor: "blue",
borderRadius: 16.5,
shadowColor: "rgba(0,0,0, .4)", // IOS
shadowOffset: { height: 1, width: 1 }, // IOS
shadowOpacity: 1, // IOS
shadowRadius: 1, //IOS
elevation: 2, // Android
}}>
<Text
style={{
color: "white"
fontFamily: "Calibri",
fontSize: 12,
paddingVertical: 4,
}}>
SAVE
</Text>
</TouchableOpacity>
</KeyboardAvoidingView>
</View>
}
} const styles = StyleSheet.create({
map:{
flex:1
},
markerFixed: {
left: "50%",
marginLeft: -24,
marginTop: -48,
position: "absolute",
top: "50%",
},
addressText: {
color: "black",
margin: 3,
fontFamily: "Calibri",
},
footer: {
backgroundColor: "white",
bottom: 0,
position: "absolute",
width: "100%",
height: "30%",
},
});
Now if you run your app you will be able to see the Map with a marker in the center of the screen and the address field at the bottom of the screen. Now lets implement the GoogleAutoComplete feature and finish off rest of the functionalities.
Note : You will have to edit the below file as per your requirements and install the missing components/remove add necessary tags.
import React from "react"; import {Image,StyleSheet,Text,View,TextInput,TouchableOpacity,
KeyboardAvoidingView} from "react-native"; import MapView from "react-native-maps"; import { GooglePlacesAutocomplete } from "react-native-google-places-autocomplete"; const latitudeDelta = 0.025;
const longitudeDelta = 0.025; export default class LocationPickerDemo extends React.Component<any, any> { searchText: any;
mapView: any;
state = {
region: {
latitudeDelta,
longitudeDelta,
latitude: 12.840575,
longitude: 77.651787,
},
listViewDisplayed: true,
address: "",
showAddress: false,
search: "",
currentLat: "",
currentLng: "",
forceRefresh: 0,
}; goToInitialLocation = (region) => {
let initialRegion = Object.assign({}, region);
initialRegion["latitudeDelta"] = 0.005;
initialRegion["longitudeDelta"] = 0.005;
this.mapView.animateToRegion(initialRegion, 2000);
}; onRegionChange = (region) => {
this.setState({
region: region,
forceRefresh: Math.floor(Math.random() * 100),
},
this.getCurrentAddress//callback
);
}; componentWillMount() {
this.getCurrentAddress();
} getAddress({
fetch("https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json? address=" + this.state.region.latitude+"," +this.state.region.longitude +"&key=" + <YOUR_GOOGLE_API_KEY>).then((response) => response.json()).then((responseJson) => {
console.log("ADDRESS GEOCODE is BACK!! => " +
JSON.stringify(responseJson));
this.setState(
{ address: JSON.stringify(responseJson.results[0].formatted_address)
.replace(/"/g, "")
});
});
} render() {
const { region } = this.state;
return (
<View style={styles.map}>
<MapView
ref={(ref) => (this.mapView = ref)}
onMapReady={() =>
this.goToInitialLocation(this.state.region)}
style={styles.map}
initialRegion={this.state.region}
onRegionChangeComplete={this.onRegionChange}
/> <View style={styles.panel}>
<View style={[styles.panelHeader,
this.state.listViewDisplayed? styles.panelFill:styles.panel,]}>. <GooglePlacesAutocomplete
currentLocation={false}
enableHighAccuracyLocation={true}
ref={(c) => (this.searchText = c)}
placeholder="Search for a location"
minLength={2} // minimum length of text to search
autoFocus={false}
returnKeyType={"search"}
listViewDisplayed={this.state.listViewDisplayed}
fetchDetails={true}
renderDescription={(row) => row.description}
enablePoweredByContainer={false}
listUnderlayColor="lightgrey"
onPress={(data, details) => {
this.setState({
listViewDisplayed: false,
address: data.description,
currentLat: details.geometry.location.lat,
currentLng: details.geometry.location.lng,
region: {
latitudeDelta,
longitudeDelta,
latitude: details.geometry.location.lat,
longitude:details.geometry.location.lng,
},
});
this.searchText.setAddressText("");
this.goToInitialLocation(this.state.region);}}
textInputProps={{
onChangeText: (text) => {
console.log(text);
this.setState({listViewDisplayed: true});
},
}}
getDefaultValue={() => {
return ""; // text input default value
}}
query={{
key: "<YOUR_API_KEY>",
language: "en", // language of the results
components: "country:ind",
}}
styles={{
description: {
fontFamily: "Calibri",
color: "black",
fontSize: 12,
},
predefinedPlacesDescription: {
color: "black",
},
listView: {
position: "absolute",
marginTop: 44,
backgroundColor:"white",
borderBottomEndRadius: 15,
elevation:2,},}}
nearbyPlacesAPI="GooglePlacesSearch"
GooglePlacesSearchQuery={{
rankby: "distance",
types: "building",}}
filterReverseGeocodingByTypes={[
"locality","administrative_area_level_3",]}
debounce={200}/> </View> </View> <View style={styles.markerFixed}>
<Image
style={styles.marker}
source={require("../../assets/pinmarker.png")}/>
</View> <KeyboardAvoidingView style={styles.footer}>
<View style={{ flexDirection: "row", margin: 10 }}>
<Icon name="ios-home"
size={24}
color="#DC2B6B"
type="ionicon"
style={{
padding: 10,
}}
/>
<Text style={styles.addressText}>Address</Text>
</View>
<TextInput
multiline={true}
clearButtonMode="while-editing"
style={{
marginBottom: 5,
width: "90%",
minHeight: 70,
alignSelf: "center",
borderColor: "lightgrey",
borderWidth: 1.5,
fontSize: 12,
borderRadius: 5,
flex: 0.5,
alignContent: "flex-start",
textAlignVertical: "top",
fontFamily: "Calibri",
}}
onChangeText={(text) =>this.setState({ address: text })}
value={this.state.address}
/>
<TouchableOpacity
onPress={() => {}}
style={{
width: "30%",
alignSelf: "center",
alignItems: "center",
backgroundColor: "lightgreen",
borderRadius: 16.5,
shadowColor: "rgba(0,0,0, .4)", // IOS
shadowOffset: { height: 1, width: 1 }, // IOS
shadowOpacity: 1, // IOS
shadowRadius: 1, //IOS
elevation: 2, // Android
}}>
<Text
style={{
color: "white"
fontFamily: "Calibri",
fontSize: 12,
paddingVertical: 4,
}}>
SAVE
</Text>
</TouchableOpacity>
</KeyboardAvoidingView>
</View>
}
} const styles = StyleSheet.create({
map:{
flex:1
},
markerFixed: {
left: "50%",
marginLeft: -24,
marginTop: -48,
position: "absolute",
top: "50%",
},
addressText: {
color: "black",
margin: 3,
fontFamily: "Calibri",
},
footer: {
backgroundColor: "white",
bottom: 0,
position: "absolute",
width: "100%",
height: "30%",
},
panelFill: {
position: "absolute",
top: 0,
alignSelf: "stretch",
right: 0,
left: 0,
},
panel: {
position: "absolute",
top: 0,
alignSelf: "stretch",
right: 0,
left: 0,
flex: 1,
},
panelHeader: {
//add custom header
},
});
Thats It ! We are done !
We are now able to drag our map around and set the address in the text input box, change our address using Google Auto complete search while the map drags to the location selected and enter address using the text input manually.
Let me know if you face any issues while implementing it and feedbacks are welcome as this is my first attempt.
Happy Coding ! Hakuna Matata ! | https://medium.com/debugger-off/how-to-use-google-autocomplete-api-s-and-react-native-maps-in-react-native-to-fetch-user-location-20d3f65af48b | ['Prateek Chitransh'] | 2020-08-24 09:42:09.941000+00:00 | ['Google Autocompletes', 'Google Map Api', 'Maps', 'React Native Maps', 'React Native'] |
Entrepreneur | What is an entrepreneur? Who’s an entrepreneur? How to define it?
These are questions I’ve been asking myself more and more, for a couple of months now, while been involved on projects and with people that will fit into that category.
So, I’m planning to keep asking those questions (and few more) not only to myself, but to others, aiming to put them together and share the answers and insights.
The format is not well defined yet, but I’ll be working on series of stories, documenting my process and journey as an “Entrepreneur”. The fears, the lessons, the myths, the assumptions and failures.
The goal? To bridge the gap between reality and fiction, between beginners and top players; going through what actually happens in that middle ground that almost no one talks about, that occurs between ideas, execution and growth, and how long does actually take to make thing happen. | https://medium.com/thoughts-on-the-go-journal/entrepreneur-8a05683271e2 | ['Joseph Emmi'] | 2016-10-30 00:14:47.585000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Hard Work', 'Side Project', 'Startup', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
Military Mysteries | The hidden stories of how the law and rape cross roads within the military
There are many secrets within a lot of public platforms;two of which I will focus on in this article: the military and the law. These two platforms are held on a high pedestal in society.
[“Despite feminist recognition in recent decades that “the central condition of many women’s lives [is] that they are ruled by male violence” (Cohen 1994, 350), the law has been unresponsive and ineffective in several respects. This bias is evident in the striking consistency with which the law regulates and responds to the use of violence by men and women in military and civilian society. Whereas the law generally recognizes the military as a social institution vested with legitimate authority to engage in the use of violence, it excludes women from most roles involving violence while at the same time ignoring much of the violence unleashed by military men and women.”] (Lucinda Joy Peach) Is Violence Male? The Law, Gender, and Violence
Lucinda’s quote shows the gender specificity that society proclaims to men and women, whether it be about the law or the military. Discussing these gender biases has been completely taboo to the American eye, so writing about it will show people how relevant gender bias really is within military and civilian society.
In reference to males, since they have a stronger persona men are always assumed to be the predators, never victims of violence. Especially if the sexual act is between a man and a woman. The law in particular favors males and males only. “The law has never been able to address battering effectively because of its own peculiar structure. Written by men for men, the law is designed to protect men from the power of the state and to adjudicate conflicts between men, to preserve order in a society of men.”(Jones 1994, 24) Since power sometimes induces violence in a man it is used as a bonus. It gives men the one up on a woman for the man mentally and physically.“The law understands violence as a form of male power and thus genders violence male.” (Lucinda Joy Peach) Even though it is violence, it is looked at as powerful. With women it would be looked at in a different lense.
In the opposite lense, women on the other hand are always formed as victims.“In both military and civilian contexts,then, when the law recognizes women at all in relation to violence, it is primarily as victims.”(Lucinda Joy Peach) With this false perception women are now only equivalent to victims and not perpetrators, which is a closed minded view. Women in this light of predators or perpetrators are “not real” in a sense.“Women who do or would act as agents of violence are ignored as nonexistent, excluded as illegitimate, or punished as transgressive.” (Lucinda Joy Peach) It then again does not make sense; if it is taboo for women to be aggressors, how are they given a harsher and more reprimandable punishment rather than men for doing the exact same thing. By gendering violence between men or women, it makes the problem even more harder to deconstruct. Lucinda’s “alternate approach to understanding the law and violence, I will argue, offers a better basis for developing strategies designed to empower women by deconstructing the law’s gender-bias treatment of violence.”(Lucinda Joy Peach)
Lucinda Joy Peach then touches upon the military sexual assaults that have happened within the years. While also hitting points about how women are not allowed to use certain items in combat, and not allowed to do really what they want to do. This is disregarding whether they are in a high position of control or not. This ties completely into the movie The Invisible War by Kirby Dick which exemplifies the high rates of sexual assaults that have happened and are happening in our military, army, navy, and air force.
In the movie The Invisible War over 20 people men and women spoke forward about their sexual assault cases whether they were looked at or not including people like Kori Cioca, who wasaped (within that rape her jaw was dislocated); Trina McDonald, who was drugged and raped; The extreme case of Valine Demos, who became pregnant after being raped; many other people were victimized.Women wise “over 20% of female veterans have been sexually assaulted while serving.” Women were always told to “suck it up” and to “stop crying over spilled milk” in order to calm them down and stop overreacting. This has the effect of making women sound crazy along with making it seem like they are making all of the rape accusations up. While the case goes through the police department and so forth the men are told to take on the case because the women sympathize too much, which is completely sexist. But in opposing thoughts, most women never share their stories because they can lose their rank, rating, and school. These rapes are usually planned due to the fact that, “15% of incoming recruits attempted or committed rape before entering the military.” And most of the women are ordered to drink by the captain when they go out. (This movie brought many hidden scandals on the surface and brought light to what nobody knew. In the title “The Invisible War” it is now visible and everyone is taking it very seriously.
Invisible has always been a term used in the military but now it has been brought to the surface. “For military women, before #MeToo there was #NotInvisible, our attempt to draw attention to the epidemic of sexual assault in the military which continues to be largely ignored by the American public.”(Antonieta Rico) Ever since the #Metoo movement women have been stepping up sharing their stories and being proud of their choices.“Women in the military have been speaking out about sexual harassment and assault for decades, from Tailhook in the early 1990s to Marines United earlier this year.”(Antonieta Rico)With the rise in movements like the #MeToo movement, hopefully the war that women in the military are fighting, will no longer be invisible. | https://medium.com/gendered-violence/military-mysteries-7a95dd5a7585 | ['Kaitlyn Hardy'] | 2018-03-06 22:19:17.572000+00:00 | ['Rape', 'Sexual Assault', 'Not Invisible', 'Military', 'Law'] |
Do you get excited or anxious about tax time and tax returns? | Helping contractors and construction-related businesses move from financial chaos to financial compliance, cash flow, profits, wealth and more | https://medium.com/@kirshamurray/do-you-get-excited-or-anxious-about-tax-time-and-tax-returns-b3dc9baafaaf | ['The Cash Lab'] | 2020-12-13 19:30:13.228000+00:00 | ['Taxes', 'Small Business Owner', 'Small Business', 'Tax Returns', 'Entrepreneur'] |
How To Hack College University Grades | How To Hack College University Grades
[email protected] — SEND US A MAIL LET TALK ABOUT HOW TO HACK COLLEGE UNIVERSITY GRADES AND ANY OTHER HACKING RELATED ISSUES YOU HAVE. Fzilmozil Dec 24, 2020·7 min read
How i HACKED College/University System
My 0 Cost College Plan
A few months back, I decided against pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science (CS).
First, let me make it clear — I am absolutely NOT saying you should do the same. This is just the story behind my 0 cost college plan, which I’m rather proud of.
After one too many university rejection letters, my quest to get back on track with my life began in Winter 2015, at a community college. If everything went according to plan, I would be able to transfer out after 2–3 years, then work towards a Bachelor’s. And thus did my slog in the conventional education system begin.
5 quarters slowly went by. I dragged myself through about one and a half years of education-induced agony. Just to clarify, I love learning as much as the next person, but I’d never been fond of the traditional education system. It had always been too rigid, too creativity-stifling for my taste.
Great relief and excitement shortly followed alongside the Summer of 2017. Freedom from school! And so, I filled the calendar with as many events relevant to my interests and career that I could find on Eventbrite and Meetup. I would recommend anyone from most any field to do the same, especially if you live near a major city.
Over the Summer, I met dozens of new people, and mingled with others walking a similar path. Exposing myself to so many unique perspectives caused my own outlook to shift, so I started asking myself some very important questions…
Do I want to keep stressing over my GPA?
Do I want to keep loathing requirement classes?
Do I really want to keep enduring the red tape of higher education?
Do I feel like a Bachelor’s degree in tech is worth the time and financial investment, which — at an extremely conservative estimate — would be 2 years and $15,000 per year at a UC?
…How did I end up thinking my only option was to get a CS degree?
The plan to start my CS career without a CS degree
Aside from allowing participation in CS research at a university, there is only another use of a CS degree in my opinion. When listed under the education section on a resume, the chances of passing the application screening process to the interview phase is improved.
To put it simply, for people getting into CS like me, all a degree helps with is getting interviews. Ever wonder what else does that?
A referral from an employee puts me directly on the interview seat (or at least a phone interview; it varies from company to company).
If tech connections could do what a tech degree tries to do, but more reliably and way less financial investment, what are the incentives for grinding towards that CS degree? Personally, I couldn’t find any.
Most seem to agree that a CS degree — if considered at all — only matters for getting that first tech job. Subsequent employers tend to look at portfolios and GitHubs, among other qualities that a degree doesn’t guarantee.
StackOverflow 2016 Developer Survey that everyone likes to link when arguing that a CS degree is not mandatory
On the other hand, advocates for getting a CS degree obsess over the benefits of attending college and statistical correlations. I can see where they’re coming from and I will get to that shortly.
The actual college plan
This is the interesting part.
As much as I hate the traditional education system, there is no denying the merits of enduring a CS curriculum at a university:
Fundamentals. Unlike some emerging Bay Area coding bootcamps that only focus on pumping out people who know certain frameworks, a good university CS curriculum provides a good fundamental understanding, which better prepares a software engineer for future technologies.
Connections. Most students in the classroom are going to be of similar age, with similar interests, working towards the same goal, and will most likely enter the same industry at about the same time. Hiring and networking events happen every so often on campuses, too. All this helps prospective programmers and software engineers to gain a solid network of industry contacts.
Campus life. Between campus events, activity clubs, and frat parties, a university campus is the home for many wonderful (and not so wonderful) lifelong memories.
There are on-going controversies on whether these benefits are worth the 4+ years and high five-figures financial investment. I certainly didn’t think so, but they are admittedly nice and I wanted them.
I wanted to enjoy the fundamentals, connections, and campus life of a university education, without worrying about GPAs, requirement classes, college applications, or tuition.
I decided that I would go to school while not actually going to school. Literally.
Not being officially enrolled into the university did not stop me from attending classes. It didn’t matter whether the class was an 800-student lecture, or a 20-person lab. Sometimes the class materials were publicly available online. Other times classmates would forward me all the course material.
Any guesses on what else I wasn’t barred from? Participating in clubs, going to school events, having fun at parties, showing up at discussion groups, visiting office hours, etcetera etcetera. The usual student stuff. Sometimes I needed help from a friend to access areas behind keycards. Other times I just waited for someone to open the door.
No one has given me any trouble so far. I’ve had to say that I was a prospective student a few times, but usually, people have more important things to worry about than my presence. I have yet to lie about not being a student.
The effectiveness of my college plan varies between different universities. The easiest way to begin is to shadow a friend who actually goes there for a day, then ask for a tour around the school and the schedule. If there is enough trust, logins can also be shared for course material access. Alternatively, look for a research assistance opportunity and begin from there.
Some people told me these methods will not work at their school, but it does not hurt to verify and pick your battles.
More to my college plan
In May of 2017, I attended Silicon Hacks, which was one of my first few automic hackers experiences. It was hosted at a free coding school called 42 Silicon Valley.
Courtesy of Jose
I still have a hard time believing something like this could exist in the US.
Teacherless peer-to-peer flexible learning curriculum? Awesome computer lab? All for free with no income share or other shenanigans to worry about?
Best of all, it satisfied most of my needs:
I wanted to enjoy the fundamentals and connections and campus life of a university education, without worrying about GPAs or requirement classes or college applications or tuition.
There is an application process, but without the college application bullshit of fees, essays, recommendations, or anything about your personal background affecting your application chances (check the links; they are pretty absurd). 42 doesn’t care about any of that when they admit students. They only care about the student not being a dick, and passing what they call the Piscine (the French word for swimming pool); the 42 term for coding 14 hours a day, 28 days straight. It isn’t as bad as it sounds.
Their curriculum uses the C programming language at first, then students are able to choose between graphics, filesystem, and algorithms in C. Once students reach a certain level, they are able to choose a more applicable focus such as Python web dev, Unity, C++, RSA encryption, and many more.
A physical peer-to-peer collaborative gamified learning environment is 42’s answer to Bloom’s two sigma problem— that the learning effectiveness essentially doubles if a student receives a personalized learning experience, but society could not yet afford such experience for each individual.
42 gets visits from speakers frequently. automic hackers and hiring events happen on site ever so often. The student body is one of the most wonderful bunch of people to work with — motivated, conversational, friendly, capable. There are also student-organized activity clubs on campus. Improve club is my personal favorite.
Since 42 doesn’t have a set schedule, I just go there when I am done following my ‘school schedule’ and having whatever fun I have at the university.
I’ve always felt like the American education system would rather have me take out a student loan (and buy more college text books than I need) than to explore myself and improve as a person. This 0 cost college plan is my personal screw you in response.
Hope you find this article somewhat interesting or useful. I didn’t mean to sound condescending towards academia, however, the joy of escaping this paradigm might have gotten me just a little bit excited and smug
[email protected] — SEND US A MAIL LET TALK ABOUT HOW TO HACK COLLEGE UNIVERSITY GRADES AND ANY OTHER HACKING RELATED ISSUES YOU HAVE. | https://medium.com/@fzilmozil/how-to-hack-college-university-grades-429b7de014fc | [] | 2020-12-24 07:13:43.639000+00:00 | ['University', 'Hackcollegeuniversity', 'College', 'Howtohackgrades', 'Grades'] |
Surviving the Subsequent Pandemic of Sadness | To say that these are wild and uncertain times we are living in would be a gross understatement. At the time of writing this, there are 145,339 confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) across 137 countries. The confirmed death toll stands at 5,416. Given the huge dearth of testing kits in countries (like here in the U.S.) and the lack of streamlined screening and central reporting mechanisms in other countries, these numbers are almost certainly a vast underestimation. Understandably, the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic earlier this week and the White House just declared a National Emergency.
I truly believe that the overarching goal for everyone at this moment must be containment. Although the vast majority of cases are and will be mild, there is a significant minority of people for whom contracting the virus will be fatal. Additionally, if we don’t “flatten the curve” our health care system will become quickly oversaturated, likely leading to a host of other health problems. The two recommendations are consistent, frequent, and thorough hand-washing and social distancing. The former is no problem for most of us, but the latter is causing major upheaval to the daily lives of people all over the world. Schools are closing. Major industries are closing up shop or mandating employees to work from home for the foreseeable future. A plunging stock market is wreaking havoc on people’s retirement accounts and investment portfolios. Major events that bring immeasurable joy to people and are essential to the economic prosperity of many have been canceled.
Given all of this, it is unsurprising that acute anxiety abounds. Research shows that perceptions of uncertainty and uncontrollability fuel worry and fear. And there are few things more uncertain or uncontrollable than a global pandemic. And the uncertainty is certainly not helped by the fact that we can’t rely on even our own government to give us accurate information about what is going on, let alone a sound plan to contain things.
Although panicking is almost never productive, the anxiety we are experiencing is normal and healthy. It makes sense that we are worried about our own health and the health of our loved ones. It makes sense that people are scared of economic ruin. And it makes sense that not knowing whether schools will be open, grocery stores and drug stores will be stocked, travel will be canceled, or how long this will all go on for provides major daily stress that accumulates quickly.
I believe that the steps we are taking with social distancing are absolutely essential and, in fact, I think that many people are not taking the recommendations seriously enough. But these measures are hardly without cost. Certainly economists, CEOs, and journalists will continue to churn out regular analyses of the financial costs, but I am almost certain that far less attention will be paid to the emotional costs. | https://medium.com/rants-and-raves/surviving-the-subsequent-pandemic-of-sadness-6e890a99fd8a | ['Richard Lebeau'] | 2020-03-19 01:57:01.558000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Health', 'Media', 'Mental Health', 'News'] |
Recap: Meet the New Members of Congress | Hosts: Steve Clemons, Editor-at-Large, The Hill | Bob Cusack, Editor-in-Chief, The Hill
Speakers: Rep.-elect Stephanie Bice (R-OK) | Rep.-elect Cori Bush (D-MO) | Rep.-elect Darrell Issa (R-CA) | Rep.-elect Teresa Leger de Fernandez (D-NM) | Rep.-elect Nikema Williams (D-GA)
_____
Prompt: What are your priorities?
Rep.-elect Nikema Williams (D-GA): My first priority is the national response to this pandemic. Give people what they need, get students back to school safely, get our economy back on track, and address the health inequities associated with COIVD. My second priority is voting. As I think about coming to Congress and succeeding John Lewis, voting rights are at the top of my agenda. Getting the John Lewis Voting Rights Act passed is important.
Prompt: What faction will you join? How will you make peace with others?
Williams: I’m here to serve my district. People ask me if I’ll join one group or another, how I’ll fill John Lewis’ shoes…. I am going to Congress to be me, to serve my people. I’m willing to work with anyone who has great ideas.
Prompt: What committees would you like to serve on?
Williams: One of my top priorities is oversight. I am operating within a system that was not designed by or for people who look like me. Oversight is an opportunity to dig into systems and make sure they work for all Americans. As far as committees, if there are certain ones leadership want to put me on, I am here to serve.
Prompt: What would you like the Biden administration do in terms of police reform?
Rep.-elect Cori Bush (D-MO): I’d like them to put together the task force that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris spoke about. And I’d like them to bring people to the table who are in the communities doing the work. They need the Ferguson activists on these calls and in these meetings… they are the ones who started this movement. The administration needs to cover the basics — end racial profiling, end the militarization of police, and create civilian oversight boards. We have to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and The Breathe Act. We have to do these things now.
Prompt: As a nurse, what’s on your agenda related to COVID-19?
Bush: We need COVID-19 relief in my district. I like the idea of the $2000 universal income stimulus check. That would affect brown and black communities right away. We need to cancel utilities from being shut off for 1 full year. We have to give people what they need — help, relief, and aid.
And I will fight for medicare for all. Other countries figured this out. It should get a vote on the house floor, but we need to do the work to make the case for it. I plan to bring my experience as someone who’s been homeless and uninsured. I’m bringing my lived experience and pain to Congress to inform legislation and my colleagues.
Prompt: How are you thinking about your transition from the state house in Oklahoma to Washington?
Rep.-elect Stephanie Bice (R-OK): You are elected Nov 3 and start Jan 3 — you have 60 days to setup offices, hire staff, and find a place to live in DC. There is a lot happening, but i am really excited for the opportunity.
Prompt: What issues did you run on that really mattered to Americans?
Bice: Oil and gas is 25% of Oklahoma’s revenue. In Oklahoma, we have 90,000 jobs tied to the oil and gas industry. That became a key talking point for me — making sure we have someone looking out for Oklahoma’s oil and gas industry.
Prompt: What does Congress need to do in terms of COVID-19?
Bice: The economy and jobs is first and foremost. We have to keep the economy going and keep people employed. We need to open the remaining dollars not used in the Care Acts. We really have to do what we can in the next few months. People are starting to take the vaccine. By summer, we will hopefully see a real turn in COVID cases.
Prompt: What does the Democratic party need to do to ensure the Latino community is voting democratic?
Rep.-elect Teresa Leger de Fernandez (D-NM): We need to make sure Latinos are represented in Congress and in the administration. Latinos bring life experiences that are important for every administration to understand. We need to be at all the tables and in every room where decisions are being made about our community. The best way to do this is to appoint us and elect us. We aren’t there yet. We are pushing it. There are some good candidates out there. They bring deep knowledge on important subject areas. We need to be seen and listened to. We are waiting patiently, but not in silence.
Prompt: What are the top issues you’d like Biden to address on day one?
Leger de Fernandez: We need to address the economy right away — we have to to bring businesses and jobs back. We need a big stimulus bill. But when we design it, we should be intentional and look at other needs, like economic inequality. There is an unequal burden of suffering by the communities I represent — latinos, black, and indigenous. If we are passing a big recovery bill, let’s be sure to focus on inequality and invest in the infrastructure and foundations for communities to thrive (water, broadband, clean energy, education). We need to get a lot done, quickly.
Prompt: What types of things do we need to fix?
Leger de Fernandez: We need to diversify away from fossil fuels. And I’d love to see us focus on bringing innovation and technology into places that are affordable to live. In New Mexico we have labs (ie: Los Alamos National Laboratory), universities, and really smart people. It’s a beautiful place to live. We need to invest in it.
Things are different now. We have a President who is focused on what we need — infrastructure, businesses, childcare funding, minimum wage, etc…. and I think we have Republican Senators who recognize these things are good for their constituents.
Prompt: What are you going to accomplish now that you didn’t before?
Rep.-elect Darrell Issa (R-CA): I’m returning to provide the perspective that you get when you’ve served for a long time in Congress. Some of it could be mentoring, some of it could be explaining how it goes in the minority or majority … some of that history is what I’m trying to bring back. Along with perspective of being on the outside for the past two years.
Prompt: What did you miss?
Issa: It’s a meaningful job. You measure your accomplishments differently than in a private enterprise. Sometimes it’s not the things most of the public knows, but you make a difference.
Prompt: How do you work with others?
Issa: It’s pretty easy to remind junior members that things which are passed on a straight party line almost never get signed by a President. When they do, they are contentious. Bipartisan laws almost always get signed by the President and go on to get bipartisan support going forward. We need to recognize that things which are sustainable are usually done by a Republican and Democrat in the house, and a Republican and Democrat in the Senate. Divisions will occur, some are partisan, some are not.
Prompt: Do you view Joe Biden as the next President elect?
Issa: Yes. However, there is a need for campaign finance reform and election reform. In my state we need redistricting reform.
Prompt: What’s your advice for new or incoming members?
Issa: Take a member out for coffee who you’d not otherwise spend time with. That goes for your own party and certainly for the other party as well. It makes it a lot easier to identify opportunities to work together. | https://medium.com/@streetbeat/takeaways-from-meet-the-new-members-of-congress-hosted-by-the-hill-343cdc4e2b3e | ['Street Beat'] | 2021-03-10 14:37:59.323000+00:00 | ['Government', 'Congress', 'Urban Planning', 'Politics'] |
Supply Chain Cyber Attacks Don’t Mean Stop Patching Software | A Trojan horse made of electronic hardware components at Tel Aviv University (circa 2016); credit
Unfortunately, whenever there is a discovery of a massive data breach there is an immediate and predictable knee-jerk reaction trend that occurs both in private industry and in the government. It is unfortunate because it is indicative of a scrambling, unprepared reactive response rather than a successful proactive cybersecurity approach. Alert notifications renew focus on whatever particular attack vector was exploited. The most recent cyberattack example was no different. It was a classic supply chain cyberattack involving the SolarWinds security product vendor that just happens to have over 300,000 customers around the world. But then again, one wonders how many organizations were truly taking the threat of supply chain attack seriously? The answer may surprise you.
Say what you will about SolarWinds, but the fact is that any company that supplies software products or services to other companies can become the victim of a supply chain cyberattack and it could still turn out in the case of the SolarWinds compromise investigation that there are other software companies that were compromised by the same or other cyber threat actors. That’s because there is no such as ‘perfect’ security. This is partly due to the complexities of computer system design, aging internet protocols that are still in use today, the desire to connect everything to the internet, and a plethora of undiscovered bugs in software code among others.
Perfect security simply doesn’t exist despite the wishes of governments and corporations around the world who spend billions on cybersecurity products and professionals every year to secure their computer networks and systems. If an adversary wants in bad enough and they have the necessary skill and resources, they will eventually get in. That’s why they’re called Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups. They’re very good at what they do, customized malware for certain types of software vulnerabilities and they don’t stop until they get what they’re after. A lot of this criminal hacking is financially or politically-motivated but they could sometimes also be after certain types of scientific or defense research intellectual property.
Attribution of cyberattacks, of which computer network exploitation (CNE) is a form of a cyber attack (Schneier, 2014), can be a tricky thing. Attackers are able to easily obfuscate their true IP addresses by using proxy servers and plant false flags in their malware code that is designed to throw off their scent during follow-on investigations. Often times, digital forensics investigators have to consider adversarial political goals to help fingerprint attackers. Russia has been known to plant false flags in their malicious code as we saw with Olympic Destroyer in which Russian cyber threat actors tried to make it appear as though North Korean hackers had caused the interruption to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea (Greenberg, 2018). Things are ominously not as they may seem in cyberspace.
Supply Chain Attacks Are Not a New Phenomenon
For those new to cybersecurity, supply chain cyberattacks are not a new phenomenon. In recent years they have been increasing in quantity. If you recollect the 2013 Target point of sale (POS) system hack, it was later determined to have been compromised via an HVAC supplier (i.e., Fazio Mechanical Services) that had shadow IT access to Target’s network to monitor the heating and air condition in Target stores (Secarma, 2018). This wasn’t a sophisticated attack. The attackers simply targeted an alternate route into Target’s network that may have been easier to compromise. Why go in the front door when you can sneak in through the side?
Then there were the 2016 NotPetya and 2017 WannaCry worms that exploited Microsoft Windows SMBv1 vulnerabilities using the leaked NSA EternalBlue exploit. NotPetya targeted Ukraine via a supply chain cyberattack that infected a financial services company called MeDoc which was a kind of software-as-a-service company that the Ukrainian government used to pay pensioners (Secarma, 2018).
TeamViewer event logs showing the remote compromise of a CCleaner developer unattended workstation; (Khandelwal, 2018)
Of course, I would be remiss not mention Avast’s 2017 CCleaner supply chain attack it was discovered that attackers had penetrated Piriform’s network, an Avast’s subsidiary company that it acquired in 2017 which created CCleaner, and was rooting around inside the network for nearly five months during which time the attackers poisoned CCleaner updates with a backdoored version of the software that was downloaded by millions of customers (Khandelwal, 2018). Oh, and remember when Lenovo shipped 16 million Windows laptops pre-loaded with the Superfish malware on 11 different types of Lenovo laptops? Yeah, that happened, too. With the Superfish malware,
“Attackers [were] able to see all the communication that’s supposed to be confidential — banking transactions, passwords, emails, instant messages,” said Timo Hirvonen, a senior researcher at security software maker F-Secure (Rosenblatt, 2015)
Dragonfly, also known as Energetic Bear, was another example in which Russian hackers targeted over one thousand Western energy firms through compromised software by injected a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) into industrial software (Khandelwal, 2014). The interesting aspect of Dragonfly was that it was an early attempt by Russia at creating and deploying their own Stuxnet Industrial Control System (ICS) malware. It proved the boomerang effect that when countries like the U.S. and Israel create malware such as Stuxnet, it will eventually be copied, modified, or mimicked by other adversaries and later used against the U.S. and Israel. It’s important to note that the U.S. has dirt on its hands also, it is not an innocent party in this cyberwarfare stuff. The U.S., along with its allies, has been engaged in cyberwarfare activities for just as long as Russia and other nations.
There’ve been quite a few examples of supply chain cyber attacks but they are still actually pretty rare. We could wag our fingers at SolarWinds and say, “You screwed up, why didn’t you conduct static code analysis on every single line of code before posting an update to your website for the Orion software?” But what good does that do for anyone now? Perhaps that was always an unrealistic expectation when you consider the amount of manual programmer work static code analysis entails. Code analysis tools are great and they’ve come a long way but there still needs to be a knowledgeable set of human eyes pouring over that code to understand what is going on. This is an area where Artificial Intelligence (AI) may prove invaluable in the future, with those sorts of mundane code analysis tasks, if we can ever get AI to that level of proficiency.
I wonder how many software development firms conduct static code analysis on a routine basis, prior to every software update website posting? Is it a risk management framework checklist action item? It sure is but the truth is that profit drives all sectors of business and it’s not profitable to spend exorbitant amounts of time analyzing static code. Get the code to production and we’ll create a software patch later for security if need be.
Good or bad, the world revolves around money. If you can’t understand that and you work in cybersecurity, you’re going to have a tough time understanding how security is supposed to be an enabler in business and not an impediment. Executive management is all about getting that code to production, ship it now, not later. Until such time as that paradigm shifts, if it ever does, we will continue to see nation-state APTs go after third-party suppliers to compromise lucrative targets like FireEye, defense industry firms like Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and government agencies like OPM, NSA, CIA, DHS, or the FBI.
The Basics Still Apply
Cybersecurity isn’t a game of whack-a-mole. Ok, well sometimes it can feel that way. But just because the big news one month is about supply chain attacks doesn’t mean you can afford to let down your guard on other routine components of a solid defense-in-depth cybersecurity program. All the best cybersecurity practices still apply and will help any organization that actually implements them avoid all but the most sophisticated cyber threats.
Anti-Virus Software for Endpoints
Hashing of executables to verify authenticity prior to install
Patching systems in a timely manner after the patches have been tested for system compatibility
Least Privilege / Functionality
Encryption of data-at-rest and in-transit
Segmented Networks
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Separation of Duties / Privileged Account Management (PAM)
Event logging and routine frequent auditing
Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Preparedness
Security Awareness Training
Penetration Testing (Internal/External) — white, gray, black box
Risk Framework Compliance
And so forth, this is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list of best practices but you get the idea.
Disconnecting Everything From the Internet is Not the Answer
When major data breaches occur, it’s tempting to despair. You might even think of implementing an extreme solution like, “We should just disconnect and air-gap everything from the internet!” However, disconnecting isn’t the panacea that you might think it is. Although in some instances it makes perfect sense that some systems should absolutely not be connected to the internet, like sensitive information systems for example. But the vast majority of systems are fine to connect online so long as due diligence is being taken by responsible information system owners and their hired guns (administrators) to continuously update and monitor these systems. That’s not happening though, they’re overwhelmed.
It’s when basic cybersecurity practices (i.e., cyber hygiene) are not followed that trouble eventually ensues. We continue to hear the same old song and dance about how employers can’t find enough qualified cybersecurity job candidates. “There’s a skills gap and we must fill it ASAP!” But did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, there isn’t a skills gap and the saga of data breaches is due to the fact that too many employers don’t staff their companies and organizations with the adequate amount of cybersecurity professionals, or pay them what they are worth, to begin with? Could that perhaps be a possible factor in why there is this perceived “skills gap?”
We could disconnect our computer systems but we would be taking a major step backward in terms of modern technological capability. Rather than go back to the days of analog technology, is it not smarter to try to design computer systems and applications more securely from the outset to prevent entire classes of software vulnerabilities from existing? That seems like a more worthwhile endeavor to me. The problem is getting the entire world on board with such a plan. It is nearly impossible to get the entire U.S. body of government to agree on anything, imagine trying to get every nations’ government to buy-in to a new concept of the internet. So, what to do? Start small and let the ripple effects change the world from the U.S. outward.
How Do We Stop the Bleeding?
If the U.S. can change how the internet operates within its own borders by designing more secure and private internet protocols and more secure software products, the rest of the world will eventually follow suit if it wants to continue doing business with the U.S., the largest economy in the world. The problem is that security solutions are never that simple. If it were that simple, we would’ve already done it by now.
Tolstoy once said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” If we want to end the hemorrhaging from cyber attacks, we first have to be willing as a nation to change how we do business. We have to be willing to sacrifice some measure of convenience for added security and privacy controls on our technology. We are still a long way off from that though and so the hemorrhaging will continue.
Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran have long been U.S. adversaries. These countries, and others, will not stop their cyber warfare activity any time soon, economic sanctions or not. Not so long as there are no consequences to their actions as there hasn’t been during the entire Trump administration. One thing is for certain, the incoming Biden/Harris administration will definitely have its hands full with Russia and other nation-state APT groups that seek to undermine the U.S. in every way possible via cyber warfare.
However, the incoming Biden administration has already stated that cybersecurity will be a top priority after the recent SolarWinds supply chain cyberattack (Kinery, 2020). Let’s hope it’s not more of the same old unsealed Department of Justice indictments of foreign criminal hackers which has little effect on deterrence.
References:
Greenberg, A. (2018, February 12). ‘Olympic Destroyer’ Malware Hit Pyeongchang Ahead of Opening Ceremony. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/story/olympic-destroyer-malware-pyeongchang-opening-ceremony/
Khandelwal, S. (2014, July 2). Dragonfly Russian Hackers Target 1000 Western Energy Firms. Retrieved from https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/dragonfly-russian-hackers-scada-havex.html
Khandelwal, S. (2018, April 18). CCleaner attack timeline — here’s how hackers infected 2.3 million PCs. Retrieved from https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/ccleaner-malware-attack.html
Kinery, E. (2020, December 17). Biden Calls Cybersecurity a ‘Top Priority’ After Russian Hack. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-17/biden-calls-cybersecurity-a-top-priority-after-russian-hack
Rosenblatt, S. (2015, February 20). Lenovo’s Superfish security snafu blows up in its face. Retrieved from https://www.cnet.com/news/superfish-torments-lenovo-owners-with-more-than-adware/
Schneier, B. (2014, March 10). Computer network exploitation vs. computer network attack. Retrieved from https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/computer_networ.html
Secarma. (2018, September 1). A brief history of supply chain attacks. Retrieved from https://blog.secarma.com/a-brief-history-of-supply-chain-attacks/ | https://medium.com/swlh/patch-that-software-but-mind-your-supply-chain-security-also-ab807b82fc0b | [] | 2020-12-21 17:51:29.008000+00:00 | ['Cyber Warfare', 'Supply Chain', 'Information Security', 'National Security', 'Cybersecurity'] |
How Does Becoming a Parent Change Your Life? | Let us take you to the journey where this life-changing stuff happened. And, we totally believe that by end of the read; parenthood is going to inspire life within you! So here goes a list of the top seven reasons (out of the endless list), how your life can also transform:
1. You’re going to find your best friend after a long time.
While growing as adults all of us have missed many get-togethers and parties with old friends in time. We’ve lost touch with many folks – sometimes due to work, sometimes due to the distance and time zones. And, there are some like us, who keep themselves burdened with an emotional backlog because we do not open up much with everyone around!
Your child will free you from emotional load. Your son or daughter will be the go to person, with whom you could be yourself. Without caring, without pretending, without thinking. You’ll care and love for each other, without expecting. And, that’s where you’ll find true friendship.
2. You’re going to live and laugh at the moment for no reason.
When was the last time, we laughed our hearts out? Was it that great stand-up? Was it that hilarious comedy show? But, how long did that fun last? Pfff… Do we remain upset even at that time when one must be elated? Well, that’s where our kid made the difference. We realized that babies have this power of captivation. Why? Because, their soul is so pure, and without any bias.
With your baby around, you’ll feel the bliss that you’ve never experienced before. Just being able to spend quality time with your son and daughter, is the ultimate happiness. It’s an unforgettable pleasure — to look into those naughty eyes, seeing the smile when you let them win, the first time they call you Mom and Dad – it’s music to the ears. You’ll just come alive.
3. Your mornings are never going to be dull again.
We know how beautiful the day goes if you get up early and get things sorted. As a couple, we’ve generally struggled to be the morning folks. But we’ve always found this part very difficult because our mornings were really stressful – the pressure of household chores along with managing the office has been the reason why we used to hate getting up into reality. But believe me, for the last year there has been no day when we haven’t laughed out loud remembering the night and the early morning playful time with our boy.
The child takes away the heavy work pressure and converts it into his daily activity. He just jumps from his crib and gives you the best hug possible. The presence, the beauty, the calm, the energy — all of it is so positive. It has brought us joy and has attracted so much more positivity in our lives.
4. You’re going to find new interests, sports, and hobbies.
A daily routine for an urban couple mostly revolves around work and home. We start acting like machines, which just exist to work. At times you feel that your life has no purpose, other than to earn bread and butter. Leisure means spending time passively on your couch. The only goal remains a future where you could find time for yourself. Develop new interests, follow your passion, pursue your hobbies – we keep reading this but how many of us can follow it wholeheartedly. In the end, we keep postponing the precious moments in life for tomorrow.
Your child is your teacher. Your baby will help you learn how to find new interests — knowingly or unknowingly. Your son and daughter will bring you back to live in the moment lifestyle. Keep your fingers crossed. The child will engage you and motivate you in ways you’ve not seen yourself before.
5. You’re going to dance and sing like never before.
Well, some of us may still be singing and dancing right now, but many don’t especially if you are a workaholic couple as we were. We used to hesitate in a lot of stuff because for us the opinion of others made us shy. When we cared too much about the opinion of others that’s when we realized that we had started ignoring our own opinions as a couple.
T he child is going to break that vicious cycle. You’ll see the example in front of you. How to care less and live more? That’s when, the inner joy will start flowing out. And, see I told you — now, you’re going to dance and sing like never before.
6. You’re going to be more loving and grateful.
Striving for success is a toxic dream. Not because such striving is bad, but because it takes away our focus from the present. And, when we are absent from the present, we tend to miss out on life. We stop being grateful. We lose that feeling of loving someone and being loved.
The child brings that back. You’ll be the whole world for someone and someone is going to be your whole world. You’ll be loved unconditionally. You’ll feel blessed. You’ll be thankful. And, that’s when you don’t want to ask for anything more in life.
7. You’re going to be more caring and giving.
Our societal relationship has always been conditional. It’s not about Not guilty about it, but we were always into a barter mode – give this and take that. We never realized that we even started trading our emotions as well. At times the practical behavior of work took away our compassion – There was a time when there was no empathy, no truthfulness. But we found what we lost. | https://medium.com/home-sweet-home/how-does-becoming-a-parent-change-your-life-6338312694e | ['Aditi K'] | 2020-10-10 06:31:15.411000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Workaholic', 'Confessions', 'Work Life Balance', 'Parenting'] |
Why It’s Okay I’m Not Always Present With My Baby | Why It’s Okay I’m Not Always Present With My Baby
Photo by Luma Pimentel on Unsplash
The sage advice seasoned parents give
“Cherish these moments while your children are still young because, in a blink of an eye, they’ll be all grown up”
I’ll admit I’ve said something like this to other parents a bunch of times without even thinking about it.
I’ve heard it from other parents (most often those with older children) so many times that it’s ingrained in my list of phrases to say during those dreaded small talk sessions.
Then I get the usual:
“Oh time will fly by and before you know it, she’s talking back to you and asking for more data on her phone.” “It feels like yesterday they were in diapers and a hug would solve all their problems. It’s like in a blink of an eye, they’re teenagers with so many bigger issues.”
Well, screw that because, in the last 18 months or so, the time has been moving the speed that it is at. It feels like it’s been 18 months, not longer, not shorter, but precisely 18 months.
It’s not flying by, but it’s not crawling either.
Why? I’m busy living in the moment with my daughter.
When she’s awake, and I’m with her, I’m really with her. My attention is on her, and I’m putting myself in her position, her perspective of the world, and really trying to understand how it is like to be a toddler.
I’m empathizing with her through every thought, feeling, every new experience, discovery, and sensation.
I’m not thinking about the dishes or what to make for dinner, or what show to watch on Netflix. I’m single-minded, at the moment, enjoying the simplicity and beauty she sees in the world.
A minute in my daughter’s life relative to the number of minutes she’s been on earth is a huge percentage of the time.
A minute in my life relative to the number of minutes I’ve been on earth is a small percentage of the time.
So when I’m with her, side by side, analyzing the edges of a plastic toy, those minutes feel like hours just like it does for her.
20 minutes of toddler life immersion, my mind is Playdough, and I need a break for some me-time.
I need to return to my fast-paced adult life where there are sharp corners to turn, enticing social media stories to indulge in, and real-life conversations with friends to catch up on.
So when she’s safe, playing by herself, I take that moment to check my phone, get a few sips of coffee in, read a paragraph in my book, write a few sentences in my blog, or whatever I feel like I can do in a few minutes.
She knows I’m not giving her attention.
She knows I’m not focusing on her. She whines and makes a fuss.
So what?
I’ve just spent what seems like 20 hours of living life as a toddler. I need and deserve that small moment for myself where time actually flies.
I will quickly check to see she’s not grabbing a knife or something, and I finish that text message.
I finish reading that paragraph.
I put a period in that sentence, and I swallow that sip of coffee.
She’s fine and dandy. Once I’m up for the slow-motion toddler world, I put everything aside (physically and mentally), and I’m in her world all over again.
The cycle of entering and returning to those fast and slow-paced worlds have balanced out the speed at which my life is moving.
That is why 18 months feels like 18 months.
Becoming a parent has muted the effect of aging on my perception of time. It’s like how the older I get, the faster time seems to move since time is perceived as a fraction of how long someone has lived.
So as a parent, I get this opportunity to slow time down so that my life doesn’t just happen in the blink of an eye. It’s about balancing how much time I spend in each world so that time neither flies nor crawls.
However, if I put 100% of my attention and focus on my daughter every minute of every day, time will swell up like a pregnant woman’s cankles, and the days will seem like weeks. I’ll want to shoot myself.
I’m not old enough to want time to feel that slow. For the sake of my sanity, I give myself moments to live in real-time. It’s about balancing how much time I spend in each world so that time neither flies nor crawls.
So to those who tell me to savour these moments, rest assured, I already do. I’m hoping to break the generational cycle so that when my kids are grown, I will be telling young parents,
“Children are a gift of time travel. I finally learned to slow down and you will too.”
So Readers, how often do you take the time to be present with your kids? | https://medium.com/modern-parent/why-its-okay-i-m-not-always-present-with-my-baby-46cebe66021d | ['Katharine Chan', 'Msc', 'Bsc'] | 2020-12-06 22:55:49.927000+00:00 | ['Parents', 'Parenting', 'Baby', 'Motherhood', 'Parenting Advice'] |
JavaScript Modules: A Beginner’s Guide | If you’re a newcomer to JavaScript, jargon like “module bundlers vs. module loaders,” “Webpack vs. Browserify” and “AMD vs. CommonJS” can quickly become overwhelming.
The JavaScript module system may be intimidating, but understanding it is vital for web developers.
In this post, I’ll unpack these buzzwords for you in plain English (and a few code samples). I hope you find it helpful!
Note: for simplicity’s sake, this will be divided into two sections: Part 1 will dive into explaining what modules are and why we use them. Part 2 (posted next week) will walk through what it means to bundle modules and the different ways to do so.
Part 1: Can someone please explain what modules are again?
Good authors divide their books into chapters and sections; good programmers divide their programs into modules.
Like a book chapter, modules are just clusters of words (or code, as the case may be).
Good modules, however, are highly self-contained with distinct functionality, allowing them to be shuffled, removed, or added as necessary, without disrupting the system as a whole.
Why use modules?
There are a lot of benefits to using modules in favor of a sprawling, interdependent codebase. The most important ones, in my opinion, are:
1) Maintainability: By definition, a module is self-contained. A well-designed module aims to lessen the dependencies on parts of the codebase as much as possible, so that it can grow and improve independently. Updating a single module is much easier when the module is decoupled from other pieces of code.
Going back to our book example, if you wanted to update a chapter in your book, it would be a nightmare if a small change to one chapter required you to tweak every other chapter as well. Instead, you’d want to write each chapter in such a way that improvements could be made without affecting other chapters.
2) Namespacing: In JavaScript, variables outside the scope of a top-level function are global (meaning, everyone can access them). Because of this, it’s common to have “namespace pollution”, where completely unrelated code shares global variables.
Sharing global variables between unrelated code is a big no-no in development.
As we’ll see later in this post, modules allow us to avoid namespace pollution by creating a private space for our variables.
3) Reusability: Let’s be honest here: we’ve all copied code we previously wrote into new projects at one point or another. For example, let’s imagine you copied some utility methods you wrote from a previous project to your current project.
That’s all well and good, but if you find a better way to write some part of that code you’d have to go back and remember to update it everywhere else you wrote it.
This is obviously a huge waste of time. Wouldn’t it be much easier if there was — wait for it — a module that we can reuse over and over again?
How can you incorporate modules?
There are many ways to incorporate modules into your programs. Let’s walk through a few of them:
Module pattern
The Module pattern is used to mimic the concept of classes (since JavaScript doesn’t natively support classes) so that we can store both public and private methods and variables inside a single object — similar to how classes are used in other programming languages like Java or Python. That allows us to create a public facing API for the methods that we want to expose to the world, while still encapsulating private variables and methods in a closure scope.
There are several ways to accomplish the module pattern. In this first example, I’ll use an anonymous closure. That’ll help us accomplish our goal by putting all our code in an anonymous function. (Remember: in JavaScript, functions are the only way to create new scope.)
Example 1: Anonymous closure
With this construct, our anonymous function has its own evaluation environment or “closure”, and then we immediately evaluate it. This lets us hide variables from the parent (global) namespace.
What’s nice about this approach is that is that you can use local variables inside this function without accidentally overwriting existing global variables, yet still access the global variables, like so:
Note that the parenthesis around the anonymous function are required, because statements that begin with the keyword function are always considered to be function declarations (remember, you can’t have unnamed function declarations in JavaScript.) Consequently, the surrounding parentheses create a function expression instead. If you’re curious, you can read more here.
Example 2: Global import
Another popular approach used by libraries like jQuery is global import. It’s similar to the anonymous closure we just saw, except now we pass in globals as parameters:
In this example, globalVariable is the only variable that’s global. The benefit of this approach over anonymous closures is that you declare the global variables upfront, making it crystal clear to people reading your code.
Example 3: Object interface
Yet another approach is to create modules using a self-contained object interface, like so:
As you can see, this approach lets us decide what variables/methods we want to keep private (e.g. myGrades) and what variables/methods we want to expose by putting them in the return statement (e.g. average & failing).
Example 4: Revealing module pattern
This is very similar to the above approach, except that it ensures all methods and variables are kept private until explicitly exposed:
That may seem like a lot to take in, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to module patterns. Here are a few of the resources I found useful in my own explorations:
Learning JavaScript Design Patterns by Addy Osmani: a treasure trove of details in an impressively succinct read
Adequately Good by Ben Cherry: a useful overview with examples of advanced usage of the module pattern
Blog of Carl Danley: module pattern overview and resources for other JavaScript patterns.
CommonJS and AMD
The approaches above all have one thing in common: the use of a single global variable to wrap its code in a function, thereby creating a private namespace for itself using a closure scope.
While each approach is effective in its own way, they have their downsides.
For one, as a developer, you need to know the right dependency order to load your files in. For instance, let’s say you’re using Backbone in your project, so you include the script tag for Backbone’s source code in your file.
However, since Backbone has a hard dependency on Underscore.js, the script tag for the Backbone file can’t be placed before the Underscore.js file.
As a developer, managing dependencies and getting these things right can sometimes be a headache.
Another downside is that they can still lead to namespace collisions. For example, what if two of your modules have the same name? Or what if you have two versions of a module, and you need both?
So you’re probably wondering: can we design a way to ask for a module’s interface without going through the global scope?
Fortunately, the answer is yes.
There are two popular and well-implemented approaches: CommonJS and AMD.
CommonJS
CommonJS is a volunteer working group that designs and implements JavaScript APIs for declaring modules.
A CommonJS module is essentially a reusable piece of JavaScript which exports specific objects, making them available for other modules to require in their programs. If you’ve programmed in Node.js, you’ll be very familiar with this format.
With CommonJS, each JavaScript file stores modules in its own unique module context (just like wrapping it in a closure). In this scope, we use the module.exports object to expose modules, and require to import them.
When you’re defining a CommonJS module, it might look something like this:
We use the special object module and place a reference of our function into module.exports. This lets the CommonJS module system know what we want to expose so that other files can consume it.
Then when someone wants to use myModule, they can require it in their file, like so:
There are two obvious benefits to this approach over the module patterns we discussed before:
1. Avoiding global namespace pollution
2. Making our dependencies explicit
Moreover, the syntax is very compact, which I personally love.
Another thing to note is that CommonJS takes a server-first approach and synchronously loads modules. This matters because if we have three other modules we need to require, it’ll load them one by one.
Now, that works great on the server but, unfortunately, makes it harder to use when writing JavaScript for the browser. Suffice it to say that reading a module from the web takes a lot longer than reading from disk. For as long as the script to load a module is running, it blocks the browser from running anything else until it finishes loading. It behaves this way because the JavaScript thread stops until the code has been loaded. (I’ll cover how we can work around this issue in Part 2 when we discuss module bundling. For now, that’s all we need to know).
AMD
CommonJS is all well and good, but what if we want to load modules asynchronously? The answer is called Asynchronous Module Definition, or AMD for short.
Loading modules using AMD looks something like this:
What’s happening here is that the define function takes as its first argument an array of each of the module’s dependencies. These dependencies are loaded in the background (in a non-blocking manner), and once loaded define calls the callback function it was given.
Next, the callback function takes, as arguments, the dependencies that were loaded — in our case, myModule and myOtherModule — allowing the function to use these dependencies. Finally, the dependencies themselves must also be defined using the define keyword.
For example, myModule might look like this:
So again, unlike CommonJS, AMD takes a browser-first approach alongside asynchronous behavior to get the job done. (Note, there are a lot of people who strongly believe that dynamically loading files piecemeal as you start to run code isn’t favorable, which we’ll explore more when in the next section on module-building).
Aside from asynchronicity, another benefit of AMD is that your modules can be objects, functions, constructors, strings, JSON and many other types, while CommonJS only supports objects as modules.
That being said, AMD isn’t compatible with io, filesystem, and other server-oriented features available via CommonJS, and the function wrapping syntax is a bit more verbose compared to a simple require statement.
UMD
For projects that require you to support both AMD and CommonJS features, there’s yet another format: Universal Module Definition (UMD).
UMD essentially creates a way to use either of the two, while also supporting the global variable definition. As a result, UMD modules are capable of working on both client and server.
Here’s a quick taste of how UMD goes about its business:
For more examples of UMD formats, check out this enlightening repo on GitHub.
Native JS
Phew! Are you still around? I haven’t lost you in the woods here? Good! Because we have *one more* type of module to define before we’re done.
As you probably noticed, none of the modules above were native to JavaScript. Instead, we’ve created ways to emulate a modules system by using either the module pattern, CommonJS or AMD.
Fortunately, the smart folks at TC39 (the standards body that defines the syntax and semantics of ECMAScript) have introduced built-in modules with ECMAScript 6 (ES6).
ES6 offers up a variety of possibilities for importing and exporting modules which others have done a great job explaining — here are a few of those resources:
What’s great about ES6 modules relative to CommonJS or AMD is how it manages to offer the best of both worlds: compact and declarative syntax and asynchronous loading, plus added benefits like better support for cyclic dependencies.
Probably my favorite feature of ES6 modules is that imports are live read-only views of the exports. (Compare this to CommonJS, where imports are copies of exports and consequently not alive).
Here’s an example of how that works:
In this example, we basically make two copies of the module: one when we export it, and one when we require it.
Moreover, the copy in main.js is now disconnected from the original module. That’s why even when we increment our counter it still returns 1 — because the counter variable that we imported is a disconnected copy of the counter variable from the module.
So, incrementing the counter will increment it in the module, but won’t increment your copied version. The only way to modify the copied version of the counter variable is to do so manually:
On the other hand, ES6 creates a live read-only view of the modules we import:
Cool stuff, huh? What I find really compelling about live read-only views is how they allow you to split your modules into smaller pieces without losing functionality.
Then you can turn around and merge them again, no problem. It just “works.”
Looking forward: bundling modules
Wow! Where does the time go? That was a wild ride, but I sincerely hope it gave you a better understanding of modules in JavaScript.
In the next section I’ll walk through module bundling, covering core topics including:
Why we bundle modules
Different approaches to bundling
ECMAScript’s module loader API
…and more. :)
NOTE: To keep things simple, I skipped over some of the nitty-gritty details (think: cyclic dependencies) in this post. If I left out anything important and/or fascinating, please let me know in the comments! | https://medium.com/free-code-camp/javascript-modules-a-beginner-s-guide-783f7d7a5fcc | ['Preethi Kasireddy'] | 2019-10-29 22:54:08.754000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Education', 'Programming', 'Web Development', 'ES6'] |
How I was born 8 times | A True Story
“You that in far-off countries of the sky can dwell secure, look back upon me here; for I am weary of this frail world’s decay.”
― Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji
I gave birth to my death. 8 times. I wait for the day when I am not here to count anymore.
Age 1- A cord wrapped around my throat but the Doctor had proclaimed that the chord would have not killed me. I was born with the fists out. Against. I had announced my birth through a dramatic drop in the stillness of birth of a rustic hospital which had Buffalos swanking its entrances. I do not remember. Mother says- I was playing with my aunt who dropped me from the 3rd floor of a 4 storey house in the evening heat of Gaya’s tranquil days after my birth, exactly a year after, on my birthday.
I hung from a tree branch, I did not smash onto the ground, no bleeding. The branch would have broken if I was 2 or if I was 3. My little body hanging on to dear life was the first time when I knew I was born. My mother’s womb must have felt unadventurous. No scratch. No memory carved on the skin but I think I met death, briefly, for-
Age 2- I have no anamnesis of my friendship with death which met me again, this time I was kicked by a cow, high up in the air. I broke my jaw. I broke my confidence as a child when I was found, 3 hours later, lying in a ditch, strange.
Death must have known me a bit by then.
Age 3- It is hard to fathom how a boiler with boiling oil can almost fall on you but when you are 3- that is not what you had thought if it almost did. I thought of death the very first time then-
Age 4- Father was walking me home, the last of the sun lingered in the sky. An electric pole fell. 2 cms in and we were dead. Were. I was born again, on the road of a village skyline where bodies melt away in ditches if not found.
Age 5- There is a place called Chora Bihar where only dacoits lived. Death must have missed me again on that fateful day when we encountered some Dacoits who let us go without hurting. I persisted in death. An end occurs when those who are meant to peter out have petered out like the scores of vehicles that went ahead of us but were nowhere to be seen now. Their occupants sometimes laid slain on the roads. I saw death closely. Death could not capture me more than the life in me, so I hold this experience closely. I only remember my mother removing her gold jewelry and hiding it in crevices where even we could not see. Where death could not be.
Age 6- I was revisited by death. In its old avatar. Like a task not completed, I was again down 2 storeys, into a ditch, my hand broken. Thrown off by a girl whom I called friend, up till then. Must have been Yama. Fractured hand trying to protect this brain, which had just comprehended the aftermath of not getting killed
Age 7- Dhatura intake can lead to death. I am a Shiv bhakt now because Shiv pardoned me that day when I accidentally ate Dhatura seed and pods. Thinking that I was invincible in my adventure and ignorance. This is how children under 7 die.
Age 8- Imagine getting crushed between two vehicles, none of which were meant to kill me. But they almost did. I saw my father weeping in the middle of the street. The only time he did weep. Giving up was death. Death was giving up. But I was pulled from above, by a man unknown. Must be god, I thought. I don't drive now. I call myself vehicularly handicapped but maybe it is just deja vu of a different kind of death. I don't want to die in a vehicle I had promised myself.
These days I feel like running really fast, leaving behind a cloud of dust and formations as they show in cartoons. Perishable but memorable. I have memorized a lot of references on death as if it is motivational. Sorin Cerin said that to search for the stranger inside you, forgotten even by your death would be it. I have yet to meet this stranger.
They have cut down the tree where I was born the very first time. On every birth day, I sow a tree. I call it Death. Death 1…. Death 2… Death 3…. I could move in with death, this stranger whom I have known all my life. After 8, I was never as close to death as I was when I was 1 maybe. Fear is brave for me. I tried to kill myself but I survived. Being born is not the opposite of death. It is an extension. The charm of death now seems exuberant enough to be appreciated like birth is the manifestation of death.
death is a branch breaking for me. death is a fact for me. death is my story. death is vehicles on the road. death is boiling water. death is dhatura.
I cheated death 8 times I think or did I miss death now because of —
how I know it feels to be born, again and again.
Belladonnaoflavender | https://medium.com/@belladonnaoflavender/how-i-was-born-8-times-7988319633cf | [] | 2021-08-23 08:05:37.350000+00:00 | ['Birth', 'Medium', 'Mwc Death', 'Death And Dying', 'MWC'] |
Interpretability and Random Forests | Interpretability and Random Forests
How and why might we derive feature importance from random forest classifiers?
Machine learning came about because humans can’t always explain ourselves very well, especially to machines. For a long time, machines were only capable of performing precise step-by-step instructions, and often simple human tasks come all too naturally for us to be able to explicitly write them down as an algorithm. Take the example of recognising that something is a cat — I can’t explain to you or a computer how exactly I know something is a cat. In fact, nobody ever really explained it to me: I just met a bunch of cats and eventually, being the good little neural network that I am, I got the gist.
You’ve got a lot to learn, kid.
I know a cat usually has two ears, four legs, a roundish face shape, and those distinctively feline eyes, but this is just unravelling the first layer of explanation. To build on this, I’d have to algorithmically explain what every adjective and noun in that previous sentence means: two, ear, round, etc., as well as expanding on details such as exactly what a cat’s eye looks like. In theory, I might actually be able to continue to unravel this term by term — it’s just it would probably take me a ridiculous amount of time.
We humans rather intelligently decided that it was probably easier to model the learning process mathematically than it was to algorithmically decompose every decision-making process ever, and that’s how we got started with machine learning. However, the learning models that we use don’t always correspond to any sort of ‘natural’ approach to learning, and modelling learning doesn’t solve our fundamental communication problem with computers. Machine learning does not get rid of the difficulty of explaining relationships in data, and this results in a conflict between interpretability and accuracy when building and analysing learned models.
The Conflict Between Interpretability and Accuracy
There are pretty much only two objectives in data science when it comes to the use of machine learning models:
Application, whereby we use the trained model to perform a task, ideally as accurately and effectively as possible. Interpretation, whereby we use the trained model to gain insight on our data via the learned relationship between feature and response variables.
As we just discussed, we humans have little to no idea how we actually go about recognising stuff, but we are really good at it. In other words, the internal logic of our brains is accurate and great for application, but it isn’t very interpretable. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then, that generally the most accurate machine learning methods are the least interpretable.
RoboCat: First Contact
So-called blackbox models, such as neural networks, give us little information regarding their decision-making processes; the algebraic complexity of the functions they learn tend to loose any meaning with respect to the original set of feature variables. On the other hand, models that lend themselves to interpretability such as linear regression and decision trees tend to fall short in the accuracy department, as they often fail to capture any nuanced or complicated relationships within a dataset. We could broadly summarise this relationship as follows:
With data of sufficient complexity, there is a natural tradeoff between the interpretability of a decision algorithm and its accuracy in application.
In the same way that computers don’t have a natural affinity for understanding cats in terms of legs and eyes and ears, humans don’t possess an intrinsic understanding of higher order numerical relationships. Our inability to meaningfully interpret the complex decision boundary of a neural network, and our inability to explain to a computer what a cat is, are two sides of the same coin. Things simply get lost in translation in either direction.
Finding a Balance
Our prehistoric caveman brains seem to be quite fond of interpreting linear relationships/decision boundaries. Linear regression is a highly interpretable algorithm, there’s no doubt about that: if x increases by 1, y increases by m, and we can all go home. However, lines are simple and highly biased, and thus they don’t usually make for great learning algorithms. Sure, we can tweak our definition of linear and expand our bases to include polynomial, exponential, and whatever-else terms, but at some point the debt must be paid, and we lose that sense of natural meaning in our parameters.
Barney and Fred, excited about Linear Regression.
Another simple to understand but fundamentally weak classifier is the decision tree: by greedily splitting feature space into rectangles, we end up with a pretty diagram describing the logic behind the decision-making process — and a fairly useless model for all but the most basic of relationships. However, recall that tree models lend themselves nicely to ensemble methods, and that Random Forest is a particularly powerful approach for aggregating a large number of individually weak trees into a strong predictive model.
Random Forest and Feature Importance
It might seem surprising to learn that Random Forests are able to defy this interpretability-accuracy tradeoff, or at least push it to its limit. After all, there is an inherently random element to a Random Forest’s decision-making process, and with so many trees, any inherent meaning may get lost in the woods. However, in precisely the same way that the trees work together to reduce predictive error, they work together to accurately represent feature importance. To understand how they do so, it is first necessary to look at a natural method for interpreting feature importance within a single tree.
Feature Importance in a Single Tree
Recall that a single tree aims to reduce error in a locally optimal way as it splits feature space. A classification tree uses a measure of impurity to score the current separation of classes, while a regression tree uses the residual squared error. We’ll work with the idea of a classification tree to make our visualisations nice, but the regression case is the same after swapping out error functions…
Reducing impurity (or entropy) is the fastest and most stable way to iteratively split regions in order to reduce the classification error of a decision tree. A natural way to measure the impact a feature has within this decision making process is to look at the amount of entropy removed from the system by that feature— that is, the amount of information or accuracy that was gained by decisions made on the value of that feature alone. The visualisation below demonstrates this process as we split feature space and build a decision tree. We begin with an initial entropy value (D), and we calculate the reduction in each sub-region, and then sum up the attributed change in entropy for each feature variable across the tree.
We start with D=1.31 and split feature space until we reach zero entropy. 1.011 of the reduction is due to decisions made on y, while x is only responsible for 0.299 of the reduction.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: decision trees are weak classifiers. A slight change in the training data could mean we end up with a wildly different tree, and thus different estimations for our feature importances. Consider this slight alteration of the original data in our visualisation:
Now the reduction in entropy due to x is 1.011 while the reduction due to y is 0.299. The variable importances have switched!
Reducing Variance with Many Trees
If this method for calculating feature importance is so volatile, it is not much use to us. The problem is that the variance of the measure is too high, and this is where Random Forest comes in: recall that Random Forest ultimately works by first reducing bias towards the locally optimal strategy that individual trees have by essentially doing away with it and splitting over features randomly, and then by aggregating trees to reduce the overall variance of the model.
This reduction in variance stabilises the model, reduces its bias towards choices of training data, and leads to less variable and more accurate predictions. If, as we do with our predictions, we aggregate our measures of feature importance over the trees in a Random Forest by taking the mean value for the change in entropy or accuracy attributed to each feature variable, we achieve exactly the same effect.
Intuitively, splitting on random features gives every feature in the model a chance to show its decision making power at all possible points throughout the levels of the tree, and aggregation reduces the variability of the final outcome. Essentially, in the same way that Random Forest increases the accuracy of out final predictions, it increases the accuracy of this measure of feature importance. If you don’t believe me, here’s a tiny glimpse of evidence:
A, B, C are all i.i.d
There are some definite issues with this approach when pitting continuous variables against categorical variables; continuous variables have way more ‘room’ to split and so can get a one up over categorical variables without necessarily being more important. This method also doesn’t really violate the idea of an interpretability-accuracy tradeoff because it only really tells us how variables stack up against each other, i.e. it doesn’t tell us what will happen to our decision if we increase or decrease our feature values (like good old linear regression). But hey, it’s useful and I never said Random Forests were perfect.
Regardless, now you know the power of the feature_importances_ attribute on your scikit-learn RandomForestClassifier … but you still can’t explain what a cat is to a computer. Oh well.
Later!
P.S. This blog is messy and unpolished but I wanted to put something out. I’ll spend the next day or so tidying it up. Please email me for any desired points of clarification or feedback at [email protected]
Blog posts in the works: Kernel Trick — — — Bias-Variance Tradeoff — — — Deep Diving into why Random Forests work, (which I touched on a little here). | https://towardsdatascience.com/interpretability-and-random-forests-4fe13a79ae34 | ['Tom Grigg'] | 2019-04-09 13:32:29.131000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Science', 'Towards Data Science'] |
データ・サイエンス始めました | Keita just started learning data science with little knowledge about programing in June 2019. You will see how it goes.
Follow | https://medium.com/keita-starts-data-science/%E3%83%87%E3%83%BC%E3%82%BF-%E3%82%B5%E3%82%A4%E3%82%A8%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B9%E5%A7%8B%E3%82%81%E3%81%BE%E3%81%97%E3%81%9F-b5e0542cc4d9 | ['Keita Miyaki'] | 2019-06-07 23:24:15.253000+00:00 | ['Flatiron School', 'Data Science', 'Python'] |
The scientist reducing the rise of superbugs by talking to farmers | The scientist reducing the rise of superbugs by talking to farmers
Chioma Achi is worried about the global misuse of antibiotics in agricultural practices. Her work helping farmers in Nigeria to reduce infection in livestock and use fewer antibiotics in animal feed was highlighted in the recent Vice-Chancellor’s Research Impact and Engagement Awards.
We are living with a ticking time-bomb as bacteria like Salmonella become increasingly resistant to antibiotics. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) results from the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials in agricultural practices, livestock production and human medicine. Of all the cases resulting from foodborne infections around the world, Salmonella accounts for up to 93.8 million cases annually, with a resultant 155,000 deaths. In fact, this is a low estimate as many cases often go unreported in Sub-Saharan Africa.
AMR is not just an issue with developing countries or a problem for low resource environments. This affects the entire world as it means we are rapidly running out of effective antibiotics. The World Health Organisation estimates that 10 million deaths will result from AMR by the year 2050 .
I’m investigating antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella in Nigeria. To do this, I collect samples from people, animals and the environment, and analyse them in the lab to gain a greater understanding of transmission. In the course of my fieldwork, I also talk to farmers about antimicrobials as these are often used in animal feed. I found that there was very little awareness of AMR and its impact on animal and human health, and many farmers felt it was impossible to farm without antimicrobials.
It was disturbing to discover that a good number of the Salmonella samples I collected showed resistance to up to five antimicrobials. These multi-drug-resistant bacteria are sometimes called ‘superbugs’. When I began to consider the data alongside the lack of awareness I’d experienced on the ground, I realised that we had a huge problem that required urgent attention.
It felt like a tsunami was coming. What do you do about it? Do you just publish the data in a journal for the science community to read about it, or do you go back to the field and try to do something about it?
I believe that the real essence of research is to solve real-world problems, as does my supervisor, Professor Mark Holmes, in the Department of Veterinary Medicine. With his support, I organised a state-wide engagement programme in Nigeria to raise awareness of AMR, at all levels from government officials to farmers. I was determined that nobody should be left behind in the fight against AMR. I knew that change could be possible but only if we had buy-in from those involved in agricultural practices on the ground.
From there things snowballed. With financial and practical support from the University’s public engagement fund and Cambridge-Africa, we brought together stakeholders from all over Nigeria to talk about AMR and strategies for reducing transmission: politicians, academics, pharmaceutical companies, medics and organic farmers. It was covered by Nigerian national TV and shared on the internet. We didn’t expect the support we got, the number of people who attended or the interactions and conversations that took pace. It was mind-blowing.
For me, the most rewarding thing was that the perceptions of farmers who had originally been sceptical about AMR had been utterly transformed. A follow-up questionnaire showed they would try to change some of their farming practices, including putting into place preventative measures. We are continuing to support farmers with these changes.
When talking about Cambridge University to others I say: Cambridge is a great place to dream big and see those dreams become reality. Cambridge provides that platform and springboard not just to do research but to be part of a big community of highly motivated people that want to create solutions and be part of change.
Many scientific problems are global issues and it’s vital that we come together to solve them. Research is richer when it’s inclusive and diverse. Ultimately, it leads to stronger scientific results and more effective solutions.
So many people have the potential but not the opportunity. I hope to see more people from diverse backgrounds given the opportunity to learn from the expertise and world-class environment that Cambridge offers. Together we can make the world a better place.
Chioma won the Early Career Researcher Award as part of the 2020 Vice-Chancellor’s Awards for Research Impact and Engagement.
This profile is part of This Cambridge Life — stories from the people that make Cambridge University unique.
Words: Charis Goodyear
Photography at the Department of Veterinary Medicine: Lloyd Mann
Photography at the conference: courtesy of Chioma | https://medium.com/this-cambridge-life/the-scientist-reducing-the-rise-of-superbugs-by-talking-to-farmers-9658492920df | ['University Of Cambridge'] | 2020-11-10 17:45:28.927000+00:00 | ['Agriculture', 'Antibiotics', 'Cambridge University', 'Nigeria', 'Amr'] |
Regression Fantasies | Regression Fantasies
11 reasons for doubting a regression model and how to diagnose the problems.
by randomix, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Finding a model that fits a set of data is a common goal in data analysis. Even if there is no intention to mislead anyone, it does happen. Here are common reasons to doubt a regression model and how to diagnose the problems.
Finding a model that fits a set of data is one of the most common goals in data analysis. Least squares regression is the most commonly used tool for achieving this goal. It’s a relatively simple concept, it’s easy to do, and there’s a lot of readily available software to do the calculations. It’s even taught in many Statistics 101 courses. Everybody uses it … and therein lies the problem. Even if there is no intention to mislead anyone, it does happen.
Here are eleven of the most common reasons to doubt a regression model and how to diagnose the problems.
Not Enough Samples
Accuracy is a critical component for evaluating a model. The coefficient of determination, also known as R-squared, is the most often cited measure of accuracy. Now obviously, the more accurate a model is the better, so data analysts look for large values for R-squared.
R-squared is designed to estimate the maximum relationship between the dependent and independent variables based on a set of samples (cases, observations, records, or whatever). If there aren’t enough samples compared to the number of independent variables in the model, the estimate of R-squared will be especially unstable. The effect is greatest when the R-squared value is small, the number of samples is small, and the number of independent variables is large, as shown in this figure.
The inflation in the value of R-squared can be assesses by calculating the shrunken R-square. The figure shows that for an R-squared value above 0.8 with 30 cases per variable, there isn’t much shrinkage. Lower estimates of R-square, however, experience considerable shrinkage.
You can’t control the magnitude of the relationship between a dependent variable and a set of independent variables, and often, you won’t have total control over the number of samples and variables either. So, you have to be aware that R-squared will be overestimated and treat your regression models with some skepticism.
No Intercept
Almost all software that performs regression analysis provides an option to not include an intercept term in the model. This sounds convenient, especially for relationships that presume a one-to-one relationship between the dependent and independent variables. But when an intercept is excluded from the model, it’s not omitted from the analysis; it is set to zero. Look at any regression model with “no intercept” and you’ll see that the regression line goes through the origin of the axes.
With the regression line nailed down on one end at the origin, you might expect that the value of R-squared would be diminished because the line wouldn’t necessarily travel through the data in a way that minimizes the differences between the data points and the regression line, called the errors or residuals. Instead, R-squared is artificially inflated because when the correction provided by the intercept is removed, the total variation in the model increases. But, the ratio of the variability attributable to the model compared to the total variability also increases, hence the increase in R-squared.
The solution is simple. Always have an intercept term in the model unless there is a compelling theoretical reason not to include it. In that case, don’t put all your trust in R-square (or the F-tests).
Stepwise Regression
Stepwise regression is a data analyst’s dream. Throw all the variables into a hopper, grab a cup of coffee, and the silicon chips will tell you which variables yield the best model. That irritates hard-core statisticians who don’t like amateurs messing around with their numbers. You can bet, though, that at least some of them go home at night, throw all the food in their cupboard into a crock pot, and expect to get a meal out of it.
The cause of some statistician’s consternation is that stepwise regression will select the variables that are best for the data set, but not necessarily the population. Model test probabilities are optimistic because they don’t account for the stepwise procedure’s ability to capitalize on chance. Moreover, adding new variables will always increase R-squared, so you have to have some good ways to decide how many variables is too many. There are ways to do this. So using stepwise regression alone isn’t necessarily a fatal flaw. Like with guns, drugs, and fast food, you have to be careful how you use it.
If you use stepwise regression, be sure to look at the diagnostic statistics for the model. Also, verify your results using a different data set by splitting the data set before you do any analysis, by randomly extracting observations from the original data set to create new data sets, or by collecting new samples.
Photo by Keenan Barber on Unsplash
Outliers
Outliers are a special irritant for data analysts. They’re not really that tough to identify but they cause a variety of problems that data analysts have to deal with. The first problem is convincing reviewers not familiar with the data that the outliers are in fact outliers. Second, the data analysts have to convince all reviewers that what they want to do with them, delete or include or whatever, is the appropriate thing to do. One way or another, though, outliers will wreak havoc with R-squared.
Consider this figure, which comes from an analysis of slug tests to estimate the hydraulic conductivity of an aquifer. The red circles show the relationship between rising-head and falling-head slug tests performed on groundwater monitoring wells. The model for this relationship has an R-square of 0.90. The blue diamond is an outlier along the trend (same regression equation) about 60% greater than the next highest value. The R-squared of this equation is 0.95. The green square is an outlier perpendicular to the trend. The R-squared of this equation is 0.42. Those are fairly sizable differences to have been caused by a single data point.
How should you deal with outliers? I usually delete them because I’m usually looking to model trends and other patterns. But outliers are great thought provokers. Sometimes they tell you things the patterns don’t. If you’re not comfortable deciding what to do with an outlier, run the analysis both with and without outliers, a time consuming and expensive approach. The other approach would be to get the reviewer, an interested stakeholder, or an independent expert involved in the decision. That approach is time consuming and expensive too. Pick your poison.
But wait! Look at the plot again. The four data points (red circles) near the top of the red line show more variability (dispersion from the line) than the lower for data points. This may be an example of heteroskedasticity. If you’re a hydrogeologist, you might recognize the reason being related to the two different test not measuring permeability in the same way, which is exacerbated at higher permeabilities.
Non-Linear Relationships
Linear regression assumes that the relationship between a dependent variable and a set of independent variables are additive, or linear. If the relationship is actually nonlinear, the R-squared for the linear model will be lower than it would be for a better fitting nonlinear model.
This figure shows the relationship between the number of employed individuals and the number of individuals not in the U.S. work force between 1980 and 2009. The linear model has a respectable R-squared value of 0.84, but the polynomial model fits the data much better with an R-squared value of 0.95.
Non-linear relationships are a relatively simple problem to fix, or at least acknowledge, once you know what to look for. Graph your data and go from there.
But wait! Look at the plot again. That may not be a linear OR a curvilinesr trend. It looks a bit like a STEP pattern. It would be worth going back to the original data and see if there is any influence of time or other factor. There’s never a dull moment in data analysis.
Overfitting
Overfitting involves building a statistical model solely by optimizing statistical parameters, and usually involves using a large number of variables and transformations of the variables. The resulting model may fit the data almost perfectly but will produce erroneous results when applied to another sample from the population.
The concern about overfitting may be somewhat overstated. Overfitting is like becoming too muscular from weight training. It doesn’t happen suddenly or simply. If you know what overfitting is, you’re not likely to become a victim. It’s not something that happens in a keystroke. It takes a lot of work fine-tuning variables. It’s also usually easy to identify overfitting in other people’s models. Simply look for a conglomeration of manual numerical adjustments, mathematical functions, and variable combinations.
Misspecification
Misspecification involves including terms in a model that make the model look great statistically even though the model is problematical. Often, misspecification involves placing the same or very similar variable on both sides of the equation.
Consider this example from economics. A model for the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was developed using data on government spending and unemployment from 1947 to 1997. The model:
GDP = (121*Spending) - (3.5*Spending-squared) + (136*Time) -(61*Unemployment) - 566
had an R-squared value of 0.9994. Such a high R-squared value is a signal that something is amiss. R-squared values that high are usually only seen in models involving equipment calibration, and certainly not anything involving capricious human behavior. A closer look at the study indicated that the model term involving spending were an index of the government’s outlays relative to the economy. Usually, indexing a variable to a baseline or standard is a good thing to do. In this case, though, the spending index was the proportion of government outlays per the GDP. Thus, the model was:
GDP = (121*Outlays/GDP) - (3.5* (Outlays/GDP) 2) + (136*Time) - (61*Unemployment) - 566
GDP appears on both sides of the equation, thus accounting for the near perfect correlation. This is a case in which an index, at least one involving the dependent variable, should not have been used.
Another misspecification involves creating a prediction model having independent variables that are more difficult, time consuming, or expensive to generate than the dependent variable. You might as well just measure the dependent variable when you need to know its value. Similarly with forecasting (prediction of the future) models, if you need to forecast something a year in advance, don’t use predictors that are measured less than a year in advance.
Multicollinearity
Multicollinearity occurs when a model has two or more independent variables that are highly correlated with each other. The consequences are that the model will look fine, but predictions from the model will be erratic. It’s like a football team. The players perform well together but you can’t necessarily tell how good individual players are. The team wins, yet in some situations, a cornerback or offensive tackle will get beat on most every play.
If you ever tried to use independent variables that add to a constant, you’ve seen multicollinearity in action. In the case of perfect correlations, such as these, statistical software will crash because it won’t be able to perform the matrix mathemagics of regression. Most instances of multicollinearity involve weaker correlations that allow statistical software to function, yet the predictions of the model will still be erratic.
Multicollinearity occurs often in the social sciences and other fields of study in which many variables are measured in the process of model building. Diagnosis of the problem is simple if you have access to the data. Look at correlations between the independent variables. You can also look at the variance inflation factors, reciprocals of one minus the R-squared values for the independent variables and the dependent variable. VIFs are measures of how much the model’s coefficients change because of multicollinearity. The VIF for a variable should be less than 10 and ideally near 1.
If you suspect multicollinearity, don’t worry about the model but don’t believe any of the predictions.
Heteroscedasticity
Regression, and practically all parametric statistics, require that the variances in the model residuals be equal at every value of the dependent variable. This assumption is called equal variances, homogeneity of variances, or coolest of all, homoscedasticity. Violate the assumption and you have heteroscedasticity. (Sometimes these terms are spelled with a “k” instead of the middle “c.” It just makes statistics all the more exciting.)
Heteroscedasticity is assessed much more commonly in analysis of variance models than in regression models. This is probably because the dependent variable in ANOVA is measured on a categorical scale while the dependent variable in regression is measured on a continuous scale. The solution to this is fairly simple. Break the dependent variable scale into intervals, like in a histogram, and calculate the variance for each interval. The variances don’t have to be precisely equal, but variances different by a factor of five or more are problematical. Unequal variances will wreak havoc on any tests or confidence limits calculated for model predictions.
by moniekvanrijbroek is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
Autocorrelation
Autocorrelation involves a variable being correlated with itself. It is the correlation between data points with the previously listed data points (termed a lag). Usually, autocorrelation involves time-series data or spatial data, but it can also involve the order in which data are collected. The terms autocorrelation and serial correlation are often used interchangeably. If the data points are collected at a constant time interval, the term autocorrelation is more typically used.
If the residuals of a model are autocorrelated, it’s a sure bet that the variances will also be unequal. That means, again, that tests or confidence limits calculated from variances should be suspect.
To check a variable or residuals from a model for autocorrelation, you can conduct a Durban-Watson test. The Durban-Watson test statistic ranges from 0 to 4. If the statistic is close to 2.0, then serial correlation is not a problem. Most statistical software will allow you to conduct this test as part of a regression analysis.
Weighting
Most software that calculates regression parameters also allows you to weight the data points. You might want to do this for several reasons. Weighting is used to make more reliable or relevant data points more important in model building. It’s also used when each data point represents more than one value. The issue with weighting is that it will change the degrees of freedom, and hence, the results of statistical tests. Usually this is OK, a necessary change to accommodate the realities of the model. However, if you ever come upon a weighted least squares regression model in which the weightings are arbitrary, perhaps done by an analyst who doesn’t understand the consequence, don’t believe the test results.
Is Your Regression Model Telling the Truth?
There are many things we experience in our lives without really understanding how they work. Television. Cell phones. Football scheduling. Relationships. Even many things about the human body are not well understood. Burps and farts, for instance.
Everyone knows about these things, but we don’t all know how to fix them when they break. Regression analysis is like that too. Only with regression analysis, sometimes you can’t even tell if there’s something wrong without consulting an expert.
Diagnosis
You may know how to use regression analysis, but unless you’re an expert, you may not know about some of the more subtle pitfalls you may encounter. The biggest red flag that something is amiss is the TGTBT (too-good-to-be-true) flare. If you encounter an R-squared value above 0.9, especially unexpectedly, there’s probably something wrong. Another red flag is inconsistency. If estimates of the model’s parameters change a lot between data sets, there’s probably something wrong. And if predictions from the model are less accurate or precise than you expected, there’s probably something wrong. Here are some guidelines for troubleshooting a model you developed.
Sometimes the model you are skeptical about isn’t one you developed, it is a model that was developed by another data analyst. The major difference is that with other analysts’ models, you won’t have access to all their diagnostic statistics and plots, let alone their data. If you have been retained to review another analyst’s work, you can always ask for the information you need. If, however, you’re reading about a model in a journal article, book, or website, you’ve probably got all the information you’re ever going to get. You have to be a statistical detective. Here are some clues you might look for.
Follow-Up Care
So there are some ways you can identify and evaluate eleven reasons for doubting a regression model. Remember when evaluating other analyst’s models that not everyone is an expert and that even experts make mistakes. Try to be helpful in your critiques, but at a minimum, be professional.
Originally published at http://statswithcats.net on July 15, 2016. All photos not attributed were taken by the author. | https://medium.com/ai-in-plain-english/regression-fantasies-d8e7f31b08a5 | ['Charlie Kufs'] | 2020-10-01 00:55:36.967000+00:00 | ['Statistics', 'Regression', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Science'] |
UNICEF Hails Kankara School Boys Release, Calls On FG To Make Schools A Safe Haven | UNICEF Hails Kankara School Boys Release, Calls On FG To Make Schools A Safe Haven
By
Oludolapo Adewale
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has hailed the release of 344 children who were earlier abducted from their school- Government Boys Science Secondary School in Kankara, last week.
In a statement on the release of schoolboys, UNICEF Nigeria Representative Peter Hawkins expressed relief while hoping for the safe reunion of the boys with their families.
Noting that attacks on educational facilities are a grave violation of children’s rights, Hawkins while condemning the Kankara attack stated that schools should be safe.
"This incident is a disturbing reminder of the heavy toll that violence takes on civilians in north-west Nigeria, including children. Such attacks deprive children of the right to an education. They make children fearful of going to the classroom, and parents afraid to send their children to school." The UNICEF country representative affirmed.
Hawkins further stated "that no cause justifies attacks against children and schools. Such cruel disregard for humanity must come to an end."
He therefore called on the Federal Government to put interventions in place to ensure that schools in the country are safe adding that these interventions should take into account the important role that communities can play in ensuring the safety of schools, including through support for School-Based Management Committees (SBMCs).
In the past six years, Nigeria has witnessed attacks on educational institutions in locations such as Buni Yadi, Chibok and Dapchi with the latest one in Kankara, Katsina state. | https://medium.com/@oludolapoadewale/unicef-hails-kankara-school-boys-release-calls-on-fg-to-make-schools-a-safe-haven-f6fc92551c05 | ['Oludolapo Adewale'] | 2020-12-19 07:55:52.626000+00:00 | ['Nigeria', 'Unicef', 'Children'] |
Best things to do to keep your brain sharp? | A Guy Thinking Hard Very Hard To Find Answers Of This Whole Universe.
So while you are at keeping your brain sharp, never underestimate or ignore the craving that your brains do. BRAIN CRAVINGS??? you must be wondering what are these, allow me to explain.
How often do you experience the followings,
Physically sound but mentally tired You want to do it, still procrastinate Need to work/study but can’t really concentrate Forgetting usual things much often than before Want to think creative but you hit brain fog and so on and on.
Now, I bet we experience this much often lately today than we ever did before, some obvious reason that you will admit to are increased stress, work-pressure, responsibilities, competition at work or an exam, or simply not able to keep up.
Well, this are most likely to be true, next question? do you think that you can move on with life without all of the above admitted reasons, I am assuming your answer is NO, even if you want to be a saint, you will still have greater responsibilities, thus, there is no real excuse to these.
Which brings me back to the question, how do you stay sharp, all the time, well, the answers is not that tough, if we can give our ears to natureand eyes to science. We will realise that keeping sharp is in-fact very much within our reach.
Always always always !!! try to stimulate your brain with new activities, it can be achieved through playing games, reading different genre of books, travelling, writing something original, or simply staying curious about anything that you encounter new. We were also talking about brain cravings, right? Now brain craving are not much different that normal cravings, the only difference is in our reaction and in our knowledge, when you have normal cravings you eat some food, but when you have brain cravings, you in-fact don’t even realise and you actually do not really know about brain foods at all.
So, first point is something for brain stimulation, the second point is about cognitive nutrition (nootropics). The right balance of these two are most likely to help you improve the brain health and keep you sharp.
Well, what are brain craving, the first 5 experiences that you read before are actually types of brain craving and if they are not fed in time they can get more serious. But, let’s not worry about that, I am going to give some clinically background on natural dietary cognitive nutrition or simply brain food. So, what are best dietary brain foods that we can add in our daily diets either through food or natural supplements (nootropics).
Omega3 Oil Sea Food Almonds / Walnuts Bacopa Monnieri Huperzia Serrata Gingko Biloba Ashwagandha Vinca Flower Green Tea (L-Theanine) Naturally occurring amino acids : L-Leucine , L-Tyrosine, NALT.
These are some of the best brain foods, nutrients that can are advised by nutritionists, mental health coaches around the world to keep a sound mind. Brain health needs to be prioritised in through our daily nutrition, it keeps our mind sharp, focused, energised and improves mental performance.
Our personal favourite go to brain supplement (nootropics) is Ultra Brain from Giver Nutrition, clinically it is one of the best natural cognitive stack which is formulated with 9 high quality advanced brain nutrients, whenever I have any important meeting or work to finish, I grab my ultra brain and it almost instantly fuels me with amazing focus and energy, it also supports in keeping my mind calm under stressful situationsenabling me to be able to make better decisions. Ultra Brain also helps in improving attention issues and memory. So, if you are committed to have a healthier and shaper brain, you should consider balancing brain stimulation and cognitive nutrition. | https://medium.com/@givernutrition/best-things-to-do-to-keep-your-brain-sharp-63dcae2a9b25 | ['Giver Nutrition'] | 2020-12-26 06:37:47.950000+00:00 | ['Mental Illness', 'Mental Health', 'Nootropics', 'Nootropics Buy Online'] |
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Bumkins Sleeved Bib / Baby Bib / Toddler Bib / Smock, Waterproof, Washable, Stain and Odor Resistant, 6–24 Months — Gray Chevron | https://medium.com/@ivaper/bumkins-sleeved-bib-baby-bib-toddler-bib-smock-waterproof-washable-stain-and-odor-503513e30534 | ['Best Bacare', 'Baproduct Top World'] | 2019-10-22 08:29:43.239000+00:00 | ['Baby', 'Bumkins', 'Bib'] |
The DNA Journey: Keep Your Hands To Yourself | When whispers in the family become bloodline fact
Photo credit: iStock
She screams out every night in a billion tears
In desperate fear that you’re somewhere near
Faulting her action for all that’s occurred
Wanting to tell all, never saying a word Because she believes you’re her hero
She wants to believe you still love her
But if you persist, she just might hurt you
So I suggest you refrain and don’t ever touch me (again)
— singer/songwriter Dionne Farris
The first time I heard that song, on Farris’ debut solo album “Wild Seed, Wild Flower,” I was deeply affected. And this was decades before I knew that this painful, powerful story hit very close to home.
When I first found out that my mother was adopted, I reached out cautiously to a few of the names on my DNA Relatives lists who I discovered were associated with this bloodline that I knew nothing about. One cousin, in particular, seemed eager to help me find some answers, but warned me that my mother’s existence would dredge up painful memories for some relatives and secrets that some of them probably would not be willing to reveal.
I heard the warnings, but could not imagine what would be so terrible that we couldn’t have honest dialogue about folks who had long since passed on, or who had lived full, whole lives and could now exhale into their truths. Because the science demanded answers. DNA doesn’t lie.
But then several of the new cousins mentioned a word I had never considered: incest.
I heard the word. Understood its meaning. But that’s not what Black people do. Incest is white folks’ psychosis. A carry-over from slavery. A breeder’s mentality, used for the brutalization of someone you see as subhuman.
What’s THAT got to do with me?
For all of you traveling down this genealogy road, I hope you will not have any major shocks or surprises. That your parents are your parents and your lineage is merely confirmed by your data.
That was not my reality.
Once I got over the shock of learning that the people who raised my mother were not the ones who conceived her, I started building a new tree for her birth family. And slowly, the image of how she came to be was drawn, but the lines were still blurry. Several of my high DNA matches shared more DNA with me than their degrees of separation would indicate. FAR more than we should have in common, if parental lines and generations were in tact.
And when you also consider that these are folks from a very small, rural community in the Blue Ridge Mountains, who lived in close proximity during long winters and lean farming periods, you begin to understand that some of them didn’t go far to fulfill their baser urges. Whether that meant a few acres away to a neighbor’s farm. Or, perhaps, just as far as the next room on their own property.
I am working to confirm the identity of my maternal grandfather, and now I know for sure that if I get the answer I seek, it’s going to hurt some people’s feelings. Confirmation is likely to expose some of those ugly secrets that the elders have kept close to the vest for decades. The DNA has laid out a cellular roadmap that demands explanation.
I pray that I find the words to claim my truth without completely upending anyone else’s life and identity at the same time. Especially my newfound family. | https://medium.com/the-dna-journey/the-dna-journey-keep-your-hands-to-yourself-235f31edfdb2 | ['Stephanie Renée'] | 2020-07-10 19:53:26.237000+00:00 | ['Genealogy', 'Survivor', 'Incest', 'Secrets', 'Family'] |
Bad habits and biases, a newbie’s observations on design thinking in Japan (Pt 1): Building trust | Bad habits and biases, a newbie’s observations on design thinking in Japan (Pt 1): Building trust Bekky Bush Follow Feb 10 · 6 min read
What working in a completely different culture made me realise about my own behaviour.
Introduction
I moved to Japan six months ago and it’s been a continuous education that has grown and changed me and my world views. During the first few months I was invited to observe training sessions that focused on teaching design thinking to beginners — these were adults in a large company with little or no design experience. It was a brilliant experience. I implicitly understood the content because I have taught this topic to multiple students, colleagues and clients, but because I couldn’t understand the spoken words, I had to focus on the physical behaviours and interactions of the students and teachers. This led to new insights, some familiar to me, some from a fresh point of view, and some completely new to me. All of them will help me become a better teacher.
I decided to share these observations and insights with others, but please no hate mail; this is my opinion and only based on observations of a small sample — not to be taken as a sweeping generalisation of a country and its people. I also expect to change and develop these ideas and my viewpoint the longer I spend here and the more I learn, but there is a usefulness to observation made with the naivety of a newcomer that I wanted to capture and share.
Photo by Jezael Melgoza on Unsplash
Thank you for reading, I am not sure who will find this useful or even interesting but the audience I had in mind when writing was the person who wants to start working in design in Japan or to work with Japanese clients for the first time. I will state again that these workshops were with people who had no design experience, were complete beginners and not clients.
I began writing this and realised it’s a bit long to read in one go (TL/DR), So I am serving it up in more manageable bites.
Part 1: Trust and the importance of clear structure and instruction
In Western society, we often don’t spend enough time setting expectations and clearly explaining what will happen in workshops. The outcome is that those of us who are on the more introverted or anxious end of the spectrum can feel uncomfortable and automatically yield the floor to more dominant personalities. Expectation-setting is carefully considered in Japan and this ends up being far more inclusive to the shyest members of a group.
For example, by asking for volunteers to speak or saying “who’s next?” when sharing with each other, can create unnecessary discomfort and stress (this is when the session is in Japanese, if the session is in English people may be additionally stressed by shame around imperfect English). Instead, I found giving specific instruction works better: “We will stand in a circle, I will go first and then pass the mic to the person on my left who will speak next, then they will pass the mic to the person on their left to speak next”. It’s also important to demonstrate what will happen, as people take in the instruction in different ways. Stricter rules and well-set expectations help all participants to predict when they will need to speak and prepare themselves – this starts to reduce the disparity between introverts and extroverts.
I noticed that when giving instructions around an activity or exercise, clearly telling people when they should begin the exercise and when to stop working was important, saying to participants that they had five minutes to do a task was not explicit enough. When I discussed this point with a colleague he laughed and said he observes this in most workshops globally — I’ll be paying extra attention to this going forward! Often, my work requires me to dwell in ambiguity for a considerable amount of time and this has bled into places where it’s less helpful. Theneed for clarity here is helping me focus on being less vague again.
A study into trust in the UK versus Japan has shown that Japanese people appear generally less trusting than Westerners towards strangers (and I am fairly strange in most situations – not just in Japan). This means building trust with participants is more difficult and gives facilitators a significant challenge in creating an environment where trust is key to learning.
This discovery was found to be strengthened if the Japanese doubted that they shared any interpersonal links with the strangers in question. So, a great way to begin sessions is to find common ground and build those all-important interpersonal links though activities. The most important way to ensure you don’t destroy what little trust you have managed to build is not to spring surprises on your participants early on. Surprising people includes things like unexpectedly asking them to do something publicly. I found doing this meant that participant (and everyone else who witnessed it) would stop trusting me.
Learning in any country means being somewhat uncomfortable – you need to push people out of their comfort zone, but not so hard you break their trust. I am becoming more aware that what reduces trust here can be different from that in Western cultures. For example, asking someone to tap another person on the shoulder during a game forces a physical interaction that many Japanese people find inappropriate. This has given me pause to consider that as our teams across the globe become more culturally diverse, perhaps we should all be much more aware of individuals’ comfort levels with physical intimacy and consent? I don’t know the answer, but we need to find a way to work to maintain informed consent and still effectively interact with each other.
Precise instruction and structure also applies to all details of a workshop or learning session, including details like what stationery is used for what activity. The complexity of meanings behind the every detail in Japanese culture is multifaceted and it also ensures that if you use random colours, materials, shapes or other representations, people will question the meaning behind your choice (you should have a reason or you look unprepared — and this certainly won’t increase trust!).
If you see somebody using the ‘wrong’ piece of stationery do not say anything directly to them but rather remind the whole group “Please remember to use the felt tip pens to write on sticky notes – this makes documentation easier.” This works because it’s an instruction plus reasoning that is generalised and does not draw attention to the person making the ‘mistake’. It’s best to focus on reminding, reinforcing and rewarding great behaviour and not drawing attention to behaviour you want to discourage. This is true of all workshops globally, however, in Western workshops, I use this much more to discourage participants from derailing the tasks at hand with individual agendas or attention-seeking behaviour.
Trust can also be gained by breaking activities into much smaller steps than I might previously have used for an Australian or European audience. Smaller steps increase the likelihood that participants will be willing to take them and this naturally increases their confidence in my ability to lead a workshop. Simplifying things can reduce the nuance, but what you lose is more than compensated by the increased confidence and participation. Each step should be clearly explained and demonstrated with examples to further boost participaction. Reflecting on this adjustment, I realised I should use this approach to activities in all workshops globally. I believe that there is a significant benefit to making learning and workshops more accessible to a wider community – this approach is more inclusive to participants for a variety of reasons (e.g. neurodivergence, participation in a second language etc.) and I will be incorporating it from now on.
All this talk about trust has left me wondering, in our post-truth world where the Secretary General of the UN talks about a global “Trust Deficit Disorder”: how aware are you of the signals you’re giving to others that you’re trustworthy — and are you living up to them?
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
I hope you have enjoyed reading my newbie observations about Design Thinking teaching and workshops in Japan. This series will be published weekly.
Thank you to the teachers and participants who generously allowed me to join their learning. I apologise if I have misrepresented you in any way in this article, and for inflicting my terrible Japanese on you. Also to my patient colleagues from many places who have read, critiqued and corrected my writing over a far too long period; thank you. All the mistakes are certainly mine.
ありがとうございました | https://medium.com/design-voices/bad-habits-and-biases-pt-1-ec9149f54a54 | ['Bekky Bush'] | 2020-02-17 11:48:24.025000+00:00 | ['Design Thinking', 'Japan', 'Teaching And Learning'] |
Misconstruction of Destruction: Urban Space and Equity | A grocery store in the Parkside neighborhood of West Philadelphia after 15 hours of looting. Photo: WPVI Philadelphia
“Riots are the language of the unheard” is a line that has been getting a lot of traction in recent months. The line comes from Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech “The Other America” where the civil rights leader addressed the causal effects of structural racism. The line has recently been used by some commentators to rationalize the destruction of property and looting by a small number of opportunists. As an urbanist, I am concerned that this oft-shared explanation fails to examine the lingering effects on the “unheard” people of color in urban communities. After all, there are unintended consequences to even rightly motivated actions. Many neighborhoods that have been most affected by looting and property destruction, from Kensington in North Philadelphia to Oakland in California, have overwhelmingly been disenfranchised due to blatant racist policy-making as well as decades of disinvestment and economic changes following the post-industrial decline — this phenomenon has been well-documented by scholars like William Julius Wilson and Richard Rothstein. If the construction of space is ideological, reflective of what life should look like in place — we need to examine the beliefs latent in our response to the deconstruction of urban space.
There is a faulty assumption pervading many conversations that the urban landscape is equally reflexive-that Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive will bounce back at the same rate as a small, Puerto Rican neighborhood in North Philadelphia. This sheds light on our continuing misconceptions of equity in American cities. The urban landscape has never been equal — from urban renewal to gentrification, urban minority neighborhoods have long been characterized by their destruction. Politically-charged riots, even with just cause, find no exception. In the summer of 1964, a riot ensued on Columbia Avenue in North Philadelphia after allegations of police misconduct. For three days, Jewish-owned businesses were plummeted and destroyed along the busy commercial corridor. The businesses never recovered from the uprising — compounded by the pressure of suburbanization and flight, many businesses left, leaving a wake of vacancy and disinvestment. It would take years for the street, renamed Cecil B. Moore Avenue after the local activist, to economically recover from the protests. It would not be until decades later that a grocery store would return to the neighborhood — no doubt, a nod to the purse strings of encroaching Temple University students. Following, thirty years later, neighborhoods affected by the six-day riot following the acquittal of law enforcement in the beating of Rodney King, would not fare much better. The economy of South LA remains disproportionately behind many neighborhoods of the city. According to a 2017 study by UCLA Luskin researchers, unemployment and poverty have only increased.
What is lost when businesses and buildings are destroyed? Is it just a physical loss? Or does it viscerally affect the quality of Black and Latinx life in place? I cannot help but wonder if it is our privilege, whether race or class, that prevents us from seeing the trickle-down effects of the deconstruction of place in our cities — after all, we are more spatially segregated than ever before. Nike Manhattan’s 5th Avenue store will rebuild. Alexander McQueen in Los Angeles will replace windows — but the profile of many urban communities already experiencing systemic disinvestment will be slow to recover. Before we are quick to condone physical damage to urban neighborhoods (especially for those who do not live there), we must ask ourselves hard questions: Will the few neighborhood businesses return to meet the everyday needs of its citizens in segregated areas? Will grocery stores leave resulting in the continuation of urban food deserts? Will local business owners be fairly compensated for damage by insurance companies? Will the actions of a few lead to lower property values for residents? What are the long-term effects of the damage? Will the destruction lead to a locational seesaw that paves the wave for myopic development? In the end, the uncertainty of answers to these questions only confirm the reasons that protestors march. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/misconstruction-of-destruction-urban-space-and-equity-21b47d43c6c0 | ['Lydia Kulina'] | 2020-08-04 00:47:15.640000+00:00 | ['Equity', 'Urbanism', 'Culture', 'Urban Planning', 'Cities'] |
Disney May Be About To Overexpose Star Wars And Marvel | Disney+ just announced dozens of new projects
The Mandalorian. Image credit: Disney
Disney just showcased nine new Star Wars TV shows and twelve new Marvel ones. That’s on top of Marvel’s usual movies and some upcoming new Star Wars flicks. The studio wants to build up Disney+, but with the potential for overexposure and diminished quality control, this is not the way.
You can find the full list of shows here. The actual content varies in promise. I will happily watch Ahsoka and the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. On the other hand, there’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, which brings back Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan and Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader. Disney swapping original trilogy nostalgia for prequel trilogy nostalgia is vindicating for us young people, but it’s still empty nostalgia.
The real problem, however, is the quantity. There’s too much of it. The release schedule is unclear, so some of these might be years away. Kenobi is a miniseries and others might be, as well. But that’s still exponentially more time than either franchise has demanded from its fans before.
This has consequences. Firstly, it reduces the uniqueness of every installment. Love them or hate them, the prequels, The Force Awakens, and The Avengers were events, widely anticipated, watched, and discussed. They were shared, by all of us. Even now, part of what makes The Mandalorian special is that it’s being enjoyed by everyone together. When Star Wars and Marvel drop installments thrice weekly forever, that monocultural experience will end.
Secondly, it turns their shared universes from something joyful into a chore. A Clone Wars character on The Mandalorian? That’s a fun connection between two shows. But when five shows are airing together, only the hardest of hardcore fans will want to watch them all. Some other fans will drudge through everything for completion’s sake. But with no end in sight, the rest of us probably won’t bother. We’ll have to accept increasing references to shows we’ve never seen — or tune out entirely.
Thirdly, those shared universes will also become nightmares for the creatives. Disney threw out most of Star Wars’ preexisting continuity when it bought Lucasfilm, and Marvel’s never pretended its films exist alongside its comics. Those blank slates mean writers and directors have room to tell the stories they want to tell. Filling it in so quickly will pin those creatives down, while making them each keep track of nine other shows to make sure they’re not breaking the timeline.
Fourthly, it makes quality control harder. It’s tougher to say you only accept the best pitches when you accept them by the dozen. And it’s harder for a single creative voice to keep track of all these projects, let alone oversee them. Can Kevin Feige maintain Marvel’s tone across, say, thirty hours of content a year instead of six? Is anyone keeping track of Star Wars’ bigger picture? Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau have done a wonderful job on The Mandalorian, but Filoni now has four shows and Favreau three. When your workload quadruples, do you keep up the same quality?
Oversaturation’s doomed plenty of franchises. There might be some schadenfreude to Disney meeting the same fate, but for those of us who like Marvel and Star Wars, it’s also a sad possibility. It would take some real inspiration to pull all this off. I sincerely wish the best of luck to the studio that made The Rise of Skywalker. | https://damonferrara.medium.com/disney-may-be-about-to-overexpose-star-wars-and-marvel-bd9177c52f2e | ['Damon Ferrara'] | 2020-12-11 12:02:16.370000+00:00 | ['Disney', 'Star Wars', 'Film Industry', 'Marvel', 'Disney Plus'] |
How to Manipulate a Graph without a Checkbox or Slider? | Tired of using external widgets to visualize data?
BI tools, such as dashboards, are designed to integrate user interaction with data visualizations. In this way, the users code their own designed graphs with a small change on the dashboard menu, such as dragging through a time range slider to select a timestamp or a single click on a checkbox. It has become generally a trend to design visualizations with a user interaction that facilitates a greater user experience.
Nowadays, there arouses a growing interest for researchers and designers to develop visualization tools, which enables users to operate graphing with direct manipulation on graphs, without the need for external widgets on an operational panel.
Direct manipulation on graphs is amazing
The visualization community introduced the direct manipulation of the graphical encoding concept for drawing the attention of need to design more natural and fluid interactions for data visualization tools. Direct manipulation provides immediate feedback when users making interactions on these visual objects. With direct manipulation interfaces, users can focus on the visual features while playing with it, without distracting themselves by shifting attention. Besides, the interfaces could be simplified without external widgets.
Instrumental interaction theory also supports the direct manipulation by illustrating the advantage of minimizing the spatial indirection, which is the distance between the interaction source and target objects, and the temporal indirection, which is the delay between operation invoking and results observing.
Further, visualization researchers define interactions that users directly manipulate on visual marks, as embedded interactions. We can understand those visual marks as common visual elements we identify in a graph and embedded interactions as the behaviours users conduct to realize their graph manipulating goals. For example, bars are marks for one bar chart, and we could make embedded interactions on this bar chart through changing the position, height and color of bars to customize our own graph.
Fig.1. embedded interactions designed for bar charts
More specifically, if we want to sort a bar chart by values, we could directly drag the tallest bar to the extreme left or right; if we want to merge two bars, we could drag and drop one bar on top of another bar.
To be noticed, possible design for embedded interactions varies through different visualizations. The encoding for a bar chart could be position, height and color, while a 2D scatterplot could be position, size and color and a histogram could be width only. However, researchers make “position, size, color, height and width” the five main graphical encoding types for generalized visualizations as a base for further study.
Fig. 2. 15 basic operations for direct manipulation of graphical encodings in a 2D scatterplot, bar chart and histogram
Sounds pretty cool, isn’t it? In this article, we will further discuss more examples of such interesting direct-manipulate interactions, the users’ intended mental strategies behind those behaviors and possible setback and limitation of such embedded designs.
Match users operations and their mental strategies
Fig. 3. Strategy matrix for 15 operations intented of studys participants
Varying degrees of strategy agreement
As we could see from the strategy and operation matrix, if we go through the matrix table by row, in some rows we could find almost black shaded cells, such as row 12. For the Q12 intended operation, among all the study participants, 10 out of 12 strategies are focused on the strategy 23th, recoloring by values to assign a data attribute to the color of all bars.
Fig. 4. Row 12 for the strategy matrix (Q12)
The higher value in a cell, the darker the background of the cell. Throughout the matrix, we are able to find the darker cells. If we divide the darkest cell value of each row by the sum of the cell values in that row, we could identify the varying degrees of strategy agreement. We could also see that one strategy represents more than half of the distribution of all used strategies for two thirds (10/15) of the operations.
Given this fact, designers are researching to build a set of matching operations and consensual strategies. This could help designers incorporate commonly used or intended strategies for operating with direct manipulation of graphical encodings.
Conflicting strategies
In some strategy matrix rows, we could find more shaded color cells, such as row 2, the darkest cell values 5 out of the total 16 operations. With the low operation centralization rate within the Q2 strategy, the fig.5. shows that the study participant made various operations to switch a scatterplot to a bar chart.
Fig. 5. Row 2 for the strategy matrix (Q2)
The many to many relationships between strategies and operations in the matrix raise technical challenges in designing the direct manipulation regarding the graphical encoding. Further researches, such as collecting data on human’s preferences to develop contextual strategies, should be studied to improve the design of direct user interactions.
Conclusion: Organizing 48 strategies
Fig. 6. 48 low-level strategies participants tried in the case study
Four high-level categorized of strategies
Researchers identified four high-level encoding strategies from the 48 listed strategies, exemplification, declaration, instrumentation, and selection, to invoke and operation through various studies.
Exemplification: Participants are likely to show a few visual manipulations as an example of input and output for a series of repeatable operations. Through a repetitive set of actions, participants would be able to show the system how a part of the visual output should be like, indicating a part of the expected visual output to the system.
Participants are likely to show a few visual manipulations as an example of input and output for a series of repeatable operations. Through a repetitive set of actions, participants would be able to show the system how a part of the visual output should be like, indicating a part of the expected visual output to the system. Declaration: Apart from the direct matching strategies applied to operations, participants also tend to manipulate a kind of graphical encoding, such as applying new color schemas, in order to inform the system users that a new change has been made. These approaches are summarized and named to be the declaration strategy.
Apart from the direct matching strategies applied to operations, participants also tend to manipulate a kind of graphical encoding, such as applying new color schemas, in order to inform the system users that a new change has been made. These approaches are summarized and named to be the declaration strategy. Instrumentation: Participants tend to use a visual mark as an instrument or tool to manipulate the visualizations. For example, people would like to first apply updates to a certain visual mark and then use this visual mark as the instrumentation to update other data points like dragging the instrumentation mark to the data points we want to change in the visualization.
Participants tend to use a visual mark as an instrument or tool to manipulate the visualizations. For example, people would like to first apply updates to a certain visual mark and then use this visual mark as the instrumentation to update other data points like dragging the instrumentation mark to the data points we want to change in the visualization. Selection: Participants prefer to have access to selecting several data points, and the updated operation should apply to all selected data points if one of the selected data points changes and updates.
References | https://medium.com/@shenyanzhi/try-manipulating-a-graph-without-a-checkbox-or-slider-6ea9244780bf | ['Yanzhi Shen'] | 2020-12-24 21:43:53.049000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Interaction Design', 'Interactive', 'Graphic Design'] |
Investigate Before Selecting a Best Wedding Rings For Mens | Investigate Before Selecting a Best Wedding Rings For Mens
You’ll probably on the planet agree, that in the event that you’re checking for wedding rings for men, and you have no idea about all that much about diamonds, it may be unassuming the information you require all in one place. Consider the issue of all the unmistakable styles. A man’s wedding ring may be the pivotal piece of diamonds he wears. Would it be an apt thought for it to be a pearl and clear wedding bands for men that his father and granddad wore, or something with an all the besides forefront make or notwithstanding meandering into something with some panache? Style, metal choices, width, quality, and the cost of the ring are boundlessly key parts. In addition, these days, with strife metals, ethics should in like way be a key thought.
The moving news is in case you’re hunting down information on wedding bands for men, this is likely the most cautious article you’ll be able to find. (I get a kick out of the opportunity to be done, astoundingly raised.) You’ll get the stray pieces and the veritable story, and the information you can utilize beginning now to make an informed purchase. Best of all, you’ll learn key substances about gold wedding bands for men that couple of various critical stone forces would reveal.
What Makes A Mens Wedding ring A Watches out for Wedding ring?
The critical reaction to this question is, whether you are a man and you like the ring, then it is a watches out for wedding ring. The idea men an essential part of the time have is, is the ring unreasonably true blue or insufficient masculine? This is absolutely an individual slant. For example, while several men should consider this two tone wedding bands pointlessly female, we’ve sold this strategy, making it hard to men over and over. Regardless, goldsmiths do break out social events of wedding rings, selecting some as Men wedding bands and some as women’s rings. By model nature of sexual presentation, the sort is normally based upon two criteria: width and style.
The Width of Wedding rings For Men:
Mens wedding rings are dependably more expansive than wedding rings for women . Since men in light of current conditions have more basic hands, charmingly men require more unmistakable rings. Mens wedding rings in like way tend to be heavier, all the more wide and here and there in a general sense chunkier. In setting to width, a mens wedding band considering all things comes to from 5mm to 8mm wide. Continually, men don’t pick under 5mm for their wedding rings with conceivably the remarkable event of reasonable comfort fit wedding bands. Men don’t go in a general sense more than 8mm width paying little notice to the likelihood that they have liberal hands. This edges is not press clad unmistakably, yet somewhat based upon what I’ve seen offering rings to men over the cross of the last twenty or more years.
By possibility, there are additional rejection considerations.
Mens Wedding rings?
With sexual presentation consistency, both men and women are proposing to men and why not? Engagement is an essential social custom and a central stage to the strong commitment. Mens wedding rings are a delightful sign of a man’s dedication that he can show up and celebrate with his more critical social affair. One study revealed that 71% of men would be joined with wearing a wedding ring. Regardless, if you will wear a wedding and wedding ring together, as in marriage ring sets, then consider the width, and how it will feel to wear the two rings in the interim.
MENS Wedding rings STYLES
What Are The Distinctive Styles of Mens Wedding rings?
Wedding bands for ladies are basically individual in what they address. They are an outward sign of immense obligation to oneself, one right hand and one’s social gathering. In like way, all wedding rings have ordinary symbolism. Their winding shape addresses wholeness, get-together and solidarity. Style is a course in which a man can express something marvelous about his own specific adaptability and relationship in the mean time. The measure of different styles for mens rings is all around that truly matters unending, yet we will repair it here by secluding it into two general depictions: brilliant and sketcher.
Maker Mens Wedding rings.
Each captivating watches out for wedding band holds point as a physical representation of stately commitments. In like manner, can in like course, in its particularly plan, be an issue of stunning craftsmanship and inspiration. Concerning what that game-plan may be, your imaginative breaking point is especially far, however here are just two or three cases. The imagery in a watches out for wedding ring can be influenced by a sweetheart painting that areas question of the night sky, for instance, our starry night mix. Uncommon Men’s wedding rings can likewise supervise and ensure target, religious or social relationship in a gathering of ways. For example, in the Celtic Bends ring, each line inside the point addresses a region course getting together. The strands of the pack wind up to the sky and down to the earth, gathering centrality and inspiration from both Necklaces for men.
Regardless, What Wedding ring Does Your Accessory Need?
There are no appropriates of sorting or not organizing you and your partners’ wedding bands. You don’t have to oversee, yet extraordinary couples may need to. What’s fun is that you don’t have to fabricate absolutely, yet you can empower through metal choice, style, gemstones, subject or some other specific ways. Varying wedding rings are a touch of more key mixtures with influenced widths, from obliged to wide, for instance, is the state of the specific styles of our executive ring gathering or the Wind and Waves gathering. In spite of the likelihood that you don’t find a right match, unmistakable goldsmiths can do mixes through an astoundingly make handle, which we are particularly engineered toward, experienced with and have a wonderful time with. The particular sketcher wedding rings you both pick be and out striking, expressly revealing and a sign of what is held regarded in your association. | https://medium.com/@sharjeelnoman010/investigate-before-selecting-a-best-wedding-rings-for-mens-95f150c4e21a | ['Sharjeel Noman'] | 2016-10-21 10:06:17.230000+00:00 | ['Love', 'Marriage', 'Fashion', 'Jewelry', 'Lifestyle'] |
How To Make A Monthly Budget And Save Money? | Photo by Andre Taissin on Unsplash
Budget planning is very necessary for every householder to save money otherwise expenses have many ways to knock on your door. Money has less weight, but the heavy weight seems to be lighter in front of it. That’s why it is vital to under its concept very carefully.
There is no wonderful life if you have no money because money gives you comfort and that’s why people work hard. Making money is easy than saving because you should have a budget to know your overall household expenses so that you can think about savings.
Your saving helps you a lot whenever there is money shortage and there is no hope to get the money, but you need a lot. In this situation, your saving takes the charge and solves your financial issues and it tries to bring happiness one more time over your face.
Aren’t you one of them who has no planning to make a budget for saving money? If you are, then you are lucky to be here today because you will learn today how to do home budget planning for saving money out of your income.
According to there were about 50% of Canadians who had a budget in 2019 and 17% of them benefited from making the budget. One of the reasons they were facing problems in leveling their money and they gave the reason for not budgeting.
What is a monthly budget?
Your monthly budget is all about how much you earned money in a month and how much you spent on your household expenses. You have specific data of your monthly income and the overall expenses of your house that you have.
It is a lot better to set up a budget because you will have some savings out of your budget after you have known about your monthly expenses. There might be some useless expenditures you can omit them out of your budget as result you will save some money instead.
In case you haven’t thought about your budget making then it’s time to establish that by following some helpful tips. Did you have any idea why you need to make that before you know the tips? If no then know that first.
Why It is important to know if you have lack of self-awareness:
Where exactly you spend your money: You need to know where exactly you are investing your money if you are willing to establish a budget for you. So keep that in mind for your awareness.
You need to know where exactly you are investing your money if you are willing to establish a budget for you. So keep that in mind for your awareness. Saving regularly: How much you can save money out of your income daily, matters a lot. That’s why you need to know that if you have no idea about that.
How much you can save money out of your income daily, matters a lot. That’s why you need to know that if you have no idea about that. You have to pay off your debts: You already have pending debts, but you are not taking them seriously. You should think about paying these debts first of all before taking any financial step further. You shouldn’t neglect that at all in any situation.
You already have pending debts, but you are not taking them seriously. You should think about paying these debts first of all before taking any financial step further. You shouldn’t neglect that at all in any situation. You have to use your money in the right direction: You should invest your money in the right way so that you can make the best out of your money investment. You should know about this for further activities.
Now 6 simple tips for the budget planning process to save money:
Come up with a plan: A plan-making can do a little better if you have decided something about your future. Until there is no planning there can be nothing so you need to have a plan as well before you take any financial step.
A plan-making can do a little better if you have decided something about your future. Until there is no planning there can be nothing so you need to have a plan as well before you take any financial step. Identify your spending: That would be great if you can track your spending and omit whatever expenses are like a burden on your shoulder. Make sure your living is not going to be affected by their absence.
That would be great if you can track your spending and omit whatever expenses are like a burden on your shoulder. Make sure your living is not going to be affected by their absence. Change your overspending habits if possible: With over-spending habits, you were living, you should change that if you want to change your financial living. Because your bad habits to spend money much is one of the habits which are responsible to destroy you financially.
With over-spending habits, you were living, you should change that if you want to change your financial living. Because your bad habits to spend money much is one of the habits which are responsible to destroy you financially. Stop eating out: When you have decided to set up a monthly budget and save some money then you would have to make the sacrifice of eating out. It will maintain your health as well as wealth like you will save money through this.
When you have decided to set up a monthly budget and save some money then you would have to make the sacrifice of eating out. It will maintain your health as well as wealth like you will save money through this. Avoid friends who make you spend money : You might be in such an environment where your friends force you to spend money by admiring or using any other tactic. You shouldn’t forget that where you have started moving now.
: You might be in such an environment where your friends force you to spend money by admiring or using any other tactic. You shouldn’t forget that where you have started moving now. Make tea or coffee at home: Most people prefer having tea or coffee at the restaurant which charges much than a normal charge. It would be much better to have your tea or coffee at your home. If you do that you would see its positive effects at the end of the month.
Last word
Making a monthly budget helps you a lot financially, it doesn’t matter what kind of financial problems you have met with. But if you have maintained your monthly budget which means you have savings and your savings can take you out of any kind of financial disaster.
You can resort to the mentioned tips above to make yourself financially strong which are enough to help you hoard some extra funds for yourself. Without making a budget, you can’t know about your hardworking money is spending and at what length.
Do you have difficulty making a budget? You don’t have any savings? Are you afraid that how will you face an emergency? Don’t panic! I present to you a financial aid — long-term loans Canada with low monthly payments — which solves your every short-term and long-term money problem. Doesn’t hurt the monthly budget and savings either. | https://medium.com/@alexaderjoelson/how-to-make-a-monthly-budget-and-save-money-93c097de126a | ['Alexader Joelson'] | 2021-07-06 11:39:17.556000+00:00 | ['Money Management', 'Budget', 'Budgeting', 'Save Money', 'Money'] |
The Unforgettable Fire — The 80s were my rebel years! | Photo courtesy of PH Romao on UnSplash
The Unforgettable Fire — The 80s were my rebel years!
Well, I hope you enjoyed my little nostalgic trip down memory lane and my first encounters with a band called U2. My life in the seventies was slightly different to those entering their teens, but I loved and appreciated the freedom and trust provided by my Dad.
The eighties were different for me too, or do I just think that? They were my rebel years, lets put it this way, black was my favorite color to wear, arguing with my parents was a common pastime and a few jaunts working abroad was a regular summer habit.
As U2 evolved from a post-punk band of the late seventies to commercially viable rock demi-Gods in the eighties, I too grew from a rebellious teenager to a married woman in her early twenties, at the end of the 80s decade.
As I wrote about my second U2 concert in the RDS Main Hall, we’ll move on to my next encounter and their first concert in the “hallowed” grounds of Croke Park, Dublin. I actually can’t believe it was 35 years ago!
U2 was becoming one of the few bands to show interest in making great albums as well as hit singles. There were many bands out there that produced an album with say one or two hit songs, but with U2 each song on their albums released that decade, was guaranteed a hit if they chose to release it. Not many bands could keep up.
In Croke Park that sunny June day, the support acts included REM — yes, REM were U2’s support act and attempting to break Europe.
I decided early on to stand back at the lighting/sound stand (unsure of the technical name) which was based in the centre of the pitch. As I was of short stature, only 5’5”, and unable to wear heels on the grass pitch, I knew this crowd of 57,000 was bigger than any concert I was lucky enough to attend. So, I decided the stand would be safer, providing a clear view of the stage. My friends decided to wander around for a better view, but I was happy with my find. Little did I know that my future husband was somewhere in that crowd too, maybe I should’ve wandered around the pitch more…
As the support acts finished you could feel the atmosphere building, there was no such thing as recording the concert on your smartphone, etc. You actually needed to watch the stage and listen — in the early days of U2 concerts, there were no large screens either so the stage contained all the action.
Rolling Stone called U2 the “Band of the 80s” just a month or so previous, the crowd knew they going to watch something special, their band was home and in the hallowed grounds of the GAA — the headquarters of our national sport. I’m unsure if Larry played with the Artane Boys Band there, as a young boy he was a member. But I know it was his preference to play in those grounds for their first, major concert in Ireland, returning to their hometown as they rose to fame and success on the world stage.
Once U2 arrived on stage, the roar of the crowd for their opening song 11 O’Clock Tick Tock was deafening, the sway of the crowd before me, enthralling. “And the boys and girls collide to the music in my ear”, these lyrics from the song rang true as I watched the crowd. Everyone was familiar with the lyrics — I watched the electrifying atmosphere continue to rise as the crowd waved from side to side and moved closer to me. The wave spread quickly and suddenly I was caught with the steel barrier sticking into my back.
It was scary and I’d say that emotion was written all over my face. I felt a tap on my shoulder, turned my head to be greeted with strong arms lifting me across the barriers. The kind security guard just smiled and said “stay there until it’s calmed down a bit.” I wasn’t going to argue the point with him as he walked away.
But the story doesn’t end there — as I enjoyed the song from the safety of my new little haven, I kept hearing a man shouting a name. I turned to see where his voice was coming from, I didn’t see anything unusual but could still hear a loud, panicked voice screaming someone’s name. So, I walked around the stand to the back section, to my horror there was a second security guy struggling to keep one of the barriers up. Where he got the strength from is beyond me!
I ran back looking for my rescuer to find him in the opposite corner getting people to stop pushing against the barrier. I grabbed him, pointing to where his colleague was, of course he didn’t understand but then I screamed, “The barrier is coming down!” We both ran around the stand, by then another guy from the crowd was helping and the three of them soon got the barrier back in place.
It looked extreme as there were still people who couldn’t find their balance to get up, but the three guys got there, ensuring the barrier was now properly secured to the others.
By the time, everything was sorted and I was back in my little corner, U2 were finishing their third song “Seconds” — I couldn’t believe such time had passed, missing part of the first and the full second song, the whole incident felt like seconds.
The crowd soon settled and the remainder of the concert, thankfully, was uneventful. I could enjoy and sing along with our homecoming heroes U2. Bono was enthralling, The Edge — well what can I say, each time I heard his guitar his growth in his play just made me want to try to learn guitar (again!) and maybe just achieve the ability to play their music. That never happened — Ahh well, it took my teen son’s musical ability to garner that interest again.
It would take a few more years before I would experience U2 live in concert again — marriage, children and a few house moves tended to get in the way. It was how I chose to live my life.
Throughout the nineties, I missed a lot of concerts, getting only to see my favorite bands on video or live concerts on TV. But I didn’t mind, it was the way of life and my growing family. The one steadfast was my parent’s house on a certain Cedarwood Road, but that’s another story to be told…
If you appreciate this article, please feel free to follow me here on Medium and comment, recommend or share my posts. You can find me at @authorljryan on Twitter, https://www.facebook.com/authorlj.ryan, on Instagram at lj_ryan07 | https://medium.com/@lorrj07/the-unforgettable-fire-the-80s-were-my-rebel-decade-392490ba4165 | ['Lj Ryan'] | 2020-12-23 16:23:52.583000+00:00 | ['Lifestyle', 'Growing Up', 'Life Lessons', 'U2', 'Music'] |
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