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The Media Industry is Broken: How Platforms Can Fix it | The Old-school Tools
In 2010 I created my first online mag because I was lucky enough to have a friend programmer who agreed to code everything for free.
After getting a bit of financial help we started to build our own CMS, investing our savings to pay developers, way more than we were paying actual journalists creating our main content. Insane!
In 2019 it still runs on a modified version of that first CMS. It is heavy, inflexible and extremely expensive to change anything in there. But we keep it. Why? Because we own it. We’re so attached! We spent a fortune on the development. I always ask myself, what are the alternatives?
There are plenty of “no code” products for almost everything. I’m a big fan of Readymag, which I always use to create presentations and landings. Can it replace our CMS? Absolutely not. What works for landings, doesn’t work for a big flow of everyday news. How about Wordpress? Well, it is old, badly designed, and usually requires extensive customization. Oh, and certainly we can bury the idea of creating your media inside of Facebook because of its unpredictable algorithms. Let’s be honest: when it comes to online media, there’s no cheap, beautiful and fully-functioning alternative to your own CMS. At least, we haven’t found one.
The Old-school Distribution
Eventually we became one of the leading lifestyle mags in the country, with more than 1M monthly readers. How much time did it take? Almost 10 years of organic growth. I must say that we got most of our Facebook audience before they changed their algorithm that radically decreased our engagement.
I understand that it would be almost impossible for new mags to reach the same level of popularity without intense traffic buying. Forget about free attention. Except rare viral cases fostered by some random influencers and distribution platforms like Medium, you always have to pay handsomely for a tiny bit of engagement, and our own followers don’t even get to see what we post.
The Old-school Monetization
After 10 years we got our popularity as a huge competitive advantage. Is it financially rewarding, though? Well, no. If you want to make money now, don’t do media. Indeed, our greatest problem is not CMS or distribution: it’s sales. Your previously loyal clients constantly compare your CPM with Instagram and Facebook, telling you that you are way too expensive for them and they get more clients just by investing in context advertising.
Why do they need you at all?
An additional problem is finding salespersons. You have to be ok with making two times less money for way more efforts than in this newly established tech startup. Impossible!
When I complained about this situation, media managers suggested to transform our journalists into sales people. Journalists protested. First of all, it’s not their job. The quality of journalism and objectivity would suffer. Second, they would overwork until they finally burn out and leave media for good.
We have created a vicious circle: you sell people’s attention, but you still have to pay for the attention, and your advertisers prefer not to pay mediators like you because you can’t attract attention anyway
The only way to break this vicious circle is to raise capital from the few available VCs who still believe in media. I’m talking about a handful of financed media startups in the first English-speaking world, like The Hassle and Axios. The problem is that media VCs and supporting organisations are inefficient as well. The only US accelerator supporting media entrepreneurs, Matter.vc, sadly got closed last year.
We should accept it, once and for all: current old-school media model won’t work as your business anymore. Yes, you heard it right, your media business will not be saved! | https://medium.com/hackernoon/the-media-industry-is-broken-how-platforms-can-fix-it-df31f9c1f40c | ['Daria Minsky'] | 2019-09-03 05:20:01.095000+00:00 | ['Curation', 'Media', 'Content', 'Future', 'Platform'] |
Ranking Every Kind of Cooking Oil by How (Un)healthy They Are | Ranking Every Kind of Cooking Oil by How (Un)healthy They Are
Most of us regard cooking oil as nothing more than a means to a non-sticking end. But (and this is a big, prepare-to-gag kind of but) the average American consumes a whopping 36 pounds of cooking oils per year — more than three times as much as in the early 1970s. These oils contributed more than 400 calories to our daily diet in 2010 (the Census Bureau suspiciously quit collecting data on how much fat and oil companies produce in 2011, meaning the Department of Agriculture can no longer use that data to accurately calculate how many calories cooking oil contributes to the average American diet).
All of this cooking oil isn’t exactly doing us any good, either: Physician and biochemist Cate Shanahan, author of Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food, estimates that, at this point in time, roughly 45 percent of the average American’s calories come from refined oils. She’s also told me time and time again that consuming too much vegetable oil (an umbrella term for plant-based oils) can result in fatty liver disease, insulin resistance and migraines.
The lesson here: Cooking oils play a massive role in our overall health, which means choosing healthy oils is a bright idea if you expect to continue living for as long as humanly possible. To help us all make better choices, I asked Dana Hunnes, senior dietitian at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and my go-to source for all nutritional queries, to help me rank every popular cooking oil by how healthy they are.
But first, here’s a quick explanation for our ranking: “I ranked these based on their fatty-acid profiles: How much saturated fat, unsaturated fat, monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat and medium chain triglycerides they contain,” Hunnes explains.
Generally speaking, unsaturated fats, monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats are regarded as healthier than saturated fats, since they lower cholesterol, and therefore, reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke. But while the consumption of saturated fat has traditionally been linked to heart disease, it’s worth noting that science continues to go back and forth in regard to whether or not saturated fats are actually healthy. As for medium chain triglycerides, these are linked to increased endurance, weight loss and lowered cholesterol, so they’re totally good for you.
With that as our guide, let’s rank some oils…
1. Flaxseed Oil, Pumpkin Seed Oil and Hemp Seed Oil (tied): “These contain fairly high doses of omega-3 fatty acids from plant-sources, which are extremely healthy for us,” Hunnes explains, since omega-3 fatty acids decrease inflammation and control blood pressure. “They also contain good doses of monounsaturated fats, which likely reduce cholesterol.”
There’s a catch, though: Flaxseed oil, pumpkin seed oil and hemp seed oil all have relatively low smoke points — the temperatures at which an oil starts to burn and smoke — meaning they fare better in dressings, spreads and marinades than on the stovetop or in the oven.
2. Sesame Oil: “Sesame oil is a good source of monounsaturated fat, anti-inflammatories and antioxidants,” Hunnes says. “It might also help reduce cholesterol.” Sesame oil also has a high smoke point (410 degrees Fahrenheit), meaning it’s well-suited for cooking at higher temperatures.
3. Avocado Oil: “Avocado oil is extremely high in oleic acid [which protects against cardiovascular disease],” says Hunnes. “It’s even better for you than olive oil: It’s an anti-inflammatory and may help reduce cholesterol.” Avocado oil also has an even higher smoke point than sesame oil (520 degrees Fahrenheit), meaning it’s great for frying foods.
4. Canola Oil, Olive Oil and Peanut Oil (tied): “All of these are high in monounsaturated fats and antioxidants,” Hunnes explains. “They can also be relatively good anti-inflammatories.” Hunnes also says that canola oil and peanut oil are better suited for high-temperature cooking than olive oil and extra virgin olive oil.
Speaking of which: The difference between olive oil and extra virgin olive oil, if you were wondering, is essentially that extra virgin olive oil is less processed, meaning it’s both slightly healthier and more flavorful. As such, extra virgin olive oil is best in dressings, spreads and marinades, while regular olive oil works better for general cooking and sautéing.
5. Sunflower Oil: Hunnes explains that sunflower oil is high in omega-6 fatty acids, which are good for the heart when consumed in moderation. Sunflower oil also contains no saturated fat, but has a relatively low smoke point.
6. Corn Oil: “Corn oil contains good levels of omega-6 polyunsaturated fats and decent amounts of monounsaturated fats,” Hunnes says. “It may help reduce cholesterol.” Corn oil also has a high smoke point.
7. Grape Seed Oil: “I would put grape seed oil after corn oil, since it’s high in omega-6 polyunsaturated fats,” Hunnes says. “We sometimes get too much omega-6 fatty acid in our Western-American diet, and too much can be inflammatory. But it’s so much better for you than saturated fats or trans fats.” It’s worth noting, however, that grape seed oil alone doesn’t contain enough omega-6 fatty acid to cause problems: Studies show that linoleic acid — the type of omega-6 fatty acid in grape seed oil — does not increase inflammation in otherwise healthy people.
8. Pam Non-Stick Cooking Spray: “Pam is a combination of canola, palm and coconut oil, so it contains monounsaturated and saturated fats,” Hunnes explains. “But since you typically don’t use too much of it, it’s not overly bad for you. Although, it also contains dimethyl silicone (an anti-foaming agent) and a few other stabilizers, so I think you’d be better off putting a mixture of oils in a spray bottle of your own.”
9. Coconut Oil: “This has a high amount of medium chain triglycerides, so it’s good for people who have some trouble absorbing fats due to certain medical conditions,” says Hunnes. “However, it’s also fairly high in saturated fat, so it may possibly increase your total cholesterol.”
It’s worth noting, too, that Harvard epidemiologist Karin Michels recently called coconut oil “pure poison” and “one of the worst foods you can eat” during a lecture on nutrition — because it contains such high levels of saturated fat — which has since sparked outrage among both Americans and Indians (who live in a country where coconut oil is a dietary staple). Who’s right remains unclear, but one thing’s for sure: Cooking oils, especially those high in saturated fat (like coconut oil), should be used sparingly.
10. Palm Oil: “This is terrible for the environment and the habitats of orangutans in Indonesia,” Hunnes emphasizes. “If you must use palm oil, look for certified humane (non-conflict) palm oil.” On a more personal level, palm oil is also high in saturated fat.
11. Vegetable Oil: While vegetable oil can be used as an umbrella term for all plant-based oils, like I mentioned earlier, Hunnes explains that it can also be used by companies (on ingredient labels) as a generic term for trans fats, which are terrible for you. “There’s nothing redeeming about trans fats,” Hunnes says. “They definitely increase cholesterol levels and cause inflammation.”
And here I thought vegetables were healthy.
This article has been updated to include grape seed oil.
Ian Lecklitner is a staff writer at MEL. He last attempted to answer all the questions you have about old people having sex.
More Ian: | https://medium.com/mel-magazine/ranking-every-kind-of-cooking-oil-by-how-un-healthy-they-are-22bf5dadc3a5 | ['Ian Lecklitner'] | 2018-09-10 16:54:05.333000+00:00 | ['Diet', 'Health', 'Food', 'Cooking', 'Weightloss Foods'] |
Building a 21st Century Time Management System. (FAQ) | Since launching the Time Sector Course, I have received a lot of positive feedback from people telling me how it has transformed the way they see their tasks. It seems I was not the only one who found having to manage projects, next actions, single actions and contexts in their task manager took up a lot of time, time that could better be spent doing the work we had to organise and manage.
As with anything new, there are inevitably some questions that have arisen, and I want to answer the more common ones here so if you have set up the Time Sector System (TSS) these answers can help you to develop your way of managing your work.
What’s the difference between a “core task” and an “area of focus”?
Nothing. In the course, I highlight the need to identify the tasks that drive your projects and goals towards successful completion — those 20% of tasks that drive 80% of your success.
Too often we get caught up in the trivialities of a project or a goal. We spend too much time trying to decide which gym to join instead of doing the exercise. We spend too much time researching blog posting platforms instead of writing the blog posts etc. When you take a little time to identify the tasks that move your projects and goals forward, you find you make far better progress.
What’s the difference between an area of focus and a routine?
An area of focus is a task that directly contributes towards a project or goal’s successful outcome, or it is a task that is an integral part of the work you do. For example, if you are in sales making appointments to talk with your potential clients/customers is an area of focus. Doing the admin — expenses, activity reports, etc. — would be routines.
The way I see it is; if it would not be a problem if you missed doing a task for a day or two, then it is likely a routine. If it would cause a problem either in your work or with a project or goal if you missed doing the task, then it is likely to be an area of focus.
Areas of focus contribute to the successful outcome of your projects and goals. Routines do not take your life further forward but need doing — things like taking the garbage out, washing your car, checking your bank accounts etc.
Does the Time Sector System work with teams?
Yes, it does. I am currently working on a programme that will introduce the TSS to teams and to recommend a few tools that will make using the TSS within a team as seamless as possible.
If you are considering introducing TSS with your team, make sure you are using tools you can share with your team. Todoist, for example, has a business version which will allow you to allocate this week’s tasks to your team members and you can share notebooks in Evernote and OneNote very easily with your team. Hence, they have access to the team’s projects.
You also have services such as Microsoft Teams, Slack and Twist that are designed for teams that you could create channels that manage your projects.
Do I have to use the Time Sectors of “This Week”, Next Week” “This Month” and “Next Month?
Not necessarily. If you are using the TSS in your company, you could create sectors for each quarter. I would still recommend you use “This Week” and “Next Week”, but you could replace “This Month” and “Next Month” with “This Quarter” and “Next Quarter”.
The purpose of creating time Sectors is to focus you on “when” you will do a task. The actual sectors per se need to work for the way you work, so if you feel managing your work by quarters would work better for you, then use quarters instead of months.
How do I use “ticklers” with the TSS?
You do not need a particular folder for your “tickler” tasks anymore (a tickler task is something you want to be reminded of on a specific day). For the most part, you can add ticklers to your calendar as an all-day event.
However, if you prefer them to be in your to-do list manager then add a date for when you want to be reminded of the task and put it in the sector you want to be reminded of it.
For example, if you have an event you may or may not want to attend later in the year, you can add the task to your “long-term” sector, with a date, and so when it comes to having to make a decision the task will come up in your daily list.
How do I manage my waiting for tasks?
This depends on the number of waiting for tasks you have. I probably have two or three each month, so I add them to the project note. As the project is active, I will be working from the project note so I will always be able to see what I am waiting for at a glance.
If your work involves managing a lot of waiting for tasks, then you could add a sub-folder to your “This Week” sector specifically for waiting for items. But be careful. This can quickly become a dumping zone of tasks you rarely look at. If you find that is the case, remove the sub-folder and manage your follow-ups within the project note instead.
Hopefully, these answer many of the questions you may have about the Time Sector System. If you want to further information on the system, below I have listed a few resources you may find helpful. And if you’re going to implement the system within your team or company, I will be very happy to help by creating a training programme tailored to your team or company’s needs. You can get in touch via email.
List of resources
Introduction to the TSS blog post
TSS Introductory video
The TSS course
Setting up Todoist
Setting up Trello
Setting up Apple’s Reminders
Setting up TeuxDeux
Thank you for reading my stories! 😊 If you enjoyed this article, hit those clapping hands below many times👏 It would mean a lot to me and it helps other people see the story.
My purpose is to help 1 million people by 2020 to live the lives they desire. To help people find happiness and become better organised and more productive so they can do more of the important things in life.
If you would like to learn more about the work I do, and how I can help you to become better organised and more productive, you can visit my website or you can say hello on Twitter, YouTube or Facebook and subscribe to my weekly newsletter right here. | https://medium.com/carl-pullein/building-a-21st-century-time-management-system-faq-abd500e0c536 | ['Carl Pullein'] | 2020-05-13 00:59:47.303000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Work Life Balance', 'Productivity', 'Time Management', 'Time'] |
How to find a good doctor, and how to steer clear of the not so good one | First, do no harm
When it comes to broken bones, gaping wounds, heart attacks, or any type of sudden trauma the work a doctor does is nothing short of miraculous.
These dedicated men and women deserve the highest credit and we should salute them for the brilliant work they do.
Good doctors listen to their patients and bring about good results — hoorah to all the good doctors!
But that’s not to say all doctors hit the same high standard. The law of averages dictates that in any profession, from plumbing to brain surgery, there are always going to those who work with speed and efficiency. Others? Meh, perhaps not so much.
Depending on your desire to get well, you may find stagnant results frustrating. If this is you, then rest assured, the gold standard for finding a good doctor is simple: if patients are getting good results then they have a good doctor. If results are poor …well, that’s not hard to figure out.
That said, I don’t believe any doctor goes to work with the intention of making poor choices. But when symptoms present themselves in a vague fashion, doctors may even fall short of our high expectations.
Let’s remind ourselves that medicine still has a ways to go before it figures out diseases such as chronic fatigue, crippling anxiety, and devastating depression.
Cancer continues to frustrate the medical profession and to date, we are still waiting for the elusive common cold cure. We could also add to the list more than a hundred debilitating autoimmune diseases. The root cause is often written off as either “unknown” or genetic.
So the aim of this article is to guide you into the hands of a good doctor. Although it’s important to note that good doctors and nice doctors are not always the same thing. Here’s a true story…
A friend of the family has been dealing with a health issue for the past year or so. She has worked in the medical industry most of her life and has a great relationship with the doctor treating her. It’s obvious that she likes him (a lot) and she is now trusting him with her life. However, it’s plain to see that twelve months into her illness, her progress has been stagnant. A more critical mind might suggest she has actually gotten worse.
We would do well to remind ourselves that any doctor we employ is there to fix a problem. As in this case, “nice” doctors have become better at public relations than they are at treating people.
If our goal is to recover quickly, then look past the easy smile and cheery bedside manner and find someone with a proven track record. Even if that means you don’t necessarily like the person (or their methods).
LOOKING FOR A USED CAR?
So how do we set about finding a good doctor? That’s easy, search for one with the same diligence we would when buying a used car. Before we step foot on a used car lot, most of us have done a little homework. We may have asked friends which cars they prefer and then cross-reference MPG ratings and prices etc. Some of us may even bring into question the car dealer’s past integrity. And yet, when a car breaks the only thing we stand to lose is a little money.
To seek the services of a doctor without applying the same level of diligence displays an absence of sound reasoning. Using this simple technique, a motivated, informed patient should be able to spot an average doctor from a mile away.
Going into any new situation blind and expecting a positive outcome is at best hopeful. Prior to your appointment take notes and have a series of questions on hand. After a brief fifteen-minute appointment, don’t be in a rush to hand over full responsibility for your health.
It’s worth reminding ourselves that doctors are not gods, with more than 400+ doctors committing suicide every year (in the US alone) I can assure you, they are just as human as you and I.
Pressing people for the cause of your illness allows you to evaluate that person’s understanding of the problem. Without knowing the cause, any treatment moving forward will always be speculative.
It’s important to be an active player in your own recovery. Let’s stop blindly following the instructions of others in the hope that it’s all going to work out for you. Come on now, deep down you know deep down I’m right. Some of us spend more time researching a vacation than we do a medical procedure.
So why is this so important?
The term medical malpractice is one we should ALL fear because it is now becoming a leading cause of death. If we break that down it simply means this: we go to the doctor, he or she gives us something for our illness, we take it, and we die.
No?
Okay, check this out.
In 1999 the pharmaceutical giant Merck released a drug by the name of Vioxx. With a TV budget running into the millions, Vioxx quickly became one of Merck’s bestsellers. Americans were prescribed Vioxx as an aspirin substitute because it was believed to produce fewer complications.
By 2007, people had begun to die and the class action suit that followed was eventually settled for $4.85 billion. But wait, there’s more. By the time Merck paid its fine, it had technically made more profit from selling a deadly drug than it paid in fines! Conservative figures suggest that Vioxx killed hundreds, if not thousands of people, and yet nobody went to jail. What’s up with that?
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them. – The Dalai Lama
The real concern is that Vioxx was first put on the market in 1999. Despite early alarm bells ringing Vioxx remained on the market right up until 2004!
“First do no harm” is a noble oath that all good doctors aspire to; it’s also the same one many of those doctors prescribing Vioxx took. Again, I’d like to be clear. Good doctors are out there, although it rarely bodes well to put our lives in their hands of someone we have only just met.
ANOTHER STRANGE BUT TRUE STORY
Clearly, things can and do go wrong with medical procedures, but for this next example imagine for a moment you woke one morning with serious pain in your left leg. Over time this pain worsened to the point where you began to use a wheelchair. As the pain intensified a friend quite rightly suggested that you see a doctor.
The news you received from the doctor is damning; tragically the doctor informs you that amputation is the only course of action. Despite reassurances that prosthetics have come a long way, you are deeply reluctant to cut off your left leg. On the way home your leg is hurting like hell and deep inside you accept that the doctor is right — obviously, that leg needs to come off.
A month or so later you find yourself back in the doctor’s office flipping through a glossy prosthetic leg magazine. After filling out the paperwork you are relieved that a date has finally been set for the operation. Now imagine waking up from that same operation and seeing your idiot doctor holding up your right leg. Yes, he amputated the wrong leg. True story!
In 1995, Tempa surgeon Dr. Rolanda R. Sanchez of the University Community Hospital listed the wrong leg for amputation. He and his lawyer Michael Blazicek publicly presented their side of the story.
Personally, I would have thought it a difficult case to defend once exhibit “A” (the leg) was presented, technically leaving him without a leg to stand on, so to speak. Whoa! I’m just telling it like it is.
As for the patient, God only knows what he must have been thinking as he faced the unenviable decision of having to decide for a second time whether or not to have his left leg cut off.
But every cloud has a silver lining. The next time around we can safely assume that the chances our patient’s correct leg will be cut off are as close to 100% as anyone could hope. Easy now … or would you rather I just deliver your medical news in a dull format?
You might think this is an isolated incident and you would be wrong. It is well documented that removing the wrong limb — and even the wrong organ — happens with disturbing regularity. During routine operations, there have even been reports of medical instruments gone missing and turning up stitched inside the patient!
My point is this: don’t settle for average, do your research, be informed, fight your own corner or live with the consequences. Rushing into a relationship with a very nice but “average” doctor allows for ample opportunity to repent at leisure. If you are heading for a hospital, be sure to have good people around you and remain vigilant.
When faced with ANY invasive procedure first do your homework, speak to people who have been in your situation. Then compare their results with your expectations. People are always in a hurry to recommend nice people, but we should remember that we aren’t looking for nice, we are looking for results.
Ultimately it’s always going to be your health that’s on the line. Hear me now, if something doesn’t feel right with any procedure, speak up for yourself and politely but firmly say no. It’s your body, which means you don’t even have to explain yourself. You should never feel pressured to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable just to make someone else feel comfortable.
Good doctors aren’t always the most expensive, nor do they need to have the best bedside manner. They do, however, have to have one dead giveaway. Good people are busy people, and that’s okay if he or she brings results.
Try to keep this in mind. If you can pick up the phone and see the doctor (or dentist) the same afternoon, that should immediately be a red flag. Most competent doctors will be booked solid as good news always travels fast.
If you can get in to see your doctor at the drop of a hat, then perhaps you should wait for that other guy. Obviously, this is subject to your appointment not being an emergency. In that case, you can rest assured that most ER doctors are nurses are some of the most efficient people on the planet.
Remember the golden rule. Whenever you meet a healthcare professional be polite and respectful but don’t be afraid to ask probing questions. A good doctor/dentist will never feel threatened by an informed patient.
What did we learn from this?
The right doctor can be a godsend, but choose your new doctor/dentist with the same care you would choose a new (or used) car, and always do your homework. Ask questions and listen carefully to their answers. | https://jameslilley24.medium.com/how-to-find-a-good-doctor-and-how-to-steer-clear-of-the-not-so-good-one-431c3168db9b | ['James Lilley'] | 2019-04-05 01:20:48.433000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Doctors', 'Medical', 'Hospital', 'Life'] |
I Put a Spell on Trump | I Put a Spell on Trump
Photo by Devin H on Unsplash
If I believed in magic, I’d believe in God,
but I know the woman in the box
just curls her legs
into a chamber beneath her
while someone else wearing her shoes
puts on a show of wiggling toes.
If God created everything,
he gave birth to the devil,
while he miscarried a billion babies this year
into toilets across the land,
and he isn’t doing shit
to protect your immigration status
from an orangutan with a comb over,
no matter how many kewpie dolls
made from orange hair and blood
you set fire to in the urns.
I wrote “Fuck Trump” in caps
across my chest with a black Sharpie,
and cut up pictures of his face
and fed them to birds.
I said the words, “Be bound to your angry chair,”
and threw crow feathers up into discordant spirals.
Trump gave the CEO of DuPont his pen,
and told the media to fuck off
with a smile on his face
like the day the devil was born.
And the Christians kissed their crosses
and said, “Amen.” | https://medium.com/resistance-poetry/i-put-a-spell-on-trump-8c373997b2d1 | ['Jay Sizemore'] | 2020-12-06 17:03:29.470000+00:00 | ['Resistance Poetry', 'Witchcraft', 'Spells', 'Trump', 'Poetry'] |
“Lost Keys” | Exeter Cathedral, Exeter, Devon, UK. Source: pixabay.com
“Lost Keys”
St. Peter walks into a bar… a poem
In a little pub outside Exeter Cathedral
St. Peter lost his keys
They were just here,
he said.
Right here, on the bar, and by this glass
(Oh, man. I am in so much trouble.)
He (by which I mean we) got down
to hands and knees, to search among the stools,
the chairs and cigarette butts.
What did they look like?
He peered at me (down there),
shook his head, then reached a gnarled old hand
behind the radiator
What did they look like?
mocking me, St. Peter was
They look like gate keys, you idjit
but, he paused
St Peter done scowled, and sighed,
then stood up and patted his robe
But bigger, you know, and pearly-like.
he paused a’more
frowned, then said
and they glow… a little. Just a little.
Ah,
says I
And shut off the lights.
And we looked and found them
hanging from a peg
next to his halo. | https://medium.com/afwp/lost-keys-b5076a1321d1 | ['John Teehan'] | 2020-02-09 15:31:01.226000+00:00 | ['Poetry On Medium', 'Religion', 'Poetry', 'Words', 'Poem'] |
European Union On Changes In Tourism | As we are trying to hold the second wave of the pandemic at bay, which shows little signs of stopping, it is becoming more and more obvious that a lot of industries will undergo drastic changes, and one of the first fields to go through this change is the tourism industry. This is coming from the European Union authorities.
Bans and restrictions on travel that were implemented in an effort to curtail the spread of COVID-19 have hit the tourism sector very hard. Entire hotels are vacant, airplanes are rusting away with little use, and staff is laid off by the millions.
What is happening amid the coronavirus hysteria in the field of international tourism and air travel? For instance, Germany is reducing prices on railroad travel in an effort to incentivize people to use alternative means of transportation.
Air carriers, one of them is Easyjet, are cutting down on their fleets. It all points towards a conclusion: if tourism is to survive the pandemic, it must radically change.
A lot of forward-looking travel firms, hoteliers and transport companies understand the inevitable structural changes to the economy, and are already putting effort into adapting to the new reality.
Will tourism ever come back in its former glory? Without a doubt, but it will be a completely different thing. At least that is what the European authorities believe. They claim there will no longer be hundreds of charter flights with millions of tourists going to beach resorts. EU commissioners advise everyone to get up to speed on the theory of “sustainable development” and begin adapting to the new world order.
The EU authorities claim that companies who believe they will be able to come back to the way they were doing business as they used to, won’t be able to survive the current crisis. | https://medium.com/modihost/european-union-on-changes-in-tourism-ae3b52baff0f | [] | 2020-12-16 11:05:08.318000+00:00 | ['Tourism', 'Blockchain', 'Hms', 'Hospitality', 'Hotel'] |
Clinton’s Health Care Failure | Photo by Chris Grafton on Unsplash
Clinton’s Health Care Failure
Proponents of single-payer health care haven’t learned from reformer’s past mistakes. Here’s why they should
The 2020 Election is shaping up to be a referendum on the future of health care in the United States. The Progressive wing of the Democratic party is championing a single-payer health care system at all costs. In their eyes, there should be no middle ground. With a potential unified democratic government come January, Progressives have proposed enacting single-payer care without compromising with Republicans on the legislation. The left-wing of the party believes Democrats have tried “pragmatism” far too often without success.
The moderate wing of the Democratic party recognizes that single-payer is just out of reach in the current political climate. Moderates propose that the first steps in acquiring single-payer health care would be to not only to restore Obamacare, but to expand it as well. They think they can work with the Republican party to lower the price of health care services, insurance, and drug prices. As long as single-payer care has a price tag of $3 trillion a year, the moderates won’t take a stand in support of it.
“Continued escalation of health care costs threaten the economy of the United States, undermines international competitiveness of the Nation, and strains federal, state, and local budgets.” -H.R. 3600, the Health Security Act (1993)
This isn’t a new struggle in American politics. We’ve been through this health care song and dance before. In 1993, the Clinton Administration worked tirelessly during its first 100 days to overhaul the health care system in the United States. While single-payer had momentarily been on the table for the Administration, they decided instead to adopt pro-market reforms. The Administration pivoted to enact a system of managed competition, similar to the insurance collectives Obamacare created. While Clinton’s plan would have achieved near universal coverage, it was a program mostly funded by charges on employers in the country. When small businesses organized together to protest the bill, a wide range of alternative proposals were offered in Congress. Single-payer health care had a decent chance, gaining support from almost 100 representatives in the House.
Unfortunately, all of the health care reform proposals died in Congress. As the country puts health care reform at the top of the agenda again, we should take care to heed the lessons from Clinton’s struggle, to shake up the status quo. There’s no shot at passing meaningful reform, progressive or moderate, if we don’t learn from the past.
Policy in the United States is not necessarily a technocratic endeavor. Much of the legislation that shapes our daily lives started as policy proposals from interest groups, think tanks, and policy wonks. No matter how well those policies were drafted by their original authors, there is still a reason why these proposals are referred to as drafts. In order for legislation to be created, it must survive a barrage of obstacles from zealous committee members, officials both elected and unelected, the media, and voters. Not only that, the proposal must compete with opposition from ideological counterparts and their motives. The legislation’s author also affects public perception of the policy, and can ultimately lead to its failure. Given all of this, it is easy to see the challenges that the 1993 Health Security Act (HSA) faced. The Clinton Administration attempted to enact sweeping reform to the entire United States health care system. This reform faced some of the most wealthy, widely used, and entrenched institutions in the country.
Failing to find a base for support, the HSA found itself in an uphill battle that quickly turned into a war along a porous border with new fronts emerging on a daily basis. The will of the people to support President Clinton’s health care reform devolved from a supportive atmosphere to one of stark opposition.
The ultimate failure of policy comes from the Clinton administration itself. Numerous missteps and failures ruined the nation’s best opportunity for reform until Obama’s Affordable Care Act in 2010. While there are potentially hundreds of reasons for the failure of any large scale reform, the Clinton Administration prevented the passage of the HSA through poor planning, messaging, public relations, political stonewalling, and budgetary constraints. The insurmountable hurdle then, was the disarray in the White House that defined Clinton’s first term in office, and the public’s growing distrust with his administration.
The Uphill Battle
Paul Starr, author of Remedy and Reaction, wrote extensively about the difficulties the White House would face in its efforts to create universal health care. For starters, the country had found itself inside of a policy trap. Prior reforms had been created to cover just enough of the population, benefiting groups such as the elderly and the poor, that changing the entire health care system was politically risky. The middle class also enjoyed the health care service they were given by their employers, and the elderly felt entitled to the health care they received through Medicare. The status quo left tens of millions uninsured, but they did not vote on the basis of health care. This group of uninsured lacked any political organization that could compete with the entrenched interests of the insurance companies and medical groups, as well as the lobbying organizations, like the AARP. In order to create reform, the Clinton administration needed to win businesses over and expand health coverage for the elderly to gain their support. Clinton thought doing so would create a broad enough coalition to pass the legislation. Building the coalition was only the first step in the process, though.
To understand why Clinton’s proposal to Congress lost popular support so quickly, we must understand the political climate surrounding the effort. The 1990s were a time of rampant rising costs of health care. Insurance premiums rose 90% from 1987 to 1993, while wages increased 28%, meaning the public was suffering under an increase in costs without receiving the wages to match. The conservative backlash contesting increased taxes and government inefficiency had come to define the Republican party during this time. This anti-tax political atmosphere meant Clinton needed to be wary of cost overruns and funding streams for his health care plan.
The HSA would have been much easier to enact had it been passed under budget reconciliation, a Senate procedural rule that allows for budgetary amendments to be passed with a simple majority instead of the typical 60 vote threshold. The filibuster cannot be used to break this process, and it is thus a favorite tool of large-scale budgetary reform. President Clinton, with the support of a democratic house and senate, could have easily passed the landmark health care reform had he been able to pass the HSA this way. However, Senator Byrd, the official deficit hawk and keeper of tradition in the senate, told Clinton and his supporters that the bill was too impactful and large scale to be passed through reconciliation. The battle for reform would not be quick and rewarding, but a gruelling effort to enlist Republican support and toe the line so all 57 democrats would vote in step with the party. This would be no easy task to accomplish.
Losing the Party’s Support
The Democratic party had been forced to make votes that threatened numerous members’ seats in both chambers of Congress. The president pursued an agenda of economic reform, trade reform, and stricter gun control legislation in the 1993 budget, forcing some of his partisan allies to make some difficult votes. With his political capital expended, representatives and senators tried to avoid pressure from the White House so they could maintain popular support at home and win their re-election campaigns.
During the debate about the HSA, Clinton slowly saw his favorability rating decline in the polls. The president appointed his wife Hillary Clinton as a leader in drafting the health care reform. This was supposed to mark his seriousness in the endeavor, but the media and opposition began to view the First Lady’s appointment as the beginning of a wave of nepotism that the Clinton administration became notorious for. The firing of White House travel agency staff and their subsequent replacement by Clinton’s supporters, became a large controversy as well as the Whitewater investigation and the conspiracy theories spreading from that investigation. Ira Magaziner, the other head of the health care reform legislation, was an advisor to Clinton in his prior capacity as governor, and highlighted President Clinton’s tendency to employ those that were not always considered the leading experts in their respective fields. All of these scandals plagued Clinton’s first term: Republicans quickly discovered that running an anti-Clinton platform was an effective strategy to win more seats in Congress.
The entire process of creating the legislation was tumultuous. Lawsuits challenged the validity of the task force that was working on the policy, which led to its dissolution and the creation of a new ad hoc committee of up to 500 members that debated what would eventually turn into the HSA. Republicans were mostly excluded from the process, which appeared to be almost entirely run by Democrats in health industries, health regulatory agencies, and congressional staffers. Running an outfit this large with heated and conflicting views about policy goals lead to massively devastating leaks. Republicans seized on the opportunity, using the leaks to control the public message about the reform act. The semi-closed door creation of the policy was thus drawing suspicion to the Clinton plan. This gave Republicans a bad first impression of the new president and his health care initiative.
Bolstered by a New York Times article that claimed Clinton’s proposal would increase health care spending by one hundred billion dollars a year, moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats began working on their own counter proposals. The Times’ article itself was cited in the efforts against the HSA, in spite of the fact that Starr claims it had been based on an incomplete set of information that was leaked prematurely. Nonetheless, the fiscal ramifications drew moderates from both parties. Those on the far left and far right worked on their own healthcare reform legislation as well. Senator Grandy, a Republican, and Senator Cooper, a Democrat, co-authored legislation that would essentially broaden the amount of people that could obtain insurance, but stopped short of universal coverage. This was a non-starter for the White House, since Clinton had already promised health care reform would cover all Americans. The Administration’s unwillingness to negotiate with Congress drew the ire of both Democrats and Republicans alike.
Congressional leadership did not wholeheartedly agree with Clinton’s approach to health care. There was the ever-looming “Moynihan-problem,” where Senate Finance Chair Daniel Moynihan consistently changed his mind about what policies he would and wouldn’t support. As the Finance Chair’s approval was necessary to pass the bill, Moynihan’s lack of a solid stance made negotiations difficult. Moynihan flip-flopped frequently, even at one point claiming that “universal coverage already exists because people could go to the Emergency Room” and receive care, no matter their insurance status.
When Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Rostenkowski was indicted for fraud, Clinton lost an important ally in the health care fight. The democrat who replaced him, Pete Stark, was opposed to the HSA. Upon becoming chair, Stark worked to turn the committee against the White House. Clinton could no longer control his caucus and get them to support his health initiative in either chamber of Congress. Losing the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee meant the HSA’s success was virtually doomed.
Institutional Restraints
To make matters worse, a negative review by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the HSA would actually increase the federal budget deficit over time instead of reducing it. CBO rates each bill in Congress that has been passed out of committee. It tells legislators how much the bill’s program will cost the government (and by extension the taxpayers). With a negative score, Clinton’s main talking point had been taken from him. He had claimed that his health care proposal would improve health outcomes at a cheaper price. House Resolution (H.R.) 3600, the official name for the HSA, claims “continued escalation of health care costs threaten the economy of the United States, undermines international competitiveness of the Nation, and strains federal, state, and local budgets.” According to the wording of the legislation itself, it was supposed to reduce costs, not increase them, and this became a huge sticking point against the reform effort.
In an effort to improve the CBO score, Clinton’s team tightened up the policy and lowered the subsidy that the government would pay for the new health care plan. The rest of the costs would be paid when an individual visited their health care provider. These changes improved CBO’s forecast, but led to an even greater disapproval rating from the left-wing of the Democratic party. The lower cost still did not win over a single Republican.
Clinton’s lack of willingness to accept anything short of universal coverage was marketed as an act of no faith, and thus made negotiations more difficult. By the time the White House was willing to compromise on the universality of coverage, public opinion and political opposition would prove to be too formidable to beat. Many pundits and journalists after the fact proclaimed the proposal was doomed from the start. They concluded that with a reform this big, the best way to sell it to the American people would be to initiate it incrementally. The media insisted that instead of launching sweeping reforms that would affect the health care industry and hundreds of billions of dollars in spending, the Clinton administration should have tried to enact reform bit by bit. Though small scale reform was more popular with politicians, Clinton viewed incrementalism as an expansion of the current policy trap that the country found itself in with Medicare.
The Clinton administration had believed that the time for health care reform was right. When they ultimately lost their caucus, business, supportive unions, their messaging platform, consensus about the next step forward, cost controls, popularity, and procedural advantages, the window for health care reform was closed.
If universal, single-payer health care ever has a chance in this country, these conditions must be met. The Democratic party must agree on one policy. Businesses large and small need to be included in the drafting process. Unions must champion the health care reform proposed, and they must have a seat at the negotiating table. The message should be unified and supported by left-leaning media and survive scrutiny from the moderate media. Costs need to be contained so as to be palatable for Congressional leaders and their constituents. The right leaders in Congress must have positions of power throughout the committee system and party leadership offices. Most importantly, Democrats must have unified control of the House, Senate, and Presidency. Without all of these conditions being met, the fight for single-payer health care will just be that: a fight. | https://medium.com/discourse/clintons-health-care-failure-d3c41fe1756f | ['Gustavo Munoz'] | 2020-05-22 18:35:00.401000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Journalism', 'Election 2020', 'Healthcare', 'History'] |
APIs are the new Business Development | Back in 2008 I spent months and months on integrating with a new partner that the company had hit up.
Literally hit up.
Talk, meet, go out for lunch, out for beers, meet and talk some more and then see what the technical aspects of such an integration would look like, how will it benefit customers (mutually) and how does that affect our businesses.
Today if you want to integrate your product with another one to provide more value to your customers, you basically just find an API that does what you need, hit up the documentation and evaluate the feasibility of the time it will take vs. the value it will provide.
Any developer can do that. It’s even fun to do. And you don’t need to think about how it benefits the provider of the API — since they’re offering it, it’s all up for grabs.
Business Development is going away.
It’s 2015 and there’s a ton of stuff built already that you can take advantage of. There’re even API marketplaces and directories where you can search for an API that does image manipulation and get a list of providers that does that.
Your job is to solve problems, so as longs as the business can align their thinking about which problems to solve you should be just fine to go an hit up APIs to help you solve them.
If you’re an indie developer, this is even better. The world of APIs is a giant box of LEGO bricks waiting to be poked, mashed together and brought to life.
You can even use integrations as marketing which is often the point, since you now extend your product with new capabilities you want your customers to know. | https://medium.com/product-hacking/apis-are-the-new-business-development-24fe4ba361a | ['Martin H. Normark'] | 2017-01-10 23:06:04.219000+00:00 | ['Platform', 'API', 'Business Development'] |
Mulan: Why a hybrid release is the better option for Disney | Mulan: Why a hybrid release is the better option for Disney
The move is a fascinating test case as the ongoing COVID-19 situation continues to disrupt traditional distribution windows
Mulan had its Hollywood premiere on March 9th 2020 but its scheduled worldwide release at the end of that month was cancelled as COVID-19 swept the globe and cinemas closed their doors. After repeatedly delaying the film’s theatrical release, Disney has decided that the time has come to see some return on its investment. This need for additional revenue is evidenced by the company’s latest quarterly earnings release, in which it reported an approximate drop in operating income for the quarter of $2.9bn when compared to the same period in 2019.
To watch the film upon its release on September 4th 2020, Disney+ subscribers will have to pay a premium fee of $29.99 on top of their current subscription fee. The film will still receive a theatrical release in territories, including China, where cinemas are starting to re-open.
Considering the target audience demographics for Mulan, the hybrid approach was Disney’s only real option. Bundling the film with existing subscriptions would have meant accepting loss, but adding the title to Disney+ as an extra allows Disney to test this new model and enjoy complete control of distribution.
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash
An unusual strategy for unusual times
Disney CEO Bob Chapek was keen to stress that this is a one-off move because of the unique COVID-19 situation. Despite these assurances, theatrical exhibitors will be wary of what a successful hybrid release like this could mean for future releases.
Success for Disney will be determined by how much profit it had forecasted for Mulan to make. As the film was postponed just a few weeks before its release, Disney will have spent a significant amount on advertising and marketing Mulan. Estimates place this spend somewhere between $50m and $100m which, when added to the film’s $200m production budget, brings Disney’s spend on the project to between $250m and $300m.
To directly recoup this level of spend from the premium rental fee on Disney+, Disney would need between 13.78% and 16.54% of the service’s current 60.5 million subscribers to pay the premium rental fee. That’s 8.3 million to a little over 10 million subscribers, just to cover those initial costs.
Many of Disney+’s current 60.5 million subscribers may well balk at the prospect of paying a hefty additional fee for new content, which changes the terms of the unspoken ‘deal’ that they agreed to upon joining: access to a library of content in exchange for a monthly fee. Netflix would struggle to justify any similar attempt to charge additional fees for what it deemed to be more premium content as it has no significant precedent of making money from its content in other windows. The ongoing COVID-19 situation that leaves many cinemas closed gives Disney a justification to adopt this unusual strategy for one of its theatrical projects. For the average family movie night, it would normally be cheaper than a trip to the cinema; success will depend on how effectively Disney can communicate this type of messaging.
Hybrid strategy is a more viable way to go
The two obvious choices for Disney would have been to offer Mulan as part of the standard Disney+ subscription or to release the film in cinemas that are able to open, but neither would’ve likely generated enough new revenue on their own.
A straight to Disney+ release would be unlikely to draw enough new subscribers to the service and Disney has already sacrificed some theatrical revenue by shifting properties to the streaming service during the global pandemic.
The much delayed $125m adaptation of Artemis Fowl was likely more beneficial in the long-term as a draw for new Disney+ subscribers than it would have been at the box office, and COVID-19 gave Disney the push needed to move the film onto its streaming service.
The hit taken by the early straight to streaming release of Hamilton is probably more significant. Event cinema has found a niche in the marketplace and the filmed version, bought for a reported $75m, was set to offer consumers a chance to see the hit stage show on the big screen in October 2021 at a fraction of the cost of a theatre ticket. At a time when all theatre productions have been suspended, Disney will have hoped that Hamilton’s streaming release will have tapped into this consumer desire and driven new Disney+ signups.
Like Disney’s other live-action remakes, Mulan is predominantly targeted at families, albeit ones with slightly older children given the film’s 12A/PG-13 certificate, who may already make up a significant proportion of current Disney+ subscribers and viewers. As such, Disney would not see any additional revenue from these customers with a normal release on Disney+.
While a straight to Disney+ release would have driven an increase in signups of some size, there is no guarantee that any new subscribers would maintain their subscription beyond the first month; if they hadn’t already subscribed to Disney+, it is risky to assume that new subscribers would keep their subscription after watching Mulan, especially given the marked lack of high profile new content on the service at the moment.
Based on current US pricing, Disney would’ve need to attract more than four new one-month subscriptions for every one $29.99 purchase of Mulan to see the same new revenue.
Mulan needs family audiences more than other titles do
With the recent uptick in COVID-19 cases and deaths in the US in particular, cinemas are not able to fully open up to allow for the traditional worldwide release that Disney had intended for Mulan. Securing a release in China will have been welcome news for Disney but as the company will only see around 25% of the box office gross, the territory could not have been relied upon to make up for a limited box office in the US and other international territories.
Additionally, Disney needed to be able to count of family trips to the cinema for Mulan. However, school summer holidays are coming to an end and as the re-opening of schools is a priority for many governments around the world, children are likely to either be back at school or at home under lockdown restrictions again by September. As such, families would have been more limited to weekend screenings, which will be limited in both number and capacity as cinemas enforce social distancing measures.
By comparison, Christoper Nolan’s Tenet will skew towards a more independent older audience, who will perhaps be more willing and able to visit cinemas under social distancing restrictions, either on their own or with a friend or partner, when the film opens in cinemas from the end of August (and early September in select US sites).
Premium pricing preserves early run value
A straight to streaming release could’ve damaged the perceived premium status of Disney’s theatrical projects, many of which are the most lucrative in the business; since 2015, Disney has released 18 films that have each taken more than $1bn at the global box office, including seven in 2019 alone. Disney+ has made very significant inroads into the streaming market but Disney did not anticipate that the service would become profitable until 2024, so the company is unlikely to turn its back on the theatrical window before then.
For further context, the table below shows estimated profits for some of Disney’s other live action remakes, as reported by Deadline in their annual look at the most profitable movies.
These profit calculations incorporate costs and revenues from non-theatrical release windows (TV, home entertainment etc), which Disney will hope to be able to exploit as normal. However, they do convey the importance of the theatrical box office, as well as the hopes Disney may have had for Mulan beyond breaking even.
Ultimately, a $29.99 price to watch Mulan at home will help to maintain the premium status of Disney’s theatrical properties until theatrical exhibition settle into whatever the post-COVID-19 normal will be. And while the premium fee will likely be too much for many consumers, it gives Disney the chance to test the waters and recoup some of its investment along the way. | https://mattevenson.medium.com/mulan-why-a-hybrid-release-is-a-better-option-for-disney-63a4b40405d5 | ['Matthew Evenson'] | 2020-08-18 13:17:16.537000+00:00 | ['Film', 'Disney Plus', 'Disney', 'Mulan', 'Streaming'] |
The Power of a Pause | The Power of a Pause
The quiet space between commands that allows your dog time to think
Dogs need time to think about our words, but we interrupt this process when we continue speaking. Photo by Nancy Lovering.
Do dogs understand our words? It can certainly seem that way. Some estimates place their receptive language capacity at around 150 words or more. Whether it’s those words, or our body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, hand gestures, or varying combinations of any of these elements used in the right context, our dogs’ behaviors suggest that they’re trying to understand us.
I work as an education assistant (EA) supporting students with diverse learning needs. One of the things I’ve discovered is that I can apply classroom strategies to dog training. More specifically, some of the receptive language acquisition techniques I use as an EA also translate well to communicating with my dogs.
In “Your Dog is Listening” I list several such strategies, one of which is to allow for language processing time. It can be tempting to repeat yourself when your dog doesn’t immediately respond to your command, but when you do, you interfere with his processing of the words you’ve already spoken.
Yesterday I was reminded again of how important it is to pause verbal input to allow processing time.
My husky Zeus told me he wanted his favorite noisy ball, which we call “Squeak.” He asked by sitting down beside our upright freezer and gazing up at the top where I sometimes keep the ball. I told him the ball wasn’t there, and that it might be outside.
I called him out to the balcony where I could see the ball in the yard. It was on the other side of his designated dig zone, partially hidden by a ladder.
“Look — it’s there! Squeak is in the yard. Come on. I’ll show you” I walked down the balcony steps and he followed, apparently thinking I was going to cross the wet grass in my slippers to get the ball for him. Instead, I pointed in the direction of the ball and used my best command voice.
“Squeak is there. Zeus bring squeak!”
I said it once, and then I reminded myself to stop talking.
Zeus is not trained for fetch. He’s not trained for much, actually, given the fact that his breed is particularly difficult to order around. Siberians aren’t obedient — they’re collaborative. They don’t fetch things unless there’s something in it for them.
In this case, that something was playtime with his squeaky ball! So I told him where it was, I told him to bring it, then I stopped distracting him with my voice. Because I stopped talking, I allowed him to focus on the ball and process the words “bring squeak.” And after a moment, that’s exactly what he did: he found the ball, picked it up, and carried it back to me.
I was happy — until he brought Squeak into the house. What I haven’t mentioned until now is how much noise this ball makes… | https://nancylovering.medium.com/the-power-of-a-pause-1f285a521307 | ['Nancy Lovering'] | 2020-12-31 21:20:20.328000+00:00 | ['Animal Behavior', 'Dog Training', 'Dogs', 'Animal Cognition', 'Language'] |
How We Scale Geospatial Calculations using Shapely and Rtree | At Zendrive, we help drivers drive safer. We do this by collecting driving behavior data through our partners and analyzing a driver’s risk to calculate a risk score based on the trips taken by the driver.
We get the trips data for the driver, including spatial information as GPS points. We then perform spatial operations, such as finding the state or zip-code for a location, on the data, and then use the results to calculate the risk score of the driver.
Fig 1. Geospatial calculations required to analyse drivers’ risk
Our Method for Performing Spatial Computations
But first, a couple of terms.
POSTGIS — PostGIS is an extension to the PostgreSQL object-relational database system which allows GIS (Geographic Information Systems) objects to be stored in the database. See POSTGIS docs. OSM DB — We load the open street map(OSM) data into a postgres database and use POSTGIS to perform spatial calculations. We will be referring to this postgres database containing OSM data as OSM DB for the rest of the article. Spark — Apache Spark is a fast and general-purpose cluster computing system (See Apache docs). In Spark, computation is carried out using executors, which are worker nodes in charge of running individual tasks in a spark job.
For risk modelling at Zendrive, some of the calculations we do are:
Calculate the distance of trip that was taken on a highway.
If a trip spans across multiple zip-codes, we like to calculate the distance travelled in each zip-code.
Other similar spatial calculations.
To do these, we use spark jobs. Spark executors make a connection with the OSM DB, run a spatial query, and get the results for further processing.
Fig 2. Using spark to query OSM DB for spatial operations
Limitations of OSM DB
The method described for spatial computation has an issue with scaling. OSM DB, being a RDBMS database, limits the number of concurrent connections made to it. For our use case, this number stands around 300–350.
Opting for a larger database to increase the number of connections would lead to the database being idle most of the time, since our spark jobs are on demand. This limits the number of executors used in our spark job and becomes a bottleneck in on-demand scaling for our spark jobs.
These batch jobs can take several hours to process and with the increase in traffic, this time is going up linearly. We have to find a scalable way of doing spatial calculation, and also make sure that time and resources needed to run our pipeline don’t increase significantly.
Scaling this Approach
Our approach to solve the problem was to remove the root cause. If we could remove our dependency on OSM DB, then we can scale up. But how?
Our solution was simple. Could we somehow do all the computations in the spark executor itself, without needing to make connections with the OSM DB? The answer is yes.
This is where Shapely comes in. From their docs,
Shapely is a BSD-licensed Python package for manipulation and analysis of planar geometric objects.
…
The first premise of Shapely is that Python programmers should be able to perform PostGIS type geometry operations outside of an RDBMS.
Shapely helps us perform spatial calculations locally using Python instead of using OSM DB. But since Shapely does not support indexing operations, we use Rtree, which provides a number of advanced spatial indexing features for indexing our spatial data.
Shapely assumes all the data in a 2D coordinate plane. We need to transform our data into a coordinate reference system on which Shapely can perform geometric operations (i.e. epsg:3857).
In our case, we converted the OSM DB data present in epsg:4326 to epsg:3857 using Pyproj (Coordinate transformation library in Python). You may need similar transformation if you want to use Shapely for spatial computations.
Shapely is just the tool for computation, so we need to convert the geo-data present in OSM DB into Shapely objects upon which spatial operations can be done. The idea was to have local geo-data in each executor so that it can perform calculations independently, and completely remove the OSM DB dependency.
Fig 3. Approach to remove the OSM DB dependency for spatial calculations
This Causes Another Problem
For smaller tables in OSM DB (like states, or zip-codes), we can directly convert the data into Shapely objects and load it into our spark executors. But we cannot afford to load bigger tables like North America Line (containing highway data) completely into our executors. This could lead to out-of-memory errors.
We need to find a way to minimize the amount of data loaded into each executor.
Solution: Divide and Rule
To solve this problem, we used the technique of data storage used for digital maps. For rendering a map on your screen, the whole world is divided into a specific number of tiles based on the zoom level. When you request the data for a region, only the tiles for that region are downloaded.
Similar to this, we stored the highway data for each tile instead of storing complete data. Now, we can only download the tiles data required for processing of the trips in that executor instead of all North America data.
Fig 4. Tile-based map rendering (Maptiler)
But, merely dividing the data into tiles and downloading only the required tiles for computation will not give any advantage. Why?
As depicted in Figure 5, our trips data is distributed across spark executors and each executor needs to load tiles required for processing each trip present in it. Since different trips in an executor require different tiles for processing, we end up downloading a large number of tiles in each executor leading to the same problem.
Fig 5. Trip data distributed across spark executors
So we tried various techniques to solve this issue:
1. Load, Process and Erase
In this technique, we can load the tile data for one trip, process, and then erase the tile data for that trip. This way, only one tile data will be present in the executor at any moment and we have successfully solved the data loading problem.
But, as is apparent, we would need to download the same tile data again and again in the same executor. Furthermore, one tile may need to be downloaded across multiple executors. This will increase the time taken by our spark job.
2. Repartition data in spark smartly
A good technique to solve the problem would be to group tiles of the same region into one executor, as shown in Figure 6. This way each executor will download the tiles data of the respective region and a smaller total number of tiles will be downloaded.
Moreover, the trips in an executor now belong to the same region and end up requiring the same tile data for getting processed, so we could reuse the same data without downloading it multiple times.
Fig 6. Repartitioning the trip data to improve performance
To achieve this, we thought of repartitioning our trips data based on the tiles from which the trip starts. We find the starting tile for trips from each trip’s start location and repartition the trip data across executors. Now, the trips belonging to the same region are present in the same executor. We will also save the tile data downloaded once into an executor so that it can be reused by other trips in the same executor.
This solves our memory overload problem by downloading less trips. Further, using the same tile data for processing multiple trips reduces the time taken by downloading the same tile multiple times. We’re able to hit two birds with one stone.
Fig 7. Advantage of re-partitioning data based on tiles
Maintaining the Quality of Our Code Structure and Readability
Using this combination of Shapely and Rtree solves our problem. But, using this combination causes us to compromise the structure and readability of our code.
To improve readability, we thought of using geopandas. What is geopandas? From their docs:
GeoPandas is an open source project to make working with geospatial data in python easier. GeoPandas extends the datatypes used by pandas to allow spatial operations on geometric types. Geometric operations are performed by shapely.
Geopandas uses geodataframes (very similar to pandas dataframes) which provides a very clean way to perform spatial calculations. The geometric operations are done in Shapely so we needn’t worry about any change in our results. Further, it has an in-built Rtree index (sindex) which can be used for indexing data. This was a perfect fit for us.
Below is a code snippet to find the state for any location. Indexing and handling of data becomes simple using geopandas.
# state_gdf is the geodataframe containing state information
+------------+---------+
|state | geometry|
+------------+---------+
def get_state_for_point(self, x, y):
#x, y are coordinates in epsg:3857
point_geom = Point(x, y)
possible_matches_index = list(state_gdf.sindex.intersection(point_geom.bounds))
possible_matches = state_gdf.loc[possible_matches_index]
precise_matches = possible_matches.loc[possible_matches.contains(point_geom)]
if precise_matches.empty:
return None
else:
return precise_matches.iloc[0].state
With 160 executors in place, Shapely and Rtree worked smoothly whereas OSM DB couldn’t provide connections to handle these many executors.
Scalability
As the calculations take place locally, this method has no constraint on the number of executors. We can scale up our spark cluster according to our needs.
Earlier we used to run our pipeline using 80 executors. To test the new approach, we scaled up our spark cluster to use double the number of executors. With 160 executors in place, Shapely and Rtree worked smoothly whereas OSM DB couldn’t provide connections to handle these many executors.
Moreover, we ran our pipeline with the same number of executors as was used with OSM DB and found that the time taken by Shapely and Rtree is comparable to the time taken by OSM DB.
OSM DB (80 executors, 10 gb)
1486.45 sec Shapely + Rtree (80 executors, 10 gb)
1703.88 sec Shapely + Rtree (160 executors, 8 gb)
1057.63
This solution also helped us in discovering the right geo-match for significant trips which were not getting mapped to zipcodes earlier, while also cutting the cost of a dedicated OSM DB.
Needless to say, we’re quite happy with the result.
Author Bio
Ashutosh Goel is a final year student at BITS Pilani, pursuing a dual major in Computer Science and Economics. He currently works as an intern in the Customer Products team at Zendrive. Ashutosh likes to work on large-scale distributed systems. Python and spark are his favourite tools. | https://medium.com/zendrive-tech/how-we-scale-geospatial-calculations-using-shapely-and-rtree-5e0583aa9a64 | ['Vaibhav Gupta'] | 2020-07-07 06:03:05.611000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Geospatial', 'Data Science', 'Innovation', 'Spark'] |
How India should deal with Foreign Interference in its Internal Affairs | #opinion
In the past few weeks, India has witnessed protests in the states of Haryana and Punjab by farmers over the passing of the new agricultural reforms. The protests have not only attracted national and state political parties, which is expected when such issues arise, but also those from outside the nation as well, such as the President of Canada, Justin Trudeau, who berated the country for using water cannons and tear gas on protesters. Ironically, Canada itself used similar means to suppress protests by certain indigenous tribes because of a pipeline. Trudeau may be merely attempting to pander to his Sikh voter base in Canada or boost his ‘secular’ image. To make matters worse, Khalistan sympathizers have attempted to use these protests to fuel their separatist agenda.
This isn’t the first time a foreign entity has poked its nose in India’s internal matters, and unfortunately, won’t be the last. So how should an emerging superpower like India expand its international influence while simultaneously reduce the internationalization of its domestic affairs?
The Holier-Than-Thou Sentiment in the West
The West has always seen itself as the pioneer and guardian of liberty, equality, and other secular values. While this is mostly for the right reasons, some states and/or members have occasionally used this as an excuse to meddle in the domestic affairs of other nations. Recently, the European Union (EU) Parliament even considered a resolution against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) bill passed this year in India for apparently being ‘discriminatory’ towards Muslims. These sentiments were channeled by others as well such as the Labour Party in the UK. They were clearly overstepping their jurisdiction by interfering in the bills and laws passed by another nation.
However, these machinations that sought to undermine a nation’s sovereignty in the name of secularism backfired, and quite ironically, France, one of the EU’s own member states, is now trying to regulate Islam to fight religious extremism! While countries such as Turkey and Malaysia rebuked France for these actions, India wholeheartedly extended its support to the nation. Now, the EU has acknowledged it needs India’s support to fight global terror, and thus, set aside past issues.
The 9/11 terror attack, orchestrated by Osama Bin Laden, changed the outlook of the world on terrorism forever. PC Hamid Mir. Licensed Under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported
These incidents show that ultimately most sensible nations would not undermine India’s sovereignty as long as it has something to offer them. Diplomacy is based on the concept of ‘give and take’, and propaganda usually fails to give.
The International Media and the Power of Narrative
In principle, the media should be the 4th pillar of Democracy, but that hasn’t always been the case in practice. Several leading news outlets have provided a venue for Anti-Indian articles in the past. An article in the BBC, which was posted on Facebook too, called the slain Kashmiri terrorist Burhan Wani an activist! What is more appalling is that nowhere in the article is it mentioned that he was the commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen, an EU and now, a US-designated terrorist organization.
The BBC article calling Hizbul terrorist Burhan Wani an activist. PC Facebook
This is quite tragic, as the whole world needs to be united when dealing with issues like terrorism.
BBC Radio Manchester’s post on the Manchester terror attack. PC Twitter
In 2015, the Indian Government banned Al Jazeera because it displayed a distorted map of India that did not include portions of Jammu and Kashmir, as well as the Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar islands. The New York Times was accused of mocking India’s Mars Mission in one of its cartoons. In what was seen as derogatory and elitist, a barefooted, turban clad, and dhoti wearing man with a buffalo next to him is shown knocking on the doors of an ‘Elite Space Club’. Sadly, such articles increase public support for Anti-India lobbies across the world.
The NYT cartoon. PC Twitter
Although it may not be possible to fully control the foreign media’s narrative, the Indian media can expand its reach in the world and counter it. The extent to which the media can bolster international relations is difficult to ascertain, but it definitely can improve the public perception of India.
Currently, World Is One News (WION) is India’s only international news network, but Republic TV is expected to launch its international wing within the next two years. Hence, by reducing the public support for these lobbies through counter-narratives, lawmakers would be less inclined to bring resolutions against India.
Disclaimer: We are a platform that allows all views to be represented without bias or discrimination. This piece is not to be judged upon as the final stance of MUNner’s daily or MEC MUN Society. | https://medium.com/munners-daily/how-india-should-deal-with-foreign-interference-in-its-internal-affairs-c0bf48c3c054 | ['Sagar Suresh Kumar'] | 2020-12-20 12:23:25.531000+00:00 | ['World', 'Media Criticism', 'Terrorism', 'India', 'Farmers Protest'] |
Look before you leap - Know how and why exploring data might be crucial for your success in modeling | Look before you leap - Know how and why exploring data might be crucial for your success in modeling Viswanatha Krishnamurthy Follow Jun 8 · 8 min read
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so” — Mark Twain
A tendency to believe what we think is fact and acting on it can go spectacularly wrong, especially when our belief turns out to be not only opinion but wrong.
Solving complex business problems necessitates a thorough understanding of the data and such in-depth analysis would require more than just the basic techniques.
The Modeling process can be broadly classified into 5 major phases. Though feature engineering, hyper parameter tuning, algorithm selections are some of the intrinsic concepts to deal with, it’s the phase of Exploratory Data Analysis that would demand significant time and attention of an analyst.
Did you know that Collecting Datasets, Cleaning, and organizing data account for almost 80% of the work for Data Scientists? *source -https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2016/03/23/data-preparation-most-time-consuming-least-enjoyable-data-science-task-survey-says/#46ac962f6f63
Deducing latent patterns from the data is the cornerstone of any modeling activity or any analysis. It’s imperative to identify and isolate noise from signals in the data.
In this article, we would take a peek into the strategies applied through the EDA (Exploratory Data Analysis).
Exploratory data analysis is a set of actions or analysis which are performed to familiarize oneself with the data and ensure its in expected shape and form to be processed further for consumption.
Data Extraction:
Once we have analyzed the business case and have drafted all possible hypotheses, It is time for us to gather data to either approve or reject the hypothesis.
Sources of data can be multiple therefore during the Data Extraction phase, we would tap into relevant systems to glean necessary information. During the process, we might come out with some new hypotheses, which will need to be added to the list of hypotheses we are considering.
Data Exploration:
In-depth knowledge of the data being considered for analysis ensues efficient and accurate modeling.Clarity on the data enables the analyst in deciding techniques to be adopted to tune the data to suit the business requirement.
Following are the steps in the course of Data Exploration -
Before we delve deep into the process, let’s have a quick look at the metrics evaluated -
For the sake of explanation, we would be using the datasets from Mobility Analytics — Analytics Vidhya Hackathon.
First things first - Lets get acquainted with the data.
Business Context - A cab aggregator service operates in multiple cities. Their model of operation is to collaborate with locally available car service vendors to provide most appropriate option available, considering customer demographics. They have been in the play for about an year and have gleaned sufficient data about surge_pricing_type from vendors.
Problem Statement - Predict surge_pricing_type in order to help cab service provider arrange appropriate cab (considering demographics) timely and efficiently.
A quick look at the attributes and its context
Note: I would be using dataprep package to better represent the variables we intend to analyze. Dataprep lets you prepare your data using a single library with a few lines of code. Refer to https://pypi.org/project/dataprep/ for further details.
Step 1- Variable Type Identification — Raw data can consist of either numeric / string or can be a good mix of both. However, the input to the model should always be numeric, therefore we will need to preprocess the data to make it suitable for the model to learn.
Following visual would help you to –
A) Understand % of missing values in each attribute
B) Identify attribute type
C) Visualize the distribution of the data points in an attribute
Charts highlighted in darker shade are categorical and the rest are numeric
Also, describe method can be used populate measures of central tendency and dispersion metrics
Step 2 - Uni variate Analysis — Evaluating the significance of attributes in isolation
Let’s discover Trip_Distance. Below plots would reveal the distribution of data points
Step 3 - Bi-variate Analysis — Permutation combination of attributes to explore latent patterns or behaviors. It can be done at three levels –
For instance, let’s explore Trip_Distance and Customer_Rating as a combination.
Categorical & Categorical
Could there be some interesting pattern if you analyze Destination_Type from a Gender perspective?
Numeric & Categorical — will Cancellation_Last_1Month have any to do with Destination_type? Let’s find out.
Step 4 - Missing Value Treatment
It is improbable not to have attributes with missing records. Having enough data in each attribute does influence the efficacy of the model, therefore its imperative for us to know the degree of absent data and decide whether to retain or to impute.
The reasons for such scenarios depend on the nature of the data. For e.g.: in certain instances, gather data about Gender, Salary, Religion may be a challenge. Else, the subject may refuse to divulge certain details citing privacy issues (during the survey)
Did you know — even missing data can reveal a certain pattern in the data?
Types of missing data –
Identify missing values in each attribute –
Strategies to deal with missing data –
A) Dropping null values from data set — identify and delete rows or columns which has null values. dropna() function can be utilized to drop null values from all rows and columns. Also,you can utilize “any” or “all” parameter to option available in dropna() function to prune the data to suit your needs.
Note: Deleting records (row-wise or column-wise) ensues loss of information which may be critical therefore its recommended to try out imputation techniques before dropping
Imputation Techniques –
A) Imputation with mean or median — The below example uses the average of the rest of the values in the “Var1” attribute to impute for the missing values. Similar imputation can be done using the Median as well.
B) Simple Imputer — Another most frequently used imputation technique from sklearn. Mean or Median can be used for continuous variable and “most frequent” or “constant” can be used for Categorical variables. Please refer to the sklearn documentation for details.
You might also want to explore the below two imputation techniques which are based on regression models
C) KNN Imputer
D)Iterative Imputer
Step 5 - Outlier Treatment - Any data point which stands distinct or does not conform to the pattern of the majority are deemed to be outliers.
What causes outliers?
A) Data entry errors — For e.g.: adding one extra “0” to remuneration number does cause considerable
B) Measurement errors — For e.g.: Some of the data points in Height Attribute (ideal scale of measurement — Feet) populated in meters
C) Processing errors — Instances of the file was not read accurately from the source file. E.g.: alphanumeric numbers or text messages
Type of outliers?
A) Uni-variate outliers
B) Bi-variate outliers
How to Identify outliers?
A) Uni-variate Outliers — Box plot
B) Bi-variate outliers — scatter plot
Formula –
< Q1–1.5 * IQR or > Q3 + 1.5* IQR
Where IQR = Q3 — Q1
Q3 = Value at 3rd quartile
Q1 = Value at 2nd quartile
Different methods to deal with outliers?
A) Exclusion - Delete the observations from the data set
B) Transforming and binning outliers - Adopt techniques such as Logarithmic, square root, cube root transformation to transform the data
C) Impute outliers - Treat them like missing values and impute them using the imputation techniques discussed in the earlier section
D) Treat them in isolation - Consider them as a separate set of data. Try applying different algorithms and techniques on it as compared to the other set of data. Later, you can club it to the main part of the data set.
Variable transformation -
Primary reasons to use transformation -
A) Change the scale of the variable Ensures consistency in measuring the scale of an attribute. For e.g.: weight recorded in both Kilo grams and pounds.
B) Transform non-linear relationships into Linear relationships - Makes it easy to comprehend the linear relationship compared to a non-linear relationship
D) Create symmetric distribution whenever there is skewed distribution- easier to interpret and generate inferences. It also facilitates the normal distribution.
Techniques available -
Apart from the techniques mentioned above, you may want to try out “Pandas profiling”. Output from profiling report host most of the critical information such as correlation matrix, information on missing values, interactions etc. in a single frame. Its findings are exhaustive and appropriate.
Concepts and techniques mentioned in this article should definitely get you started in discovering data. However, there is potential to delve deeper, for e.g: Identifying outliers is a complex process and box plot or IQR formula. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/look-before-you-leap-know-how-and-why-exploring-data-might-be-crucial-for-your-sucess-in-modeling-1749be3a2fe1 | ['Viswanatha Krishnamurthy'] | 2020-06-10 09:31:19.546000+00:00 | ['Eda', 'Data Science', 'Exploration', 'Profiler'] |
2020 Top Slack Channels for Software Testers | Since March, many fellow developers and software testers have been working from home, making online communities that much more important to keep in touch with trends and best practices.
Slack is one of the most popular collaboration tools in the market today, both as an internal tool for teams working together and for external groups who share similar interest and need a place to collaborate and share ideas.
Slack also offers a free tier which is used by many public communities such as software developers and testers. This tier includes unlimited private and public channels, 10K messages, up to 10 apps (Github, Bitbucket, etc.), file sharing, custom notifications and more.
Over a year ago, as part of my work at Applitools I curated a collection of practical public Slack channels which are a must for every tester. Thinking back on this past year — I thought it would be a great time to update this.
Ministry of Testing
Ministry of Testing is great community which contains over 10,500 software testing specialists who are ready to help with any software testing related question you may have. Some of the popular channels include Automation, Exploratory Testing, Mobile Testing, Continuous Integration, API Testing and more. The Job channel is also very active so make sure to check this one out. Also, don’t miss out the Blog channel which aggregates some of the industry best blogs you want to follow.
Join the Ministry of Testing community here.
Test Automation University
The Test Automation University Slack group is the only free online software testing courses library. Speakers include Angie Jones, Dave Haeffner, Jason Arbon, Amber Race and more. This community has over 8,300 members and is fast-growing.Some of the popular channels include Java Programming, Performance Testing, Scale with Docker, and more.
Join the Test Automation University community here.
Sign up for Test Automation University
Robot Framework
The Robot Slack community has about 8,200 Robot framework fans. If you don’t know the Robot Framework, it is a generic test automation framework for acceptance testing and acceptance test-driven development. There is an amazing newbie channel for anyone who is just starting to use the framework. The Python, Appium, and RIDE channels are also quite popular and contain valuable information shared by fellow friendly testers.
Join the Robot Framework community here.
SeleniumHQ’s Slack is a great community with about 8,000 members. Most popular topics include Selenium, Selenium IDE, Jenkins, Appium, WebDriverIO, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, Python and more. Members are super friendly and helpful, ready to answer questions and tackle challenges we all face on a daily basis. Plus it has a job posting channel for those who are in the market or those who are hiring.
Join the Selenium community here.
TechWell Hub
Techwell’s Slack is the best source to learn what’s going on in our community. They just announced they passed the 5700 members count so you should be in good company. Popular channels include Agile, DevOps, Security, Strategy, AI, Women who Test, Leadership and more. Plus since they host Star East/West/Canada and Agile Testing Days, it makes this channel a great place to chat with fellow conference attendees.
Join the TechWell Hub community here.
Cypress Gitter Community
Slack is not the only game in town, and we’d be hard pressed not to give a shout out to our friends over at Cypress.io. Their community on Gitter has 9100 members and is a must for those working with or considering Cypress.io for test automation.
Join the Cypress Gitter community here.
This is an updated version of a 2019 post previously published by DZone. | https://medium.com/@applitools/2020-top-slack-channels-for-software-testers-a38be1780dcb | [] | 2020-12-21 15:19:55.052000+00:00 | ['Slack', 'Developer', 'Software Testing', 'Selenium'] |
2021 — A year for Humanitarian Crisis and Healing | Recap of 2020
After a challenging year that was 2020, most people around the world are looking towards the end of the year for a moment of resetting and starting afresh for 2021. There have been large scale challenges in 2020, with a raging pandemic, geopolitical tensions, trade wars, elections, and large-scale protesting. The purpose of this article is to highlight challenges for 2021, however this article is not written to make political statements and it should not be interpreted as something that is politically charged.
State of Play — sampling of economies around the world.
Azerbaijan — due to recent political tensions with its neighbours, the country now finds itself in a perilous situation with prudent economic management required. The Azerbaijani people were quite happy with what they believe is having won a war that has lasted decades and has cost lives but also livelihoods. Having taken control of Nagorno-Karabakh with the intervention of a brokered international deal, this could be a positive outcome. However, I believe the challenges are just beginning. With a large exposure to oil as exports and the price shocks experienced with oil in 2020, the country will experience an economic challenge that would challenge their government. The region of Nagorno-Karabakh will need significant economic stimulation, to not only build infrastructure, but also to improve economic indicators like jobs, business, healthcare, and education. On top of this, the government needs to invest heavily in defence to ensure that the peace treaty is respected. The declining oil prices and the government’s reluctance to utilise an open market exchange rate is quite interesting and very questionable as an economic policy. As regional neighbours Russia and Kazakhstan have had significant devaluation of their currency due to oil price shocks, this has ensured locally produced goods and services still were somewhat inflation proof. The challenges that lie ahead for Azerbaijan are enormous, as not only is the country experiencing case number increases for Covid-19, however the recovery rates are quite high, but the government is currently selling off their sovereign funds to ensure the Mannat (currency) hold its value. With previously basic imported goods now being a luxury item, the ongoing resiliency of the people will be tested. Core humanitarian supplies such as medical equipment, medicine and healthcare infrastructure is something that will experience inflation which will come as a detriment to the people. Imported foods will become luxury items. There is a high chance of increased unemployment in Gen Z’s and millennials, effectively making the country divided into the haves and have nots. The reaction to these problems and ongoing regional disputes will be problems that the government needs to monitor. There is a likely chance of a devaluation of the Mannat and Azerbaijani’s would be hoping for the continuation of the rallying oil prices to keep the optimism for 2021.
Nigeria — with the country now the largest economy in Africa, it is also experiencing significant damages to its economy. The 2nd wave of cases in Europe has not helped Nigeria as it has been losing oil demand from the Eurozone. Coupling this with the squeeze on the foreign exchange, this is an economic disaster waiting to happen. The forecast for Nigeria after the release of its 2021 budget, has average daily prices of oil at $40 and their exchange rate maintaining $379 to ensure growth of 3% for 2021 and a target inflation rate of 11.95%. Nigeria losing a lot of its primary market oil sales to the US in the Eurozone, this will be something of a challenge as Covid-19 cases take an uptick in numbers and need for foreign goods increases. Nigeria depends largely on foreign exchange from crude oil sales and as a result should brace for tougher times ahead. A protracted forex crisis will mean higher food prices, more borrowing to meet budget demands and difficulty in servicing the country’s debts. The economy needs serious considerations for diversification and the country is bracing for unemployment in the months ahead.
Russia — it is always interesting to discuss Russia as it is a country with a lot unknown. However, Russia also is in an interesting position. The country has had significant developments to its development of the Covid-19 vaccine, however based on the rising case numbers it does not seem the country can reach herd immunity anytime soon. On top of that, the rouble has had significant devaluation in the last 12 months due to oil price shocks and increased inflation rates to over 4%. The domestically produced food supply is well in demand and it seems the vast population is not able to afford imported food items. The Russian economy is expected to have declined by 6.6% in 2020 with expectations of a growth of 4% in 2021. This growth will be highly determined by oil prices; however, the economy is much more diversified these days with focus on innovation and technology, the country has high uptake of technology. However, food crisis could engulf the country if there are prolonged price shocks in commodities markets.
USA — the United States is an anomaly of an economy right now. With the stock market rallying significantly, the election results soon to be finalised, there is some peace being brought to the public sentiment. However, the US in currently the pinnacle for Covid-19 case numbers and mortality. Having recently lost a family member in the US due to medical complications (not related to Covid-19) there seems a divide in the availability of adequate medical care currently without universal healthcare. The country is projected to have significant mortality with Covid-19 till end of February and has fast-tracked a vaccine in response to the growing number of cases and mortality. In 2021, other parts of the healthcare system will be significantly tested, and this is a challenge for the US to balance out strong economic growth with emergency funding for healthcare. The public debt levels in the US now stands at US$27.5 Trillion, which is at record highs and this figure will only increase when the new government will take reign. With the US focussing on its internal problems, there is a vacuum in the global sphere, with poorer continents desperate to receive funding and humanitarian aid and other political forces currently coming to the fold with assistance. It will be a challenging year for the US, with the aftermath of Covid-19, large divisions in political preferences and choices, and growing National debt, economic policy aimed at targeting businesses may halt growth for the coming years, in response to curbing National debt. Stability will be key for the US after a challenging year, and whether that takes a couple of years, the country can build the resiliency and become the powerhouse the world knows it to be.
Australia — closer to home, Australia has done exceedingly well, in the face of adversity with several months in lockdown to curb the numbers of Covid-19. The strategy is paying off dividends as the economic recovery is going above numbers predicted and with the stimulus package provided by the federal government, people are spending to boost the economic recovery. Cities are vibrant again, with joys of the festive season. This is the Australia people know and love. The trade tensions with China are currently impacting future growth of the country. It will be interesting to see how the country is able to diversify its international relationships to ensure growth. Australia known as the lucky country, is again becoming lucky, with potential food shortages around the world, our agricultural produce will fetch higher prices. Australian food quality is known the world over, so there will be opportunities aplenty for the country to explore other markets. Trade tensions with China should also dominate 2021 economic outlook, however, with the government spending increasing and the trickle-down effect onto the consumers with increased spending, the economy has a positive outlook for 2021. With large amounts of vaccine bought by the government, the support of its people has been unprecedented and unseen in any other part of the world, again Australia the lucky country. However, the lucky country also has challenges that lie on its horizon. Although, Australian agriculture has a positive outlook due to commodity price increases, there needs to be review of workforce allocations, with previous backpackers now a distant memory, farmers across the country are looking for workers to pick fruits and vegetables to supply the domestic and international markets. The food inflation rates are soaring in Australia with seasonal and non-seasonal foods experiencing high prices. With the inadvertent stimulus package coming to an end in March 2021 (the jobkeeper and jobseeker policies) there must be targeted investments in innovation and manufacturing to curb the reliance on foreign trading partners. It can be foreshadowed that the government will continue its spending drive to solidify the economy and it has a good chance in achieving that, and this should be the current federal government’s legacy.
China — what an interesting year for China. With what was a disaster Q1, China’s recovery has been nothing short of amazing. The stimulation of the internal economy and the country opening to trade with diversified range of countries, seems the country has done well. With 2021 expecting to be a year of prosperity for China, with almost double-digit growth, it is potentially a year China becomes a dominant force internationally. However, the biggest challenges the country faces are the food supply and shortages. With the president, decreeing food wastage a target there is an emphasis on food supply. China currently doing deals internationally to secure food supplies, with an example of this, a deal being struck with Pakistan on grain supply and other countries for meat supply. There are also innovation hubs being created to explore food technological advancements to ensure the country has enough supply of food. With a lot of removal of red tape, it is potentially easier to conduct business in China, however due to political tensions with other countries, this will be one of the challenges for China in 2021, how to balance trade and the political rhetoric. The market currently with the largest liquidity, China is poised to make significant inroads in 2021. With health technology now also at the forefront, there are significant opportunities in China for start-ups and established brands alike.
Investment opportunities in 2021
The next year should see demand for food-based commodities rise significantly as the countries around the world look to resolve internal problems. Food based stocks should also experience growth because of earnings increases. Health technology should see significant investments made into the sector with each country’s exposure to Covid-19 now firmly ingrained in the government’s minds and how to combat future healthcare crisis will see advancements in Health Technology and healthcare stocks globally. There will be an appreciation of value with digital assets such as Bitcoin as investors around the emerging markets wish to combat inflation and devaluation of their national fiat currency with digital assets.
Concluding Statements
With 2021 on the horizon, there is a need for introspective look with what has been a challenging year for a lot of people around the world. World Food Bank has projected a significant number of mortalities on the aftermath of the pandemic and famine will be the challenges for 2021 as continents battle for food shortages. Unlike in previous years, a lot of the countries currently are also experiencing economic devastation internally in their own countries, so food wastage needs to be reviewed by all. Through economic cooperation we can build better futures, and this is a time to uphold our values as humans as we open a new year in a few weeks’ times respecting the challenges ahead. | https://medium.com/@raajiv-sami/2021-a-year-for-humanitarian-crisis-and-healing-f96160ae5a5c | ['Raajiv Sami'] | 2020-12-13 02:26:41.264000+00:00 | ['Commodities', 'Innovation', 'Food Waste', 'Investment', 'Human Resources'] |
How to use Terraform without server ? | Terraform is trendy. Many ops use it: Multi cloud support, up-to-date, large community and templates,… Its advantages are multiple. However, I’m a big fan of serverless and I preferred Deployment manager. My ops did not, because it’s sticky to GCP. And they are right.
In fact, I never liked Terraform because of this endless loop :
For clean deployment of a server, use Terraform to deploy this server. Terraform has to be installed on a server; Use Terraform to deploy this server...
Thereby, I never used Terraform… until this unrelated post of Steren
What? Use Cloud Build for not building containers? It’s so smart!
Thanks to this tweet, an amazing idea comes to me: Use Terraform in serverless mode through Cloud Build!
First (bad) idea
Where to start? I need to execute Terraform and, as much as I (not) know Terraform, I need to keep tfstate files.
First step: does a docker image exist ?
Yes, Terraform installation is packaged in a container and available on Docker Hub. Thereby, it will be easy to use it with Cloud Build.
Second step: How to manage tfstate files?
Steren tweet shows how to push a file from Cloud Build environment to Google Cloud Storage at the end of the process. And for getting them from Storage at the beginning, use Cloud Builder images. That’s done!
I’m going to test and deep dive into Terraform mechanisms and documentation and… Bad first approach!
Terraform is mature
In fact, Terraform is far more mature than I expected. I discovered that a backend definition exists. It allows to retrieve and to store the deployment states remotely.
A GCS implementation exists and it’s very easy to use. Simply define the backend bucket and path in your main.tf file.
terraform {
backend "gcs" {
bucket = "my-state-bucket"
prefix = "terraform/state"
}
}
My second step is settled by 4 lines of configuration! It’s perfect!
Now, let’s focus on Terraform commands. There are only 2 steps to define in the cloudbuild.yaml file:
Run init command to set up the Cloud Build ephemeral environment
- name: 'hashicorp/terraform'
args: ['init']
Run apply command to execute the deployment/update in auto-approve mode
- name: 'hashicorp/terraform'
args: ['apply','-var=PROJECT_ID=$PROJECT_ID','-auto-approve']
The apply command requires to know the PROJECT_ID . The trick is to valorize a Terraform variable with the Cloud Build environment variables PROJECT_ID . Terraform’s main.tf file handles the PROJECT_ID variable like this :
variable "PROJECT_ID" {
type = string
} provider "google" {
//credentials = NOT NEEDED, use Cloud Build service account permissions
project = var.PROJECT_ID
region = "us-central1"
}
Leverage Cloud Build
The combination of Cloud Build and Terraform produces more than I expected initially: run Terraform on a server that I don’t have to manage.
Authentication
It’s another pain point not mentioned before, and that annoyed my ops: security. Indeed, on a managed server, dedicated to deployment of several different projects, you have to manage different service-accounts, with different permissions on these different projects.
For that, you have to store different JSON security key files. You have to rotate these JSON key files, to ensure their confidentiality/access right on the VM,… Lots of manual work, time consuming, and not always state of art security best practices.
Cloud Build solves this point. You simply use the permissions of a Cloud Build service account for the project. The security is now ensured by the platform.
Automation
With a server dedicated to deployment, you have to connect to it, to pull the code updates, and to launch the correct commands to apply changes. Without manual mistakes.
Cloud Build comes with automation and triggers. Thereby, a simple commit on the infrastructure definition files and the update is done automatically some minutes after.
History
With local execution on a server, you have only 1 file of history ( terraform.tfstate.backup ). Moreover, what is the resilience of this file on 1 server ? How is it protected against deletion/update by mistake ?
Here again, another advantage of this solution thanks to Terraform backend feature. The tfstate files are stored in Google Cloud Storage with high resilience and durability. And for keeping the history of changes, Terraform documentation recommends to activate versioning on the bucket dedicated of state storage | https://medium.com/google-cloud/how-to-use-terraform-without-server-976d922f3f72 | ['Guillaume Blaquiere'] | 2019-08-20 02:41:01.335000+00:00 | ['Cloud Computing', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Continuous Delivery', 'Terraform', 'Serverless'] |
How The Mandalorian Changed Disney’s Star Wars Strategy | How The Mandalorian Changed Disney’s Star Wars Strategy
Photo by James Pond on Unsplash
Last week, WarnerMedia made waves by announcing that the films in its 2021 slate would debut on HBO Max and in theaters on the same day. This week, it was Disney’s turn to make the big streaming-related news. They did not disappoint.
Disney held a 4-hour (FOUR-HOUR!) event for investors last Thursday, where they announced an enormous number of projects. Somewhere around 80% of that forthcoming content is specifically for Disney+. Vulture has a list of everything here. It is a massive list.
There is plenty of analysis out there about Disney’s decision to continue debuting some movies in theaters, the remarkable subscriber growth at Disney+, and what announcing all these projects really means for the future. Here, though, I want to dive into the Star Wars portion of things.
I have always loved Star Wars. While I’m not an extreme fan who goes to conventions and reads all the companion books, I have spent countless hours watching the films and consuming adjacent content. I really enjoy escaping into franchises that offer wholly alternate worlds — Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones — and Star Wars was the first bit of storytelling I encountered that offered that experience.
Of course, my experience is not unique. Star Wars is one of the most popular pieces of intellectual property to ever exist. That’s part of the reason why Disney purchased the rights from George Lucas for $4 billion way back in 2012. That was a great moment, as fans considered the revival of the universe and imagined the new stories that could be told.
8 years later, the results have been mixed. The core trilogy started off well enough, and it even looked promising in the middle, but ultimately it was poorly planned and concluded with a truly disappointing, manic third act. Still, there were bright spots. It was fun to be back in that world. Watching older actors reprise their roles was surreal and at times naked fan-service, to say nothing about those who appeared from beyond the grave thanks to CGI, but watching a younger, more diverse set of characters interact with the older cast on screen in Star Wars — Star Wars!!! — was also extremely cool.
Outside of the core trilogy, the results were similar. Rogue One and Solo struggled through development and did not deliver as well as the Skywalker saga at the box office. At the same time, they seemed to be opening the door to larger possibilities of what Star Wars could be. In each of the 5 films, there was a feeling that Disney was trying very hard to make some monolithic Star Wars instead of writing and creating freely, but within the Star Wars universe. With the exception of Rogue One — in which Darth Vader has a brief appearance — each of the movies heavily features characters that fans already knew. From selecting which stories to tell, to writing those stories, to putting them out into the world, Disney appeared to be making safe choices. Again, Rogue One is the exception here, which is one of the reasons it’s probably the best of the new films.
But my adoration aside, it isn’t like Rogue One was a huge commercial hit. Instead of building momentum, the films in the series were losing it. Disney announced that it would be pausing development on Star Wars films.
Then came Jon Favreau and The Mandalorian. This show was different. It starred a character that looked like Boba Fett, but wasn’t. It featured a cute lil’ baby that looked like Yoda, but there was no mention of Yoda. Its characters had problems, but the problems didn’t involve multi-generational conflict or the fate of the galaxy. Instead, they were broke or needed gas. It explored the edges and depths of the Star Wars universe, but it also just kind of seemed like a procedural.
And people loved it.
We discovered that people don’t love Star Wars just for the soaring, awe-inspiring moments that can result from an epic galactic war. Those stories have their place, and you can bet that they will return. But the truly fascinating thing about Star Wars is its vastness. There are all kinds of rabbit holes to explore, and there is no need to tell the core story over and over again. And by the way, why does the Skywalker saga have to be the core story? There are, presumably, giant populations who are only minimally affected by the events portrayed in any of the 9 main movies. What are their core stories?
The Mandalorian, under Favreau’s hand, showed that Star Wars could be something different. This has of course coincided with the need that studios have to develop content to feed their streaming services. This has led Disney to reengage with Star Wars, but in a different way. Instead of asking how to tell different parts of the same story, what if they told entirely different stories? If The Mandalorian is a Western procedural, but make it Star Wars, then what else could be done in this universe? Could you make a horror film? Could you make a political drama? Could you make a sitcom?
Much of that is yet to be determined, and frankly the only thing that you can be almost certain about is that not all of the projects Disney announced last week will make it to the finish line. But the announcement was a signal that they seem to be ready to reboot Star Wars and to make choices that will make the series their own. Not by destroying norms or ruining characters — which plenty of fanboys will claim they’re doing regardless — but by telling new stories that might simply not have much to do with the other films. Certainly there will be crossovers and cameos, something season 2 of The Mandalorian is exploring right now, but they won’t be each show’s raison d’être.
It’s hard enough to make great entertainment. Mixing in beloved IP that many feel an ownership of further complicates the process. Truth be told, you will almost never please everyone. The only way to make something interesting and worth watching is to stop trying to do so. It would appear that Disney may have learned this lesson.
Of course, as their presentation Thursday showed, Disney doesn’t have to make one thing to please everyone, because they have the capital to make everything. You’ll find something you like.
Why should you care?: This is an impressive move, and will further solidify Disney+ as a top streaming service. We are living in a new world. | https://medium.com/that-good-you-need/how-the-mandalorian-changed-disneys-star-wars-strategy-53ab474d8ef9 | ['Lucas Quagliata'] | 2020-12-15 22:08:03.780000+00:00 | ['Disney', 'Disney Plus', 'That Good You Need', 'Star Wars', 'Business'] |
This is the Email I Sent My Mom When I Told Her I No Longer Believed in God | This is the Email I Sent My Mom When I Told Her I No Longer Believed in God Michelle Wilkins Follow May 19, 2020 · 9 min read
Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash
On Friday, October 17th, 2014 I sent my mom an email detailing my deconversion from Christianity—the faith I’d been raised in, and the very foundation on which my family was built. And I intend to share it today in its entirety. For His glory.
But first, a little background.
At the time of the email, I was 27. By that point, it had already been a few years since I’d actively pursued a relationship with God, or been to church. I’d had a crisis of faith 1–2 years earlier when I realized I wasn’t sure I really believed what I’d always been told to believe.
To add insult to injury, I’d gotten in a serious relationship with a man who claimed he was an atheist and who never shied away from a conversation criticizing organized religion. We lived together for 3 years.
By that time, my relationship with my parents had grown strained. It seemed like we always had to tiptoe around the subject of religion whenever we were together. If one of us managed to slip up, it usually ended in a screaming match. (Okay, I was the only one who screamed).
But that never really stopped my mom from trying. Even when it seemed to make things worse, she’d send me Bible verses occasionally and tell me she was praying for me. Which of course would send me reeling on the receiving end, frustrated that she couldn’t respect my journey, and give me some space.
The day before I sent the email
…my mom had seen something I posted on Facebook that she thought was crude and offensive (she was right). And she made a comment on it, which set me off on yet another one of my twenty-something-tantrums. She sent me a long email that night around 1AM attempting to explain her reaction, and confront me about my own.
The next morning, I typed out what started as an apology:
“You’re right. I’m sorry for overreacting. I have a bad habit of speaking before I think about it, and I was already in a mood from work that I should not have been handling personal matters during.”
I went on to explain why I thought Facebook was partially to blame, and how I felt like it was difficult to be “fully myself” around them. Honestly, now that I read it, it sounds more like an email from a 17 year old than a 27 year old. In hindsight, my maturity level was pretty much that of a teenager most of my twenties.
Okay, now for the faith stuff
I want to share this because I think it’s entirely possible that someone reading this has either sent an email/letter like this before, or received one.
And I felt God calling me this morning to share it:
“As for the larger discussion, I’m sorry that you feel like my deviation from faith was a 180, and happened overnight. You obviously are not me so you can’t have known or been perceptive to what feels like an adult lifetime struggle with faith. Of course for almost 20 years we shared so much in faith together. Because it was what you taught me, all I have ever known. I was asked in EIGHTH GRADE to confirm my faith. 8th grade. In 8th grade I was talking about cute boys and softball, not about the deeper meanings of life and faith. Of course I accepted faith into my life, there was no other choice. Surrounded by a godly family that works in the church is not an environment for free thinking and doubt.”
That wasn’t the last time I explored this idea. I wrote recently here on Medium about why we walk away from the religion of our childhoods:
I even addressed that yes, at one time I had believed:
“For a very long time, I had all my chips in for Christianity. It was comforting. It was how I had been taught to deal with life’s difficulties, and how to rejoice in life’s successes. I wasn’t faking it, I was living the life that I been raised in.”
I went on to explain how my experience in college had shaped the way I lived my life. I confessed that even though I still clung to my belief in God, I never really lived the way Christians are called to.
“Even then, back in college, I did not agree with a lot of the teachings. I had sex, I lived with my boyfriend, there were a lot of inconsistencies with how I lived my life and what I learned in church. I had never been very good at living it, because it didn’t come naturally and I didn’t fully, deep down, agree with it all.”
When I was 25, my previous boyfriend had been in a near-fatal motocross accident that left him paralyzed. I talk about how instead of that experience drawing me closer to God, it seemed to have had the opposite effect:
“I had been relying on faith my whole life to get through life’s difficulties, which, up until then, had worked pretty fine because nothing really bad had ever really happened. I was so completely unprepared and uneducated on how to deal with the grief and pain I experienced with that accident and the following year that I began to resent and become angry with faith because in that instance, faith had failed me.”
Before I delivered the final blow, I did manage to acknowledge how important faith was to her and my dad. And I do remember that this was genuine:
“Your faith is a part of you. It permeates every sense of your being. It influences your every move, your every thought and feeling. And that must be incredible and I hold so much respect for you for it. I know it brought you back from a very very dark time in your life and I am forever grateful that you continue to build strength and love off of it.”
And then, I said it:
“But I don’t have that same relationship. And I am tired of forcing it or pretending in hopes of it sticking. I don’t feel that way about God or religion.”
I wish I could say I stopped there
But I’m kind of glad now that I didn’t. It’s a perfect glimpse into my mindset at the time. And while I won’t claim this is exactly what you, or your family member is feeling and/or experiencing right now, it might be something similar:
“I don’t think that God has to be a part of everything. When I get married, it won’t be a religious ceremony. I don’t believe you have to wait to have sex before marriage, I don’t believe it’s a sin to be a homosexual, I don’t believe that some people are going to hell. I haven’t figured it all out yet. But there are way too many instances in which I look at the Christian faith and think, “Wow, if that’s what they believe, I don’t want to have any part in that.” If there really is a God, who created us just to serve him and if we don’t glorify his name, he’ll sentence us to an eternity of damnation, NO THANKS. I’m sorry, but that’s how I feel.”
To be clear, I still don’t believe some of those things. And while I didn’t know it at the time, I was struggling even then with some of the same “reformed” beliefs I struggle with now:
The real kicker for me was finding out about pre-destination. The idea that this life is pointless for some, because no matter what they do, they’ve been chosen for a lifetime in hell? NO THANKS. I’ve made friends with Jewish girls, atheists, agnostics. I’ve met gay folks and so many different people and I have decided that my religion is love and acceptance. No one deserves to go to hell if there is one.
(Oof, my “bubble” is showing in that ‘graph. Give me grace).
If at this point, you’re still reading, thanks for sticking around. I promise there’s a happy ending.
But first, here’s something that might help you build a little empathy for your “lost” loved one:
“And I have also decided, that because of your fervent belief system, as much as I respect it, your will and your opinions are so strong, that you will never be able to understand anything that I have just said. Which I think is the hardest part for me. And why I find it difficult to imagine talking to you about this in person at this time. I love you beyond belief, and I know that this is hard for you. But it’s hard for me too. Being the black sheep, the odd man out. I feel very alone.”
Rounding third here. If I had to pick probably the most painful paragraph for my mom to read, it was probably this final one:
“I will no longer ask you to refrain from sharing your beliefs with me. If that is something you can not help, that is fine. Just please don’t use it to try and get me to change my mind. The bible and faith is no longer a tool I use to deal with life’s difficulties and successes. If I come to you for advice, I’ll just have to accept that faith is what you have to offer me. And I’ll love you for it, but I will not use those tools. I respect your beliefs more than you know, all that I ask is that you do the same. And that we no longer have this conversation moving forward. I love you. Michelle”
It hurts to read this. It hurts to know how badly this email hurt my mom and dad. And how eerily confident and resolved I seemed in my delivery. I can’t even imagine what my parents must have thought, and I wonder how hard at this point it was to hold out hope.
But that’s precisely what they did. They prayed diligently for me for years to find my way back to God. And I know that’s what they would tell parents or family members in their position now: pray and hold tight to hope.
Oh the irony
I told my mom in an email in 2014 that I would not get married in a religious ceremony. Five years later, I married my church small group leader, with our pastor as our officiant. And minutes before the ceremony, my mom whispered a prayer in my ear:
Photo by This is Feeling Photography
And both my parents and my in-laws stood up and prayed over my husband and I before we exchanged promises to each other under the beams of love from our heavenly Father and the beating sun:
Photo by This is Feeling Photography
So why do I share this?
If you’ve read any of my other writing, you’ll come to find that my faith is now as strong as it has ever been. It may have taken me a few years and a few tears to get there, but I found my way back to God. And I think it’s entirely possible that your loved one could, too.
I don’t say that to make false promises. I just mean if I was able to come back after the resolve and disbelief I once had, it’s at least possible.
What I can promise you is that you’re not going to convince or argue your loved one into loving the Lord. I think we each have to find our own way back, for our own reasons, no matter how much pain it causes us. Our faith has to be our own, or else it will be like the seed with no root that withers away (Mark 4).
So keep praying. For your daughter, your son, your sister, your aunt, uncle, cousin, etc. Pray that they may have eyes to see and ears to hear. Ask God to give them a new heart and new spirit. There’s still hope. There always is. | https://medium.com/interfaith-now/this-is-the-email-i-sent-my-mom-when-i-told-her-i-no-longer-believed-in-god-399399090ae | ['Michelle Wilkins'] | 2020-05-22 14:52:33.092000+00:00 | ['Hope', 'Deconversion', 'Religion And Spirituality', 'Faith and Life', 'Christianity'] |
The Smarter Way of Asking for Programming Help | Before You Ask a Question
Before you ask for help, make sure you’ve done your part of the research as well. Some people are so lazy — they don’t even think of doing some googling on their end. They simply open up a forum, say Stack Overflow or a Facebook group, and post their question. It can even be simple questions, such as “how do I start programming?” or “how do I install an npm package?”
You can genuinely not understand how to do it, but you must make sure you put up an effort from your end — and then ask for help. Make sure you show the potential audience of your question that you’ve put an effort into finding a solution to your problem and yet failed.
These are some steps you can take before asking your question from others.
Search online — the first thing you should do is google
Read the documentation — make sure you read the official documentation and forums
Ask a skilled friend — if the above two options don’t work, you can ask a skilled friend of yours
If you haven’t been able to find a solution after these three steps, you can go ahead and ask your questions. When you ask your question, display the fact you’ve done these things first.
How to search online
One common thing I’ve noticed among my peers is they all do search on Google before asking a friend for help. But what surprises me the most is when a friend searches on Google to find a solution and succeeds in doing so.
How can two people search on the same platform, yet only one person was able to find a solution to the problem?
This is because of the way both of them phrased their questions.
Make sure you include only the necessary phrases or terms in your search query. Suppose you want to know how to add a local image to your HTML. You can either search “how to add images to my website” or “how to add a local image in HTML.” As you can see, the latter question is better phrased — as it’s more specific but provides enough detail. | https://medium.com/better-programming/the-smarter-way-of-asking-for-programming-help-52cd140dc437 | ['Mahdhi Rezvi'] | 2020-05-05 17:54:01.405000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Programming', 'Software Development', 'JavaScript', 'Startup'] |
Should We Cancel Student Debt | Photo by Ehud Neuhaus on Unsplash
Student Loan forgiveness is once again a major topic in the political landscape today. This should not be a surprise to anyone as the debt has reached a staggering $1.5 trillion and is burdening millions of Americans. The burden was heavy before the pandemic and is now an enormous weight that many have no clue how to get out from underneath.
The current administration has been active in allowing forbearance and 0% interest on these loans, at least through the end of the year. This is obviously helpful, but many Democrats are wondering if this is enough. They are questioning if we should just forgive some debt completely.
The argument to forgive student loan debt is not baseless. Some economists believe that forgiving debt would result in a net positive revenue stream for the federal government as those with debt forgiveness would turn around and spend that money elsewhere.
The real question is, how much debt should be forgiven, and is that the best approach?
Who Benefits The Most
If we are going to discuss forgiving debt, whether that be $10,000, $50,000, or all of the debt per borrower, we need to find out who benefits and if they truly need the benefit.
For instance, one article suggests that forgiving just $20,000 of debt would wipe the plate clean for 55% of borrowers. This would obviously benefit those who are on the lower end of the earning structure. $50,000 of forgiveness would wipe the slate clean of nearly all those who completed an undergraduate degree — depending on the college they attended of course — and would greatly reduce the amount owed for those that attended graduate school.
On the other hand, if we were to wipe the slate completely clean the people who would receive the most benefit would be the highest-earning professionals (doctors and lawyers). Do these high earning, one-percenters need this type of assistance? I would say no, but I am sure there are a few who are struggling. How would you determine if they are struggling due to their own bad choices or through bad luck? I don’t know the answer to that.
Does it Fix the Problem?
Does forgiving any or all debt really fix the problem? What is the problem?
I would argue that the main problem with student loan debt is that it is all backed by the federal government. When the federal government guarantees loans, the loans begin to go up in the amounts allowed and become riskier loans. This over the last few decades has resulted in Universities jacking up the price of tuition. I promise this isn’t purely from inflation.
When the government sits back and says “we want everyone to attend college”, you better believe the boards of universities begin to lick their chops at how much money they can make. More and more of us are attending college, a lot of times to obtain degrees that could easily just be taught in the field. The government gives kids — yes kids — enormous burdens of debt all so that politicians can sit back and say “look how many people attend and graduate college in the United States”.
If we were to forgive all student loan debt, we would simultaneously need the federal government to stop guaranteeing student loans. Over time market forces would lead to fewer people attending college, fewer businesses requiring a college education, and ultimately the decline in the cost of attending college.
Photo by Nikita Kachanovsky on Unsplash
Alternative Approaches
There are many other approaches that the federal government could take to lessen the burden of individuals who were persuaded by the system to attend college, to obtain a degree that is not required or valued in the real world.
Reduce the interest rate on loans
Reduction of interest rates allows borrowers to pay back larger chunks of the principal balance of the loan. It is also easy to do. For instance, you could structure interests rates as:
Tech/Vocational/Associates = 1% interest
Undergraduate = 2% interest
Graduate = 2.5% interest
Doctoral = 3% interest
This type of structure would help to equalize the value that the market views each of these educational tier values. More often than not, the higher the education you obtain the more money you will make.
2. Forgive partial debt on federal loans
Forgiving partial debt for those that already have debt would be a simple and quick approach — depending on if the President can forgive debt with an EO or if it would have to go with Congress. This would also provide aid to those that need it right now.
While this may not be the best option, refer back to the federal government-guaranteed loans, it would help many of those who are burdened with debt and help boost consumer spending.
3. Structure loans and tuition in publicly funded universities to coincide with the average salary of the career
Structuring the tuition of a particular degree to coincide with the salary that the degree would allow an individual to make is a cool idea, in a utopian world. The concept would work something like this, a particular career has an average salary of $50,000. The University would cap the cost of tuition at 40% of the average salary. Therefore, the total cost of tuition would be $20,000.
You could argue that this strategy would allow market forces to dictate the cost of education based on the value that the market believes that a particular career provides to society.
This alternative is probably the most complex and least likely to be implemented, but it seems like an idea that would allow those who wish to attend college to do so and keep tuitions at reasonable costs.
What Will Really Happen
At the end of the day, it's impossible to say what the federal government will do in terms of stimulus and student loan debt. Although most people could agree that the debt is a problem and something should be done about it. The only question remaining is, what will they do about it? | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/should-we-cancel-student-debt-5d8c22e268cf | ['Mitch Massman'] | 2020-11-21 20:02:42.879000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Politics', 'Money', 'Student Loans', 'Finance'] |
My sensitivity got me teased as a child, and sometimes my sensitivity gets me | In a time when we’re experiencing so much turmoil, divisiveness, and lack of empathy, sensitive people are necessary
Illustration: Kate Dehler
I’ll never forget the moment my son received vaccinations as an infant. He held onto me and my eyes welled up with tears as my husband innocently chuckled as he watched my reaction. All I could see was the fear in my baby boy’s eyes as he braced himself for the unknown. It didn’t matter that I knew the vaccine was protecting him. In that moment, I was living vicariously through my adorable little man and I felt his pain.
When the story was retold to others, my husband said, “You know how she gets.”
I hear those words often. Rarely is “how she gets” referred to a good thing. I heard those words when college friends were teasing me for being “feisty.” I’ve heard it when having an exchange with in-laws in regards to parenting my kids. In each situation, I was overwhelmed with emotion and on the brink of tears. And honestly it’s the norm for me.
My sensitivity got me teased as a child, and sometimes my sensitivity gets me taken advantage of. Being sensitive often means that I’m viewed as dramatic, weak, overreacting, and too much to handle. So it should come as no surprise that I spent a majority of my life attempting to hide my emotions. Even when things rightfully bothered me, I tried my best to conceal how I truly felt. I didn’t cry. I didn’t show disdain. I’d just hide the feelings as best I knew how, which didn’t usually go all that well. But I tried.
By what barometer are our sensitivities being measured to determine if they’re too much, and who gets to decide that?
When I explained that I’m too sensitive to my therapist, she stopped me in my tracks.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Being too sensitive is a quality not many people have. It’s your superpower,” she said.
I wasn’t sold right away. Signs of sensitivity are often met with eye rolls and frustration — I’ve experienced them firsthand. There’s still a large percentage of Americans who believe women can’t hold leadership positions because they’re too sensitive and emotional. So why would I accept anything but the belief that being too sensitive is a nuisance?
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As my therapist helped me realize, we have to ask ourselves: By what barometer are our sensitivities being measured to determine if they’re too much, and who gets to decide that? Is my view of sensitivity as a fault rooted in my being a Black woman — and the fact that time and again showing any emotion or vulnerability results in my generalization as the “angry Black woman”? Or does it have to do with the fact that I am a mom, a role society deems as akin to a superhero, making it hard to show any real feelings other than the desire to nag about chores? Perhaps it has to do with being born in mid-July, making me a Cancer, and by default overly emotional and a target for all the other zodiac signs. Or maybe those who labeled me as such were doing so to be manipulative as they attempted to silence me. Regardless of the roots of being too sensitive, it has always been made extremely clear to me that it is not a desirable trait.
Because I love hard, I hurt hard and deeply when someone wrongs me. Sometimes it’s frustrating and embarrassing. My therapist explained that it also means I experience joy for myself and others just as deeply. When I toured my good friend’s new house when they became first-time home owners, onlookers would have been convinced I had bought the house with them judging by my free-falling tears.
“Being able to feel positive experiences that strongly and genuinely is truly a gift,” she says.
Because I love hard, I hurt hard and deeply when someone wrongs me.
To my therapist’s point, being highly sensitive isn’t horrible if you recognize it in yourself and learn to manage your emotions in a way that feels healthy. There are many times when my sensitivity is a good thing.
My sensitivity makes it that much easier for me to relate to others when they struggle. Every experience, whether it’s happening to me or not, is decoded by my heart before it’s decoded by my brain. In a time when we’re experiencing so much turmoil, divisiveness, and lack of empathy, my therapist showed me that sensitive people are necessary. Being sensitive doesn’t mean I’m incapable of being rational. During a monumental election, my sensitivity allowed me to vote with my heart just as much as logic as I envisioned myself in the shoes of someone else as their lives were literally dependent on what was on the ballot, even if it didn’t benefit me. Being “too sensitive” has also been an asset in the past, as it allowed me to defuse contentious situations between family members.
Sure, I may take things a bit too personally at times, let strong feelings overwhelm me for days and sometimes cry, but I now know that strength, power, and a genuine heart are behind those tears. I’m choosing to believe that my ability to be sensitive is exactly what we need to make this world a little lighter. I am not too sensitive. I am just right. | https://medium.com/@bbylvr-z/in-a-time-when-were-experiencing-so-much-turmoil-divisiveness-and-lack-of-empathy-sensitive-652455837ca7 | ['Bbylvr Z'] | 2020-12-18 20:07:43.890000+00:00 | ['Therapy', 'Psychology', 'Emotions', 'My Therapist Says', 'Brain'] |
A cryptocurrency exchange facilitates the trading of cryptocurrencies, in exchange for other assets… | A cryptocurrency exchange facilitates the trading of cryptocurrencies, in exchange for other assets such as fiat money or another digital currency, and delivers the coins to the customer’s crypto-wallet. There are a handful of cryptocurrency exchanges in the
market today and they offer a wide variety of cryptocurrencies that customers can choose from. They make profit by charging additional fees for every transaction made. Exchanges act as the medium between the traders.
Choosing a cryptocurrency exchange is the first step to cryptocurrency trading. Since most of them offer the same kinds of digital currencies, there are factors that a person must consider in choosing an exchange. First, know what cryptocurrencies you would like to purchase and what will you use to purchase your coins. There are exchanges that allow buying cryptocurrencies using fiat currency and others recommend using Bitcoin to purchase other digital coins. Second, choose an exchange that is near to your location. In this way, it is easy to take actions when something happens to your coins or when the exchange suddenly shuts down their operation.
Lastly, always consider its stability, security and transparency. Do not trust exchanges with controversies and issues regarding security as they are typically scammers and potentially thefts. Research well about exchanges and ask experienced traders on which one to trust and which one to avoid.
Coinbase
Coinbase is one of the most prominent digital currency exchanges in the market today. Its headquarters is located in San Francisco, California. It offers a wide variety of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, BitCash, Ethereum and Litecoin. It allows purchases using fiat money and supports currencies from 32 countries, while facilitating transactions and storage in 190 countries. It is one of the go-to exchanges for veterans and beginners alike because Coinbase has proven that it is secure, stable and transparent, serving 10 million satisfied customers and continuously growing.
Kraken
Kraken is another cryptocurrency exchange that is making its mark on the cryptocurrency market. It operates in Canada, but its headquarters is located on the United Sates. It is currently the record holder of largest bitcoin exchange when it comes to Euro volume and liquidity. It offers the top cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin and also a wide selection of altcoins. When Mt. Gox suddenly fell, Kraken was chosen to be its trustee to distribute their remaining funds, because Kraken’s system has never been attacked by hackers and other malware, proving its promise of reliability, safety, and security as a cryptocurrency exchange. It serves a lot of customers simultaneously, making it hard to buy and sell digital currencies in their platform.
Binance
Binance is also one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges in the world today. It is a newbie as an exchange but skyrocketed quickly because it is accessible from different devices, having an Android application and fully functional official website. It offers safe, secured and reliable transactions between traders and also supports a variety of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and other altcoins. It is desirable in terms of charging fees because there is only a 0.1% trading fee and customer deposit is free. | https://medium.com/cryptotraderspro/a-cryptocurrency-exchange-facilitates-the-trading-of-cryptocurrencies-in-exchange-for-other-assets-e1e4b35c78e6 | ['Crypto Traders Pro'] | 2018-05-11 20:26:49.958000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin'] |
What I’m Excited About From GitHub Universe 2020 | Automerge for PRs
Most of the time, you need a review or two and some checks to pass before a pull request can be merged. This can take some time, so GitHub is adding the ability to click a button to enable automerging on a PR.
What this means is you’ll be able to finish up a pull request and enable automerging, and then it’ll be automatically merged when all the right conditions are met. This makes it so you don’t need to check back on your PR’s status every five minutes because it’ll automatically merge when it needs to. | https://medium.com/better-programming/what-im-excited-about-from-github-universe-2020-da57a928c9e2 | ['Ben Soyka'] | 2020-12-14 17:40:02.617000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Github', 'Startup', 'Github Universe', 'Programming'] |
6 Top Reasons Why Your Business Needs Content Marketing | More and more businesses are relying on content marketing due to its ability to deliver results. According to Hubspot, 77% of companies say they have a content marketing strategy.
Content marketing is necessary for growing your brand presence and providing value to your audience. It also helps you establish priorities and structure within your marketing strategy.
Read on to learn more about how having a content marketing strategy can benefit your business and why your business needs it to succeed.
What is content marketing?
When you hear the term content marketing, the first thing you think about is probably blogs and website copy, but content marketing is so much more than a format and has evolved to become a crucial part of marketing.
Content marketing is a long-term strategy that includes the process of creating and distributing content for your target market, including:
Blogs
Web copy
Landing page copy
Infographics
Ebooks
Case studies
Whitepapers
Email marketing
Podcasts/Interviews
Video production
Photography
And much more.
Why Content Marketing is Important
Content marketing aims to provide value, educate and ultimately turn your visitors into customers by guiding them down the marketing funnel.
Publishing consistent, high-quality and engaging content that resonates with your audience can impact the decision-making more than any other method. Customers expect consistency in the brands they trust, and content can help your business build credibility and strengthen your reputation.
Besides, having high-quality content is imperative not only for this but also for staying ahead of your competitors and improving your SEO rankings.
6 Top Benefits of Content Marketing for Businesses
Content marketing has a wealth of benefits for your business, but the most significant are:
1. Reach a Wider Audience
A strong content strategy can help your business reach a wider audience and also target specific customers across the web. Content marketing isn’t limited to your website; it can be used across social media, paid media, outreach, and more.
If your audience enjoys your content, they are more likely to share it with their own audience and recommend you to others, consequently growing your reach and increasing organic traffic to your website. Plus, once you publish a blog or a new piece of content on your website, it continues to build traction month over month at no additional cost to you.
2. Provide Value to Your Target Market
With content marketing, you can offer tremendous value to prospects and loyal customers who rely on your expertise.
Create and distribute content that your audience and customers would value — whether you create blogs, whitepapers, infographics, or videos. Also, when informative content is coupled with visuals, it can perform 323% better than just text. If your audience finds benefit in your content, they’re more likely to stay on your site longer and return to your site for more, strengthening your brand positioning.
3. Helps Your Business Stay Relevant
Suppose your website lacks information, or your content is irrelevant to the search intent. In that case, this can affect your site’s performance, increasing your bounce rate and potentially decreasing your search engine rankings.
Updating and refreshing your website content regularly — such as republishing blogs or optimizing your service pages — helps keep your business relevant and improve the brand experience for your customers and prospects. This can help position your business as an industry leader, thus building authority and trust with your audience.
4. Higher Search Engine Rankings
Everything starts with a search. The majority of consumers research products and services online. Your business must appear on the search engine results page if you want to be found and considered. Content marketing, when used in conjunction with an SEO strategy, can boost your rankings on search engines.
You may be wondering how? Creating content that your target audience is looking for, wants to share and link to, can increase your rankings on search engines. Ensure that your website provides the necessary information for users to learn more.
5. Generate & Nurture Leads
Content marketing can help your business generate leads. You can encourage your audience to take a desired action — like contacting you, submitting a form, adding a product to their cart or signing up for a newsletter. By strategically placing a call-to-action directly in your content, you can guide your readers and increase conversion rate optimization.
With this in mind, creating content for specific stages of the marketing funnel can significantly help guide leads through the buyer’s journey, from the initial conversion to making a purchase. Whether it’s blogs to create awareness, ebooks to turn prospects into leads or case studies to convince them that they should choose your business, content can be tailored to guide your audience at specific stages of the funnel. Provide your audience with the information they need to make an educated purchasing decision.
Here’s an example of how a typical marketing funnel works:
6. Cost-Effective Return on Investment
Content marketing provides a greater, more cost-effective return on investment than other digital or traditional marketing methods. Whether you decide to produce your content internally or hire a content marketing agency to manage your strategy, it’s still much more affordable than other forms of marketing.
With relevant and educational content, you can bring in more organic traffic and leads. Plus, studies have shown that content marketing can bring in three times as many leads as paid ads per dollar spent. While online advertising is undoubtedly one of the most effective ways for your business to appear in search engines, it can be costly, especially for smaller businesses with a limited budget.
It is worth noting, though, that similar to SEO, content marketing can take some time before you see results, especially on your website — that’s why posting frequently is so important.
Getting Started With Content Marketing
Your business must have a solid content strategy to achieve the best results. Now that you know the importance of content marketing, you may contemplate creating a content strategy yourself or utilizing content marketing services.
Utilizing the services of an experienced content marketer means obtaining a unique content marketing strategy to meet your marketing goals. Whether your audience is B2C or B2B, content marketing can be tailored to meet your business objectives, audience, industry and budget.
Get ahead of your competition; get started today! | https://medium.com/@shanpurcell/6-top-reasons-why-your-business-needs-content-marketing-aac8fee2d043 | ['Shannon Purcell'] | 2020-12-08 12:35:31.674000+00:00 | ['Content Strategy', 'Business Growth', 'Content Marketing', 'Marketing Tips', 'Content Creation'] |
How to Begin Detaching Yourself | Detaching begins the moment you decide to live life for your own happiness not to please others. Start to live your life on your own terms not with the worry of what others think of you.
You have to be you above all to achieve anything you want. Just stop letting others control you and go on own your own way.
Remove toxic people from your life. The people who spread negativity around you aren’t good for you. Stay with people who motivates you and who have rationalise thinking.
Not everyone has same thoughts for you. Some may want your success while some want to see you falling down badly. You can’t control on what people think about you so maintain proper distance from everyone. Setup limits of how much you have to talk with anyone.
If you are facing problem with anyone’s behaviour let them know about it. Never let conservation of people about you to overcome you. You are yourself the best version of you and you should be happy with it.
Learn to say no to things and people which bother you. Saying no will help you remove random thoughts from your mid. Saying no will help you boost your confidence.
Boost you confidence. Learn a new hobby or start reading books. Adapt yourself in a new environment where only you have control on your mind.
Don’t let the anxiety of what people will think to be heavy on you. It’s none of your business that what people talk behind your back. You can’t change or control anyone’s thoughts so it will be better to ignore them.
Start adapting habits of self care. Do some meditation or any hobby of your choice like gardening, cooking, sports etc. Consider yourself the best. Never feel down in any condition. Remember that you are you for itself a reason.
No one else can be you and you can’t be anyone else.
Detachment can’t be achieved in a single day. You have to control on your mind to never let random thoughts affect your mood.
At last I just want to say that “Embrace the glorious mess you are”.
Read More
Christmas Offers | https://medium.com/@coupondip-123/how-to-begin-detaching-yourself-c6339e1bbf6a | [] | 2019-12-09 13:14:00.868000+00:00 | ['Help', 'Life', 'Tips', 'Self Improvement'] |
The Modern Gentleman’s Armor; Why This Isn’t The End of The Suit | News hit this month that Goldman Sachs, one of the strongholds of required formal style, is loosening its dress code and shifting away from the required suit and tie that was once universal within the finance industry and across the professional world. It comes at a time when industries are relaxing dress codes and men are dressing more casually in professional settings across the board.
Before you burn your suits and use your ties as belts, this isn’t a total death knell for modern men’s formal style. The missive from Goldman doesn’t directly outline a new dress code for men, instead, they’re leaving it up to personal judgment and workplace appropriateness. There’s no doubt that certain industries will still require suits and ties, politics and law being two that spring to mind immediately. Societal change happens slowly and over great lengths, which means the suit is still up there for one of the safer formal choices for men around the world.
Whether you’re headed to a wedding or a serious job interview, or even at your next court date, a suit still tells the world that you’re a serious person who can be trusted and respected in his own right. If you’ve ever watched the Kingsman movie series, you may remember that Colin Firth’s character, playing the role of mentor Galahad, introduced the secret spy agency by saying, ‘The suit is the modern gentleman’s armor.’ Putting on just a few simple pieces of cloth can make a difference between looking like you’ve just rolled out of a ditch and looking like you run millions of dollars on a daily basis.
In my own life, I’ve seen this play out time and time again. At one point in my career, I was working as a community manager for a small tech startup. We were being showcased at an event and our whole team was there. Coming from a different meeting, I was in a suit and tie while our founders were in jeans and casual shirts. I can’t tell you the number of times people at that event assumed I was a principal investor or the owner of the company instead of a new junior-level hire. Just by dressing a certain way, I gave out a certain image that got me a lot more respect from strangers than the people who had spent years of their lives creating a revolutionary new product.
The suit may be on its way out of society, it may not. There’s a lot to be said for the changing facets of fashion and style across time. We don’t wear hats every day the way men would in the 40s or the 50s, but they’re still for sale and in use around the world. Until the day comes that the modern suit and tie has the same relevance as the medieval suit of armor, it’s still important to know how to wear one and how to do it well. We’re here to help make that job a bit easier for you and to ensure that no matter where you’re wearing a suit next, you’re going to do it well enough to make a difference. | https://medium.com/@StyleStandard/the-modern-gentlemans-armor-why-this-isn-t-the-end-of-the-suit-8d1b345a0280 | ['James Thomson-Sakhrani'] | 2019-03-21 06:22:37.399000+00:00 | ['Goldman Sachs', 'Style', 'Suits', 'Menswear', 'Fashion'] |
You don’t need to get rich. You need to build wealth. | by: E.B. Johnson
We seem to live our lives in the pursuit of wealth, but so many of us seem to struggle to ever achieve this. Why? Years of hard work and belief in the system should lend itself to rewards, right? Wrong. If we truly want to build wealth that bolsters us, we have to learn to switch up our mindset. It’s not about “getting rich” after all. It’s about establishing a legacy that supports our children and grandchildren for years to come.
Being rich and being wealthy isn’t the same thing.
Believe it or not, there’s a big difference between striking it rich and building true wealth for yourself. When you come from a lack or a sense of scarcity, the idea of getting rich becomes an intoxicating dream. You fantasize about being able to pay the bills you have, and you daydream about a big purchase here and there. These kinds of riches are impermanent, however. If we truly wish to thrive, we have to build wealth.
Building wealth provides everything that “riches” cannot. Getting rich indicates a specific mindset. To get rich is to strike it lucky, or to be granted a one-off piece of largesse which washes over your life in the blink of an eye. Cultivating wealth is an entirely different mindset. When you build wealth, you aren’t looking for a handout or looking for a quick means of gratification.
To build wealth means to build something which is yours. It is long-lasting, and it is sustaining, but beyond that it is also something which we can control. Rather than seeking to get rich quick, we should seek to work hard and create something in this world which is truly ours. By building wealth we give ourselves a guarantee, and our families too. A guarantee we will thrive through thick and thin, and that we will never again settle for less than we deserve.
What it means to get rich.
Someone who is “rich” is very different from someone who is wealthy. Not only is getting rich an impermanent state, it also indicates a need to continue the strive and struggle. Getting rich is quick money and quick goals, and for that reason it can be a quick loss too.
Quick money, quick goals
Think about someone you know who talks a lot about “getting rich”. Are these grand statements usually preceded with a well thought-out plan of action? Probably not. When we imagine ourselves getting rich, it is usually in a quick or miraculous manner. Maybe you imagine winning the lottery, or writing a bestseller overnight. It’s a quick money, quick goal fantasy that rarely ever plays out the way we want it to. It’s mindset that can hold us back.
Short-sightedness
Focusing on getting rich is ultimately a form of shortsightedness. Because of the inherent impermanence of “getting rich” (and the inherent lack of control behind such a strike-it-lucky approach) it doesn’t provide us a lot of stability for the future. You can hit that rich goal by simply getting a better job, but when that job is taken away you find yourself right back at square one. It’s not an aim that carries you into the future, but a wealth mindset can.
Cutting corners
Those who only seek to “get rich” are often those who are willing to cut corners. Maybe they focus on all the wrong opportunities, or they purposefully go out of their way to putting in the work it takes to build financial stability. We can’t cut corners if we want to create something for ourselves that both lasts and provides. There’s only one way to get to the level of wealth that we want, and that is by working both smart and committedly.
Flash in the pan
There’s a sort of flash-in-the-pan mindset that comes with wanting to be rich. Perhaps you think you’ll score it big off a lotto ticket, or get rich off a quick scheme. This wealth eventually goes away, though. It’s impermanent and only provides you with a moment of hope and a moment of stability. Being rich and being wealthy aren’t the same because one provides stability, and the other does not. One is a flash in a pan, and one is choosing to create a new pan entirely.
Meeting the basics
When we settle for the dream of being rich, we actually end up settling for just enough to live comfortably. This may — perhaps — offer temporary entertainment, but it doesn’t allow us to build a legacy of which we can build our lives and the launching boards of our children. Getting rich will allow you to meet the basics and be comfortable for a while, but what of the future? Used the right way and riches can help you build wealth. It takes a lot of luck to get there, though.
What it means to build wealth.
The wealthy live in a world that is very different from ours. The primary difference is control. When you are truly wealthy, you are given greater control of your life and that of your family’s. Wealth gives you all the stability that “getting rich” can’t, and it is built through our own ingenuity and a series of relatively passive incomes which allow us to create a legacy for our children.
Building stability
While getting rich can provide us with a certain level of temporary stability, it still comes with the inherent possibility of loss. That’s something that wealth doesn’t do, though. Once you’re wealthy, you stay that way unless you engage in activities that go beyond the pale of risk and sensibility. When you’re wealthy, you’re able to armor your life and stabilize it with a number of safeguards that keep you afloat no matter what calamity the rest of the world may be in.
Passive incomes
Those with genuine wealth are never those with a simple 9–5 or a single business opportunity on-the-go. Passive incomes are one of the primary ways the wealthy continue to build more wealth for themselves. That is to say, they create multiple channels of income, which come in to them daily, weekly or monthly. They don’t have to exert any real energy. These channels simply get set up and then provide a steady stream of money that continues to buffer the wealthy.
Greater control
Perhaps the greatest gift that wealth gives us is that of control. As humans, we’re always struggling to control the world around us. We want the stability of knowing we can affect our environments, and with wealth we can do that. When you are wealthy, you gain control of your day and the pace and flow of your future. It also gives you the freedom to explore different facets of life, get into politics, and change the way you work. Literally any arena of life you want to enter can be improved by building a base of wealth to work from.
Freedom to explore
Beyond giving you the freedom to get more enjoyably engaged in your life, building true wealth also grants you the freedom to explore your interests and opportunities. When you have wealth, you have money to play with. That is to say that you’re able to take greater risks. You can open up new avenues of business and even create new markets. Losses here and there aren’t life-ruining when you’re intelligently wealthy.
Creating a legacy
When you build actual wealth, you don’t just create a blanket which covers your needs. You also create a legacy which can change the course of life for your loved ones generations down the line. The world is a chaotic and a scary place. It doesn’t appear to be getting any more stable. You can leave your children and their children with a means of stability, and a source of opportunity on which to mount their own lives. You can also change society and your direct environment.
How to switch your money-making mindset.
Are you ready to switch from a “get rich” mindset to a “build wealth” mindset? You can switch the way you see money and the way you actionably make it. Before that can happen, though, you need to establish a self-belief system and learn how to create more opportunities for yourself.
1. Establish a self-belief system
We spend a lot of time in this life trying to figure out our belief systems, but we rarely take any time to form a belief in self. When you lack self-confidence, it makes all the difference in your journey to wealth. It’s hard to create something which provides you with wealth when you don’t even have enough self-esteem to let yourself shine and create. In order to get from a place of scarcity to a place of abundance, you need to believe in your right to it.
Rebuild your confidence from the ground up. It’s time for you to believe in your right to thrive and your right to lead a high-quality life. You deserve a seat at whatever table matters to you, and wealth gives you that ability. When you’re wealthy, you can change the world, but not until you change yourself.
Know your worth. Know the value of your ideas. Don’t sell yourself short and don’t sell out on an idea that could take you all the way. Creativity is one of the few things which makes us exceptional as a species. Don’t allow the brutality of the world to hold you back from creating what you need to create. Believe in yourself. You’re smart enough, skilled enough, and deserving enough to have it all.
2. Create more opportunities yourself
Perhaps the greatest difference between “getting rich” and building wealth is the amount of effort it takes to get where you want to go. Sure, you could win the lottery or come up with the next hot unicorn app. That doesn’t take a lot of effort, though, and it relies on a lot of variables. Therefore, you have a lot less control over the money, or even your likelihood of earning it.
Building wealth is entirely different. To build wealth for yourself is to build a series of foundations which allow you to increase the power you have in your own life. It’s starting a business with the potential to grow. It’s kicking off that online writing hustle you’ve been eyeing since march.
Wealthy people create even more opportunities for themselves. They don’t hit a number goal and then take their foot off the gas. They think to themselves, “I’ve opened one door. How do I open the next?” You must always be looking for the next opportunity, and when it’s not there, you have to figure out how to make one for yourself. You can take control of your life, but you first have to figure out where your channels lie.
3. Reshape your perspective
Reshaping the way you see money and wealth is imperative if you want to stop struggling and looking for the next meal. You need to see money and wealth as a plentiful thing, with more than enough to go around for you and yours. You also need to stop focusing on getting rich fast, and you need to focus on creating something from your skills and interests which you can lean into and build on.
There are literally millions of millionaires in the world. Why shouldn’t you be one of them? If millions of people can find a way to create wealth for themselves and their children — why can’t you? After all, they aren’t any more exceptional or any more capable than you. Not all of them were born with silver spoons in their mouths.
You have to reshape the way you see money. It’s not an exclusive club. It’s a life raft you decide to put yourself in (or not). You not only have a right to build wealth, you have a right to sit at the table which millions of others are already sitting at. You just have to figure out where your channel of opportunities lie. Reshape your perspective and see yourself as a player in the game of wealth, rather than just a spectator.
4. Feel what it’s like to be wealthy
Have you ever felt what it’s like to be wealthy? Believe it or not, there is a certain feeling that comes with knowing you have more than enough, and it’s a powerful thing. It gives you confidence outside of the department store, and motivates you to get more, more, more. Complacent people become ambitious when it comes to building wealth, and so much of that comes down to their inherent belief and the feeling of confidence and security they have.
It’s time for you to do something which makes you feel wealthy. You don’t need to break the bank, or even take out another credit card. You can get close enough to mega-wealth to taste the possibility. Go to a luxury car dealership and walk around. Visit an open house for an exceptional property.
These are not places that are off-limits to the public at large. They want your custom, whatever your wages. Hold your head up high and know that you deserve to be surrounded by nice things. Walk through a Burberry or a Coach store in the nicest clothes you own. Ask questions, feel at home. After all, this is not something foreign to you. This is a practice run for the life you are manifesting through action.
5. Take action each and every day
When it comes to genuine wealth that is controlled by us (therefore allowing us to control our own lives) there is a certain effort that needs to be put in every single day. We have to take action in the name of our vision and put in the work it takes to get from Point A to Point B. Instead of wishing for the right lotto ticket; we have to brainstorm the various ways we can open up the door for ourselves.
Start creating a plan of action which allows you to move closer to your goals each and every day. Sit down and get clear on what kind of wealth you want to build for yourself. What chunk of the pie are you going to claim as your own?
Once you know what you want, you can break your goals down into smaller, more actionable steps. Keep in mind that this action will look very different depending on what stage of action you’re in. At first, we have to sit still, focus, and think of the future. In the next step we may be making phone calls and filling out college applications. It all comes down to making sure we have what we need to thrive. That means sometimes the action we need to take is simply taking a step back to refocus and recharge.
Putting it all together…
There is a massive difference between building wealth and “getting rich”. When we only pursue riches, we put ourselves in a temporary mindset in which we cut corners and look for the quickest fits. There’s no real power in getting rich. When you score big once, you can lose it just as quickly. If we want to give ourselves (and our families) true stability and opportunity, we should seek to build wealth instead of just getting rich.
Establish a self-belief system and start embracing both your right and your ability to build wealth for yourself and your family. You have to believe in yourself in order to create the opportunities you need to thrive. Reshape your perspective. True wealth doesn’t come by cutting corners or get-rich-quick schemes. It comes by wholeheartedly pursuing your goals and opening every door you possibly can. See the difference between riches and wealth, and focus on embracing your right to sit at the table. Feel what it’s like to be wealthy and allow these experiences to motivate and inspire you. We can build a legacy that changes the course of our lives and our happiness. To do that, though, we have to take smart and valuable action each and every day. Are you ready to move from scarcity to a place of abundance? It’s time to invest in yourself. | https://ebjohnson.medium.com/get-rich-build-wealth-b35c074fe465 | ['E.B. Johnson'] | 2020-12-27 13:20:59.055000+00:00 | ['Nonfiction', 'Self', 'Motivation', 'Money', 'Finance'] |
Rest Api Design | By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don’t already have one. Review our Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practices. | https://medium.com/devopsturkiye/rest-api-design-aa3543367afd | ['Berk Emre Çabuk'] | 2020-11-19 04:26:45.717000+00:00 | ['API', 'Api Design', 'Rest Api', 'Dotnet Core'] |
Are You Still Continuing To Count Tiny Ants Even While The Huge Elephants Walk Past | An old idiom from the early nineteenth century somehow phrased a bit differently in modern-day language tells us that “the devil is in the details.”
It’s interesting to note the quote was attributed to several noted individuals going back over a hundred years, the earliest mention of it provided by Gustaf Flaubert who wrote “The good God is in the detail”.¹
Generally, the modern-day idiom refers to something which at first glance seems rather simplistic until you pull the covers off and discover it’s a lot more complicated than you first thought it was.
So, now I understand how we went from God to Beelzebub.
I’m jus’ sayin’.
As Humans, we often count the ants, those tiny little details, and forget about the elephants walking by, the big picture.
Why is that?
I think a lot of it has to do with what we’ve been taught growing up as we hurtle through life at warp speed. Another age-old idiom about eating those elephants. You know the one I’m talking about, right? You’re going to make me say, aren’t you? Okay, fine.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
If you pause from all that noshing for just a bit, you’ll begin to understand it’s pretty much how we live our lives, one mundane, rather ordinary, detail at a time.
For some of the more adept among our midsts, it’s juggling a bazillion details in the air at one time.
We get up every morning, take care of our children, or our furbabies, get the kids ready for school, go to work, grind our noses on the stone, run errands, yadda, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah.
All these just barely manageable details seem to go on forever. Wash, rinse, repeat. And we often become so immersed in taking care of all the details we don’t stop to look at the big picture. The “why the heck am I doing this” big picture.
Why in the heck are we doing this?
Well, some may say considering the very unpleasant alternative of being a corpse, living life in this manner is far better, and I, for one, most certainly agree.
But with a caveat. We all need to stop counting the ants from time to time and focus on the elephants whether or not they’re sitting in the room with us or they’re slowly traipsing past us.
The big picture, in my humble opinion, is the end game.
It’s the number of specific goals or outcomes in your life you wish to accomplish. It’s the elephants lumbering by while we’re all counting and desperately attempting to manage the ants. Remember, I said specific goals, not necessarily all the details it takes to reach each goal.
It could be becoming a multi-millionaire before you hit forty.
Missed out on that one.
Or it could be becoming a writer.
Okay, hit that one.
Maybe an opera star, rockstar or movie star.
Nope, nope and nope.
Although a lot of folks have continuously reminded me it’s not the destination (elephant) it’s the journey (ant) we should all be concentrating on, I’m here to tell you, that just ain’t how I want to roll.
I want to set my sights on a specific destination, and then enjoy the journey I take as I attempt to get there.
Wanting to be a fireman, policeman, superhero, and PT boat captain when I was eight years old doesn’t count. As my thoughts matured, I’ve discovered for me, I desired three major elephants in my life and only three.
Perhaps it’s because I actually understand my limitations. Because I get easily distracted and can neither focus on too many ants nor elephants I long ago chose to limit my expectations.
Not necessarily lower them, just limit them.
My three big pictures in my life were to marry a wonderful woman — check — have wonderful and healthy children — check — and make a living with my writing — uh, my pen is still hovering over the paper on this one.
With each of these big pictures came the usual litany of tiny ants I had to continually count and manage. One thing I realized early on was if I spent too much time focusing on all the minutia of tiny details, I quickly lost sight of the big picture associated with them.
And I often ended up having to start over.
I can’t even recall the number of times I had to start over because I got lost in the details of trying to be a good husband, a better father, and a consistent and flourishing writer.
However, please understand there are only so many times life is going to let you push the reset button.
And you’ll quickly discover as I did, sometimes you just have to hunker down with that big picture of yours and quite a few times add even more details to that pile of ants scurrying around to get anywhere close to achieving what you want.
Life is a harsh taskmaster, and none of these goals we set for ourselves are going to come to us gift wrapped with a bow on top, and complete with a fault-free instruction manual.
All of us will have elephants we need to identify and keep track of as they lumber along.
With each of those elephants will come a host of tiny little detail ants running around we’ll have to count and manage over and over and over.
Just remember.
As you blast through life managing all the little details which are supposed to get you closer to your goals, you need to stop every now and then and inspect those elephants walking along to see how they’re doing.
One of them may need to be fed and watered more than the others.
Thank You For Reading
Let’s keep in touch: [email protected]
© P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.
¹ Titelman, Gregory, Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings, Random House Reference, March 5, 1996 | https://paul-202.medium.com/are-you-still-continuing-to-count-tiny-ants-even-while-the-huge-elephants-walk-past-764d389a2e1e | ['P.G. Barnett'] | 2020-01-04 13:31:00.946000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Lifestyle', 'Life Lessons', 'Living', 'Living With Purpose'] |
Little Girl, Be PERFECT! | Photo by Caroline Hernandez on Unsplash
What do we say to Little Girls with a million dreams in their eyes?
We say, that’s lovely my darling but let’s be realistic.
You’re a girl, you need to be steady, you need to be good, you need to be proper.
As the little girl starts school, we ask her to be the best at everything.
How is being good at one thing enough?
Be good at everything, apply yourself.
If everyone can do it, you can too.
Be PERFECT.
And when the little girl leaves home and makes her own, we ask her to grow up.
Make compromises, sacrifice, be proper, be good, be steady. You’re the woman of the house after all.
And then the little girl suffocates and throws a tantrum. She pushes a little and watches. The world tries to push her back in but she’s had enough. She screams, this tortured and painful scream that frightens her.
She then asks everyone to shut up and flies away to become the little girl with a million dreams once more. | https://medium.com/@claricedass/little-girl-be-perfect-c74b88172789 | ['Clarice Dass'] | 2020-12-24 12:23:41.053000+00:00 | ['Society', 'Dreams', 'Little Girl', 'Perfect', 'Breaking Free'] |
Best of Modern JavaScript — Iterators and Generators | Photo by Sarah Dorweiler on Unsplash
Since 2015, JavaScript has improved immensely.
It’s much more pleasant to use it now than ever.
In this article, we’ll look at JavaScript iterable objects and generator functions.
Clean Up of Generators
If we use break to break a loop, then we can clean up with the try-finally constructor.
For example, if we have:
function* genFn() {
yield 'foo';
yield 'bar';
yield 'baz';
console.log('clean up'); } const gen = genFn(); for (const x of gen) {
console.log(x);
}
Then the console log will run when the generator returned all the items.
However, if we use break in our loop:
for (const x of gen) {
console.log(x);
break;
}
Then the console log is never run.
We can run the cleanup step when we use break in our loop by wrapping the yield code with try-finally.
For example, we can write:
function* genFn() {
try {
yield 'foo';
yield 'bar';
yield 'baz';
} finally {
console.log('clean up');
}
} const gen = genFn(); for (const x of gen) {
console.log(x);
break;
}
We added the finally block, which will run when the break statement is run.
This is useful for running clean up code on our generator.
If we implement our own iterator, we can put the function in our iterator’s return method:
const obj = {
[Symbol.iterator]() {
function hasNextValue() {
//...
} function getNextValue() {
//...
} function cleanUp() {
//...
} return {
next() {
if (hasNextValue()) {
const value = getNextValue();
return {
done: false,
value: value
};
} else {
//...
return {
done: true,
value: undefined
};
}
},
return () {
cleanUp();
}
};
}
}
We have the return method included in the object we return with the Symbol.iterator method.
Closing Iterators
We can close any iterators by creating our own generator function to close it.
For instance, we can write:
function* take(n, iterable) {
for (const x of iterable) {
if (n <= 0) {
break;
}
n--;
yield x;
}
}
We call break on the loop to end it with when the ending condition is met.
Generators
Generators are pieces of code that we can pause and resume.
It’s denoted by the function* keyword for generator functions.
yield is an operation that a generator used to pause itself.
Generators can receive input and send output with yield .
We can create a generator function by writing:
function* genFn() {
yield 'foo';
yield 'bar';
yield 'baz';
}
This returns a generator object which we can call next on to return the values that are yield:
const genObj = genFn();
console.log(genObj.next());
console.log(genObj.next());
console.log(genObj.next());
We call genFn to return a generator.
Then we call next to get each value sequentially.
So we get:
{value: "foo", done: false}
{value: "bar", done: false}
{value: "baz", done: false}
We return an object with the value and done property.
The value has the value from yield .
done tells us whether all the values have been yield from the generator.
Photo by Luca Bravo on Unsplash
Conclusion
We can clean up our generator by adding a try-finally block.
Also, generator functions create generators that let us return the value sequentially. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/best-of-modern-javascript-iterators-and-generators-d21536100140 | ['John Au-Yeung'] | 2020-11-01 18:49:42.924000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Programming', 'Web Development'] |
The Hero’s Journey + Deus Ex Machina | How Disney is killing stories for a whole generation to come
I have recently been caught up in a sort of Disney Fever by the launch in my home country of Disney+, the giant company’s online streaming service that has shaken the streaming market to the core since its launch.
Much of said fever had to do with The Mandalorian, the new(ish) Star Wars-based live-action that took the world by storm late last year by means of introducing the world to one of the cutest and scariest puppets of all time: Grogu (commonly known as Baby Yoda).
Bear with me if you’re not a Star Wars aficionado or even a Disney fan like myself. What I’m talking about here has bigger stakes than merely the future of a multibillion-dollar franchise from a hundred-billion dollar company; it might actually have to do with how we — as humans — have changed the way we convey stories that may very well shape entire generations to come, fundamentally transforming the way we think and act, as a society.
I’m going to start by showing you I’m not blowing this out of proportion.
Stories have been the best way humans discovered to pass on knowledge: from the cave drawings that date 30,000 years back to oral tradition to the written norm to the new era of multimedia, storytelling is the bulk of all there is. Literally everything — from tribal traditions or societal norms to science — has mainly been transmitted through the means of stories. From a person’s character to the whole culture of a nation, the stories people hear have the power to shape their entire existence, whether it be consciously or not.
Just think about how many people’s lives throughout history have been affected by the Dialogues of Plato or the Bible, or — to get to the point we’re heading — Disney’s children’s movies.
Now — for the uninitiated — The Hero’s Journey is one of the main tropes used in storytelling. It talks about an individual (the hero) who is led from his known world into a journey and returns transformed. In the words of Joseph Campbell, a literature academic whose work The Hero with a Thousand Faces has popularized the expression, The Hero’s Journey may be summarized as follows:
A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.
Does it ring a bell?
It should, because every other story on books, comic books, movies, television series, or any other storytelling media either is or begins with the playbook Hero’s Journey.
The Odyssey? Check!
Batman? Check!
Luke Skywalker? Check!
One might say The Hero’s Journey has defined the way the entertainment industry has entertained us, from the Greek tragedies to Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending blockbusters.
And I’m not here to say we’re done. The Hero’s Journey will probably be entertaining mankind for as long as we exist and — even if it might not be some people’s favorite technique, including myself — it has done a great job at doing so.
What I am here to say is that another kind of trope, one that’s been plaguing our stories for far too long, has come to be the go-to motto of the new generation of storytelling and has been ruining most of the Hero’s Journeys we have been so accustomed to enjoying: the dreaded Deus Ex Machina.
Being a Latin calque from an ancient Greek expression, roughly translating to “God from the Machine”, Deus Ex Machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence.*
The Deus Ex Machina has been widely spread out through the old Greek tragedies, where Gods would suddenly descend from the Heavens and meddle with human affairs. But its criticism has been almost as old as the device itself, labeling it too convenient and overly simplistic and finding strong detractors in the likes of Aristotle, Horace, and Friedrich Nietzsche.
In modern times, in a world where Gods no longer seem to share the same terrestrial worries as men, the use of such a tool has been increasingly vilified and ofttimes mocked by audiences and writers, such as in an instance when Batman rids himself of a shark attached to his leg by asking Robin for his Shark Repellent Bat Spray!
What does Disney have to do with it?, you might ask.
Well, it’s no news that Disney has gathered under its belt most of the world’s greatest sources of entertainment in what we generally regard as pop culture. From the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales to George Lucas’ Star Wars and Marvel Comics to the highly controversial Lion King, the company’s productions are amongst the most-watched films in the world since the beloved Mickey Mouse made its debut in 1928. It is fair to say that many children — and adults alike — have grown to love Disney’s characters and stories and that these stories have influenced and molded them into the people they are.
To me, the frequent use of the Deus Ex Machina plot twist route in its productions is a true disservice in the sense that it shows people — and children, most of all — that the “God in the Machine” is the rule and that acting upon things, working hard and persevering are not really worth it since fate, chance, luck, talent and yes, even gods are the real forces that drive stories.
Well, ok, but how is Disney’s using it?
This is where it gets tricky.
Many defendants of the Deus Ex Machina gadget say it can’t really be called out if had been foreshadowed or predicted in any way. I would argue that foreshadowing and predicting potential twists is not really the place of the audience — especially a young one –, even though it could make for a fun pastime.
To illustrate, I’ll set up a couple of examples starting with the latest iteration of a Disney classic turned to live-action and finishing up with the season 2 finale of the series The Mandalorian.
[SPOILER ALERT]
EXAMPLE 1: Warrior or Witch?
In the new live-action from the Disney classic Mulan, we see a young woman standing up to the norm by secretly enlisting to the Chinese imperial army disguised as a man and, in the end, saving the emperor and restoring her family’s honor.
Though a beautifully executed coming-of-age and a true Hero’s Journey story, the live-action Mulan has in its protagonist’s seemingly unabashed powers its own demise. Once the only threat to Mulan is removed by the witch giving her life to save her, the movie is just as good as done. And it doesn’t matter that her powers were shown since the beginning of the movie.
EXAMPLE 2: The Jedi Trick
The Mandalorian and crew invade Moff Gideon’s ship to rescue The Child. They plan to neutralize the new all-powerful dark troopers, rescue the kid and seize control of the vessel. They do a pretty good job at that except the dark troopers are impervious to the freezing cold temperatures of space (sort of like Leia) and come back to tear down the double-paned blast doors and kill them. All is lost… but wait: an X-Wing arrives. It’s a Jedi and he is cutting through the dark troopers like a knife through butter. The day is saved.
In this example, we see both the Deus Ex Machina in play but also the complete waste of a great threat for the Hero to explore, one that had been hyped up for most of the season just to be reduced, in the end, to a small showing of how powerful a Jedi can truly be.
…
To sum it up, what the Deus Ex Machina does is to empty our Hero’s Journey stories, by making said journey appear less important than it would otherwise be should our heroes had taken control of the situation from what they’ve learned and experienced from it. By giving our heroes unlimited strengths or getting them safe by the means of a godly, otherworldly power, we’re robbing our readers/viewers of a truly inspiring ending, even if watching women warriors beating up tyrants and Jedi knights slashing through droids make up for great action sequences that the average spectator really want to see.
* from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina | https://medium.com/@vokeios/the-heros-journey-deus-ex-machina-c040aea01a22 | ['Mauricio Silva'] | 2020-12-21 21:43:16.497000+00:00 | ['Disney Plus', 'Disney', 'The Heros Journey', 'Deus Ex Machina', 'Stories'] |
How to reduce the chances of screw-ups in DIY Investing | (1) Investor’s Dilemma — How to pick the right jockey
As an investor, your job is to pick a company that will become more valuable than it is today i.e. share price increases multifold. A firms’ value is nothing but all the free cash flow it is going to generate for its shareholders over its life. So basically, as an investor you have to pick firms that should be able to generate more cash flow and the current price is not reflecting it already.
Let’s recreate a situation for you to better experience this dilemma: let’s go back in time, assume you are in 2010 & you have to pick one of these three private sector banks in India:
Three private sector banks in Mar 2010
All three are leading private sector banks. The macro thesis would have said that banks would grow at a 14%+ growth rate from 2010–2020. Which firms would you have picked in 2010? Take a pause & pick one of these.
Bank 2 has the largest loan book size. Bank 3 has the highest profit margins. Bank 1 and Bank 3 have a similar asset base.
Ten years’ later in 2020, here are the financials of the same three companies:
The same three private sector banks in Mar 2020
And here are the share price returns:
Data source: Screener as of Dec 1, 2020
Bank 1: HDFC Bank, Bank 2: ICICI Bank, Bank 3: Axis Bank
Looking at the financials alone in 2010, it may not be that easy to predict that HDFC Bank would grow multi-fold and Axis Bank would face the NPA crisis. Different metrics become important in different industries. In this particular case, Net Interest Margins and the quality of the loan book would have provided more info but there are always some unknowns.
Which jockey to pick is the question you need to answer as an investor and it is an incredibly difficult thing to do. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/how-to-reduce-the-chances-of-screw-ups-in-diy-investing-ef9a87f28e0 | ['Abhishek Rai'] | 2020-12-08 02:28:08.086000+00:00 | ['Portfolio Management', 'Finance', 'Personal Finance', 'Value Investing', 'Investing'] |
SelectableText Widget In Flutter | Properties:
There are some properties of the SelectableText widget are:
> data: This property is a significant property where the data to appear as a feature of the SelectableText must appear. The text to be shown.
This property is a significant property where the data to appear as a feature of the SelectableText must appear. The text to be shown. > onTap: This property is utilized for the callback function that gets terminated at whatever point somebody taps on the Text of the SelectableText. Of course, the tapping opens the select all/copy choice. On the off chance that you need to perform different exercises, make a point to supersede them here.
This property is utilized for the callback function that gets terminated at whatever point somebody taps on the Text of the SelectableText. Of course, the tapping opens the choice. On the off chance that you need to perform different exercises, make a point to supersede them here. > textSpan : This property is utilized as a component of the SelectableText.rich() widget. This allows you to pick the TextSpan which can hold various texts on the SelectableText widget.
: This property is utilized as a component of the widget. This allows you to pick the TextSpan which can hold various texts on the SelectableText widget. > autofocus: This property is used whether it should focus itself if nothing else is already focused. Defaults to false .
This property is used whether it should focus itself if nothing else is already focused. Defaults to . > maxLines : This property is used for the maximum number of lines for the text to span, wrapping if necessary.
: This property is used for the maximum number of lines for the text to span, wrapping if necessary. > toolbarOptions: This property is used to create a toolbar configuration with given options. All options default to false if they are not explicitly set.
This property is used to create a toolbar configuration with given options. All options default to false if they are not explicitly set. > enableInteractiveSelection: This property is used to Whether to select text and show the copy/paste/cut menu when long-pressed. Defaults to true .
How to implement code in dart file :
You need to implement it in your code respectively:
Create a new dart file called home_page_screen.dart inside the lib folder.
We will make two buttons on this home page screen, and each button will show SelectableText Widget, and we will show the deeply below detail. When we run the application, we ought to get the screen’s output like the underneath screen capture.
Home Screen
We will deeply define below are the two different uses of the SelectableText class and the resulting output.
SelectableText Basic:
In the body part, we will add the center widget. In this widget, we will add SelectableText() method. Inside this method, we will add text, toolbarOptions. In these options, when selection is active, it shows ‘Copy’ and ‘Select all’ options. You can utilize the toolbarOptions property to pass an instance of ToolbarOptions . The constructor of ToolbarOptions has all values are copied, cut, paste, and selectAll set to false by default. You need to set every option to true on the off chance that you need it to show up on the toolbar. Be that as it may, cut and paste will not be showed regardless of whether you set it to true.
Center(
child: SelectableText(
"Flutter Tutorial by Flutter Dev's.com",
style: TextStyle(color: Colors.blue,
fontWeight: FontWeight.bold,
fontSize: 45
),
textAlign: TextAlign.center,
onTap: () => print('Tapped'),
toolbarOptions: ToolbarOptions(copy: true, selectAll: true,),
showCursor: true,
cursorWidth: 2,
cursorColor: Colors.red,
cursorRadius: Radius.circular(5),
),
),
We will add the showCursor option true, cursor width, color, and radius. When we run the application, we ought to get the screen’s output like the underneath screen capture.
SelectableText Basic
SelectableText RichText:
In the body part, we will add the center widget. In this widget, we will add SelectableText.rich() method. In this method, that you need the content to have various formats, utilizing RichText is the normal methodology in Flutter. It’s likewise conceivable to have a selectable RichText by utilizing SelectableText.rich named constructor. It acknowledges an TextSpan as the first and the solitary required boundary rather than a String. Different boundaries, which are optional, are the same equivalent to the main constructor.
Center(
child: SelectableText.rich(
TextSpan(
children: <TextSpan>[
TextSpan(text: 'Flutter', style: TextStyle(color: Colors.blue)),
TextSpan(text: 'Devs', style: TextStyle(color: Colors.black)),
TextSpan(text: '.com', style: TextStyle(color: Colors.red)),
],
),
style: TextStyle(
fontWeight: FontWeight.bold,
fontSize: 48),
textAlign: TextAlign.center,
onTap: () => print('Tapped'),
toolbarOptions: ToolbarOptions(copy: true, selectAll: false),
showCursor: true,
cursorWidth: 2,
cursorColor: Colors.black,
cursorRadius: Radius.circular(5),
),
)
We will add toolbarOptons, which shows ‘Copy’ was true and ‘Select all’ was false options. When we run the application, we ought to get the screen’s output like the underneath screen capture.
SelectableText RichText
Code File:
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:flutter_selectabletext_widget/selectable_text_rich_screen.dart';
import 'package:flutter_selectabletext_widget/selectable_text_screen.dart';
class HomePageScreen extends StatefulWidget {
@override
_HomePageScreenState createState() => _HomePageScreenState();
}
class _HomePageScreenState extends State<HomePageScreen> {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
backgroundColor: Colors.blueGrey[100],
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text("Flutter SelectableText Widget Demo"),
automaticallyImplyLeading: false,
centerTitle: true,
),
body: Center(
child: Padding(
padding: const EdgeInsets.all(16.0),
child: Column(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.stretch,
children: <Widget>[
RaisedButton(
child: Text('Selectable Text',style: TextStyle(color: Colors.black),),
color: Colors.green[100],
onPressed: () {
Navigator.of(context).push(
MaterialPageRoute(builder: (context) => SelectableTextScreen()));
},
shape: RoundedRectangleBorder(borderRadius: BorderRadius.all(Radius.circular(20))),
padding: EdgeInsets.all(13),
),
SizedBox(height: 8,),
RaisedButton(
child: Text('Selectable Text Rich',style: TextStyle(color: Colors.black),),
color: Colors.green[100],
onPressed: () {
Navigator.of(context).push(
MaterialPageRoute(builder: (context) => SelectableTextRichScreen()));
},
shape: RoundedRectangleBorder(borderRadius: BorderRadius.all(Radius.circular(20))),
padding: EdgeInsets.all(13),
),
SizedBox(height: 8,),
],
),
)
), //center
);
}
}
Conclusion:
In the article, I have explained the basic structure of the SelectableText Widget in a flutter; you can modify this code according to your choice. This was a small introduction to SelectableText Widget On User Interaction from my side, and it’s working using Flutter.
I hope this blog will provide you with sufficient information in Trying up the SelectableText Widget in your flutter projects. We will show you what the SelectableText Widget is?, some properties using in SelectableText Widget, and make a demo program for working SelectableText Widget and show you how to use that widget to copy/select the text, making a text selectable is pretty easy in Flutter using the SelectableText Widget widget in your flutter applications, So please try it.
❤ ❤ Thanks for reading this article ❤❤ | https://medium.com/flutterdevs/selectabletext-widget-in-flutter-89828c8bf355 | ['Shaiq Khan'] | 2021-04-25 10:33:11.537000+00:00 | ['Flutter', 'Mobile App Development', 'Dart', 'Flutter App Development', 'Text'] |
Lessons from Conflict in Syria, November 2019 | The whole conflict could have been avoided. All hinged on attitude of Assad and his regime. He could have appeared to appease the protesters and continued without violence. Instead the Alawite regime made decisions, which dragged the country to incredible gutter of violence.
On thing is for certain. Syria was in the the past in the periphery of world politics. Now Syria is in the news every day.
Another thing is also certain. Russia has decided to back Damascus. Rebels were at one point three miles from Assad’ presidential palace. Without Russia’s help his regime would have been toppled.
The unfortunate fact is, that the islamist extremists empowered Assad regime. They were the useful idiots of Assad, and they did not notice, that their actions bolstered the regime in Damascus.
At one point in March 2012, Assad was about to fall. There was numerous defections, even his own prime minister Riayd Hijab defected. Also his army was starting to disintegrate at that point. However, at that low point he claimed important propaganda victory claiming he is protecting the country from extremists like Al Qaida. Before arrival of extremists the war was liberation war against oppressive Assad regime, but extremists turned it into sectarian Jihad war. It is important to recognize, that the extremists quickly marginalized the few moderates in the opposition fighters. The so called moderates in Syria were useless from the start and finally U.S. aknowledged this and gave its support to the only non-extremist faction, the Kurds in Syria.
It is also crucial to recognize, that Turkey, Qatar and Saudis supported various extremist factions. This conslusion is based on evidence and facts.
Qataris were supporting Ahrar al-Sham. Saudis were supporting Jamal Maarouf forces, Hasm grouping, Unit 13 and Unit 49. The Turks supported Noureddine Zengi and others inluding the Uighurs and Turkistan Islamic Party. Numerous claims in publicity has been made of Gulf support to ISIS and Al Qaida, but no credible evidence has been presented however.
People in D.C. had cold feet on Syria, because of the dilemma on Iraq and wish to withdraw from Iraq. That colored the thinking in D.C. to be reticent about Syria. At that time D.C. was negotiating with Tehran, and Obama did not want to upset the Mullahs in order to get his deal, which turned out to be complete failure in preventing Persians to obtain nuclear capabilities.
Anyhow there seems to have been good window to operate between November 2011 and June 2012 for the U.S. The claim is that two American submarines launching 72 Tomahawks towards Assad’s apparatus would have resulted in Assad’s Syrian Arab Army ditching him immediately. The claim is that there would have been a coup at that point and Assad’s secular Baathist vice-president Farouk al-Sharaa would have become president at that point and Syrian civil war would ended there and then.
It is an interesting claim indeed. The West was so fast against Gadaffi, but with Syria it was different. Bush (W) is war criminal but Obama’s policies were also poison to the snake pit, which is Middle-East. | https://medium.com/@esaijasranstakka/lessons-from-conflict-in-syria-november-2019-6ad3e23b004b | ['Esaijas Ranstakka'] | 2019-11-15 08:56:55.994000+00:00 | ['Syria'] |
intelligent Crypto currency | HOW A 5% NET WORTH BET ON SELECT CRYPTOCURRENCIES COULD QUADRUPLE YOUR NET WORTH IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS
For more details: https://www.digistore24.com/redir/339306/Parth374/
WHY CRYPTOCURRENCY?
Where else do you get a chance to potentially make 10x, 50x or even as much as 277x returns in less than a year?
I believe we're on the cusp of the biggest cryptocurrency bull market we've ever seen. Bitcoin has already traded over $23,000 and I believe it's just the beginning.
But forget about Bitcoin... the time to buy that was months ago when it was still trading under $10,000. Sure, it may still go up to $100,000 in future, but that's "only" a 5x and it would take ENORMOUS capital to get it to that level. | https://medium.com/@panchalparth374/intelligent-crypto-currency-258022606cb0 | [] | 2020-12-25 06:03:42.187000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Money', 'Business Strategy', 'Bitcoin'] |
CodeIgniter Development Services Company for Your Business | CodeIgniter Development Services — VMJ Software
If you run a business, then it is crucial to own a website. Reason? It helps create brand awareness, helps in attracting more leads and forming a good customer base. To design an effective and appealing website, you will require assistance of a skilled developer. Apart from this, you need to determine what tools you would require to develop website over time and how you will proceed with the whole process of creating a website.
About CodeIgniter Development
CodeIgniter is basically a flexible framework which allows developers to create user-friendly and robust websites for developing web apps. Owing to its highly dynamic features, several developers prefer to use this framework for creating high-end websites that too E-commerce stores. The dynamic features of this framework proves helpful in detection of errors and bugs at the time of coding.
Top 10 Reasons to Hire CodeIgniter Development Services Company:
1. High-quality Services
A reputed web development services company houses a team of expert professionals who carry extensive years of experience in various technologies. The team of developers will assist you in developing high-performance website. A well-known web development company ensures that every client’s requirement is met in the best possible way.
2. Reliable & Robust Development
When you hire a professional company for CodeIgniter Development then you can use the framework for building reliable apps. The web apps developed by the professional company will reflect your business values and ensure smooth functioning of your business. Any professional company usually makes use of CodeIgniter’s rapid development technology to offer robust, scalable and user-centric web applications.
3. Support & Maintenance
When the final delivery of the product takes place or in case if you face any type of issue, then you can connect with the hired team anytime and in return get the best suitable solution. The professional services offered by a company includes support and maintenance to upgrade your app or website as per latest trends.
4. Experienced Team
A reputed and reliable company has an experienced team of CodeIgniter developers. You can expect nothing but simply exceptional results that will assure you success for your business.
5. Custom Solutions
No matter whether your project is simple or complicated, you can expect customized solutions designed specifically for your business.
6. Corporate App Development
The talented pool of developers at a professional company are well-versed with developing industry based applications by making use of advanced technologies and tools. No matter how complicated your requirements may be, services of a professional company can fulfill every requirement of yours.
7. CodeIgniter Migration Services
If you are planning to move your existing website to CodeIgniter framework, then professional company will be of great help to you. You can opt for migration services from a professional company which guarantees you of a smooth transition without causing any harm to your data.
8. API Integration Services
With these API integration services, you can integrate your app or website with third-party APIs. No matter whether it is about payment gateway, social media or analytics, a professional company can assist you in everything.
9. CodeIgniter Extensions
By hiring a professional company, you can get CI extension solutions and take your business to new heights of success.
10. CodeIgniter eCommerce Solution
If you are operating an E-commerce business then take it to the next level by opting for our CodeIgniter e-commerce solution, where the team of developers make use of AJAX and CI for building shopping carts for online store and simultaneously securing sensitive user data in a safe way.
To Conclude!
If you are thinking of CodeIgniter Development Services for your business, then you can consider reputed agency like VMJ Software, which can satiate your development needs in the most satisfactory way. Therefore, it is suggested to hire professional services to make sure that you own a dynamic, credible and fully functional website. | https://medium.com/@vmjsoftware/codeigniter-development-services-company-for-your-business-726d9deec3ad | ['Vmj Software Pvt. Ltd.'] | 2021-08-16 12:29:17.054000+00:00 | ['Hirecodeigniterdeveloper', 'Codeigniterdevelopment', 'B2B', 'Codeigniter', 'B2c'] |
Secure Chromecast With These Essential Steps | When it comes to casting modern entertainment from your mobile devices to your TV screens, Chromecast helps out do the task very easily. But there can be a risk in doing that because other people might use your device to cast to your screen. There have been reports from a few people about this issue. So, to deal with this problem, we have mentioned below some steps that you can follow to secure Chromecast because securing your device is not as difficult as you think.
· Turn Off “Guest Mode”
You will have to open the Google Home application, and after opening it, you need to click on the “Devices” on the top right corner of the screen. After doing so, tap the card menu in the top right corner of the Chromecast and click on “Guest Mode” and turn it off. This function can be performed with ease.
· Use Secure Connections Only
Restrict using Chromecast on Public Networks, and you should only use your Chromecast on your home networks. It is because the Public Networks can be risky as there are more chances of getting your device monitored. And also, do make sure you turn off your Wi-Fi when you are not at home.
· Make Use of A VPN
With the use of a VPN, you can secure your Chromecast more perfectly. With the help of a Virtual Private Network, your Wi-Fi traffic will get encrypted, and there will be no one, who will be able to leak any information regarding your location as well as whatever you are watching. This way, your Chromecast will remain protected by the VPN whenever you connect it with the Wi-Fi. There are various VPN services available in the market, and you may choose any of them. Please make sure that you will have to set up VPN on your router as Chromecast is not having any direct support for VPN.
· Keep Your Router Updated
And while you are on your home network, make sure your device’s firmware is up-to-date. You should check for the updates and update your router firmware accordingly whenever new updates are available. It will keep your devices up-to-date with the latest security patches which come with the updates from time to time.
· Reset Login Credentials at Times
Change your password from time to time. It will help in keeping you secure. Make sure you are using strong passwords that are hard to decode. But we recommend that you should consider using the PIN if possible, instead of a password.
Edward Lewis is a creative person who has been writing blogs and articles about cybersecurity. He writes about the latest updates regarding mcafee.com/activate and how it can improve the work experience of users. His articles have been published in many popular e-magazines, blogs, and websites.
Source : Secure Chromecast With These Essential Steps | https://medium.com/@edwardlewis549/secure-chromecast-with-these-essential-steps-d074792f2bf6 | ['Edward Lewis'] | 2020-06-19 10:03:19.910000+00:00 | ['Chromecast'] |
Why Do We Exist?. We need you to take advantage of these… | Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash
“Why Do We Exist?”
Humanity, along with the ecosystems that humanity relies on, is facing stress tests unlike any we’ve faced before, and all at once. These are not exclusive to America.
Among others:
COVID. A volatile market. A changing climate. A jobs crisis. Civil rights struggles.
Each of these has worked in isolation and together to expose the fissures in our economy and society. Systems thinking is essential to understanding what we’re dealing with, and what we’ve wrought.
To expand:
We face a novel virus, but one exponentially more likely to jump from animals to humans because of where we live and how we eat. This is a virus we consciously chose not to be more prepared for.
We are in a market more or less untethered from the reality of world events, and even more so, from the day-to-day challenges of most Americans, most of whom cannot even begin to comprehend the ease with which America’s tiny but massively wealthy and influential upper class makes money.
Compound interest means two very, very different things to America’s increasingly distinct socioeconomic classes.
We endure a climate that is hotter and more combustible than any in humanity’s relatively short tenure as alpha species, and due almost entirely to our growth-desperate stewardship.
We work jobs, if we’re lucky, that are untethered to that growth and its attendant major costs, that create no lasting benefit, tangible or not, and that are increasingly challenged to provide for the most basic of human requirements: water, food, and health care, to start.
Civil rights in America are forever tenuous in a country designed by slave owners on a platform of personal freedom and a pursuit of happiness (for the slave owners, anyway), both of which — at best — seem impossibly unattainable when you uniquely subject to pre-existing conditions that make you more susceptible to such a virus, when you are unable to invest in such a market, when the heat affects you first, when your job driving a car doesn’t provide you with health care or childcare, but only rallies the market for the rich while it makes the heat worse, for everybody.
***
In nearly every case, what we sowed in the 20th century, for better or worse, has been harvested in the 21st. These problems will not go away easily, or with one election, or be fixed with big tech. Many will suffer. Many are suffering.
But you, and your company, no matter its size, industry, or reach, can look at these problems as opportunities. On the international level, national, and local.
In fact, we need you to. We need you to help rebuild capitalism, and society, into something vastly more equitable for everyone.
Do you produce textiles? Offer insurance? Design organic chemistry experiments? Distribute food? Teach children? Market new products? Sell advertising? Write for TV?Conduct M&A? Preach?
Whatever the case, I encourage you to step back, and ask: “Why do we exist?”
You, and your business, have the opportunity to be more useful than ever before. To remake your business to be more timely and necessary than ever. And potentially, vastly more successful.
Don’t believe me? Look at how well ESG-focused companies and funds have performed in just the past few months. Investors are investing, and consumers are paying attention.
(The same goes for our prestigious, over-priced universities, too, by the way. Fighting for relevance, to justify your existence? Then stand for something, and re-orient your majors to be interdisciplinary staging grounds to attack these exact problems)
Worried about market size? GTFO. These are the biggest markets of all time.
Look around at the people in the streets. Imagine your perfect customer. Just one customer. How can you relieve that person’s pain points? How can you help them better understand what’s happening?
Take it further: how can you help them get ahead? Ask what you need to do to become essential to that one person.
Now imagine 300 million of their friends, in this thing together.
Imagine a business landscape where the reaction to your company’s product isn’t “huh” or “cool”, but rather “this…this is exactly what I need. Thank you.”
- Quinn | https://medium.com/on-purpose-from-important-not-important/on-purpose-2-why-do-we-exist-40ed88a813f4 | ['Quinn Emmett'] | 2020-08-17 18:48:54.502000+00:00 | ['Management', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Society', 'America', 'Leadership'] |
Writeup HackerRank Internal Contest 210720 (part 1) | OVO Tech
Stories from the builders behind OVO app. | https://medium.com/ovo-tech/writeup-hackerrank-internal-contest-210720-part-1-6dabfe34c350 | ['Septian Hari'] | 2020-07-29 00:41:16.352000+00:00 | ['Python3', 'Programming', 'Algorithms'] |
New Love Dies | I can’t quite say exactly what it was,
But something just happened,
Like a change in the direction of the air,
That cleared my eyes to see you,
No longer as the magnificent goddess I had worshipped these months,
But open and weak and dying and lost,
Your words no longer kissing me,
Your smell no longer steals my mind
To hold my thoughts only to you,
Instead, I see the broken world behind you,
Broken again after you had fixed it so beautifully,
So perfectly, so tenderly, so wonderfully,
And I wonder how will I ever forgive you? | https://medium.com/scribe/new-love-dies-9824ede23101 | ['Phantom Soul Poetry'] | 2020-05-29 18:43:37.006000+00:00 | ['Breakup Poem', 'Love Poems', 'Poetry Writing', 'Poetry', 'Poems On Medium'] |
Healthier Manyattas! | Seated calmly with two of her kids outside her grass-thatched hut in the village of Natapar-Kocucue in Moroto district, Lucia Pedo recounts how she suffered and overcame the dreaded tuberculosis (TB).
TB is the world’s deadliest infectious disease, infecting nearly 10 million people globally each year. As dangerous as TB is, it is very treatable and ultimately curable. In the past 20 years, more than 63 million lives globally have been saved through TB intervention.
Lucia, a mother of six children, was diagnosed with TB in September 2020 together with her 3-year-old son. Before her diagnosis, Lucia suffered from a prolonged cough and general body weakness. Just like many others in her community, Lucia didn’t understand what was happening, despite her deteriorating health.
Simon Peter Lobong seated with Lucia at her hut. Simon is Lucia’s case worker. / Betty Kagoro, USAID/Uganda
“I was coughing a lot and losing weight. I didn’t know what was affecting me. One day the community worker found me here sick and advised me to test for TB. They later found that I had TB,” recalls Lucia.
Through follow-up and contact tracing (the practice of identifying others who may have been exposed) by community health workers, Lucia’s son also tested positive. “My youngest child was also coughing and having night sweats. They tested him and he was found positive. But the rest of the family members tested negative,” says Lucia.
With support from USAID’s Program for Accelerated Control of TB in Karamoja, both Lucia and her son started TB treatment. Lucia has since recovered and resumed work. “I don’t cough anymore, and the pain has gone. My son is also much better now since he completed medication,” Lucia adds.
Mariko Lochoro is an elder and local leader of Tatawo village in Moroto district. Mariko was diagnosed with TB in 2020 but was treated and cured. / Betty Kagoro, USAID/Uganda
Mariko Lochoro’s experience was similar. An elder and local official of the nearby Tatawo village, Mariko was diagnosed with TB in 2020. He completed a six-month treatment course before overcoming the disease.
“After I got cured, I decided to start giving advice to the people I lead. I tell them to listen to the advice of the health workers … to test for TB and complete the treatment. [As] an elder and local leader in my community, people listen to my advice and many of them are responding positively,” Mariko explains.
The Karamoja region in northeastern Uganda is a remote pastoralist area with an estimated population of 1.2 million. The region has the highest TB burden in Uganda at a devastating 315 cases per 100,000 people (compared to the national estimate of 154 cases per 100,000). A third of the TB cases reported in the region are children below age 15 — significantly higher than the national average of 12 percent.
A third of the TB cases reported in Karamoja region are in children below age 15. / Betty Kagoro, USAID/Uganda
Uganda’s Ministry of Health estimates that approximately five out of every 10 TB patients complete treatment successfully. Only three in 10 are cured. Approximately 90,000 Ugandans are infected with TB annually.
A Communal Way of Life
Traditionally, the Karamojong people live communally in enclosed homesteads known as “Manyatta”. Manyattas are surrounded by sharp thorn hedges with small entry points for people and larger entry points for cattle. A typical Manyatta, such as where Lucia lives, has multiple households of about 20 or more individuals sharing the same space. These crowded and poorly ventilated settlements increase the risk of TB transmission. | https://medium.com/usaid-2030/healthier-manyattas-690aba0d547b | [] | 2021-08-23 14:53:05.765000+00:00 | ['Global Health', 'Tuberculosis', 'International Development', 'Uganda', 'Community Engagement'] |
3 ways to stop comparing yourself to others | We all do it. We look at what others have (or where they are in life) and we feel terrible about ourselves in the process. We compare, we single out what’s missing, and we repeat the vicious cycle. A small dose of envy every once in a while can be productive in certain cases, but when you find yourself engaging in this sort of behavior more often than you’d like, it’s time to start modifying your thinking patterns. Here are 3 steps that have helped me (after a whole lot of trial and error)
Step 1: Label the behavior
When you start comparing yourself to others, take a step back and notice this behavior. Recognize it. Label it. Shed light on it. This technique is quite similar to using awareness to battling anxiety. Once you label something and recognize it, you detach from the emotional reaction. You distance yourself from the toll it’s taking on your body and mind. Instead, you begin to watch yourself instead of getting involved. It’s trippy and strange, but it works. All it takes is practice. So go ahead — put a label on it.
Step 2: Replace envy with inspiration
Now that you’ve somewhat distanced yourself from the comparison, it’s time to look at the bright side. Instead of being envious of what somebody else might have, think about what you can learn from this person and this moment. Is their career making you green with envy? Let their accomplishments inspire you. Get practical and set a realistic goal that you’d like to achieve. What skillset are you missing? Personally, I’ve often envied people who are well-read about a variety topics as I often feel like what I offer is very limited: series, fitness, and mental health. That’s why I recently got proactive and started to make it a point to read up about politics and business — two subjects I feel I know little about. Envy is a learning opportunity, make the most of it.
Step 3: Focus on one (or two things) you have that are “better”
This sounds arrogant, it’s not. It’s subtly reminding yourself that you have a lot to offer. Perhaps the person on the receiving end of your jealousy is more successful in terms of job title, but maybe you have a caring spouse or closer ties to your family. Nobody has it all (although social media would love to convince you otherwise). The point of this exercise is to remind yourself of your strengths instead of focusing on your “failures”. Remind yourself that every one of us is on a different journey with its own peaks and valleys. Comparing yourself will get you nowhere. In fact, it does a disservice to your unique experiences.
Have you ever found yourself comparing yourself to others in an unhealthy way? What tips have helped you in the past? I’d love to know! | https://medium.com/@nadimsafieddine/3-ways-to-stop-comparing-yourself-to-others-5f0305841eac | ['Nadim Safieddine'] | 2020-11-16 16:49:21.691000+00:00 | ['Comparison', 'Life Lessons', 'Lifehacks', 'Mental Health', 'Tips And Tricks'] |
ICO Alert Crypto Minute: March 4, 2018 | Rabobank Considering Addition of Cryptocurrency Wallet Support to Online Banking Platform
Rabobank, a large Dutch multinational bank headquartered in Utrecht, is considering the integration of cryptocurrency wallets to its online banking system. According to Bitcoin Magazine, the integration, called Rabobit, would enable customers to store cryptocurrencies in a wallet hosted in the bank’s secure online environment. Consumers would also be able to store and access fiat with their cryptocurrencies in one bank account.
Virtu Financial Taking Legal Action Against Fake Cryptocurrency Project, Virt Coin
Virtu Financial, a large Wall Street trading firm, is taking legal action against Virt Coin for allegedly using its likeness and claiming a connection to the firm. According to Business Insider, Virt Coin is a fake cryptocurrency project that published a press release Thursday claiming it was the new cryptocurrency of Virtu Financial. In addition to the false claims, Virt Coin’s whitepaper uses “stock photos of 20-year-olds to show the company’s upper management, instead of its actual staff.”
JD To Launch Transparent Blockchain-Based Supply Chain Data of Meat Products for Customers
JD, Wal-Mart’s partner in China and competitor to Alibaba, is implementing blockchain-based supply chain management for its meat products. According to Business Insider, this implementation will enable JD’s customers to track “each piece” of beef to each of its sources in Australia. The software is expected to be launch this coming spring, and it will provide customers access with transparent data, including “where and how the specific animal was raised, how the meat was processed, and how it was transported.”
Approximately 600 Cryptocurrency Mining Computers Stolen from Data Centers in Iceland
Approximately 600 computers used to mine cryptocurrencies have been stolen from data centers in Iceland. According to the Associated Press, 11 people were arrested, including a security guard from one of the data centers. However, the computers, which are worth about USD 2 million, have not been recovered. Police are monitoring electric consumption across the country in hopes of recovering the computers as they are used for mining. | https://medium.com/ico-alert/ico-alert-crypto-minute-march-4-2018-cb4d972746fc | ['Kyle Protho'] | 2018-03-04 13:23:59.785000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Crypto Minute', 'Netherlands', 'Blockchain'] |
Custom neural voice: designing for human-centered policy | With the landscape laid out, we could identify a broad range of stakeholders impacted by neural TTS, not just consumers. We conducted surveys and interviews for a harms and benefits analysis across diverse groups, from people with speech and language impairments to voice actors, those whose lives and livelihoods can be deeply affected by synthetic voice. Considering the technology’s potential impact, it’s not surprising we heard people express anticipation that ranged from eagerness to dread. A parent of an autistic child told us, “The quicker they can get to this technology the better … the sooner I can provide my child with technology to express his feelings the better.” Others were wary: “Someone could use it [synthetic neural voice] for a wrong reason … It could become an evil thing.”
Concerns like these propelled us to create guidelines that help our customers responsibly deploy Custom Neural Voice and review harm mitigation strategies with human-rights experts. These include sets of disclosure design guidelines for synthetic voice interactions with consumers, as well as guidelines for explicit consent from voice actors who make recordings for voice fonts — the text-to-speech computer models that mimic their voice. We share our research-informed guidance here as groundwork that may help others with the ethical deployment of synthetic voice.
Design ethics tenets
Because there is no perfect way to prevent media from being modified or to unequivocally prove where it came from, we’ve focused on gating our Custom Neural Voice service to evaluate for its appropriate deployment. This vetting process results in an approximate 70 percent rejection rate, when applicants are unable to establish that their implementation will fit within the service’s human-centered guidelines.
We developed four design ethics tenets while actively seeking out feedback from our customers, including the BBC, Swisscomm, and Disney. When designing voice experiences, we collectively agree to:
Protect owners of voices from misuse or identity theft.
Prevent the proliferation of fake and misleading content.
Encourage use in scenarios where consumers expect to be interacting with synthetic content.
Encourage use in scenarios where consumers observe the generation of the synthetic content (for example, real-time translation).
Transparency and appropriate context are underpinnings throughout these tenets.
Considerations for voice talent
With respect to protecting voice owners, it’s important to acknowledge the voice-acting industry is directly impacted by neural synthetic speech. As one of our study participants told us, “Wow. I’m out of a job. If you can take a short amount of a voice actor’s voice, you can turn it into anything you want. … It is kind of scary.” At the same time, voice talent identified potential benefit from neural TTS capabilities, such as saving studio time and adding capacity to complete more voice acting assignments. Overall, they expressed a desire for transparency and clarity about:
Limits on what their voice likeness could and could not be used to express.
The duration of allowable use of their voice likeness.
Potential impact on future recording opportunities.
The persona that would be associated with their voice likeness.
To that end, our Custom Neural Voice customers must obtain consent from any voice talent they hire. This includes getting explicit written permission to use a person’s voice for a voice font and providing a disclosure for voice talent. This is a note that helps people understand the capabilities of the TTS technology their voices help to create. it lets them know what to expect when recording (e.g., number of lines required to produce a voice font) and gives them insight to the intended beneficial uses of the technology as well as examples of its appropriate and inappropriate use. Acquiring consent includes making voice talent aware of the intended contexts for the custom voice they are creating and discussing whether there’s anything they’d be uncomfortable with their voice font saying.
Design goals for synthetic voice
When businesses use synthetic voice in their applications, it’s critical to respect and maintain consumer trust. Our guidelines for responsible deployment of synthetic voice technology help maximize transparency. Letting people know when a voice is synthetic reinforces trust. Emphasizing the fundamentals of transparency and appropriate context, we identified four key goals for the designer:
Reinforce trust: Design to fail the Turing Test without degrading the voice experience. Let users in on the fact that they’re interacting with a synthetic voice while at the same time enabling them to engage seamlessly with the experience.
Design to fail the Turing Test without degrading the voice experience. Let users in on the fact that they’re interacting with a synthetic voice while at the same time enabling them to engage seamlessly with the experience. Adapt to context of use: Understand when, where, and how your users will interact with the synthetic voice so you can choose the right type and timing of disclosure.
Understand when, where, and how your users will interact with the synthetic voice so you can choose the right type and timing of disclosure. Set clear expectations: Allow users to easily discover and understand the capabilities of the agent. Offer opportunities to learn more about synthetic voice technology upon request.
Allow users to easily discover and understand the capabilities of the agent. Offer opportunities to learn more about synthetic voice technology upon request. Embrace failure: Use moments of failure to reinforce the agent’s capabilities.
Disclosure
Context is everything. Fully understanding the voice persona and its intended use scenario determines the degree and timing of disclosure. The more human-like the persona is, the more people expect it to behave like a human. In some cases, a realistic synthetic voice may not be appropriate in sensitive scenarios where people expect empathy, such as when providing health assistance or obtaining personal information from a user. Being transparent with users to reinforce trust takes on even greater significance for long-term interactions, like when assisting people with disabilities.
There are times, like when playing a video game, people want to be absorbed in a convincing experience. They deliberately participate for the heightened entertainment value. But one thing our research taught us is that in consumer scenarios a delightful experience can be undermined if users do not discover until after the fact that a voice was synthetic. As one participant told us, “I wouldn’t like to talk to what I believe to be human only to find out it was a robot. It almost feels like a lie and it would make me mistrust the brand a little.” To help designers develop a sense of how to properly assess context and decide the right level and method of disclosure, we’ve developed a set of disclosure guidelines. These enable our customers to focus on specific steps for how and when to disclose the use of synthetic voice.
This diagram illustrates steps for determining the level of disclosure required for a synthetic-voice application.
To further reinforce trust, we recommend user-testing for selecting scenario-appropriate voice types, as well as providing optional human support in ambiguous or transactional customer-service scenarios. As people in our study commented about the use of the synthetic voice as a travel agent, “Even if the computer voice speaking to you sounds human, it still doesn’t make me think that they can assist me in something as complex as finding the right travel plan .”
Design patterns
After deciding the proper disclosure level, designers can explore the array of disclosure design patterns that we’ve developed for explicit and implicit disclosure. The patterns start with an emphasis on transparent introductions that are communicated through multimedia. Patterns also cover the user’s first-time and returning experience, ways to give users control over customization and calibration of digital assistants, and provides opportunities to learn more about how the voice was made.
These patterns illustrate examples of ways of reinforcing transparency and offering users control and customization in various scenarios:
This pattern for explicit disclosure offers ways to for the user to customize the digital assistant’s voice. If the voice is based on a celebrity or a widely recognizable person, consider using both visual and spoken introductions when users preview the voice.
In this pattern for implicit disclosure, the cues help anthropomorphize the agent without being too human-like. They are effective disclosure mechanisms on their own when used consistently over time.
A transparent introduction optimized for parents ensures that an adult is made aware of the synthetic nature of the voice before a child interacts with it.
Accountability as our compass
Given neural TTS’s uncharted terrain, we rely on accountability as our compass, as we design in alignment with Microsoft’s principles for responsible AI. Disclosure and explicit consent are pivotal components of Microsoft’s Custom Neural Voice service. While we can’t promise perfect safeguards with this innovation, we can make sure the world knows where we stand and why. And we can help our customers do the same.
The authors would like to thank Angela Song, Ben Noah, Edward Un, Mira Lane, Sharon Lo, and Neeta Saran for their expertise and time on the project. | https://uxdesign.cc/custom-neural-voice-designing-for-human-centered-policy-7ce2e03a1c | ['Arathi Sethumadhavan'] | 2021-06-26 01:04:15.245000+00:00 | ['Synthetic Speech', 'Design', 'Ethics', 'AI', 'Responsibility'] |
Fiscal and Monetary Policy: What Are They, And Why Are They Important? | The words “fiscal” and “monetary” are thrown around in many economic conversations. Politicians often mention how they will bring forth or implement more funding to help stimulate the economy, and you’ve always wondered what automatic stabilizers really did. What does it all mean?
Many policies exist and are carried out by the Government and Bank of Canada in order to help regulate the current state of the economy. These include both fiscal and monetary policies.
Fiscal policy is a stabilization policy that is carried out by governments in order to minimize the size of the peaks and troughs in the business & economic cycle, in an attempt to keep the economy as close to a linear growth trend as possible. In fact, the implementation of fiscal policy helps to reduce inflationary gaps — and is often implemented to avoid an economy from plummeting into a recession. There are two main types of fiscal policies, expansionary fiscal policy, and contractionary fiscal policy.
Expansionary fiscal policy is used to avoid a recessionary gap in the economic cycle. This means that when a country is experiencing increased levels of unemployment (they are below the full employment level), as well as a lower GDP (Gross Domestic Product) value, expansionary fiscal policy is used to “push” aggregate demand levels back up to full capacity. It is used to stimulate the economy, which is normally done in one of three ways:
Decreasing taxes Increasing the amount of spending by the Government Both 1) and 2) simultaneously
Contractionary Fiscal Policy, however, is used when the economy is experiencing inflation. When unemployment levels are low, and the country is experiencing high levels of GDP growth, the government may choose to implement contractionary fiscal policy, meaning that they are SLOWING the economy. This is also done in three possible ways:
Increase taxes Limit/lower Government spending Both 1) and 2) simultaneously
Both contractionary and expansionary fiscal policy are used by the government when it wishes to change the current state of the economy through DIRECT ACTION.
Sometimes, it takes too long for fiscal policy to become implemented — so “automatic stabilizers” also exist, that require no direct action from the government. These include things like Employment Insurance (EI) and welfare payments, which can be issued automatically to help give the economy and its people the “boost” they need to avoid economic disparity.
What about Monetary Policy?
On the other hand, monetary policy is delivered through the Bank of Canada, a crown corporation created during the Great Depression. Monetary policy is a policy that deals with controlling interest rates (ensuring they are predictable and low), and is utilized to ensure that the currency remains stable, reliable and trustworthy for Canadians to use.
Why does it matter?
Fiscal and monetary policy are both used to regulate the economy! Take a look at the news — due to COVID-19, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and many government sectors are currently implementing both fiscal and monetary policy in order to help guide Canada’s economy away from a potential recession. | https://medium.com/junior-economist/fiscal-and-monetary-policy-what-are-they-why-are-they-important-101a035eab6c | ['Lauren Fong'] | 2020-06-15 02:25:18.210000+00:00 | ['Banking', 'Economy', 'Recession', 'Monetary Policy', 'Fiscal Policy'] |
PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS AND PRESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS | When comes to the data analysis, it is primarily used for decision making as well as prediction with predictive casual analysis and prescriptive analysis. So here is a short discussion about predictive analysis and prescriptive analysis.
PREDICTIVE ANALYSIS
Think about you want to predict the possibilities of an upcoming broadband plan of the ABC Telecom in the future, so you need to apply the predictive analytics. So, you can build up a model, using the past patterns of usage of customers and predict the performances and needs of the customers. And also, here is another example, the future credit payments of postpaid customers on time is a matter of concern you. Anyway, you have to build a model using the history of the payments and predict if the future payments will be on time or not. That is all about predictive analysis. (Edwards, 2020)
PRESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS
When comes to prescriptive analysis, that is all about suggesting a range of prescribed actions and associated outcomes. (Sisense, 2020) Think about an intelligence which is taking its own decisions. And also, at the same time, it has the ability to modify itself with dynamic parameters. Furthermore, with the aim of using decision making processes, prescriptive analysis collects data from various descriptive and predictive sources for its models. This includes combining existing conditions and possible solutions to determine how each one will affect the future. In addition, it can measure the impact of decisions based on several possible future scenarios. (Pierce, 2018)
References/
Edwards, J. (2020). Predictive analytics: Transforming data into future insights. [online] CIO. Available at: https://www.cio.com/article/3273114/what-is-predictive-analytics-transforming-data-into-future-insights.html [Accessed 17 April. 2020].
Pierce, B. (2018). Prescriptive Analytics Use Cases for Sales and Marketing. [online] Blog.riverlogic.com. Available at: https://blog.riverlogic.com/use-cases-for-prescriptive-analytics-in-sales-marketing [Accessed 17 April. 2020]. | https://medium.com/@thisalavishkaw/predictive-analytics-and-prescriptive-analytics-cc801086641d | ['Thisal Avishka Wijayasekara'] | 2020-04-23 17:58:18.645000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Dataanalys', 'Predictive Analytics', 'Prescriptive Analytics'] |
Avanti And The World We Leave Behind For Her | Photo by Raj Rana on Unsplash
Avanti was born on 25.11.2008 at a hospital in Bandra. I remember the doctor coming out with her — all covered in some kind of greenish liquid, all tiny, all pink and extremely beautiful. It is a moment that stays with every parent I guess, the first time they see their child.
The next day began on a normal Mumbai note, as cold as it can get in November, nothing out of the ordinary in terms of traffic. I remember spending the day in hospital meeting people who had dropped in to wish us well and say hello to Avanti. The day drew to a close and it was around 11:00 p.m that I decided to head back home.
We had absolutely no clue about what was unfolding in South Mumbai — no TV in the hospital. I remember wondering that something seemed off, there was hardly any traffic and for some strange reason, I knew something was amiss — it was just that kind of vibe which had settled onto my beloved city. Reaching home, put on the telly, and settled down to dinner; that was when the visuals started pouring in of the terrorist attack on parts of South Mumbai.
The news flew thick and fast, commandos flying in, the bravery of the Mumbai police force, the dogged determination of the staff at the TAJ, and finally the mention of the Mumbai spirit. I do remember writing to Mr. Ratan Tata and getting a reply in return — the old fashioned handwritten variety both ways.
It was a bewildering first few days of parenthood and a few thoughts sprung up then and have stayed with me.
Is this the world we will leave behind for Avanti, where terror strikes are as common as day and night, fueled by an incessant display of intolerance, polarisation, and machoism. Where a refusal to break with the past feeds on insecurities and turns into a weird unstoppable search for nirvana through the sword or any weapon. Bullets do not distinguish between religions and castes. Bombs once dropped will do the inevitable and be met with more from the other side, sometimes detonated by hand and at other times served by a remorseless drone somewhere high in the sky.
Things have only got uglier and a grim future seems up ahead. How does one prepare a child for this world? How do we equip her as parents to make her way through this maze?
Like in all adverse times one must go back to the basics. We can only teach her to reach out to everyone around her as any human would, that decency and trust should be her weapons of choice, that love will eventually triumph and that all swordsmen have always stepped aside to the righteous. That will have to do i guess. | https://medium.com/an-idea/avanti-and-the-world-we-leave-behind-for-her-bffc06f313f8 | ['Maruti Naik'] | 2020-11-27 04:04:20.956000+00:00 | ['Children', 'Hope', 'Terrorism', 'Parenting', 'Mumbai'] |
Days of Wonder and Innocence | Days of Wonder and Innocence
“Courtesy of the Author”
In the days of Innocence
I saw my lifeless grandmother
Stretched out in a flower coffin
I then discovered that death existed…
Only for the grandparents.
In the days of Innocence
I thought the babies were born spontaneously
It was enough to be married correctly
And what about the number of children?
Well, this was with God
For some, he sent one, for others, eight, ten, even twelve!
He sent only six to my mother!
I lived enchanted with the world
After school, just wear a shabby outfit
And go to the adventure of finding ripe mango
That was lavishly offered in our backyard
My mother watched everything from the window
Full of laughter and joy
The world was magical and life was beautiful
It was my innocence intact and genuine
My happy girl life. | https://medium.com/heart-revolution/days-of-wonder-and-innocence-192c6f44ad56 | ['Misa Ferreira De Rezende'] | 2020-12-15 22:13:36.400000+00:00 | ['Innocence', 'Happiness', 'Childhood', 'Wonder', 'Magic'] |
Document Understanding Solution Using AWS | [Article 5 of 6 in series Big Data Applications on AWS]
Previous Article in the Series
The Document Understanding Solution (DUS) delivers an easy-to-use web application that ingests and analyzes files, extracts text from documents, identifies structural data (tables, key value pairs), extracts critical information (entities), and creates smart search indexes from the data. Additionally, files can be uploaded directly to and analyzed files can be accessed from an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket in your AWS account.
This solution uses AWS artificial intelligence (AI) services that address business problems that apply to various industry verticals:
Search and discovery: Search for information across multiple scanned documents, PDFs, and images
Compliance: Redact information from documents
Workflow automation: Easily plugs into your existing upstream and downstream applications
My Background: Cloud and Big Data Enthusiast | 5x AWS Certified | 3x Oracle Cloud Certified | 3x Azure Certified | Big Data Certified | AWS Community Builder.
Document Understanding Solution architecture
The AWS CloudFormation template deploys a static web application hosted on an Amazon S3 bucket and served by an Amazon CloudFront distribution. Users are authenticated using Amazon Cognito. The web application interacts with the backend using an Amazon API Gateway API, supported by an AWS Lambda function. Documents are uploaded using either the web application, or directly to a dedicated Amazon S3 bucket for bulk processing. Document processing is initiated by the API, which triggers a Lambda function to add an entry to an Amazon DynamoDB table. The table triggers a second Lambda function that supervises the processing. The file format of the upload dictates the route for processing. Amazon Textract extracts text and structural information from the files. The extracted text is then passed to Amazon Comprehend and Amazon Comprehend Medical for further analysis.
The resulting analyses are stored in an Amazon S3 bucket and the metadata is stored in a DynamoDB database. Extracted information is used to index the document in Amazon Elasticsearch Service (Amazon ES) and, if enabled, in Amazon Kendra.
Prerequisites
Verify that you have an administrator role in the AWS account where you plan to deploy this solution. To verify, access the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) console from the appropriate AWS account. For more information about IAM roles, refer to IAM roles in the IAM User Guide.
Deployment overview
The procedure for deploying this architecture on AWS consists of the following steps. For detailed instructions, follow the links for each step.
Step 1. Launch the stack
This automated AWS CloudFormation template deploys the Document Understanding Solution in the AWS Cloud. Review the prerequisites before launching the stack.
Sign in to the AWS Management Console and use the button to the right to launch the document-understanding-solution.template AWS CloudFormation template. Optionally, you can download the template as a starting point for your own implementation. The template launches in the US East (N. Virginia) Region by default. To launch the solution in a different AWS Region, use the Region selector in the console navigation bar. On the Create stack page, verify that the correct template URL shows in the Amazon S3 URL text box and choose Next. On the Specify stack details page, assign a name to your solution stack. Under Parameters, review the parameters for the template and modify them as necessary. This solution uses the following default values. Choose Next. On the Configure stack options page, choose Next. On the Review page, review and confirm the settings. Check the box acknowledging that the template will create AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) resources. Choose Create stack to deploy the stack.
You can view the status of the stack in the AWS CloudFormation console, in the Status column. During deployment, two additional stacks are created, DUS and DUSClient. You should receive a CREATE_COMPLETE status in approximately 30–60 minutes, depending on the stack parameters selected.
During deployment, you may receive an email containing instructions and the Amazon CloudFront URL to access the web application. This URL will not be active until the deployment is complete. After you receive a CREATE_COMPLETE status, verify that both the DUS and DUSClient stacks also display a CREATE_COMPLETE status.
Step 2. Access the web application
From your email account, locate the Document Understanding Solution email. This email contains the Amazon CloudFront URL and your login credentials, including your username and temporary password.
The web application’s homepage displays three tracks. You can easily navigate between each track.
Discovery track: Search information across multiple scanned documents, PDFs, and images
Search information across multiple scanned documents, PDFs, and images Compliance track: Redact information from documents
Redact information from documents Workflow automation track: Upload batches of files directly into the bulk-processing Amazon S3 bucket
Discovery track
In the Discovery track, you can search through multiple documents and find information using traditional search-based technologies such as Amazon Elasticsearch Service (Amazon ES) and, if enabled, Amazon Kendra, a natural language service.
Figure 2: Web application home page
Use the Document list page to view documents that you uploaded and to also upload documents. This solution includes a preloaded set of documents that are indexed by Amazon ES, and, if enabled, Amazon Kendra. You can use the preloaded documents to explore the capabilities of this solution.
To add documents, follow these steps:
Select upload your own documents. Select the documents from your source drive or use your computer’s camera to take pictures of the documents you want to upload.
Figure 3: Upload documents page After the documents have been uploaded, search for them from the Document list page using the Search box.
Your search results show on a search results page displays one or more tabs, depending on whether Amazon Kendra is enabled. If Amazon Kendra is enabled, the search results page displays three tabs, each showing unique results: the Amazon ES results, the Amazon Kendra results, and a comparison between Amazon ES and Amazon Kendra results.
Figure 4: Amazon ES search results
Use the web application to navigate between the tracks from the document’s details page. The track menus are located on the top right corner of the webpage. You can also return to the homepage at any point to start a new activity.
The search results for Amazon Kendra offers unique interactions and filtering capabilities:
Feedback mechanism: You can provide feedback to the machine learning model using a voting mechanism to either up vote or down vote the search results.
You can provide feedback to the machine learning model using a voting mechanism to either up vote or down vote the search results. Personas-based filtering: Personas based on the healthcare industry are available to filter your search results, but are limited to the predefined queries provided in Step 2 (as shown in Figure 4). The available personas include healthcare professionals, the general public, and government officials. To access this filter, navigate to the Amazon Kendra tab, select Filter, and choose a persona.
Figure 5: Filter search results by persona
Supports Amazon Kendra FAQs: This solution supports the Amazon Kendra capability to match FAQs.
Exploring a document
To explore a document, select the document to access a Preview mode. In this mode, you can search for text within the document and download a searchable PDF version of the document to analyze the document using.
Figure 6: Document exploration capabilities
When in Preview mode, access the document’s Details page to view more information, to preview the document, search for text, forms or key-value pairs, tables, and general and industry-specific entities. You can download any or all marked information in the following formats:
PDF — a searchable or redacted version of the document
CSV — format for tables or forms that are downloaded
JSON — format for entities that are downloaded
Figure 7: Download a table as a CSV file
Compliance track
The compliance track enables you to redact information from a document. For example, you can redact protected health information (PHI), specific values in key-value pairs, and specific keywords. You can redact information in each tab that is available for a document: Preview, Raw Text, Key-Value Pairs, Tables, Entities, and Medical Entities.
Figure 8: Redacting sensitive information in a document
Workflow automation track
You can input data into the solution as well as export it for other business purposes. Use the bulk processing option to load a large volume of documents for analysis. Once analyzed, the results are available in an Amazon S3 bucket that you can export for further processing.
hope all of you Understood AWS Architecture and How to Use Big Data with AWS. If you have any doubt regarding the examples provided or are unable to understand how AWS Services make use of Big Data Applications you can contact me.
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Next Article in the Series | https://medium.com/@adit-modi24/document-understanding-solution-using-aws-5801292c58ab | ['Adit Modi'] | 2020-12-29 03:37:19.490000+00:00 | ['Analytics', 'AWS', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Serverless', 'Big Data'] |
Takara Diecastトークンプレゼントキャンペーン詳細 | in Both Sides of the Table | https://medium.com/project-orb%E5%85%AC%E5%BC%8F%E3%82%A2%E3%83%83%E3%83%97%E3%83%87%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88/takara-diecast%E3%83%88%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AF%E3%83%B3%E3%83%97%E3%83%AC%E3%82%BC%E3%83%B3%E3%83%88%E3%82%AD%E3%83%A3%E3%83%B3%E3%83%9A%E3%83%BC%E3%83%B3%E8%A9%B3%E7%B4%B0-8ae8551d49d4 | [] | 2017-03-09 13:32:24.707000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Counterparty'] |
How We Feel When You Don’t Defend Us To Your Racist Family | Dashawn has his hands firmly on the steering wheel. His whole body is stiff and even though he is the only one in the car, he still feels the tension in his veins. He tries focusing on the road but his nervousness is making it difficult. He knows he has to do this but it doesn’t make it easier. Nobody likes confrontation and nobody likes losing somebody who has been so essential to them for so long.
When Dashawn finally arrives at his destination he stops the car, but he doesn’t get out. He puts his head on the steering wheel and takes a deep breath. People always make it seem so easy to cut people out of your life. People you have loved for so long. People who have helped you through your worst moments and who you have helped with theirs. Sometimes, though, those people are not meant to be in your life. Sometimes, they are not the right person for you and that is okay. Dashawn knows this. It’s the conversation he’s been having with himself for a month. So, with a final deep breath, he lifts his head up and steps out of the car.
Just looking at the house makes him nauseous. The place he half grew up in and now he cannot stand the sight of it. He wants to just turn around and run away but he knows he cannot. He goes to the front door and knocks.
“Hey Dashawn,” say’s Mrs. Wilson with a fake smile. Dashawn now knows all her smiles were fake. He just wishes he was always able to tell.
“Hello, Mrs. Wilson. How’re you?”
“Well, actually I’m just fixin’ up some dinner. How’re you? How is your family? You haven’t been around much recently.”
He wishes he could tell her why he hasn’t been around recently. Wishes he could call her out on her bullshit. Wishes he had known this whole time that this lady who has made him meals so many times over the years was just as bad as the others. He had felt safe here and now he will never get that back. But he isn’t here to start drama. He’s here to make his peace and leave. He deserves it for himself.
“I’m good. Mom’s good. She’s letting me drive her new baby so I can’t stay too late. I’ve been really busy with school and stuff.”
“Oh, that’s good! Well, I bet you’re looking for Alex. He’s out back in the barn tending to the horses.”
“Okay, thanks! Bye Mrs. Wilson.”
That’s probably the last conversation Dashawn will have with her. But knowing what he knows now, he doesn’t see it as too much of a loss. He heads through the house and through the side doors to the barn. He knows this house like the back of his hand. So many memories etched into the walls. He knows he can’t get nostalgic now though. It will only make what he has to do harder. He passes the living room. The place where this all started and he’s reminded why this is necessary. That memory makes any nostalgia he was feeling vanish. He gets to the barn and calls out to Alex.
“Yo!”
“Dashawn? I’m back here.”
Dashawn walks toward the sound of Alex’s voice at the back of the barn. This barn has sort of functioned as their hangout over the years. This was their escape and now it’s Dashawn’s own personal hell. When he finally makes it to Alex he’s tending to one of the horses.
“Hey, you haven’t been around much lately D. What’s up?”
As soon as Alex asks that question, Dashawn’s heart starts beating uncontrollably. He almost doesn’t want to do it but he knows he needs to. He needs to do it for himself, for everybody he loves, and for his morals.
“I kind of need to talk to you and it’s important bro.”
“Okay. Let me finish up with the horses real quick.”
Dashawn waits for Alex to finish grooming the horses. He wishes he could just blurt it out. The build-up to this moment has been nerve-wracking. He’s been going over what he’s going to say in his head and he still doesn’t know. He still doesn’t know how he’s gonna deal with losing one of the most important people in his life and he wishes things were different. But he knows what it’s like to be one of the only black people in this small Virginian town and he knows how the people here feel about him.
Alex finishes up with the horses and they move to a different area of the barn.
“Okay man, what did you want to talk about?”
Dashawn takes a deep breath. He knows he can do this. He has been trying to practice for this moment but it is so much more terrifying now that it’s actually happening. It may seem dramatic but Alex has always been his best friend. Never did he imagine the day when he would need to do this. He makes eye contact with Alex and decides to get straight to the point.
“Alex, bro I’m sorry but we can’t be friends anymore.”
“Dashawn stop playing. What do you really want to talk about? You’re acting weird.”
“I’m serious. It’s a cliche man but we really are just from two different backgrounds. It didn’t matter when we were younger but now things are different.”
Alex’s body immediately tenses. Dashawn can tell he’s taking things more seriously now. He’s seen this behavior plenty of times from Alex in the past. Growing up in his family hasn’t been easy and Alex only knows how to deal with his emotions in one way. Anger.
“What the fuck do you mean we are different? Why is it a problem now? We have been friends since we were ten D and now you want to stop because we are different? Yeah, it’s gonna take more than that so your ass better really start explaining now.” Alex’s voice is low and Dashawn can tell he’s trying to hold his anger for him. His face is red and he’s breathing so heavy it feels like the only sound in the barn. Alex gets angry a lot but that anger is never directed toward his best friend.
“Alex we cannot keep pretending that your family isn’t racist as shit. I hate coming over here now. I don’t feel comfortable and I don’t like how you refuse to call them out for it. You just chuckle along Alex and you should be doing more considering your best friend is BLACK.”
“They are farm people. They will always be stuck in their ways. I can’t change their minds, I can just be better than them.” Alex is confused. This is what this is about. His family is not even that bad compared to the rest of the people in this town.
“That’s not enough bro. If I can’t trust you to call out your racist ass family how can I trust you to be my friend? How can I trust you to have my back? How can I trust that you do not say the same things when I am not around or have the same thoughts? Am I different because I’ve been rocking with you since we were 10? Alex, I am still black. When your family is racist it not only affects me but it affects my community and the people I love. For years I thought your family was mine, that the little comments were harmless but now I see the truth and I see you being complicit.”
“D I have always had your fucking back!” Alex cannot believe his best friend sees him like this. He cannot believe he is about to lose the only person he can open up to in this town. Alex remembers meeting Dashawn. It was pretty boring actually. They met the way most ten-year-olds meet — during recess in Ms. Greer’s 5th-grade class. Dashawn was the new kid and with coming to a small Virginian town of course everybody had already heard of him before he stepped foot into the classroom. It was a big deal when anybody moved to town but a new Black family was more exciting. It was the talk of the town. Several kids had already taken interest in him that day. They had asked him his name and where he was from. Everybody was just excited to meet someone from a far off land. They only became friends because Alex and Dashawn were chosen for the same kickball team. Alex had always been the best kickball player in the grade and Dashawn claimed he was the champ at his old school so of course, they bonded. And of course, that friendship lasted 6 years but look at where they were now.
Their friendship made sense to Alex. It always had. But this didn’t make sense to Alex. What was wrong? Why is Dashawn doing this? Why now? The people of this town have always been like this. It’s no secret that most people are at least a little conservative. Alex didn’t think he was but he knew his parents were. But that’s just how they are. It’s harmless. Why is Dashawn so upset? Why is Alex losing his best friend?
“Not when it comes to this. You don’t understand what it’s like being me here.”
“What do you mean being you?”
“Being black.” There was silence. The tension in the air had gotten thicker and all that could be heard was their breathing. Dashawn knew Alex did not and could not understand because it wasn’t affecting him. It wasn’t affecting his family and his communities. He cares about his best friend no doubt but some things are just deep enough to end a friendship.
“Are you saying we can’t be friends because I am white?”
“No. I am saying we can’t be friends because I am black and I deserve better. This town has a lot of growing to do and so does your family. There’s too much going on in the world for me and you to sit here and contribute by allowing your white family to be ‘stuck in their ways’. They need to get unstuck and you need to push them to do so.”
“So you really are ending this friendship? Just like this?”
Dashawn thinks about it. But then he remembers why. It was a few months ago when he was here having dinner with Alex’s family. Dinner had just finished and Dashawn was helping Mrs.Wilson in the kitchen with the dishes. Nobody ever helps her so he tries his best when he comes over to lend a helping hand. While doing the dishes he had to use the bathroom and decided to go relieve himself real quick.
“I’ll be back Mrs. Wilson.”
“Okay, hun.”
So he went off towards the bathroom but on the way, he passed the living room where Mr.Wilson was chatting with Alex’s uncle. Nothing was out of the ordinary until he heard what Mr.Wilson was saying.
“Yeah those fucking porch monkeys man,” Mr. Wilson said with a deep chuckle. “They think they can come here with no land and make something of themselves. My family has been farming here for so long and so have other families. Those niggers don’t stand a chance.”
Alex’s uncle chuckled. “Yeah, man. It’s crazy.”
Dashawn couldn’t believe his ears. He had known Mr. Wilson was conservative but he was always respectful towards Dashawn. When he decided to take a closer look into the living room he saw Alex sitting on the couch and not correcting his father. Not standing up for Black people while his Black best friend was in the other room with his mother. He knew then. Dashawn continued into the bathroom and afterward left early saying he wasn’t feeling too well. You wouldn’t feel too well if you heard those things either. That was the last time he had been in this house and that’s when he had known his friendship with Alex was over.
“Yeah. Our friendship is over Alex. I hope you and your family can grow but I cannot grow if I am friends with you. We should just chill with other people.”
“Okay,” Alex says, unable to look Dashawn in the eye.
Dashawn walks out of that house for the last time and he knows he made the right decision. | https://lashell.medium.com/how-we-feel-when-you-dont-defend-us-to-your-racist-family-9fd5609063ea | ['La Shell'] | 2020-12-28 17:02:39.918000+00:00 | ['Race', 'Fiction Writing', 'White Privilege'] |
How to evade antivirus [easy method] | Summary
Nowadays antivirus are incredibly sophisticated pieces of software, used for protecting you from different types of threats, to make your computer and you safe. Although they make use of advanced detection techniques such as signatures, heuristics, behavior analysis, and even machine learning algorithms, they can be easily evaded. In this article, we will present an easy to follow tutorial on how to evade all most any antivirus out there. We will be using the well-known memory injection combined with a tricky entry point. Our goal is not to create a FUD payload from scratch but to take a well-known malware and make it undetectable.
Quick note: I still think that using a good up to date antivirus is a good practice as they play a big role in making you safe by adding an extra layer of security, just do not trust it with your life.
For this tutorial, I have chosen a .NET open-source payload so the wrapper for this malware will also be coded in .NET to facilitate the process (although it is perfectly possible to use different languages here). There are a lot of open-source malware projects you can use for this on GitHub repositories, if you do not have any to start with, just pick one.
Although we are using C#, presented concepts are language agnostic and I encourage you to implement it in a different one.
Requirements
For this tutorial you will need:
As I mentioned earlier, we are going to use memory injection to load the malicious executable but, before loading it, we need an entry point. To trick the antivirus and evade sandbox behavior analysis, a mouse click will trigger the injection since most of the sandboxes do not allow keyboard/mouse interaction and besides that, no one can predict when this condition occurs. We will also keep the malware encrypted until the moment it is loaded into memory to avoid AV static detection.
Step 1: Encrypt the payload
After choosing a malware (.NET only), we need to convert it to base64 so we can store it as a string in our wrapper (there are multiple online base64 encoders/decoders that you can use for it). This wrapper is usually called a stub because it is the code in charge for decrypting and executing the malware. After converting to base64 we are going to encrypt it using standard AES encryption and convert it again to string.
Brief explanation of the conversion:
Convert your binary (bytes -> base64)
Encrypt (base64 -> bytes)
Convert it again (bytes -> base64)
Open Visual Studio and create a project, that will be responsible to encrypt our binary, build and run it. The image below illustrates the process.
This code saves the encrypted payload in a file, that will be used later.
Step 2: Detect mouse click
Now we need to create a program that detects the mouse click globally and executes our binary upon click detection. The easiest way to do this is by using a nugget package named MouseKeyHook. We want to detect clicks globally, but the execution of our wrapper should be stealth, so we are going to force our console application to run as a windows forms application.
In this way, we can run the program without showing any output window to the user.
Create a console application (.NET Framework 4.6) in VisualStudio and run it as a windows form application
Go to Solution->Manage NuGet Packages and install MouseKeyHook and ILmerge .
and . Create a Hook for the left/right mouse click
The load method is executed after a click and triggers the process of decryption and execution and will be explained in detail further.
Step 3: Decrypt and inject
After setting the hook for the mouse click (we are going to use any mouse click left/right, but feel free to use whatever click you want or even double clicks for instance), we need to do the opposite operation we did in the first step to decrypt the malware. The base64 string is the one that was created and saved in a file in the first step (our encoded encrypted malware).
Reverse process:
Convert (base64 -> bytes)
Decrypt (bytes -> base64)
Convert it again: (base64 -> bytes)
After decrypting the payload we are going to execute it in memory, using memory injection in C#. This method is not new and you can learn more about it here.
Note: Alternatively to the encryption process we could create a Pastebin with the raw payload and make a web request at the time we want to load it. This would make the final binary smaller since we didn’t need to have a hardcoded payload. On the other hand, it increases the probability of being classified as a malicious dropper.
Fifth step: Build and merge
We added a nugget package to detect the mouse click when we build this solution, so an external DLL will be generated. Malware should be discreet, and having two files breaks this rule.
To solve this issue ILmerge, a static linker for .NET, is used to merge all files into a single one. The use of ILmerge may seem a bit confusing and tricky but with the following bash script, it is pretty straight forward.
:: [Change] Set your target executable name (typically [projectname].exe) your DLL name and your merged file Name SET APP_NAME=unwrapped.exe
SET DLL_NAME=Gma.System.MouseKeyHook.dll
SET MERGED_NAME=wrappedPayload.exe :: [Change] Set the path to the folder where the executable and the DLL is:
SET PATH_TO_EXE_FOLDER= C:\YOUR\PATH\TO\PROJECT\NAMEOF\PROJECT\bin\Release :: [Change] set your NuGet ILMerge Version (check on Visual Studio)
SET ILMERGE_VERSION=3.0.29 :: the full ILMerge should be found here:
SET ILMERGE_PATH=%USERPROFILE%\.nuget\packages\ilmerge\%ILMERGE_VERSION%\tools
et452 SET FINAL_PATH=%PATH_TO_EXE_FOLDER%\%APP_NAME%
SET DLL_PATH=%PATH_TO_EXE_FOLDER%\%DLL_NAME% "%ILMERGE_PATH%"\ILMerge.exe %FINAL_PATH% ^
/lib:Bin\%ILMERGE_BUILD%\ ^
/out:%MERGED_NAME% ^
%DLL_PATH% :Done
set /p asd="DONE. Merge was completed!"
After saving this as a .bat file, customize the path and name variables to match your configuration and execute it. A merged file will be created in the directory where the script was executed. This merged file is our single file payload, fully indetectable at the time this article is written. Let’s test it!
Sixth step: Test it
The best way to check if the resulting payload is undetectable consists in pass it through an online antivirus scanner, to test against dozens of different antivirus. For the sake of comparison, our payload was tested twice, before and after applying our wrapper.
Before: As you can see in the image below the original version of the payload is detected by a significant amount of engines (21/31).
After: As predicted, the presented solution was able to evade all the antivirus in this online scanner (0/31).
We proved that it works in theory, but let’s check it in practice, running it on a fully patched Windows 10 machine with Windows Defender enabled.
Voilât! Our victim machine pinged back the host machine, meaning that the payload was successfully loaded on our victim.
You can check out all the files used in this tutorial here.
Final thoughts
The purposed goal was accomplished since we were able to evade antivirus and execute the payload, but this solution is far from complete and can be improved in several different ways such as:
Add persistence to the payload (process injection, windows registry, startup keys,…)
Remove .Net dependencies
Add compression/obfuscation
Shrink payload size
Choose random string and variables names
Change the encryption used
…
Another interesting variation would be implementing this mechanism in a low-level language like C or C++ making it stealthier. Just be creative :) | https://medium.com/@carlosprincipal1/how-to-bypass-antivirus-av-2020-easy-method-69749892928b | ['Carlos Gonçalves'] | 2020-04-22 20:19:39.484000+00:00 | ['Hacking', 'Windows', 'Antivirus', 'Malware', 'Cybersecurity'] |
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Watch Aloona Larionova YT channel here | https://medium.com/@apaterson063/aloona-larionova-vpn-coupon-code-get-surfshark-dbfe9e0a92eb | ['Polar Colac'] | 2019-09-04 11:13:27.990000+00:00 | ['Promotion', 'Coupon', 'Discount', 'Deal', 'VPN'] |
#Charles eugene hill | Get satisfaction | Charles Eugene Hill Born 11–17–1983 Nationality Other names Known for Education Salary Net worth Height Weight Political party Signature Website | https://medium.com/@charleseugenehill/charles-eugene-hill-get-satisfaction-272d4cb05ca1 | ['Charles Eugene Hill'] | 2020-12-27 16:37:23.673000+00:00 | ['Cities'] |
Imbolc for the Frozen North | We should rest inside, though. (Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash)
I love the cross-quarter days, the pagan holy days that fall halfway between solstices and equinoxes. These are the days when I really notice the changing light, when the seasons really feel like they’re shifting. Unlike the poor unsung Lammas (at the beginning of August — we’ll get there another time), Imbolc, which comes halfway between the winter solstice and spring equinox, at least kinda sadly filters into our culture in the form of Groundhog Day.
Up until today, the only thing I liked about Groundhog Day at all was that I was convinced that everyone was getting the whole thing wrong. You know the saying, the whole “If he sees his shadow, we’ll have six more weeks of winter”? I had it in my head somehow that most people were leaving off the second half, “otherwise it will be 40 more days” or some more poetic way of expressing that. A six of one, half dozen of the other kind of thing that I thought everyone was completely ridiculous for forgetting. I was talking with my good friend yesterday about it, and I was like, “did I tell you…?” and she stopped me and was like, “yes, only every February for the past five years.” Turns out that’s not the case, and the whole weather prediction thing is somehow meant to be legitimate. Whoops.
Besides my new inability to feel smugly superior, there’s a lot about the way we mark this day that’s not quite satisfying, whatever tradition we want to approach it from. Imbolc doesn’t seem to offer much special spiritual value, especially for those of us who live in a place where groundhogs aren’t even thinking about waking up yet, where the only hint of the spring to come is still in the slightly earlier mornings and later sunsets, and not yet echoed by green things stirring.
In South Carolina, where I grew up, Imbolc really is the beginning of spring: daffodils and forsythia bloom in February; it all makes sense! Here in the Monadnock Region of New Hampshire, though, February is historically our month of greatest snowfall. The traditional practices of this holiday have to do with the beginning of the lambing season and the renewed availability of milk, and even if we are farmers who only consume seasonal dairy (a vanishingly small population), the timing just isn’t right.
Anyway, celebrating the return of the light again six weeks after the solstice really does feel redundant. We just went all out with the candles for Advent and Hanukkah, not to mention the half-dozen other festivals of light we might have chosen to celebrate back in December. Why go wild with a series of revels, then remind ourselves again six weeks later like some kind of half-hearted snooze alarm? Like, okay, the day is a little longer…wake me up when it gets warm.
We can talk about the solstice as the symbolic birth of the sun, but that’s the thing: it’s still just a newborn. The whole event is a triumphant miracle, yes, as all birth is! But it can be a huge source of disappointment for a new mother to look down at this new little being she’s dreamed about, agonized over, and labored to bring into the world and realize that it’s still…kind of a grub.
The light, whether we mean the actual sun or the light within us, is still in its infancy. It gets stronger every day, stays awake a little longer every day, but it’s not ready to do much besides sleep and grow.
That same friend I mentioned earlier (and whom I now owe five years’ worth of apologies for not only being misinformed, but repetitively so), is a trained birth worker and has lately been doing some lactation consulting. She remarked that although she sometimes wants to have more babies, seeing moms with newborns never makes her jealous — those days are too difficult to envy.
In many parts of the world, there’s a postpartum practice called “confinement” or, in Latin America, “cuarantena.” Neither term makes the whole thing sound very pleasant, but they both refer to a period after birth when a mother is expected to take it easy, get to know her baby, and refrain from work or chores, stirred together with a handful of more-or-less restrictive cultural and religious customs. The same concept was strongly suggested to me by my midwives when I gave birth to my first child: for six weeks, could I get someone else to shop? Could I arrange my life to thoroughly and deeply rest?
It isn’t surprising that recovering after childbirth is a concept that spans cultures and time periods — this seems like a common-sense necessity. What is interesting in this context is that the length of time for recovery seems to be a standard six weeks or so around the world. What if we think of Imbolc as the end of our confinement period?
We can even reframe that intervening six weeks in our minds. January is strange, and hard, and long, and I wonder if part of it is because we’re not letting ourselves have the recovery we need. We jump right in with plans and resolutions for the new year, and then we’re stymied by illness, snow days, and maybe simple tiredness.
On top of that, January means we’ve got to get back into the rhythms that the holiday season tossed out the window. Plus, one of the most highly ritualized times for many of us has now come and gone. We humans thrive on that kind of thing, and January unmoors us and sends us forth into the metaphorical and actual cold with hardly a cultural tradition to guide us. We get past the change of the calendar and everything feels spiritually fresh and we don’t always know where to go with that. The post-holiday letdown is a lot like that postpartum feeling that so many new mothers get (and so few feel free to talk about): the weird mingled ecstatic joy and mild disappointment, the coming to terms with the realness of it all. The answer to both might simply come down to rest and time.
If we let ourselves recover for a solid chunk of weeks, then Imbolc can become the time we plan the coming year, creatively and with a good hibernation behind us, rather than in reaction to the excesses of the winter solstice season. Or, if you’re like me and are never not planning one project or another, this is the time to harness that power of transformation, that sense of something happening that comes with the changing light, and start taking action on those plans. Maybe in future years we can let that rest period be a time for simmering thoughts, without frantically trying to shape January into the perfect start for the Best Year Ever.
Imbolc is also the perfect time for people in our region to start daydreaming about the seasons to come. Let’s plan gardens, start some leek seeds, think about placing an order for a goat or two so we can experience the true meaning of seasonal dairy farming. And sure, we can light a few candles and be grateful again, and always, for the constant miracle that is our life-giving sun.
January is the graveyard for so many of the grand pronouncements and intentions of the New Year. Maybe they’re not dead, though — maybe they’re just resting, just like we should have been doing all along. Time to wake them up, dust them off, see if maybe they see their shadows. Whether in six weeks or forty(ish) days, Spring is coming! | https://medium.com/@zeeohee/imbolc-for-the-frozen-north-368dd2f64b55 | ['Zoë Wroten-Heinzmann'] | 2019-02-03 01:33:26.666000+00:00 | ['Birth', 'Groundhog Day', 'Paganism', 'Imbolc', 'Holidays'] |
Plastic Pollution, From The Ocean To The Sea | Take your pick: 822,000 times the Eiffel Tower, 25,000 the Empire State Building, or 80 million Blue Whales. These examples provide an idea of the total amount of small plastic fragments floating at the surface of the Ocean. Plastic pollution is pervasive in world oceans and has gained large attention from the media, the public and the governments. The urgency of this issue was recognized by nearly 200 countries that signed jointly the UN draft Resolution on Marine Litter and Microplastics.
Actually, there is a lot of uncertainty about the distribution and the fate of plastic once it enters the ocean. A first global assessment of the total amount of small plastic fragments floating indicates that the total weight ranges between 93 and 236 million metric tons. It has been estimated that 8.3 billion metric tons of virgin plastic have been produced. With no action that volume is projected to be 1 kg of plastic for every 3 kg of fish and more plastic than fish by 2050.
About 30% of these 1 billion elephants worth of plastic weighting equivalent material is still in use, 10% has been incinerated and the remaining 60% has been discarded and is now landfilled or lost in the natural environment, including the ocean.
Among the large quantity of information available, it is difficult to differentiate exaggerated alarms from miracle solutions, while taking into account unknown but potential risks of plastic pollution. Scientific evidence shows a complex reality.
Upon entering the ocean, plastic goes through several processes of degradation that break up large items into microplastics (they are not visible to the eye). At the global level, most of the data on the abundance and mass of plastic particles in the ocean have been collected with fine trawled nets that do not efficiently sample smaller fragments. It is like pouring sand with a beach sieve that is not able to separate the smallest shells. This estimated amount of microplastics at the surface of the ocean represents approximately 1% of the 8 million metric tons of plastic waste that are estimated to enter the ocean from land-based inputs each year. Abusing the elephant metaphor, we can see 1 single elephant’s fur and not all the 1 billion elephants.
In terms of where this plastic ends up, data are currently missing on plastic concentration in the water column and in sediments. It is unknown where more than 95% of ocean plastic debris ends up. The future challenge is, therefore, to quantify how much is in there. Estimates of the amount of plastic that enters in each ocean compartment are necessary in order to be able to estimate the potential impacts of plastic pollution.
Looking at a smaller case, that of the Mediterranean Sea, more details emerge.
A total of 247 billion pieces of plastic are estimated to be floating in the Mediterranean Sea weighing 23,150 tons or the equivalent of 115 Blue Whales, with the surface plastic load estimated between 1,000 and 3,000 tons.
How does plastic pollution affect the Mediterranean Sea?
In the context of the global-scale distribution, the Mediterranean has some of the highest concentrations of floating plastics and microplastics in the world and is even proposed as the sixth great accumulation zone for marine litter in addition to the five main ocean gyres. A total of 247 billion pieces of plastic are estimated to be floating in the Mediterranean Sea weighing 23,150 tons or the equivalent of 115 Blue Whales, with the surface plastic load estimated between 1,000 and 3,000 tons. The problem stems from the human pressure associated with the high concentration of people and economic activities along the coasts, combined with the hydrodynamics of the semi-enclosed basin, which together contributes to the accumulation of plastic in the Sea.
Where is it coming from?
Bordered by Europe to the north, Asia to the east, and Africa to the south, the Mediterranean Sea has marine litter entering from land-based sources on twenty-one countries on three separate continents. Land sources constitute the majority of pollution and typically include tourism and recreational use of the coast, local industry and businesses, general public litter, illegal dumping, ports and harbours, and unprotected landfills. Ocean-based sources of marine litter, on the other hand, include merchant shipping, ferries and cruise liners, commercial and recreational fishing vessels, military fleets, research vessels, pleasure crafts, and offshore installations, like oil and gas platforms, drilling rigs, and aquaculture sites.
Of all marine litter, the total annual input of plastic into the Mediterranean Sea is currently estimated to be 100,000 tons per year: total coastal population inputs account for 50%, river-borne plastic 30%, and inputs distributed along shipping lanes 20%.
In Europe, there is a fairly good understanding of the lifecycle of plastic. Plastics production, demand, and waste data provide insight on what plastics are made and used for, and where they end up at the end of their useful life. The highest share of the 2016 European plastic market was represented by packaging (39.9%), followed by building and construction (19.7%); the automotive industry (10%); electrical and electronics (6.2%); household, leisure, and sport (4.2%); agriculture (3.3%); and other uses such as appliances, mechanical engineering, furniture, and medical, to name a few (16.7%).
More plastic waste was recycled than landfilled in Europe for the first time in 2016 when over 8.4 million tons of plastic waste were collected to be recycled, including 27.1 million tons of post-consumer plastic waste — up 79% from 2006. Of the post-consumer plastic waste, 41.6% was used in energy recovery, 3.31% was recycled, and 27.3% was sent to landfills. Plastic waste recycling increased by almost 80% over the same 10-year period; energy recovery also increased by 61% and landfilling decreased by 43%. The geographic trend is not uniform across Europe, and generally, countries with more landfill restrictions on recyclable and recoverable waste see higher recycling rates of post-consumer plastic waste.
Where is it going?
In contrast to the ocean, any long-term accumulation of plastics at the sea surface in the Mediterranean would be unlikely. Research modeling the distribution of plastic finds substantial accumulation on the coastlines and to a lesser extent the sea bottom, noting that the plastic pollution of almost every country’s coastline is mainly caused by its own terrestrial sources of plastics. In the majority of Mediterranean countries, more than 50% of plastics come from their own terrestrial inputs; especially high percentages are seen in Italy (almost 80%), Turkey, Morocco, Israel, Spain, France, Syria, Egypt, Albania, and Tunisia. Only Malta receives more maritime plastics (78%) than plastics from its own terrestrial sources.
In the Adriatic Sea — the northern branch of the Mediterranean Sea, modeling shows that floating debris distributions correspond to the spatial distributions of plastic debris inputs from rivers, cities, and shipping lanes over the long term, and indicates a strong connection with the general circulation patterns of the Adriatic Sea, following the Western Adriatic Coastal Current. Seasonally, plastics move to the basin’s interior in winter, to the northern Adriatic in spring, moving out of the middle and southern Adriatic in summer, and spread to the southeastern Adriatic in autumn. The shoreline of the Adriatic Sea is the main sink of floating debris; for example, the coastline of the Po Delta in Italy receives a plastic flux of approximately 70 kg/km/day.
How can we monitor and reduce marine litter?
Researchers continue to define and explore the problem and potential solutions associated with marine litter and plastic pollution. In the Adriatic Sea, the first assessment of marine litter and strategy for reducing marine litter pollution were completed under DeFishGear, a project which also improved knowledge on microplastic pollution and a developed a regional network of experts. CMCC participated, focusing on the definition of optimal methodologies for monitoring marine litter. The overall project aim was to address the problem of marine litter and the economic impact on coastal communities. This included monitoring the quantity of microplastics and their effects on marine organisms, as well as setting up a system for collecting and recycling derelict fishing gear, and collecting floating litter and litter from the sea bottom caught in nets while fishing. A coordinated and integrated international approach was developed to measure and monitor marine litter and microplastics on the coasts as well as in the sea and on the seabed.
Can we clean up the plastic already in the ocean?
Numerous ideas and projects propose to recover plastic from the ocean, yet none have been proven. Some of the initiatives include ocean clean up arrays, various types of plastic-eating drones, and vessels that propose to remove plastic litter from the surface of the ocean. These methods only target surface floating plastic fragments and generally are not able to collect plastic particles smaller than 1 cm. This means that they leave out more than 99% of plastic estimated to be in the ocean. Therefore the amount of plastic that could be removed by these innovations is infinitesimal when considered against the plastic already in the ocean and that continues to enter the ocean every day.
What’s the outlook?
According to UNEP, the most urgent short-term solution to reducing plastic inputs into the ocean is the improvement of wastewater and solid waste collection and management. Reducing mismanaged plastic waste mainly requires implementing adequate infrastructure and waste management practices as well as educating the behaviours of consumers. On the longer term, a more sustainable solution will be moving towards a more circular economy, in which waste is designed out of the production and use cycle, and society adopts more sustainable consumption patterns. For example: reduce the use of single-use plastic items, and phase out microbeads in cosmetics and other products where it can be substituted with non-harmful alternatives.
As reducing, reusing, and recycling are the best ways to limit the amount of plastics that end up as marine litter, it appears that Europe is making progress to decrease the amount of plastic that could potentially enter the Mediterranean Sea as pollution. In terms of the policy, improving resource efficiency is a large part of Europe’s work towards achieving a circular economy, and addressing the lifecycle of plastics is a critical step along the way. Particularly, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive obliges European member states to monitor and reduce their marine litter. Yet, the problem of plastic pollution is great, and much work is needed to eliminate plastic pollution as a component of marine litter at the source. | https://cmccclimate.medium.com/plastic-pollution-from-the-ocean-to-the-sea-a2b206e8c435 | [] | 2019-07-26 10:04:18.401000+00:00 | ['Mediterranean Sea', 'Environment', 'Plastic Pollution', 'Ocean Conservation', 'Marine Litter'] |
What is new in Geopandas 0.70? | Geopandas is the workhorse of doing Geospatial data science in Python and extends the datatypes of Pandas to perform spatial data operations. Geopandas 0.70 has just been released yesterday 17 February and with it comes some significant changes and improvements.
I highlight here some of the best new features available with Geopandas 0.70.
Native Clip functionality
Clipping has become easy with a native function to clip a GeoDataFrame to the spatial extent of other shapes. Clipping is one of the most common used Geospatial data processing functionality; however, in previous releases, Geopandas did not have a straight forward function to perform it. If you want a specific area of your geographic data, you have to perform clipping to get your area of interest.
Now with a new geopandas.clip function, you can easily clip your data with the spatial extent provided. Let us see an example.
import geopandas as gpd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from shapely.geometry import Polygon, LineString
gpd.__version__ '0.7.0'
We use Geopandas available datasets, capital cities, the world boundaries. Also, we subset Africa and also create a polygon to mark spatial extent we are interested.
capital_cities = gpd.read_file(gpd.datasets.get_path(“naturalearth_cities”)) world = gpd.read_file(gpd.datasets.get_path(“naturalearth_lowres”)) africa = world[world[“continent”] == “Africa”] poly = Polygon([(-35, 0), (-35, 60), (60, 60), (60, 0), (0, 0)]) polygon = geopandas.GeoDataFrame([1], geometry=[poly], crs=world.crs)
Let us see all the data in one image.
fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(12,10)) world.plot(ax=ax) africa.plot(ax=ax, edgecolor=”black”, color = “brown”, alpha=0.5) capital_cities.plot(ax=ax, color=”Red”) polygon.boundary.plot(ax=ax, color=”Red”)
Map of all data
The capital cities are marked as red dots, and Africa is shown as green. The Red Rectangle shows the extent we are interested in.
Now if we want to clip only the part of the red rectangle from the world boundaries, you can call geopandas.clip and provide the two GeoDataFrames. First, the world world boundaries and the polygon extents.
clipped = gpd.clip(world, polygon) fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(12,10)) clipped.plot(ax=ax, color=”gray”);
And You have got the clipped areas, parts of Africa, Europe and Asia as shown below.
Clipped boundaries
You can use this function not only polygons and polygons but other data types like Lines and points.
Filter Rows while reading files
With current big datasets, the ability to filter rows while reading the data is essential. Imagine having a dataset with millions of rows and not being able to read due to memory issues. With this new functionality, you can provide rows or slices to filter out the data before reading it.
Let us see an example.
cities_filtered = gpd.read_file(gpd.datasets.get_path(“naturalearth_cities”),rows=30)
This will only read the first 30 rows of the data. If you want to slice it in the middle, you can add slice.
cities_filtered_slice = gpd.read_file(gpd.datasets.get_path(“naturalearth_cities”),rows=slice(10,30))
Only, rows between 10 and 30 are returned with the above code.
Plot Geometry Collection
It was not possible to plot GeometryCollection data, for example, data with different data types (Points, Lines or Polygons). With the current release, you can plot various collections of geometric objects. Let us see an example.
a = LineString([(0, 0), (1, 1), (1,2), (2,2)]) b = LineString([(0, 0), (1, 1), (2,1), (2,2)]) x = a.intersection(b) gc = gpd.GeoSeries(x) type(x) shapely.geometry.collection.GeometryCollection
a and b are just plain LineString, but their intersection returns a collection of Geometry (Lines and Points). If you create a Geoseries out of the collection of Geometries in x, you can now plot it with Geopandas. See the example shown below. You have both a Point and a Line plotted in the same Geodataframe plotted.
Collection of Geometries plotted with Geopandas
PROJ 6 replaces PROJ 4
Geopandas 0.70 release starts using a new projection interface. PROJ 6 replaces PROJ4 and with it brings a better interface and additional information.
Previously gpd.crs returned only a string like this.
{'init': 'epsg:4326'}
However, the current release brings a lot of metadata on Geographic Projections of the data.
world.crs
returns the following useful information
<Geographic 2D CRS: EPSG:4326> Name: WGS 84 Axis Info [ellipsoidal]: — Lat[north]: Geodetic latitude (degree) — Lon[east]: Geodetic longitude (degree) Area of Use: — name: World — bounds: (-180.0, -90.0, 180.0, 90.0) Datum: World Geodetic System 1984 — Ellipsoid: WGS 84 — Prime Meridian: Greenwich
Which you can also access individually, for example, if you want to access the datum of your projection, you can call.
world.crs.datum
And the result shows this part only
DATUM[“World Geodetic System 1984”, ELLIPSOID[“WGS 84”,6378137,298.257223563, LENGTHUNIT[“metre”,1]], ID[“EPSG”,6326]]
There also other improvements or bug fixes not covered in this article but worth mentioning them. Spatial join in Geopandas can now handle Multindex correctly and preserves the index name of the left Geodataframe. When writing to a file to disk, you can now keep the index if you want. Plotting choropleth maps with missing data is now available with this release.
Conclusion
Thanks to all contributors of this current release. Geopandas 0.70 brings a lot of improvements in the Geospatial data science processes. Clipping, filtering data while reading and plot multi geometry data is now possible thanks to this release. Proj 6 also brings a better user interface with one of the least understood themes in the Geospatial world, Geographic projections.
The code for this article is available in this Google Colab link. | https://towardsdatascience.com/what-is-new-in-geopandas-0-70-dda0ddc90978 | [] | 2020-02-18 14:04:02.971000+00:00 | ['Geopandas', 'Python', 'Geospatial', 'GIS', 'Programming'] |
Pitfalls When Transitioning from an Individual Contributor to a Technical Manager | The Responsibility Virus
In Alan Watkins’ book 4D Leadership¹, he cites Roger Martin’s (2003) writings about ‘the responsibility virus’. The responsibility virus is a phenomenon where someone promoted into a leadership position, in an attempt to improve outcomes, becomes involved in work that should instead be delegated. The viral aspect of this phenomenon is the impact such actions have on all parties involved.
Imagine the following scenario: You are promoted from programmer to technical manager. You are presented with a deadline that concerns updating an area of the system only you can deliver within the target deadline. You then step-in to fully deliver the changes for the team. You are hailed as a hero by upper management. The project is deemed a success and the team moves on to the next problem. Unfortunately, this is the beginning of the technical manager practising ‘over responsibility’.
If over responsibility only impacted the manager practising it, that may be acceptable in the short term. However, the viral aspect of this phenomenon is that the team may become complacent, informally decide that area of the system is not their concern, or perceive that they are not to be trusted with working on that area of the system. Any of the aforementioned possibilities may result in members of the team being less likely to take responsibility the next time a similar change is needed.
Should the practice of over responsibility not be addressed, the manager will find themselves dealing with more issues on top of their actual responsibilities leading to effects highlighted in Watkins’ pressure performance curve:
Pressure Performance Curve (source: Watkins¹)
The pressure performance curve shows that although the manager may find themselves feeling more productive than ever — their heroic performance not only brought about success but also reinforced that they still technically have ‘it’ — eventually the manager will become overworked and overwhelmed. Even more concerning is that such behaviour can be encouraged by upper management as it demonstrates the technical manager going ‘above and beyond’ the call of duty.
If the responsibility virus is to be avoided, a manager must refrain from yielding to the business’ requests and instead negotiate a more realistic timeline whereby the coaching and training of the team to complete activities themselves can be achieved. Allowing time for training and handover should be a natural part of transitioning an individual contributor to a manager. The team may also realise that they are actually short on resources and need to hire a new engineer. Identifying such issues and having a discussion within the broader organisation will help highlight constraints that may hinder the team’s ability to meet the organisation’s expectations, with the ideal outcome being receiving support from the organisation to overcome said constraints. | https://medium.com/better-programming/pitfalls-when-transitioning-from-an-individual-contributor-to-a-technical-manager-5c160ca803d9 | ['Paul Chiu'] | 2019-06-05 19:54:35.296000+00:00 | ['Management', 'Leadership', 'Career Advice', 'Engineering Mangement', 'Programming'] |
Living in a Foreign Land | Ever wanted to know what it is like to live abroad in a country where you don’t speak the language? My name is Alex Fisker-van Veen and I am currently 17 years old. I lived my entire life in London, UK, and moved to Japan when I was 14 years old. When I moved, I had no previous knowledge of the language or the culture and, I’ll admit, it was a bit of a shock when I traveled over. Not speaking the language ruled out any chance of me going to a Japanese public school, so I ended up going to an international school. At this school, I take Japanese classes every week, though this has not allowed me to come even close to becoming fluent, even after over 3 years living here.
Those of you who have ever learned a language at school are probably shocked that I couldn’t learn Japanese while living in Japan for over 3 years. And yes, if I had lived in a different country that had a language more similar to English, I probably would have learned it within a year. However, the Japanese language is completely different from English. For starters, the alphabet is completely different and it incorporates Kanji, which are Chinese characters, and there is essentially a different character for every word in the language. Even Japanese natives do not know all these Kanji!
My day to day experience in the country has been both encouraging and disparaging. I easily picked up the culture, learning when was the appropriate time to bow (if ever in doubt, just bow), and learning appropriate phrases for each situation. I learned how to say no to a plastic bag at the convenience stores, how to ask for directions, how to understand some of the announcements at the train stations, read station name kanji, and much more. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I could survive and function substantially in Japan if it were not for human interactions and conversations. Having a small conversation with someone on the train, next to you in a line, or across the road from you in the neighboring house is a given in everyone’s lives. These small interactions were made almost impossible for two reasons:
1. My lack of understanding of the language would not allow me to understand casually used language or reply to such language
2. The Japanese culture is definitely more of a “keep to yourself” place. If Japanese people see anyone in trouble or struggling they will not offer their help, as most other people would do in other countries, but will actually try to avoid that person. And it is not for any selfish reasons. It is actually because if you see someone struggling, you assume that they are embarrassed, and helping them would add to that embarrassment and would create the impression that they are being pitied.
The practice of being distanced from others is extremely prevalent in Japan. Although, yes, people do have friendships and relationships, they are more uncommon than you may think, and the sole act of going to someone’s house and ‘hanging out’ is a concept that does not exist in Japan. Many people in Japan live alone and do not enter other’s houses unless they are family members.
When I first came to Japan, I found this concept extremely strange. In fact, I still am puzzled by this distance that exists between people. As I have continued to live here, although I do not think this practice is good for the wellbeing of individuals, I have begun to understand that this pattern has been derived from a long history of respect and service. This practice does help to prevent the spread of COVID-19 though!
I will continue to be sharing my thoughts on Japanese culture and my experience living here. I have so many stories to tell and this piece was a short introduction to my work. | https://medium.com/@alexfiskervanveen/living-in-a-foreign-land-49d997bbe00a | ['Alex Fisker-Van Veen'] | 2020-12-21 03:59:13.007000+00:00 | ['Impressions', 'Japanese Culture', 'Japan', 'Living Abroad'] |
Ten things to do before turning 18 | Turning 18 is an exciting and scary time for everyone. It is scary for parents who have to let their babies go after 18 years. However, it is scarier for the person turning 18.
Turning 18 can mean so many exciting changes in your life. You are finally on your own and away from your parents and their rules. You are ready to start your adult life and make adult decisions, unfortunately, you are only 18 and still have a lot to learn. That is the first lesson to learn as an adult. You will never know everything and you will continue to learn new things for the rest of your life. Here are ten things you should do and know about before you are out on your own.
1. Take a family vacation
Yes, go on vacation with your family. This will mean the world to them and even though it may seem lame to you, someday you will be glad you did because getting everyone together for a family vacation once you are grown-up is really hard.
2. Have a diploma
Don’t go out in the world without some kind of diploma. Yes, finishing high school is the best start you could do for yourself, but if you are one of those people where things didn’t go exactly as planned then go the next best route and get your GED or some kind of High School equivalency diploma. Even if you think you don’t want to go to college, someday you may change your mind, and it will be better to have this out of the way. Also, employers will look at this as an accomplishment that will help you find work, and you have to work.
3 Do something crazy
Have some crazy fun with friends before you are all too busy for each other with adult responsibilities. Take a weekend and go to a rock concert. Get something pierced while it’s still cool to have it pierced. Have fun and be adventurous.
4. Learn about Credit
No, this does not mean credit cards. In fact, getting a credit card when you're 18 is a bad idea and will most likely ruin your credit. There are tons of quick and easy lessons online to learn the dos and don't of credit. You can even sit down with your parents and ask them about credit and the mistakes they made. You might not think this is important now but someday you will want to buy a house and a car and you will need this.
5. Explore things you are interested in
This is the best time of your life where you can explore the things you are interested in and not be shamed for it. If you love art, writing, or anything creative then explore that now. Start painting and have fun with it. If you find what your creative passion is now then you can continue to use that throughout your life and really enjoy it. You might make a career out of this or at least a fun hobby.
6. Make Goals and List
This is a great way to start out your adult life. Sit down and write down all the goals you want to accomplish over the next five years. Think of jobs, places to travel, how much money you want to save, and anything you want to accomplish in the next five years. Even if right now you have no idea what kind of career you want to have that is perfectly fine. Use this list for better goals like traveling to Paris or bungee jumping with your best friend.
7. Don’t plan a wedding yet
Yes, this is a don't and not a do but this is for the best. You have your entire life to get married and have kids. There is no rush to this. Even if you have found the one you want to spend the rest of your life with, it does not mean you need to get married right away. Enjoy each other and get to know each other more. Have a long engagement and have fun with it. Travel and see the world together. Then when you both know that you are financially stable you can plan a beautiful wedding.
8. Get a job
Yes, what they say is true, you need a job to make money. This is the perfect time to get at least a part-time job to start saving money or paying some of those bills that your parents have been paying for you. You will get lots of experience and learn new things while you make money.
9. Learn to grocery shop
This is very important as most parents forget how to teach their children to shop. Parents get so busy taking care of their families that they forget the need to teach basic skills. Especially when you are starting out and you don’t have that much money. Food costs a lot and is a huge part of your monthly budget. You need to know how to bargain shop and use coupons or coupon sites like Ibotta.
10. Walk away from drama
This is by far the best advice you will ever get. Learning how to walk away from drama when you are young will help you throughout your life. There are always going to be people who are dramatic and want all the attention. They will crave it and try to drag you down. Learn how to cut yourself off from toxic people. Surround yourself with positive and successful people.
Turning 18 is exciting and scary and something you will never forget.
Amanda Jordan
Author/Coach/Creator | https://medium.com/@amandakjordan/ten-things-to-do-before-turning-18-76c8c3b62bbc | ['Amanda Jordan'] | 2020-12-27 21:43:13.767000+00:00 | ['Turning 18', 'Teenagers', 'Teens', 'Adulthood'] |
Creating on a Blank Canvas | Step 1: Creative Briefs
It’s common wisdom in Silicon Valley that ideas are cheap, but execution is everything. Why are ideas so cheap? Because they are nearly infinite. We, as humans are constantly producing thoughts, some estimate a new one pops into our heads every three seconds, the average span of what we can perceive as the “present moment”. That’s a lot of thoughts! With such a massive supply of thoughts, how does one begin to direct the flow of thoughts towards opportunities to become ideas that generate demand?
When constructing an agenda for hackathons, I like to view the creative process as a funnel that seeks to direct thought towards opportunities that become ideas and then converge on solutions. For this hackathon, the team at SwiftKick wanted to cast a wide net at the top of the funnel. COVID-19 had disrupted so many parts of our society, we could find opportunities to help people with mobile technology just about anywhere. We also didn’t know for certain heading into the hackathon where our team’s interest level or expertise would be. So instead of focusing on one problem, we created six briefs to focus on problems we saw in six different verticals; School & University, Entertainment, Mental & Physical Health.
The goal of the briefs was to begin to narrow the funnel of infinite ideas down, beginning with six specific focus areas. We sent these briefs out before the first day of the hackathon to give individuals time to start their internal creative process, spark conversations with others, and indicate to us, the organizers, where their existing interests and expertise lied before the formation of teams. Doing this enabled teams to be self-organized around existing interests and initial ideas from the team.
The briefs themselves relied on a tool to spark creativity known as “how might we” questions. The purpose of “how might we” questions is, as defined by Stanford’s dschool, to “create questions that provoke meaningful and relevant ideas … by keeping the questions insightful and nuanced.” We have found “how might we” questions essential in starting ideation discussion. You can find out more about the methodology and construction of questions here.
Step 2. Discovery (Divergent Thinking)
Entering the morning of the first day of our hackathon, the SwiftKick hackers have already begun individually collecting their thoughts and forming teams around shared interests, but they haven’t yet begun the process of sharing their ideas and further narrowing each of their individual ideas, interests, and assumptions down to one product that they will be spending the weekend hacking on. Before a group can narrow ideas, they need to get every individual idea out of the table through a process commonly called “divergent thinking” in a group ideation session to officially begin the hackathon weekend.
In my experience, this step is the most important and the most challenging. On many teams not used to regularly creating on an empty canvas, group ideations can be bogged down in deliberation. If this sounds like your typical ideation process, you are likely pitching ideas to your team members more than you are collaborating and ideating with your team members. In ideations that feel more like pitch meetings, existing office dynamics can unfairly influence this process. Team leaders like CEOs, tech leads, and product managers are accustomed to having top-down influence in daily operations. Other team contributors also contribute to that dynamic because used to deferring to that influence. In hackathons, this is unproductive, because if a team spends too much time on one person’s perspective, and that perspective turns out to be misguided, teams will have no chance to pivot to another idea in the short amount of time the hackathon is designed for.
So, in a hackathon group ideation, I am looking to accomplish something more meritocratic and collaborative. The solution we used for our hackathon teams were divergent thinking exercises. Divergent thinking is a spontaneous, free-flowing, non-linear form of group ideation. For this particular hackathon, SwiftKick hackers utilized an exercise called “ Crazy 8s” for this step. The purpose of Crazy 8s is to get each team member to produce eight idea sketches in eight minutes. These ideas could pull from what our hackers researched or prepared before the hackathon began, or it could be a completely new idea thought of within the exercise as well. After the eight minutes, teams share the ideas with each other and vote on which pose the most valuable or intriguing answers to the posed “how might we” question in the brief. As individuals share their initial ideas with their teams on the first day of the hackathon, their teammates should be seeking to accept and add to the ideas, like the “yes, and…” rule in improv comedy, and build as large and as varied a list of potential ideas as possible before starting to draw connections and conclusions towards one solution to the chosen “how might we?” question. The ultimate goal is to get as many of the existing ideas before the group ideation exercise as possible out on the table for teams to evaluate meritocratically and begin the process of narrowing those ideas down towards a singular solution to the “how might we” question.
Step 3. Product Development (Convergent Thinking)
Now that each team has a variety of ideas sketched out, it’s time to pull them together and make a product that solves the “how might we”. The common term for this process “convergent thinking” as we are looking to converge on one product after first getting as many ideas out as possible from divergent thinking.
The tool the SwiftKick hackers used to begin converging from the web of divergent ideas is a MoSCoW, or “Must Have, Could Have, Should Have, and Won’t Have (Right Now)”. Each team creates a two by two grid, each quadrant labeled with one MoSCoW category, and works with each other to organize the highest vote-getting ideas generated in Crazy 8s into what the first version of the product must have, what it should have, what it could have, and what may have to wait for a future version. Organizing in this way keeps a history of every idea while whittling the sketches down to the most valuable for the Minimum Viable Product, or the most barebone version of the product that we could build in a weekend and that communicates the value and utility of the app to the user.
Up until this point, our teams have been looking to be unconditional and supportive of other people’s ideas to get as much out on the table. But it is important in this step to have a good sense of what ideas would be a valuable solution to the “How Might We?” question and be extremely discerning with what should go in the Must Have square especially. This will mean that some members’ ideas will be rejected. But that isn’t a bad thing. In one of SwiftKick’s favorite books on creativity “How To Fly a Horse”, Kevin Ashton writes “Rejection is not persecution. Drain it of its poison and what remains may be useful”. This is the ultimate purpose of a MoSCoW, reject anything that doesn’t fully solve the problems posed by a “How Might We?” question so that only the most valuable ideas remain.
Teams should now have a very good handle on how each team member’s ideas could fit into a Minimum Viable Product to pitch at the end of the hackathon. From there, it’s a matter of dividing, conquering, and managing time. Our teams took the results of their respective MoSCoW exercises and spent the rest of the weekend coding, designing, and crafting a pitch deck for their product to present to the rest of the company. Once the teams submitted their final deliverables, we held a small pitch competition, picked a winner, and unwound with some beers! | https://medium.com/swiftkickmobile/creating-on-a-blank-canvas-7702f0e30fdc | ['Sean Raftery'] | 2020-07-17 14:53:04.048000+00:00 | ['Android', 'iOS', 'Product Management', 'Technology', 'Ideation'] |
Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) | Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
After discovering a small, blue, fast hedgehog, a small-town police officer must help it defeat an evil genius...
Releasing a Sonic the Hedgehog movie in the mid-1990s when Sega’s super-fast mascot was at the peak of his popularity made sense. But the technology wasn’t there to do anything other than an expensive Who Framed Roger Rabbit-style animation/live-action hybrid, and considering how badly other video game adaptations like Super Mario Bros. (1993) and Street Fighter (1994) had fared at the box office, it was a financial risk Sega perhaps wisely avoided.
Amazingly, it’s now taken Sonic 30 years to reach cinemas, years after the character’s pop-culture impact on young players. And we’ve since had decades of terrible movies based on popular video games, meaning expectations were understandably low for Sonic the Hedgehog. And that was before fans were incensed by the first trailer revealing a more “realistic” redesign of Sonic, which was hastily reenvisioned due to the whirlwind of negativity and set the movie’s release back months.
The good news is that Sonic the Hedgehog is better than the many cynics expected, considering the inherent difficulties in translating a platform game about a blue hedgehog collectings golden rings into a narrative that can support 99-minutes. Here, Sonic is a supersonic baby alien who flees a group of tribal echidnas by hopping through a portal created by a magic ring, thus finding himself on our world. A decade later and Sonic’s become an urban legend in the small Montana town of Green Hills, keeping himself isolated in a cave where he uses his incredible speed to amuse and distract himself. However, after causing a blackout by triggering an electromagnetic pulse, Sonic finds himself hunted by eccentric genius Dr Robotnik (Jim Carrey), forcing him to befriend local sheriff Tom Wachowski (James Marsden) and go on a road trip to San Francisco to retrieve more magic rings he can use to escape.
It’s a crazy but simple premise with enough internal logic to work. When one considers the leftfield madness of the Super Mario Bros. debacle (with its parallel universe of humanoid dinosaurs), I don’t think fans will be too upset over what screenwriting pals Pat Casey and Josh Miller have come up with. It’s another take on the alien creature in a small town who makes human friends while being pursued by evil-doers, familiar from everything from E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial (1983) to Starman (1984), only now with tonal influence from The Smurfs (2011). It’s been made specifically for kids, who likely have parents that owned a Sega console in the ’90s and might themselves enjoy a blast of nostalgia.
Indeed, memories of yesteryear play a role in Sonic the Hedgehog for other reasons. The film would be harmless entertainment as written, but Paramount Pictures cleverly secured the talents of Jim Carrey to play Robotnik the moustache-twirling villain. And Carrey’s another ’90s icon, who hasn’t tapped into his patented schtick or rubber-faced lunacy since the early-2000s — if one overlooks Dumb and Dumber To (2014).
Carrey’s involvement could be seen as an embarrassing fall from grace, considering he was once a headlining A-lister commanding $20M per movie, but I’m pleased he agreed to take on this silly role. It plays to his comedic strengths and allows him a couple of scenes that evoke memories of his glory days, particularly in an all-too-brief dance sequence inside an armoured truck with a giant video screen. Carrey may be pushing 60 but he’s barely lost a step when it comes to gesticulating his limbs, managing to eke out additional laughs from his OTT style of delivery. And considering how the film ends, it seems Carrey’s in this for the long haul, surprisingly…
James Marsden is ostensibly the “lead” of the film and is likewise a bit of a throwback figure — to the early-2000s thanks to playing Cyclops in the X-Men trilogy. But his matinee idol good looks are balanced by astute comic timing, as Enchanted (2007) and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013) demonstrated. Much like Carrey, Marsden helps elevate the material with a likeable performance that, of course, mostly involved him talking and reacting to nothing before the VFX team got to work. (And then got back to work again when fans criticised their efforts…)
Ben Schwartz (Parks & Recreation) is the voice of Sonic himself, doing a commendable job that makes the character feel fun and endearing. I was expecting to find Sonic irritating and shallow, but Schwartz gives him warmth and evokes the joy of an eight-year-old in the big wide world making friends for the first time. One particularly memorable sequence finds when Sonic and Tom hanging out at a roadside bar, where Sonic gets to complete some bucket list activities until a brawl breaks out and he must use his blistering speed in a wat familiar to those who loved Quicksilver’s slo-mo action sequence from X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014).
Sonic the Hedgehog will melt from your memory an hour after it ends, but it may get repeated play from kids who appreciate the bright colours, fizzy VFX, and simple ‘good vs. evil’ plotting buoyed by decent performances and Jim Carrey having fun for the first time in years. It also teases a sequel I feel good about seeing, as there’s nothing here to hate with any real intensity and it’ll be fun to see Carrey again. It’s a lighthearted movie based on a beloved video game that hits most of its marks, will definitely entertain its target audience of under-10s, and will likely surprise the jaded adults expecting a trainwreck. One of the best video game adaptations ever made? It’s a low bar, but Sonic the Hedgehog is certainly in the top third of that inglorious league table.
Cast & Crew
director: Jeff Fowler.
writers: Pat Casey & Josh Miller (based on the video game characters created by Sega).
starring: James Marsden, Ben Schwartz, Tika Sumpter, Jim Carrey, Natasha Rothwell, Adam Pally, Neal McDonough, Tom Butler & Frank C. Turner. | https://medium.com/framerated/sonic-the-hedgehog-2020-2941b02a506e | ['Dan Owen'] | 2020-05-21 19:58:14.198000+00:00 | ['Movies', 'Review', 'Culture', 'Videogames', 'Film'] |
Fiction Reading: An Appetite for Love | This piece of flash fiction originally appeared in Sybil’s Garage Issue Five. It combines gastronomy, the Victorian language of flowers, and fervid devotion. | https://medium.com/@catrambo/fiction-reading-an-appetite-for-love-99dcc14c9135 | ['Cat Rambo'] | 2020-12-22 18:43:48.528000+00:00 | ['Fun', 'Flash Fiction', 'Fiction', 'Love', 'Quick Reads'] |
BGA December 2020 New Members Presentation (December 23rd, 5PM CET) | Dear Blockchain Game Alliance members and Blockchain Enthusiasts!
Don’t miss out on December 23rd at 5PM CET, our 9th BGA New Members Virtual Presentation featuring amazing games and services companies who joined us this month!
Welcome to the Blockchain Game Alliance!
The BGA December Monthly Meet-up will be led by the presenters from OneWayBlock, Tatum, Exeedme, Leyline, Aave, and SuperRare.
New Members online presentation is a monthly activity of the BGA to introduce our members to the community. New members and other member companies who have not presented their games, products and services are given opportunity to showcase what they do.
Speakers Agenda
17:00–17:05 A word from the BGA President, Sebastien Borget
17:05–17:15 OneWayBlock , Slav Pankratov (Co-founder and CTO)
, Slav Pankratov (Co-founder and CTO) 17:15–17:25 Tatum , Jiri Kobelka (CEO)
, Jiri Kobelka (CEO) 17:25–17:35 Exeedme , Nuno Fernandes (CEO)
, Nuno Fernandes (CEO) 17:35–17:45 Leyline , Jeremy Dela Rosa (Founder & CEO) and Ali Razeghi (Tech Lead)
, Jeremy Dela Rosa (Founder & CEO) and Ali Razeghi (Tech Lead) 17:45–17:55 Aave , Isa Kivilghan (Head of Marketing)
, Isa Kivilghan (Head of Marketing) 17:55–18:05 SuperRare , John Crain (CEO)
, John Crain (CEO) 18:05–18:15 PANEL
ACCESS TO THE STREAM ( DECEMBER 23rd at 5PM CET)
About the Speakers
Slav Pankratov, Co-founder and CTO at OneWayBlock
Slav has a vast experience of more than 12 years of game development. During his career, he took part in the vast amount of unity 3D projects and became an expert in the engineering part of computer graphics. He has been involved in blockchain technology since 2018. For the last couple of years, he’s been working as a CTO on a Clash of Coins — RTS game based on blockchain.
Jiri Kobelka, CEO at Tatum
Jiri is the CEO of Tatum, a deep-tech startup focused on enabling superfast integration of blockchain for developers. Among others, Jiri’s team works with financial institutions, gaming platforms, energy/IoT, government, and militaries, helping them adopt blockchain technology.
Nuno Fernandes, CEO at Exeedme
M&A Manager with over 30 successful deals and €1B+ closings. Advised several entrepreneurs on raising VC and PE growth capital. Entrepreneurial spirit with 2 successful ventures launched.
Jeremy Dela Rosa, Founder & CEO at Leyline
As the founder and CEO of Leyline, Jeremy Dela Rosa is bringing nearly two decades of tech industry experience — one spent at Blizzard Entertainment — to bear in launching this ambitious charitable venture. He also launched seven of Blizzard’s AAA titles, as well as the Overwatch League.
Ali Razeghi, Senior Tech at Leyline
Ali Razeghi’s computer expertise started early on, trying to get Donkey Kong and Q-Bert running on his father’s XT in 1986. Razeghi started a computing business in 1999 focused on Y2K consulting, then completed his MSSQL 7.0 certification and entered the world of data — helping startups scale securely into major enterprises.
Isa Kivlighan, Head of Marketing at Aave
Isa is Head of Marketing at Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol to earn interest on deposits and borrow assets. She was studying Public Policy when she became interested in blockchain as a solution for social policy issues, and she later discovered Decentralized Finance and how blockchain can be used to build an open and equitable financial ecosystem. Isa previously worked on a project that leveraged blockchain capabilities to allow users to carry their physical streetwear apparel into gaming realms as virtual assets.
John Crain, CEO at SuperRare
About the company: SuperRare enables everyone with an internet connection to be an art collector. Authenticated by the Ethereum blockchain, SuperRare is a social marketplace for earning crypto and trading one-of-a-kind digital artworks from artists around the world. Our mission is to create a global art economy fit for the digital age. | https://medium.com/blockchain-game-alliance/bga-december-2020-new-members-presentation-december-23rd-5pm-cet-db296aac463c | ['Blockchain Game Alliance'] | 2020-12-22 10:01:32.033000+00:00 | ['Event', 'Games', 'Bga', 'New Members', 'Blockchain'] |
New Tool for Fixing Race Relations | Photo by Hunter Haley on Unsplash
Lousy customer service at a hardware store inspires my solution.
I wait for my husband to join me inside the hardware store. He’s returned to the car for his phone. We need our phones, because I tend to wander off while shopping. That, combined with my absent-mindedness, presents potential for trouble. Once, not paying attention, I’d almost stuck my arthritic black hand into the back pocket of a short round white guy, mistaking him for Ben, the short round white guy I’m married to.
The store’s entry is more spacious than I’d expect, almost as big as a cineplex lobby. It’s fitting they’ve set up a section of munchies right by the door, like a concession stand. For a movie fan/hardware nerd like me, this has just become an ideal entertainment venue. I grab myself a bag of Cheetos.
There are two cashiers in sight, one of them is either asleep or in a coma. The other, a middle-aged man, is engrossed in a magazine, but sees me through the eyes in the back of his head. He scans the Cheeto bag and turns pages simultaneously. “Dollar seventy-three,” he says to his magazine, then shoves the cash into the drawer. “Want your receipt?” he asks the cash register.
On behalf of the register, I say, “No thanks.”
I forgive this level of surliness in teenaged clerks. They’ve earned the right to a bad attitude, given the hormones wreaking havoc in their systems. But from a man old enough to shoulder a mortgage, I’m accustomed to some attention, even if only a sexist, Have a good day, little lady. The cashier’s hostility puts me on edge. | https://dawndowney.medium.com/new-tool-for-fixing-race-relations-40fbe2649f3a | ['Dawn Downey'] | 2019-11-05 13:57:37.696000+00:00 | ['Race', 'Customer Service'] |
Denise Levertov’s Politics | Denise Levertov’s Politics
The Poetry of Personhood for the Masses
Poems discussed, “Matins” and “An Interim”
poetrysociety.org
“In no time at all Denise came to talk like a mildly internationalized young woman living in New York (City) but alive to all the life of speech in the country.”
And so, using Kenneth Rexroth’s pinpointing, we may rise above any argument as to Denise Levertov’s “mere” British roots to perhaps the more important perspective of her universality…or at least her adaptability. It is her universality, her ability to reach all people, to which we would speak in terms of her “people’s” voice.
One fashion in which this voice expresses itself most vigorously is her political poetry. Yet some disagreement exists as to how “political” her poetry is. Indeed, some suggest that Levertov’s political poetry, and her poetry in general, serves as little more than a metaphor for the poetic process.
While there may be some valuable insight through this thesis it seems apparent, not only from Levertov’s poetry but from her prose as well that the intent of her poetry is sincerely political. Any other explication serves someone else’s purposes.
First, examine what is perhaps Levertov’s major poem from the period in which her political activism was beginning to congeal; then a major poem from her political maturity. This will show that her underlying subject matter sees no substantial change throughout.
The first poem, “Matins,” contains no overt political statement in the sense that Levertov herself uses the term:
“Politics (is what) we call our immediate social environment when it is critically examined, whether favorably or unfavorably (which become, in perspective, history).”
In “Matins,” she is not looking at her “social environment.” Instead, she is exploring the process of discovering an exterior value, what she calls in the poem’s first words, “The authentic!” With this work, Levertov seems to have arrived at a profound point of departure. Richard Howard described this as:
“How to get the effort of the ascent inside herself and enacted by her language, rather than by a heap of found symbols to which her language could be only applied — that was to be Denise Levertov’s discovery…”
Even though Howard believes this discovery to have been made wholly “coterminously with her discovery of America,” Levertov had been in North America for nearly fifteen years when, suddenly, she was expressing the “discovery” of “The authentic!” in “rhythmic knockings” of a radiator, “breaking the handle of (her) hairbrush,” and other mundane acts and events which progressively, in their simplicity, take on a deeper and more fundamental beauty — not quite that of transcendence, but as perceived elements in the here and now.
This is the authenticity within, or of, all these item and events which still seems to escape her:
The authentic! It rolls
just out of reach, beyond
running feet and
stretching fingers, down
the green slope and into
the black waves of the sea.
What she is finally cognizant of, is the fact that “Marvelous Truth” will always dominate, that it has a power like human consciousness to reveal and yet remain unrevealed itself. Thus, she ends this poem on the note:
Thrust close your smile
that we know you, terrible joy.
Not, “that we may know you,” which might imply that we do, but, “we know you,” which indicates, by that which we know you.
Levertov understands, clearly, the power “The authentic!” commands in her life and all our lives; how it benignly smiles upon us, often bemused by our efforts to surpass it. But more important, she chooses a side, on this side of “Truth,” on our side of it. She does so comfortably, without having to rely upon sophistication or ostentation, and without having to deny who she is and what she possesses. As Rexroth puts it:
“…she is more civilized. One thing she has which (her contemporaries such as Olsen and Ginsberg) lack conspicuously is what Ezra Pound calls culture… She is securely humane in a way very few people are any more…a humanism older than the Renaissance, so well founded that it penetrates every bit of life.”
In other words, Levertov is telling us that she is one of us.
She begins “Matins” with a series of images which are related to one specific item, rhythm. She verbally connects rhythm with “The authentic!” ultimately. We can argue as to whether Levertov is focusing upon rhythm in order to give it prominence in our perception of her poetic theory.
In the fourth stanza, she drops this imagery and begins a thematic rise into the deeper metaphysical heart of her subject matter. Throughout, she is creating a poem about poetry and the search, in the initial stage of the creative process, for that which has the greatest meaning in poetry.
However, it is also about the way we live our lives and what drives us forward.
In the first stanza, “The authentic!” is compared to,
the almost silent
ripping apart of giant
sheets of cellophane…
the alarm bell…
takes form….
…the radiator in rhythmic knockings
…rhythmic strokes…
The image of rhythm and sound continues into the third stanza, but then a change is taking place. At first the poet is awakening to a new day, moving out of the dream state from a sleep where “The authentic!” can be discovered but discounted as dream. Then, she is fully awake to the day yet “The authentic!” is still a presence.
By the third stanza “The authentic! “is not mentioned, no longer present even as an apparition. But another image is introduced along with the continuing image of rhythm and sound:
…knocking in the pipes
with rhythms it seizes for its own
to speak of its invention —
the real, the new-laid
egg whose speckled shell
the poet fondles and must break
if he will be nourished.
With the breaking of the morning egg, comes the knowledge some process is reproduced like the process of creation. The authenticity of the egg is found in breaking it open and deriving nourishment from it. Yet the egg no longer exists after this is accomplished.
As with anything authentic, the poet must take it apart, in effect somehow destroy it in order to use it, to create from it.
The effect of this process is described in the fourth stanza:
A shadow painted where
yes, a shadow must fall.
The cow’s breath
not forgotten in the mist, in the
words. Yes,
verisimilitude draws up
heat in us, zest
to follow through,
follow through,
follow
transformations of the day
in its turning, in its becoming.
The “cow’s breath” is “not forgotten in the mist, in the/words.” Not forgotten but changed. It is no longer the “cow’s breath” “in the mist” but words representing this.
We can note that, without mentioning rhythm in the fourth stanza, Levertov pays homage to her rhythmic mentor. For in reading this stanza we are immediately reminded of William Carlos Williams’ poem, “To a Poor Old Woman,” and the lines:
They taste good to her.
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her.
Thus, the rhythm has been applied, even if not mentioned; the images have been transferred to words; the egg has been broken and nourishment received. As needs be.
In the fifth stanza, the poet begins to interact within the mundane aspects of her life, in this instance with her son: feeding him breakfast, preparing to ship him off to school. Still, while she and her son
…eat we think,
as we think an undercurrent
of dream runs through us
faster than thought
towards recognition.
The state of awakening is still upon her and yet, it is no longer a dream but an “undercurrent,” a sense of dream-like state. She runs after her son; leaving for school, he has forgotten his glasses.
At the door, “Cold air/comes in…” and reawakens her in the sixth and final stanza to “The authentic!” once again.
It now has her fully in its grip, is taking her to a point of contact and awareness which she has not before fully achieved. In full consciousness of the day and its authenticity, she goes beyond mere imagery, chasing after “The authentic!” as
…it rolls
just out of reach, beyond
running feet and
stretching fingers, down
the green slope and into
the black waves of the sea.
What is this “sea”? Is it the fullness of her own consciousness? Is it a body of water? She acknowledges that when she finds this authenticity in that sea, she must kill it so that it can
…step out
of (its) bones and flystrewn meat
tall, smiling, renewed,
formed in your own likeness…
And, finally, confronting this “Marvelous Truth” in its various guises of
iron ball,
egg, dark horse, shadow,
cloud
of breath on the air,
she also sees that it dwells
in our crowded hearts
our steaming bathrooms, kitchens full of
things to be done, the
ordinary streets.
She sees the two extremes of “The authentic!” as it approaches her consciousness. She realizes it in words from what she perceives non-verbally with her consciousness. She understands that there is no separation between her work and her consciousness, between her consciousness and her reality; and she sees in this contrasting weight of images a point of balance. As she states:
“The didactic has a place in poetry but only when it is inseparable from the intuitive — e.g., opinion is not a source of poetry, but the poetry of political anguish is at its best both didactic and lyrical.”
And what politics is she speaking of here? The politics of being a woman, a housewife, a mother.
This searching for balance is all-encompassing for Levertov, reaching every aspect of her work and being: between form and content, didacticism and lyricism, thinking and feeling, even the essentials of poetry and life itself.
“The interaction of life on art and art on life is continuous…that poetry be not divided from the rest of life is necessary to it. Both life and poetry fade, wilt, shrink, when they are divorced.”
Neither can stand without the other in authentic poetry. This seeking for balance is not the exclusive territory of the poet. For
“…a poet is only a poet when engaged in making poems, and has no rightful claim to feeling more than others, but only being able to articulate feeling through the medium of language.”
Levertov understands the contemporary difficulty regarding acceptance of polemical poetry as poetry, even while she sees and lives out the authenticity in the experiences of politics in everyday life as a feminist, as someone protesting against war and for the rights of others.
She also sees that political poetry has a long tradition in Anglo-American verse, reaching back at least as far as “Piers Ploughman.” But some dilution in the poetic tradition has occurred.
“Even before the lyric — both as a mode and as an element in other modes — came to be more and more highly valued…the novel had swiftly developed and had taken over many of the subjects previously accommodated by non-lyric poetry. Thus there developed a distrust of the political when it did turn up in verse, since poetry and lyric form became almost synonymous to many people…”
Because the political poem had been identified with epic poetry to the extent that
“…we have come to identify the short poem with the lyric even when it lacks lyricism, and consequently, often fail to recognize the lyric spirit if it appears in company with the didactic…a political poem may block the reader from responding to its sensuous and emotive power simply because expectation does not link these elements with political convictions.”
She understands that politics is the province of the people in a democracy, but that the poet has become divorced from the people’s consciousness…and from the poet’s own consciousness as well.
Levertov wants to break down the wall of separation between poet and person, to eliminate the idea of poet as somehow “special” in any sense other than the production of poetry. She is, as G. Thurley put it so “delicately” in 1977, “the poet-housewife/mother.”
When finally, fully confronting and assuming her political position, and especially her opposition to the war in Vietnam, Levertov’s desire to maintain the appropriate balance seemed to create an impossible task. She insists that, “A violent imitation of the horrors of our time” is not the concern of poetry.
She says in “Advent”(1966):
…Because of this my strong sight,
my clear caresive sight, my poet’s sight I was given
that it might stir me to song,
is blurred.
There is a cataract filming over
my inner eyes. Or else a monstrous insect
has entered my head, and looks out
from my sockets with multiple vision…
We may surmise that this “blurred vision,” the “insect” is what befalls us all as the knowledge of what is transpiring overseas creeps into our consciousness slowly, as it did in those days of not-so-instant media, relating how the war blurs the vision of all people; how it creates a barrier, a “cataract” between ourselves and our reality.
In “An Interim,” Levertov further explores the effects of this blurring and on the society in an ambitious experimental work, longer than most of what she had attempted previously, and incorporating techniques used previously by Dos Passos with extensive passages pulled from mass media.
The poem itself concerns thoughts and events while awaiting her husband’s trial for anti-war activities. The blurred vision has forced her into a level of activism, of a living didacticism which tends to separate her from the lyrical in her life and makes her poetic self “shrink” to the extent that
the soul dwindles sometimes to an ant
rapid upon a cracked surface.
These lines from the short first stanza establish the tone of her approach; tell us her position, explaining her weakening in the process.
She turns the mirror of consciousness back to the reader. In the second stanza she reveals how language itself becomes corrupt during war, that language…
virtue of man, touchstone
worn down by what
gross friction…
becomes twisted so that an Army spokesman can say, “It became necessary/to destroy the town to save it.” This leaves the poet wondering if “…language, mother of thought,/(is) rejecting us as we reject (it)…”
Levertov explores the plight of a teenage peace activist sentenced to a harsh confinement and reveals in her own protest the passion and courage of many involved in the anti-war movement. She brings us to a beach in Puerto Rico where she enjoyed a “Peace as grandeur.” Here she recollects a time when
… At fourteen
after measles my mother took me
to stay by the sea…
…I read
to myself Richard Jefferies’
The Story of My Heart
By introducing Jefferies’ discourse, she refers back to the seeking of balance and total contact with nature. These are the same sentiments she explores in “Matins.” And in this stanza, in recollecting this memory, she reaches the understanding that peace itself — perhaps in the absence of war, perhaps just in the moment of escape from wartime — might be
that grandeur, that dwelling
in majestic presence, attuned
to the great pulse.
This even though she, with Jefferies, knows there is no ultimate knowledge, and no contact with anything that might ultimately know. She is saying this as if, perhaps, we live always in the absence of such peace, that we have nothing but interims in our lives hoping for such peace, breaks from the wars going on all around us.
Or, perhaps, she has outgrown Jefferies?
In the fifth stanza, she relates how even her dreams are greatly affected by the war, and she acknowledges that her dreams are sources for her poetry. In her dream, she sees a city which is “half Berlin, half Chicago,” significant reference points. She finds herself held prisoner like her husband, like that young man, by the war itself, perhaps, like others, perhaps, paraded
…through the streets,
dressed in our prisoners’ robes —
smocks of brown holland —
and the people watched us pass
and waved to us, and gave us serious smiles of hope.
Here she combines images of war resisters, war prisoners and war parades, incredibly mixing the jeering of North Vietnamese crowds around POWs into a vortex, turning them into cheering supporters of the prisoners’ plight.
She talks about her “cramp of fury,” the “great savage saints of outrage,” and those among us “who/don’t dare imagine death,” before ending the poem with a quote from that incarcerated youth who says,
“I have a medical problem that can be cured
only by freedom.”
It is a problem Levertov suffers from as well, living in a life of wartime, kept shielded from the truth which can only, possibly, be revealed by peace. It is the problem she senses as a human being, as one of us, and not as the “supersensitive” poet. | https://medium.com/literally-literary/denise-levertovs-politics-b52c943ff67f | ['Alan Asnen'] | 2019-12-02 08:02:59.775000+00:00 | ['Politics And Protest', 'Feminism', 'Denise Levertov', 'Poetry Criticism', 'Essay'] |
Searching for Food Deserts in Los Angeles County | img source: robrogers.com
For a recent data science project, I collaborated with several other Lambda School students to search for food deserts in L.A. County. A general definition for what qualifies as a food desert is an area that does not have access, within one mile, to a grocery store/market providing fresh, healthy food options, such as fruits, vegetables, meats, etc. We wanted to test the theory that lower income neighborhoods are more likely to live in a food desert.
Step 1: Source the data
There were 3 main types of data we needed to find for this project: data for grocery stores/markets in L.A. County, geographic data for each zip code in L.A. County, and finally, income data for each zip code.
For the grocery stores, we sourced data from the SNAP retailers database for all of CA and then filtered for L.A. County. Unfortunately, this data was overly inclusive, as it contained many convenience stores, liquor stores, and other random establishments that should not qualify as providing access to healthy and fresh food. Using regex, we tried to eliminate as many of these non-qualifying establishments as possible. Finally, we used the latitude and longitude for each market and generated a Point object using the Shapely library.
Next, we were able to find geographic information for each zip code in L.A. County. However, due to the curvature of the earth, we needed to convert this data into a 2-dimensional representation, or projection, so that we can display it graphically. We read the data into a geopandas dataframe, and then called the to_crs() method, and pass in ‘epsg=4326’ which converts the geographic data from GIS coordinates to latitude/longitude, and also formats the zip code polygon objects to display properly in a 2-d visualization.
The final data we sourced was median household income for each zip code in L.A. County, which we store in a pandas dataframe to be merged with food desert and grocery density later in the project.
.
Step 2: Perform a Grid Search over all of L.A. County
We wanted to do an exhaustive grid search of the entirety of L.A. County in order to identify the locations of any food deserts, as well as compile some summary statistics for each zip code such as average number of grocery stores within 1 mile in order to calculate a grocery density metric for each zip code. Then later we would compare this data with median income for each zip code and examine the results.
First, for each zip code, we created a rectangular shape around the geographic bounds of the zip code, then starting in the northwestern corner, iterated in quarter mile steps horizontally (eastward), then started again at the western edge but stepped down one quarter mile south, and iterated across horizontally again, repeating this process until the entire area had been exhausted. At each step, we generated a Shapely Point object and appended to a list for that zip code. We added this list of Points inside each zip code to a new column in the geographic dataframe. For all of L.A. county, this resulted in just under 58,000 points.
Next, for each zip code, we iterated over each point in the list of points. For each point, we used the buffer() method to draw a circle with radius of one mile around each point and save that circle as a Shapely Polygon object. Because each shapely Polygon object contains the values for all coordinates that comprise the exterior of the shape of the object, we can call the contains() method for that polygon and pass in a coordinate. This method returns a Boolean True or False whether or not that given coordinate is located in the interior of that Polygon object.
In order to test for food deserts, we can check the coordinates of all of our markets to see if they exist inside the boundaries of that circle. However, the dataframe contains several thousand markets, which would be computationally quite expensive to perform this check for every market for every single generated Point in L.A. County. Instead of iterating thru every market in our dataframe, we can speed up the process significantly by first filtering for markets whose coordinates are within a square boundary of our circle, which we can access using the bounds property of the circle (a Shapely Polygon object). Now our list of markets to test is significantly reduced. For each market inside the square, if the circle object contains the market coordinates, we increase the count of number of groceries inside the circle.
Finally, in order to create a grocery density statistic as well as a master list of all points that were food deserts (no markets found inside the one mile radius circle for that point), we made a function to iterate over each zip code, and then each point in its list of points. We initialized a counter for each zip code that would record the number of food deserts found among the list of points. We also initialized two empty lists, one to record the locations of any food deserts found, and one to record the number of groceries inside the circle for each point in the list.
After iterating through each zip code, we unpacked the results to create a master list of all food deserts found, as well as to compute summary statistics by zip code such as grocery density (average number of nearby groceries found, as well as the total number of food deserts for each zip code).
Step 3: Analyze the results and create visualizations:
After unpacking the results of the exhaustive grid search, we first wanted to create a visualization of where the food deserts were found. As you can see, the majority of them are located in the northern half of and western portions L.A. County. These are areas that are generally either national parks, mountainous regions, or even actual deserts, so these food deserts existing there makes perfect sense.
Next, we plotted the grocery store density by zip code. As you can see, the density was highest in the heart of the city.
Lastly, we wanted to examine the grocery density relative to income, so we binned incomes into 4 ranges, and plotted the average grocery density for each bin.
Interestingly, our results seemed to indicate that lower income areas actually had a higher grocery store density than higher income areas.
Conclusions/Takeaways:
After consideration of why our results were paradoxical to our expectations, we learned a couple of good data science lessons. First, the results of any data science project will generally ultimately hinge on the quality of the underlying data. In our case, the underlying data for our list of markets and grocery stores was overly broad. Even after our best efforts at manually filtering out disqualifying establishments using regex, there were still several hundred to perhaps thousands of ‘markets’ that probably should not have qualified. Unfortunately, we did not have enough man hours to go through each establishment one by one and make a determination of whether or not healthy/fresh food was available.
Also, due to the unique topography of Los Angeles, many wealthy areas are located in the sprawling hills/mountainside and beachfront areas. Most of these wealthier households own cars and have no issue driving more than one mile to a grocery store. Conversely, lower income households are often in more dense urban areas. Members of these households often don’t own a vehicle, but can get around by walking, biking, or using public transportation. Since the overall density of these area is higher, and because our dataframe of markets included many corner stores, bodegas, or ethnic stores/retail establishments, the grocery density in these areas ended up higher than for the high income zip codes.
Overall, I thought this was a great and enjoyable project. I gained some experience w some new python libraries, including GeoPandas, Shapely, pyproj, made some neat geographic data visualizations, and learned some valuable data science lessons along the way.
If interested in checking out some of our code, here is a link to the notebook for this blog, and here is a link to our group repo | https://towardsdatascience.com/searching-for-food-deserts-in-los-angeles-county-b573467a55b | ['Josh Mancuso'] | 2019-08-19 16:34:05.058000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization', 'Pandas', 'Food'] |
How to write a self-healing Kinesis function | I spent time with a client this week to solve an interesting problem — to adjust the number of concurrent requests to a downstream service dynamically based on response time and error rate. This is a common challenge when integrating with third parties, so we decided to share our approach so others might benefit from it.
The problem
My client is in the financial services sector and they integrate with over 50 service providers. They have API access to the providers’ data and they need to fetch them from every provider on a daily basis.
However, many of these providers place restrictions and rate limits on their APIs, for example:
You can only access the API during off-peak hours.
You cannot access the API during the weekly maintenance window.
You can only make X concurrent requests to the API.
My client has implemented a scheduler service to manage the timing constraints. The scheduler knows when to kick off the ingestion process for each provider. But there’s also a secondary process in which their users (financial advisers) can schedule ad-hoc ingestions themselves.
And there are other additional contexts that we had to keep in mind:
The APIs follow an established industry standard. Unfortunately, they can only return one record at a time.
The API response times are highly variable — anything from 5ms to 70s.
The amount of data the client needs to fetch varies from provider to provider. Some just a few thousand records, others would have hundreds of thousands of records.
We should not fetch the same record from a provider more than once per day. This owes to the usage limits.
This ingestion process is one of the most business-critical parts of their system. The migration to this new system needs to be managed carefully to minimise the potential impact to their customers.
The solution
To solve the aforementioned challenge, we need a mechanism to:
Fetch a large number of records from a provider’s API slowly and steadily. The process needs to be reliable but can take several hours if need be.
Only fetch a maximum of X records concurrently.
Gradually reduce the concurrency when the provider API’s response time or error rate starts to escalate.
Rather than implementing such a mechanism from scratch, we chose to leverage the built-in batching support with Kinesis and Lambda. In our proposed setup:
Every provider has a Kinesis stream.
The scheduler service enqueues the records that we need to fetch into the stream.
A ventilator Lambda function would receive records in batches and fan them out to a worker function (via direct function invocation).
There are many different worker functions, one for every provider. This is because most providers have provider-specific business logic.
To avoid processing the same record twice in the same day, the ventilator tracks records that have been processed today in a DynamoDB table.
To support retrying failed records, the ventilator also tracks the number of attempts at processing each record in the same DynamoDB table. When it encounters partial failures, the ventilator would increment the attempts count for the failed records and except. Kinesis would automatically retry the same batch of records for us. On subsequent attempts, previously successful records are ignored.
From a high-level, the system looks like this:
This design does not deliver maximum throughput, which is by design! As discussed earlier, this is due to the daily usage limits and scalability concerns of the provider APIs.
Every provider has its own CloudFormation stack with the Kinesis stream, the ventilator and worker Lambda functions, as well as the DynamoDB table. This set up makes it easy to migrate to the new system gradually, one provider at a time.
Self-healing function
The one stream per provider configuration lets us control concurrency using the batch size of the Kinesis event source mapping. The ventilator function can, therefore, self-adjust its batch size by updating the Kinesis event source mapping.
As the provider API’s response time goes up, the ventilator can respond by reducing its batch size. This gives the API a chance to catch its breath and recover. When the response time returns to acceptable levels, then the ventilator can gradually increase its batch size back to previous levels.
We went even a step further.
If the provider API still struggles at a batch size of 1, then something is clearly not right. You can’t change the batch size to 0, but you can disable the Kinesis event source mapping altogether. When you re-enable it later, Kinesis will push events to the ventilator from where it stopped before, as if nothing’s happened.
However, if the Kinesis event source is disabled, then something else needs to trigger wake the ventilator up later. For this, we have a CloudWatch schedule to trigger the ventilator function every 10 minutes.
If the Kinesis event source is already enabled then these CloudWatch-triggered invocations simply do nothing. When Kinesis is disabled, however, the ventilator can re-enable it at a batch size of 1. This allows one request to the provider API on the next invocation by Kinesis. If the response time is still above the threshold, then we will disable Kinesis again and the cycle repeats. Until such a time that the provider API is able to respond to requests in a timely fashion. Then the Kinesis stream stays enabled and the ventilator function would gradually restore its previous batch size.
This is the classic circuit breaker pattern applied to stream processing.
Show me how it works!
If you want to see how this can work in practice, I put together a demo app for illustration purpose. You can find the source code here. Follow the instructions in the README to deploy the demo app and pump data in using the provided feed-stream script.
With this demo app, I can adjust the ratio of slow and erroneous responses from the worker function via its environment variables.
When I do, you will soon see the ventilator take actions to reduce its batch size. It will adjust the batch size, incrementing and decrementing accordingly.
You can also create a metric filter to extract the batch size from the logs, and turn it into a metric in CloudWatch. This lets you observe how the batch size changes over time.
If the elevated response time and error rate continue, then eventually the ventilator function would disable its Kinesis event source.
The cron job would then re-enable the stream every 10 minutes.
And if the worker function has recovered.
Then the ventilator function would gradually increase its batch size.
Until it eventually returns to its original batch size of 10. If you monitor how the batch size changes along the way, you will probably see something along the lines of:
Summary
In this post, we discussed a design for a self-healing Kinesis function that can adapt its throughput based on performance. In doing so we’re able to carefully tune the number of concurrent requests our system makes against third-party APIs and stay within their operational limits. We also discussed how such design can implement the circuit breaker pattern and take the foot off the paddle entirely when the third-party API is struggling.
I hope you have enjoyed this post, don’t forget to let us know if you have any suggestions or comments. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/how-to-write-a-self-healing-kinesis-function-fe18c462b49 | ['Yan Cui'] | 2019-05-20 21:05:51.989000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'Cloud', 'Serverless', 'Cloud Computing', 'AWS Lambda'] |
How to Find Public Land in the United States | How to Find Public Land in the United States
Screenshot from the USGS Protected Areas Database online map.
The main requirement to have an outdoor experience is a place to go. In the United States, we are fortunate to have about 640 million acres, or 28% of the country, owned by the federal government. Most of this land can be accessed by anyone, free of charge. With so much public land, there is a good chance some of it is near you. Sometimes the biggest challenge to access your public land is finding where it is or staying on it once you’re there. Luckily, there are several options to find public land. Some of them won’t even cost you a thing (except maybe time).
There are multiple ways to find public land near you. The US Geological Survey maintains a free web map of public land in the United States ( https://maps.usgs.gov/padus/). Several paid GPS apps display your location and the location of public land directly on your smartphone. For the GIS savvy, you can download a database of public land for free from the USGS or BLM websites. This article will address each of these public land map platforms in detail.
Free Public Land Maps
The Protected Areas Database maintained by the USGS includes boundaries for public lands in the United States. This information is available to view on a web map at https://maps.usgs.gov/padus/. The web map has limited functionality but will allow you to see where all the public lands in the nation are. There are multiple base maps to select from to help you identify landmarks and travel routes. If you want specific directions or navigation you will need to find another option because those features are not available on the web map. After changing base layers, turning data layers on or off, or zooming to a location, a link to the map can be created to share with others. Additionally, the map can be printed or saved as a PDF for future reference.
Mobile GPS Applications
If you want to see your location in relation to public land boundaries, a mobile GPS application is probably your best option. These applications use the GPS in your phone to display your location on a map that also shows public land boundaries. Mobile apps allow you to download maps of public land for offline use. With a mobile app, you can easily navigate to public lands and make sure you don’t cross onto private lands in areas where trespassing is a concern. Many mobile apps offer a free version or a free trial. However, to access downloadable public lands maps you will generally have to sign up for a paid subscription.
If this option interests you, check out Gaia GPS, onX Hunt, or Basemap. There are likely other options out there as well. Gaia GPS is the most general purpose of the three listed. It has a lot of good features for hikers, hunters, overlanders, and more. Basemap and onX Hunt are geared more towards hunters and fishermen but have many of the same features.
Public Land GIS Data
For those with tech or GIS skills, you can download public land boundary data in geographic (GIS) formats. Boundary data are available from the USGS as part of the Protected Areas Database. You can also download boundary data from the BLM. Data from the Protected Areas Database are available for the United States as a geodatabase (ESRI) or a shapefile. The same data are also available for individual states. Public land boundaries for individual states are also available in Google Earth compatible KMZ files. The KMZ files can be downloaded and opened in Google Earth.
Conclusion
There are multiple ways to find the location and boundaries of public land in the United States. The best option for you will likely depend on your purposes. If you need to know exactly where you are at all times while you are hunting, then you may want to invest in a mobile app. If you’re simply searching for a camping location the free public land web map may work just fine for you. GIS nerds (like me) may want to make web maps, or do an analysis of public lands, and can download the GIS data. In the end, there’s a way for nearly anyone to find public land near them. Go find some public land near you and enjoy it!
Konrad is a natural resource scientist who spends much of his free time hunting, fishing, hiking, and backpacking on America’s public lands. | https://medium.com/@khafen/how-to-find-public-land-in-the-united-states-55b46f5d0df9 | ['Konrad Hafen'] | 2020-12-22 16:04:30.883000+00:00 | ['Maps', 'Public Lands', 'Hiking', 'Recreation', 'Outdoors'] |
Exposed affiliates, or the battle of FSB and defense ministry’s information platforms | When I described yesterday an article “Cutthroats 2.0” by Denis Korotkov published in the Russian Novaya Gazeta newspaper, telling about the atrocities of the Wagner PMC in Syria, I noted the fact that it was the FSB’s informational blow on the FSB rivals. But I couldn’t even think how painful it would be for Lubyanka guys.
Over the past two days, the FSB has taken to almost all of its information platforms, perhaps, besides The Insider, to respond to Shoigu’s media attack. And this dramatic effort illuminated brightly the wide range of such affiliates. But, most importantly, the row reached the Kremlin level.
Yesterday Putin’s spox Dmitry Peskov in response to a journalist’s request to comment on the NG publication branded it fake news: “The Kremlin generally has a negative attitude to fake news, be it on the situation in Syria, international affairs, or the coronavirus. All in all, it’s a very bad, negative practice.”
Well, what else could we expect from Peskov? But that doesn’t mean the report was fake and that the Kremlin actually sees it that way. However, I’m not here to focus on the Kremlin’s main tower. I’d rather pursue the issue of the ongoing confrontation between other two towers — the FSB and the defense ministry.
The FSB’s response came at a lightning speed, starting from the Federal News Agency (FAN), which stated that Korotkov had released a false report. The fact that FAN works in coordination with the FSB can be seen through many of their publications, most of them being unprofessional and failing to withstand criticism, albeit rather popular. The latest one, accusing Korotkov, is just the same kind — filled with lies, including a false statement that none of the participants in the brutal execution of a Syrian deserter had been identified.
Well, it is a lie, though. The killers had been identified and their names announced back in 2019. One of them is Stanislav Dychko, a former policeman from Stavropol.
Also, Russian information platforms claim that the “fake report” emerged due to PMC Wagner’s successful missions in other countries, therefore being an attempt to discredit the group. In fact, Wagner has been suffering failures lately — ranging from Mozambique to Libya.
Pravda.ru soon joined the media carpet bombing. The publication, which itself had been seen spinning fake news, suddenly presented their own probe into the photos newly-released by Novaya Gazeta, calling them “staged” and (sic!) an ISIS job! At the same time, in their own investigation, they used doctored photos taken half a year ago, where the Syrian’s crucified corpse was replaced with the ISIS flag. Of course, FAN became a real fan (yes, I know) of this investigation, so they were sure to share it.
But it wasn’t only the federal-level media outlets who were involved in the latest smear campaign. Even small-scale third-grade sites such as “Slovo i Delo” spun a video of some source claiming on camera that Korotkov had admitted preparing a fake report about PMC Wagner. Well why wouldn’t they just air a video of someone claiming Korotkov admitted plotting a hit on Putin. That would be more efficient, wouldn’t it?
Then, on April 22, FAN publishes an “investigation” into Turkish PMCs in Syria, thereby clogging the media field and shifting public focus away from PMC Wagner. I should remind you that last year, as the story of Wagner’s atrocities unfolded, they tried to hush it down by covering a story on war crimes of British specops troops in the Middle East and reanimating the tearful story of a Cossack captured and killed by ISIS back in 2017.
So we can clearly see how Shoigu annoyed the FSB by taking out of the back shelf the rest of what he’s had in stocks on that stinking Wagner story — and it seems that Yevgeny Prigozhin’s “media troops” weren’t prepared for the move.
However, the blaze that is now raging around the junk PMC Wagner really is remans just an information battle, which is a protracted prelude to a real confrontation between the two security agencies. As their funding is being depleted in view of the difficult economic situation, this confrontation will further intensify and escalate.
To say the least, we should now expect more action in media domain on both sides. The first step will probably be to involve the widely-exploited The Insider to deliver a counterblow to the GRU. The second is to involve Patriarch Kirill, who has a common business with Yevgeny Prigozhin. In this case, the patriarch will play the role of the one instilling narratives about the sacred mission of Russian soldiers in distant lands. And the response to all this may well be the third step — third-party resources supervised by the Russian defense ministry spinning reports on the use of chemical weapons by Wagnerites in Libya.
For now, head of the Libyan Ministry of Internal Affairs, Fathi Bashaga, has already made the corresponding statement on the use of nerve gas.
So we’re to see much more. But the flaming towers I’m seeing are already keeping me satisfied. | https://medium.com/@zloyodessit2.0/exposed-affiliates-or-the-battle-of-fsb-and-defense-ministrys-information-platforms-7c3d7f44cda1 | ['Злой Одессит'] | 2020-04-23 11:01:34.657000+00:00 | ['Syria', 'War', 'Russia'] |
Our Time Has Come | Photo by icon0.com from Pexels
It’s run its course
this love of ours
The final go around
is what this is
The hugs are scarce
Kisses rare
You barely look me in the eye
I won’t redecorate
after you take your half
This will remain a partial dwelling
because there’s no rearranging
what we started
into something whole again
Forward is the only way
even if I can barely hobble
in that direction
My mind yearns to go back
to a place that no longer exists
The place that was full of talk
and your warm embrace
Our time has come…
I thought maybe we were
an exception to the rule
that all things come to an end
But I was wrong
You proved it
Our time has come | https://medium.com/scuzzbucket/our-time-has-come-9d9478c3e78c | ['Franco Amati'] | 2020-12-20 00:08:51.048000+00:00 | ['Prose', 'Love', 'Loss', 'Poetry', 'Scuzzbucket'] |
You Are Here | You Are Here
And It’s Phenomenal To Be
Everyday Is A Miracle
The miracle is that we are here. No matter how undone we’ve been the night before, we wake up every morning and are still here. It is phenomenal just to be. (Anne Lamott) | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/you-are-here-5e83c082e492 | ['Laura Mcdonell'] | 2020-11-15 13:04:23.992000+00:00 | ['Miracles', 'Presence', 'Spirituality', 'Believe', 'Alive'] |
The Music Plays On — Chet Baker. Donato writes about Chet Baker | Chet Baker
I get sad whenever I listen to Chet Baker. Perhaps it’s because I discovered him at the wrong end of his life when hearing of his death in 1988. Or perhaps it’s because the first image I ever saw of him was from the cover of the 1988 album, My Favorite Songs: The Last Great Concert. The cover photo captures the eternally futile search for happiness that’s in the eyes of every drug addict, and those eyes have haunted me for over thirty years. So has the recording.
Perhaps it was the documentary, Let’s Get Lost, also released in 1988. Directed by Bruce Weber, we see a highly intelligent, yet conniving Baker weave in and out of lucidity and in and out of people’s lives, revealing just enough vulnerability and charm to score his next hit. He’s heartbreaking, maddening, brilliant, and beautiful.
The tragedy is made complete when you start at the beginning.
Chet Baker was born into a musical family in Oklahoma in 1929. He dropped out of high school and joined the U.S. Army at 16, in 1946, and became a member of the 198th Army Band, stationed in Berlin. He left the Army in 1948 and studied music for a couple of years in Los Angeles. He re-enlisted in 1948 and played in the Sixth Army Band at the Presidio in San Francisco. By the time he was discharged in 1951, he was already playing in local clubs. The boy could play!
In 1952, aged 22, he toured the west coast with Charlie Parker and joined the Gerry Mulligan Quartet. Baker was part of what became known as West Coast Jazz. Here’s a great live recording from 1953 with Stan Getz embodying this sound.
He had moviestar looks, loved to drive nice cars, wear nice clothes, and was never, shall we say, left wanting for attention.
The photographer, William Claxton, perfectly captured Baker’s charismatic and brooding personality in a series of photos from this time.
Chet Baker — William Claxton, photographer
Heroin and Jazz sadly went hand in hand during this time and while Baker claimed he started using heroin in 1957, colleagues and acquaintances said that he was already using in the early fifties. Nevertheless, he was one of the top earning jazz artists of the decade, releasing album after album that were instant classics, including -
Chet Baker Quartet featuring Russ Freeman 1953
Chet Baker Ensemble 1953
Grey December 1953
Chet Baker Sings 1954
Chet Baker Sextet 1954
The Trumpet Artistry of Chet Baker 1954
He was known to hock his instruments for drugs, and was arrested and imprisoned in Italy for possession. In 1966, in Sausalito, CA, he got in a fight, most likely over drugs, that resulted in his teeth getting knocked out, which ruined his embouchure and made it unable for him to play the trumpet. He was working at a gas station when he realized he needed to find a way to come back to music.
With dentures and a new approach to trumpet playing, but without ever getting clean, Baker began to make a comeback in the seventies. Moving to New York City, he would often play with Jim Hall, Paul Desmond, and Hubert Laws. Here are two classic albums from this time.
She Was Too Good To Me 1974
Concierto 1975
The last ten years of his life, Baker lived in Europe. In 1983, Elvis Costello, a long-time fan, hired him to play trumpet on his song, Shipbuilding, exposing a whole new generation to Baker’s playing.
Chet Baker was found dead on the street in front of his Amsterdam hotel on May 13, 1988, having apparently fallen from his second floor hotel room, with cocaine and heroin found in his room and in his body. There was speculation that it was a drug deal gone bad but there was no evidence to back up this claim. There was also rumor that he had locked himself out of his room and was trying to climb from the adjacent hotel room over to his. Whatever really happened, it was just plain sad. This last album I’m sharing was recorded less than a year before his death. Heartbreaking, maddening, brilliant, and beautiful.
In Tokyo 1987 | https://donatocabrera.medium.com/the-music-plays-on-chet-baker-e866712d5e83 | ['Donato Cabrera'] | 2020-05-06 09:23:45.182000+00:00 | ['Las Vegas Philharmonic', 'Jazz', 'Music', 'Donato Cabrera', 'California Symphony'] |
Abdominal Weight Loss: Yoga Poses to Use. | Abdominal Weight Loss: Yoga Poses to Use.
1. The Sun Salutations:
These are a combination of poses that serve as a warm up-routine for a Yoga session or class. They are very similar to the popular calisthenics exercise known as burpees.
However, they differ in that they have a spiritual significance included as a result of executing them.
Due to the forward and backward bending motions involved, after performing a few to several rounds on a daily basis, you are bound to notice a marked loss of weight in you abdominal area and the added bonus of muscular tone.
2. The Bow Pose:
This simple pose involves laying flat on your belly and grabbing your ankles with both arms while simultaneously lifting your head up high.
When performed correctly, you should be resting on your abdomen. Needless to say, it is a pose commonly recommended for weight loss and the prevention and correction of chronic constipation.
3. Lots of Protein, Green Vegetables and Good Fats
Vegetables and Fruits are considered to have a low GI (not fruit juice though). Interestingly though, recent research has found what they believe is a link between fructose and obesity. However, the type of fructose studied was in corn syrup, which is a refined and concentrated form of fructose. It also doesn’t have the beneficial fiber, antioxidants and other phytochemicals that fruit does. This was also preliminary research done in an animal model, so it may not be valid for humans.
4. Choose weight loss foods (see list).
Whole Eggs. Once feared for being high in cholesterol, whole eggs have been making a comeback. …
Leafy Greens. …
Salmon. …
Cruciferous Vegetables. …
Lean Beef and Chicken Breast. …
Boiled Potatoes. …
Tuna. …
Beans and Legumes.
5.. The Peacock Pose:
This is slightly more challenging. The objective is to balance your abdomen on your conjoined elbows while simultaneously raising your legs and head of the floor.
Naturally, merely attempting it speeds up abdominal weight loss and detoxification of the visceral organs and the preparatory stage could suffice as the actual execution of the pose till the mastery of it is achieved
.
6. Limit Eating High Sugar and Starch
Obesity is now being called an epidemic in the health community. In fact, it will soon be the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, even ahead of cigarette smoking.
Obesity leads to type two diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease or stroke and even an increased risk of cancer. With all of these health risks, as well as the general improvement in the quality of life that can occur, losing weight is one of the best things that you can do for yourself.
Do not worry!
7. Avoid sugary drinks and fruit juices.
There is a wide range of options to choose from when looking for a weight loss program.
All of them often spend a lot of time explaining what to eat, in what amounts and even at what times or in what combinations. But few of them emphasize the importance of exercise — not just for losing weight, but for your general health and wellbeing. Exercise is vital when trying to lose weight for several reasons:
First, as you start to eat less, your metabolism will slow down somewhat. Exercising helps to elevate your metabolism back to an efficient level.Second, as mentioned, exercise burns more calories so that you can lose weight faster and stay motivated in your efforts.Third, exercise actually releases endorphins, chemicals that keep your mood elevated.
8. Eat whole, unprocessed foods.
Though this is a well known myth, it is still an arduous task to convince people that hypnosis has no such power. Rather, hypnosis is a tool to help the patient to resolve some of the problems that the patient faces.
It is often guided by a well-trained hypnotist and in no way that the hypnotist has the power to control the patient’s will if the patient is not willing to. The hypnotist is there to give positive affirmations to modify the patient’s behaviour. There isn’t any magic; the patient is in control during the entire session.
9. The Abdominal Lift:
Many hypnotherapists can and do write their own scripts but these can be time consuming; using a standard outline and inserting a client specific focus provides quality client care without having the extended workload of writing individualized scripts.
Hypnosis script can also be used for self hypnosis if a client is interested in using self hypnosis practices to resolve a personal issue or conquer an unwanted habit.
Many people choose to utilize the hypnosis scripts written for weight reduction and smoking cessation programs. There are a wide variety of hypnosis scripts available for free on the internet.
10. Eat a high-protein breakfast.
High-Protein Foods Should You Eat For Breakfast? ·
1.Scrambled eggs: with veggies, fried in coconut oil or olive oil.Mocha banana protein smoothie bowl
2. Jumbo chickpea pancake
3. Grain-free banana protein pancakes ·
This is not a pose, per-se but is a specific exercise that involves you exhaling your breath and pulling the diaphragm in while holding the breath out. This is a specific abdominal exercise for weight loss, spiritual rejuvenation and detoxification.
No matter what we would like to believe, there simply isn’t a magic solution to losing weight. The body will shed excess fat when it needs more calories to function through the demands you place on it in a given day than the amount of calories that you feed it. It’s that simple. So, in order to lose weight, you need to decrease the number of calories that you eat as well as increase the amount that you burn.
Exercise: Per Week 3 to 5 time (Optional)
Hypnosis is often seen by many people as a tool to control the mind and will of the person.
Personal Modification To Generalized Hypnosis Script Insures Successful Sessions
Hypnosis scripts provide a general guideline that the hypnotists use for a specific situation or issue that the patient is seeking assistance with at the time of the visit.
While most professional hypnotists do not follow the script exactly as it is written, each script provides an informational guide and outline to lead the hypnotist through the specific situation.
Glycemic Index:
The rates carbohydrates as having either a high, low or medium glycemic index. And the idea is to eat more foods that have either a low or medium glycemic index, and less with a high one. Low glycemic index foods enter the bloodstream more slowly, and so don’t raise blood sugar levels like high glycemic index foods.
So, what is a carbohydrate? All sugars, or foods that are broken down into sugar, are carbohydrates. This includes regular sugar, glucose (often used in sports drinks), fructose, (in fruit), lactose, (found in milk and similar products like yoghurt), maltose, (found in malt which is often used to flavor cereals), all types of starches, from potatoes to noodles and pasta, and legumes, such as lentils and peas (though these also contain some protein).
Researchers from the University of Florida found that fructose may make people believe they are hungrier than they should be. And when these researchers interrupted the way fructose was metabolized, the rats they were working with did not put on weight, even though they still ate fructose.
Obesity is not merely indulging into overeating and having a bulky body. It is more like a gateway to severe health diseases. Obese people should not be ridiculed; rather they should be taken care off.
Calculation of Obesity:
Obesity is calculated according to the body mass index (BMI) of a person’s body. Dividing the weight of a person in pounds by the square of his height in meters we get the BMI calculated. If an individual’s BMI is 30 or above then he falls under the category of an obese.
Obese people develop certain diseases such as high cholesterol, hypertension, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis etc.
Eat soluble fiber.
Black beans. Black beans are not only a great way to give your dishes a meaty texture but also an amazing source of fiber Lima beans. Lima beans, also known as butter beans, are large, flat, greenish-white beans.including Brussels sprouts Avocados, sweet potatoes Broccoli and turnips.. .
Besides having these health problems, they find it difficult to adjust themselves in the society. They develop stress and can even fall into depression. Hence, obesity is such an alarming condition that if ignore can lead to grave consequences.
Earlier, joining a fitness centre was the only solution to reduce weight. But today the scenario has changed. Medical science has come up with various weight reducing drugs in the market. Didrex can be an appropriate medication for you if you want to reduce weight in short span of time.
Fast You’ll Lose Weight (And Other Benefits)
Reduce blood sugar
Reduce bad cholesterol
Significantly improve blood pressure
Increase good cholesterol
Low Carb-Hi Protein Diets :
Diets like the Atkins, the South Beach and the Zone Diet all recommend restricted carbohydrates and allow liberal amounts of protein, including protein derived from animal sources. Generally, they limit the overall amount of carbohydrates, or teach you to differentiate between “good” and “bad” carbohydrates. Bad carbohydrates, which are forbidden, include white flour, white bread, and white sugar.
Pros:
The diets all encourage learning healthy eating as part of losing weight. Deriving most of your daily calories from high fiber sources of carbs like leafy green vegetables and grains is generally considered the best diet for nutrition by the established medical community. The popularity of the diets makes it easy to find low-carb foods.
Cons:
The allowance of eating all the protein and fats you like flies in the face of conventional medical wisdom. A diet high in saturated fats could lead to heart disease, diabetes, gout and other chronic health conditions. Following the diets’ cautions and advice to keep portions reasonable should mitigate that concern, though.
Importance of burning Fat Calories during exercise:
During aerobic exercise, your body goes through several stages before it reaches the point where you are burning fat. You will hear people say that you are only burning sugar (carbohydrates) not fat during the first 10 minutes of exercise. This is true to a certain extent.
I say this because you will continue to burn sugar past the 10 minute mark if you are not working out hard enough for your body to want more oxygen; or you are working out too hard and you can’t supply your body with enough oxygen for fat burning. When you exercise you must move at a steady pace (not too fast, not too slow) so your body will utilize your stored fat (not carbohydrates or sugar) as its energy source.
Also remember that just because you reached the fat burning stage does not mean you will stay there. Staying at the fat burning stage once again depends on if you are moving at a pace that is right for your body. Make sure that you are within your target heart rate range.
The only difference is what you give your attention to. Let me ask you a question. If you stopped all the negative talk that you currently have with yourself such as;
– I’m too fat
– Why would anyone want to love me
– I will never be thin
– I always fail
And the list can go on and on… How would you feel ? Do you think that you would feel emotionally lighter ? Do you think that you would feel happier ? Do you think that you would feel more confident ?
Now how do you think your life would change if you were to go one step further and modify your self talk by only speaking positively about yourself.
If you take some time and focus on what you like about yourself and focus on only that your emotional state will become The controversy surrounding the so-called miracle fat burner is likely to be around for a while.
If you are thinking of taking ephedra, always consult with your physician and make sure you have all the facts before making a decision. As with most supplements, you must have your “body foundation” — the training and nutrition — set before you will be able to determine any added benefit. Choose wisely, and decide if ephedra works for you!
Click here to access the page . You can do it too !
Disclaimer : The link above is an affiliate link. If you use it, I will earn a small commission from the vendor .
Thank You.. | https://medium.com/@myheavydot/abdominal-weight-loss-yoga-poses-to-use-5e5354967483 | ['Mansur Hashmi.'] | 2021-11-30 08:31:55.138000+00:00 | ['Abdominal', 'Weight Loss', 'Low Carb', 'Fat Burning Foods'] |
Your DEI Book Club Will Not Save You | Your DEI Book Club Will Not Save You
After the death of George Floyd, books about race and racism had a resurgence, climbing up the best seller lists (some for a second time) and selling out at bookstores all across the globe. Book lists of all the “must have” reads for folks who were awakening to the existence of racism in this country were flying around social media platforms like a quick-fix antidote. As mostly white folks, who were shocked that we weren’t in a post-racial America, scrambled to do something…anything in the midst of racial uprisings.
When the protest dust settled on the newly outraged, they landed in the most passive and safest place possible with organizations everywhere starting DEI book clubs, equity reading groups, flying in their favorite author for a drive-by talk and then quickly going back to their racism-as-usual practices. The one-off, low-hanging fruit activities gave organizations asleep at the wheel quick cover. Hey, look at us!, said corporation, We’re awake and doing things.
And here we are. Hundreds of thousands of people have read a book and perhaps they’re more enlightened about the difference between diversity and anti-racism, but collectively we are nowhere closer to undoing institutionalized racism then we were post Trayvon Martin, post Michael Brown, post Sandra Bland, post Breonna Taylor…., post……post…… post…
The thing we must reconcile is this, there is no room for safe, conflict avoidant, passive aggressive behavior in the undoing and dismantling of racism. To actually do diversity, equity and inclusion, to actually address racism in our institutions, you have to be willing to do hard, challenging, scary WORK. You have to be willing to give up some things — namely power. Sitting around a fire, navel gazing and waxing on about your revelation that white privilege is an actual thing that this country has fought to protect serves no one. Not even the people it privileges.
And hiring diverse talent — yes it’s a starting point. But unfortunately, for many organizations diversifying the talent pool is the start and the end of their efforts. Meanwhile, we never get to the root of the problem that led to the majority all white male institution in the first place. Your now beautifully diverse organization still holds racial bias in its performance, professional development and promotion processes. Staff of color still experience daily microaggressions and sometimes overt racism causing them to continue to feel unsafe bringing their whole-selves, including their strength and talents to bear on the organization. People in positions of power still largely reflect and operationalize the status quo. And so the churn continues.
Organizations that really want to commit to transform their institutions to be diverse, racially equitable, and inclusive must put in real effort. Let’s put down the lukewarm lattes, the dog-eared books about white fragility, and the hollow statements about your commitment to racial equity. It’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Here’s a starter list of where you can begin this labor effort:
Establish an internal team responsible for driving organizational transformation and outcomes. And by team, I do not mean the one person of color in your organization who now holds the DEI title in addition to their other job. I mean a fully resourced staff team with decision making power and authority. Discover and dig in on what the realities are for staff of color in your organization. Talk to all of them — new staff, old staff, former staff of color at all levels of the organization. You will need to get underneath the interpersonal, professional and personal to solve for the institutional. Laser focus your solutions on those experiencing the greatest inequity and harm. If you have Black women in your organization I can 99.9% guarantee you will need to center their experience in your DREI strategies. Contract an outside accountability partner. Even if you have a Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion with a full staff department, none of those individuals will be in a position to name hard truths without consequence. Hire someone outside of the organization to hold the organization accountable — pay them in advance so they have the freedom to call it like they see it and push on the system as needed to move real change.
Just these four steps are enough to get an organization out of stuck to strategy. But as all things as deeply entrenched as racism this is a journey not a sprint. Organizations have to be committed to the continuous and ongoing effort of interrogating their practices, culture and policies and then undoing and dismanteling the things that create harm and do not serve true equity and inclusion. | https://medium.com/@mayatsandifor/your-dei-book-club-will-not-save-you-aef167eec9fd | [] | 2020-12-05 19:00:44.863000+00:00 | ['Equity', 'Organizational Change', 'Inclusion', 'Dei', 'Racism'] |
Sunrise 20201224 | Haiku and Sijo from my daily awakening mind | https://medium.com/morning-haiku/sunrise-20201224-d38156be6870 | ['Jenny Lawton'] | 2020-12-24 00:00:00 | ['Gratitude', 'Haiku', 'Nature', 'Mindfulness'] |
Vancouver International Film Festival — UX/UI case study | Users and Audience
The target audience of this app are young working professionals. These users have a strong preference for mobile-first, fast, and interactive experiences. Printed guide just doesn’t cut it any more.
A key differentiator of this user group is that they are heavy users of streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, so they want something that feels familiar to those experiences in terms of browsing and discovering content.
Team and Role
This project was part of my User Experience Design (UxD) certification program at Red Academy. I worked with a team of 4 UX (including me!) and 2 UI designers with occasional support from instructors.
My team and I conducted user research using methods such as interviews, surveys, affinity diagrams, competitive analysis, and usability testing. Having had previous experience designing a mobile app from the ground up, I led all facets of visual design: including user task flows, interaction and visual design, and prototyping.
Members
Jennifer Su, Amanda Kurek, Abdul Rafay (me!), Miriam Bellon, Newton Ribeiro, Achal Kshirsagar
Research
Competitive Analysis
We began our research by looking at other film festivals. We discovered that although not many festivals had a supplement app, their websites provided a good mobile-first experience for users. However, we felt that creating a mobile app would allow us to provide a truly personalized festival-going experience for attendees. | https://medium.com/@rafayshaukat/vancouver-international-film-festival-ux-ui-case-study-d0522e70af01 | ['Rafay Shaukat'] | 2020-01-14 04:05:45.396000+00:00 | ['UI', 'Visual Design', 'UX', 'Interaction Design', 'Product Design'] |
That Which Can Be Destroyed by the Truth Should Never be Spared Its Demise: | “Hail Satan?” Magnolia Pictures (2019)
That Which Can Be Destroyed by the Truth Should Never be Spared Its Demise: Viceovervirtue Aug 10·20 min read
Part I: Is TST Secretly a Sinister Alt-Right Group Luring People Under a Pretense of Progressivism?
**Disclaimer: I am NOT speaking ON BEHALF OF The Satanic Temple nor am I an authorized representative of TST**
Reasons Why I Sometimes Argue With Internet Trolls and Blind Haters Before I launch into this lengthy and detailed explanation, let me be crystal clear: I do not believe The Satanic Temple is above scrutiny. I do not believe that leaders within the Satanic Temple are deities who can do no wrong. I believe that, like all people, they are fallible. They have made and will continue to make mistakes in the future; as will we all (myself included). I am not perfect, nor am I claiming to be. In this piece, I offer my own personal perspective and understanding on each of the most common accusations lodged against the Satanic Temple along with examples of the type of encounters one can expect to experience if you happen to be an opinionated woman who dares to correct (with facts and screenshots,) or even to request proof of the fabricated tales this particular group of sour and pathetic individuals chooses to spin online. Here goes…
To Ignore or Destroy, that is the Question
Allow me to set the stage for those who may be unfamiliar: there is one story (identical story; interchangeable characters) which occurs every few months or so. The ending is hackneyed and nauseatingly predictable; which results in an ever-growing roster of anti-TST sociopathic grifters.
Step one: An individual becomes involved in TST due to aligned values claiming that it is their wish to altruistically benefit the organization. All the while, they seek self-aggrandizement and personal acclaim.
Step two: Individual becomes indignantly offended when TST fails to become their own cult of personality.
Step three: Individual dramatically exits;
Step four: Individual accuses TST of BEING a cult.*
*this is often accompanied by a Medium article, blog post, video or some combination of these outlets platforming their cries for attention and persecution delusions.
Now, these folks claim that they’re just sharing their own personal experiences (their “truths”) and that they wish to protect others from suffering a similar fate to their own. Some even proclaim that they narrowly “escaped a cult” when referencing their decision to leave TST. Many seem to share similar delusions of persecution which I would speculate is merely a coping mechanism deployed to shield their narcissistic egos. I am not, however, a doctor or psychologist.
A predictable cycle ensues whenever somebody calls out their hypocrisy, showcases their inconsistencies, and/or proves that they’re lying about a particular issue. Immediately after they realize someone has debunked one of their claims, they hurl a new (and often completely unrelated) allegation….as if that will change the fact that they just lied.
These folks will say anything to fit their predetermined “TST Bad” narrative and never admit to their willful deception and slander. After they’ve deployed two or three accusations or half-truths, their last resort is inevitably to decry: “wElL tHiS oNe TiMe MaLcOlM oR lUcIeN sAiD…”
Co-founder, Malcom Jarry, is not TST. Co-founder, Lucien Greaves, is NOT TST. Malcolm and Lucien are both human. Malcolm and Lucien are both fallible. However, Malcolm and Lucien are wonderful people who have sacrificed many of their personal freedoms and virtually all of their safety to fight for causes they truly believe in. Personally, I find that admirable and it is more than can be said of any of these self-righteous keyboard warriors who will do anything to create a public problem with one of TST’s cofounders (even when it means completely fabricating stories and contorting every single TST-related interaction they’ve ever experienced into something sinister) in the hopes of gaining a few more social media followers.
However, when I defend TST’s reputation from slanderous falsehoods or offer my own opinion on something a cofounder may or may not have even said, I am automatically labeled a “cultist” or a “groupie” because apparently disagreeing with the “TST bad” doctrine is equivalent to drinking Jonestown flavor aid.
This article will no doubt have many people saying the same thing and labeling me a “TST apologist”. If that is your opinion after reading my rationalizations for why each of the following claims deserve to be confronted and how to do so, so be it. Nonetheless, I encourage you to think critically about each of these instances, the demonstrated motives and contradictory behaviors deployed by those peddling these claims as well as the potentially negative consequences of misinformation and propaganda.
I am a Satanist, damnit. As such, I don’t see pride as a “sin”. I am proud of my religious identity, and I willingly choose to volunteer my time to TST because the tenets resonate with me and I enjoy participating in TST-related causes, campaigns, and projects. TST and the community of Satanists within have helped me become a better version of myself; as such, I take it personally when I witness opportunistic, lying, self-serving, bottom feeders behaving in such a dishonest manner and going on active campaigns built on foundations of lies against something that means so much to me. Below is PART I of an ongoing series of pieces I will be releasing to counteract this dangerous misinformation.
SPECIAL THANKS AND SHOUTOUT TO KAELEAKAE FOR HELPING ME TURN MY ANGRY MUSINGS INTO SOMETHING COHERENT, FOR BEING A WONDERFUL AND INSIGHTFUL EDITOR, SHARING HER IDEAS, AND BEING A BEAUTIFUL PERSON INSIDE AND OUT. I LOVE YOU. ❤
“Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.
― Jonathan Swift
Part I:
Accusation: TST is Secretly a Sinister Alt-Right Group Luring People Under a Pretense of Progressivism
This one in particular is baffling to me. Shall we count the reasons? Of course, when we’re finished addressing each point in the conspiratorial arsenal, someone will likely proclaim: “where there’s smoke there must be fire!” If you engage in willful confirmation bias toward an organization as large and as active as TST, you can easily create the appearance of a lot of smoke. Still, some assert that the sheer number of idiotic accusations and logical fallacies presented must equate to “truth”. If that is your line of thinking and what you’re inclined to believe, I must ask: have you checked the basement of Comet Ping Pong for a child sex-trafficking ring? Those emails, man.
Working with Randazza = Supporting Nazis?
First off, “taking offense” is neither a valid nor productive form of activism. Nonetheless, there was a mass exodus from TST over the decision to accept pro-bono legal representation for one of TST’s court cases pertaining to the First Amendment from a competent and nationally renowned First Amendment Lawyer, Marc Randazza. Randazza is a controversial figure because he’s a First Amendment lawyer who has had far right clients as well as far left clients, though the outrage brigade entirely ignores the left-wing clients he’s represented. Accepting someone’s professional services is no more an endorsement of said professional’s personal views than it is a prerequisite for an attorney to agree with their client’s personal views prior to defending them.
What prompted the situation in which TST accepted Randazza’s pro bono legal support?
A Twitter user threatened to burn down the Satanic Temple’s headquarters and was subsequently retweeted by celebrity and former child-actor Corey Feldman (along with commentary stating he was crying after watching a video of a woman who claims to have been sexually abused by a Satanic cult). Feldman had no small number of followers on twitter and his tweet implied that The Satanic Temple is a cult who sexually abuses people. This retweeted call for violence was shared with Feldman’s significant twitter following.
TST’s spokesperson reported the tweet for being a violation of Twitter’s Terms of Service (which explicitly prohibit the targeting of religious groups and bars calls for violence against both groups and individuals) however, the response he received stated, after review, Twitter had decided the tweet did not violate their ToS. Oftentimes, social media moderators are underpaid and lack the ability to interpret and apply basic policies without being influenced by their own personal biases. Being all too familiar with the type of religious zeal that motivates religious extremists to commit violent atrocities, TST’s spokesperson recognized the potential consequences of a violent call to action (to burn down TST’s physical headquarters) being shared with a wide-audience. As such, he shared Feldman’s post with his own followers, requesting the tweet be reported. It is reasonable to conclude that, with enough reports, this obvious ToS violation would be routed to a content moderator who possessed the ability to act in a manner consistent with reason (and Twitter’s actual policy). Rather than requiring the original tweet author to delete her tweet, Twitter issued the decision to permanently disable TST’s spokesperson’s twitter account because, apparently, Twitter’s belief was that TST’s spokesperson was guilty of “targeted harassment” due to the influx of reports submitted pertaining to the original tweet (per his request).
The “permanent” decision to disable TST’s spokesperson’s twitter account turned out not to be so permanent. Twitter chose to reinstate access five days later; however, in the interim, a man with no prior connections to TST showed up at the Satanic Temple headquarters threatening violence culminating in the individual being charged for “assault with a deadly weapon”. Coincidence? Possibly. However, this incident demonstrably proves that calls for violence frequently leveled against TST (and prominent figures within TST) are not all empty threats and that they should not be dismissed lightly.
TST decided to sue Twitter and accepted Randazza’s free legal support in doing so.
Despite this chain of events, you may still be screaming hysterically “How dare they work with a Nazi defender!? I thought TST was progressive!” Or you may attack the premise of this case itself by condemning it as an egotistical move to “get the account of TST’s spokesperson verified. Something not worth getting into bed with Nazis over”. You may take the road of indignation, opining that TST could have chosen to work with any other attorney, even if it cost more money.
Before you run crying in outrage, it’s worth re-contextualizing, as these viewpoints lack perspective. Tropes like this are bludgeoned to death by folks who are committed to misunderstanding, regurgitating half-truths, or are simply unaware of the background and facts surrounding this incident.
Imagine that you’re facing death row for a crime you did not commit; the trajectory and duration of your life is in the hands of our judicial system along with a history of bias against everything you stand for and who you are. Are you going to turn down pro bono legal representation from a competent lawyer with legal expertise specific to your case and a proven record of winning? Will you look that lawyer in the face and ask them to justify the political convictions of prior clients before agreeing to said legal assistance? I doubt it.
I suppose it is easy to be choosy on behalf of others in need of legal representation when it’s not your money being spent, not a battle you’re currently fighting, and not an issue you take seriously. If you find religious discrimination and threats of violence unworthy of your time (particularly from behind your keyboard with the privilege to ignore it), all of these scenarios may seem to be a hypothetical problem rather than an immediate reality. The decision to sue Twitter over their egregious mishandling of the situation was reached because it threatened the safety and lives of any Satanist visiting TST’s headquarters. That in and of itself should explain why Randazza’s help was accepted.
The principle of the matter is of even greater importance, and yet, is even less frequently understood.
Satanism is a religion and The Satanic Temple is a religious organization. Why would TST accept being treated as “less than?” Do you honestly believe that Twitter would have responded in the same manner if a Christian or Catholic church been threatened with arson? Or if a protestant preacher had asked his followers to report a tweet calling for his church to be burnt to the ground? It was important for TST to reject this singling out as well as the implicit notion that Satanists’ lives and safety don’t matter as much as “real religions”.
Additionally, it is worth noting that TST would accept Randazza’s pro bono legal support in the future, even recently if Mississippi had followed through with plans to place “in God We Trust” on their state flag. Those who pretend to hold some moral high ground for fear of “Randazza cooties” fail to understand the dire importance of TST’s fight against encroaching theocracy. TST is desperately fighting to keep religious pluralism alive and chooses to prioritize its principles over these particular optics. These legal battles are no small feat. It is of utmost importance to deploy any legal means, advantages, and tactics within their disposal. To do anything less is to risk setting poor legal precedent and to risk the physical safety and lives of TST members.
People Are Fallible
“TST fraternizes with Nazis” soon devolves into: “Well, this one-time Lucien said” and “Greg Stevens (Director of Executive Ministry) previously befriended a Nazi and even wrote an article to an audience of Nazis!”
Lucien Greaves: In 2002 (nearly 20 years ago, now) and more than a decade prior to The Satanic Temple’s conception, Lucien Greaves, TST’s co-founder and most prominent spokesperson, was a guest on a podcast in which he jokingly proclaimed himself an “Aryan King” in reply to someone speculating — because Lucien had been speaking directly about the unreason in holding prejudice against people of Jewish lineage — that Lucien himself must be Jewish (this was also after he ruefully noted that his physical appearance and aesthetic — boots and short hair — had on at least one occasion caused him to be mistaken for a skinhead). He spoke about the potential benefits of selective genetics from an explicitly de-racialized perspective. This was not the anti-Semitic rant detractors claim it was (focusing partially on a segment where Lucien stated that he feels it is okay to mock superstitious religious fundamentalist Jews for their beliefs, but not their bloodlines). It is also clearly not representative of the beliefs of Lucien Greaves today, who co-founded The Satanic Temple as a clear repudiation of the Social Darwinist LaVeyan beliefs he subscribed to at the time the podcast was recorded. It is certainly fair to point out that he used crass and inconsiderate statements to make his points; however, it is absolutely a misrepresentation of facts to claim that he is or ever was a white supremacist.
One of TST’s seven core tenets is: “People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused”. Unlike many belief systems based in supernaturalism that require individuals to beg a father figure for clemency, TST’s atheistic Satanism demands that individuals be judged by their concrete actions. Make a mistake? Do what you can to fix it.
So, what is there to be done? For starters, he can live a life that’s worth living, do his best to use his skills and abilities to fight against social injustices, and be open-minded enough to continue to grow, improve, and revise his positions on social issues. He renounced LaVeyan Satanism and social Darwinism long ago, has written and willingly shared a public apology for his previous commentary, and has completely revised his world view.
Lucien isn’t perfect, none of us are. Will he make mistakes in the future? Absolutely. However, he has personally sacrificed so much on behalf of TST. His personal safety is constantly at risk, he receives a steady barrage of death threats, and has lost friendships with many people who meant a great deal to him due to his commitment to TST’s mission and principles. Nonetheless, there are numerous articles on the internet dissecting every word said in the outdated interview, and social media is flooded with people declaring this is “proof” that he is a bad person.
The most outspoken keyboard warriors who claim to be sounding the alarm and warning people to save themselves from Lucien’s anti-Semitism are often former members who knew the details of the incident long before they decided to leave TST, and who were once extremely vocal about their support for TST and for Lucien specifically. I find it particularly ironic for former TST members (one of whom was such a Lucien fan that they edited together at least three videos dedicated to his greatest quips and quotes and felt comfortable enough in their relation to him to publicly declare their desire to one day “peg” him) to have clearly renounced their former views and revised their understanding of the situation by asserting that it is impossible for someone (Lucien) to change or revise his manner of thinking”. They also conveniently fail to address the fact that if Lucien actually were Antisemitic, there is no way he would have chosen to co-found The Satanic Temple with a Jewish person.
Greg Stevens: Once these brazen falsehoods are addressed, it is inevitable that the “guilt by association” tactic will be deployed by those committed to justifying their anti-TST sentiments. “GREG STEVENS WORKED FOR BREITBART” is a common piece of misinformation that has become so prevalent, that it is often accepted as truth. However, this too is a gross mischaracterization of facts. Greg once wrote an article titled: “When Satanism Met the Internet,” (https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/10/31/when-satanism-met-the-internet/ ). This is no secret, and he has no reason to feel ashamed of taking advantage of any opportunity to write an article about Satanism (for an audience that would not otherwise be exposed to an honest article about Satanism). There is nothing alt-right about it or its contents, nor was he financially compensated for having the piece published.
Anyone familiar with the type of “news’ Breitbart typically publishes may be wondering: “How the hell did an article providing an objective perspective on Satanism get published by Breitbart!?” The reason is due, in part, to Greg’s former friendship with Milo Yiannopoulos. **insert sound of a record player coming to a screeching halt. ** Wait, What? Yep. That’s right, Greg was once friends with Milo Yiannopoulos.
The “M-Word”
Greg met and befriended Milo back in 2007 (long before Milo became famous.) At the time, he and Milo shared many common pop-culture interests (un-related to politics) that made their shared time together enjoyable. Additionally, they were both writers interested in exploring similar topics (though approaching them from vastly different perspectives).
When they first met, Milo was struggling to reconcile his political and religious views with his identity as a gay man. Greg (who is also gay) empathized with Milo’s inner turmoil, all the while adhering to a polar opposite set of personal, political, and religious beliefs. Greg knew a version of Milo that most never will, especially now. That version of Milo, the version that existed before his desire for fame completely outweighed his humanity, no longer exists. Now, Milo is a Fox News-esque caricature for conservative politics who thrives on attention generated through outrage. It is hard for anyone who sees his behavior today to fathom that he could have ever existed as anything other than a vile and despicable person. People, however, are complicated. Even Milo Yiannopoulous hasn’t always been 100% awful. Greg’s perception of Milo was that he changed over the period of time in which they knew one another, and part of Greg sincerely hoped that by being the friend who “didn’t give up” on Milo, he might be able to stop and potentially even reverse Milo’s trajectory down the alt-right rabbit hole.
Genuinely caring about someone who holds atrocious views is something many people will grapple with at some point in their lives. Oftentimes, there comes a point where the friendship is no longer viable, because the person’s views and/or actions cause too much harm. The towel must be thrown in and the individual who espouses the conflicting views is so far gone that there is no longer hope in them being brought back from a state of unreason. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to critique that process when it involves someone else’s decisions (especially when the ex-friend in question is someone like Milo!)
Some will sit behind their keyboards and posture that Greg maintained this friendship for too long and should have cut Milo out of his life much sooner than he did. The truth of the matter is this: Greg never endorsed or adopted any of Milo’s vitriolic views or harmful rhetoric, and he chose to end the friendship. For someone like Greg, having deep, intelligent, philosophical discussions about important issues with someone he vehemently disagrees with is something to be celebrated, not shied away from. Being challenged to defend his personal logic and reasoning in an intelligent and articulate manner reinforces and reinvigorates the passion that he has for issues like LGBTQIA+ rights and religious freedom, as does the hope in his arguments one day swaying someone’s mind and helping them to become a more open and accepting person. Should he have given up on Milo sooner? Perhaps. Nonetheless, characterizing Greg as “alt-right” is genuinely laughable as there is absolutely zero proof to support that theory and much more to contradict it.
Guilt By Association
Stephen Bradford Long does an excellent job of explaining the difference between the concepts of Contagion Left and the Conversion Left in his article “Why I Haven’t Left the Satanic Temple” (well worth a read: https://stephenbradfordlong.com/2020/05/21/why-i-havent-left-the-satanic-temple/) He explains: “To me, a reformed Nazi is a triumph, because that means that Nazi won’t be able to hurt people in the way they used to. To me, a formerly homophobic pastor realizing they are wrong is a triumph, because it means the vulnerable gay kids in his church will be less abused… I celebrate any occasion when someone changes their mind in favor of leftism, regardless of how toxic their former beliefs. Progress is not inevitable, and if we don’t fight for progress, I fear that fascism, racism, and tyranny will win. While we are wringing our hands in our leftist enclaves, the far-right Christian nationalist movement is wasting no time in turning every level of our nation into a bigoted theocracy. Whereas the Contagion Left seems to see fascism, nationalism, and Nazism as a spiritual quality which can infect a person with secret inner evil… not only does the spiritual contagion travel between people, it travels through time. An additional hallmark of Contagion Leftism is assuming guilt before it is established, and then expecting innocence to be proven”. The accusations refuted within this piece are textbook examples of Contagion Leftism which spreads so easily through dishonest online discourse. There should be no need to “prove” Lucien’s or Greg’s innocence. Their good deeds and actions speak for themselves; nonetheless, I feel this piece is worth writing, as (hopefully) an antidote to the toxic sickness of Contagion Leftism afflicting many otherwise reasonable individuals. Growing up in a Christian household, I remember being taught that my self-worth should be directly tied to my sexual purity and abstinence — that if I were to give into temptation and have sex prior to marriage, I would be forever tainted. This was once demonstrated to me with the analogy that a sexually pure woman was like a brand-new stick of gum, whereas a sexually impure woman is equivalent to chewed gum: used and tasteless. Why would anyone ever choose someone else’s chewed gum? This is exactly the type of logic being deployed against Greg and others when the guilty by association card is played. “Greg was once friends with someone awful; well…he must be forever tainted and unworthy of your time, and incapable of doing any good in the world”. Positioning oneself as “holier than thou” and looking down upon Greg’s relationship with a FORMER friend takes a special kind of self-importance. To opine that someone with truly important and meaningful work to contribute is somehow “tainted” by a former association is disgraceful. It leads to the creation of a new, self-righteous purity culture that is just as twisted, nonsensical, and appalling as Christian purity culture. Imagine being in Greg’s shoes; he is part of a marginalized community as a gay man who is now exiled from members within his support network based solely on “guilt by association” logic.
Enlightenment Values
The argument that “TST is secretly a sinister alt-right group luring people under a pretense of progressivism” relies upon the frail notion of guilt by association (chiefly Randazza and Milo, but there are others as well). It should be reiterated that TST will always preference principles over pristine optics. TST was founded upon and stands for Enlightenment values which include, but are not limited to: liberty, progress, tolerance, constitutional government, separation of state and church, and the inalienable right of freedom of speech. These are values that TST seeks to uphold, even as they’ve fallen out of popular favor with many. The principle of free speech is a very difficult concept for many to grasp (particularly when the discussions are limited to the Twittersphere and especially when the espoused opposing views are in fact deplorable). To defend someone’s right to speak and their ability to voice dissenting opinions in no way equates to endorsement or adoption of those views. This is a principle that Satanists (of all backgrounds and identities) should think deeply about prior to demanding that all spaces be 100% ideologically pure; this is a double-edged sword that can just as easily be used to silence our voices, get us disinvited from speaking events, and prevent us from attaining the equal representation in public spheres we are constitutionally entitled to.
To be clear: I am in NO way arguing that racism and Satanism are at all aligned with one another, nor that I personally think racist views are worth listening to or are anything other than disgusting. Do I want racism eradicated? Yes. Do I want justice for people of races, religions, sexual orientations, genders, creeds, countries of origin, etc. YES. Absolutely. However, it is foolish to proclaim oneself a supporter of free speech if one only supports free speech that one personally agrees with.
When governments are given the power to arbitrarily dictate which speech is considered permissible or worthy based on “moral” standards, you can bet your ass Satanists will inevitably be discriminated against as well. It takes a great degree of privilege to nitpick at the ideologically impure and reduce nuance to essentialist condemnations. Said condemnations become a dogwhistle to those online with nothing better to do, those who are making no real efforts to end systemic oppression, or to those who contribute nothing meaningful to their (non-Twitter) community. The real struggles faced by minorities in this country are not addressed by sectarian sniping, but instead by unity, real world activism, and organizing/rallying around common enemies.
Confirmation Bias and Circular Reasoning
There are a handful of repeat offenders online who intentionally engage in dishonest conspiratorial fear-mongering, obfuscating the truth through essentialist logic:
1.) Lucien said X on a podcast
2.) I interpret X as being Y
3.) Because X is Y, Lucien must also be Y
Once anyone points out information to the contrary, do they admit to the intentional misrepresentation of the facts or to the possibility that they came to the wrong conclusion? No. Instead they seek new evidence to “prove” that their subjective interpretations (facts be damned) must be the real “truth”. The whataboutism, the reductive boiling down of everything into singular condemnations are all tactics the actual “right” often uses to oppress queer people, people of color, and anyone left of center.
If you take any organization TST’s size (nearing half a million members in 2021) and you desperately search for any prior associations that support your bias, you will inevitably be able to come up with a narrative as feeble as the one being propagated that seeks to convince the ill-informed and easily persuaded spectator: “TST is secretly a sinister alt-right group luring people under a pretense of progressivism”. This can easily be achieved by painting associations in a specific way, quoting things out of context, and ignoring all counterevidence. The narrative completely falls apart once scrutinized and looked at logically, recognizing that organizations are comprised of complex human beings rather than two dimensional “good guys” or “bad guys”. Unfortunately, instead, individuals are accused of irredeemable transgressions and are treated to unattainable purity standards being imposed upon them to have always been perfect, always have made the ‘right’ decisions, to have shining records, and to have never made a single mistake or poor judgment call in their entire lives.
Final Note
Feel free to submit any genuine inquires directly to me via email: [email protected] and please be patient for my response(s) as there is a plethora of misinformation that I plan on combatting prior to addressing (or even reading) any replies to this piece.
Bear in mind, this is only “Part I” of an entire series, the next installment will delve into TST’s alleged Ponzi scheme; shell corporations; money laundering practices and corrupt hierarchy of self-promoting narcissistic ne’er-do-wells. Stay tuned… | https://medium.com/@viceovervirtue666/that-which-can-be-destroyed-by-the-truth-should-never-be-spared-its-demise-814b882e4454 | [] | 2021-08-26 23:38:17.072000+00:00 | ['Enlightenment', 'Satanism', 'Religious Freedom', 'Misinformation', 'The Satanic Temple'] |
It’s Pride Month — that should mean purposeful change in Wyoming | As another Pride Month rolls around and LGBTQ+ individuals and allies across the state celebrate, will Wyoming let another year elapse without passing legislation to protect or affirm LGBTQ+ rights?
It’s no secret Wyoming lags in LGBTQ+ rights — the Human Rights Campaign has labeled the state as “high priority to achieve basic equality,” which is the worst rating by the LGBTQ+ rights organization. In fact, legislation that was presented in early 2019 to protect LGBTQ+ workers from being fired on the grounds of their sexual orientation was steamrolled when Speaker of the House Eric Barlow refused to bring the bill to the floor during session.
Wyoming Democrats and Wyoming Equality lobbied for the passage of HB 230 to protect LGBTQ+ worker rights, but the Speaker of the House failed to bring it to the floor.
The demand for LGBTQ+ protections is not a campaign to impose beliefs on others. Rather, it’s an affirmation that religious and cultural beliefs do not superimpose human rights. Yet, constituents continue to place people in positions of power — like Vicki Kissack of the Campbell County GOP and Gillette-based State Representative Scott Clem — who defame the LGBTQ+ community and those who fight for their rights.
In a since-deleted Facebook post, Vicki Kissack compared the LGBTQ+ community to Nazis. Image courtesy of the Casper Star Tribune.
As a gay man myself, it’s frustrating to see my home state sleep on protections for and discriminate against some of its own. Full discloser — I haven’t lived in Wyoming for nearly four years, but, being born and raised in the state, I still consider myself a faithful and proud Wyomingite. I want to make the state better and a more accepting place for everyone.
It offers hope that some leaders have taken steps to learn about LGBTQ+ individuals and have worked to challenge their internal biases. Take, for example, former Senator Mike Enzi — after making offensive comments about the gender expression of a Wyoming man, Sissy, Enzi sat down with him and had an open dialogue in which they came to a mutual respect. Unfortunately, that represents the minority of Wyoming’s leaders and does not equal legal protections or affirmation of rights.
That’s why, this Pride Month, legislators and leaders should work toward leveling the playing field for those who identify as LGBTQ+ by passing legislation that makes it illegal to discriminate against sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, education, adoption, and even insurance. Further, state law must grant the same permissions to same-sex couples as straight couples.
As many celebrate Pride Month and the LGBTQ+ people in our lives, let us not forget the work we still must complete. | https://medium.com/@matthew-winterholler/its-pride-month-that-should-mean-meaningful-change-in-wyoming-563866047405 | ['Matthew Winterholler'] | 2021-06-08 02:51:34.324000+00:00 | ['Wyoming', 'Pride', 'LGBT Rights', 'LGBTQ', 'Legislation'] |
Indefinite | Indefinite
Tanka
Line Art Lubna Yusuf
They say life and death
come to us but only once
yet I have met mine
in every morning’s new life
between indefinite deaths | https://medium.com/a-cornered-gurl/indefinite-1c28177477c1 | ['Lubna Yusuf'] | 2020-12-04 11:07:03.792000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Tanka', 'A Cornered Gurl', 'Philosophy', 'Life'] |
MacKenzie Scott, Thank You | “How could you ever hope to separate the random from the intentional?”, is asked by author Maria Konnikova, in her book The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win. This philosophical query is also one that Guy Raz poses to the founders of successful businesses in NPR’s podcast, How I Built This with Guy Raz. Towards the end of each interview, Guy asks “How much of your success do you attribute to your skill, your intelligence, your hard work, and how much of it luck?”.
A few months ago I read MacKenzie Scott’s article, 116 Organizations Driving Change, on Medium that detailed how she planned to give the majority of her wealth back to society. The thoughtfulness in her writing and commitment to her pledge filled me with gratitude, so I decided to write a response on Medium, in the form of a letter. As I began to type, my emotion shifted, moving more towards something more powerful, FOMO. This is the acronym for Fear Of Missing Out. FOMO’s use in the internet world applies to everything from missing out on an investment opportunity or missing out on a great time with your friends. In this situation, it was the thought of Prairie View A&M University, my alma mater, missing out on recognition for the transformative work that it has done, and is currently doing in Greater Houston, in Texas, in the United States, and beyond!
Ms. Scott’s first list included six black colleges - Hampton University, Howard University, Morehouse College, Spelman College, Tuskegee University, and the Xavier University of Louisiana. All are EXCEPTIONAL institutions. Within the HBCU community, these schools are what I refer to as typical. Typical as in expected, meaning that when the average person thinks of black colleges, more than likely the name Howard comes to mind. Or when I saw the headline Billionaire Donates to Black College, reading that Morehouse was the beneficiary felt proverbial. The name recognition of these schools is powerful and their aura is compounded by news articles and internet mentions of their eliteness and the generosity that ensues.
I feared that Prairie View A&M University would miss out, be overlooked, and be neglected on a national scale so I wrote what was on my heart and published it on Medium, optimistic that Ms. Scott would see the reply. Now, as of December 15, Ms. Scott’s recent donation of 50 MILLION DOLLARS to my alma mater sparked texts from friends asking have I heard the news and how I felt. I feel AMAZING, not for myself but for what it potentially means for the black colleges she has given to this go-round!
In Ms. Scott’s most recent list of recipients, she increased the number of black colleges to 17! Many of them, generally overshadowed.
Alcorn State University — $25M
Bowie State University — $25M
Claflin University — $20M
Clark Atlanta University — $15M
Delaware State University — $20M
Dillard University — $15M
Elizabeth City State University — $15M
Lincoln University — $20M
Morgan State University — $40M
Norfolk State University — $40M
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University — $45M
Prairie View A&M University — $50M
Tougaloo College — $6M
Virginia State University — $30M
University of Maryland Eastern Shore — $20M
Voorhees College — $4M
Winston-Salem State University — $30M
Do I think that my letter played a role in MacKenzie Scott’s donation? Maybe. Prairie View A&M University was written an unprecedented eye-popping $50 million check!
Does it matter if my letter played a role in MacKenzie Scott’s donation? How could you ever hope to separate the random from the intentional?
With Ms. Scott’s pledge, I wanted her and her team to go beyond the surface, and they’ve done just that. | https://medium.com/@rashadmorgan/mackenzie-scott-thank-you-310f794f2bb7 | [] | 2020-12-21 16:22:45.898000+00:00 | ['Hbcu', 'Philanthropy', 'Prairie View', 'Black Colleges', 'Mackenzie Scott'] |
A Basic Rule to Remember When Conducting Interviews | Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash
If you checked out Writings for the Catholic Abbey to the Secular World you will see that I have a list of interviews. I greatly enjoy doing them and even writing them as well.
I edit the original conversation down from the raw recording I do during each one. If I offered just a transcript, the article would be two to five times longer and with the usual ‘um’s’ and ‘you knows’ that come with speaking. So they are edited down for clarification and for a concise message. The one exception is George Weigel who wrote his responses to my questions.
Occasionally, people mention suggestions of those to interview and I consider them. I may or may not act on the idea, it depends on whether or not I can produce the interview well or whether I should. For example, there are some I would not interview because I believe it would just be contentious even if I did not intend it to be.
One of my roots in media is WUMB-FM where the general manager Patricia Monteith had a rule that I follow to this day: She saw the radio station as a public service and taught that any guest on the airwaves must be treated as someone who is being served by a public company and is there to help inform others. My role would be to make sure that happened and not have the focus on me and my innovative ways to make a name for myself.
Therefore, whenever I interviewed a guest on the air, I was not to do “gotcha” journalism. Neither, by the way, did I want to do it. Pat wanted to see the person walk out happy to have been able to express their story on WUMB-FM.
One of my favorite interview memories was ofMichael Fair who at the time was the Commissioner of Corrections for the Dukakis Administration in Massachusetts. This was radio. No one saw that he stared me right in the eye throughout the entire one hour program interview. He was concerned about that same “gotcha” journalism found on other stations. He thought I I would do things like mute his microphone to make sure he only said what I wanted over the air.
I believe he did not understand enough about the mechanics of radio sound to know that was not possible. Sitting in the same studio, if I muted his microphone to silence him, my microphone would have to be muted as well or it would not work. Not only would listeners still hear him although from a distance, they would know I tried to mute him. Of course, it was a moot point (pun intended) as I never practiced that form of interview.
When the program ended, he was happy to find I never used “gotcha” journalism on him. Nevertheless, we touched every point that I planned to make.
Understand that this man was responsible for overseeing the prisons and their policies in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Prior to the show, I asked others in my community what they feel I should ask. One wanted to see prisoners suffer for their crimes and believed that such amenities as televisions and other “comforts” should be forbidden to them. It is clearly not my position but I used it in the interview.
My role as interviewer is to represent the public. I will ask questions that I know they want to hear not what I want to ask necessarily. I will even ask questions in which I know the answer because the point is my guest’s response. So I made sure I brought forth this question of the person who wanted to see prisoners suffer without tipping my hand that this was not my position. Mr. Fair explained that such a policy would endanger the public. Angry prisoners treated poorly become angrier prisoners coming out and they have a greater chance of doing worse things than before they entered. The public, he explained, is not protected.
Ironically, Michael Dukakis’ successor William Weld ran on that harsh treatment of prisoners platform.
I hit every challenging point I intended but did it respectfully and in a way that benefitted the audience. This is where my roots lie. It is also why my posted interviews may appear a bit different than others because my interviewing style comes from my roots in radio not from print journalism.
I did many other interviews on all kinds of subjects from safety to public policy.
None of my interviews were or will be “gotcha” journalism. I still live by the same rule I learned at WUMB-FM. These interviews are a public service to whomever reads them and, therefore, the subjects must be treated in that way.
Therefore, if I do interview someone, it will have to be in a way that I can make sure that I touch every point I think is important to my audience and do it in a way that will be respectful to the person regardless of where I stand on the subject. In fact, if I do my job well no one will know my position at all because the focus is on the interviewee.
If I had a subject who held positions that I abhor to the point that I would not be able to do the interview, I would pass on it. I would not interview him or her unless I could make it clear that I strongly disagree with his or her positions in a way that was not intimidating. I would let the persons respond in a way he or she felt comfortable and not threatened. I could not for example make it appear we agree when we don’t for the sake of making them feel good. I would have to make my point in a non-threatening way but one that was clear.
I have done it many times before in all kinds of situations so that is not difficult. The question is: “how will it come out in an interview?” That too has to be a consideration for those whom I choose to interview. Such people that I choose not to interview compose a tiny list, but they are there.
The principle also works in reverse. I appeared on international TV and radio on several venues but I also was invited onto shows by some national TV hosts and I said “No.” I do not feel in good faith I could appear on a program hosted by someone whom I could not treat with respect. I did it once and would not do it again just out of principle.
In either case, the interviews you read at Writings from the Catholic Abbey . . .are always as a service to the reader and the interviewee which I enjoy bringing forward. | https://medium.com/@rjcarr02134/a-basic-rule-when-conducting-interviews-f51a724bbb35 | ['Rj Carr'] | 2020-12-14 12:08:02.007000+00:00 | ['Journalism', 'Radio', 'Interview Tips', 'Interviewing', 'Catholic'] |
When Will The EV Stock Bubble Pop? | When Will The EV Stock Bubble Pop?
Electric vehicle stocks have been among the biggest winners of 2020. Tesla and Nio, the two leaders in the space, are up 670% and 1,200% respectively.
While electric vehicles are certainly the future, many stocks in the space have gotten ahead of themselves. Nio has a higher market cap than GM even though GM sells more vehicles in a week than Nio has sold as a company…and GM does it profitably.
Workhorse is trading at a 3,270 P/S ratio that hinges on a USPS contract that still wouldn’t justify the valuation.
We also have multiple bad actors in the space such as Nikola Motors and Kandi assuming Hindenburg is 2-for-2 (they were spot on with Nikola Motors).
Combine the speculative nature of EV SPACs and heightening competition from traditional car companies, and there is a bubbly feeling in the air for EV stocks.
So…how long will it take before the bubble pops?
Right now, it’s easier for EVs like Nio and Tesla to continue producing rapid sales growth. Nio has sold close to 40,000 cars in 2020. It’s not unfeasible for Nio to sell 80,000 cars in 2021 (or more than that) as long as they can produce that many cars and market them.
GM is different.
If you look at the trend for GM’s sales in the United States, you can see rapid growth during the initial years followed by a stall going into the Great Recession.
GM sells millions of vehicles in the U.S. each year, but it’s not growing. Rather, GM is currently trying to maintain sales from the previous years.
I don’t see GM suddenly jumping up to 6 million car sales in 2021 and then 12 million car sales in 2022. I don’t see them then selling 24 million cars in 2023.
There’s a lot of competition in the space, and the bigger you get, the harder it is to double your sales and revenue each year.
For any growth stock, the narrative is essential. As long as Nio can continue to produce significant revenue growth (they’ve been reporting triple digit growth), the stock will continue to go up. The moment Nio reports lower growth (i.e. under 20% revenue growth), the stock will be in for a rude awakening.
This process can ironically speed up as these companies continue to grow (i.e. you can’t have triple digit growth forever) or as traditional car companies provide high quality EV alternatives.
As more companies embrace EVs, the valuations of Tesla, Nio, and others can fall more in line with traditional car companies.
Tesla is a few years ahead of the other major competitors, but that gap can be made up with the capital, resources, and talents the other car companies possess.
While EV companies are touted as different from traditional car companies, their margins aren’t.
Here are some of the profit margins of EV and traditional car companies:
TSLA: 1.97% profit margin
NIO: -56.26% profit margin
GM: 2.92% profit margin
F: -0.12% profit margin
TM: 5.50% profit margin (TM is the ticker symbol for Toyota)
Nio has been narrowing its losses, so the current -56.26% profit margin will get closer to a positive number in the following months. A profit margin approaching 0% will help with further momentum, but what happens when Nio has a positive profit margin that barely moves?
Despite being car companies that happen to produce EVs, Tesla and Nio are unfairly valued like they’re tech companies.
Tech companies get their lofty valuations in part because they command wider profit margins.
The Dotcom Bubble hurt every internet stock even though the internet has now become an essential part of our lives. EVs won’t become as essential as the internet, but they are the future. That doesn’t excuse the drastically overvalued stock prices of almost every EV stock in the market.
Can Nio jump up to $500 or Tesla jump up to $1,500? In this market, anything is possible as long as the growth narrative holds since valuations seem to be an afterthought for many EV investors. But I’d rather put my money into stocks that aren’t as risky for my taste.
And something has to give eventually.
Want to learn how to make money investing in the stock market? Make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel
Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/when-will-the-ev-stock-bubble-pop-a34abf5b6d76 | ['Marc Guberti'] | 2020-12-27 15:26:10.681000+00:00 | ['Investing', 'Money', 'Tesla', 'Stock Market', 'Electric Car'] |
When do you stop feeling sick? · Dr Dad | The journey of pregnancy is quite adventurous. It is a beautiful phase of a women’s life, but it has its problems. Morning sickness is one of the major problems faced by a majority of pregnant women. While it starts with what seems likes an upset stomach, the uneasy feeling is here to stay for the next few weeks the least. But when do women stop feeling sick? How long does morning sickness last in women? Let’s find out.
It can start at motion sickness or seasickness, but if women are pregnant then there are higher chances of the nauseous symptoms to be a result of morning sickness and not motion or seasickness.
Pregnant women feel very severe aversion towards certain foods and anything that happens to have a strong smell.
Women also experience nausea after consuming food daily.
The majority of women experience morning sickness in the first trimester of their pregnancy.
It starts between 6 to 9 weeks of pregnancy.
Nauseous feeling and occasional vomiting are the most common symptoms of morning sickness.
The majority of women stop feeling sick at the start of 12 weeks of their pregnancy.
12 to 16 weeks is the period between which the symptoms of morning sickness generally subside.
Some women even experience nauseous feelings during the second trimester but the numbers are scarce.
But few women experience morning sickness throughout their pregnancy.
Pregnant women experience morning sickness up to the start of the second trimester. The specifics of how long it lasts varies from woman to woman. They can easily be managed with home remedies. you can consult your doctor to receive medicines if it gets any worse. | https://medium.com/@parenthood7/when-do-you-stop-feeling-sick-dr-dad-61a913fee13d | [] | 2021-06-14 07:33:56.169000+00:00 | ['Moms', 'Dads', 'Parents', 'Parenting', 'Kids'] |
BABY JOY Baby Stroller 2-in-1 Convertible Foldable Bassinet Sleeping Stroller Buggy | Our BABY JOY Baby Stroller 2-in-1 Convertible Foldable Bassinet Sleeping Stroller Buggy is specially designed for your baby. With the comfortable mattress perfectly supporting your baby’s back, she or he will have a better and sweeter dream.
You’ll be able to convert BABY JOY Baby Stroller to three different types with an adjustable strap on the backrest for your baby to sleep, sit down or lie down. With the two-way conversion function, the baby can look outside the world or face the parents.
The removable foot cover of BABY JOY Baby Stroller Sleeping Stroller Buggy can withstand the cold wind and prevent your baby from catching a cold. The net windows around the bassinet can help you check your baby at any time you wish to have.
2-IN-1 BABY STROLLER: The infant basket can be detached when it is inconvenient to go with a baby stroller. Its adjustable seat can be reclined to accommodate your sleeping infants or attentive toddlers. With a push or pull, You’ll be able to adjust the seat higher or lower as you like to make your baby well-rested.
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ADJUSTABLE BACKREST & CANOPY: You’ll be able to adjust the back of this stroller to meet your baby different requirements to lie, sit, or sleep. The comfortable seat with a 5-point safety harness and tilt-adjustable sleeping cushion equipped for babies comfortable sleeping. The Canopy with covered sunroof ratchets can well protect your baby from ultraviolet radiation. With 3-section canopy design, adjust it freely. You’ll be able to also look at your babies with peek a boo window to better maintain them.
FLEXIBLE RUBBER WHEELS: Adds a sense of safety and flexibility when you go out together with your little baby. You’ll be able to operate it easily with foot-operated linked parking brakes. You’ll be able to assemble or disassemble it in one second for its creative folding design. It may be transformed from a standing stroller to a folding one with its creative spinning connector which enables you easily store it at home or place in the car when your family plan to take your babies outside.
Features of BABY JOY Baby Stroller
The stroller is ASTM certified and is the perfect gift for babies 0–3 years old
Large sleeping basket and comfortable mattress to make your baby sleep better
Inclinable design meets the baby’s different needs to sleep, sit up straight or half lying down
Five-point seat belt and detachable guardrail protect your baby all the time
Foot cover can prevent from windy in the winter and can be removed in summer
Adjustable awnings with small skylight effectively block rain and UV rays
Ventilation nets around the bassinet facilitate air circulation
X-shape anti-rust aluminum alloy improves whole stability
Anti-release wrist rope is safer and more convenient to use
Large-capacity storage basket and a carry bag is used to store baby essentials
EVA universal front wheels and shock-proof rear wheels suit many uneven roads
Specification of BABY JOY Baby Stroller
Material: Aluminum Structure+ Rubber Wheels
Aluminum Structure+ Rubber Wheels Net Weight: 27 lbs
27 lbs Weight Capacity: 33 lbs
33 lbs Overall Dimension: 5″×24.5″×44.5″ (L×W×H)
5″×24.5″×44.5″ (L×W×H) Folding Size: 30″×24.5″×12″(L×W×H)
30″×24.5″×12″(L×W×H) Basket Size: 5″ X 14″ (L×W)
5″ X 14″ (L×W) Front Wheel Size: 8″
8″ Rear Wheel Size: 12″
12″ Applicable Age: 0–3 Years Old
Package of BABY JOY Baby Stroller includes | https://medium.com/@harryoscar786/baby-joy-baby-stroller-2-in-1-convertible-foldable-bassinet-sleeping-stroller-buggy-df04fdfe2880 | ['Harry Oscar'] | 2020-02-13 09:01:26.487000+00:00 | ['Moms', 'Child', 'Parenting', 'Stroller', 'Baby'] |
Homo Economicus to Machina Economica by Ben Sadyalunda | Let us go back to the year 1929. October 24th, to be exact.
It was 6 am.
You could feel the knots in your stomach as you lay there assessing your past decisions in the piercing morning silence. Not even the hummingbirds sang that day, as if in awe of the tense atmosphere. As you creep your eyes open you sense the presence of the shadows before you see them, looming in the darkness of dawn. Having been one of the most intuitive investors of the 1920s, you were still yet to encounter this much restlessness.
After deliberating the plan for that Thursday, in front of a black coffee, you decided to follow your gut as you had done so often in the past. It was time to cut your losses and sell everything. It never occurred to you that almost every other banker was thinking the same thing that day. As you made your way to the brokerage you noticed the electric tension in the air rise almost in accordance with the chaos around you.
The more anxious you felt the stronger the smell of thunder got. Had it been the early 2000s, the song “when it rains it pours ..” would have been more accurate. As soon as your foot made contact with the ground you felt the first droplets. Slow but heavy, clear but obscure, so insignificant, yet it felt like there was an underlying message. Had you been a weather forecaster, maybe you would have been able to determine the meaning of this.
The line stretched out of the building and onto the sidewalks. It seemed like everyone was interconnected by some invisible force beyond understanding. It was like a herd of sheep gathered in fear of the wolves that closed in slowly.
From the moment 10:00 hit all hell broke loose. Chaos. The fierce desire of people wanting to get to the front of the line as fast as possible to minimise the damage to their bank accounts, yourself included.
On that day, the 24th of October 1929, 12.9 million shares were traded and five days later 16 million more shares changed hands.
This was the beginning of the end for many people in the 1930s, from this day onward, until sometime in 1939, global economies experienced the worst economic downturn in the history of the 20th century. After stock markets crashed unemployment surged, with consumer spending and investing deteriorating causing steep declines in industrial output.
One of the fruits of this historic event was the boom of economists and the development of economic analysts that we see today, by use of different tools to try and predict market movements. Yet today, many say economists are like weather forecasters when it comes to predicting economic states. Prakash Loungani of the IMF, for instance, revealed that economists failed to predict 148 of the 150 of the past recessions. Even the weather forecasters aren’t that bad I’m sure you’re thinking.
The reason behind this is the nature of economies, mainly based on how the population feels. The difference between the two disciplines is when a weather forecaster tells you to expect rain, the rain is independent of how you react to not get drenched. Whereas when an economic forecaster predicts rain, the amount of downpour is very much dependent on the feelings of the consumer.
Although economic forecasting has many similarities to the natural sciences, Friedrich Hayek mentioned it to be a flawed science while accepting his Nobel Peace Prize. The reason for this is the fact that a simple change in a few variables results in predictions quickly becoming incredibly complex. Furthermore, forecasters do not always seek the truth but instead may forecast information to affect the market in certain ways.
The development of Artificial Intelligence in recent years means we can expect these predictions to improve drastically, especially in the field of behavioural economics, but to what extent you may ask. Well, JP Morgan, for example, has already been using algorithms to track the impacts of Donald Trump’s tweets on financial markets. We might even predict changes in supply and demand to implement necessary changes in order to avoid economic downturns.
Essentially instead of relying on emotion, intuition, bias, and impulse when making decisions, investors and economists could make decisions based on data and AI algorithms.
“In theory, scholars of the social sciences aim to attain the truth as well. Unfortunately, this rarely holds.”
By virtue of evidence- and economic-based policymaking, we manage to bring economics closer to natural sciences, as we find the common ground. Our aim should be to effectively harness the power of AI to enhance the economic conditions in which we all can flourish.
Now, let’s go to the year 2100.
You wake to the beautiful morning hymn of the hummingbirds. The sweet spring breeze tingling your skin with excitement, what new deals await today. | https://medium.com/@empowerment-foundation/homo-economicus-to-machina-economica-by-ben-sadyalunda-9081290d2431 | ['Empowerment Foundation Briefcase'] | 2020-12-14 10:38:34.581000+00:00 | ['Predictions', 'Krach', 'Algorithms', 'Crisis', 'Economy'] |
ARTIS on the Bituniverse app | Steps to tracking your ARTIS portfolio
Step 1 — Navigate to the Portfolio Tracker Tab by clicking on “Portfolio” on the bottom left of the screen.
Step 2 — After clicking on “Get Started”, select “Auto import from wallet”
Step 3 — insert your public address where your ARTIS is stored. For those who are concerned about the safety of their wallets should note that this is only a balance query API system which means that the API only reads the balances of the Cryptocurrencies and Tokens of an address and can in no way interact with your wallet at all!
enter your wallet address here
Step 4 — When visiting your portfolio page it should look something like the image below. You can adjust settings in the “Me” tab to adjust the APP according to your personal preferences, such as currency, look and feel etc.
ARTIS Portfolio example
Forward Together! | https://medium.com/artisturba/artis-on-the-bituniverse-app-949a1853fb80 | ['Artis Turba'] | 2018-04-04 09:17:04.277000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Altcoins', 'Ethereum', 'Ethereum Wallet'] |
How ‘Serendipity’ Predicted The Demise Of The American Rom-Com | Credit: Tapestry Films
How ‘Serendipity’ Predicted The Demise Of The American Rom-Com
The early aughts classic rejects the romantic potential of internet technology that ‘You’ve Got Mail’ embraced.
If timelessness is a staple of the American romantic comedy, then 1998’s You’ve Got Mail broke all the rules of the genre. The film, about two people who fall in love over the internet despite being rival business owners in real life, is so wielded to the technology of the day (America Online, or AOL) that it would hardly muster romantic feelings in someone who did not experience the service firsthand. Even for those of us who are old enough to remember the anonymity and creative freedom of AOL’s chat rooms and instant messenger, the few years of their dominance aren’t really missed — AOL was soon replaced by much faster (and less deafening) broadband services. Today, having around-the-clock virtual connections to old love interests and potential new ones is the dating norm.
In the years since You’ve Got Mail premiered, seldom have romantic comedies attached themselves so overtly to the internet — technology just isn’t terribly romantic and rom-coms are in the business of being romantic. Serendipity, premiering just 3 years after You’ve Got Mail, echoed this sentiment by rejecting the internet entirely in deference to the tradition of the timeless rom-com.
Beyond the dreamy, snow-drenched New York City streets in Serendipity lies deep anxiety about love in the new millennium. Real love, the sort that people would pay money to experience vicariously through film, needs an element of long-suffering; and Serendipity predicted that the connections made possible by the internet were going to be love’s — and the rom-com genre’s —downfall.
The Demise of the Rom-Com
Film and pop culture critics have lamented the demise of the rom-com genre for years, but theories on why rom-coms in the 2010s have failed to capture the audiences of their heydays in the 90s vary substantially. For instance, Elena Sheppard writes for Nylon that the decline of rom-coms in recent years reflects the material anxieties of life after the Great Recession. Moviegoers simply aren’t in the mood to watch “lavish, comfortable upper middle-class lives projected from on high,” Sheppard says. In contrast, New York Magazine’s Jen Chaney argues that rom-coms haven’t died so much as they have shifted their focus to more authentic and inclusive portrayals of love. The rise of Barack Obama as the first black president in the 2010s ushered in a wave of cultural prominence for black Americans in media; and his administration’s leftward push on LGBT civil rights followed a decade of increasing representation of LGBT characters on TV and film. These just don’t happen to be the kinds of films that break box office records.
A third perspective on the demise of the rom-com is the one Serendipity intimated a decade earlier — the internet would disrupt the genre as we knew it by making long-suffering love a thing of the past. The film, with its silence and moments of hostility toward the internet, suggests that the speed and efficiency of online dating does not make up for the magic of the unexpected encounter — in our lives or in the ones we watch on film.
“A Fortunate Accident”
When Sara (Kate Beckinsale) and Jonathan (John Cusack) first meet, Sara is pretty straight-forward about letting fate determine the choices she makes, and she spends much of their first evening out together looking for signs to tell her if she should pursue a relationship with Jonathan.
The pair have their first fateful encounter at Bloomingdale’s during the Christmas season shopping rush, both going to grab the same pair of black gloves on a display. To thank Jonathan for allowing her to keep the gloves, Sara takes Jonathan out for coffee at a restaurant called Serendipity. Sara explains that she has always liked the name Serendipity and the idea of life being a series of fortunate accidents, although she prefers to think everything happens for a reason. Jonathan isn’t as convinced but he likes Sara too much to challenge her thinking. At first, Sara decides not to see Jonathan again and leaves Serendipity without ever giving him her name. But when they both return minutes later to retrieve items they left at the restaurant, Sara is convinced this is a sign that she should go out with Jonathan that evening.
Towards the end of their night out, Sara agrees to give Jonathan her number on a scrap piece of paper. But just as she does, a gust of wind blows the paper out of her hand, and she is close to certain this is a sign that she is about to make a mistake. Jonathan tries to convince her this is no big deal, but Sara is unmoved. Instead of exchanging phone numbers directly, she makes Jonathan write his phone number on a $5 bill she eventually uses to make a purchase and writes her number in a copy of the novel Love in the Time of Cholera that she plans to sell the next day.
Credit: Tapestry Films
In one final desperate search for a sign that they should be together, Sara convinces Jonathan to go into an elevator at the Waldorf Astoria and pick a floor number. She gets into an adjacent elevator, hoping they’ll choose the same floor. While they do choose the same floor, Jonathan is obstructed by other guests who wish to take the elevator; thus by the time he reaches Sara’s floor, Sara is gone.
Sara’s comically absurd reliance on fate to direct her day-to-day life is central to the progression of the love story being told in Serendipity. But it also serves to divert the viewer’s attention away from a logical resolution to the couple’s search for one another. Surely during their evening out they would have mentioned where they worked or where they lived or where they attended college — any identifying information that could be used to track each other down later on.
Instead viewers are left with two people who are forced to embark on an elaborate search for one another once they realize they are meant to be together. Ultimately, the search is the essence of the long-suffering romantic comedies need — as is pretending the technology to do it more efficiently does not exist.
The Search
In 2001, the capabilities for high-speed internet as we think of it today would not have been available to most Americans. However, dial-up internet service providers like America Online were at their peak, and it would have been a likely recourse for someone like Jonathan, who works in broadcast media, to search for Sara.
But perhaps to bring an element of timelessness to the story, Jonathan begins his search for Sara at Bloomingdale’s, where they first met 7 years ago at a glove display. After realizing that he still has the receipt for the black gloves she purchased all those years ago, Jonathan surmises that he might be able to get information on Sara from her store account number. But the Bloomingdale’s salesman (played by Eugene Levy) is reluctant to give Jonathan any information about the account without first making a commission. Jonathan ends up spending hundreds of dollars on new clothes until the salesman agrees to look up the account, which he discovers has been closed. They must then travel to a warehouse in Queens to search the endless archives for Sara’s original paper application.
Credit: Tapestry Films
Jonathan’s friend Dean (Jeremy Piven) offers the film’s only introspection on the internet. He accompanies Jonathan in his search for Sara, including a visit to her old apartment building, where he encounters a young temp who insists on following the rules at his job. When the temp claims privacy laws prevent him from revealing information about former residents, Dean protests that privacy laws only exist to protect the undeservedly rich. “[These are] kids your age,” he says. “Pimple-faced college drop-outs who have made unhealthy sums of money forming internet companies that create no concrete products, provide no viable services, and still manage to generate profits for all of its lazy day-trading sonofabitch shareholders.”
As a character Dean also helps the film to reassert the importance of long-suffering in a love story that aims to be timeless. Just as the search for Sara comes to a close on a flight to San Francisco, where Jonathan has tracked down Sara’s current address, Dean reveals the real reason he has accompanied Jonathan on his cross-country journey to find Sara: his own marriage has fallen apart. When Jonathan asks why, Dean points to Sara’s resurfaced copy of Love in the Time Of Cholera and says “not enough of this”, perhaps alluding to Florentino Ariza’s five decades-long wait for the love of his life, Fermina, in the novel as well as Jonathan’s unbending passion for Sara after 7 long years.
Fate As Patriarchal Fantasy
Perhaps another reason for Serendipity’s hostility toward the internet is online dating’s democratizing potential when it comes to who does the pursuing in a relationship and the kinds of relationships that can be pursued.
In some ways, Sara’s reliance on fate to guide her romantic life reflects patriarchal attitudes that encourage men to take risks for the women they want while telling women to wait for the right man to come along. From this perspective, Sara’s decision to leave her fiancé and her life in San Francisco to look for Jonathan is not so much about taking control of her love life as it is resigning herself to the man that fate had already picked out for her. As her best friend Eve (Molly Shannon) puts it, clinging to the fairytale of finding Jonathan has kept Sara from accepting the reality that relationships are messy, complicated, and take work.
Credit: Tapestry Films
It is noteworthy that whereas Dean acts a wing man in Jonathan’s search for Sara, Eve is purely the voice of reason in Sara’s quest to find Jonathan. During the trip to New York, Eve barely participates in the search and eventually pushes Sara to admit that the trip was a mistake. That Eve tries to bring Sara down to earth while Dean elevates Jonathan’s romantic fantasies aligns with who the viewer expects to be the chaser and who should allow herself to be chased.
Of course Sara does find the man she has long for for 7 years, just hours after breaking off her engagement and discovering Jonathan has called off his wedding. The couple reunite in the same ice skating park where they had their first date. The snow is falling gently, the stars are bursting with light across the sky, and beyond them the world is standing still. The message, it seems, is that dating apps and websites can’t compete with the organic romance of the nonvirtual world — no matter how hard they try.
But in 2020, questioning the sincerity of love found online is passé. Dating apps and websites are par for the course in search of all sorts of relationships, from simpler encounters (casual sex) to the well-defined serious relationship. Above all, today’s young men and women are far less likely to believe love needs an element of suffering in order to be deep and meaningful.
Ultimately, rom-coms have failed to capture changing cultural attitudes around love and dating in the decades since Serendipity made its debut. The film’s anxieties about the impact the internet would have on the rom-com genre turned out to be legitimate, and there are lingering questions over if and how the genre can be made great again in the era of Tinder.
Twenty-two years ago, the genre made a gamble with You’ve Got Mail. Perhaps what will bring rom-coms back from the grave is the full understanding that they are products of the cultural and technological moments in which they are made; their responsibility is to the present world, not to being timeless. | https://medium.com/fan-fare/how-serendipity-predicted-the-demise-of-the-american-rom-com-52cbfb4bc2bb | ['Kimberly Joyner'] | 2020-10-22 14:00:38.219000+00:00 | ['Film', 'Romance', 'Pop Culture', 'Dating', 'Internet'] |
Visualizing Clusters with Python’s Matplotlib | Multiple Dimensions
We’ll often use multiple variables to cluster our data, and scatter plots can only display two variables. There are several options for visualizing more than three variables, but all of them have disadvantages that should be considered.
We could use the markers' size and make it a bubble chart, but that’s not an optimal solution. We couldn’t compare this third variable with the others since they would have different encodings.
For example, by looking at the chart we made earlier, we can tell if a record has a higher Attack or Defense. But if we added Speed as the size, we couldn’t compare it with the other two variables.
plt.scatter(df.Attack, df.Defense, c=df.c, s=df.Speed, alpha = 0.6)
Bubble chart — Image by the author
3D plots can also encode a third variable, but it can also get confusing, sometimes even misleading — That’s because depending on how we look at the chart, it may give us the wrong impression.
3D Scatter Plot — Image by the author
Still, 3D scatter plots can be useful, especially if they’re not static.
Depending on your environment, it’s easy to add some interactivity with Matplotlib.
Some IDEs will have this by default; other environments will require extensions and a magic command such as “Matplotlib Widget” on Jupyter Lab or “Matplotlib Notebook” on Jupyter notebooks.
By changing the angle we’re looking at the chart, we can examine it more carefully and avoid misinterpreting the data. | https://towardsdatascience.com/visualizing-clusters-with-pythons-matplolib-35ae03d87489 | ['Thiago Carvalho'] | 2021-01-22 07:35:40.346000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Data Science', 'Clustering', 'Matplotlib', 'Python'] |
Introduction to Recommender System | “We are leaving the age of information and entering the age of recommendation.”
Like many machine learning techniques, a recommender system makes prediction based on users’ historical behaviors. Specifically, it’s to predict user preference for a set of items based on past experience. To build a recommender system, the most two popular approaches are Content-based and Collaborative Filtering.
Content-based approach requires a good amount of information of items’ own features, rather than using users’ interactions and feedbacks. For example, it can be movie attributes such as genre, year, director, actor etc., or textual content of articles that can extracted by applying Natural Language Processing. Collaborative Filtering, on the other hand, doesn’t need anything else except users’ historical preference on a set of items. Because it’s based on historical data, the core assumption here is that the users who have agreed in the past tend to also agree in the future. In terms of user preference, it usually expressed by two categories. Explicit Rating, is a rate given by a user to an item on a sliding scale, like 5 stars for Titanic. This is the most direct feedback from users to show how much they like an item. Implicit Rating, suggests users preference indirectly, such as page views, clicks, purchase records, whether or not listen to a music track, and so on. In this article, I will take a close look at collaborative filtering that is a traditional and powerful tool for recommender systems.
Nearest Neighborhood
The standard method of Collaborative Filtering is known as Nearest Neighborhood algorithm. There are user-based CF and item-based CF. Let’s first look at User-based CF. We have an n × m matrix of ratings, with user uᵢ, i = 1, ...n and item pⱼ, j=1, …m. Now we want to predict the rating rᵢⱼ if target user i did not watch/rate an item j. The process is to calculate the similarities between target user i and all other users, select the top X similar users, and take the weighted average of ratings from these X users with similarities as weights.
While different people may have different baselines when giving ratings, some people tend to give high scores generally, some are pretty strict even though they are satisfied with items. To avoid this bias, we can subtract each user’s average rating of all items when computing weighted average, and add it back for target user, shown as below.
Two ways to calculate similarity are Pearson Correlation and Cosine Similarity.
Basically, the idea is to find the most similar users to your target user (nearest neighbors) and weight their ratings of an item as the prediction of the rating of this item for target user.
Without knowing anything about items and users themselves, we think two users are similar when they give the same item similar ratings . Analogously, for Item-based CF, we say two items are similar when they received similar ratings from a same user. Then, we will make prediction for a target user on an item by calculating weighted average of ratings on most X similar items from this user. One key advantage of Item-based CF is the stability which is that the ratings on a given item will not change significantly overtime, unlike the tastes of human beings.
There are quite a few limitations of this method. It doesn’t handle sparsity well when no one in the neighborhood rated an item that is what you are trying to predict for target user. Also, it’s not computational efficient as the growth of the number of users and products.
Matrix Factorization
Since sparsity and scalability are the two biggest challenges for standard CF method, it comes a more advanced method that decompose the original sparse matrix to low-dimensional matrices with latent factors/features and less sparsity. That is Matrix Factorization.
Beside solving the issues of sparsity and scalability, there’s an intuitive explanation of why we need low-dimensional matrices to represent users’ preference. A user gave good ratings to movie Avatar, Gravity, and Inception. They are not necessarily 3 separate opinions but showing that this users might be in favor of Sci-Fi movies and there may be many more Sci-Fi movies that this user would like. Unlike specific movies, latent features is expressed by higher-level attributes, and Sci-Fi category is one of latent features in this case. What matrix factorization eventually gives us is how much a user is aligned with a set of latent features, and how much a movie fits into this set of latent features. The advantage of it over standard nearest neighborhood is that even though two users haven’t rated any same movies, it’s still possible to find the similarity between them if they share the similar underlying tastes, again latent features.
To see how a matrix being factorized, first thing to understand is Singular Value Decomposition(SVD). Based on Linear Algebra, any real matrix R can be decomposed into 3 matrices U, Σ, and V. Continuing using movie example, U is an n × r user-latent feature matrix, V is an m × r movie-latent feature matrix. Σ is an r × r diagonal matrix containing the singular values of original matrix, simply representing how important a specific feature is to predict user preference.
To sort the values of Σ by decreasing absolute value and truncate matrix Σ to first k dimensions( k singular values), we can reconstruct the matrix as matrix A. The selection of k should make sure that A is able to capture the most of variance within the original matrix R, so that A is the approximation of R, A ≈ R. The difference between A and R is the error that is expected to be minimized. This is exactly the thought of Principle Component Analysis.
When matrix R is dense, U and V could be easily factorized analytically. However, a matrix of movie ratings is super sparse. Although there are some imputation methods to fill in missing values , we will turn to a programming approach to just live with those missing values and find factor matrices U and V. Instead of factorizing R via SVD, we are trying find U and V directly with the goal that when U and V multiplied back together the output matrix R’ is the closest approximation of R and no more a sparse matrix. This numerical approximation is usually achieved with Non-Negative Matrix Factorization for recommender systems since there is no negative values in ratings.
See the formula below. Looking at the predicted rating for specific user and item, item i is noted as a vector qᵢ, and user u is noted as a vector pᵤ such that the dot product of these two vectors is the predicted rating for user u on item i. This value is presented in the matrix R’ at row u and column i.
How do we find optimal qᵢ and pᵤ? Like most of machine learning task, a loss function is defined to minimize the cost of errors.
rᵤᵢ is the true ratings from original user-item matrix. Optimization process is to find the optimal matrix P composed by vector pᵤ and matrix Q composed by vector qᵢ in order to minimize the sum square error between predicted ratings rᵤᵢ’ and the true ratings rᵤᵢ. Also, L2 regularization has been added to prevent overfitting of user and item vectors. It’s also quite common to add bias term which usually has 3 major components: average rating of all items μ, average rating of item i minus μ(noted as bᵤ), average rating given by user u minus u(noted as bᵢ).
Optimization
A few optimization algorithms have been popular to solve Non-Negative Factorization. Alternative Least Square is one of them. Since the loss function is non-convex in this case, there’s no way to reach a global minimum, while it still can reach a great approximation by finding local minimums. Alternative Least Square is to hold user factor matrix constant, adjust item factor matrix by taking derivatives of loss function and setting it equal to 0, and then set item factor matrix constant while adjusting user factor matrix. Repeat the process by switching and adjusting matrices back and forth until convergence. If you apply Scikit-learn NMF model, you will see ALS is the default solver to use, which is also called Coordinate Descent. Pyspark also offers pretty neat decomposition packages that provides more tuning flexibility of ALS itself.
Some Thoughts
Collaborative Filtering provides strong predictive power for recommender systems, and requires the least information at the same time. However, it has a few limitations in some particular situations.
First, the underlying tastes expressed by latent features are actually not interpretable because there is no content-related properties of metadata. For movie example, it doesn’t necessarily to be genre like Sci-Fi in my example. It can be how motivational the soundtrack is, how good the plot is, and so on. Collaborative Filtering is lack of transparency and explainability of this level of information.
On the other hand, Collaborative Filtering is faced with cold start. When a new item coming in, until it has to be rated by substantial number of users, the model is not able to make any personalized recommendations . Similarly, for items from the tail that didn’t get too much data, the model tends to give less weight on them and have popularity bias by recommending more popular items.
It’s usually a good idea to have ensemble algorithms to build a more comprehensive machine learning model such as combining content-based filtering by adding some dimensions of keywords that are explainable, but we should always consider the tradeoff between model/computational complexity and the effectiveness of performance improvement. | https://towardsdatascience.com/intro-to-recommender-system-collaborative-filtering-64a238194a26 | ['Shuyu Luo'] | 2019-02-06 00:20:55.515000+00:00 | ['Collaborative Filtering', 'Optimization', 'Matrix Factorization', 'Recommender Systems', 'Machine Learning'] |
Is staying safe online possible? | I was asked a question on Twitter today. The question was, “Is staying safe online possible?” This is a great question because I increasingly see a sense of apathy in users due to the frequent threats to online safety that are reported. They ask questions such as “If big companies can’t protect themselves, what chance do I have?” or “If identity theft is inevitable, what is the point of protecting oneself?” Let’s look at the question in an Aristotelian manner. We first must establish what staying safe is. Let’s start with this definition:
Being safe online is having the knowledge, ability, and opportunity to utilize the Internet and Internet-based resources without subjecting oneself to harm*
Having the knowledge, ability and opportunity to utilize the Internet and Internet-based resources without subjecting oneself or others to harm*
*harm is being described as the following:
Unauthorized disclosure of personal or sensitive information
Identify theft
Misuse of computing resources due to unauthorized access or presence of malicious code
Persuasion or coercion to perform actions due to misrepresentation or incorrect facts presented in phishing emails
With this definition in hand, I can now consider whether this is possible. First, this definition means that no harm, as described above, would come to the individual despite the frequency of use as long as they utilized sufficient knowledge, ability, and opportunity. I believe this is false. Even those equipped with sufficient knowledge, ability, and opportunity will eventually come to some harm in utilizing the Internet and Internet-based resources. So, what if I revise my definition to this?
Being safe online is having the knowledge, ability, and opportunity to minimize the harm* and frequency of harm caused due to the use of the Internet and Internet-based resources.
This definition allows for someone to be safe online but still have harm occasionally occur. However, in such occurrences, the damage done would be minimized. For example, if personal information were disclosed, the individual would be able to recognize that disclosure quickly and work with persons and companies to restrict the value the ability of a malicious user to employ the information disclosed and to reduce the amount of damage incurred through use. More specifically, if a person entered a username and password in a fake web site, they would realize their mistake and change their password on the legitimate site before an attacker would have the ability to utilize their credentials. They would also utilize different credentials for other sites so the information gained would have no value if employed for other Internet services.
Using this definition, I believe I could say that it is possible to stay safe online. However, the possibility is not probability. Those that would be safe under this definition must have the knowledge, ability, and opportunity. If the majority of people utilizing the Internet do not have this, then the majority of users are not safe. Our logical step, therefore, is to educate users to give them the knowledge and ability and to make the technology and environment that will provide them with the opportunity something that is available to the majority of users.
This post was written as part of the Dell Insight Partners program, which provides news and analysis about the evolving world of tech. To learn more about tech news and analysis visit TechPageOne. Dell sponsored this article, but the opinions are my own and don’t necessarily represent Dell’s positions or strategies. | https://medium.com/security-thinking-cap/is-staying-safe-online-possible-b8ae29dc9ced | ['Eric Vanderburg'] | 2017-08-21 17:41:34.779000+00:00 | ['Cybersecurity', 'Dell', 'Online', 'Cyber Safety', 'Internet'] |
“Love the Humans and Serve the Humans.This must be the slogan of every human”. | “Love the Humans and Serve the Humans.
The Life
The life is not the name of hate.
The life is the name of love.
The life is not the name of cruelty.
The life is the name of sympathy.
The life is not the name of defeat.
The life is the name of victory.
The life is not the name of deceive.
The life is the name of sincerity.
The life is not the name of noise.
The life is the name of silence.
The life is not the name of grief.
The life is the name of happiness.
The life is not the name of hopelessness.
The life is the name of hope.
In fact, the life is the name of true death.
If you are a sincere, kind and sympathetic human then you will love other humans and all the living things with your soft heart, and other humans will love you from bottom of heart. You will create respect, honour and dignity in hearts of other humans. When you will die then you will always remain alive in hearts and prayers of all humans. This is called true death.”ALWAYS LOVE THE HUMANS AND SERVE THE HUMANS”.
Written by,
Syed Rizwan Ali Zaidi | https://medium.com/@rizwanalizaidi1983/love-the-humans-and-serve-the-humans-this-must-be-the-slogan-of-every-human-4966d9892b74 | ['Syed Rizwan Ali Zaidi'] | 2020-12-23 13:25:35.585000+00:00 | ['Peace', 'Humanity', 'Respect', 'Reality', 'Courage'] |
Being The Younger Sibling | Instagram Reels have been the trend since the past few months and I have been constantly seeing a lot where they show the attitude of the eldest, middle and youngest siblings.
Sure, we are a little spoiled. But, you know what they say “Power comes with a price”. So I thought why not explain what it actually is like to be the younger sibling or worse, the youngest child in the family!
Let’s start with childhood.
The major thing about our childhood is that they will have trust issues for life and you are always being bullied by your elder siblings, because bullying is the birth right of the elder sibling. You grew up believing that you were either adopted or you came from a bug’s egg or that you were found from the middle of a street, because you tend to believe whatever lies your elder ones fed you with. Being convinced by your elder sibling even if he/she says things like John Cena is not as cool as Dwayne the Rock or sun rises from the west or he/she is a member of Illuminati. You believe it and tell all your friends about it, only to end up looking like a fool.
Another major aspect of being the youngest is that you are the errand child. Be it your elder siblings, parents, grandparents, or a random neighbour aunty, they will order you around for stuff that God has actually given them arms and legs for. It’s like you officially signed up a contract, when God decided that you were going to be born, the task of getting water and salt for everyone at the dinner table, switching on/off the lights, getting the door, basically whatever they ask you to do.
If you are the youngest sibling, it’s a guaranteed fact that you will have more than two parents (stop thinking dirty stuff, I meant that the older siblings act like your parents). You will never be the one to attend your own phone calls until you’re at the least 18, you will never know what personal space actually means, you will constantly be monitored what you’re doing in your room(that is if you’ll ever have one), what books you read, what’s on your search history(no kidding!!), or you can’t even get a phone for yourself unless you’re not living in your house anymore.
Don’t even get me started on getting the second hand stuff of your elder sibling (you don’t even have to be the same sex as your elder ones for this). Be it the toys, the clothes, the textbooks, the bicycles, or even the first mobile phones you’ll have, you’ll always be hand me downs -_-
The next thing is about being a younger sibling is that you are never right. Why? Because you’re just a baby, and you know nothing about the real world, and most of all because you’re the youngest -_-
You’ll never have an identity if you’re the youngest kid, especially if you and your siblings went to the same school. You’ll always be referred to as the brother/sister of so-and-so. And you’re always threatened by your older siblings to lie to your parents to cover up whatever nuisance they’ve caused.
And worst of all you’ll be blamed for anything that got broken in your house (like you don’t even have to touch it, and they’ll say it got broke because you passed by it at the time it fell off), you don’t even have to have ever seen it, like if something turned to ash in the galaxy they’ll blame you because it happened due to your existence -_-
The most annoying thing of all is that you will always be “the kid” in the house. The thing is you are the youngest of everyone in the family, so even if you’re 15, 20, 30, you will always be the youngest in the family. So you get a bonus of over protective elder siblings in addition to over protective parents. You are denied the opportunity from going out with your friends or going on a school trip because you are not “old enough” to handle yourself (ever), you’ll never know what it’s like to go to a grocery store to buy your own stuff because you’re not “old enough” to handle money, you will be dropped off to your school gate (or classroom in my case) and picked up back home even if you’re way past middle school or even if you’re in college you’re never allowed to travel alone.
The saddest part is that we’ll get the least amount of time to spend with our grandparents, because by the time you’re born your grandparents are either too old or too tired for your childishness because they’ve done it all before with your elder ones.
Speaking of having seen it all before, your family is used to everything that you’ll ever discover. Like if we fall of the stairs they’ll be like “oh so what your elder brother/sister fell of a mountain and he survived”, or you start walking for the first time and they’ll be like “oh so what? Your elder brother/sister walked by themselves two days after birth” -_-
All of the annoying truths aside, being the youngest child(or the only child) does have its perks. And the most important of them all is that we are spoiled AF. And the list of pros goes on and on like
You can play more than the elder siblings. Someone will always help you with your homework or studies. No pressure to succeed. No punishments for temper tantrums. Watch more TV, computer. Can get away with anything you do because “you’re just a kid”
Best part? No one has high expectations for you. Because the burden of ‘setting a good example’ is always on the back of the older ones, and thus the parents set a low bar for you (maybe no bar at all). And since you’re the “baby” in the house you can always get away with any nuisance you cause, because everyone easily forgives you, or sometimes even bribe you with your favourite candy or pizza or clothes.
All jokes aside it’s pretty amazing being the youngest kid ; P | https://medium.com/paperkin/being-the-younger-sibling-ff4823c01266 | ['Sree Jaya'] | 2020-12-21 14:17:29.527000+00:00 | ['Family', 'Fun', 'Siblings', 'Reels', 'Life'] |
Serverless ETL on Google Cloud, a case study: raw data into JSON Lines | I’m working on a task that consists of populating BigQuery tables with Tomcat and Nginx access log data. Every day web servers upload new log files to GCS, containing raw data collected during the previous 24 hours. Data need to be converted into a format that is understood by BigQuery Jobs in order to be loaded into the tables.
I opted for the JSON Lines, or newline delimited JSON, to be the target format instead of CSV due to the nature of the data I’m handling. Since one can’t predict the data that will be transformed during this ETL process (e.g. URLs can include several UTF-8 chars, including commas), I decided not to rely on commas as delimiters to avoid problems.
So the goal is set: given standard access logs generated by web servers, they need to be transformed into newline delimited JSON files in order to fit BigQuery Jobs’ input arguments. Such jobs run later in the data warehousing process.
Tomcat logs, for example, are generated in the Common Log Format:
127.0.0.1 - userid [29/Dec/2019:23:55:27 -0200] "GET /index.html HTTP/1.0" 200 950
Which means:
remoteHost - remoteUser [datetime] "request" httpStatus bytesSent
And BigQuery Jobs need them as input in the JSON Lines format:
{"remoteHost":"127.0.0.1","remoteUser":"userid","datetime":"2019-12-30T01:55:27.000Z","request":"GET /index.html HTTP/1.0","httpStatus":200,"bytesSent":950}
What I’ll describe in this article is how I designed and coded a solution to achieve this goal using Cloud Functions and Node.js Client for Google Cloud Storage. Although processing access logs is my main goal, the overall strategy may fit a wider range of ETL processes — with specific changes, mainly in the Transform phase. I’ll explain the solution and comment on the most important parts of the code I wrote to solve the problem. Sources are available on GitHub and links provided along with the text. | https://medium.com/google-cloud/serverless-etl-on-google-cloud-a-case-study-raw-data-into-json-lines-d20711cd3917 | ['Ricardo Mendes'] | 2020-02-17 12:38:20.916000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'Serverless', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Etl', 'Cloud Functions'] |
32. Bloomingdale’s | The landscape of the city is always around me as I walk to these locations, but this time I had another world in my mind. I had called my teenage nephew to congratulate him on passing his driving test and he told me about a trip he took before the pandemic to the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. Sharing this information here now might seem off topic, but bear with me.
My nephew told me about the founder, Dr. David Pilgrim, and how he began his collection. (I highly recommend watching this video and learning the story for yourself). As a child in Mobile, Alabama, Dr. Pilgrim went to a flea market and saw someone selling “what we would today call a mammy cookie jar and salt and pepper shakers.”
My nephew prefaced his story by telling me he was repeating what Dr. Pilgrim, a brilliant leader in the anti-racism movement, said, in context.
Dr. Pilgrim bought the shakers with what little money he had, and broke them on the spot. He wasn’t trying to make a philosophical or ideological statement. He just didn’t like them. My nephew told me about his own journey through the museum, learning about race laws, seeing a tree with a noose, lawn jockeys and other “real world items reflective of the normalization of violence.”
“Then you see the people forgotten to history,” my nephew said. “Then the African American achievements and the civil rights heroes who lost their lives fighting racism. And you think, it’s a happy conclusion. We beat it. No. The next part of the exhibit shows modern racism including so much racist memorabilia created around President Barack Obama using the old racist tropes. At the end, you are meant to reflect with your fellow museum-goers about what you experienced.”
“Dr. Pilgrim said people often find ways to justify which things they saw that they don’t think are racist,” my nephew said. “The whole point is to confront racism in the US and have a meaningful conversation. The museum is a showcase of how it really was and is in the US. It is a way of confronting what racism really is, a way to sit back and think to yourself, I can’t believe this is real. The museum includes things you won’t find in the Smithsonian. And I have looked. Postcards that were sent through the US postal system that show lynchings and lashings.”
Dr. Pilgrim’s collection is augmented by that of a gay couple, my nephew said, who started collecting for the same reason, to educate people about reality. Here is where it all connects. Highsmith had already sold the rights to one of her books to Alfred Hitchcock for a film adaptation when she couldn’t sell The Price of Salt because of bigotry against lesbian content. We have made many strides that are now in peril again, and always. We have to fight for the human condition, not just for a few, but for us all, or we aren’t fully human.
PS. On my walk I passed reopened Argosy book store, the oldest bookstore in Manhattan, as far as I know! | https://medium.com/@ritajking/32-bloomingdales-634459250b91 | ['Rita J. King'] | 2020-11-14 20:35:24.832000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Movies', 'NYC', 'Books', 'Drawing'] |
“WebiCaster” facilitates collaboration between like-minded podcasters— Startup alert | WebiCaster connects podcasters. Setting up a profile on the WebiCaster Website allows potential collaborators & guests to find your broadcast, discover your interests & determine if you’re a good fit.
To grow your audience as a podcaster you need to present interesting Content, which might include interviewing authority players in your niche, or connecting with other podcasters in your space whose collaboration might assist mutual growth.
Finding an audience as a podcaster is not an easy exercise, so tools that offer a foundation for progress are a welcome relief, especially if the idea behind the tool looks like it could work. WebiCaster, developed by Robert Menetray is not a follow-for-follow Site, it’s a setting to showcase expertise & gain like-minded followers & long lasting connections.
The concept behind WebiCaster’s system is relatively simple. Podcasters or people looking to connect with podcasters can register on the platform & create a profile or portfolio. Once a dedicated listing of products, services or details of expertise has been committed to the Site, users can browse & connect with like-minded people whom they know are open to collaboration by default. This option is useful since it eliminates the time usually spent on emailing potential collaborators who might not be interested. Thus, the nasty practice of cold calling to find collaborators can be abandoned.
Aimed at English & Spanish narrators, WebiCaster’s communication & discovery platform for podcasters is free to use for basic services, which include a publicly available portfolio, the use of basic filters for searching the site & an option to contact only profiles that match your own. They also offer two Pro plans which offer more freedom to configure your profile, such as the option to turn on invisibility for your portfolio, as well as the facility to use advanced search filters to find suitable candidates.
Image credit: WebiCaster
Originally published at https://www.whatsnewonthenet.com on March 9, 2021. | https://medium.com/whats-new-on-the-net/webicaster-facilitates-collaboration-between-like-minded-startup-alert-6860132fb9e2 | [] | 2021-03-09 15:42:19.939000+00:00 | ['Podcasting', 'Podcasting Tips', 'Podcasts'] |
Afternoon Idyll | Sign up for American Haiku Steamship To Writing History
By American Haiku
Writing takes practice. American Haiku is a great way to put your words from your fingers to your piece of paper. Don't quit, you can do it. Take a look | https://medium.com/american-haiku/afternoon-idyll-156a89e5aedd | ['Glen Hendrix'] | 2019-11-01 16:56:16.517000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Nature', 'Humor', 'Poetry', 'Haiku'] |
Preventing a Second American Civil War | Post-Second American Civil War?
Even before a mob attacked the Capitol in an attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of Presidential power, the majority of Americans agreed that the country has entered a Cold Civil War.
The odds of this conflict turning hot within the next decade are high and increasing.
Countries live, countries die — history is littered with the corpses of failed states and nations. The United States of America is not exceptional, never has been, and never will be, except in one respect: too many Americans believe it is.
That belief, coupled to ever-deepening tribal affiliations with Red or Blue, is a result of 80 years of political marketing using techniques pioneered by one Joseph Goebbels of Nazi Germany. After the Second World War, a powerful group of Americans in New York City and Washington D.C. embraced Goebbels-style propaganda to sell a peculiar mythos to a people reeling from the Great Depression and Second World War.
The Baby Boomer generation, is presently — and until 2024 will remain — the largest cohort of voters in the United States. It was the first generation to be fully raised under the influence of television, which brought journalists who were mostly tied to wealthy Northeast-based Transatlantic power brokers into the living rooms of almost every American.
Millions of Americans were exposed to a belief system deliberately crafted to squelch opposition to the America these powerful elites wanted for themselves. A pretend meritocracy where proximity to the right people and institutions works as a gatekeeping device to prevent true American democracy from ever taking root.
This mythos is finally collapsing under the weight of reality — unfortunately, almost every elected leader in the United States hails from the Boomer generation. And an eternal two-party struggle for total control over the political system was a feature of their youth. It should come as no surprise that they are all replicating the battles and rhetoric of their younger days.
Trouble is, the world of the 2020s is radically different than the one of the 1960s. Oppressed people — pretty much anyone not a wealthy white straight neurotypical male or someone who could pass as — are no longer rendered permanently invisible by a news ecosystem literally anchored by an old white dude behind a desk.
The Boomers grew up in a unique moment where the United States led the world in manufacturing because most of the world’s factories had been annihilated in the Second World War. American leaders in the early postwar period recognized that to sell your products you needed customers with cash, and at home were terrified of the consequences of millions of soldiers coming home to chronic unemployment.
See, the United States quite literally died and was reborn in the 1930s. The collapse of the Gilded Era system that emerged from the wreck of the Civil War and turned the United States into a global empire was so deep the country faced a real risk of splintering again.
Or — and this terrified America’s wealthy even more — there could be a communist revolution. This was a much bigger threat in the 1930s than it ever was in the Red Scare of the 1950s, despite all the paranoia, because in its early incarnations the Soviet Union was committed to exporting the Revolution abroad.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been lauded as one of America’s great Presidents, and he certainly was. But the heroic legacy he has been imbued with cover for the unsettling truth that he was actually kind of a sociopath. Roosevelt stayed in office for an unprecedented 4 terms for a reason: he saw himself as a kind of benevolent democratic dictator whose job it was to salvage and reinforce as much of the pre-Great Depression United States as possible.
Yes, the social welfare system America adopted in the 1930s was a dramatic leap forward in terms of social progress. But it was intended specifically to calm tempers around the country, rectify chronic unemployment, and reboot the shattered American economy not out of any sense of moral obligation or dedication to social justice, but to shore up the long-term position of the wealthy.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the United States found itself in a similar position — and the wealthy and powerful knew it. They had lived the 20’s and knew how dangerous a postwar period can be.
They deliberately studied and adopted the techniques employed by the Nazi Regime, awed by the Nazis’ ability to keep so many people enthralled so effectively that they damn near conquered all of Europe. Just like the early space program relied on captured German scientists — many of them Nazi party members (most Germans weren’t, so the choice to join is significant) — so did the political effort to establish the boundaries of postwar society imitate many totalitarian elements learned from the defeated powers.
This is the reason why many of the hot-button issues Red and Blue are still fighting over today are more or less the same ones as in the 1960s. Unlike in a totalitarian state, the process of nation-building that started out of the genuine need to restructure American society after years of conflict took place in an open forum. The stilted, Ozzie and Harriet world shown in 1950s mass media was not a product of any conspiracy or agreement to lie to the American public.
Instead, mass media itself served as the battleground for deciding what kinds of behaviors were expected in the new American society being built. In a free news market where lots of expensive equipment is needed to produce messages lots of people see, there will only be room for a few large companies who will each try to appeal to a particular audience. If this is paid for by subscriptions or advertising, as is standard in the United States, a doubly-reinforced feedback look will develop where people are essentially recruited into distinct news ecosystems where they absorb and accept different sets of facts.
The limited number of channels available before the Internet Age tied to the few specific areas of agreement virtually all wealthy Americans share with respect to common national values meant that for many decades most Americans were trained to accept facts that were mostly in agreement across channels because of this, as well as the natural tendency of any small number of agents in a competitive environment to establish common rules to limit their conflict.
There are no true conspiracies in politics — people are just not very good at keeping secrets. Conspiratorial thinking becomes common when the various spins on the available facts given by the majority of media channels don’t match up with some group of people’s pre-existing views. But it only takes hold when this mismatch is persistent across time.
This all links back to the trouble with Boomer leadership for a simple reason: leadership is always about narratives, using stories to sway large numbers of people to action. But the Boomers were from birth subjected to a uniquely constrained set of narratives about the world and their place within it that resulted from the limited, focused concerns of the elites in power when the Boomers were young.
Fearing internal division, most people who had influence over what kinds of ideas and stories were published in the national press collectively demanded a high degree of self-censorship, each media channel attacking any other it perceived to be violating a set of invisible norms that emerged in the late 1940s.
At the same time, they nevertheless competed for dominance, latching onto the old two-party system and turning national politics into a kind of dance, each side’s leaders using whatever rhetoric would motivate voters to the polls most efficiently but maintaining a high degree of collegiality in their daily work. While talking heads and politicians would grandstand, the people who wrote the laws would carefully work behind the scenes to make sure a level of detente between the two parties — each representing a coalition of wealthy national interests like unions or the gun lobby — kept violent conflict to an absolute minimum.
In the 1930s, Army Generals MacArthur and Patton — both later to be elevated to mythic status —led soldiers to attack a group of protesting veterans who had been defrauded by the federal government after the First World War and drove them from Washington D.C. Earlier in the century, bombings and assassinations attributed to “anarchists” were widespread. These are the kinds of events that terrify national elites who fear mass revolt above all else — even nuclear war.
Fearful of a repeat of this chaos in the 1950s and 1960s, America’s Atlantic-based elites invested in the system that has dominated American politics ever since. The one that now, faced with decades of decay, is starting the cycle all over again.
Trouble is, the Boomers are incapable of effective leadership in this moment precisely because they were the generation trained to believe the days of America’s fragility were over. Blessed by God, America was exceptional, they were taught, a shining city on the hill, a beacon of freedom to the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Propaganda, but effective.
Joe Biden’s administration exemplifies this inability to perceive beyond the constraints of the postwar American mythos. At 78 in 2021, he is publicly committed to running for re-election in 2024, meaning he intends to be President until he is 86 — more than a decade past his anticipated lifespan at birth.
Nancy Pelosi, longtime Speaker of the House, is also a senior citizen. Same goes for Schumer and McConnell over in the Senate. Trained to believe a two-party system characterized by ever-escalating rhetoric but no major violence was normal and that their jobs as leaders meant taking their side to final victory over the other, all they have and can offer is meaningless ideological conflict and posturing that guarantees a decrepit, dying system will collapse sooner rather than later.
The Internet has broken the old media system and revealed America for what it always has been: a nation of tribes, each struggling to make their voices heard through a general din of nonsensical bullshit pushed by craven politicians who represent their party, not their people. The United States of America is not a democracy, but an oligarchic republic that was always intended to secure the privilege of a lucky few. The promise of the Constitution has never been fulfilled for all, and in contemporary America your rights correlate directly with the balance in your bank account.
This inequality is the real root cause of the fast-heating Cold Civil War of the early 2020s. The ultimate taboos in American politics are to question the defense budget, the democratic legitimacy of the two-party system, and the disproportionate influence of the old Northeast-based wealthy elite.
Call out any of these, and you will soon find yourselves ignored in polite circles. You don’t get to write feature pieces in prestigious publications like The Atlantic or New Yorker or speak at fancy events people pay hundreds of dollars to attend. American media totalitarianism doesn’t need camps or torture — everyone in the business simply learns who to not offend at any cost.
But these factors have totally calcified the American political system. People across the country are desperate, and now that they have the Internet they are free to connect with whatever ideas or beliefs move them.
This is nothing new. This is simply how people are: no one lives in a truly shared reality. Everyone perceives the world a little differently. Only through communication do we develop a good-enough, shared vision of a world in common that is always being re-imagined — especially by the younger generations.
But a lot of very intelligent, influential people want you to believe otherwise. They want — need — as many people as possible to accept the inevitability of the way things currently are.
The simple fact of the matter is that the United States of America died in 2020, and it won’t be reborn in quite the same form.
Trying, as the Biden Administration appears hell-bent on doing, to put the genie of change back in the bottle and kick of reform the can down the road in the hopes skies clear on their own is a fatal error. In fact, Joe Biden’s election was the second-worst outcome of the 2020 Election, behind only Trump managing to stay in office (legally or otherwise).
The Republican Party could have installed him had they chosen to. Had senior Republicans in the Senate and Supreme Court given into Trump’s demand to totally abandon the rules of the postwar era at his insistence, he would still be in office and the country would be paralyzed by demonstrations right now — likely, with Biden ultimately calling for calm and conceding despite the consequences for American democracy.
The media narrative that emerged in 2020 holding Biden up as the centrist savior who would end America’s uncivil war was as close as the American media has come since the runup to the Iraq War of overtly coordinating to sell a fantasy to the American public. The fact that the election was as close as it was, with the Republican Party substantially improving its position in the House and numerous State Legislatures, is a sign of just how badly things have slipped for the Democratic Party’s future hopes.
Turnout spiked in 2020, but nearly as many new voters turned out for Trump as for Biden. A large movement of former Republicans into the Democratic column was nearly swamped, in the key states that gave Biden the election, by turnout from new Trump voters. Worse, the Democrats’ margins among Black and Latino voters declined for the third election running.
If this trend continues, the inevitable brighter demographic future Democrats have been banking on will never come.
Further, Democrats chose to portray the 2020 Election as being the most important in history, and to cast anyone who voted Republican as against Democracy. This disastrous choice, coupled to a candidate effectively selected by a committee of elite Democrats once the threat of Covid made it clear the Democratic Party Primary was in serious trouble, has set the country up for a Trump return in 2024.
You only get to make claims like this once and expect voters to respond in full force, and even by playing this card the Democrats nearly lost everything. If you re-run Biden vs. Trump without a raging pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of Americans and forcing expansion of absentee voting, and Trump wins a second term.
And now that Republican state legislatures are moving to legalize Trump’s efforts to overturn the last election, the future is bleak.
The tragedy of 2020 was that the Democratic Party establishment congealed around a myth: that Americans aren’t ready for change, that the only way to beat the slide to authoritarianism is to double-down on the status quo.
In 2024, neither Trump fatigue nor a pandemic will be able to mask Biden’s fundamental weaknesses as a candidate and leader, and if he runs for re-election, he will fail. Only half the people who voted Biden-Harris voted for Biden. The other half simply wanted Trump gone.
But the fact that the stock market soared from 2016–2020 will, unless the world is in the middle of a complete meltdown by 2024, means that the “fascism is ok for my 401k” effect will outweigh the “vote for democracy!” side. Trump came out of the Capitol Riot in a stronger position than he held going in, and recovering from Covid-19 in full will take America many years. Memory of what the Trump era felt like will fade as more pressing concerns dominate people’s minds, and all too many people will care about was the massive runup in stock and property values from 2017 to 2020.
To make matters even worse, Biden is already making choices — particularly with respect to foreign policy and China — that are guaranteed to make his life difficult. Neither China nor Russia is the threat American elites want them to be — but trying to make them so is likely to lead to a disastrous confrontation on one or more fronts that the United States will not win.
A tipping point has been passed, a threshold breached, with respect to the China-USA relationship. It is now likely that in the near future China will be ina position use an incident provoked by the Philippines or maybe Vietnam defending their territorial claims to take military action in the South China Sea that the United States will be expected to respond to.
But all it will actually be able to do is send a few ships and bombers and rattle sabers before turning to sanctions, because the United States military is now so fundamentally vulnerable that only a fool would send it into open combat within a thousand miles of China’s coast. That’s a scenario China has literally been preparing for ever since the invasion of Iraq proved just how much the United States can be trusted to respect a “rules-based world order.”
Confrontation with China won’t end well for the United States because its military is caught up in a postwar mentality that demands the USA defend national borders that — though most Americans don’t realize this is the case — are assumed to run along China’s own coastline. As a matter of face, the first opportunity China has to call America’s military bluff that it can actually fight a war in China’s backyard without suffering extreme losses, it may well take it.
The same is true of Russia — Iran’s bombardment of US bases in Iraq with ballistic missiles in 2020 was a harbinger of what awaits American forces in a future conflict near Russia’s borders. As a power utterly dependent on a few crucial forward bases and a complicated supply chain spanning the globe, beating the United States in a conflict is much, much simpler than Americans understand as a result of the Pentagon basically embedding itself in the mass media since the Vietnam War to make sure we never question why 50% of America’s income taxes must always be sent to it regardless of the true level of threat the country faces.
So what happens when Biden’s fake-tough policy meets reality? More disillusionment that will play into growing anger with the establishment as Biden’s big Roosevelt-imitating programs die in the Senate — or are seen as so partisan they boost the Republican nightmare of creeping socialism.
Two-party system, massive wealth and social inequality, plus a generation trained to believe There Is No Alternative to the present situation— together this spells inevitable catastrophe unless decisive action is taken by anyone with enough wealth and influence to make a difference.
The current Cold Civil War is a natural result of the collapse of the postwar era, escalated by powerful the financial incentives unleashed in full by Citizens United. Conflicts escalate when all sides believe it is in their interest for the fight to continue, and both the Republican and Democratic Parties are financially and ideologically committed to their war.
Frankly, the fight itself is all they have left to offer voters, but allied with partisan media outlets there is no telling how long it will be before everyone tunes them out and focuses on local organization.
To prevent a Second American Civil War from erupting later this decade, a deliberate and focused internal de-escalation mediated by international groups will be required. It is in the world’s best interest to stabilize the situation, because if the United States does collapse into violence the consequences will be grave.
After the Republicans retake the House in 2022 through a combination of gerrymandering and voter suppression, Joe Biden must use his State of the Nation address to announce his resignation in 2023, bipartisanship having clearly failed.
A national precedent must be set that sets a realistic maximum age for holding public office. Politicians should be expected to retire by the age of 75 in order to give greater representation to younger voices who will have to live longer with the consequences of political choices.
A sitting President resigning, acknowledging that the job cannot by done by someone at risk of rapid cognitive or physical decline, is essential to undercutting Trump’s path to re-election.
This will allow Kamala Harris to become President, where she can dominate press coverage and spend the next two years traveling the nation to lay out plans for a set of fundamental reforms she will champion in Congress after her re-election in 2024 and beyond.
Biden must take the blame for all that has gone wrong in his administration and admit to his deliberately sabotaging Harris’ political fortunes, leaving Harris two years to establish herself as a visionary leader hamstrung only by a Republican-controlled Congress elected as a result of voter suppression efforts in a few states.
Then, the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party must break off and form its own separate Party, focusing its campaigning on hard-Blue states where there is no risk of accidentally electing Republicans.
This is necessary because the Democratic Party’s coalition is simply too big and diverse to be sustainable. All politics are identity politics and always have been — the Internet has simply lowered communication costs and allowed more identities to be recognized and organized around.
But Progressives like Ilhan Omar and AoC simply cannot co-exist in the same party as people like Mike Bloomberg and Joe Manchin, and this dilemma poses an existential dilemma for the Democratic Party. It wants to absorb the 1/3 of Republicans who don’t like the direction their party is heading, but it can’t do that when it also has to satisfy a growing Progressive wing that demands radical reforms that all virtually Republicans oppose.
Forcing people to vote Blue no matter who simply to prevent a Red takeover of the federal government is a recipe for alienation — a huge part of the reason that despite all the rhetoric about the 2020 Election 30% of voters still failed to turn out. This is a massive missed opportunity, the true hinge point in American democracy.
A functional but separate Progressive Party allows the Democrats to adopt a fully centrist identity with Harris as an Obama-esque leader who can wrangle factions to chart an ambitious path to a better future. At the same time, the Squad-led Progressives can mobilize people around their vision, making it as radical and anti-establishment as possible.
This is vital because anti-establishment feelings will grow in the coming years barring the kind of reforms the existing political system simply cannot deliver. If no one can appeal to them in time, the hard-right will.
Next, a non-partisan social media platform dedicated to politics must be established and supported by both government and social media outlets. Political discussions need to be pushed away from mainstream social media, and the old norm of not talking about politics outside of political venues re-established.
The key to this kind of platform will be using algorithms not to drive people to content, but to present a balanced view that stimulates meaningful interaction. Healthy political discussion is a learned skill, and a game-like social media platform combining aspects of Duolingo and Ballotpedia to present balanced and even challenging ideas can foster a healthy discussion ecosystem, if coupled to skillful moderation.
And finally, Americans must be engaged in truly meaningful assessments of the entire system of government, then empowered to identify and pursue reforms. It is no longer possible for a select group of Ivy League trained “experts” to decide for everyone what freedom and the pursuit of happiness ought to look like.
Everything needs to be on the table — from the way we elect our representatives to how districts are drawn. To stop the Cold Civil War from escalating to widespread violence as the challenges of this difficult decade grow, bottom-up reform will be required.
We’re not talking patches — America’s long history of genocide, slavery, and oppression can’t be hand-waved away by letting people express their “voice,” reparations and real commitment to a truly democratic system are needed now.
Well, actually they were needed about 20 years ago. They’ve been put off too long — and this is why political violence is now normal in some places, like Oregon.
Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria — these will be as nothing compared to an open Red-Blue conflict in the United States of America.
Those who can must act fast to stop a Second American Civil War from happening. Once violence begins, it rarely ends without a great deal of pain for all involved. | https://medium.com/@andrewmtanner/preventing-a-second-american-civil-war-740efeed1615 | ['Andrew Tanner'] | 2021-06-25 18:02:05.159000+00:00 | ['Progressive Politics', 'Future Of America', 'Joe Biden', 'Second Civil War', 'Kamala Harris'] |
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