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A Fragile Moment | The left could hand Trump four more years
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash
When I first started writing about Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility in early June, I could find exactly one other writer who was willing to call out this “must-read” for the exquisite work of hucksterism it actually is.
That was Jonathan Church, who, in August 2018 wrote a piece for the website Quilette called “The Problem with ‘White Fragility’ Theory.”
Nearly two years passed before Church wrote another piece called, “Dear White People: Please Do Not Read Robin DiAngelo’s ‘White Fragility.”
Now, at long last, more writers, journalists, and authors as well as educators and just really smart thinkers are starting to shine a light on the cult of DiAngelo and her dangerous, absurd ideas. (Comparisons to Scientology and tent revivals are not uncommon.)
First, we have reporter, author, and Rolling Stone contributor Matt Taibbi’s scathing and brilliant dismantling of White Fragility, published on his website on June 28th. He writes:
“DiAngelo isn’t the first person to make a buck pushing tricked-up pseudo-intellectual horseshit as corporate wisdom, but she might be the first to do it selling Hitlerian race theory.”
Then there’s Columbia University professor John McWhorter’s July 15th piece for The Atlantic, “The Dehumanizing Condescension of White Fragility,” in which he writes:
“I have learned that one of America’s favorite advice books of the moment is actually a racist tract. Despite the sincere intentions of its author, the book diminishes Black people in the name of dignifying us.”
And later: “White Fragility is, in the end, a book about how to make certain educated white readers feel better about themselves. DiAngelo’s outlook rests upon a depiction of Black people as endlessly delicate poster children within this self-gratifying fantasy about how white America needs to think — or, better, stop thinking. Her answer to white fragility, in other words, entails an elaborate and pitilessly dehumanizing condescension toward Black people. The sad truth is that anyone falling under the sway of this blinkered, self-satisfied, punitive stunt of a primer has been taught, by a well-intentioned but tragically misguided pastor, how to be racist in a whole new way.”
On July 16th, Jonathan Chait wrote a piece for New York Magazine called “Is the Anti-Racism Training Industry Just Peddling White Supremacy?”, which is accompanied by a photo of DiAngelo. He writes:
“It’s easy enough to see why executives and school administrators look around at a country exploding in righteous indignation at racism, and see the class of consultants selling their program of mystical healing as something that looks vaguely like a solution. But one day DiAngelo’s legions of customers will look back with embarrassment at the time when a moment of awakening to the depth of American racism drove them to embrace something very much like racism itself.”
I’ve been trying to tell you, people. Do you believe me now?
The same day McWhorter’s piece came out, The New York Times Magazine published a story by Daniel Bergner called, “‘White Fragility’ Is Everywhere. But Does Antiracism Training Work?,” which is also accompanied by a photo of… guess who?
I’d been waiting for a piece like this.
Not because I give a rat’s rump about anything DiAngelo has to say, but because I found it odd that an author could have a book on the Times best seller list for nearly 100 weeks without any major magazine doing an in-depth profile of her.
Sure, DiAngelo has made countless appearances on television and radio and podcasts, but she always speaks about the ideas in her book, never about herself — or never much about herself.
If you Google, say, author Elizabeth Gilbert, whose book Eat Pray Love was on the Times best seller list for 187 weeks, you can find out the city in which she grew up, her mother’s name, the titles of short stories and articles she’s written and for whom, what time she gets up in the morning, her favorite karaoke bars. In other words: details.
The Times magazine piece says DiAngelo grew up “around the Bay Area in California.”
Huh?
It includes the names of people she addressed in her antiracist workshops and corporate presentations. (Cha-ching!) But when the article gets to her personal life, it becomes oddly vague. For example, it mentions but does not name her parents, her two sisters, or her daughter. It says she “took a job counseling pregnant teenagers,” but doesn’t say where.
As a former magazine factchecker, I can tell you that kind of vagueness would not have flown with our editors. At best, the lack of detail would’ve been seen as laziness on the part of the reporter. At worst, it would’ve raised questions about whether the subject had any intent to conceal or deceive.
In either case, the missing information would need to be nailed down prior to publication— not only to make the story as rich as possible but, more important, to make sure we hadn’t been had. Good writers don’t just take their subject’s word for it. They independently verify everything they’ve been told to make sure it’s true.
Also, there’s a quote in the Times piece in which DiAngelo mentions a bit of encouragement she gave herself at the beginning of her career as a diversity trainer: “I’m gay, I’m liberal, I can do this.”
Normally, this would be an unremarkable line. But I found it odd because back in June, when I tried to find background or biographical information on the woman the entire woke world has hitched its wagon to and could basically find none — a Google search revealed that DiAngelo is married to a man named Jason Toews, who, according to the minutes of a 2019 City of Evanston, Illinois Board of Ethics meeting is also her assistant.
Again, absolutely nothing wrong with that, but why does the Times profile not mention it? Seems like kind of a big piece of information to leave out — just one missing detail in a single story about DiAngelo that’s part of a larger story about DiAngelo that’s missing a lot of details, and makes me ask: Who is this woman?
This tendency to leave out the details exists throughout White Fragility as well. As I read it (well, listened on Audible while resisting the urge to knock myself unconscious with a blunt object,) I kept wanting to call up the (always racially identified, but otherwise pretty opaque) friends and co-facilitators and workshop attendees DiAngelo mentions in her many cherry-picked anecdotes to find out if what she says happened actually did.
DiAngelo’s website says she’s “been a consultant, educator and facilitator for over 20 years on issues of racial and social justice” and that she’s worked with “a wide-range of organizations including private, non-profit, and governmental.” Again, no names, no specifics, no details.
The “Personal” section of her website is a single paragraph: “I grew up poor and white. While my class oppression has been relatively visible to me, my race privilege has not. In my efforts to uncover how race has shaped my life, I have gained deeper insight by placing race in the center of my analysis and asking how each of my other group locations have socialized me to collude with racism. In so doing, I have been able to address in greater depth my multiple locations and how they function together to hold racism in place. I now make the distinction that I grew up poor and white, for my experience of poverty would have been different had I not been white. (DiAngelo, 2006).”
The need for DiAngelo to cite herself in her own bio struck me as strange. Since she doesn’t say where that passage came from, I looked it up. It’s the first paragraph of an essay she wrote for The Official Journal of the National Association of Multicultural Education. So, she pulled some sentences from her own work that tell us virtually nothing about her, but includes the words “race” or “racism” five times?
This lack of specificity might be somewhat less worrisome if the following words didn’t come up repeatedly in connection with DiAngelo in the 1,226 comments on the Times piece, in recent Amazon reviews of White Fragility, and in what I can only hope will be an increasing number of journalistic and academic exposés:
Grifter.
Con artist.
Scammer.
Charlatan.
And my personal fave: PT Barnum.
I’ve been asking, begging, people to stop dropping cash in this phony preacher’s collection plate, go through deprogramming, and come back over to our side. The critical thinking side. The “we won’t cancel you” side. Because the W.F. cult members and the distinctly not merry band of cancel warriors out there are starting to resemble the very thing they hate most.
Taibbi nails this in his July 20th piece, “The Left is Now the Right,” he writes:
“The political right and left in America have traded villainous cultural pathologies. Things we once despised about the right have been amplified a thousand-fold on the flip.”
If you think that’s a huge exaggeration — think again.
To those who criticized the letter in Harper’s Magazine that warned about the increasing “ideological conformity” on the left, who called the letter just another example of people in positions of power using their rarified platform to sound an alarm over a trend that doesn’t exist — you are incorrect.
First, cancellation and the threat thereof is most definitely a trend. You may only hear about the cases that make the news, but I can promise you it’s everywhere.
Take aside any teacher or professor and ask if they feel like they’re walking on eggshells all the time. Take aside any journalist and ask how many pieces they’ve declined to write out of fear.
Take aside the former president and former board chairman of The Poetry Foundation who resigned after the statement they put out in support of Black Lives Matter was slammed on social media for being woefully insufficient. (Please read the letter and see if you’re not left asking, “Really? Really?”)
Ask the opinion writers and editors at The New York Times. (If you haven’t read Bari’s Weiss’s letter of resignation from the paper, you should immediately.) Ask Princeton professor Joshua Katz, whose cancellation was the subject of a July 14th piece by The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board.
Critics of the Harper’s letter also claim that the issues it raises are just a distraction from “what we really need to be talking about” like systemic racism.
Who’s trying to distract from that? Can’t we walk and chew gum at the same time?
Of course, systemic racism is a problem. But so is the fact that teachers can’t teach and journalists can’t write. So is the fact the parents are pulling their kids out of progressive schools because they’re sick of banging their heads against a brick wall.
And it is not just white people who feel this way. Not by a longshot.
The Harper’s letter was signed by 153 people, including Salman Rushdie, Bill T. Jones, and Atul Gawande. Not to mention Gloria Steinem, Garry Kasparov, and Noam Chomsky — not exactly folks who aim to “distract” from the most important social and political issues of the day.
Those who signed the letter are ideologically, ethnically, racially, and professionally diverse. And they’re trying, with grace and dignity and reason to stop a train that’s barreling in the wrong direction.
You don’t have to agree with every opinion held by every person who signed the letter. I disagree with a lot of them. But not on the need to protect open and civil debate. When a columnist or academic or author (what up, Robin D.) writes something I take issue with, I make my case against it. Or not. But I don’t call for their erasure.
I don’t attempt to cow them into silence or bully them into accepting my ideas or policy demands — because I know they’d only be doing that out of fear. And from that fear would grow resentment and anger and, eventually, hate.
That’s when the real trouble begins.
In his July 24th column for The New York Times, “Trump Doesn’t Speak for the ‘Silent Majority’,” Jamelle Bouie writes, “To Trump and his allies, the country is filled with “shy” supporters just waiting for the right time to reveal themselves; they think they can rally this public to their side with a violent demonstration of ‘law and order.’ They think they can run the Nixon playbook again, not realizing that to the broad middle of the country, they are the ones who represent the politics of division, disruption and disorder.”
I could not disagree more.
I believe there is a silenced majority — of all colors — in this country. And it’s not “shy” Trump supporters on the right, it’s exasperated Trump haters on the left. It’s not right-wingers who are excited by the revival of the Nixon playbook, it’s lefties who are dismayed that their own have become the circular firing squad President Obama warned about.
It’s a maddening frustration over how people on the left don’t see that by trashing the Harper’s letter, by Twitter-shaming people out of their jobs, by evangelizing White Fragility— they are driving their allies directly toward Donald Trump.
People who could never imagine supporting Trump are starting to get where the guy is coming from. Just like his supporters on the right, they feel stymied and shut down, baffled and disheartened. By continuing to induce that response, the left runs the very real risk of producing a widespread if quiet backlash that stems not from rationality but from emotion. A whole bunch of “f-you woke folk” votes, if you will. Combine those with the Bernie Bros who won’t go for Joe and what do you get? Four more years of you know who.
And when it comes to denying “people in power” the ability to express their opinions, please don’t start with the argument that it’s about time they got a taste of their own medicine.
No one — repeat, no one — on the left is arguing that there’s not a power imbalance along racial lines in virtually every institution in America that must be corrected. We want to correct it.
No one on the left is arguing that the racism which prevents people of color from getting better education, health care, housing, and jobs doesn’t need to be eradicated. We want to eradicate it.
But that is a different discussion.
This discussion is about what happens when a whole bunch of smart people suddenly become either brainwashed by some dumb book or hardened by misguided dogma to the point where rational, reasonable, open debate becomes impossible.
Make no mistake. Despite all the rosy poll numbers for Biden, I guarantee there is a large and growing group of voters on the left who are so fed up that they will vote for Trump in November.
In public, they’ll say all the right things about racial justice and equality, and in private they’ll cast their vote for the worst president in history.
And if he wins a second term, it won’t just be because of those on the right who think being asked to wear a face covering is an affront to their personal liberty. It’ll also be because of those on the left who were too angry, righteous, inflexible, and indoctrinated to see that they’ve been steadily paving the way for four more years of Trump.
When it happens, don’t say I didn’t warn you. | https://medium.com/the-kickstarter/a-fragile-moment-c4356d08369a | ['Joanna Cohen'] | 2020-07-26 22:57:54.622000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Politics', 'Culture', 'Race', 'Philosophy'] |
AWS Deployments using Serverless and Localstack | If you’ve interfaced with Devops teams, chances are that you’re well aware of tools used to manage infrastructure and application releases. Serverless holds a place on this long list.
Having worked with AWS, I became interested in exploring how Serverless fits into this space. This article outlines the learnings from setting up Serverless to work with Localstack for the purposes of testing application provisioning.
The aim is to create and deploy a service helloservice comprising of a basic hello Lambda function.
Installing Serverless
The following command installs Serverless onto a Linux host:
As part of the process, the serverless binary path is appended to the PATH environment variable within ~/.bashrc , so we run the following to refresh our profile.
$ source ~/.bashrc
Create New Service using Serverless Templates
A range of “Hello World” templates are readily available for creating services from scratch.
You can also list these by running:
$ serverless create --help
To create our helloservice Python3-based service/stack at path $HOME/helloService , using template aws-python3 , we run the following:
$ cd $HOME
$ serverless create --template aws-python3 --path helloService
Configure the Service to use Localstack
1. Install Localstack Plugin
The serverless-localstack plugin will need to be installed to allow for local deployments to Localstack.
Assuming you have nodejs/npm installed, add the plugin by running:
$ cd $HOME/helloService
$ npm install --save-dev serverless-localstack
2. Configure AWS Credentials
Create AWS credentials profile named localstack :
$ aws configure --profile localstack
AWS Access Key ID : test
AWS Secret Access Key : test
Default region name [us-east-1]:
Default output format [json]: json
3. Update serverless.yml
The file containing the service definition $HOME/helloService/serverless.yml will need to be modified to include AWS credentials, plugins to be used, and details of our Localstack instance.
Modify the file as follows.
Add Localstack plugins details:
...
service: helloservice
...
...
plugins:
- serverless-localstack
Add AWS profile and stage details as shown below:
provider:
name: aws
stage: local
runtime: python3.8
profile: localstack
Add the following custom section to the end of the file:
localstack:
stages:
# Stages for which the plugin should be enabled
- local
host:
edgePort: 4566
autostart: true
lambda:
mountCode: True
docker:
sudo: False custom:localstack:stages:# Stages for which the plugin should be enabled- localhost: http://localhost edgePort: 4566autostart: truelambda:mountCode: Truedocker:sudo: False
Localstack Docker Compose
The docker-compose Localstack environment used for testing is described next.
1. Host Directories
The following directories were created for volume mounts and storing docker-compose.yml .
$ mkdir $HOME/localstack
$ mkdir $HOME/localstack/tmp
$ mkdir $HOME/localstack/data
2. docker-compose.yml
The complete $HOME/localstack/docker-compose.yml has the following definition. Note, not all the AWS services mentioned in SERVICES variable are required, however, they were included for completeness and further discovery work.
$HOME/localstack/docker-compose.yml :
version: '3.7'
# HOST_MNT_ROOT=$HOME/localstack docker-compose up -d
services:
localstack:
container_name: localstack-main
image: localstack/localstack:latest
ports:
- "4566:4566"
environment:
- SERVICES=${SERVICES-serverless
,acm,apigateway,cloudformation,cloudwatch
,dynamodb,dynamodbstreams,ec2,es,events
,firehose,iam,kinesis,kms,lambda,rds
,route53,s3,s3api,secretsmanager,ses,sns
,sqs,ssm,stepfunctions,sts}
- DEBUG=${DEBUG- }
- LAMBDA_EXECUTOR=${LAMBDA_EXECUTOR-docker}
- KINESIS_ERROR_PROBABILITY=${KINESIS_ERROR_PROBABILITY-0}
- DOCKER_HOST=unix:///var/run/docker.sock
- DATA_DIR=/tmp/localstack/data
- HOST_TMP_FOLDER=${HOST_MNT_ROOT}/tmp
- TMPDIR=/tmp/localstack/tmp
- LAMBDA_REMOTE_DOCKER=false
volumes:
- "${HOST_MNT_ROOT}/data:/tmp/localstack/data"
- "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock"
- "${HOST_MNT_ROOT}/tmp:/tmp/localstack/tmp"
3. Starting Localstack
Launch Localstack by running:
$ cd $HOME/localstack
$ HOST_MNT_ROOT=$HOME/localstack docker-compose up -d
Deploying the Service to Localstack
Once Localstack is up and running, we can trigger the deployment.
$ cd $HOME/helloService
$ serverless deploy
If all goes well, the following output is returned, confirming creation of stack helloservice-local for the service, helloservice :
Service Information
service: helloservice
stage: local
region: us-east-1
stack: helloservice-local
resources: 6
api keys:
None
endpoints:
None
functions:
hello: helloservice-local-hello
layers:
None
An interesting observation to note at this point relates to the generated CloudFormation templates located within $HOME/helloService/.serverless . These give an insight into how Serverless works with CloudFormation to deploy the service components.
Invoking “hello” Lambda Function
To invoke our deployed hello function, run the following:
$ serverless invoke -f hello
This should produce the following output:
{
"body": "{\"message\": \"Go Serverless v1.0!
Your function executed successfully!\", \"input\": {}}",
"statusCode": 200
}
Listing/Identifying Stack Components
To list the stack components, we can use the aws cli .
1. Retrieve Stack Description:
--endpoint-url
cloudformation \
describe-stacks \
--stack-name helloservice-local $ aws --profile localstack \--endpoint-url http://localhost:4566 cloudformation \describe-stacks \--stack-name helloservice-local
2. List Stack Resources:
--endpoint-url
cloudformation \
describe-stack-resources \
--stack-name helloservice-local $ aws --profile localstack \--endpoint-url http://localhost:4566 cloudformation \describe-stack-resources \--stack-name helloservice-local
Further details for each LogicalResourceId returned from the above can be obtained by running the command below:
--endpoint-url
cloudformation \
describe-stack-resource \
--stack-name helloservice-local \
--logical-resource-id <LogicalResourceId Value> $ aws --profile localstack \--endpoint-url http://localhost:4566 cloudformation \describe-stack-resource \--stack-name helloservice-local \--logical-resource-id
3. Display the Stack CloudFormation Template:
--endpoint-url
cloudformation \
get-template -\
-stack-name helloservice-local $ aws --profile localstack \--endpoint-url http://localhost:4566 cloudformation \get-template -\-stack-name helloservice-local
4. View Logs
To view execution logs of our hello function, start by identifying the log group:
--endpoint-url
cloudformation describe-stack-resources \
--stack-name helloservice-local
...
{
"logGroups": [
{
"logGroupName": "/aws/lambda/helloservice-local-hello",
... $ aws --profile localstack \--endpoint-url http://localhost:4566 cloudformation describe-stack-resources \--stack-name helloservice-local
From the above, our logGroupName is /aws/lambda/helloservice-local-hello .
Using the logGroupName value, identify the associated logStream .
--endpoint
logs describe-log-streams \
--log-group-name \
/aws/lambda/helloservice-local-hello
...
{
"logStreams": [
{
"logStreamName": "2020/12/17/[LATEST]61a70b90",
... $ aws --profile localstack \--endpoint http://localhost:4566 logs describe-log-streams \--log-group-name \/aws/lambda/helloservice-local-hello
To view events for the stream listed above 2020/12/17/[LATEST]61a70b90 :
--endpoint
logs get-log-events \
--log-group-name /aws/lambda/helloservice-local-hello \
--log-stream-name 2020/12/17/[LATEST]61a70b90
...
{
"events": [
"message": "{'statusCode': 200, 'body':
'{\"message\": \"Go Serverless v1.0!
Your function executed successfully!\"
... $ aws --profile localstack \--endpoint http://localhost:4566 logs get-log-events \--log-group-name /aws/lambda/helloservice-local-hello \--log-stream-name 2020/12/17/[LATEST]61a70b90
Undeploying/Removing the Stack
To rollback the deployed stack/service, run the following:
$ cd $HOME/helloService
$ serverless remove
Conclusion
This basic introduction gave some insights into the obvious benefits of choosing Serverless for provisioning applications. A lot went on behind the scenes in response to executing a few simple commands to create our service. | https://medium.com/@anthony-f-tannous/aws-deployments-using-serverless-and-localstack-36395f316afa | ['Tony Tannous'] | 2020-12-18 22:59:34.286000+00:00 | ['Aws Cli', 'AWS Lambda', 'Localstack', 'DevOps', 'Serverless'] |
Pelican admitted with fishing hook through pouch & both eyelids | Pelican admitted with fishing hook through pouch & both eyelids
A brown pelican was among the 68 animals admitted to the von Arx Wildlife Hospital at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida this past week.
The brown pelican was rushed to the von Arx Wildlife Hospital from Marco Island by Conservancy Volunteer Critter Couriers Bobby and Betsy Monroe. The pelican was hooked through the eye by a treble hook and the Monroes recognized the pelican needed immediate medical attention.
The condition the pelican arrived in was shocking. A treble hook has three sets of hooks with three hooks from each “eye”. The lure the pelican was snared with had a total of nine hooks. One hook had punctured through the pelican’s upper and lower eyelids. The second hook on from that same hook “eye” punctured through the pelican’s pouch so the pouch was stretched up to the bird’s eye. The middle set of treble hooks on the lure was lodged in the pelican’s neck and the third set of treble hooks was in the pelican’s right wing. Witnessing the suffering the pelican was enduring was so distressing it brought one hospital staff member to tears.
Von Arx Wildlife Hospital Coordinator Colleen Durham assessed the situation and calmly and carefully worked to remove all of the hooks from the pelican. Initially, she cut barbs off five exposed hooks that hadn’t punctured into the bird to avoid any additional injuries. Next, the hook in the pelican’s wing was removed. In order to relieve the pressure on the eyelids, she then clipped the hook that had punctured through the pouch. At that point, Colleen clipped the hook that had punctured the top and bottom eyelids. Miraculously, the hook had missed the eyeball. Our greatest concern was alleviated — the pelican wasn’t blinded.
The pelican required electrolytes, pain medication, Chinese herbs, vitamins and a course of antibiotics. Initially, the pelican showed obvious signs of stress and noticeable swelling around the puncture site on the right eye. As each day passed the pelican regained strength and after six days spent recovering in the bird room within the hospital, the pelican was strong enough to be moved to the outdoor shorebird recovery area.
Of course, this is just one of many, many pelicans and other shorebirds admitted to the von Arx Wildlife Hospital last week due to fishing line and hook injuries. It is incredibly difficult to rationalize that what is most often a recreational activity for people can cause so much pain and suffering for such a large number of animals day after day.
Please, if you participate in angling activities be mindful of shorebirds that may be nearby. If you are a novice angler, find out what equipment is appropriate for the area you intend to fish. Considering using barbless hooks and be sure to use the proper test line.
Keep in mind fishing may be fun for you but successfully catching fish means life or death for the birds. Poor water quality, cooler temperatures and lack of fish add pressure for shorebirds that are already struggling to exist in a world severely altered by humans.
Recent Releases
A great horned owl, four brown pelicans, four double-crested cormorants, two marsh rabbits, an osprey, a ring-billed gull, a common barn owl, a great egret, a peninsula cooter and a black-crowned night heron were released last week.
Opportunities to Help
Please visit the Conservancy website at www.conservancy.org to view all of the amazing volunteer opportunities at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. Hospital staff are incredibly busy providing medical treatment and care to our patients. If you feel like you could donate your time, either in the hospital working with staff, or as a critter courier helping rescue and transport injured and orphaned animals to our facility, then fill out a volunteer application and get involved. You’ll be glad you did. Your volunteer time, donations, and memberships are vital in helping us continue our work to protect Southwest Florida’s water, land, wildlife and future. | https://medium.com/a-week-inside-the-von-arx-wildlife-hospital/pelican-admitted-with-fishing-hook-through-pouch-both-eyelids-f8b98bab77a5 | ['Conservancy Of Swfl'] | 2020-01-14 12:35:01.115000+00:00 | ['Wildlife'] |
mini manifesto on artist morality | view from my window in Toulouse, where I wrote this a few years back
I have been reflecting on the role of the artist in society, and I hope that they/we will feel obligated to be advocate-warriors for both the planet and for the oppressed.
Really, it should be everyone’s moral obligation to commit to both, as we are all intrinsically tied to the fate of both. In the case of the planet, we truly are all in this together, and in the case of class inequality, there is no liberation except the liberation of all, in terms of class, race, gender, sexuality, ability, and at all their intersections.
In what way are ‘artists’ ‘different?’ For the large part of the twentieth century, superstars of the radio and the screen were deified, assuming an elevated sanctity, even sainthood, taking over from religion in the increasingly secularised western world. We looked to them as fashion icons and lifestyle examples, to make sense of the world, to say what we wanted to say but better, for solace and salvation.
Now, artists are becoming more humanized every day through the democratizing platform of the internet, with independent musicians like Chance the Rapper and Princess Nokia achieving widespread and even mainstream fame through posts on Youtube, Soundcloud, and Bandcamp, and through an effusion of media content, such as Pitchfork’s ‘over-under’ videos and Noisey’s mini-documentaries. Social media brings us ever closer to the every-day life of the artist.
The result: today, we can all be artists, we can all be famous, if only fleetingly, and our ‘content’ has an increasingly politicized role in steering discourse toward important social/systemic issues through beautifully-communicated personal expression. Our own stories are more potent than the most highfalutin theory—we don’t have time for theory to trickle down through the academy and into ‘the masses.’ Neoliberal academia is not going to save the planet or topple big oil and big banks, and neither are the politicians—we are. Popular art has long been a more potent force for material and even policy change: either fomenting a revolution in pre-democratic times, or influencing a majority who will elect sympathetic politicians (sympathetic enough at least to get elected), who then vote sympathetically. Let us all fill the world with deinstitutionalised, personal, collective, radical, feminist, underrepresented, anti-colonial, emancipatory art, and create into being the world we would have to inhabit.
To prescribe morality to anyone would be presumptuous, and wouldn’t lead anywhere good. To say that a focus on personal fame and fortune equates to complicity in the destruction of the planet and the continued subjugation of the working class would be reductive (though this may well be the case). If anything, it is more understandable now than ever why the ‘pop champagne’ strain of hedonism is so common in popular culture—the young are inheriting a world that is more unequal than ever, and which is dying before our very eyes. How can we not be depressed? Why not just Netflix and chill? It will be an uphill, Sisyphean battle against giving up in the face of unlikely odds. So I guess this is my little bit of optimism: artists can lead us to a better future, and I hope they/we do. | https://medium.com/@noazark94/mini-manifesto-on-artist-morality-90b38035ab27 | ['Noah Mertz'] | 2020-12-16 14:12:03.339000+00:00 | ['Manifesto', 'Artist', 'Activism'] |
Building a Fundamental Value Investment Tool in React — Part 1 | The inputs are in blue font and the outputs are in black. As you can see from the image above, the Excel models were very spartan in terms of UI and didn’t look very user friendly (due to a combination of performance concerns and the fact that it was an internal tool for analyst, not a customer facing product). I wished the user interface looked something more like this:
Excel has changed a lot since then and now you can create business intelligence dashboards that are much easier on the eye, but even back then I wished someone would build an investment research tool that had a nice responsive design, had the ability to pull financial data with a simple company ticker input, powerful charting functionality and customization options in terms of interface and formatting. I am genuinely excited to see companies like YCharts ,Trefis and Quandl doing great work in this area.
My motivation behind building this project is to take a shot at creating a simple and intuitive investment research tool with a nice UI and I chose React.js as my front-end framework for this. I have a lot of research/brainstorming ahead of me but excited to delve into this project and increase my ambition as a developer.
See you next week for Part 2, where I will discuss the planning phase of this project and setting up the structure of the app! | https://medium.com/@vuphongnguyen87/building-a-fundamental-value-investment-tool-in-react-part-1-f55390d9fcc8 | ['Vu Phong Nguyen'] | 2019-04-17 15:37:10.672000+00:00 | ['Investing', 'Flatiron School', 'React', 'JavaScript', 'Dashboard'] |
Everybody’s Lying About the Link Between Gun Ownership and Homicide | There is no clear correlation whatsoever between gun ownership rate and gun homicide rate. Not within the USA. Not regionally. Not internationally. Not among peaceful societies. Not among violent ones. Gun ownership doesn’t make us safer. It doesn’t make us less safe. A bivariate correlation simply isn’t there. It is blatantly not-there. It is so tremendously not-there that the “not-there-ness” of it alone should be a huge news story.
And anyone with access to the internet and a basic knowledge of Microsoft Excel can check for themselves. Here’s how you do it.
First, go to the Wikipedia page on firearm death rates in the United States. If you don’t like referencing Wikipedia, then instead go to this study from the journal Injury Prevention, which was widely sourced by media on both the left and right after it came out, based on a survey of 4000 respondents. Then go to this table published by the FBI, detailing overall homicide rates, as well as gun homicide rates, by state. Copy and paste the data into Excel, and plot one versus the other on a scatter diagram. Alternately, do the whole thing on the back of a napkin. It’s not hard. Here’s what you get:
This looks less like data and more like someone shot a piece of graph paper with #8 birdshot.
If the data were correlated, we should be able to develop a best fit relationship to some mathematical trend function, and calculate an “R^2 Value,” which is a mathematical way of describing how well a trendline predicts a set of data. R^2 Values vary between 0 and 1, with 1 being a perfect fit to the data, and 0 being no fit. The R^2 Value for the linear trendline on this plot is 0.0031. Total garbage. No other function fits it either.
I embellished a little with the plot, coloring the data points to correspond with whether a state is “red,” “blue,” or “swing,” according to the Romney-Obama era in which political demarcations were a little more even and a little more sensical. That should give the reader a vague sense of what the gun laws in each state are like. As you can see, there is not only no correlation whatsoever with gun ownership rate, there’s also no correlation whatsoever with state level politics.
But hey, we are a relatively unique situation on the planet, given our high ownership rates and high number of guns owned per capita, so surely there’s some supporting data linking gun ownership with gun homicide elsewhere, right?
So off we go to Wikipedia again, to their page listing countries by firearm related death rates. If Wikipedia gives you the willies, you’re going to have a harder time compiling this table on your own, because every line in it is linked to a different source. Many of them, however, come from www.gunpolicy.org. Their research is supported by UNSCAR, the UN Trust Facility Supporting Cooperation on Arms Regulation, so it is probably pretty reasonable data. They unfortunately do not have gun ownership rates, but do have “guns owned per 100 inhabitants,” which is a similar set we can compare against. And we drop that into Excel, or use the back of our napkin again, and now we are surely going to see how gun ownership drives gun homicide.
Well that’s disappointing.
Remember we are looking for an R^2 value close to 1, or hopefully at least up around 0.7. The value on this one is 0.0107. Garbage. But there’s a huge number of data points parked down around the bottom of the graph, so perhaps we can break that out into separate graphs and just look at the violent countries and the peaceful countries separately.
(Please ignore the nerd in the back asking for the Y axis to be shown on a log-scale, as that will just confuse the muggles)
Well, that didn’t work. R^2 = 0.0097. How about for countries with high homicide rates?
Oh boy.
R^2 = 0.0677. But how about in Europe, where everything is perfect and there aren’t any guns? Those guys and gals over there have totally got this thing figured out, or so I’m led to believe.
R^2 = 0.0184.
Garbage.
No correlation whatsoever.
So let’s briefly recap. Gun Murder Rate is not correlated with firearm ownership rate in the United States, on a state by state basis. Firearm Homicide Rate is not correlated with guns per capita globally. It’s not correlated with guns per capita among peaceful countries, nor among violent countries, nor among European countries. So what in the heck is going on in the media, where we are constantly berated with signaling indicating that “more guns = more murder?”
One: They’re sneaking suicide in with the data, and then obfuscating that inclusion with rhetoric.
This is the biggest trick I see in the media, and very few people seem to pick up on it. Suicide, numerically speaking, is around twice the problem homicide is, both in overall rate and in rate by gun. Two thirds of gun deaths are suicides in the USA. And suicide rates are correlated with gun ownership rates in the USA, because suicide is much easier, and much more final, when done with a gun. If you’re going to kill yourself anyway, and you happen to have a gun in the house, then you choose that method out of convenience. Beyond that, there’s some correlation between overall suicide and gun ownership, owing to the fact that a failed suicide doesn’t show up as a suicide in the numbers, and suicides with guns rarely fail.
Accidents are a relatively small portion of total gun deaths, but obviously that entire chunk of the numbers happen to people who own guns. Can’t die of a gun accident without a gun.
So when you include both of those factors in your data set, you end up with a positive correlation for this new quantity you’ve brewed up, called “gun deaths.”
These charts then show up as infographics in places like this Mother Jones Article, down under “Debunking Myth #2.” (If you don’t want to follow the link, the image is reposted in a section below. The big yellow one.) Notice the label on the Y axis? “Gun deaths per 100,000 residents” includes suicides and accidents. Also it technically includes police shootings and such.
That is not to belittle the suicide problem. Suicide is twice the problem that homicide is, statistically speaking, but you’re not going to fix that by any of the “common sense measures” the left floats, such as magazine size restrictions. (pro tip: you only need a mag of “1” to shoot yourself) Nor is it to belittle the accident problem, which is itself tremendous. Much could be done to ameliorate both of those problems.
Two: They’re cooking the homicide data.
The most comprehensive example of this is probably this study from the American Journal of Public Health. It’s widely cited, and was very comprehensive in its analytical approach, and was built by people I admire and whom I admit are smarter than me. But to understand how they ended up with their conclusions, and whether those conclusions actually mean what the pundits say they mean, we have to look at what they actually did and what they actually concluded.
First off, they didn’t use actual gun ownership rates. They used fractional suicide-by-gun rates as a proxy for gun ownership. This is apparently a very common technique by gun policy researchers, but the results of that analysis ended up being very different from the ownership data in the Injury Prevention journal in my first graph of the article. The AJPH study had Hawaii at 25.8% gun ownership rate, compared to 45% in IP, and had Mississippi at 76.8% gun ownership rate, compared to 42.8% in IP. Could it be that suicidal people in Hawaii prefer different suicide methods than in Mississippi, and that might impact their proxy? I don’t know, but it would seem to me that the very use of a proxy at all puts the study on a very sketchy foundation. If we can’t know the ownership rate directly, then how can we check that the ratio of gun suicides properly maps over to the ownership rate? Further, the fact that the rates are so different in the two studies makes me curious about the sample size and sampling methods of the IP study. We can be absolutely certain that at least one of these studies, if not both of them, are wrong on the ownership rate data set. We know this purely because the data sets differ. They can’t both be right. They might both be wrong.
Second, they didn’t look only at guns. They looked at a wide array of possible factors that would influence gun homicide, and controlled against them in a complex, multivariate analysis. Generally, I would characterize this as the proper approach. Here is a quote from the study:
We controlled for the following factors, which have been identified in previous literature (29,32,34–37,41–45,54,56,57) as being related to homicide rates: proportion of young adults (aged 15–29 years), proportion of young males (aged 15–29 years), proportion of Blacks, proportion of Hispanics, level of urbanization, educational attainment, poverty status, unemployment, median household income, income inequality (the Gini ratio), per capita alcohol consumption, nonhomicide violent crime rate (aggravated assault, robbery, and forcible rape), nonviolent (property) crime rate (burglary, larceny–theft, and motor vehicle theft), hate crime rate, prevalence of hunting licenses, and divorce rate. To account for regional differences, we controlled for US Census region. In addition, to capture unspecified factors that may be associated with firearm homicide rates, we controlled for the annual, age-adjusted rate of nonfirearm homicides in each state. We also controlled for state-specific incarceration rates and suicide rates. The definitions and sources of these data are provided in Table 1.
The results of their multivariate model were that six factors influenced homicide rate, not one. Let’s go down that list.
· For each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of household gun ownership [via gun suicide proxy], firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9%
· For each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of Black population, firearm homicide rate increased by 5.2%
· For each 0.01 increase in Gini coefficient [income inequality], firearm homicide rate increased by 4.6%
· For each increase of 1/1000 in violent crime rate, firearm homicide rate increased by 4.8%
· For each increase of 1/1000 in nonviolent crime rate, firearm homicide rate increased by 0.8%
· For each increase of 1/10 000 in incarceration rate, firearm homicide rate decreased by 0.5%
So let’s start by clearing the air. The two primary correlations they found were not guns, they were income inequality and black population ratio. Does this mean that we can reduce firearm homicide by getting rid of black people?
No.
No it does not.
Don’t even go there.
The reason we don’t go there is very important to understand. The study established correlations, not causality. The results might be explained by saying “black people tend to live disproportionately in poorer, urbanized areas that are more prone to homicide due to environmental factors.” That explanation may be completely reasonable. If, on the other hand, someone pointed at this study and said, “Black people are clearly the cause of homicide, we need to get rid of black people,” that would not only be a racially prejudiced statement, it would be illogical, because causality has not been shown.
But that also may mean “gun owners tend to live disproportionately in poorer, urbanized areas that are more prone to homicide due to environmental factors.” That could even be why they bought the gun. When a media source such as Mother Jones or Everytown for Gun Safety implies that “we have a gun problem,” they are making exactly the same reasoning error as if they said, “we have a black people problem.”
And black population was six times more predictive than gun ownership was, in the AJPH model.
Of course, all of that presumes you believe fractional firearm suicide rate is an accurate proxy for gun ownership rate. While that may be true, all the AJPH study technically showed was a link between firearm homicide rate and the ratios of suicide committed with a firearm compared to other methods. And presuming you do buy it, gun ownership is one sixth as predictive as being black, when it comes to homicide, which is to say it’s not very predictive at all. And that’s why the scant correlation doesn’t show up in my first graph in the article.
Applying the Lesson
So now that you have a more complete toolkit to understand how the media is warping the narrative, let’s take a look at a typical left media hit piece. Vox does a lot of these, and spends a tremendous amount of time on very carefully and very viciously mangling data and graphs to support them, which is a bit of a tragedy because their graphical presentation is beautiful, and I quite enjoy their articles on other topics. Here’s a recent article, although they pretty much have a series of stock articles they release after each mass shooter event that hits the media, so the next one they drop will assuredly look very similar to the last one.
(author’s note: The article we critique here languished on the internet for three years, from the fall of 2015 until November 2018, when they made a stealth change to the material in it to include the words “and suicides” in the section we’re critiquing. It may have been changed due to the popularity of this Medium piece, or not, it’s hard to say. You can pull the original from the internet wayback machine here. The critique here stands as an example of the vicious games the media play with not only the gun topic, but all topics.)
Their first graphic:
…looks nice. But it doesn’t look like any of my graphs at all. Why? Well for one, the data is different, but it’s not too different, so let’s explain that criticism with sourcing issues. The main difference here, is they’re leaving off data they don’t want you to see. Guns-per-capita varies widely across these data points. Certainly the USA tops the list, but Switzerland at 24 guns per 100 inhabitants has five times more homicides than New Zealand at around 30 guns per 100 inhabitants. Germany has around 30 guns per 100 inhabitants and they’ve got a gun homicide rate that’s a third of Belgium’s, who only have around 17 guns per 100 inhabitants. So Vox has a nice graph here, but they’re intentionally omitting data that would unravel their case.
Further, they’re excluding data points. The USA is #10 in “Human Development Index” according to the current rankings as of March 2018. Norway and Iceland are ahead of us on the HDI rank, but are missing from the graphic. Curiously, both of these countries have over 30 guns per 100 inhabitants as well.
So let’s pause for a moment, purely because this is pretty fun, and look at that HDI list. Norway (31.3 guns per 100 inhabitants), Switzerland (24.5 guns per 100 inhabitants), Germany (30.3 guns per 100 inhabitants), Iceland (30.3 guns per 100 inhabitants) and Canada (30.8 guns per 100 inhabitants) are all higher than the USA on the list, making it six of the top ten HDI ranked countries at over 24 guns per 100 inhabitants. There are only 15 countries in the world with gun ownership rates this high, and 6 are in the top ten of HDI rank.
Let’s look further down, and they’ve got that same Mother Jones “more guns more deaths” graph I mentioned earlier. You can see clearly how it intentionally warps the data by including suicides and accidents, by comparing it to my first graph in this article.
Note the subtle rhetorical bait and switch. First Vox initiates a very noticeable, very specific conversation about homicide, while leaving the “ownership” data out, and then they subtly switch to a graph which is dominated by suicide numbers without mentioning the word “suicide” once, to make you think they’re still talking about homicide, when they actually aren’t. Then they follow that graph up immediately with this one:
Well heck, that’s just like my second, third, fourth, and fifth graphs up at the top! How did they get a positively correlated trend line when I didn’t? Three ways.
One: This graph has also snuck suicide, accidents, police shootings and such in the back door, without alerting the reader of the bait and switch.
Two: This graph is leaving out a whole bunch of countries, carefully and selectively omitted to funnel the data into a trend.
Three: this graph is leaving out the most important number on the whole thing, which is the R^2 number. What level of correlation we have in this data is absolutely unclear. The only thing that actually draws your eye to believe in a correlation is the trendline itself. If you hide the USA for a moment, and erase the trendline, the data looks like a big uncorrelated mess. If you strip out suicide and accidents, it will become even more uncorrelated. If you add in all the countries they left out, you get an exact replica of my second graph in this article, which shows no correlation.
These are the tricks being played. The only way to even engage in this dialog rationally is to understand how the tricks work and keep an eye out for them. Especially when reading Vox, Mother Jones, Everytown for Gun Safety, and by transitive property, MSNBC, CNN, and the majority of the Blue Church sources, who use Everytown and such as blindly trusted sources when they publish their hastily thrown together articles on gun violence in the wake of one of our seemingly semi-annual yet statistically insignificant school shooting incidents.
Find an index of further gun policy articles here: | https://medium.com/handwaving-freakoutery/everybodys-lying-about-the-link-between-gun-ownership-and-homicide-1108ed400be5 | ['Bj Campbell'] | 2018-12-16 15:17:14.338000+00:00 | ['Guns', 'Gun Control', 'Data Visualization', 'Media Criticism', 'Politics'] |
3 Simple Steps to Create an Investment Plan for 2021 | 1. Outline the Specific Reasons Why You Are Investing
When it comes to the specific reasons why you are investing, you can think of this as your goals (for a breakdown of acting on your goals, check out 4 Steps to Take to Act on Your Goals). The best approach to have in outlining your goals is the SMART method. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.
For each of your reasons, you should make them SMART. For example, let’s say that one of your reason to invest is so that you retire by the age of 45. In making this reason specific, you state that you want to retire by the age of 45 so that you have more than enough time to enjoy the wonders of traveling the world. In making it measurable, you state that you want to build your portfolio up to $1.2 million in dividend-paying securities so you can live off the monthly and quarterly dividends. In making it achievable, you state that you will invest a minimum of $1,500 every month for the next 20 years (assuming you are 25 years old). In making it relevant, you state that you have done ample reading regarding the benefits of compounding and long-term investing, and you want to experience it for yourself. In making it time-bound, and as stated earlier, you are giving yourself 20 years.
2. Outline What You Will Invest In
When it comes to outlining what you will invest in, you can think of this as establishing your investment strategy. In establishing your investment strategy, you establish your focus, investment-specific goals, and portfolio risk & optimization (check out 3 Simple Steps to Create Your Investment Strategy for a more in-depth breakdown).
Let’s say that for your strategy, you want to have a growth focus initially. In having a growth focus, you decide to invest in 2 growth-focused ETFs, the Vanguard S&P 500 Growth ETF (VOOG) and the Vanguard Information Technology ETF (VGT). Your goal for them is to drive growth for the first 18 years of your portfolio based on the above SMART reason so that you can have the capital necessary to then transition to securities that pay higher dividends. Also, you decide to invest in the top 2 holdings of each of those ETFs, which are currently Apple and Microsoft, to drive growth further. When it comes to portfolio risk & optimization, you are willing to see temporary dips in your portfolio, and you will adjust the top 2 holdings you invest in when needed.
3. Outline How You Will Maintain Consistency
When it comes to outlining how you will maintain consistency, this boils down to how you will keep yourself accountable. One of the easiest ways to maintain consistency is by setting up an automatic monthly deposit with your broker.
In automating the money you will put towards investing, you are keeping yourself accountable. Of course, when necessary, you can cancel your automatic monthly deposit. There may be some rough patches in the road, but you should continue with the automatic monthly deposit once you get through those rough patches. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/3-simple-steps-to-create-an-investment-plan-for-2021-c46b3770c9d8 | ['Tunji Onigbanjo'] | 2020-12-30 17:52:02.196000+00:00 | ['Personal Growth', 'Stock Market', 'Money', 'Investment', 'Finance'] |
useCallback Might Be What You Meant By useRef & useEffect | Caveat: the ref function is guaranteed to be called on mounts and unmounts of elements, even on the first mount, and even if the unmount is as a result of the parent element unmounting. Caveat2: Make sure to wrap ref callbacks with useCallback . Without it, if you cause a render from the ref callback, the ref callback will be triggered again with null , potentially leading to an endless loop, because of React internals. To play with this, try removing useCallback from the sandbox above and see this other sandbox.
This pattern can be used in several more ways:
useState
Since useState is a function that is consistent between renders, it can also be used as a ref .
In this case, the whole node will be saved in its own state.
As a state, when it changes, it would trigger a re-render and the state can be safely used in the render’s results and as a useEffect dependency:
useStateRef
Accessing the DOM is expensive, so we want to do this as little as possible.
If you don’t need the whole node like in the previous hook, you better save only part of it on a state:
As you can see we access the DOM only when the element to which we pass ref is mounted and only save clientHeight in this stage.
useRefWithCallback
But sometimes, for the sake of performance, you can do without triggering re-renders on mounts and unmounts of the element that you use it’s ref .
The following hook doesn't save the node on the state. Instead of using state, it responds to mounts and unmounts directly, so it doesn’t trigger any re-renders. | https://medium.com/welldone-software/usecallback-might-be-what-you-meant-by-useref-useeffect-773bc0278ae | ['Vitali Zaidman'] | 2021-03-10 09:48:42.828000+00:00 | ['React Hook', 'React', 'JavaScript'] |
Some Notes From 12 Rules For Life | RULE 4
“Compare yourself with who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today”
“..If the internal voice makes you doubt the value of your endeavours- or your life, or life itself- perhaps you should stop listening.”
“…Maybe its comments are chatter, not wisdom.”
“…In a million years, who’s going to know the difference? The proper response to that statement is not, Well, then, everything is meaningless. It’s, Any idiot can choose a frame of time within nothing matters. Talking yourself into irrelevance is not profound critique of Being. It’s a cheap trick if the rational mind.”
“…If you hadn’t decided that what you are doing right now was better than the alternatives, you wouldn’t be doing it.”
“…If something can be done at all, it can be done better or worse.”
“…Meaning itself require the difference between better and worse.”
“…But winning at everything might only mean that you’re not doing anything new or difficult.”
“…Before you can articulate your own standards of value, you must see yourself as a stranger- and then you must get to know yourself. What do you find valuable or pleasurable? How much leisure, enjoyment, and reward do you require, so you feel like more than a beast of burden?”
“…When you have something to say, silence is a lie.”
“…Could you, and would you, fix that one thing that announces itself humbly in need of repair? Could you do it now?”
“…Five hundred small decisions, five hundred tiny actions, compose your day, today and every day. Could you aim one or two of these at better result? Better, in your own private opinion, by your own individual standards? Could you compare your specific personal tomorrow with your specific personal yesterday? Could you use your own judgement, and ask yourself what that better tomorrow might be?”
“…you aim at what you value…”
“…For this reason (although not only for this reason) it is necessary to let things go during the journey uphill.”
“…life doesn’t have the problem. You do.”
“…If your life is not going well, perhaps it is your current knowledge that is insufficient, not life itself. Perhaps your value structure needs some serious retooling. Perhaps what you want is blinding you to what else could be.”
“…I will try want whatever it is that would make my life better- whatever that might be- and I will start working on it now.”
“…pursuit was something narrow and concrete. But you became stuck there, tightly jammed and unhappy. So you let go. You make the necessary sacrifice, and allow a whole new world of possibility, hidden from you because of your previous ambition, to reveal itself.”
“You are too complex to understand yourself.”
“It is instead the realization that the tragic irrationalities of life must be counterbalanced by an equally irrational commitment to the essential goodness of Being… You realize that you have, literally, nothing better to do.”
“What is it that is bothering me? Is that something I could fix? And would I actually be willing to fix it?”
“Notice your fear, and have some sympathy for it.”
“Don’t tell yourself, “I shouldn’t need to do that to motivate myself.“ What do you know about yourself?”
“Don’t over-estimate your self-knowledge.” | https://medium.com/@topallfurkan/some-notes-from-12-rules-for-life-2779f3915e8b | ['Furkan Topal'] | 2020-12-21 05:23:27.550000+00:00 | ['12 Rules For Life', 'Self Improvement', 'Jordan Peterson', 'Self Help', 'Psychology'] |
9Things You Should Never Do in the Morning | Don’t allow yourself to feel overwhelmed in the early hours of your day. Instead, be well-prepared and set your priorities in the evening.
There’s no better feeling than going to bed knowing that you’re well prepared to tackle the next day.
And when planning your daily schedule and tasks, make sure to keep it to a minimum: Your schedule shouldn’t contain more than a few important tasks per day.
Photo by Ekaterina Bolovtsova from Pexels
Doyou ever sit down at 6 p.m. and think that you’ve had an incredibly busy day but didn’t really accomplish much?
https://note.com/lametmp/n/n43c54e3d52b3
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If you ever feel like your days are just passing by, it’s likely because you’re spending the majority of your time on the wrong things.
And the most dangerous time of the day to waste is your morning.
As Richard Whately once said:
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If you spend your morning doing the wrong things, you’ll likely lack energy, motivation, and willpower to do the right things throughout the rest of your day.
By eliminating the following habits, however, you’ll make space for the important decisions, tasks, and people in your life. | https://medium.com/@kofaki1113/9things-you-should-never-do-in-the-morning-bff40f88f540 | [] | 2020-12-05 15:57:34.517000+00:00 | ['Loss', 'Los Angeles', 'Love', 'London', 'Lo'] |
How I made it to Amazon after 2 years in Industry? | I studied from a normal regional college near Hyderabad, you might not know the name of and applied for innumerable companies in last two years, before bagging offers from Oracle and Amazon.
Hi, I am Srikanth, narrating my story for you to pick some cues for yourself, if you are also on the journey of getting into the best of software companies or be an incredible engineer.
In my college, only TCS, Accenture and Infosys like service based companies visited the campus.
My college did not have much of coding culture but one of my senior guided me to learn Data Structures and Algortihms.
I got through my first internship through Linkedin in a tech company at Hyderabad and continued there as Associate Software Developer, where I worked on frontend but I wanted to go further in my career. In the same year, I applied to amazon but could not get through the Interviews.
I joined Programming Pathshala and in the admission Interview with Vivek Sir, I told him that I want to make it to Amazon. Before that I used to do random questions from GeeksforGeeks or other platforms but could only think of brute force approaches.
At Programming Pathshala, Vivek Sir taught each topic very elaborately and built the concept from very fundamentals while Bharat sir used to be comparatively bit fast-paced but I liked it. Both are excellent teachers and under their guidance, I developed my own intuition to approach any new problem of Data Structures and Algorithms.
I made proper notes, highlighted questions and prepared my own repository of all the questions I got into assignments and contests at Programming Pathshala. Along with this, I sincerely attended the classes at Renaissance and later used to code all the approaches that were discussed during the class.
Apart from Data Structures and Algorithms, I also did System Design & Low-level design classes, in which Deepak sir made us dive deep into engineering of large scale systems. He has previously worked at Amazon, Google and Rubrik with 6+ years of Industry experience, which came handy while discussing case studies, research papers and concepts in detail.
But fortune is not always in our favour, in December 2020, my sibling got severely ill and I had to skip my classes for around a month. Days felt all gloomy, but it was all thanks to my teachers and the peer group at Programming Pathshala — Subhashish, Ujjawal and Shaswat, for keeping me motivated throughout the time and helping me cover all the pending topics.
Together, we did a lot of questions and grew up by supporting and learning from each other’s mistakes. This peer group helped me a lot and filled the gap of not having a coding culture during my college time. In the end, Shubhashish made it to NasDaily Singapore, Shaswat to Amazon and Ujjawal to ShipRocket.
I gave three mock-interviews. Interestingly, Deepak took my mock-interview for ZestMoney on System design. Although I couldn’t clear ZestMoney and got rejected after a tie. But I got a detailed feedback from Deepak, that further helped me in my Amazon interview preparation.
Along with this, my mock interview with Aarth and further discussions with him proved very valuable in finding my mistakes and improving upon them. He boosted my confidence and also gave me relevant pointers on leadership principles which proved extremely beneficial in the later stages of the interview rounds at amazon.
The main advice I will give to my juniors is — consistency. I will also suggest to solve previous problems for revision. If we have really understood a topic then we should be able to solve it at any point of time.
At Programming Pathshala, I became more curious. I want to dive deeper into engineering and gain more knowledge. For career, I don’t have many aspirations for myself as of now and my parents are satisfied with my happiness. I will work on my next project with Amazon and will think over other things later. I would love to mentor students at PPa, it will be great to contribute to Programming Pathshala back. | https://medium.com/@programmingpathshala/srikanths-journey-to-amazon-after-2-years-in-the-career-aa5f612c1270 | ['Programming Pathshala'] | 2021-04-06 05:58:00.967000+00:00 | ['Data Structures', 'Codingbootcamp', 'Software Engineering', 'Coding Interviews', 'Amazon'] |
Take action: 10 ways you can help end violence against women, even during a pandemic | In 2020, COVID-19 touched our lives in nearly every way, everywhere, as countries went into lockdown and restricted movement to contain the spread of the virus. As doors closed and isolation began, reports of all forms of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence, began to rise.
The pandemic of violence against women is not new. Even before COVID-19 hit us, globally, 243 million women and girls were abused by their intimate partners in the past year. The COVID-19 pandemic intensified the violence, even as support services faltered and accessing help became harder.
As we mark the annual 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence campaign (25 November — 10 December), UN Women is joining hands with survivors, activists, decision-makers, the UN system, and people from every walk of life, to shine a light on the need for funding, essential services, prevention and data that shapes better-informed responses.
Ending violence against women is everyone’s business.
Here are just ten ways you can make a difference, safely and impactfully.
1. Listen to and believe survivors
When a woman shares her story of violence, she takes the first step to breaking the cycle of abuse. It’s on all of us to give her the safe space she needs to speak up and be heard.
It’s important to remember that when discussing cases of sexual violence, a victim’s sobriety, clothes, and sexuality are irrelevant. The perpetrator is the sole reason for assault and must bear the responsibility alone. Call out victim-blaming and counter the idea that it’s on women to avoid situations that might be seen as “dangerous” by traditional standards.
Survivors of violence are speaking out more than ever before, and everyone has a role to play to ensure they can have justice.
Don’t say, “Why didn’t she leave?”
Do say: “We hear you. We believe you. We stand with you.”
2. Teach the next generation and learn from them
The examples we set for the younger generation shape the way they think about gender, respect and human rights. Start conversations about gender roles early on, and challenge the traditional features and characteristics assigned to men and women. Point out the stereotypes that children constantly encounter, whether in the media, on the street or at the school, and let them know that it’s OK to be different. Encourage a culture of acceptance.
Talk about consent, bodily autonomy and accountability to boys and girls, and also listen to what they have to say about their experience of the world. By empowering young advocates with information, and educating them about women’s rights, we can build a better future for all.
3. Call for responses and services fit for purpose
Services for survivors are essential services. This means that shelters, hotlines, counseling and all support for survivors of gender-based violence need to be available for those in need, even during the coronavirus pandemic.
Every year, the 16 Days of Activism campaign calls for united, global action to end all forms of violence against women and girls. This year the United Nations, together with our partners, are demanding four critical actions, summarized by our 2020 campaign theme: FUND, RESPOND, PREVENT, COLLECT.
Join us in calling on governments to bridge funding gaps to address violence against women and girls, ensure essential services for survivors of violence are maintained during this crisis, implement prevention measures, and invest in collecting the data necessary to adapt and improve life-saving services for women and girls.
4. Understand consent
Freely given, enthusiastic consent is mandatory, every time.
Rather than listening for a “no,” make sure there is an active “yes,” from all involved. Adopt enthusiastic consent in your life and talk about it.
Phrases like “she was asking for it” or “boys will be boys” attempt to blur the lines around sexual consent, placing blame on victims, and excusing perpetrators from the crimes they have committed.
While those that use these lines may have fuzzy understandings of consent, the definition is crystal clear. When it comes to consent, there are no blurred lines.
Learn more about consent>
5. Learn the signs of abuse and how you can help
There are many forms of abuse and all of them can have serious physical and emotional effects. If you’re concerned about a friend who may be experiencing violence or feels unsafe around someone, review these signs and learn about the ways to help them find safety and support.
If you think someone is abusing you, help is available. You are not alone. If you’d like to talk with a trained advocate at a helpline, we compiled this list of resources around the world.
6. Start a conversation
Violence against women and girls is a human rights violation that’s been perpetuated for decades. It’s pervasive, but it’s not inevitable, unless we stay silent.
Show your solidarity with survivors and where you stand in the fight for women’s rights by oranging your social media profile for the 16 Days of Activism — you can download banners for Facebook and Twitter here.
On Instagram, you can use UN Women’s face filter to spread the word and encourage your community to do the same.
Use #orangetheworld, #16Days and #GenerationEquality to start your own conversation about gender-based violence, or share some of the content from our social media package.
7. Stand against rape culture
Rape culture is the social environment that allows sexual violence to be normalized and justified, fueled by the persistent gender inequalities and attitudes about gender and sexuality. Naming it is the first step to dismantling rape culture.
Every day we have the opportunity to examine our behaviours and beliefs for biases that permit rape culture to continue. Think about how you define masculinity and femininity, and how your own biases and stereotypes influence you.
From the attitudes we have about gender identities to the policies we support in our communities, we can all take action to stand against rape culture.
Learn more ways to stand against rape culture>
8. Fund women’s organizations
Donate to local organizations that empower women, amplify their voices, support survivors, and promote acceptance of all gender identities and sexualities.
UN Women works with women’s organizations everywhere to end violence against women, assist survivors, and secure equal rights for women and girls everywhere. Donate now at https://donate.unwomen.org/en/
9. Hold each other accountable
Violence can take many forms, including sexual harassment in the workplace and in public spaces. Take a stand by calling it out when you see it: catcalling, inappropriate sexual comments and sexist jokes are never okay. Create a safer environment for everyone by challenging your peers to reflect on their own behaviour and speaking up when someone crosses the line, or by enlisting the help of others if you don’t feel safe.
As always, listen to survivors and make sure they have the support they need.
10. Know the data and demand more of it
To effectively combat gender-based violence, we need to understand the issue.
Relevant data collection is key to implementing successful prevention measures and providing survivors with the right support.
As gender-based violence has spiked during COVID-19, the gaps in gender sensitive data collection have become more glaring than ever. Call on your government to invest in the collection of data on gender-based violence.
Find out at data.unwomen.org how UN Women works to bring about a radical shift in how gender statistics are used, created and promoted. | https://un-women.medium.com/take-action-10-ways-you-can-help-end-violence-against-women-even-during-a-pandemic-6f0ec0057aa6 | ['Un Women'] | 2020-11-20 20:33:46.747000+00:00 | ['Womens Rights', 'Gender', '16days', 'Violence Against Women', 'Orangetheworld'] |
Terrifying Video Shows the Christmas Explosion in Downtown Nashville | America feels like she’s holding her breath. Between a ruthless and bitterly contested election between President Trump and President-Elect Joe Biden, a global pandemic that’s ramping up for a brutal winter, and a series of disgraceful pardons issued by President Trump in the week leading up to Christmas, Americans are already tired. We’re exhausted. We’re collectively experiencing the dense mental fog of overwhelm and the burnout of never-ending news cycles that perpetually leave us feeling hopeless and powerless. You’d be excused for feeling this way, even before the events that unfolded in Nashville on Christmas morning.
Nashville police were called at approximately 5:30 a.m. on the morning of December 25th, a time when most Americans were celebrating Christmas or sleeping and dreaming of the gifts they would be tearing into. The caller reported gunshots in the downtown Nashville area. And when the police responded to the scene, the found something terrifying that would soon tear into the surrounding infrastructure of downtown Nashville.
An R.V. was slowly cruising down the street. From a loudspeaker, it relayed a haunting message that can be heard below, saying the words:
“Evacuate now. There is a bomb. A bomb is in this vehicle and will explode.” The message warned that the bomb would go off in fifteen minutes.
Windows were shattered. Buildings were shaken to the foundation. People saw a flash of light and heard a loud blast in the early morning darkness. The sound of the voice relaying over the speaker below sends chills down the spine.
Officers alerted the bomb squad and immediately began clearing the already-sparsely populated area. A man walking his dog was moved to safety. Six officers scrambled and evacuated residents in the vicinity. While the bomb squad was on their way to the scene, the R.V. detonated. The moment of explosion can be seen in the clip above.
The explosion was vast and rocked several city blocks, knocking officers to the ground. Only three people were injured, and nobody has been found dead from the blast a day and a half later, though it is believed remains were found at the site.
“The damage is shocking, and it is a miracle that no residents were killed,” said Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee, as he asked the Trump administration to declare Tennessee in a state of disaster.
I think the question lingering in everyone’s mind is why? Why cause so much destruction? Why the elaborate scheme to blow up a city center, meanwhile you’re warning the people there to get out so you could spare their lives?
Why cause so much destruction? Why the elaborate scheme to blow up a city center, meanwhile you’re warning the people there to get out so you could spare their lives?
Some people are recalling the eerie similarities to nineties action movies. Others are harkening back to the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, a terrifying act of terrorism that sent shockwaves around the world.
Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe said of the investigation, “I would expect that the FBI is treating this presumptively as an act of terrorism.” But still, we don’t know for certain quite yet, though it seems to fit the FBI’s definition of terrorism.
While domestic terrorism has shot up in recent years, with the new phenomenon of social media inspiring real-world acts of violence, it’s anyone’s guess who could be responsible for this tragedy. Or what they want.
While the FBI have identified a person of interest through the location of a remarkably similar R.V. that was parked behind a residential home, as seen on Google Maps, extraordinarily little information has come out yet that points toward who might be responsible.
And the waiting is one of the worst parts. The uncertainty looms as we find ourselves nervously unsure if the current outgoing President, Donald Trump, will succeed in his quest to steal the election, or what’s in store for us with the pandemic that’s deepening every single day.
One person dies every ten minutes of COVID-19 in Los Angeles County alone. It seems like everywhere we turn, there are death, chaos, lies, and destruction. And these are the exact things that terrorism tries to sow the seeds of. The timing couldn’t have been worse for a population already dealing with a pandemic and an attempted military coup.
I seriously hope we don’t look back on the events in Nashville someday and realize that it was Trump’s version of the burning of the Reichstag, an excuse to illegally seize power as dictator perpetuo.
And my main takeaway is this: please hold off on pointing fingers and blaming people for whatever happened in Nashville until we have evidence. It’s unbecoming to do a political song-and-dance on the rubble and ashes of destruction in order to demonize our political enemies and further our political ends.
If you know anything, the FBI and Nashville Police are seeking information on the operator or owner of a recreational vehicle linked to an explosion on December 25 at 5:30 a.m. CST in Nashville, Tennessee. Visit http://fbi.gov/nashville to submit a tip. | https://medium.com/@joemduncan/terrifying-video-shows-the-christmas-explosion-in-downtown-nashville-4a437a2f3d4 | ['Joe Duncan'] | 2020-12-26 23:35:31.811000+00:00 | ['United States', 'Coronavirus', 'Crime', 'Politics', 'Criminal Justice'] |
Gemini USD — A Primer | Gemini Dollar (GUSD) is a newly-launched ERC20 stablecoin with a 1:1 peg to the US dollar.
Summary
Gemini Dollar (GUSD) is a newly-launched ERC20 stablecoin with a 1:1 peg to the US dollar. Issued by the Winklevoss twins’ Gemini Trust Company, which also owns popular centralized exchange Gemini, GUSD claims the title of the world’s first regulated stablecoin. The GUSD/ETH trading pair is now open on DEx.top, a leading Ethereum-based decentralized exchange incubated by Bitmain.
About Stablecoins
The cryptocurrency industry is no stranger to stablecoins, whose value is pegged to stable assets (most commonly USD, though pegs to other fiat currencies and stores of value like gold also exist). However, controversy and inevitable teething problems have dogged the most widely-circulated stablecoins available today such as Tether and Dai, as we will see below.
The utility of a stablecoin is determined by its ability to maintain a peg to the asset it is meant to represent. In turn, this ability depends on how the peg is maintained. In this respect, stablecoins can largely be classified into three categories:
Crypto-Collateralized; Asset-Collateralized; and Algorithmic.
In a potential game-changer for the stablecoin landscape, two companies received the green light from New York state on 10th September to issue cryptocurrencies pegged to the US dollar. One of these is Gemini Dollar (GUSD), which falls into the Asset-Collateralized category.
Introduction to the Gemini Dollar
According to both the white paper as well as official press releases, GUSD will be fully backed by USD with the Gemini exchange serving as its fiat ramp. Hence, its peg is maintained by market forces (since deviation presents opportunities for arbitrage). We examine this point further below. The main stats for the Gemini Dollar are as follows:
Issuance: GUSD will be issued by Gemini Trust Co., the cryptocurrency exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins.
GUSD will be issued by Gemini Trust Co., the cryptocurrency exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins. Supply: GUSD has yet to be listed on Coinmarketcap, but its total supply can be found on Etherscan. As of the time of writing, total supply stands at slightly over 240,000 tokens on Etherscan.
GUSD has yet to be listed on Coinmarketcap, but its total supply can be found on Etherscan. As of the time of writing, total supply stands at slightly over 240,000 tokens on Etherscan. Markets: Apart from issuing exchange Gemini, GUSD is currently listed on three other exchanges: decentralized exchange DEx.top, Bibox, and The Rock Trading. DEx.top is the first exchange to list GUSD and also facilitated the first-ever GUSD trade worldwide, pictured below. Additionally, BTEX has expressed intention to list.
Regulatory Compliance — What Does It Mean?
Gemini Trust Co. operates under the direct supervision and regulatory authority of the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). Till date, it has granted Gemini a number of approvals:
October 2015 — NYDFS grants charter to Gemini to operate as a trust under New York Banking Law; Gemini must also comply with the state’s BitLicense framework.
NYDFS grants charter to Gemini to operate as a trust under New York Banking Law; Gemini must also comply with the state’s BitLicense framework. May 2018 — Gemini is authorized to offer custody services and trading of Zcash, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.
Gemini is authorized to offer custody services and trading of Zcash, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. September 2018 — Gemini is authorized to offer a stablecoin pegged to USD.
As a licensed virtual currency exchange, Gemini is subject to a comprehensive set of requirements that include AML, cybersecurity programs, capital and audit requirements and consumer protection measures.
As a stablecoin provider, Gemini is further required to ensure that GUSD is fully exchangeable for USD and implement controls to prevent the use of GUSD in connection with “wrongful uses” such as money laundering, terrorist financing and market manipulation.
To understand the implications of Gemini’s compliance requirements, let’s take a look at a representative project from each of the stablecoin categories mentioned above.
Crypto-Collateralized: BitShares
Stablecoins on BitShares (“SmartCoins”) are created by depositing BitShares (BTS) as collateral, and a minimum collateral ratio ensures that SmartCoins can always be converted back to BTS at the market price.
Issue: Because they are crypto-collateralized, SmartCoin holders need to jump through multiple hoops to cash out in fiat (Smartcoin -> BTS -> Major cryptocurrency -> Fiat). The collateralization mechanism requires a working understanding of margin calls, and furthermore SmartCoins are only available on DEXs based on the Graphene protocol.
Asset-Collateralized: Tether
Tether (USDT) is without a doubt the most well-known and widely-used stablecoin, accounting for over 20% of the entire cryptocurrency market’s daily trading volume at the time of writing. However, USDT has long been the subject of intense scrutiny and criticism due to the opacity surrounding its banking relationships, USD reserves and connection to Bitfinex.
Issue: Tether’s fiat off-ramp has also historically been difficult to access — its most recent announcement on the subject states that only exchanges and qualified corporate customers are eligible to redeem Tether.
Algorithmic: Basis
The Basis project aims to be an “algorithmic central bank” that responds to exchange rate fluctuations by adjusting the supply of Basis stablecoins.
Issue: The peg algorithm is untested, and it is not clear where the initial value of Basis tokens will come from. Basis claims to “implement monetary policy similar to that executed by central banks”, but a crucial source of a currency’s value arises because a nation’s debt and taxes are issued and collected in legal tender.
Note: a comprehensive overview of stablecoins and their functions can be found in Moazzam Khan’s Stablecoin — The Ultimate Manifestation of Cryptocurrencies as well as Nathan Sexer’s State of Stablecoins.
First, GUSD has a clear edge in terms of fiat convertibility. Its regulatory approval allows Gemini Trust Co. to maintain stable banking relationships, which in turn makes it easy for them to maintain smooth fiat on and off-ramps. Gemini will be banking with State Street, a venerable financial services firm headquartered in Boston.
Additionally, as Tony Robbins famously said, complexity is the enemy of execution. GUSD’s dead-simple peg mechanism and audit and capital requirements (for example, auditors BPM LLP will examine Gemini’s USD balances in its State Street account regularly) provide confidence in its ability to hold a 1:1 exchange rate.
Technical Implementation
GUSD has a straightforward issuance mechanism illustrated below. Tokens can only be minted/destroyed through the Gemini exchange.
(Note: Skip ahead to TL;DR for the implications of the way GUSD was implemented.)
The GUSD stablecoin is implemented as an ERC20 token on Ethereum through three core contracts: Proxy, Impl and Store. Their contract code is available to read on Etherscan and has been audited by security firm Trail of Bits, with the full report available here.
The Proxy contract essentially serves as the ‘face’ of GUSD, through which token holders can transfer tokens and view their balances. Its other key function is to delegate the logic governing GUSD’s transfer and issuance to a smart contract called Impl.
The Impl contract is delegated authority to control the core logic for GUSD’s ERC20 specification, and is also responsible for calling the Store smart contract. This contract can be upgraded at any time (by changing the contract instance that Proxy and Store point to).
Lastly, the Store contract holds the mapping that determines balances, allowances and token supply. It can update the address of the Impl contract that it points to, hence allowing for changes in the logic that determines how token balances are updated.
TL;DR
Given the simple issuance and peg mechanism, the main goal driving the design of GUSD’s technical implementation is likely to be compliance. In fact, the whitepaper explicitly states that the design had to grant Gemini Trust Co. the ability to:
Resolve vulnerabilities Extend the system with new features Improve the system and optimize its operational efficiency Pause, block or reverse token transfers in response to a security incident or if legally obligated or compelled to do so by a court of law or other governmental body.
GUSD is a heavily centralized stablecoin, which is the current price to pay for regulatory approval. The smart contract code allows Gemini to unilaterally freeze any user’s account and render all tokens non-transferable, features that might chafe at proponents of decentralization. The upside is a number of practical benefits to token holders: the underlying USD held by Gemini Trust Co. will be insured, held in banks located in the US, and audited monthly. Furthermore, the assurance of convertibility between GUSD and fiat USD 1) provides a reliable fiat off-ramp for the stablecoin and 2) means that GUSD is very likely to stay close to its peg.
Conclusion
GUSD is a promising new stablecoin that has obtained the blessing of regulators. It is issued and managed by a major exchange, providing credibility to the infrastructure and team behind the token. Its ERC20 implementation makes it easy for users to store and everyone else (exchanges, wallets, browsers etc.) to support.
GUSD is currently available on Gemini, and can be traded on decentralized exchange DEx.top. We anticipate fairly rapid increase in adoption in the near future.
About DEx.top
DEx.top is a decentralized exchange platform based on Ethereum smart contracts. It utilizes the innovative Replayed-On-Chain (ROC) mechanism to implement off-chain orderbooks with on-chain settlement, enabling low-cost, secure and instant trading. | https://medium.com/dex-top/gemini-usd-a-primer-d329fdc415b5 | [] | 2018-09-23 12:59:39.094000+00:00 | ['Listings', 'Stablecoin', 'Ethereum', 'Decentralized Exchange', 'Bitcoin'] |
Improve Your User’s Service Experience with Relevant Routing | Have you ever run into this scenario: You’re talking in a customer service chat inside a website. You ask to speak to a human and are routed to an agent who has zero understanding of what you need. And by the time the agent directs you to someone who actually knows what you want, you’re already frustrated with the entire experience.
The thing is, you’ve asked to speak to a human because you need to talk to someone who knows how to solve your problems. So it really does you no good if you get directed to someone who doesn’t have a clue of what you’re talking about. Can we just skip the part where the first “expert” directs you to a second, relevant expert already? What you need is to speak with an agent in the right department, immediately! Someone whose expertise is exactly what you’re looking for.
With Watson Assistant you can provide your users with exactly that sort of service experience! Watson Assistant’s Zendesk and Salesforce integrations automatically detect when and why your users need a live agent, and seamlessly transfers them to agents best suited to meet their needs.
So let’s go over an example to see how you can build such an experience for your users. | https://medium.com/ibm-watson/improve-your-users-service-experience-with-relevant-routing-148c7cf1bcb6 | ['Raymond Chu'] | 2020-10-06 13:34:26.088000+00:00 | ['Tutorial', 'Chatbots', 'Wa Announcement', 'Virtual Assistant', 'Watson Assistant'] |
This is the self-preservation society — the need for new perspectives and values | Perspective
As well as new models, Covid-19 has also brought us an opportunity to step back and re-evaluate our motivations.
The world has galvanised around a single issue driven by a million deaths in just a few months. We can now see, however, that there are other threats that are just as lethal and immediate. WHO estimates, for example, that contaminated drinking water causes 485,000 diarrhoeal deaths alone each year. It also predicts that half the world’s population will be living in water stressed areas within five years, so the problem is only going to get worse — and quickly [5].
If the world can take decisive action around the pandemic, it follows that it is equally able to take decisive action on its many other existential challenges.
As everything began to change in the spring, many people started questioning the value and costs we attach to commodities — and even what a commodity is. We have begun to think about what’s really important. If we can cut transport emissions today, why can’t we cut them tomorrow? If we can slash water usage in the fashion industry in April, why not in every month? If scientists can cooperate across borders this year, why not next?
We can take this further. Is drinkable water more desirable than a cheap pair of jeans? Is breathable air more valuable than attendance at an international conference? Are trade tariffs more important than global health?
Essentially, what value do we place on a view of the stars? | https://medium.com/@alexeidesolenator/this-is-the-self-preservation-society-the-need-for-new-perspectives-and-values-1e1e8ff86b72 | ['Alexei Levene'] | 2020-12-16 14:11:11.138000+00:00 | ['Water Crisis', 'Climate Action', '2020', 'Desolenator', 'Change'] |
Book Review: Joy to the World | Joy to the World
A Regency Christmas Collection
by Carolyn Miller, Amanda Barratt, Erica Vetsch
Independent Publishers Group
Kregel Publications
Christian
Pub Date 13 Oct 2020
I am reviewing a copy of Joy to the World: A Regency Christmas Collection through Netgalley:
This book offers three different heartwarming regency Christmas stories by three well known and loved authors Carolyn Miller, Amanda Barrett, and Erica Vetsch.
In the first story Heaven and Nature Sing, Carolyn Miller weaves a story of two music lovers, who are deeply devoted to one another, they were on the brink of getting engaged when family circumstances pulled them apart. How will they ever overcome their obligations and fears to find their way back into each other’s arms?
The Second Story is Far As the Curse Is Found by Amana Barrett tells the story of a woman who is struggling to provide for her illegitimate child on the streets of London. One night she encounters a scarred veteran of the Napoleonic Wars on the streets of London. Can their love conqueror their broken pasts.
In the final story Wonders of His Love by Erica Vetsch we are introduced who a Scots painter who has a hidden identity finds work at a noble manor house over the holidays. He could never imagined he would fall in love with a widow there, a widow who is normally frozen to everyone. But now he desires nothing more than to thaw her frozen heart.
I give Joy to the World five out of Five Stars!
Happy Reading! | https://medium.com/@michellereneekidwell-95261/book-review-joy-to-the-world-7368e6b8acbe | ['Michelle Renee Kidwell'] | 2020-12-25 09:34:28.211000+00:00 | ['Regency', 'Christmas', 'Fiction', 'Book Review', 'Christian'] |
8 amazing photos from March! Meet the Daily Level-up Challenge winners. | We would like to present all the stunning photos that have already won our Daily Level-up Challenge in March! Meet the great artists who have received the title of Photographer of the Day!
Selected photos and their authors receive additional exposure on our Instagram profile. Additionally, every Photographer of the Day receives a Shuttout.com Prime Membership for a week, so they can upload even 5 photos to one photo contest! And make progress faster.
Want to join? Read about the Daily Level-Up Challenge here >>
Now meet the “Photographer of the Day” title nominees! | https://medium.com/shuttout/8-amazing-photos-from-march-meet-the-daily-level-up-challenge-winners-6eb88af4cf17 | [] | 2020-03-11 19:10:52.108000+00:00 | ['Photographers', 'Articles', 'Art', 'Photography', 'Challenge'] |
Thanksgiving’s Origins Provide Hope and Guidance for a Fractured Nation | Thanksgiving is unusual in comparison to the other federal holidays. It marks no specific event in history, nor does it commemorate any historic figures or honor those who have served our country.
There are those who trace Thanksgiving back to 1621, when the 50 surviving Pilgrims who had sailed on the Mayflower invited 90 Native Americans to a feast that they had prepared to celebrate the harvest. But there was no annual celebration of Thanksgiving as a formal federal holiday until two and a half centuries later in1863 when Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the observance of a day of thanks for a year that had been “filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.”
Lincoln invited “fellow citizens in every part of the United States … to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” Still in the midst of the Civil War, he further urged in his proclamation that in addition to gratitude, the American people should engage that day in “humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience.” He concluded with a prayer “to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.”
What is remarkable about Lincoln’s proclamation is his establishment of a day of thanks in the very midst and throes of a brutal war that ravaged the country and set countrymen at each others’ throats. Even in that ruthless and violent moment, Lincoln paused to reflect on the good that the young country stood for, and prayed for both the end of conflict and the well-being of all.
The question on this Thanksgiving holiday a century and a half later is whether we can pause from our discord and angst for a day to focus on all that we are thankful for as opposed to all that is wrong with our country, our foes, and our world.
There is no question that our culture and our country are fraught with shortcomings and ills. But we are also full of opportunity and hope and promise. We are living in an age and a land of remarkable resources, ingenuity, and potential. The world, with all of its ongoing challenges and pockmarks, is at a phase of unprecedented interconnectedness and evolution.
And while we pause from our anxiety to recognize the propitious conditions that exist around us, we can also look more closely at the people who surround us. When we do so, we will find that they are not as foreign and ugly as we have gotten caught up in believing them to be. Our neighbors are generally kind and caring. They are concerned, as we are; flawed and scarred, as we are; trying to do the right thing, as we are.
Yes, there are the exceptions — the murderers and megalomaniacs, the predators and sociopaths, the corrupt and unrepentant — but for every one of those, there are literally tens of thousands who are well-intentioned and benign. We are accustomed to focusing all of our attention and our ire on the negative — imagine how our lives and our world might change if we focused instead on our commonality and the small acts of daily kindness and humanity that swarm around us unnoticed.
This gratitude and optimism do not negate the pain and injustice that persist, nor do they abdicate the work that must be done. Rather, they enable us to withstand the difficulties and persevere without becoming mired in cynicism or despair.
What Lincoln taught us with the establishment of Thanksgiving in the height of the Civil War, is that our perspective will dictate the outcomes of our reality. Conflict will persist and intensify if we fail to appreciate our shared values and our entwined destiny. Gratitude can emancipate us from the illusion of our separateness and our failure to recognize the ways we need and complement each other.
When we choose to accept and promote the values that Lincoln infused in the celebration of Thanksgiving, to be humble and grateful rather than dominant or superior, then thanks can and will trump angst. Then we will put aside our differences and embrace our diversity, we will go forward in a spirit of mutual respect and mutual benefit , and we will fulfill the dreams of our predecessors who envisioned a land of liberty, security, and opportunity for one and all.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Find a variety of organizations and initiatives that are working to bring America back together at Common Party. | https://marcerlbaum.medium.com/thanksgivings-origins-provide-hope-and-guidance-for-a-fractured-nation-2cfb5a7c6c02 | ['Marc Erlbaum'] | 2018-11-21 21:52:06.131000+00:00 | ['USA', 'Thanksgiving', 'Politics'] |
Time For A(nother) Deconstruction of David Lynch’s Lost Highway [SPOILERS?] | When Arnie (Richard Pryor far right above screenshot) is on the phone telling whoever is on the line/info.supernatural.highway:
“There’s 9 people down here, you can ask 7 of them, if you get that price from one of them, I’ll let you ask the other 2.”
Made me think of …
If you play the ¼ length ‘harmonic’ (standing wave node) on a string, you’ll hear the octave, because the ¼ and ¾ fractions(=waves) ‘reduce’ to ½, whereas if you shorten that same string to that length (by pressing behind the fifth fret on your guitar neck), you’ll hear the perfect fourth. — 8lake
Maybe Fred’s sax solo is the premonition of redemption out of his labyrinthian derangement? The sax performance is so clearly a musical interpretation of Fred’s atomization, music that by the same Möbius logic…. indefinitely reverberates long after we think it’s over.
A resistance to the disappearance of mechanical scale by the electric, the etherealization of hardware into software, this could be the major moral of the movie. Perhaps the Mystery Message of the light at night at Fred’s place, maybe that set off those false alarms.
Brother Franz was also on the Lost Highway shooting script (screenshot credit)
Lynch himself, told Nochimson (end of article), I think, (it may have been Chris Rodley), that if Fred had a long enough time to drai (my Yiddish word,) around in the story of Lost Highway, he’d find a happy ending. Sure enough he will, it’s impossible for him not to, within that Seven-Up of possibilities.
….ways that multiply the possibilities exponentially. A metaphor Lynch used when speaking to me that envisions many possible worlds as bubbles from a freshly opened can of Seven-Up …— David Lynch Swerves: Uncertainty from Lost Highway to Inland Empire by Martha Nochimson, page 145.
“How can one discover the principle of human identity amidst lineal sequences of moments? The self is obliged, such is the discontinuity of these typographic moments, “each time to forget itself in order to re-invent itself, to reinvent itself in order to regain interest in itself, in short to effect a mocking simulacrum of continued creation, thanks to which it believes it will escape the authentication of its nothingness, and out of its nothingness refashion a reality.” — page 249, The Gutenberg Galaxy by Herbert Marshall “I Am A Winnipigeon” McLuhan (1962).
You can read about The Femme Fatal of Deep Dell and its truly, honestly, riveting stuff, plausible even, but so what? Its all doomed to be redeemed……..eventually. There will be another form of eventually as well, in that, after redemption, various déjà vu(s) via some kind of blockchain of tolerable aggravation, a.k.a, technological extensions of human sensory environs, resulting in an axiomatic symbiosis of intertwined material spirituality iz experienced. Humpty Dumpty shattering cuz of print and coming back together thru the integrated circuit, over and over, on a Lost Highway.
Here’s McLuhan explaining the meaning of Humpty Dumpty: (the meaning of the movie itself)
A magazine is a storehouse of ammunition as well. When the pitch of this wall achieves a certain gradient, Humpty-Dumpty tumbles off the wall. Humpty-Dumpty is the mask of the integral and ordered unity of tradition (and the structured sensorium) that recurrently crashes with the advent of major technological change. The fragments are reassembled through the flowing energies of the “heroine” A.L.P. (Anna Livia Plurabelle from Finnegans Wake)— page 99, From Cliché To Archetype by Marshall McLuhan with Wilfred Watson (1971).
We have a ‘storehouse’ of experiences, they can go well in one way, and be terrible another, as mentioned in the above quote. A ‘gradient’ is reached, could be unassuming or obvious and afterward nothing is the same. Another Lost Information Superhighway, I know, corny, it’s true though, the network effects, the baggage of a global distraction began in earnest with the Napsterization of the music industry, and those bits, that Kafkaesque metamorphosis of Hardware to Software continues to come for every single mechanical context, till it can’t. Whatever nanoscale we arrive at, there’s more than likely an entirely unknown interval whose resonating pattern remains an asymptote forever. Perspective is everything.
“…(the) encryption algorithm used to protect camera images was weak and susceptible to interference. There was no way for the authority to prove the integrity of the images, so it lost by default. For some time after it was unable to enforce camera-based fines.” — from on article on digital speed cameras by Ken Munro called Lost Highway
Fred does get his happy ending. See, we don’t know if he killed Renée, we see he kills Mr. Eddy, but as we all know, can really know if what we’re seeing is true? What if we’re seeing what Fred remembers? Not what actually happened? Since the audience is the detective tasked with these mysteries.
Such strategies circumvent the “lost highways” which are critical for cortical development but are absent in the adult. These new approaches may provide for the possibility of meaningful clinical regeneration of elements of cortical circuitry lost to trauma —Lost highway(s): barriers to postnatal cortical neurogenesis and implications for brain repair, Aslam Abbasi Akhtar and Joshua J. Breunig
Cop Pause by Steven Bochco
No. We can actually thank Mystery Man for Fred’s happy ending. During the Driver Down sequence, as our Musical Hero is deranging down the highway, live action role playing his sax solo from the Luna Lounge, recall that Fred has a closed eye, fermata tattoo on his hand. The solo eventually has a calming reverberating ending, in this ending are all the possible colours in which to fade into and out of.
Or.
Maybe it was Utah. | https://medium.com/@mitzkahdrinnen/time-for-a-nother-deconstruction-of-david-lynchs-lost-highway-spoilers-50bd7b559029 | ['Richard Altman'] | 2021-01-18 04:05:45.426000+00:00 | ['David Lynch', 'Marshall Mcluhan', 'Quantum Mechanics', 'Kafka', 'Lost Highway'] |
The One Year Old Cupcakes | The One Year Old Cupcakes
And why you should read the food labels
Photo by Nathan Bingle on Unsplash
I grabbed the package of cupcakes on a whim. Leftover from a recent office function, my first thought was to save them for staff. In the comfort of my office, reading the long list of unpronounceable ingredients made it clear that I wasn’t holding cupcakes at all. I was holding something that food science had made look like cupcakes. My wife and I both like to cook, so I knew first hand that a decent cupcake didn’t need over thirty components. I thought for moment about what might happen if I kept them for a while.
I decided I would do an experiment. I put the date on a little sticky on the container, took a photograph from above, and gave it a comfortable place on the office book shelf. The cupcakes were chocolate, wrapped in paper as you’d expect along the bottom, with chocolate icing swirled on top, and coated with multicolored, round shaped sprinkles. The package was clear plastic, with nine individual cupcakes nested in their own spots, covered with a clear plastic snap lid. The lid clicked closed with two tabs on the front edge, but once the seal was broken for the party, the container was by no means air tight. The little cupcakes were from a local grocery store, part of one of the largest grocery chains in the United States. A volunteer with the organization purchased them for the office pot lock from their bakery, found on display in one of those center cap tables filled with packaged goodies and sweets.
My office was in a well ventilated building, with temperatures staying within the 65 to 75 degree range, thanks to a very modern HVAC system. The office is not dark, with one east facing window and another south facing window, allowing for an abundance of light. The cupcakes sat on the second shelf from the top, one of four shelves on the unit. They were never put in the dark, nor were they ever refrigerated.
One month after I put them on the shelf, I took them down for inspection, carefully opening the lid. They hadn’t change in any way.
The cupcakes; now one month old. Author’s photo and Instagram post.
What struck me the hardest was the aroma upon tilting the lid back. These little babies smelled bakery fresh. Fresh like I had just bought them from the shop that morning. The chocolate icing was still in perfect condition, the cakes looked fine, there was simply nothing different to detect. After one month, they were still cupcakes. I was intrigued.
The experiment began in early November, and with cooler temperatures outdoors the HVAC was running a consistent forced air heat through the offices. My office was separate, though the door would very rarely be closed. Now in early December, the treats had about five weeks of the warm office environment. It was hard not to keep peeking, but just after the New Year, we took them out for the cupcakes’ two month inspection. I say we, for the experiment had already become the talk of the office. Three of us opened the lid on month two, savoring, once again, the perfect, just from the bakery scent. The aroma so strong it perfumed the entire office space in minutes.
And the little cupcakes were still picture perfect in every way. The outside label began to show some aging from the glue, but not the cupcakes. The little sharp swirls on the top of the icing still in tact. No signs of any type of mold or decay in any way. Two months old and perfect. I could have put them on the counter for sharing and no one would have imagined their sixty days of shelf time.
This process of the monthly cupcake inspection continued with the same result. Each month, opening the lid brought a bakery fresh smell, with no genuine changes to the cupcakes in any way. By the six month it seemed truly bizarre. I grew rather fond of posting a photo of the unchanged product on my social media each month. The little paper wraps began to decline, but everything food related was the same. We noticed a small crystal of something on one cupcake’s icing, as small as the sprinkles, but that was it. The color of the icing stayed pretty much the same.
The color of the cake stayed the same. The sprinkles didn’t change in any way. No mold. No decay. No discoloration. The one year old cupcakes looked and smelled like they did when first purchased.
The cupcakes; now six months old. Author’s photo and Instagram post.
It’s a simple example of food science instead of food. It’s worth looking at what’s happened to the food chain in the US over the past decades, as science replaced whole food choices at our stores. I don’t have to do any research to grasp that the package of cupcakes isn’t cupcakes at all. It’s chemicals. It’s science. The little ones look like the real deal, smell like they’ve come from Grandma’s oven, and even taste something like you might expect a cupcake to taste like. But they are not cupcakes. They are impostors. Fakes. Frauds. And we eat this kind of stuff every day.
A couple of years before my cupcake experiment, my wife and I stopped in another grocery store, wanting to grab some convenience food instead of cooking that evening. We purchased some chicken through the counter, grabbed a container of mac and cheese, and picked out a chocolate cake dessert from the bakery. The cake was prepacked in the little container, looking like it had been made that day. We had dessert at the end of the night and left our plates in the sink. The cake was gone, but plenty of chocolate swirls and crumbs remained. The next morning we found the sink had a large number of ants. The ants had gathered in groups around the crumbs.
The ants were all dead.
What we had consumed the previous evening wasn’t food. It was poison. Poisonous enough that some crumbs left behind killed an entire colony of ants. They didn’t have time to take it back to their house. The poison was so powerful the little creatures perished right there on the plate. We agreed that morning that we would never purchase or consume another packaged meal from the chain grocery stores every again, and we haven’t.
Many of us in the US are not aware that foods sold to us are not approved for sale is most other industrialized nations. Entire societies have banned GMO based products and much of the food science that drives grocery store profits to record numbers here at home. Rummage through the frozen food section of your big chain options, and you will find hundreds of choices. Go from freezer to freezer, section to section, and look at the ingredients. You’ll discover that regardless of what the product looks like on the box, it’s made out of very similar bases of soy and corn syrup, and the chemical mixes that make it all smell and taste like the real thing.
Those same products are being served to us in the big chain restaurants. Many of the dinners arriving at your table have come out of the microwave. They are quite literally frozen dinners. They’ve been shipped to the restaurants instead of the grocery stores. They come to you looking like someone in the kitchen has prepared them. They haven’t. The cooks are simply serving you pre-made science.
On a recent trip to the western side of our home state of Virginia, my wife and I stopped in a local restaurant for dinner. We ordered some potato skins for an appetizer.
When they arrived we realized we were being served the exact same product we get from a local restaurant in our home town on the eastern side of the State.
We don’t order them anymore at our local restaurant because they quality is so bad. Now, some 200 miles from home, the same potato skins arrived. Everything about the appetizer was the same, for it was coming from the same large food company delivering this microwaved dish to restaurants all around the county.
Another personal example is an evening we stop at a local market for some chocolate sauce. The locally owned shop is a classic gas station and convenience store targeting customers in two large nearby campgrounds. We felt like making sundaes at home, and already had the ice cream, the nuts, even the cherries. What we needed was some chocolate sauce to make our Friday night come together. Surely the camping store will have some chocolate sauce. As expected, they had a shelf will several options. You would recognize all the major labels. Looking at the labels, however, revealed none of them had chocolate as an ingredient. They offered the usual corn syrup and science. They looked, smelled, and tasted like chocolate, but alas, didn’t actually have the most important ingredient in any of them. We tried one more store near our home with the same result. This time the shelf had five other options, with none of the bottles containing anything resembling chocolate.
We make every effort, each and every week, to carefully look at the food we purchase and consume. There are very few organizations offering genuine education about our choices. We do like the Environmental Working Group nonprofit that independently tests food and beauty products for safety. And we are thankful to not live in a food desert. We are able to purchase whole foods, organic foods, and have choices of packaged items that are preservative and chemical free. But it doesn’t come easy. We focus on our choices carefully for as the food science gets better at the masquerade, it gets harder to tell the difference at first glance. Read the labels and think about it. Think about what healthy choices look like.
The cupcakes; comparison of photos taken one year apart. Author’s photos.
I kept those cupcakes another three months just for the heck of it. Nothing changed. And to answer your question, yes, before I tossed them, I took a bite. And you guessed it, the little cupcake tasted like a little cupcake should. That delicious smell across my face. That sweet of the icing blending with the soft, chewy cake. It was still perfect inside and out. Perfect science. Don’t let anyone tell you that America doesn’t have science anymore. We’re eating it. We’re eating it every day. | https://medium.com/in-fitness-and-in-health/the-one-year-old-cupcakes-50f0143cf374 | ['William Hazel'] | 2020-12-04 13:19:28.001000+00:00 | ['Running', 'Fitness', 'Health', 'Mental Health', 'Nutrition'] |
Observe the Prompt Way to PPC Marketing | What the meaning of Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing?
Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is one of the methods of internet based platforms advertisement section service providers pay a certain amount based on their campaign need to click through audiences. Generally advertisers put up click also basis of keywords, demographics, audience’s interest.
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What are the intents of PPC Campaign?
Pay per click (PPC) campaigns primary intents are containing
· Amplify in selling
· Securing leads
· Enlarge branding awareness
Basically relevant searching options one of the method meet the requirement of PPC section. This function works while buyer is searching specific products materials, assistance and informatics. Then service dealers or advertiser put on relevant ads through suggestions or results based ad display over buyer’s searching section.
Working structures of Pay-Per-Click Advertisements: PPC marketing platform works through various advertisement methods, mostly popularize sections are Google Ads and another one Bing Ads sources. Now things strike into, categories of this kind of sources like; search based Ads, display Ads, video Ads, shopping Ads. While research on statistics on Ads via internet based report and its growth will reach US$ 225 million above marketing growth level.
What are the sources of Online Advertisement?
For online Ads based platforms various platforms used as per different service niche. Online advertisements are playing significant as per campaign plan.
Image Credit Unsplash By Launchpresso
Take insights to Google Ads
Google Ads earlier phase recognized as Google AdWords, basically utilization of this Ads based source provide features of searching feature based ads, shopping based ads over Google search engine, displaying video based ads through YouTube, display based ads through Google Display Network (GDN) method used for advertisement display over internet, which run through Google search engine as a medium.
Take insights to Microsoft Ads
Microsoft Advertising one of the internet based advertisement platform, termed as Bing Ads. Microsoft runs ads through display ads, search based ads over Microsoft Search Network platform method.
One of features of Microsoft Ads is based on users or buyers demographic location which provides seamless results based on particular keywords or browsing based.
Based on past few years’ analysis Bing gained around 33–35% market portion on the desktop based search engine globally.
Bing Ads platform is one of the leading sources for better reachability, effective results on less competitive keywords, refines results in ROI section.
Other Ads sources
Based on market need, market scenario adaptability they are also gained traffic and growth to different service categories.
Examples:
Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, Linkedin ads, Twitter Ads, Pinterest Ads Bidvertiser, e-commerce sector Amazon Ads.
Fundamentals things of PPC Campaign
PPC Campaigns are basically assist activities in usage of ads in a right plan based.
PPC Campaign Category
In PPC Campaigns selection of Campaigns and right Ads categories is one of the important parts to observe and use accordingly.
PPC Campaigns Section
In Campaigns which is based on which type of Ads category, right usage of keywords, goal setting and budget selection for Ads.
Example Online Marketing Courses or Marketing courses in Australia which define its objective targeting to right audience segment.
Ads Groups Section
In PPC Campaign Ads groups where advertiser or service provider can set advertisement into particular sections and using of certain keywords for targeting.
Keywords Strategy
Without keywords strategy marketing or advertisements are considered as shabby. While any buyer or advertiser plan for browsing anything over internet search engine then without right phrase or keywords they will unable to get their matching or expecting results.
In PPC sector using of relevant or match types are very essential for effective outcome.
Keywords match categories like
Broad Match Category
Adjacent or close proximity keywords and relating keywords. Example ‘Nivia footballs’ then ad results display as ‘footballs brands’.
Matching Phrases Category
In phrases match Ads results based on certain keywords based on search and inclusion of words prior to otherwise afterwards.
Exact Matching Phrases Category
While search based on exact matching keywords then results ads also exact services or highly matched things.
Keywords with Negative Phrases
Negatives keywords generally alongside with absolute phrases to filtering unsuitable things. Example searching for “high level glass designs” then ‘high’ keyword is considered as negative keyword category.
Audiences Section
Audience’s categories in PPC sector served for remarketing. Audience’s section creation on the basis of time stays inside webpage/ website, every single visit to site, certain page views and insights to traffics.
What are the steps to follow up to originate PPC Campaigns?
To launch PPC Campaigns some essential steps to observe.
Build up the structure
PPC Campaigns build up plans and structures should be in a right process. The campaign is actually decides it’s objective so budgeting, demographic selection, audience’s interest are primary parts to set properly.
Particular keywords, right target audiences, right niche and services, which platform to display ads. These are the process to find out and reach of service nearby targeting audience’s zone.
Pay-Per-Click Ads Section
Pay-Per-Click Ads results will display over Search Engine Results Page (SERP) which has already set during creation of ad campaigns. And another thing is ads identified as Ad Auction, on the basis of ads campaigns ads will obviously display over search engine like Google, YouTube and other sources based on relativity.
Time or Give Away Based Format
Providing any promotional works or services with concession, limiting in time based offers, give away based event these kinds of things are good option as an Ads format.
Better Sales
Through PPC or display ad over search engine is one of the effective method of PPC campaigns, where sales and traffic also boost by applying this step. More visit to sites converting better leads with sales ratio.
Selection of Campaign
While plan for display ads over online platforms or search engine, it’s essential to keep in mind about campaign type. Testing, analysis feature with right strategy will provide better ROI and growth ratio.
Display based ads include content with image based this is also a good option of PPC. These types of ads can available search engine platform and other digital sources too.
Search ads mostly used method of PPC where one can get effective results through search engine results pages wise.
Social networking based ads where advertiser can utilize their social profiles to promote or advertise their services in front of audiences to growth in their services based on right audiences, demographic, objective of ads campaign.
Remarketing feature used for existing audiences, usage of browsers cookies, audiences connecting though pages or ads in an earlier stage but not converting into buyer. Taking surveys, taking to website through any article, post or video content also a part of PPC campaign.
From past few years Google is playing crucial role to display ads by put on right keywords, display ads, search based ads and gaining better growth rate also.
Ads must display the real objective through the ads. Ads must meet the requirements of targeted audiences. Also important thing ads must delivering advantages to real targeting audiences through those ads. Buyer or audiences must reach to a CTA (Call-to –action) after viewed those ads.
Analytics tool usage is essential to measure overall performance of PPC campaign and performance goals how it really meeting the expectation.
PPC Advantages
PPC is measuring process make easier. Through PPC advertiser or service provider can able to analysis their Ads impression ratio, clicks ratio, traffic sources and other insights. By analysis of PPC campaign to find out how that Ads work run, audience’s action, searching ratio awareness can easily check through by utilizing this feature. PPC user data are beneficial to create effective in SEO approach.
Conclusion
PPC marketing is one of the advantages for digital marketer, marketers, advertising agencies and other service based sectors. One can run and manage their marketing criteria through PPC. Still a proper blue-print, right marketing strategy, market observation, competitor’s analysis is necessary is check through to get back effective results and better reach to audiences.
Right keywords, objective, right targeting audience’s zone, interest level, budget is also verify to execute the need of advertiser through usage of PPC campaign. | https://medium.com/@archanavision4/observe-the-prompt-way-to-ppc-marketing-65f4e68abcf5 | ['Archana Sahu'] | 2021-10-12 11:58:21.601000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Digital Marketing', 'Writing Prompts', 'PPC Marketing', 'Content Writing'] |
Apple Once Passed on Acquiring Tesla | When notes leaked that Apple was planning to begin production of an electric “iCar” by 2025, Elon Musk responded. At first, he questioned Apple’s tactics for producing safe and efficient batteries and whether they actually gave the company a competitive advantage over Tesla.
Then, he dropped this bomb:
In 2017, perhaps the time period in which Musk is referring, Tesla wasn’t far from death. On “Axios on HBO,” Musk said his company was “within single-digit weeks” of folding as they struggled to ramp-up Model 3 mass production.
Musk also said he “personally redesigned the whole battery pack production line and ran it for three weeks,” trying to paint the picture of how dire the company’s situation was.
Musk said the amount of work he put in to save the company hurt his brain and his heart and that no one should put in the amount of work he did.
These reflections explain why Musk reached out to Apple. The company was bleeding money, as Musk said. While Tesla probably wouldn’t have actually died in 2017, it would have had to get money from somewhere.
An acquisition from a large-cap company like Apple would have taken all that stress off of Musk. He would have the financial backing that could keep Tesla afloat.
In a separate interview in 2018, Musk said ramping up the Model 3 production was a “bet-the-company” situation — a situation he didn’t see Tesla being in again.
Two years later, Tesla is worth over $612 billion, making it the most valuable car company in the world — more valuable than the next six car companies combined, mainly due to its stock market returns.
Musk said Apple would have acquired Tesla at 1/10 of its current valuation, meaning around $60 billion. Hindsight is 20/20, but that is obviously a huge miss for Apple.
Apple CEO Tim Cook passing on the meeting doesn’t make much sense. Tesla, a car manufacturer, is obviously in a much different space than Apple is with its technology. But part of what makes Tesla so unique is that it is, too, a technology company.
And, according to the Reuters “iCar” report, the two companies seem to now have similar goals.
The report states that Apple’s new car plans, referred to as “Project Titan,” have been on-and-off since 2014 when the company originally planned to produce a vehicle. Apple eventually stepped away from the plan but reignited it in 2018 by re-hiring veteran employee Doug Field, who returned after working at Tesla, to head the project.
After more than a year of building a team behind the scenes, Apple now feels comfortable moving forward with making a consumer product — an electric, self-driving vehicle.
There is doubt within the report, however, that Apple could see a profit on vehicle production in any reasonable timeframe. It took Tesla 17 years to become profitable. As discussed earlier with Tesla, mass-producing these types of vehicles can become a money pit.
Apple will supposedly not begin production until 2025, giving them plenty of time to find suppliers of technology and manufacturers for the car. By that time, though, every other company working to produce electric and autonomous vehicles will be miles and miles ahead of Apple.
“As we see with Tesla and the legacy auto companies, having a very complex manufacturing network around the globe doesn’t happen overnight,” Trip Miller, managing partner at Gullane Capital Partners, said in the report.
In 2020, Musk became the second-richest person in the world thanks to Tesla’s extreme success in the stock market — returning nearly 700% in the past year.
Had the company been sold to Apple three years ago, Musk would not be in the position he is in now and Tesla might not be either.
Apple is doing just fine with a valuation of over $2.2 trillion. Moving forward, though, it has to try to find a way to compete with the tech-auto giant that it could have had a stake in. | https://medium.com/swlh/apple-once-passed-on-acquiring-tesla-d78b2f58d389 | ['Dylan Hughes'] | 2020-12-24 22:33:20.102000+00:00 | ['Transportation', 'Technology', 'Apple', 'Sustainability', 'Tesla'] |
Explaining the revenue hockey stick in funding presentations | One of the last pages in every venture capitalist funding presentation is the “hockey stick” of revenues and profits shooting through the roof. VCs expect a bit of optimism from a startup, but at the same time want to do a reality check on these numbers.
I often use a company snapshot, a tree of the key factors that add up/multiply to the projected revenue figure. Make sure the factors are real things you can touch: people, visits, etc.
CORRECTION: Also make sure the tree adds up and calculates through, something that cannot be said about the example below. | https://medium.com/slidemagic/explaining-the-revenue-hockey-stick-in-funding-presentations-d4c8d1c59bf0 | ['Jan Schultink'] | 2016-12-27 08:40:57.898000+00:00 | ['Presentation', 'PowerPoint', 'Presentation Design', 'Design', 'Data Visualization'] |
My experience on becoming a developer: What I wish I knew | I wrote this article to tell the story of how I learned to code and to share the experience I gained from it.
I started learning about software development when i was in the 7th grade. After 5 years I can tell you that programming doesn’t only tach you how to make new things it also teaches you how to think.
Getting started
In the beginning, I had no idea where to start from. I heard, in school, that it was best to start with C++ and learn the basics, algorithms and data structures.
Back then, I didn’t agree with that, but now I recommend it entirely. As for the programming language, it only matters if you know the reason why you want to start coding(web development, competitive programming, machine learning, data science, game development, etc.), otherwise just pick one and get started.
Find something you enjoy doing
In my case, I had no idea why I wanted to start, I just found it interesting. So I started with C++ with some tutorials and lessons about algorithms and data structures. As I originally thought I got bored of this really fast. I then started learning python which I managed to learn fast, because of my previous knowledge in C++(it made it a lot easier to understand the concepts). I continued with web development(Django) which got me into HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I fell in love with full-stack development and started watching tutorials about it.
Do projects, leave “tutorial hell”
Now I had another problem: I was stuck in what is known as “tutorial hell”. At the time, everything felt alright even thou all I did was learn what others where doing and making it too.
And that is fine, but don’t get stuck on this. When you know the basics start working on projects alone or with friends. This is the hardest and most important step in becoming a great developer.
What I wish I did earlier
Looking back, I should have entered programming contest as soon as I could. That is the best way to gain real-world experience and start meeting people interested in the same things you are interested in. This helps you get into the community. In the industry, working in teams is the only way to finish projects. Good teamwork is a must have skill to get hired in any company related to software development, and this aptitude will make your life easier.
Another way to meet people, learn from them, help them with their projects and get help on your projects is GitHub.
In case you know what that is you can skip this next paragraph. GitHub is the best platform to contribute to Open Source(public projects that anyone can contribute to). This amazing platform could be called the software developer’s social media platform.
Contribute to Open Source projects as much as you can. GitHub has a very rewarding accomplishment visualization system — the green squares. The darker the more work done that day(the better). Even presenting a bug you discovered in the code or adding some documentation works. As long as you learn something keep doing it. This will help you meet new people. If you get the opportunity, join developer communities. They will help you a lot with improving your knowledge and solving any problems you might have in the process of learning.
GitHub Green Squares
IDE Recommendations
In order to make the development process, IDEs are essential. Here are my recommendations for IDEs:
Resources
These are some resources I used to get started.
Final notes
In conclusion, all you need to do to speed up the process of becoming a software developer is learn the basics then get started with real-world experiences(contests, Open Source) and keep solving problems, fixing bugs and meeting interesting developers. | https://medium.com/@mstanciu552/my-experience-on-becoming-a-developer-what-i-wish-i-knew-9b4446661341 | ['Mihai Stanciu'] | 2020-12-18 19:51:22.393000+00:00 | ['Beginner', 'First Post'] |
A comprehensive introduction to investing with data | A comprehensive introduction to investing with data
A starting point for superior investment returns
come for the cute dogs, stay for the wisdom
Why should I invest in the first place?
Everyone should be investing. Whether you have $1or $1,000,000. Efforts to invest regularly add up over time and small investments today become huge sums of money in the future if consistently compounded at high rates of interest. Think of investing as a magic pot you put your money into today and it spits out multiples of this number at some point in the future. It’s just the present-you looking after the future-you. Look after the future-you.
Read more from Janny:
👉 Crypto Trading Bots · A helpful guide for beginners [2019]
👉 Best 17 Crypto Trading Bots Ranked · The Ultimate Guide 2019
This isn’t a guide for get-rich-quick schemes that were suggested to you from your mate Dave that you met down the pub. This isn’t a guide to “become a Bitcoin billionaire” with photos of lambo’s and me sitting on the beach in Bali with my laptop. This isn’t the latest instagram f̶r̶a̶u̶d̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ influencer sitting atop the Charging Bull telling you how they made $2,384,264.12 trading binary options in 10 seconds. This is a guide to help you on the path to intelligent investing in order to earn superior returns over time and make your money work for you instead of you forever working for money.
As you can see, I’m not sitting atop the Charging Bull
I’m not going to harp on about passive income that isn’t really passive. You know the spiel — “start a blog”, “start an Amazon FBA product”, “start a drop shipping business”, “become a YouTuber”. Erm passive? Realistically, investing is as close to passive as you can possibly get but I definitely wouldn’t pitch it as passive income. Although some of our investment strategies are going to require a lot less attention than others.
Let’s say you buy a portion of a company, the entire operation of that company is tasked with growing your money for you. More specifically, the core goal of any publicly traded company is to increase shareholder value over time. Finding great opportunities will take work, time, effort and energy up front on your behalf, but I can assure you that time spent here learning is far better than time spent in your day job. You can scale and compound your investment returns at a significantly higher rate than you can your personal value to a company.
I can’t guarantee that you’ll double your money overnight. I can however guarantee that if you leave your money in cash you will lose money over time. It’s quite literally MasterTime™ reaching into your bank account every single day and taking a little bit out for himself. I can also guarantee that if you invest in a passive fund you will underperform the market every year. Again it’s TheBanker™ reaching into your investment account every day and taking out a little bit for themselves. I want to show you ways of earning superior investment returns, consistently over time, using data, in order to grow your wealth. (I haven’t really trademarked those terms 😏).
Let’s avoid TheBanker™ running off with your money
Inflation
Inflation erodes away your money over time. We’ve all heard stories from our grandparents who tell us that a house in Fulham used to cost £50,000 when they were buying in their youth and today it costs £2,000,000 (If you don’t know where Fulham is it’s a part of London where Chelsea-wannabe poshos live). A majority of this is due to inflation. If you don’t invest, inflation will continue to eat away at your money. Every. Single. Day.
Let’s start with an extreme example with a quick trip in the Delorean back to the 1900’s in order to really drive the point home (Delorean… drive… ha!). Let’s say back then you toiled away and worked hard and sweat and saved up $100 and not invested but just stuck your money in a little shoe box under your bed. On 1900’s wages that would probably have taken you about 2 months. Now let’s jump back into the present — that $100 you saved up in real terms today is only worth $2.34.
The time value of money has literally just chipped away at your hard earned cash. It’s not something you should stick in the back of your mind and not worry about. It doesn’t ever just miraculously stop. It’s a constant force that is sucking away at your precious money and the only way to counter it is with investing. Leaving your money in cash, leaving your money in a low-rate savings account means you’re synthetically short time. Don’t ever short time.
Due to inflation, your cost of living goes up every year. Take for example a cup of Starbucks coffee. This falls under food inflation.
The first Starbucks store opened in 1971 with the price of coffee back then as $0.25. Today that same cup of coffee costs $2.87. That’s a 1148% increase. Extrapolate this into the future and your coffee next year will cost 3% more than your coffee today. Doesn’t sound so bad does it? Well what happens if we keep going, your coffee in 20 years will cost not 20*3%=60% but ((1+3%)²⁰)-1=81%, because inflation is compounding.
I know, I know, 20 years is a long time. But the 20-years-into-the-future-you will be really annoyed with the present-you that you didn’t start investing today. You’ve worked hard to earn that money and leaving it in cash will just let Master Time eat away at it. Whilst everyone else is distracted with #YOLO and #instagoals this is your time to grow.
don’t be distracted by photos like this
small survey of 100 Instagram users
Passive Funds
Investing in passive funds whose aim is to “diversify your investments” in my opinion leaves much to be desired. Passive funds charge a fee for their services. This will guarantee that you’ll earn less than the overall market because of the 0.25–2% fee they are pinching from your investment account every year.
Passive funds are definitely good for some people. If you want a zero effort approach, a zero time spent approach, are very patient, have long term time horizons in mind, then find the lowest cost passive fund you can and be on your merry way. That wont be the purpose of our journey here.
You probably think 2% doesn’t sound like much but the amount you underperform the market over a 20 year time period is pretty ludicrous.
You’re pretty much sitting on half the number at the end of 30 years had you have not been paying fees.
The other reason why passive funds aren’t good enough is because drawdowns are pretty horrible. You want to avoid drawdowns at all times.
“Rule No. 1 of investing: never lose money, rule No. 2: remember rule No. 1” — Warren Buffet.
Here’s a little example to highlight the point. Let’s look at the last 30 years of S&P 500 returns vs the average S&P 500 returns across the same time period. The average return across the past 30 years for the S&P 500 is 9.21%. So the red line has the S&P 500 annual returns compounded (with drawdowns) and the blue line has the S&P 500’s average returns (of 9.21%) across 30 years without drawdowns.
The drawdown model achieves a >10x return on your initial $100, but the no drawdown model achieves a >15x return over the same 30 year time horizon. We literally generate 50% higher total return over the time period (with the exact same average returns) from avoiding drawdowns.
What makes matters worse is if you’re investing with the plan to take an income each year. The point at which you experience drawdowns makes a huge difference to your overall success. Specifically, your success is predicated by whether the drawdowns hit at the beginning of your investing journey or if they hit at the end.
Let’s take the S&P returns again over the 30 years and run two simulations, the first where the drawdowns all hit at the beginning of the 30 year period so assume the nasty periods around 1999–2001 tech wreck and 2008 housing crash all happen within the first few years, and the second where all the drawdowns happen at the end. This assumes you’re taking $5 out of every $100 as an income.
If your drawdowns hit at the end, you’re fine and likely to have a successful investing career. If however, they hit at the beginning, you’re bankrupt within the first 7 years. If you’re planning on taking an income from your investment pot, you have to prioritise avoiding drawdowns at all costs.
Drawdowns ruin your investment returns. The average investor misclassifies risk, looking only at the upside ignores the most important rule of investing. Don’t be the average investor. Don’t ever lose money.
Compound interest
“Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe” — Albert Einstein
The world is divided into two types of people; the first who understand the power of compounding and the second who do not. Compounding is a huge contributor to the wealth divide in the past 15 years.
Top 1% of earners vs Bottom 20% of earners
Let’s say your parents put $1,000 into a magic pot the day you were born. Let’s say the magic pot grows at 1.5% a month (I think 1.5% monthly returns are very achievable for most people). On your 21st birthday you’d have $42,603. Incredible, right?
However, if you manage to achieve 3% monthly returns you’d have $1,717,831 (I didn’t put this on the chart because you wouldn’t be able to see the other lines 😃). A 2x increase in monthly interest (3% instead of 1.5%) gives you a >40x increase in total returns over the 21 years due to compounding. Even more incredible, right?
I know all of these are hypothetical numbers but I believe they are all achievable. You’re going to be alive for the next 20 years anyway so you might as well invest. If you start with an investing mind set then you’ll maximise your value increase over the next several years you spend on this Earth. Compounding (and consistency) is the key.
Why should I use data to invest?
There are three stats you need to know with every investment.
What’s my downside?
What’s my upside?
What’s the probability I get said downside vs. said upside?
From here it’s just a matter of letting statistics and probability theory play out. If you don’t know these three numbers to within a tight range, stop what you’re doing immediately. What you’re doing isn’t investing, it’s speculating. It’s worth noting here, just because an asset or product has gone up every year for the past 10 years or 20 years doesn’t mean it’ll keep going up in the future.
Avoid trading speculatively
Everyone has a view on investments. Tom will tell you to invest in big brand names and you can’t go wrong. Dick will tell you to buy penny stocks and you can’t go wrong. Harry will tell you to buy Bitcoin and you can’t go wrong. It’s important to avoid this noise until you’ve had a chance to do your own work and understand the data behind investments.
a herd of sheep. bahhhh
Humans are herd creatures and it’s hard to not be influenced by outside opinions; it’s how we’ve survived for so long. Unfortunately, herd mentality does not help you when it comes to investing. Herd mentality creates bubbles and subsequent crashes.
The dangers of heard mentality:
Tech Wreck of 1999–2001
Crypto Mania of Dec 2017
Any other bubbles out there today that you can see? What was the last investment Dave told us about?
It’s important to formulate your own view about investments, using data, and then afterwards actively seek people who have a different view to yours so you can self-validate your own idea. Use other people’s views to decide if you’ve missed something in your analysis, not to dictate your investment decisions.
Understand global trends
We can however make inferences from macro trends. Trends that hold true are around consumer habits, supply and demand, market share disruption. Some of these can arrive within a year or two and last decades. Here are two strong trends over the past fifteen years. Do you think they’ll continue? If so, why? If not, why not?
If you understand the underlying reasons behind each of these trends it’s relatively easy to make inferences about the future. Who’s going to benefit from these trends? Who stands to profit? What are some attractive investments today to take advantage of these trends playing out over time?
Some trends are easier to spot than others and it’s really the spotting of these trends early and making correct inferences about the future that drives superior investment returns, not jumping on the back of an already firmly established trend.
What are the different types of investment?
I like to think of investments as either income or growth. Am I getting a regular income from this investment or do I hope that the asset I’ve purchased appreciates in price over time. Typically growth investments are more abundant and when done correctly far more profitable than income investments. This is easy to explain because income is paid from a portion of earnings but growth comes from an appreciation of value. However, income investments are a lot more stable and give you a regular stream of cash flows. A good portfolio will have a different ratio of the two depending on your goals.
Investing for income
Income investments are generally from productive assets. These include (but are not limited to) value stocks, corporate or government bonds and property. Investing in a catalogue of music rights to earn royalties can also be considered an income investment. Diversifying across income-producing investments is very important to ensure the taps aren’t turned off when you need them the most.
Investing for growth
As a company and as an individual, we can create 20% increases in value much easier than we can pay 20% a year out of earnings. Think about the amount of value you’ve received from this blog post and it cost me literally nothing but my time to put together. Value creation is much easier than paying a fixed number out of returns. Company valuations are based off of a multiple of forward earnings expectations but dividend payments to you are out of this years earnings which are after all expenses and taxes.
growth is impressive but not nearly as impressive as this leaf which is both growing and levitating
The Bezos model of reinvesting earnings in growth is much more lucrative for share price appreciation. It’s also worth noting, a large diversified basket of growth stocks outperforms in good times but value stocks outperform in bad times.
Basket of Growth Stocks vs Value Stocks, rebased to $100, across 15 years
Furthermore, value is created at a much higher rate of return in early stages of the business lifecycle. As a business matures, its incremental value creation is a lot lower. The highest returns are from getting in on the ground floor. Once a business has reached maximum market penetration it’s far less likely you’ll have a 50% annual share price appreciation.
Business age vs average YoY quarterly revenue growth for a subset of Nasdaq constituents
Different asset classes
Buying stocks receives a bad rap. The majority of the public believe investing in stocks equates to gambling. Quite frankly this has more to do with how the industry has been set up to firstly entice and secondly screw over retail investors as opposed to anything else. I want you to know I am here to help cut through all the noise and misinformation with data. All of the opinions I share with you will just be opinions but they’ll all be backed by data. This should hopefully help you make up your mind. You can bin the uncertainty, the speculation, the emotional decisions and start fresh with data informed opinions and clarity.
We’re going to deep dive into stocks, property, investment funds, alternative investments like art, whiskey, watches, domain names and even look at very alternative investments like comic books.
Summary
I hope that introduction was useful. To summarise what we’ve covered:
If you don’t invest, you’re guaranteed to lose money over time due to inflation.
If you invest in passive funds you will underperform the market, due to fees.
Your goal should be to invest in high rates of return with little-to-zero drawdowns & then compound regularly.
You need to use data to guide every investment decision. Don’t listen to Tom, Dick and Harry.
Investing for growth trumps income for long-term returns but which you do depends on what stage of your investment journey you are.
Join me next time when we’re going to get stuck in with comparing which is a better investment vehicle: stocks or real estate (using actual data and not just past prices!). If you want to get in touch before then, I’m responsive to either article comments or my linkedin. | https://towardsdatascience.com/a-comprehensive-introduction-to-investing-with-data-ee31fd284872 | ['Janny Kul'] | 2019-08-07 00:59:53.218000+00:00 | ['Towards Data Science', 'Data Science', 'In Depth Analysis', 'Investing', 'Data'] |
Operation TOSCA explained: Inside Cyprus’ Buffer Zone | Operation TOSCA explained: Inside Cyprus’ Buffer Zone
We’ve summed up the UK’s longest-running UN mission in three need to know points
Since 1974, the British Army has been deployed to Cyprus, the UK’s contribution to the UN Peacekeeping Force there.
As one of the longest-running continuous operations, around 260 soldiers from the British Army form the largest contingent of the multinational force.
Operation TOSCA is the name given to the British contribution to the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP).
In an area of continuing tension, they patrol 24/7 along the Buffer Zone that separates the Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Keeping the peace and maintaining stability in the country.
Here are three things you need to know:
1. What is the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP)?
Inside the Buffer Zone, Cyprus.
UNFICYP was originally set up by the UN Security Council in 1964. This was to prevent further fighting between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities, bringing about a return to normal conditions.
After the hostilities of 1974, the Council mandated the peacekeeping Force to prevent further conflict.
UNFICYP also delivers humanitarian aid to Greek Cypriots and a small Maronite community living in the northern part of the island. It also assists Turkish Cypriots living in the southern part of the island.
UNFICYP supports the fullest possible resumption of normal civilian activity in the Buffer Zone, keeping in mind that this is still an area under permanent armed watch by the military on both sides.
What is the Buffer Zone?
The Buffer Zone, which is also called ‘the Green Line’, extends approximately 180km across the island.
In some parts of old Nicosia it is only a few meters wide, while in other areas it is a few kilometres wide.
The area is restricted to the general public and no Greek or Turkish Cypriots are allowed inside. It is often described as “frozen in time”, containing relics of times gone by — old abandoned houses, cars and even an airport.
This is because the residents of the now Buffer Zone were forced to flee due to the increased conflict, with little time to even grab personal belongings. | https://medium.com/voices-of-the-armed-forces/operation-tosca-explained-inside-cyprus-buffer-zone-842b67b01167 | ['Ministry Of Defence'] | 2020-12-22 10:16:25.271000+00:00 | ['Cyprus', 'UK', 'Military', 'Peacekeeping', 'United Nations'] |
Analyzing and Predicting optimal locations for opening popular restaurants in Chennai city | Analyzing and Predicting optimal locations for opening popular restaurants in Chennai city
This blog post is a part of the IBM Data Science Professional Certificate, assignment named “The Battle of Neighborhoods” under Applied Data Science Capstone.
Table of contents
Introduction
Data Acquisition
Methodology
Analysis
Result
Discussion
Conclusion
Reference
A. Introduction
A.1. Background
Chennai, also known as Madras, is the capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal, it is one of the largest cultural, economic, and educational centers of south India. According to the 2011 Indian census, it is the sixth-most populous city and fourth-most populous urban agglomeration in India. The Chennai Metropolitan Area is the 36th-largest urban area by population in the world. Chennai ranked the 36th-most visited city in the world for the year 2019. The Quality of Living Survey rated Chennai as the safest city in India. Chennai has the fifth-largest urban economy in India.
The diversity of the cuisine available is reflective of the social and economic diversity of Chennai. Indian, Chinese, Asian, Italian, Middle Eastern, Thai are some of the most popular in the city. We will analyze each of these restaurants to predict a suitable location for the respective restaurant.
A.2. Problem Definition
Since there are lots of restaurants in Chennai, we try to select those locations that are not already crowded with restaurants within the region and have a greater population. Due to low restaurant density, the chance of setting up a new restaurant might be a great success.
A.3. Interest
In particular, the concluded analysis will target stakeholders who want to set up one of the popular restaurants in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. We will use various data science and analysis techniques to reach our goal of selecting optimal locations. The advantages of each area will then be clearly expressed so that the best possible final location can be chosen by stakeholders.
B. Data acquisition
The data and their respective data sources that are helpful for our is discussed below,
Chennai city’s major areas and neighborhoods are provided by Wikipedia web page.
Geographical coordinates of the areas are provided by Python’s geocoder library.
Venues in each locality of Chennai city are provided by Foursquare API. The coordinate information is used by the Foursquare API to fetch the venues within the specified radius and venue limits.
C. Methodology
First, we initialized a crawler to scrape the data about the areas of Chennai city, from the Wikipedia web page. A total of 163 neighborhood names are extracted. We then utilized python’s geocoder library, with ArcGIS as a geocode provider, to get the coordinates of the neighborhoods. Sample data is shown as,
Chennai city’s Neighborhood with their coordinates
The neighborhoods are visualized using python’s folium package. This allows us to perform a sanity check to make sure that the geographical coordinate’s data returned by the geocoder are plotted correctly. Map of Chennai city along with the neighborhood is shown as,
Chennai city map with neighborhoods
Then, the coordinates data is used by the Foursquare API to fetch information about all the venues within the specified radius (we used the radius of 1500 meters), in each of the neighborhoods of Chennai city, targeting only the relevant information like Venue name, Venue coordinate, and Venue Category. Chennai city has a total of 211 unique venue categories and 1864 venues, which includes various restaurants, Shopping malls, Multiplex, etc., In the end, we get a table as,
Neighborhoods with surrounding venue details
We then use one-hot encoding which allows the representation of categorical data to be more expressive. Many machine learning algorithms cannot work with categorical data directly. In our case, venue categories grouped by the neighborhood and are expressed as the mean of the frequency of occurrence of each category. Sample data is shown as,
Venue density distribution in each neighborhood
We then apply the clustering algorithm, KMeans, on the above data to cluster the neighborhood based on general venue density and analyze & compare the sets in each cluster to conclude the most promising and optimal locations for each restaurant type. We then filter out only the target restaurant of interest in each neighborhood, to analyze within the clusters.
D. Analysis
After segmenting the neighborhood, within each cluster, we will target those neighborhoods that have less than 20% of the entire restaurant density and no target restaurant. We identified 4 as optimal cluster value to group similar neighborhoods according to the Silhouette score, which computes the mean Silhouette Coefficient of all samples. After applying the KMeans clustering algorithm, all the neighborhoods get separated and the resulted sample output is shown as,
Venue density with Cluster label in each neighborhood
The clusters are visualized using python’s folium package. The cluster with 4 different colors along with the cluster legends is shown as,
Chennai city map with clustered neighborhoods
E. Result
After thoroughly analyzing the clusters and their respective neighborhoods, the findings are concluded as follows,
E.1. Cluster 0
Cluster 0 has a total of 57 neighborhoods. It has full of restaurants and other food shops. Opening a new restaurant in an already established market is not a good idea. Only 8% of the areas have the opportunity to open new restaurants. Pie chart that depicts the proportion of each restaurant type in cluster 0 is shown as,
Proportion of restaurants in Cluster 0
E.2. Cluster 1
Cluster 1 has a total of 14 neighborhoods. It has a high market density with fewer medium popular restaurant types. This cluster can be considered as one of the optimal places to open medium popular restaurant types. About 74% of the area has a promising opportunity for opening a new restaurant. Pie chart that depicts the proportion of each restaurant type in cluster 1 is shown as,
Proportion of restaurants in Cluster 1
E.3. Cluster 2
Cluster 2 has only 3 neighborhoods. It has negligible restaurant density. Opening a new restaurant in this cluster can be profitable. 2 out of 3 areas do not have a single restaurant. Pie chart that depicts the proportion of each restaurant type in cluster 2 is shown as,
Proportion of restaurants in Cluster 2
E.4. Cluster 3
Cluster 3 has a total of 83 neighborhoods. It is very similar to Cluster 0 with high restaurant density. About 36% of the areas have the opportunity to open a new restaurant. Pie chart that depicts the proportion of each restaurant type in cluster 3 is shown as,
Proportion of restaurants in Cluster 3
More detailed analysis can be found in the project report.
F. Discussion
There are some clusters that do not have some specific restaurant type. For example, Cluster 1 does not have a single Asian and Italian restaurant, and Cluster 2 does not have a single Fast Food restaurant. Thus, opening these types of restaurants has the high possibility of success as well as failure, due to various factors like populations, income of residents, financial reports, etc., Thus further analysis and survey of these areas of interest are needed to be done before taking further actions.
We can also apply the same approach for the larger dataset. This approach can also be applied to identify the promising locations for other venues like shopping malls, movie theatres, salons, and other related businesses. In this project, we considered only one factor, that is, venue density distribution. There are some other factors like population and income of residents, real estate availability, surrounding localities, financial report, etc., that can be really helpful to further narrow down the choice of selecting the optimal locations with a more accurate analysis.
G. Conclusion
To summarize, the purpose of this analysis was to identify the optimal locations for opening some of the popular restaurant types namely, Indian, Fast Food, Vegetarian, Chinese, Asian and Italian restaurants. Factors like venue density distribution are used to achieve our task.
First, we scraped the neighborhood information of Chennai city from the Wikipedia website and used python’s geocoder library to get the coordinate information of each of the neighborhoods. Then, we utilized Foursquare API to fetch and identify all the venues within each neighborhood provided the radius. We then clustered the neighborhood based on the venue density distribution. Each cluster provided useful information and insights about the venues and restaurants that are briefly discussed in the analysis and result section of the project report, which is helpful for the stakeholders.
The final decision on selecting the optimal location for the restaurant will be made by stakeholders based on specific characteristics of neighborhoods and locations, like competition, future growth, Health regulations, Safety / Crime rates, and taking additional factors into consideration that are discussed above.
H. Reference | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/analyzing-and-predicting-optimal-locations-for-popular-restaurants-in-chennai-city-4ec13b6b5fb6 | ['Mohammed Ismail P'] | 2021-04-27 18:07:35.217000+00:00 | ['IBM', 'Professional Certificate', 'Data Science', 'Restaurant', 'Coursera'] |
Little tales of compassion | So what is compassion? isn’t it something that’s already rooted in some people while others don’t share the same gift.. Well that’s not true, I recently learned through an engaging course that kindness can be practiced by everyone while it’s true that some people have humbleness in their nature, and like a skill rest of the people has to learn to developed it with time and patience.
Compassion in my opinion is something that the more we try to give to the people around us, the more it blends in our nature. Having compassion and behaving with kindness not only makes ones exterior stands out but it also beautifies ones soul.
Compassion blooms flowers in heart
So I have been tasked to do 5 random acts of kindness within 24 hours, by Amal Academy and to blog about it with adding the pictures of those moments. so here it is:
Memories of the old gold time:
I had a lot of work to do today, but when I saw the little old album of my mom’s college in my drawer, I rushed into her room to showed her that and I sat with her admiring those pictures while the smile on her face grew deeper and deeper as she turned each picture, remembering her golden days.
My mom and her friends in NRC training
Two cups of serious talks:
This evening, I noticed our house helper was kind of low while cleaning the kitchen, so I decided to have of tea with her today instead of having it with while working on a project. After prayer we sat together and just randomly talk about life for a while, where she taught me with talks about the nature of life that time never stays the same, some days you have everything and other days you are left with nothing but what’s really inside of your heart.
Our almost cold chai
Evening bliss:
I love to just stand in the balcony in evenings, the serenity in the winds and peace in nature captures me all the time. The next balcony to mine, there’s usually birds feeding from the feeder they have attached on the grills but today for some reason they didn’t put the food for birds in the feeder, so seeing the birds coming and flying away without eating, I put some bread pieces on the grills and left, all the pieces were gone when I returned after sometime.
Captured before putting the bread pieces
Kindness filled breads:
My younger sister loves baking and what she makes is sometimes the yummiest food we’ve ever had and sometimes after hours in kitchen we have burned pots and plates, but in good or worst, she turns the kitchen upside down and I always scold her for that but today I decided to demonstrate her, how to efficiently cook and clean the mess hand in hand.
kindness stuffed breads
Encourage smiles:
One of my other younger sister, who these day is learning to sketch and shade and I felt today that I due to my busyness. not giving anyone proper time so I thought to actually see her sketch book today and to my delight, she is getting really good at this, I tried to encourage her and she was happy with me finally giving time to check her hard work. | https://medium.com/@aisha.166/little-tales-of-compassion-d467f83a0538 | ['Aisha Kanwal'] | 2020-12-11 22:04:59.392000+00:00 | ['Challenge', 'Kindness', 'Compassion'] |
Considering Optimization and Time Complexity with JS Algorithms | After having recently graduated from Flatiron’s Full Stack Immersive Program, I am now armed with a pretty impressive toolbox of languages, frameworks, and methods to take into my new world as a software developer. My goal now is to understand those tools even better, and to reach that level of expertise where I know exactly the right tool to use for each particular situation.
I was recently presented with a whiteboarding question that, on its surface, seemed rather simple: Given an array of positive integers, write a function that returns true if any element in that array is the double of any other element. If not, return false. So, if I were given the array [3, 4, 6] my function should return true, because 6 is the double of 3. Given the array [4, 5, 7] my function should return false, because no number in that array is the double of any other number in the array.
Thinking through the problem logically, my initial plan was to…
Determine the double of each number in the array, then Check to the see if the array includes any of the doubles.
This is a fairly straightforward plan, and here’s what it looks like in code:
This function uses a while loop to iterate through each number in the array (array[i]), then a conditional (if statement) uses the .includes() method to check to see if that number’s double (array[i] * 2) is included in the array. If it finds the double, the function breaks out of the loops and returns true. If not, the while loop continues to run through the entire array, and with each iteration of the while loop the .includes() method runs through the entire array. When no double is found, the loops conclude without returning anything, at which point the function returns false.
My includesDouble function is easy to read, and easy to understand, but let’s consider time complexity and Big O notation for a moment…
T ime complexity simply refers to the amount of time it takes an algorithm, or set of code, to run.
Time complexity is most often measured in Big O notation. If you’re unfamiliar with Big O, here’s a great article that breaks it down in simple terms. For my includesDouble function, n, which is the size of the input, would be 3 — if we were to use either of our earlier arrays ([3, 4, 6] OR [4, 5, 7]). So we begin with O(n) = 3.
When considering time complexity, best practice is to calculate the worst case scenario. Looking at our two arrays, that would be [4, 5, 7], because we know that this array does not include a double, so both loops (our while loop and .includes()) will run completely through the entire array because there is no true case that will break them out of the loops. Okay, so if [4, 5, 7] runs through the while loop we have a linear run time of O(n) = 3, because our while loop runs once for each element in our array (once for 4, twice for 5, and a third time for 7). However, for each iteration of our while loop we have a nested loop that also runs — .includes().
Beware of nested loops — this is where your time complexity, or Big O notation, begins to grow exponentially.
Let me explain…
If our array includes the numbers 4, 5, and 7, on our first iteration through (where array[i] = 4), our .includes() method is going to run through each item in our array to see if the array includes 8 (array[i] * 2). It will then do the same thing for all of the other numbers in our array (5, then 7).
To make things more explicit, our JavaScript engine would run through the following steps:
For the number 4, does 4 equal 8? For the number 4, does 5 equal 8? For the number 4, does 7 equal 8? For the number 5, does 4 equal 10? For the number 5, does 5 equal 10? For the number 5, does 7 equal 10? For the number 7, does 4 equal 14? For the number 7, does 5 equal 14? For the number 7, does 7 equal 14?
Because we have a nested loop, our Big O notation goes from O(n) = 3 to O(n²) = 3². A Big O of 3 vs. a Big O of 9 isn’t that great a difference, but remember that with time complexity, we want to consider the worst case scenario — what if our array was a thousand numbers long? All of a sudden, O(n) = 1000, turns to O(n²) = 1,000,000 with a nested loop! Now that’s a big difference! Imagine if our array contained a million numbers!!!
So, is there a way to solve this problem with an algorithm that doesn’t use a nested loop?
I’m so glad you asked, because the answer is yes.
Enter the hash table…
A hash table is simply a data structure that is associative — it maps keys to values.
If you’ve been coding for at least a little while, you’ll have seen this type of data structure before — (hash tables are also called objects in JavaScript and hashes in Ruby).
‘That’s really great,’ you’re probably thinking — ‘but how does a hash table about cats solve the algorithm problem above?’
Let me share with you the solution first, and then we’ll go through it step by step.
Again, we’ll use our previous array ([4, 5, 7]) to walk through this function.
On the first line inside the function, notice that I’m declaring a new variable, doubles, and setting it equal to an empty hash table ({}). We’re going to build out this hash table using the elements from our array as we go.
Just as before, we’ll start with a while loop (O(n) = 3). Inside the while loop, I’m going to use the numbers in my array to make keys for my new hash table (doubles[array[i]] = ‘cats are so cool’). We know that with this array, our while loop will return without returning true, so after our while loop finishes, we’ll have a hash table that looks like this:
Cats ARE really, really cool.
Notice that, even though they’re full of wisdom, the values that I’ve set my keys to don’t really matter. The keys are the key.
Now let’s look at the second line in our while loop — here we have another conditional — only this time we’re not using .includes(). Instead, we’re checking the keys in our hash table against our current number to see if there is a key that is already double, or half of, our current number. If that key already exists, then we know that we’ve found a double!
To break it down more explicitly…
Our first run through the while loop (with array[i] = 4) produces doubles = {4: ‘cats are so cool’}. It runs through the conditional without returning anything because doubles has only one key, 4, and does not include a key of 8 or 2. The second run through the while loop (with array[i] = 5) adds a new key to doubles — {4: ‘cats are so cool’, 5: ‘cats are so cool’}. Again it passes through the conditional without matching a key. Finally, our last run through produces doubles = {4: ‘cats are so cool’, 5: ‘cats are so cool’, 7: ‘cats are so cool’} and exits the conditional and the while loop without matching a key. Because there was no positive case to break us out of the while loop, our function returns false!
Notice anything?
We wrote a function that does what it needs to do without using a nested loop!
The Big O notation for this version of our includesDouble function is just O(n) = 3. If we had an array of a million numbers, Big O would be O(n) = 1,000,000. Compare that with O(n²) = 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) and we’ve shaved off a huge chunk of our function’s run time!
Ahhh… isn’t life good?
As great as our new function is, it does pose some trade-offs — first of all, our second function is a little harder to understand than our first. If you’re concerned about readability (maybe you’ve got a bunch of newbie programmers on your staff, like me) and you know that n is never going to be astronomically long, you may prefer to stick with the first option. Also, notice that in the second function we also create a brand new variable (doubles = {}). This means that your computer now has to create and set aside a specific place in memory to store that new piece of data. If you’re worried about memory space, and you know that n will always be a reasonable length, again you may choose to go with option #1.
There’s definitely more than one way to skin a cat… | https://medium.com/quick-code/considering-optimization-and-time-complexity-with-js-algorithms-4c8915086518 | ['Jennifer Ingram'] | 2019-02-25 17:38:08.844000+00:00 | ['Big O Notation', 'Algorithms', 'Time Complexity', 'JavaScript'] |
Breast Cancer Nearly Took My Life. Instead, it Made Me a Better CEO. | Breast Cancer Nearly Took My Life. Instead, it Made Me a Better CEO.
Here’s How.
On September 5, 2015 I discovered a tumor in my left armpit. Two days later, I was diagnosed with Stage II HER2 Positive Breast Cancer. I was 41.
I was also the founder and CEO of a tech startup that was less than two years old.
The tumor was huge, and it was aggressive. I’d need strong chemo, radiation, surgery. The works. I was scared. Scared of dying. And, scared of losing my business. Surely it wouldn’t be possible to go through chemotherapy, be there for my husband and kids and run a business at the same time.
I listened to the advice of others: Think positive thoughts, don’t take life for granted, focus on relaxing and taking care of my health.
Yet, none of this put me at ease.
On the car ride to the hospital I confided in my husband. I was certain I’d have to shut down my business. He asked “Do you love it?” Yes. I did. “Then keep running it. Don’t worry about the what-ifs, do the best you can and we’ll figure it out. “
Fast forward to today. I am proud to say: I am cured and an official cancer survivor! And, I am equally proud to say: My business not only survived, but thrived.
It was the craziest thing. Having cancer actually made me a better CEO.
Here’s how it happened:
I learned to let go.
In 2015, the business had 10 employees. I was very hands on, as are most startup CEOs. When I started chemo, it literally knocked me off my feet for months. I couldn’t attend meetings. My brain was foggy and I couldn’t make decisions.
Very quickly, I had to transition large chunks of my job to my team. I was forced to delegate. I had to come to grips with not knowing what was going on, not being involved in decisions. I had to accept that others did things differently than I would have preferred.
Nine months went by. I’d answer a few emails, show up to a few meetings, and largely rely on the team. I didn’t really know how the business was doing. I knew employees weren’t quitting. I knew clients weren’t leaving. So, that was good. But, I didn’t have my finger on the pulse of the health of the company. I figured I’d come back to work full time, and sort it all out then.
I learned how to coach others.
In the summer of 2016, I started to regain my strength. As I began to work more regularly, I saw how much the team had grown. They were confident, efficient, and had formed a deep, trusting bond with one another.
As it turns out, having cancer forced me to lead from the sidelines, something I had never done before. Instead of solving problems myself, I had to ask questions that would guide and coach others.
I learned how to coach others on how to coach others.
Coaching others has had a cascading effect. In the past three years, we’ve hired and promoted dozens of people. Now, we are 60 and growing, and he leaders who were coached are now coaching others, and leading by example. Now, we have a culture that fosters learning, creates a safe space for learning from failure, and empowers individuals to innovate.
Having cancer sucked. It was miserable. I am glad it’s behind me. And, at the same time, I am thankful. Cancer required me to see my job through a new lens, and that is something I will always look back on fondly.
Originally published on Inc. | https://medium.com/newco/breast-cancer-nearly-took-my-life-instead-it-made-me-a-better-ceo-b04c822cec2b | ['Debbie Madden'] | 2018-06-20 20:45:57.526000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Leadership', 'Cancer', 'Startup', 'Management'] |
Gagandeep Baidwan On How to Get Through the Holidays as a Long Freight Operator | Gagandeep Baidwan On How to Get Through the Holidays as a Long Freight Operator
Given the current pandemic, this year’s holiday season will likely look different for almost everyone. Especially for long freight operators who are already working hard to meet the pandemic’s increased demand, the coming season will have its own unique challenges and difficulties.
The holidays have always been a stressful, high-output time for the freight industry. This year, operators will likely face even more intense conditions. Pushing through the long hours and stressful weeks may be challenging, but it’s far from impossible. Freight company owner Gagandeep Baidwan of Plano, Texas is passionate about helping the industry’s hard workers to thrive through the holiday season. The following are his tips for how long freight operators can successfully maneuver the stressful season.
Travel Safely Through Harsh Weather
The holiday season puts increased demand on long freight operators who often find themselves working extended hours during peak periods. For many, the stress of increased workloads is worsened even further by inclement weather, especially in regions which experience sleet, snow and other harsh conditions during the busiest time of year.
That’s why Gagandeep Baidwan urges long freight operators working through the holiday season to focus special attention and energy to travelling safely through harsh weather. This includes staying acutely aware of weather conditions, frequently consulting with regional forecasts and practicing caution at all times — even when driving at slower speeds.
In staying alert, Gagandeep Baidwan highlights the importance of maintaining a healthy sleep schedule and staying constantly aware of your surroundings. A few other key tips for navigating the roads safely during inclement weather include:
Thoroughly clearing your entire vehicle of snow before driving — this includes not only the windows but the roof, hood and doors as wel
Consistently wearing a seat belt
Driving at a slower pace in order to prevent skidding and increase your chances of avoiding collisions on icy roads
Staying acutely aware of your vehicle’s specific blind spots
Keeping hydrated by regularly drinking water
Padding your journeys by leaving early in order to avoid any temptation to speed or rush
Leaving extra room between your vehicle and the vehicle in front of you, particularly during inclement weather
Call Family Often
For many long freight operators, the high-demand holiday season means long periods spent away from their family. Some may even miss big holidays in order to complete routes. To make it through the holiday season, Gagandeep Baidwan recommends making a conscious effort to call home often. Outside of helping the operators keep in touch during a crucial time, frequent calls will also help boost morale and promote motivation, which may make the job’s long hours come easier than they otherwise would.
Capitalize on Routes to See Friends
For long freight operators, long routes are a blessing and a curse. During the holiday season, they often take operators away from their homes and families. But these routes also inevitably pass through areas where old friends, family members and acquaintances live. Often, these are people the operator may not otherwise get to see much. That’s why Gagandeep Baidwan suggests capitalizing on routes in order to see friends whenever possible. During the holiday season, a few familiar faces can go a long way in helping long freight operators feel a little more at home. | https://medium.com/@gagandeepbaidwan/gagandeep-baidwan-on-how-to-get-through-the-holidays-as-a-long-freight-operator-5b2cbf9cdc42 | ['Gagandeep Baidwan'] | 2020-12-09 21:09:58.067000+00:00 | ['Pandemic', 'Covid 19', 'Texas', 'Freight Shipping', 'Holidays'] |
Paektu | Litharge and moisture fathom what pork industry New York has become, thrall a ratiocinating revenant to Paris to bother the remonstrances of vetoed desire. Cold impulses, lozenges are important. A wedding is a deluge to inanition, and sight to landscape abstraction. It rains businesslike between the triplicity of breakable glass and rust, outside the halls ferrying meanspirited self-indulgence. Self-defining light places birefringence on overabundant breakages. Phases separate, the magnetic force of a frescoed obscene laughter redraws commiseration. Tissues dissolve in balmic waterfrontages. Parlances embrace the wind of stockpiling occlusions. Outside voices are crashing the unimpeachable grain of embourgeoisement against the sweet ecstasy of fornication. And that’s what marriage are the infusers are hanging along gridirons expanding in the sun. Toward sophisticated tarmacs, the frescoes of caesaropapism and syndicoanarchism sharpens at the breach of carnal, symposium of allision and fuselage. Long distance lovers meet at point of entry to Phnom Penh, outside the fatuities of our former faubourgs. A programmed destination booked by an incumbent ambassador, a timed watch and time for niches to reconcile. With an electric car as company through a coordinated metrosystem, a windowed autolife is made of choices for the free trials for plasticized trails. It’s in there, a sense is hiding among the white-painted abestoes, among some excuses that we make for friends that we suspend. Chinese paintings characterizes the intrigue through a labyrinthed illumination, overhanging blowed lanterns are first and foremost pencil-drawn to scale. A prototype is yesterday’s meeting with today’s refinements, attraction would materialize through magnetic induction. A change in power through integrated circuits and switchboard. if the sun afterwards is on fullscreen, a hermeneutic heart is throbbing between scalene triangles of youth drawn into fruition, through fascination for precipitation and dream’s placelessness, additional stereophony would be vectored into places. In the morning, the upright face and impulse of an alarm clock schedules my garden–variety life. A picket fence overhung with routing cables surrounds me, intended for keeping with the veterinarian schedule of our farmed out, generic lives. The dusk is populated with variations of lifeworshippers, embourgeoisement is branded on the invisible hand for forbearance and domestication. A purist carnivore brings rearing to pigs, callousness of the mawing tradition tear into fleshiness of the thinker. A packet of cephalosporins crowns a grand piano, a former note in its silence as old as memory, in its forbidden gears lesson notes are anonymous voices. Monsoon atmosphere is anesthesiac, its effect limbers up the staircase; the entire universe moving translationally through a column of darkness. An updated column from the art sale waiting on the tray of the printing machine. Ashes, appendices gather under impastoed subluxation, frescoed capitulation in calcite, the sinusoid of the pressurized wind is guaranteed. The wood is erring to an appetizing note, the circumference of coneflowers to sweet worldliness. The deliberations of young age embolden in the mammalian heart grown in embroidered substrate for excitable sin to break, and at old age expiration dates labelled to a tool begin to erase. A chary rake adjusted to the trunk of the empyrean leaves, as something that has brought life to the powerful charm to the distillery and brume of labour is rusting. Rake hypotenused to a fernel lamp and a levelled beach of sand. For the sorption of tears the view is consecrated with the obscene scripture of many shoes on indiscriminate passage. The Thames view is warmed with marine temperature. The predominance of young age, allows us to provide the exceptional photographs of youth. A signed marriage contract beacons the adages of autopoiesis. The evil has been done now, sleeping with whoever is different from the one we started with. In Eden, observable universe, revolving, rotating is also moving forward a whole through space-time continuum, festering hunger feathers into turpitude. What rational conclusion have we come to now: that nothing was special about me. That was why arguments were started.
valloton, felix — bristonische heidelandschaft | https://medium.com/@rabiutemidayo/paektu-541c8ba513ea | ['Idle Saturdays'] | 2020-12-12 14:18:01.085000+00:00 | ['Literature', 'Prose', 'Writing', 'Creative Writing', 'Painting'] |
True self | True self
It’s in the moments of darkness,
The uncontrollable feelings of helplessness
And dismay that we find the strength to create light,
and bear it through the cold nights.
When we feel like there is nothing left, when we think we’ve taken our last breaths
that we amass the strength to let go, create, and blossom.
Healing is painful, traumatic and exhausting.
However it is the presence, the love, the growth that are the prizes we truly covet when we heal.
And from those painful moments we become our true selves,
and give life to the world | https://medium.com/@adonisric/true-self-1a9043007d72 | ['Adonis Richards'] | 2020-12-26 17:09:26.115000+00:00 | ['Poetry Writing', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Poetry'] |
Fly By Wire: The crash of Air France flight 296 | Actual video of the crash of Air France flight 296. (via nh6central on YouTube)
On the 26th of June 1988, a brand new Air France Airbus A320 on a charter flight with 136 people on board performed a low speed fly-by at an airshow in the city of Mulhouse. But as hundreds of spectators looked on, the plane plowed into a forest and crashed, sending fire billowing up over the airfield. Remarkably, almost everyone on board managed to escape before the plane burned over, but three passengers — including two children — perished in the smoke and flames. The crash pitted pilot against plane: was the Airbus and its radical new fly-by-wire design at fault, or had Captain Michel Asseline grossly misjudged the maneuver? The crash spawned decades of misinformed conspiracy theories, many of them propagated by Asseline himself, which are still widely believed today. This is the true story of Air France flight 296 and its controversial aftermath.
The first version of the A320 during a test flight. (aeronewstv)
In the early 1980s, with McDonnell Douglas in financial trouble and Lockheed having left the market, Boeing was poised to dominate the commercial airplane manufacturing industry for years to come. Of course, there was also Airbus: a joint state-run consortium founded in 1970 by the governments of France and West Germany. But the two aircraft it had produced by that point — the wide body A300 and its shorter derivative, the A310 — had not made much impact on the global market, and the company was not taken particularly seriously by its competitors. At the highest circles of the company, there was a sense that they would need something radically new to prevent Boeing from permanently cornering the market on passenger jets. Something like the Airbus A320.
The A320 was a brave departure from the design philosophy adopted by virtually every airliner that came before it. From the outside, the A320 didn’t look that special: it had two normal-looking wings, two engines, a tail, a two-pilot cockpit, and room for around 150 passengers, which put it squarely in competition with the Boeing 737, already one of the most common passenger planes in the sky. The real magic was under the hood. Instead of mechanical linkages between the yokes and the control surfaces (or their hydraulic actuators), the A320 incorporated a fly-by-wire system, where the pilots made inputs to a bank of computers which in turn flew the airplane. Instead of a traditional control column, the A320 had a side stick, which was located next to the pilot instead of in front of him. Instead of artificially creating feedback forces on the controls to help pilots intuit changes in control sensitivity at different speeds and configurations, the designers of the A320 concluded that this was a crutch, and did away with feedback altogether; pilots could now move the side stick as much as they liked, and the computers would determine how far the actual control surfaces could safely be moved at that precise moment.
An example of one of the A320’s flight envelope protections, specifically, bank angle protection. (AviationChief)
The centerpiece of this design was a series of built-in failsafes called flight envelope protections. The principle behind flight envelope protections was that as long as the controls were working properly, it would be impossible for the pilots to lose control of the plane, no matter how hard they tried. If the pilot pushed the side stick all the way to the right, the plane would roll up to about 67 degrees, the steepest bank that it could safely maintain. Any further right roll was simply not allowed. If the pilot pulled all the way back on the side stick, the plane would pitch up to about 30 degrees and pull 2.5 G’s, but no more. And if the pilot slowed down and pitched up in an attempt to stall the plane, the flight envelope protections would accelerate the engines and gently push the nose down to keep the angle of attack below the critical point. In theory, the plane would be impossible to stall.
This design acknowledged what no other manufacturer was willing to point out publicly: that most crashes were caused by the pilot, not the plane. The A320 wasn’t the first plane to incorporate fly-by-wire technology; in fact, the Concorde had already done so in the early ’70s, and some military jets did it even before that. Even the Soviet Tupolev Tu-154 had a sort of pseudo-fly-by-wire, in the form of an always-on autopilot that corrected for the airplane’s downright terrifying manual flight characteristics. But the A320 was the first jet to have no manual backup, and the first to include flight envelope protections that could not be overridden by the pilot. The reason was simple: the flight envelope protections defined the outermost limits of safe flight, beyond which there was no reason to go. Why should a pilot be able to override them?
Test pilots pose for a picture in front of an early A320. (Airways Magazine)
While it might seem like common sense, this proposition resulted in massive backlash from pilots and considerable skepticism from the flying public. Pilots liked to feel that they were the ones ultimately in control, and passengers didn’t trust computers on principle. Airbus’s attempt to dramatically reduce pilot error accidents by physically preventing pilots from crashing their airplanes was unpopular not because pilots wanted to be able to crash airplanes, but because it was impolite to acknowledge that they sometimes did so anyway. Fortunately for Airbus, airlines were a little more open to the idea than pilots were at the time; otherwise, the A320 would have been dead in the water.
Nevertheless, the company still needed to prove to the world that the A320 really did represent the future of commercial aviation. A number of orders had already been placed when the program was officially unveiled in 1984, but many more were needed. Airbus and its customers launched an aggressive marketing campaign based around the A320’s radical new features, which continued through the airplane’s entry into commercial service with Air France on April 18th, 1988.
The planned route of Air France flight 296. Make sure to pay attention to the numbering to get the events in order. (Google)
It was just over two months later, on the 26th of June 1988, that Air France pilots Michel Asseline and Pierre Mazières stepped aboard a brand new A320 for what was to be one of the most unusual flights of their long careers. The flight had been chartered from Air France on short notice by a local flying club in the eastern city of Mulhouse as an “aerial baptism” featuring a scenic flight around Mont Blanc. The passengers had won tickets on the flight as part of a promotional event organized by local businesses, and many of them (including several unaccompanied children) had never previously been on an airplane. The flight’s other purpose was as an air show attraction. The Mulhouse flying club had arranged an air show at Mulhouse-Habsheim Airport for the 26th of June, and they wanted the exciting new A320 to make an appearance. The plan was for the A320 to depart Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport, fly to Basel-Mulhouse Airport, take off again and overfly Mulhouse-Habsheim Airport twice, then fly to Mont Blanc, circumnavigate the mountain, fly back to Basel-Mulhouse, then return to Paris.
F-GFKC, the A320 involved in the accident. (Original author unknown)
The plane they would be flying was F-GFKC, the ninth Airbus A320 to roll off the assembly line, and the third delivered to Air France. Captain Michel Asseline had picked it up from the factory two days earlier, and it had accumulated just 22 flight hours. Asseline, a former air force pilot, was keen to demonstrate its capabilities: he held a high-level position in the team at Air France in charge of introducing the A320 to its fleet, and he was impressed with its performance. He had even been making frequent appearances on TV and in the newspapers to promote the plane.
Joining him in the cockpit was Captain Pierre Mazières, himself a senior Air France captain with over 10,000 flying hours, similar to Asseline. After ferrying the plane empty from Paris, Asseline and Mazières arrived in Mulhouse early in the afternoon, where they oversaw the boarding of 130 passengers. The passengers included journalists, first-time flyers, and several children, one of whom was quadriplegic. They were assisted by a standard company of four flight attendants, bringing the total number of occupants to 136. One of the passengers was also a flight attendant at another airline, and she and another woman passenger were apparently invited to sit in the cockpit, where they joked with Captain Asseline about a “prehistoric” early-generation jet that was taxiing past them on the apron.
After finishing the startup sequence, Asseline pulled out the flight plan that had been provided to him by Air France and proceeded to brief the plan for the two flyovers at Habsheim airfield. The flight plan was rather bare bones: it called for a low speed flyover along runway 02, the airfield’s only paved runway, followed by a high-speed flyover in the opposite direction, and left the details to Captain Asseline, who was judged to be capable of coming up with the rest himself.
An aerial view of Mulhouse-Habsheim Airport. (Mapio)
What he came up with sounded something like this: they would fly north from Basel-Mulhouse Airport at 1,000 feet above the ground until spotting Mulhouse-Habsheim Airport, at which point they would descend in line with runway 02 to a height of 100 feet with the flaps in position 3 and the landing gear down. Asseline would then pull back on the side stick to increase the angle of attack until it reached “alpha max,” the highest angle of attack allowed by the flight envelope protections. They would then fly level at alpha max until Asseline instructed Mazières to apply takeoff/go-around (TOGA) power, at which point they would climb away and circle around for the second flyover. Asseline noted that he would need to disengage the “alpha floor,” a secondary flight envelope protection which would attempt to initiate a go-around automatically as they approached alpha max. This could be accomplished by holding down a button on the throttle levers for 30 seconds at an earlier point in the flight. When Mazières expressed a shadow of doubt about the maneuver, Asseline was quick to reassure him: after all, he asserted, he had done this “20 times” and it had never caused any problems.
After giving a less technical version of the briefing to the lead flight attendant (including a request that all passengers fasten their seat belts for the flyover), Asseline went on the public address system to brief the passengers.
“Ladies and gentlemen, hello and welcome aboard this Airbus A320, number three of the series for Air France, and which has only been in service for two days. We shall soon take off for a short tourist flight starting at the Habsheim flying club, where we will do two flyovers to demonstrate the continuity of French aviation, and then we shall make a tour of Mont Blanc, depending on weather conditions and air traffic. I wish you all a very agreeable flight.” He then proceeded to repeat the announcement in German.
At 2:41 p.m., Air France flight 296 lifted off the runway at Basel-Mulhouse Airport and turned to the north to fly to Habsheim, which was only about five minutes’ flying time away. Their immediate task was to make visual contact with the airfield in time to descend from 1,000 feet to the flyover height of 100 feet. The weather was fair with a thin layer of high overcast — nothing that would complicate matters in any way. But the pilots seemed to be uncertain about the location of the airfield.
“You’re at eight nautical miles there, you’ll soon see it, there’s the motorway,” said Mazières. A motorway ran past both airports, and they intended to follow it to Habsheim.
“We’ll leave the motorway to the left, won’t we… it’s to the lef… no, to the right of the motorway,” said Asseline.
“It’s slightly to the right of the motorway, so you… you leave the motorway on the left.”
“Okay, as soon as we identify we descend quickly then.”
The route of flight 296 as it made its way toward Habsheim for the flyover. (BEA)
One minute later, at 2:44, Asseline announced, “There’s the airfield, it’s there, have you got it?” At this point they were only about one minute out from the runway, so Asseline pulled the throttles back to idle and put the plane into a quick descent. Hurrying to get ready, Mazières set flaps 3, lowered the landing gear, and entered the local barometric pressure reading. It was around this time that Asseline observed that the spectators weren’t lined up along runway 02 — they were all standing next to runway 34R, a much shorter, grass runway that intersected runway 02 at a 40-degree angle. At the last minute, he turned slightly to the left to line up with runway 34R, sweeping in over the forest surrounding the airport.
Still descending at 600 feet per minute, flight 296 lined up with the runway. “TOO LOW, TERRAIN,” the ground proximity warning system blared.
“Two hundred feet,” announced the robotic voice of the radio altimeter.
Mazières made a comment about an Air France flight safety officer who was in charge of determining whether crews were observing the required safety margins. This may have been an oblique reference to the fact that they were currently exceeding several of the aforementioned margins.
Seconds later, the A320 approached 100 feet, and Asseline hadn’t reined in their descent rate at all. “Okay, you’re at 100 feet there, watch watch — ” said Mazières.
“One hundred feet,” said the radio altimeter. “Fifty. Forty.”
“Watch out for the pylons ahead, see them?” Mazières warned.
“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry,” said Asseline.
“Thirty,” said the radio altimeter.
Runway 34R is highlighted with runway 02 in the foreground. The pilots were beginning to turn right to line up with runway 02 when they realized the air show was happening on runway 34R, forcing them to turn back to the left. (Mayday)
Asseline pulled out of the descent at just 30 feet above the ground. It was obvious to both passengers and spectators that the plane was lower than it was supposed to be. With alpha floor disengaged and the engines still at idle, Asseline pulled the side stick back, rapidly slowing the plane as the angle of attack rose toward alpha max. Airspeed dropped below 120 knots.
Suddenly, Asseline and Mazières realized that there was a forest directly beyond the end of the runway, and they were headed straight for it. Asseline jammed the throttles straight to maximum power, and Mazières called out, “Go around track!”
But it takes around eight seconds for the A320’s engines to accelerate from idle to go-around power, and they didn’t have eight seconds. With surreal grace, the plane glided past the crowd of spectators and plowed straight into the forest. “Merde!” Asseline shouted, the last word captured on the cockpit voice recorder.
Still photo of Air France flight 296 crashing into the forest. (crashdehabsheim.net)
As disbelieving spectators stared with cameras rolling, the A320 eased down into the trees, its jet blasts sending out twin plumes of dust and broken branches as they disappeared into the greenery. For a few seconds, the nose of the plane could be seen reaching up out of the trees as though straining to escape from the forest’s leafy embrace. But it too slipped beneath the canopy, and moments later, a massive plume of smoke and fire erupted from behind the tree line, curling up into the summer sky like a mushroom cloud. Air France flight 296 was down.
Actual video of Air France flight 296 crashing. (via nh6central on YouTube)
On board the plane, the impact with the trees at first resembled a hard landing, but it quickly became much worse. Trunks and branches tore at the fuselage; both engines ingested leaves and failed catastrophically. On impact with the ground, the right wing sheared off, ejecting fuel forward like a flamethrower as the plane skidded to a halt. The plane came to rest after just a few hundred meters, essentially intact except for the right wing, but surrounded by fire. On board, the electrical system failed and all the emergency lights went dark. The aisles were illuminated mainly by the light of the flames. Many passengers had been thrown against the seats in front of them on impact, resulting in widespread head injuries; there were broken bones, lacerations, and bruising — but by and large, the injuries weren’t serious. Indeed, all 136 passengers and crew had survived the crash.
An alternate angle of the crash. (via nh6central on YouTube)
Although everyone was alive, it was obvious that they wouldn’t have much time to escape before fire consumed the plane. The breaching of the right wing fuel tanks had caused a massive fire to break out along the entire right side of the plane, and a smaller leak on the left side triggered another fire around the left wing root. Within seconds of the crash, fire and smoke began to pour into the cabin through breaches in the floor around rows 10–15 and a pair of broken windows on the left side of rows 8 and 9. Captain Asseline attempted to call for an evacuation, but the public address system was dead. In the cabin, flight attendants and passengers rushed for the doors, only to find that six of the plane’s eight exits were totally unusable: all the exits on the right side and the two overwing exits on the left were blocked by flames. To make matters worse, the flight attendants found that the left front door was blocked by tree branches and wouldn’t open all the way, causing the slide to deploy partially inside the plane. A passenger and a flight attendant managed to push hard enough on the door to free the slide, which sprang outward with such force that both men were thrown out of the plane.
One of the first photos of the burning plane, taken just a couple of minutes after the completion of the evacuation. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
In the rear of the cabin, which had become separated from the front by a wall of fire, the passengers were in capable hands: the flight attendant seated here had conducted an emergency evacuation before, after an Air France 747 caught fire during an aborted takeoff in Mumbai in 1975. Guided by his calm and reassuring voice, passengers filed off the plane in an orderly manner, even though the escape slide had been deflated almost immediately by sharp tree branches. In the front, however, passengers panicked, shoving past each other and piling out the door into a bloody melee of shredded branches that might ultimately have caused more injuries than the crash itself. To make matters worse, not everyone had managed to get out of their seats: in the heat of the moment, no one had remembered to assist the quadriplegic boy in seat 4F. A seven-year-old girl a little further back had also become trapped, unable to undo her seat belt after a seat back collapsed on top of her. Her younger brother tried to free her, but he was carried away by the panicked crowd. One woman’s hair burst into flames; another passenger’s clothes caught fire and were extinguished by a flight attendant.
Panoramic overview of the crash site, the impact zone, and the airport. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
Within a few minutes — how long exactly couldn’t be determined — the last passengers appeared to have left the plane. The flight attendants attempted to call back into the smoke-filled cabin, but there was no answer. As the flight attendants made their exits, Asseline picked up Mazières, who had been injured in the crash, and dragged him right out the door. He attempted to go back into the plane to check one last time for stragglers, but he was beaten back by the smoke and flames.
At first it seemed as though everyone had gotten out. It wasn’t until hours later, after accounting for all the survivors, that three people were found to be missing. One was the quadriplegic boy; another was the girl who couldn’t undo her seat belt. The third was a woman who left her husband before evacuating the plane and returned to the cabin in an attempt to save the little girl, only to be overcome by the smoke. All three victims died from inhaling toxic gases well before the airplane burned over.
The spectacular crash, coming just three months after the A320’s introduction to service, made headlines around the world. TV stations played one spectator’s crystal clear video of the final seconds over and over again. Skeptics of the A320 — and there were many — immediately speculated that the fly-by-wire system was responsible, that the computers had somehow overridden the pilots and stopped them from climbing away. Captain Asseline, formerly one of the Airbus’s biggest proponents, fueled this speculation by reporting that the engines didn’t produce power when he commanded them to accelerate. If the allegations were found to be true, it would be disastrous for Airbus, and with it the entire European aviation industry. Investigators from France’s Bureau of Inquiry and Analysis (BEA) would have to go to great lengths to remain as objective as possible, knowing that their conclusions could have consequences that would last for decades.
Firefighters, investigators, and other officials gather at the crash site. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
After an exhaustive analysis of the flight data, the video, the cockpit voice recording, several real-life test flights, and a number of simulator tests, the BEA determined that all the flight controls and the engines responded normally to Captain Asseline’s commands. The response of the engines was a particularly important question. But despite Asseline’s allegations, the FDR data, a spectral analysis of the engine sounds on the CVR, and a similar analysis of the spectator video all agreed that Asseline accelerated the engines between 5 and 5.4 seconds prior to impact with the trees, by which point the engines had accelerated to 84% power, easily on track to meet their certification requirements, which stipulated that they must reach 94% power within eight seconds after being accelerated from idle.
An analysis of the airplane’s overall performance explained why this was insufficient to prevent the crash. Because the pilots spotted the airport so late, they had to pull back the engines to idle in order descend quickly enough to reach the planned flyover height. Consequently, upon leveling off and pulling up to alpha max, the plane entered an extremely depleted energy state. While the flight envelope protections kept the plane from stalling, the margin was razor-thin, as the drag from the high angle of attack rapidly bled off the A320’s remaining speed. With no height to lose and little thrust from the engines, the plane had neither the potential energy nor the kinetic energy needed to climb. The only way to go around would have been to wait for the engines to accelerate to full power, but Asseline applied TOGA thrust too late to avoid the crash.
Aerial view of the wreckage of the A320’s tail section. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
This stood in contrast to previous flights at alpha max which Asseline had conducted both in the simulator and in real life. He wasn’t lying when he told Mazières that he had done this 20 times, but there was a key difference between those flights and this one: the position of the throttles. During previous flights at alpha max, he had always left the engines at a fairly high power setting. This allowed the engines to quickly develop max power when Asseline commanded it, because going from 60% power to 100% power takes considerably less time than going from 20% to 60%. This quick acceleration allowed the plane to gain altitude within a couple seconds of initiating the go-around. It’s not hard to understand why Asseline, having always been able to accelerate out of alpha max with relative ease in the past, would have thought in the moment that something was wrong when five seconds went by without the plane climbing after he applied TOGA power.
However, when the BEA internally came to these conclusions, Captain Asseline cut off all cooperation with the investigation and began to make television appearances in which he alleged that a coverup was underway and that he was being scapegoated. In one such appearance, he made a new claim: that when he pulled up to try to avoid the trees, the nose pitched down instead, which in his opinion was an egregious malfunction of the fly-by-wire system. Checking the data, investigators found he was actually telling the truth — but his statements about what it meant were a gross mischaracterization. The flight envelope protections actually did intervene at the last second to push the nose slightly down, because the plane was on the hairy edge of a stall at the moment Asseline tried to pull up. In fact, if he had been allowed to pull up steeply when he tried to do so, the plane would have stalled and dropped like a rock to the ground, most likely resulting in far more casualties than were inflicted in the actual event.
Aerial view of the remains of the plane. Tree debris and bushes were cleared out from around the plane to provide better access. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
The BEA also explored possible reasons why the flyover was conducted at 30 feet instead of 100. Although the radio altimeter could clearly be heard calling out the altitude on the CVR, and Mazières appeared to react to it, Captain Asseline claimed he couldn’t hear it because the callouts weren’t piped over the pilots’ headsets. He also stated that he was using his barometric altimeter to determine their height above the ground rather than his radio altimeter. The barometric altimeter measures height above sea level, but it can be used to read height above the ground by comparing the value to a marker or “bug” representing the elevation of the airport. The radio altimeter directly measures height above the ground and every pilot is trained to use it when flying at low altitudes. Although Asseline claimed that the digital radio altimeter was too hard to read compared to the analog barometric altimeter, the barometric altimeter is simply not precise enough to be used for low altitude flight. Besides natural barometric altimeter error margins, other factors which could have influenced the descent below 100 feet included the small size of the airport, with a short runway and a diminutive control tower which could have created a false sense of scale; and the high nose-up attitude of the aircraft, which placed the pilots higher above the ground. Although Asseline fervently denied it, the BEA also felt that a desire to show off to the spectators and to the female passengers in the cockpit could have led him to take extra risks.
Police and investigators examine the wreckage. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
Nevertheless, it was clear that neither pilot knew about the forest at the end of the runway until just seconds before the crash, and if they had, they might have acted differently. Furthermore, the pilots appeared to be unaware that the flyover was to be on runway 34R until they spotted the location of the spectators. All of this suggested a lack of adequate planning, especially on the part of Air France.
As it turned out, Air France’s plan, drafted just two days before the flight, called for a low-speed flyover and a high-speed flyover but included very little specific information. Air France conducted a feasibility study for the flyovers which was based off runway 02, not runway 34R, because the airline failed to ask the air show organizers where the event would take place. On top of that, because neither runway was capable of handling an A320, French air show regulations required that the flyovers be conducted at a height of at least 170 feet, but Air France had been using 100 feet on all its air show flyovers, often in violation of the law. Regulations also required that the flight crew meet with the air show organizers before the demonstration flight, but Air France never arranged such a meeting. The organizers met with every other pilot scheduled to participate in the air show, but they weren’t worried about the absence of the A320 pilots because Air France had always performed flawlessly at previous air shows. And at no point was it ever proposed that the pilots make a reconnaissance flight to familiarize themselves with the airport, which they had never been to before.
Flames surround the cockpit before it burned over. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
That meant that most of the planning had to be done by the pilots on the day of the flight. Captain Asseline chose a height of 100 feet because it was what Air France rules specified; he was not aware of the regulatory minimum of 170. Had he known that he would be flying on runway 34R and that there was a 40-foot-high forest just a few meters beyond the end of the runway, he might have included a higher safety margin, but Air France hadn’t furnished him with that information, and the forest didn’t show up on his charts either.
Asseline’s decision to perform a flyover at 100 feet while at alpha max was therefore informed by a set of assumptions which didn’t reflect reality. This maneuver required a relatively long runway with no nearby obstacles, and runway 02 might have qualified, but runway 34R definitely didn’t. By the time the pilots learned that the flyover was to be conducted on runway 34R, it was far too late to adjust their plan to compensate. And the actual scale of the forest didn’t become apparent until they were already practically level with it. Asseline expected to glide along at alpha max for much longer than he actually could, given the length of the runway, and the sudden appearance of the forest caught him completely off guard. By the time he understood what was going on, it was already too late to react given the airplane’s precarious energy state.
The A320 cut a long path through the trees on its way down. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
But at the end of the day, the question had to be asked: why on earth did Captain Asseline think it was a good idea to perform a low-altitude, alpha max flyover at an air show with 130 passengers on board? Certainly this was a gross error of judgment. He was in a position where spectacle would be rewarded, and he was known as a bit of a risk-taker (his colleagues sometimes called him “Rambo.”) But part of the answer might also be the A320 itself. Asseline was more familiar with its systems and capabilities than almost any other pilot, and he likely had great confidence in its ability to keep him and his passengers safe. That might have obscured the inherent danger of the maneuver. Certainly no one would have tried to perform a flyover at the equivalent of alpha max in a Boeing, even without passengers on board; the risk of stalling and pancaking into the runway would have been much too great. Ironically, the fact that the Airbus protected pilots from exceeding the airplane’s limits may have encouraged Asseline to fly much closer to those limits than he ever would have done otherwise.
Police and firefighters at the scene of the crash. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
The BEA’s final report largely blamed Captain Asseline for the crash, with some criticism also reserved for Air France, which failed to give him all the information he needed to plan the flight. Asseline and his supporters, which included a major French pilots’ union, denounced the report as the result of a cover-up to protect the reputation of Airbus. Supporters of Asseline hired a Swiss criminology institute to examine the conduct of the investigation, while a documentary film crew hired a British “aircraft accident consultant” named Ray Davis to help them refute the findings.
Key to their assertions was an allegation that the flight recorders had been tampered with (or replaced with entirely new flight recorders) in order to mask how long it actually took for the engines to respond when Asseline called for TOGA power. This camp believed that the A320’s computers had detected that it was in a landing configuration at low speed approaching the ground and had entered landing mode, preventing Asseline from going around. This wasn’t how the landing mode worked, (landing mode is not a flight envelope protection and can be easily overridden by the pilots using the TOGA switches) and investigators had conducted live flight tests to show that the computers wouldn’t go into landing mode anyway, but the argument looked convincing to people who didn’t know (or believe) the findings. Davis specifically alleged that four seconds were missing from the final moments of the flight — enough to put the engine response outside the certification requirements. His main evidence was an apparent disagreement between the time stamps on the ATC transcript and the flight data recorder. The FDR had a “radio transmit” parameter, which showed up in the data four seconds after the final air traffic control transmission. But this was actually a really basic misunderstanding of how the FDR works: the “radio transmit” parameter is only recorded when one of the pilots makes an outgoing transmission, not when an incoming transmission is received. The data point corresponded to Mazières’ reply to the transmission, not the transmission itself, and matched up perfectly with the official timeline.
Flattened trees surrounded the plane before first responders cleared them away. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
Davis also claimed that the flight data showed the plane decelerating in the final seconds before it hit the trees, rather than accelerating, as it would if the engines were spooling up normally. This was also a misunderstanding caused by a lack of relevant knowledge. In France (at least at that time) positive acceleration was written with a minus sign, and negative acceleration with a plus sign, something that Davis could have easily confirmed by looking at the data for the rest of the flight, which would have made no sense otherwise. The plane was actually accelerating in the final seconds, exactly as it should have been.
Asseline and his supporters also pointed to evidence which appeared to indicate that one or both engines had failed to produce power just before impact. The original transcript of the cockpit voice recording contained the words “boom, boom” just before the end of the recording, which Asseline said could be the sound of a compressor stall. A compressor stall can occur when airflow into the engines is interrupted at high angles of attack, but had one occurred, it would have been clearly audible on the spectator’s video, which it was not. The words “boom, boom” were simply the transcriber’s attempt to write down what they were hearing, and actually described the sound of impacts with trees. It was also alleged that the BEA’s measurements of the heights of the trees showed that the left engine was higher than the right engine, indicating an imbalance in engine thrust — but the locations of the two points of measurement were 16 meters apart, while the engines are only 11.5 meters apart. The right side height measurement was lower simply because it was taken in an area struck by one of the plane’s low-slung engines, while the left measurement was not. Furthermore, although the engines were no longer producing power by the time they struck the ground, the presence of plant matter deep inside the cores showed that they were functioning normally when they first hit the trees and had not failed in flight.
This diagram from Airbus’s lengthy rebuttal to Davis’s findings illustrates why the height measurements don’t show that one engine was producing less power and pulling that side down. (Airbus)
Despite these detailed rebuttals and the glaring errors in Ray Davis’ report, allegations that the Airbus A320’s fly-by-wire system caused the crash of Air France flight 296 are still widely believed. Michel Asseline continues to make appearances on TV programs and in news articles in an attempt to clear his name, where little effort is typically made to push back against his claims. Notably, Pierre Mazières, who could be heard on the CVR expressing veiled skepticism about the wisdom of Asseline’s flight plan, has never spoken publicly about the crash or about Asseline’s allegations.
Fortunately, the BEA investigators didn’t lose sight of their mission. After determining the cause of the crash, they issued a long list of safety recommendations, including that every demonstration flight have a comprehensive flight plan with the expected flight parameters and emergency procedures; that pilots who will fly demonstration flights engage in reconnaissance of the destination, and (if possible) conduct a practice run on a simulator; that demonstration flights be conducted without passengers; that the internal rules of French airlines be checked for compliance with national regulations; that A320 training emphasize that performance limitations must be considered despite the existence of flight envelope protections; that crews performing demonstration flights receive special training; and that all the A320’s audio alerts be played through the pilots’ headsets. Several recommendations also pertained to cabin safety and passenger survival, including that flight attendants receive more detailed aircraft conversion training; that authorities study how to create realistic evacuation simulations for flight attendant training; that flight attendants receive training on how to project calm during an emergency; that French airlines instruct passengers on how to unfasten their seat belts during pre-flight safety briefings and on the safety cards; that the seat belt buckles both unfasten and physically separate with a single action; and that the backs of seats be designed to lessen injuries to passengers’ heads during a crash.
The most lasting consequence of the crash is probably the total prohibition of passengers on board demonstration flights at air shows, something which in hindsight seems like common sense. But, as they say, regulations are written in blood.
The tail section continued to smoke shortly after the fire was extinguished. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
Shortly after the crash, French authorities stripped Captain Asseline of his pilot’s license, and he never flew in France again. After the publication of the BEA’s final report, French prosecutors charged Michel Asseline, Pierre Mazières, two Air France officials, and the president of the Habsheim flying club with manslaughter in connection to the crash. In 1997, Asseline was sentenced to six months in prison, while the other four were handed 12-month suspended sentences (meaning they would not see prison time unless they committed another crime). Mazières quietly accepted this outcome and kept flying for Air France, but Asseline appealed — only for the appeals court to increase his sentence from six months to ten.
Although the preponderance of evidence has always suggested that Asseline was at fault in the crash, he isn’t wrong to denounce the criminalization of his actions. Air France effectively set him up to fail, yet he received the brunt of the blame, when that blame ought to have been shared more evenly with his employer. And one can only imagine how he feels — caught in a situation where he had seconds to react, shocked by the terrible crash that occurred under his watch, only to be dragged through the gauntlet by officials and by the courts before he had a chance to heal. No wonder he believes there was a smear campaign against him. And the conviction of Captain Asseline was only one example of a tendency to criminalize errors of judgment that lead to aircraft accidents, a practice which doesn’t improve safety — after all, Asseline was in fact within his rights to perform an alpha max flyover at an air show with 130 passengers on board. Although it was a terrible idea, it wasn’t a crime, and that was exactly the problem. Thankfully, this obvious safety lesson has been learned.
Close-up of the tail section. (Franceleaks)
To this day, many people — maybe even most people — both within the aviation industry and among the flying public believe that French authorities covered up the real cause of the crash to protect Airbus. The aforementioned Swiss criminology institute is frequently cited for a 1998 report in which it stated that the black boxes presented at the trial were not the same ones recovered from the crash site on June 26th, 1988. But no convincing evidence has been presented which can debunk the flight data that was included in the BEA’s report and on the basis of which Asseline was convicted. In fact, there isn’t even a cohesive alternate timeline of events. Asseline and his supporters have variously contended that the plane went into landing mode, the engines physically failed, the automation pitched the nose down instead of up, and several other theories without settling on a particular one. A collection of “gotchas” is not a compelling argument for why an airplane crashed!
Looking down to the crash site from the direction that the plane came from. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives)
A large part of the skepticism surrounding the official findings stems from widespread misunderstandings of how investigations are conducted. For example, in the book “Flying in the Face of Criminalization,” Sofia and Andreas Mateou wrote that “the engine manufacturer was asked to check the engines despite the fact that an engine malfunction was suspected,” implying that this was a conflict of interest. In fact, this is standard procedure in every accident investigation. Of course the manufacturer gets to inspect the wreckage — they’re the ones who know the intricate details of how the plane works, and their participation is necessary. The inspections are carried out by engineers who have a vested professional interest in figuring out what went wrong, and in the presence of investigators. Ordinary investigative steps like these were in many cases portrayed by the media as evidence of malfeasance when in fact they are completely routine, and receive no scrutiny whatsoever in a “normal” accident. Although manufacturers (notably Airbus’s rival, Boeing) have occasionally tried to mislead investigators, there is no recorded case in which investigators colluded with a manufacturer to do so — not a single one. Despite dozens of crashes becoming the subjects of conspiracy theories throughout history, there is actually no case in a developed country of an aircraft accident investigation having been later revealed to have deliberately covered up the cause of a crash.
The crash site today is marked by this small memorial. (Jean-Loup Frommer)
At the end of the day it was probably inevitable that this crash would become the subject of conspiracy theories. After all, it really did come at a bad time for Airbus, and if the plane was found to be at fault, the consequences for the company would indeed have been grave. But that isn’t evidence for a cover-up all by itself. Eighty percent or more of plane crashes are caused by human error, and only some of the remainder by the aircraft — the odds were always that Asseline caused the crash, not the plane. What are investigators supposed to do if the evidence starts to point toward that 80% — pretend that it doesn’t? The BEA was in a no-win situation. And looking back, history has borne out the official conclusions: the A320 went on to be the second most popular airliner ever built, and not one has crashed due to a failure of the fly-by-wire system or an erroneous activation of the flight envelope protections. The new design philosophy has become so successful that even Boeing has adopted fly-by-wire control systems for its newest models.
Airbus introduced the A320 intending to create a new type of airplane that would be harder for pilots to crash. Although the planes themselves proved safe enough, Airbus didn’t achieve this goal — today, its planes crash just as often as Boeing’s. Air France flight 296 illustrated the main reason why: pilots all too often think they can’t crash fly-by-wire airplanes, only to discover that the laws of physics ultimately still apply. Just like the “unsinkable” Titanic, the “uncrashable” A320 quickly found its proverbial iceberg: the insuppressible confidence of the human ego.
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What is Sacred Sexuality? | Like many concepts in the realm of the Divine, knowledge of sacred sexuality is truly an experiential knowledge. Words can only point to and talk around what it is. It’s like reading a score of music instead of listening to the song. You might be able to get the gist, but until you have heard it, tried it with your own body, your knowledge is incomplete. But I’ll do my best to get the main points across.
My quick, “cocktail party” definition is: Sacred Sexuality is using sex as a spiritual practice similar to meditation and yoga.
I base my teachings on the Tantric premise that everything, from prayer to shit, is sacred. The Divine/God/Goddess/the Universe/The Cosmos is the foundational ground of being for everything that exists. Therefore, sex can be sacred as well.
The primary way of having some type of spiritual experience is to connect to the Divine in some way. More traditional ways of doing this are things like prayer, ritual, and fasting. But, if everything is sacred, than anything you do can potentially bring this connection. This includes things like folding laundry, scrubbing toilets, going to work, sitting in traffic, and having an orgasm.
If you learn to see the inherent Divinity inside yourself, your body, your genitals, your partner, the experience of pleasure, and so on, you can leverage the inherently intimate nature of sex to connect to the Divine itself.
Though connecting to the Divine has obvious spiritual benefits there are more practical benefits as well. You can experience things like full-body orgasms, cosmic orgasms, universal orgasms, and chakra orgasms. Seeing your partner as inherently divine does wonders for relationship problems. In general, sex becomes incredibly meaningful and profound. It’s no longer a routine release of sexual tension (though that’s ok sometimes too), but a gorgeous ritual that brings you to the peak of your aliveness.
Sacred sexuality is an art and I have dedicated years of my life to learning it. However, here are a few basics that you can incorporate into your sex-life with relative ease, either by yourself or with a partner. | https://michellegarfinkel.medium.com/what-is-sacred-sexuality-13724db8c0c8 | ['Michelle Garfinkel'] | 2020-12-23 23:56:25.534000+00:00 | ['Sacred', 'Sex', 'Tantric', 'Spirituality', 'Tantra'] |
Perfection | Question from the Internet:
“What does perfection look like, and how will the world be if all of us were perfect?”
Perfection is when myriads of seemingly imperfect, unfinished, incompatible elements, pieces combine, complement each other to comprise a single, perfect whole.
We don’t have to be perfect in ourselves. We have to learn how to build such perfect relationships, mutually responsible and mutually complementing relationships, that creates a perfect Human society.
In that perfect Human society each can contribute to the whole with their unique, irreplaceable, most optimal contribution, while each receive exactly what they need and deserve in order to be able to perform that most optimal “cogwheel” role towards the whole collective.
https://youtu.be/lctdsFFhGO4 | https://medium.com/@samechphoto/perfection-c3589e9d147a | ['Zsolt Hermann'] | 2020-12-15 00:15:00.986000+00:00 | ['Humanity', 'Perfection', 'Education', 'Connection', 'Society'] |
You Should Write Bad Code More Often | Write Bad Code More Often
All we use is the product of decades of innovations and failed designs.
You can only truly grasp the beauty of a garbage collected language if you dive on some nasty C/C++ code. Until then, all you can do is imagine how painful it was back in the day. The whole hate over singletons can only really be understood by those that got to write one and faced the many issues associated with them (such as writing tests).
Theres a whole world between textbook samples and real-life experience. The former is no more than a hint; the latter really changes how you code.
Most of us, back in our beginner days, coded without Git or Unit Tests. These projects tended to be buggy, and, more often than not, they would stop working at all. Without Git, you couldn’t tell what you might have accidentally changed. Without tests, things would stop working days before you bumped into them again. This experience is what motivates us to use these tools every day.
To truly understand how to write good code, you must write bad code first.
There a couple of ways you can force yourself to write bad code (or to see ugliness in your current snippets). It all boils down to one thing: try coding some other way. This will either show you how much better your solution is or how stupid it was (“was” because you’ll change it, right?)
Here’s a list of things you can do in your spare time:
Learn a Parent Language: Kotlin, for instance, is inspired by Scala. Swift, among other things, tries to solve Objective-C issues. C# superseded Java. Learning parent languages teach you how much of “what you have now” was not present back then (and what it solves). It will teach you to appreciate more a lot of things you might otherwise think are crap. Learn a “Successor” Language: If you are a C++ developer, you should try Rust. Java folks should give Go a go. Python users might try Julia or Nim. JavaScript guys ought to try TypeScript or maybe Dart. Unlike learning a parent language, this will show you how much of what you do now is crap and how it could be better handled. Learn LISP: This is a weird one for many. LISP has no variables. It is a fully functional programming language (that’s easier than Haskell). You don’t need to be any proficient with it, but try writing some algorithms, such as Fibonacci, quick-sort, or Huffman coding. If you take your time to do so, you will realize how variables are, many times, unnecessary. Write a Text Processor in Plain-C: Given a path to a text file, open it, remove all line breaks, and add new breaks after every period ( . ) character. Then, shuffle each word keeping the first and last characters unchanged. Bonus points if you process each line in parallel. This will (quickly) show you how string processing has evolved dramatically. Look for Design Patterns: Take a list of design patterns, such as this one, and open up some project you work or worked on. Take your time to read about each pattern and try finding places that could benefit from one of such patterns. For each one you see, try picturing how much cleaner it would be if you had used it (bonus points if you refactor it). This is the best way to incorporate design patterns into your repertoire.
These tips, in essence, are all trying to either make you code differently or take a second look at what you have already done. Either way, you’ll notice that not everything is as shiny as you might have once thought.
Besides, I am not telling you what’s wrong or what is right, nor how to code. Instead, I invite you to…code. Code in a new language. Try doing the same thing in two different ways. Coding is the way to be a better coder. Not reading some random blog posts on the internet.
Thanks for reading! | https://medium.com/better-programming/you-should-write-bad-code-more-often-388c6f1ba5a | ['Ygor Rebouças Serpa'] | 2020-08-19 18:37:46.978000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Software Development', 'Programming', 'Productivity'] |
Article number 12 | [Funnel Series]
Does your Brand have an Attractive Character?
Just today, talking with someone on my team, he asked me, Why I picked him up to work with me. And I just told him “it was because of your attractive character”. Not the way he looks or dresses but the way he presents himself to the world by his communication.
In a word, he has created a brand, as the person he is!
Jenna Kutcher says “A brand is an image and personality the business applies to its offer”.
Being an Attractive Character doesn’t mean, you are “inventing” a fake personality.
No. be yourself with your flaws, tell people about your background and how you became what you are now.
Don’t be afraid to express your opinions, even if that will make some people not really like you, or be in disagreement with you — many will love you and will be in agreement with you.
Look, all Superheroes have debilities (kryptonite for Superman), and that makes them more real and reachable for others.
When you have it very clear to yourself the Attractive Character you want to express, something magical will happen… you will start to attract only your Dream Customer, as all the other ones will not identify with you, and that is okay.
On my journey, I started to attract and sell my products and services to people that were not my Dream Customer and as consequence, they started to “fall off” my sales ladder.
I became disappointed, thinking that only I could see the benefits of these products.
Only when I understood this concept of attracting my Dream Customer, did things start to change.
Paraphrasing all the marketing mentors — “The money is on the list”!
The secret is that list has to be full of your Dream Customer!
In my next article, I will give you an exercise on how you can find yourself, and perfect yourself as an Attractive Character.
Bye for now,
Luis Chester
Funnel Consultant | https://medium.com/@luischester63/article-number-12-4e49a7d4bfcf | ['Luis Chester'] | 2020-12-24 12:52:52.381000+00:00 | ['Affiliate Marketing', 'Dream Customers', 'Funnel Builder', 'Attraction Marketing', 'Network Marketing'] |
Visual Builder Component for Embedding Oracle Analytics — Part 1 | Introduction
This is the first of a series of blogs explaining how application developers can use an Oracle Visual Builder (VB) component for embedding Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC) Data Visualization projects.
Part 1 — Introduction
Part 2 — Layout and Sizing
Part 3 — Using Filters
Part 4 — Navigation
Part 5 — Mobile Apps
Part 6 — Token Authentication
Using this component, it’s possible to create custom web and mobile analytical applications using Visual Builder with visualisations sourced directly from Oracle Analytics Cloud.
Example of a Custom Analytic Application with Navigation
I’ll assume you already have some experience with VB, but if you’re just getting started, there are plenty of excellent resources and tutorials available to help you get up to speed. See ‘Get Started with Visual Builder’ if you don’t already have a VB instance available in your Oracle Cloud Tenancy.
Web components are a standard way of simplifying web development through creation of custom HTML tags. The OAC web component for VB specifically manages the existing OAC embedding framework (embedding.js and <oracle-dv>) within the context of a VB application.
If you are new to embedding OAC projects, I have an introductory blog that will help you get started.
Pre-Requisites to Using the Component
Both the Oracle Analytics Cloud instance and Oracle Visual Builder instance must be in the same Oracle Cloud Tenancy and using the same Oracle Identity Cloud Service (IDCS) for identity management. Any users who need to use the VB application must have the appropriate access / privileges for both OAC and VB.
Before you can embed analytics content into a VB application, there is some configuration required. You need to add the domain (up to the .com) of the VB application you are embedding into as a safe domain entry in the OAC console. For example, add:
https://<Your-VB-Instance>.builder.ocp.oraclecloud.com
and check the ‘Embedding’ box for that entry.
In VB, select settings, and add the OAC instance URLs to the ‘Allowed Origin’ section. You also need to add the URL for the IDCS instance that is used by both OAC and VB. A way to find the IDCS URL is to navigate to the link you’d use to log in to OAC and you’ll be redirected to the IDCS login page. Capture this URL (up to the .com) and add it to the VB ‘Allowed Origins’.
If you get any issues with logging in and viewing content, you may also need to add the instance URLs to the Oracle IDCS configuration ‘Allow Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS).
Installing the Component
Assuming that you have already created a web application in VB, e.g., using one of the app templates, you will find the OAC component in the VB ‘Components Exchange’ section by searching for ‘analytics’. You’ll see a component called ‘Oracle Analytics Project’.
The Oracle Analytics Component in the Visual Builder Cloud Service Component Library
Install this component in your VB application.
Installing the Oracle Analytics Component
Once installed, you can manage any available updates to this component from this area of the VB product. You can also see a description of the component and details on how to use it if you click on the component name once it’s been installed.
Note: you need to install the analytics component for each new application that you wish to embed analytics projects into.
Using the Component
Navigate back to your web application, where you’ll now see the ‘Oracle Analytics Project’ listed in the available components.
The easiest way to get started is to add a ‘Flex Container’ component to your application page, then drag the analytics component into the container. You will see a message to ‘Configure analytics host and project path’.
Adding an OAC Component to a VBCS application page
You need to reference the host of your analytics cloud instance e.g.,
https://<your-oac-instance >.analytics.ocp.oraclecloud.com
You can get the analytics project path reference from the developer menu, embedding tab in OAC. Typically, when embedding into an application that is intended to be accessed by multiple users, you’ll want to make sure to embed an OAC project that is stored in the ‘shared’ area of the catalog.
An OAC Canvas Embedded into a VBCS Application Page
You’ll notice a number of options that are available in the ‘Oracle Analytics Project’ Component. The easiest option to try out is the check box to show or hide the filter bar. If you don’t see any analytics canvas, make sure you have a page structure similar to the screenshot above, i.e. with a Row, Container, Component hierarchy.
Also note that VB has a ‘Live’ mode that you may need to select if you want to see changes / interactivity with the embedded canvas.
In subsequent blogs, I’ll cover how to add multiple canvases and define layout, and describe in more detail how to use the filter and token options of the component. | https://medium.com/@insight2action/visual-builder-component-for-embedding-oracle-analytics-part-1-6de32b327d08 | ['Mike Durran'] | 2021-09-14 12:01:35.833000+00:00 | ['Oracle Cloud', 'Oracle', 'Embedding', 'Developer', 'Analytics'] |
Are Introverts fit to be Product Managers? | Are Introverts fit to be Product Managers?
Let’s dive into this — first things first, the reason why the answer is not a YES or a NO but simply a NOT NO will be explained at the end of the post. So hang on tight and read on!
And now, for the map outlining this post:
Just like all the other posts on product maps, let’s keep this to the point and succinct — just how product managers like it!
Superstrengths
Identifying yourself as an introvert is usually not just based upon your willingness or rather lack of willingness to socialize and constantly communicate your thoughts/ feelings. Rather, this identity is formulated through your way of doing things which goes beyond just communication. Hence, recognizing that introverts have numerous strengths and identifying your superstrengths outside of that helps understand that there is a bigger picture at play
The way I see it, here are my key superstrengths as an introvert (in my definition, an introvert is one who analyzes a situation deeply before making conclusions and likes to have structured thoughts before voicing or formulating an opinion):
Thoughtful: Mindful, present in situations
Mindful, present in situations Self Starter: Does not need to be encouraged or forced into doing things
Does not need to be encouraged or forced into doing things Analytical: Analyze, think, understand before speaking!
Analyze, think, understand before speaking! Valuable: Wink, wink — always adding value
Wink, wink — always adding value Observant: Observe what is otherwise easy-to-miss
Observe what is otherwise easy-to-miss Time Management: Mindful of time and energy
How can you use these superstrengths as a PM?
Intention Setting
At the end of the day, Introverts are driven by how well they spend/ invest their energy throughout the day. Hence, mindful time and energy allocation are extremely important in order to avoid getting burnt out by the extensive amount of client meetings, daily schedule management, and meeting with different teams required.
Set Daily intentions for how you would purpose your day
for how you would purpose your day Big Meetings: Set purpose, goals, and clear agenda for meetings
Set purpose, goals, and clear agenda for meetings Presentations: This might make you uncomfortable given that you are not used to speaking to large audiences. However, presentations can be seen as a fun activity because usually, introverts are extremely passionate about their projects. So don’t let your shyness get in the way, instead — use your excitement to drive you and let it take over how you present your findings and the great work you have done in silence!
Effective Communication
Being an introvert does NOT mean that you are BAD at communicating your thoughts. It simply means that you are more mindful of choosing WHEN to share your thoughts and you know exactly WHERE you want to share them. However, sometimes this can come off as cold, distant, or uninterested. To ensure that your team and other stakeholders are able to understand the uniqueness you bring to the table, it is key to effectively communicate your thoughts.
Succinct: Finding a middle ground between how you communicate and how others like to be communicated with is to keep your thoughts and ideas succinct. As an introvert, when you finally decide to talk it’s easy to quickly lose your train of thoughts and you might have a tendency to start explaining EVERYTHING. However, instead — try to practice succinct communication to get your point across in a way that works for other PMs on your team and for yourself.
Finding a middle ground between how you communicate and how others like to be communicated with is to keep your thoughts and ideas succinct. As an introvert, when you finally decide to talk it’s easy to quickly lose your train of thoughts and you might have a tendency to start explaining EVERYTHING. However, instead — try to practice succinct communication to get your point across in a way that works for other PMs on your team and for yourself. Audience Focused: Of course all introverts are not the same — however, it is common for introverts to be inwardly focused. And more often than not, the way an introvert expresses their ideas could be more focused towards their own self. Instead, keep the audience and stakeholders in mind whenever you talk about your thoughts and ideas!
Of course all introverts are not the same — however, it is common for introverts to be inwardly focused. And more often than not, the way an introvert expresses their ideas could be more focused towards their own self. Instead, keep the audience and stakeholders in mind whenever you talk about your thoughts and ideas! Listening Skills: This is definitely one of your superpowers! Use it to your benefit and be the one who truly listens during client meetings. Other than that, this skill fits perfectly with the role of being a PM as you are essentially listening to different teams, their concerns, and their needs ALL day!
This is definitely one of your superpowers! Use it to your benefit and be the one who truly listens during client meetings. Other than that, this skill fits perfectly with the role of being a PM as you are essentially listening to different teams, their concerns, and their needs ALL day! Thoughtful Questions: Introverts are analytical and thoughtful — using this to your benefit as a PM should come easily. Curiosity-driven PMs are usually the ones who can create the most value for the product. So, use all that analysis to ask the questions that naturally pop up in your head!
Introverts are analytical and thoughtful — using this to your benefit as a PM should come easily. Curiosity-driven PMs are usually the ones who can create the most value for the product. So, use all that analysis to ask the questions that naturally pop up in your head! Value-based: Remember to ground your communication in adding value to any conversation in however small a way you can.
Energy Management
As I mentioned before, being an introvert, I have always been very mindful of how I spend my energy because it is easy to feel drained out of energy after a long day of meetings, management, and other thousand things on the mind that come naturally as someone who thinks to themselves ALL the time!
So, having energy management tools to support me has helped me be a better Product Manager while being an introvert!
Prioritization: Don’t try to do everything! Pick and choose
Don’t try to do everything! Pick and choose Schedule: Have a clear strategy of how you are going to spend your day
Have a clear strategy of how you are going to spend your day Recharge Rituals: Have something to look forward to and to refresh you!
Finally, let’s talk about Resources to be a better INTROVERT PM!
Find Quiet time for yourself, introvert definitely operates better when they are given their time and space to think and reflect. Make sure you have multiple blocks of the day booked out for personal time for reflecting upon your work, ideas, and projects. Quiet — is quite important for you to be at your optimal best self as during this time you can structure and formulate your thoughts! (Without others getting in the way)
Books
And lastly, the answer to can introverts be PMs is NOT no because we cannot generalize and categorize the uniqueness that every human being and PM brings to the table. It not a yes, because whether being a Product Manager is a great fit for you or not relies upon a lot of other factors besides your social skills. And, it is not a no, because again, being an introvert does not instantly categorize you as a certain type of human being — it is just a trait that can be used to your benefit if you are willing to do so. Not no means that it is situational, depends, and changes from introvert to introvert 😉
Like, comment, or share if you are an introvert and I hope that you benefit your fellow introverts by sharing this post if you found it helpful! | https://medium.com/agileinsider/are-introverts-fit-to-be-product-managers-7e86a485c454 | ['Aonushka Aeron'] | 2021-07-11 01:40:38.220000+00:00 | ['Producitivity', 'Product', 'Product Management', 'Pm', 'Introvert'] |
iRobot Roomba i3+ review: A self-emptying robot vacuum for modest budgets | iRobot’s Roomba i7+ and Roomba s9+ were game changers with their self-emptying dustbins. They removed the last manual task—dumping all that collected dirt and debris—from robot vacuuming, making it a truly automated experience. Unfortunately, these model’s $800-plus price tags put this luxury out of reach of many budgets.
The i3+ would seem to be iRobot’s corrective. It includes iRobot’s self-emptying dock—called the Clean Base—smart navigation, iRobot Genius Home Intelligence, Alexa and Google Assistant support, and other premium features for just $599. (The vacuum is also being sold as the i3 without the cleaning dock for $399.)
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best robot vacuum cleaners, where you'll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product.DesignWhile the i3+ builds on both the aforementioned models advances, its design hews closer the to the i7+. The vacuum is round, rather than D-shaped as with the s9+, and features a partially textured top to give it some eye appeal, as the vacuum and its portly Clean Base aren’t easily concealed. Clean, Home, and Spot buttons are on top in a pattern familiar for Roomba users, and an RCON sensor sits on the forward rim to aid in navigation to and from its dock.
iRobot The i3+ cleans equally well on carpeting and hard floors.
Underneath, the i3+ is equipped with a pair of multi-surface rubber brushes and a specially designed edge-sweeping brush, and its suction power is 10 times that of the Roomba 600 series. A high-efficiency filter captures 99 percent of pollen, mold, dust mites, and cat and dog allergens, according to iRobot.
The Clean Base, which is essentially a trash bin fused with a conventional charging dock, measures 12.2 x 15.1 x 19 inches (WxDxH) and houses a single disposable bag that holds 60 days’ worth of dirt. When the vacuum docks to recharge, a vent on the Clean Base sucks the dustbin’s contents from a port on the bottom of the vacuum. You can also trigger this process on command from the iRobot Home app.
Included with the i3+ are two bags and one extra filter. You can purchase three-pack replacements for each of the last two for $20 and $35 respectively.
Setup and performanceAs with its predecessors, the i3+ is easy to set up but requires some forethought. The Clean Base requires four feet of clearance in front of it and 1.5 feet on either side. It also needs 1 foot of clearance on top to accommodate its open lid, and it must be at least four feet from any stairs. This is all in addition to the usual requirements of proximity to an electrical outlet and a wall to set the Clean Base against.
iRobot The vacuum cleans in a methodical up and down pattern.
When all that’s sorted, you set the vacuum on the dock’s charging pins and follow the iRobot Home app’s prompts to connect to your Wi-Fi network. This took just a couple of minutes for me.
At is most basic, cleaning is a simple as pressing the Clean button on the vacuum and letting it do its thing. The robot will navigate the room using its various sensors and clean in neat, methodical rows, returning to the dock when it needs to recharge its battery, empty its dustbin, or the cleaning job is done. During cleanings, it uses iRobot’s Dirt Detect technology to identify areas of built-up dirt and will go over the area multiple times until its cleaned. You can spot clean a designated area by tapping the Spot button on top of the vacuum; the robot will clean in an outward spiral up to about 3 feet until the floor is scrubbed clean.
After a job is completed, the redesigned iRobot Home app saves a map of the layout showing you where it cleaned. These aren't the smart maps you get with the i7+ and s9+, so you can't designate rooms, set no-go zones, or deploy the vacuum to specific spots, but they do give you an idea of how well the i3+ has covered the room.
Michael Ansaldo/IDG The i3+ produces a cleaning map and saves it along with job details to your cleaning history.
If you'd rather run the i3+ when you're not home, you can schedule cleanings in two ways. A conventional clock-based system lets you set a start time and repeat it on designated days. Alternately, you can use location-based cleaning when you pair the i3+ with a service like Life360 or the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock. When this is enabled, the vacuum will start cleaning the first time it detects you leaving your home on the chosen days.
iRobot says that it will soon be adding an additional feature to the i3+: the ability to set cleaning intervals of 15, 30, or 45 minutes. The feature is intended for short cleaning jobs, and when it's enabled, the vacuum will clean outward from its dock for the selected duration. It appears you'll be able to add your desired intervals as one-touch widgets to the Favorites menu in the iRobot app.
I was impressed with how well the i3+ cleaned the downstairs level of my home. The layout includes carpet, hardwood, and vinyl tile and vacuum did a fantastic job removing the dust, pet hair, and food crumbs that settle on these each day. The vacuum transitioned the different floor types with ease, and the few times it got hung up on an obstacle, I was immediately alerted in the app.
After each cleaning job, the app produced a cleaning report. These included a map of the area cleaned, with darker patches denoting particularly dirty areas that were given more attention; the square footage of the area cleaned; and the duration of the cleaning. These reports are saved in a comprehensive cleaning history.
As you use the i3+ over time, it learns your cleaning habits and makes recommendations. These can be schedules based on past cleaning jobs or cleaning suggestions based on pet shedding and allergy seasons. Most of these were pretty obvious—recommending I vacuum more often when a lot of pet hair was present or suggesting I clean at a particular time of day when it noticed I was usually running cleaning jobs at that time.
VerdictThe i3+ successfully brings some of the sophisticated features of its higher-end self-emptying models to a mid-priced robot vacuum. You don’t get all the features of the i7+ or s9+—you don't get the customization that smart apps enable, for example, and it doesn't come with a virtual wall barrier, though you can buy one separately for $60—but those omissions are necessary to keep the price down. Still, you get enough advanced functionality to make vacuuming a lot less dreadful. If the i3+’s $600 price tag is within your budget, it’s well worth considering for the luxury of fully automated cleaning.
This story was updated October 14 to correct our reporting on this product's capabilities. The overall verdict was not impacted.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@Dang48108530/irobot-roomba-i3-review-a-self-emptying-robot-vacuum-for-modest-budgets-464bc438c8ec | [] | 2020-10-17 09:23:21.322000+00:00 | ['Lighting', 'Gear', 'Home Tech'] |
Dread on the Bed | Dread on the Bed
I don’t want them to be right. I wanted to be right. I want to write. Chacha Follow Dec 15, 2020 · 2 min read
Photo by Jake Colling on Unsplash
I feel like a failure right now. My parents tried to warn me, but naivety overtook me. I don’t want them to be right. I wanted to be right. I want to write.
I’m depressed and irritable. Success is defeating me. My food is eating me. My heart is beating me.
I don’t know what this is. I haven’t done it before. Perhaps a new kind of poetry you’ve never seen before.
Ding my phone rings. The phone hits the floor. I fall into my bed once more.
Bury my head deep in the covers. My tears hit the covers. My fears become uncovered.
Smother myself. Uncover myself. Shake my head, stop the dread. I am not dead.
Alive. Alive, I will survive. I must revive. I shall not die.
My love for myself and my love for my health will help lift me to the highest shelf. The shelf of the self.
Feel it. I’ve felt it. With, I’ve already dealt it. There’s no need to melt it, for solid my emotions shall stand.
As solid as solid can be anyway, for we are all vibrating particles just like the thoughts that cloud our heads and cause us dread.
It’s all in your head. Get it out of your head and onto the notepad instead.
Change. Change all the misled. Get out of your bed. Get right with your head.
Head up. Heart up. Thoughts up. Hands up.
Happiness lands. This is so grand. Now, get on with your plans. | https://medium.com/blueinsight/dread-on-the-bed-78e35fdef58c | [] | 2020-12-15 08:04:08.288000+00:00 | ['Failure', 'Chachawrites', 'Blue Insights', 'Emotions', 'Recovery'] |
April Picks: 🙏 Welcoming the Ramadhan season + #AwardWinningStudio | In a few days, Muslims all over the world will be celebrating Eid. For those of you unfamiliar with Eid, it is one of the biggest holidays celebrated in my home country, Indonesia.
I’m not a Muslim, so I can’t speak on behalf of them. However, I embrace the spirit of Ramadhan like a holiday of my own — even though we don’t get to unwrap Christmas gifts under a tree, or cut a warm plate of turkey, I still feel like it has a special place in my heart. For a whole month prior to D-day, Muslims worldwide go on a month long period of fasting, prayer and reflection. The fasting begins before the sun rises and Muslims would start to prepare their Sahūr meal before the fajr prayer. The fast ends when the sun sets accompanied with an Adhan prayer.
What makes this season special to me is that it brings the opportunity to reach out to different social groups to “break the fast” together. Peers and old colleagues that we don’t see in ages come to break their fast collectively — despite the fact you fast or not. There is a joy that I feel deep inside, as I see those who are breaking their fast, trying to be mindful of what they first consume and seeing satisfied faces as they take their first bite.
Even during the fasting hours, there is a sense of community that is prominent that makes me “the outsider” behave more respectful as well. Ramadhan kindles a different atmosphere — people are more gentle, somber, and in a state of prayer. It truly shows a different side of Indonesia. Hampers and gifts are also shared between friends and families to show appreciation, love and care. Closer to D-day, people would travel back “home” to gather with families and spend Eid together. This period of visiting family and friends will go on for 2–3 days while eating meals together and catching up after being apart for a long time.
With COVID-19’s spread, it definitely has effected how Ramadhan is celebrated. Although there are certain social restrictions, I continuously hope that whoever is celebrating Eid, will share it with their loved ones and cherish this holy month. | https://medium.com/sixtytwo-tales/april-picks-welcoming-the-ramadhan-season-awardwinningstudio-5635ce2d81e9 | ['Victoria Simansjah'] | 2021-05-07 11:47:34.583000+00:00 | ['Award Winning', 'Monthly Picks', 'Design Picks', 'Ui Ux Design', 'Figma'] |
今日の声優業まとめ（∑ωÅ）TPPとの戰い | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://bearzonic.net/%E4%BB%8A%E6%97%A5%E3%81%AE%E5%A3%B0%E5%84%AA%E6%A5%AD%E3%81%BE%E3%81%A8%E3%82%81-%CF%89%C3%A5-tpp%E3%81%A8%E3%81%AE%E6%88%B0%E3%81%84-34ba8040cd53 | ['Ryugekkaりゅーげっか 人肉パーティトマツハルカ'] | 2020-12-19 16:26:07.896000+00:00 | ['Games', 'Japan', 'News', 'Anime', 'Transportation'] |
Generate Random Data in Snowflake | Generate Random Data in Snowflake
Sometimes we do face a scenario wherein we need to generate random data . Snowflake provides certain functions that can generate random data and hence can be extremely useful to test the code as an developer or to meet business requirements. Lets check the data generation in snowflake with below example . We have used four Snowflake functions : RANDOM() , UUID_STRING , Table and Generator :
Random() : This function generates the random integer values .
UUID_STRING : This function generates random alpha numeric string similar to rowid in traditional databases.
Generator (): Creates rows of data based either on a specified number of rows, a specified generation period (in seconds), or both. This system-defined table function enables synthetic row generation. Note that it is possible to generate virtual tables with 0 columns but possibly many rows. Such virtual tables are useful for queries whose SELECT clause consists entirely of data-generating functions.
Table() : This function converts the data into relational table format .
Rahul Tandon
Snowflake Certified
linkedin.com/in/rahul-tandon-b1b232117 | https://medium.com/@tandon559/generate-random-data-in-snowflake-7dcab897a7a | ['Rahul Tandon'] | 2021-09-05 06:23:23.021000+00:00 | ['Snowflake Computing', 'Data Generation', 'Snowflake', 'Data Generator', 'Random'] |
FALSE: The case of police brutality seen here happened in Kenya, not Uganda | FALSE: The case of police brutality seen here happened in Kenya, not Uganda
A Twitter post with an image of a woman who appears to be cowering behind a door to avoid policemen close by, and a claim that this shows police brutality in Uganda, is FALSE.
The post runs with the hashtag #UgandaIsBleeding, a campaign against the use of force by police officers in Uganda against civilians protesting Bobi Wine’s arrest.
Bobi Wine, known formally as Robert Kyagulanyi, was arrested on November 18, while on the campaign trail for election to the presidency in Eastern Uganda. Police said he flouted COVID-19 guidelines prescribed by the Ministry of Health.
The picture in the claim has also been shared by another Twitter account.
But a close look at the image shows an orange poster in the background. The poster advertises the candidature of Lawrence Otieno Odhiambo, an aspirant vying for the seat of member of the county assembly, under Kenya’s ODM (Orange Democratic Movement) party in 2017.
The colour and design of the soldiers’ uniform appears to match those of Kenya’s anti-riot police and not the Ugandan forces.
A Google reverse image search shows that the photo was first seen online on August 12, 2017, and was published by Reuters and also shared by BBC on the same day.
The image is credited to Reuters photographer Goran Tomasevic and shows a woman crying as she hides during post-election clashes between supporters of Kenya’s opposition leader, Raila Odinga, and policemen in Kibera slum in Nairobi.
Riots among opposition supporters broke out following the announcement of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory at the polls, prompting police to respond, in what was widely condemned as use of excessive force, shooting and beating protesters.
PesaCheck looked into the Twitter post with an image of a woman hiding behind policemen in fear and claiming to show police brutality in Uganda and finds it to be FALSE. | https://pesacheck.org/false-the-case-of-police-brutality-seen-here-happened-in-kenya-not-uganda-fc21ef51cd99 | [] | 2020-11-21 17:05:31.906000+00:00 | ['Kenya', 'Uganda', 'Police Brutality'] |
Champion of Something | Champion of Something
Dad did his fair share of dreaming big. Particularly when it came to his kids.
On a whim in the summer of 1976—no doubt in part because he wanted to drive his shiny silver Alfa Romeo on the twisty and dangerous road through the mountains—my father suggested I have a stab at the Model Aeronautics Association of Canada National Championships held that year in Calgary, Alberta. This was on the strength of some spotty success at similar local model airplane competitions. Dad did his fair share of dreaming big. Particularly when it came to his kids.
For my part, I thought it was a perfectly fine idea, and duly registered to compete in the ‘Standard Sailplane’ category. These were models of around eight foot wingspan, without any sort of motor, controlled by the pilots located safely on the ground and connected to their plane by radio link. The gliders were towed aloft by a winch which spooled up the towline and the small, graceful aircraft rose into the sky like a kite. Once free of the towline, competitors demonstrated their ability to perform a series of pre-determined maneuvers. The pilot demonstrating the greatest competence in these events won the competition, which typically ran over a series of days.
It’s an obscure skill, by any measure, but I was actually pretty good at it.
From our home in Vancouver, it would have to be a quick turnaround trip shoehorned into a summer already packed with other family holiday obligations. Dad would have to drive for as long and as hard as he dared until fatigue and good sense prevented him from driving any further. I had not yet achieved the parentally-imposed 17 year minimum age to drive, so my father would be on his own as the sole piloto. This would leave me to navigate in those pre-GPS days. That and keep an eye on Dad should he start to nod off, as I promised my mother I would. Even if I had been able to drive, I doubt I would have been able to pry Dad’s hands from the wheel. He really loved that Alfa.
The four lane Coquihalla highway was still nearly a decade in the future, so we were forced to drive the old and treacherous Trans-Canada through the Fraser River Canyon. We still managed to get all the way to Golden, British Columbia, on the first night. We pitched our tent at the KOA campground just east of town. It was after dark by that time which is why we didn’t realize our otherwise idyllic spot backed right onto Highway 1. We were just below the ramp where the semi-trailer trucks have to accelerate the hardest as they press eastward out of town. Their frequency, that night, was timed perfectly with the amount of time it takes a normal human being to drift off to sleep. However, exhausted by the thrilling rally stages earlier in the day, we slept soundly despite the all night truck drag races raging just a few feet above our heads.
From Golden, we were only a couple of Alfa hours away from where the mountains finally tumble down onto the prairies and where the road straightens and stretches out to the eastern horizon. An hour more beyond there, Dad and I were on 16th Avenue in Calgary and I was trying to figure out where to turn right, southward, to a turf farm near Aldersyde where the competition was going to be held. This was early August, which is normally hot and dry on the Canadian prairies. We were instead greeted by a biblical deluge. We arrived at the flying field and the adjacent mowed area designated for competitors to set up camp. We pitched the tent in torrential rain and just tried to keep things dry while we prepared for the first event scheduled for the morning of the next day.
We had just gotten everything squared away and the punctuation mark for virtually any activity for Dad was a cup of tea. Wanting to avoid the continuing downpour outside we fired up the veteran Campingaz Bleuet camp stove right inside the tent to heat up a pan of water. Once it had boiled, Dad filled up the teapot and with both hands now full, he glanced around the floor of the tent — it was strewn with a combination of sleeping and eating accommodations as well as model aircraft parts and related paraphernalia. He eventually chose to carefully place the brimming full teapot on a roll of paper towel which had been placed on end on the spongy canvas-over-wet-grass floor. I can remember we both looked on in silent horror as it stayed upright for maybe a whole second and then luxuriously keeled over in slow motion and dumped the steaming hot, permanently staining contents over — well — everything.
At least the paper towel was close at hand.
We recovered from that catastrophe and somehow made it to the competition flight line on the following day. The rain had let up a little. Given that many of the competitors had come a long way to attend the event, there really was no putting off the competition to wait for better weather as good sense would have dictated. So fly, we did, slightly adjusting the start times of the competition rounds to avoid the worst of the rain and wind. Much to my surprise, I did fairly well in the first couple of flights which consisted of ‘Two Minute Precision’ and ‘Five Minute Duration’ events. I was comfortably in the middle of the pack and advanced a little with each round as the weather gradually improved.
For each competition flight, the pilot is accompanied by a volunteer who keeps time and other details which are subsequently fed into the scoring calculation. Dad did not perform this task for me. I don’t think there was a rule prohibiting it but we wanted to avoid any hint of fudging the score — an unbiased third party was the only way to go. By the last day of the competition, however, it had become increasingly apparent I was actually going to be the outright winner. Not by a huge margin but enough that if the last competition flight was reasonably well flown the result was not really in doubt. As such, Dad chose to be the timekeeper for that last flight and I can still remember the slight nervous tremor in his voice as the flight progressed.
When I landed successfully and the competition was over, all I remember is that Dad was prouder of me at that moment than he was at any other time either before or after that day on that soggy turf farm south of Calgary.
We were so pressed for time we couldn’t stay for the award ceremony which was held later on that last day of the competition. The big, gaudy trophies would somehow have to find their own way to Vancouver. We drove impatiently westward, eventually calling it a night in Big Eddy right across the river from Revelstoke. We pitched the tent, once again long after dark, at the appropriately-named Lamplighter campground. This time, we carefully chose a spot away from the highway but close to the CP Rail tracks which skirted the camp sites.
Because this was a long before cell phones or text messaging or even cheap long distance, no word of our accomplishment in Calgary had yet filtered back to the family left behind in Vancouver. Later that evening we found a phone booth and called home collect. To whoever picked up the phone, Dad simply said “so, do you want to speak the Canadian National Soaring Champion?” and handed me the phone.
It should have felt great. But strangely, I simply felt embarrassed.
Later that night, the prudence we had demonstrated picking out our camping spot backfired on us. It started out quietly at first — the distant sound of the diesel train coming down out of the mountain passes as it approached Revelstoke. The sound got progressively louder and we could eventually see the dim but growing light from the locomotive’s headlight. The train’s horn sounded periodically and it was clear it was going to get really close as it passed by. Exactly how close, we weren’t sure. Eventually, the light from the train clearly illuminated the inside of the tent. Dad and I glanced at each other nervously, wondering if that beautiful flat spot we had picked out was actually an overgrown level crossing. We eventually peered outside to see the locomotive’s light bearing straight down on us. At what seemed like the very last second, the huge black snake of a train slid by just a few feet away with a taunting last blast of the horn. I suspect the engineers enjoyed waking up the campers, seeing them emerge from their tents and running for their lives.
When we arrived home in Vancouver The Courier, the community newspaper, came around to the house, took some pictures and asked me a few questions. They published a nice little article describing the competition in Calgary. I was famous for fourteen-and-a-half minutes, at least on a community newspaper scale. That was enough to impress some kids at high school when I returned in September for Grade 10. They asked me to tell the story which I was only too happy to do. But other than that, the story faded pretty quickly. Except at the Gannon dinner table, of course, where Dad never grew tired of telling the story over and over again as the years went by. Much to the dismay of my older brother and sister, I’m sure. Of course, the story grew a little more spectacular each time Dad told it.
What I omitted in my subsequent retelling of the events of that summer is that model sailplane competitions are notoriously fickle. Winning and losing on any given day is determined by who shows up, the weather, the starting order — in other words factors over which the competitors have absolutely no control. To emerge as the winner really means you made the absolute best of the cards dealt completely at random on the days of the competition. It’s Wheel of Fortune, not Jeopardy. To win a competition is still something, for sure, but no where near as much as others take the accomplishment to be. I was complicit in that even into adulthood, I never volunteered a complete, more pragmatic assessment of what I had actually accomplished, which was way less than how it sounded.
The other thing I omitted was how easily the winning had actually been. Sure, Dad and I had diligently practiced for a month or two prior to the competition. But it was not, in any way, the unrelenting training some might think a national champion would have to endure to finally achieve victory. There weren’t years of obsessive practice. There was no merciless, winner-take-all round of 64 elimination or qualifying events or anything even remotely like that. There were simply a total of six flights comprising 21 minutes of flight time. Anybody who paid the entry fee was welcome.
In retrospect, Dad was a much more resilient competitor than I ever was. When I crashed the elegant white Maestro sailplane I intended to fly in Calgary, Dad and I looked at the scattered, matchstick-sized pieces and came to two totally different conclusions. I was prepared to walk away from the whole endeavour at that point. Dad, on the other hand, was having none of it. He built a replacement Aquila aircraft in record time. The punishing schedule required doing some of that construction while our family of five was crammed into a small sailboat cruising Desolation Sound up the coast from Vancouver. “We are going to fly in Calgary, damn it, no matter what” Dad must have thought.
As time went by afterwards and I gained some adult objectivity, I remember feeling increasingly like a fraud when telling the story. I had tried other subsequent competitions and my performance was ordinary by comparison. The other competitors were all getting better, through hard work, and I was staying the same and being left behind by being lazy. I eventually concluded the win in Calgary was a fluke. A bi-product of random events conspiring in my favour to beat out the only other 22 competitors who had shown up.
There have been long lasting consequences from feeling I had won everything at a very young age and without trying all that hard. I expected everything else in life to be similarly easy. When confronted by weightier matters — school and career mostly — if the results didn’t come as quickly and as easily as they had back in the summer of 1976, I was subconsciously inclined to give up and move on.
Winning something — anything — is transformative. It’s one of life’s indelible punctuation marks. Everything else is categorized as either ‘before’ or ‘after’. I felt the exaltation of victory most intensely at the moment of that final flight. It has decayed with a miserably short half-life even since then. I quickly forgot how it felt on that day, but can never forget it actually happened. Winning something satisfied nothing. It simply made me crave more winning, of which there has been precious little since that day. That, coupled with a lingering doubt that a solitary victory, 43 years ago, was nothing more than dumb luck.
But win I did, and for a brief shining moment, I was the undisputed national champion of something.
©2019 Terence C. Gannon | https://medium.com/the-selected-curve/champion-of-something-a1df07199e0b | ['Terence C. Gannon'] | 2019-08-08 16:47:36.277000+00:00 | ['Aviation', 'Life Lessons', 'Hobby', 'Memories', 'Family'] |
Learn about peacebuilding and other interfaith groups on December 16. | Learn about peacebuilding and other interfaith groups on December 16. The United Religions Initiative (URI), a worldwide consortium of more than a thousand peacebuilding and other interfaith groups, is celebrating its new Cooperation Circles (CCs) over Zoom on December 16. One is a group I maintain, Quora’s Israel-Palestine peace forum Unity is Strength. I expect to attend and speak for one minute about just a few of the many things we have done. Reach out to the contacts on the image below if you would like to join.
Here is more information about Unity is Strength and how I came to start this forum. | https://medium.com/illumination/learn-about-peacebuilding-and-other-interfaith-groups-on-december-16-e34a853c8b16 | ['Rebecca Sealfon'] | 2020-12-15 16:52:25.791000+00:00 | ['Peace', 'Cooperation', 'Peacebuilding', 'Religion', 'International Relations'] |
How my boss changed my life by promoting EQ in the workplace | A few years ago, in the middle of a national crisis in Venezuela, I started a job at a small media agency in Caracas. Times were hard. Despite the lack of public transport, I made my way to the office each morning by navigating through crowds of protestors. After that, all I did was look at the computer until my eyes bled and the sun went down. I planned to be the number one employee and to do whatever that took.
Being used to the consuming and competitive world of social media, I often ate lunch at 3 p.m. while frenetically writing at my desk. I was making almost no sense — just trying to rack my brain to find an idea.
That was until one day, a couple of months into this new job, my boss saw me and gave me an order: “You have to stop.”
The next week, she forced me to meditate and do yoga with her. The week after, she came to my desk to tell me she made me an appointment with a therapist. It was 5 p.m., and I’d been sitting in front of my laptop for seven hours straight, ignoring two panic attacks and the conversations around me. I didn’t know it back then, but what she wanted me to do to become the best employee was to be emotionally intelligent. But at that moment, all I could say was “what the f — — are you talking about?”
Breaking it down
Howard Gardner, a renowned psychologist famous for introducing the concept of multiple intelligences to the world, says that Emotional Quotient, or EQ, “is the level of your ability to understand other people, what motivates them and how to work cooperatively with them.”
Coauthor of Emotional Intelligence 2.0 Travis Bradberry assures that 90% of top performers are also high in emotional intelligence, and nearly three-quarters (71%) of hiring managers surveyed by Career Builder in 2011 said they valued an employee’s EQ over their IQ.
These numbers caught my eye because, apart from that valuable and life-changing experience, I’d never been in a workplace where EQ was encouraged, needless to say taught. Even when workplaces have been redefined as learning and growing spaces, leaving behind the days where you only came to do your job, emotional intelligence is not a part of that growth, is just taken for granted.
Seems like, as it works in other aspects of our lives, EQ is always expected to magically show up, without even knowing where it comes from. And, instead of expecting me to totally ignore my panic attacks and stay productive, my boss was expecting me to be mentally healthy in order to be more productive, and she was offering me all of the tools she had.
Why it matters
Everything we do has an emotional component. Whether it is talking to a client, building a new project, or discussing last night’s game with your coworker. Having the proper tools to handle situations, even in your personal life, will be reflected in your work.
A healthy mind is needed in every process we encounter and makes us more productive. We communicate better, ask for help when we need to, handle stressful situations effectively, and save energy for ourselves. Being tired, anxious, depressed, or involved in situations we don’t know how to deal with eventually becomes a bigger problem, affecting our performance, our work relationships, and even our physical health.
I started therapy. I became self-aware and more empathetic. I started managing my anxiety better. I even started eating lunch at noon, at the table, while joking with my boss. Having the proper tools to emotionally deal with the situations that came with my job, I was able to scale into managing positions. But by the time I was there, I realized that if I, as a leader, didn’t encourage and build the emotional skills needed for this or any job with my employees, it could eat them (and me, consequently) alive. I, as my manager before me, had to stretch my hand and do something about it: my team needed to be emotionally intelligent.
Taking it to practice
There are several things that have worked for me, as an employee and as a manager, to develop better emotional skills.
Start with yourself. We can’t encourage skills we don’t have, so developing your own EQ will always be the first step. If you’re in a leadership position, being emotionally intelligent will be not only a resource but a motivation for the rest of your coworkers and employees to follow the same path. Show vulnerability, ask for help, have honest and open conversations, and offer your help when you can. My boss had the tools to help me, and when she gave them to me, I was able to pass them to others.
We can’t encourage skills we don’t have, so developing your own EQ will always be the first step. If you’re in a leadership position, being emotionally intelligent will be not only a resource but a motivation for the rest of your coworkers and employees to follow the same path. Show vulnerability, ask for help, have honest and open conversations, and offer your help when you can. My boss had the tools to help me, and when she gave them to me, I was able to pass them to others. Create a safe environment. This includes feeling comfortable enough to reach out for help, have constructive conversations, manage emotions, and make up for mistakes. We used to have deep conversations about what was happening in our personal lives and how we, as a company, could improve them so they wouldn’t affect our work.
This includes feeling comfortable enough to reach out for help, have constructive conversations, manage emotions, and make up for mistakes. We used to have deep conversations about what was happening in our personal lives and how we, as a company, could improve them so they wouldn’t affect our work. Make mental health a priority. Encourage people to speak up about their situations, offer specialized help if needed/available, and provide any related information that could help them. Also, make taking breaks and resting a part of the job, not a reward. My best ideas came while having lunch with my colleagues and watching Netflix shows together!
Encourage people to speak up about their situations, offer specialized help if needed/available, and provide any related information that could help them. Also, make taking breaks and resting a part of the job, not a reward. My best ideas came while having lunch with my colleagues and watching Netflix shows together! Care. Being an emotional person and even developing strong bonds with the people who work with you has been seen as undesirable in workplace culture, but it’s totally the opposite. Honestly caring for your coworkers, employees, and yourself, building up a community, and being kind to one another can make a huge difference.
Instead of dehumanizing ourselves and those around us, let’s protect and support the most beautiful aspect of working with a group of people: being able to feel, connect, and love.
Andrea. | https://medium.com/productivegrowth/how-my-boss-changed-my-life-by-promoting-eq-in-the-workplace-db2072de1cba | ['Andrea Paola'] | 2020-12-10 15:07:28.044000+00:00 | ['Motivation', 'Leadership', 'Emotional Intelligence', 'Workplace Culture', 'Workplace'] |
Why We Started Rhino Health | Why We Started Rhino Health
AI can only truly transform healthcare if it’s built, trained and maintained using diverse data
By Ittai Dayan MD, co-founder and CEO of Rhino Health.
Starting a company during a global pandemic makes sense — if your mission is to change the way the healthcare market works today, and improve the outcomes of a broad patient population. Ours is.
The Federated Learning (FL) powered Rhino Health Platform makes it easy for hospitals to accelerate the creation and adoption of AI solutions, in order to improve patient care. This can be done independently, or in collaboration with commercial developers that can scale solutions to the entire market. As patient privacy is of the utmost importance, patient data is always protected — data never leaves the system of origin. This point is essential to successfully facilitating access to the volumes and diversity of data required to build the next generation of health AI models. Used in real-world clinical settings, among today’s increasingly diverse patient population, these models will deliver consistent and accurate insights.
The Data Diversity Problem
Clinicians can tell you that there are still too many decisions made based on heuristics — broad generationalizations and quick approximations — rather than in a truly data-driven way. When I treated patients struggling with serious mental illnesses, I was exposed to a lot of available but untapped information — from neuro-imaging studies to electrophysiology exams to clinical notes — that were not processed and analyzed, at scale, for decision-making. I was excited about new developments in Machine Learning that could consume all this data to create predictions that could lead to improved medication selection, risk stratification and diagnosis. It was clear that AI had the potential to help physicians make better, data-driven decisions.
So I started my journey into AI, first as a clinical researcher, and later leading the Center for Clinical Data Science (CCDS) at Mass General Brigham. As our group grew, I oversaw the development of 25+ clinical AI applications and came to understand firsthand the underlying challenges associated with accessing and activating the data necessary to develop and train superior AI models. I launched an ‘AI CRO’ (Clinical Research Org) that tested algorithms from multiple commercial developers. Despite the many advancements in healthcare AI, the road from development to product in market is long and often bumpy. Solutions crash (or just disappoint) once in the clinic and supporting the full AI lifecycle is nearly impossible without ongoing access to a broad swath of clinical data. The challenge has shifted from creating models, to refining, validating and maintaining them.
The problem is that data is still very siloed. This means that AI models are generally trained using a small subset of data, without broader real-world context. When the model is then used to serve a larger, more diverse patient population over time, the results fall short of expectations.
The consequences for healthcare AI are significant:
If patients receiving AI-supported care don’t experience better outcomes, clinicians lose confidence in the solution and it will never gain traction.
Inaccuracies can lead to missed or incorrect diagnoses, blossoming into loss of life, lawsuits and cascading inefficiencies.
AI developers are at risk of having non-sustainable unit economics, which will impact their ability to grow and scale their AI portfolio.
Regulators will find it difficult to approve efficient solutions for model maintenance (ie, “learning models”) if they can’t tell whether the models actually improve or just “over fits” to data that doesn’t represent the targeted patient group.
Bottom-line, lack of ongoing access to a large dataset from a diverse patient population collected in different places and grown over time is holding back the positive impact of AI-based healthcare solutions.
The Federated Learning Solution
We’re building the Rhino Health Platform, that leverages Federated Learning (FL) technology, to converge AI models created on disparate datasets. Thus, we are making it possible for healthcare AI developers to leverage data across hospitals and health systems without moving data, transferring ownership, or risking patient privacy. This allows hospitals and other data holders to maximize the value of their existing IT investments, since there is no need to create redundant copies of the data (such as required by most cloud-based solutions today).
Our approach will provide the quantity, quality and diversity of data necessary to train AI models for clinical success, broadly speaking. It also accelerates the process — eliminating the need to strike and manage one-off relationships between dozens of care providers and technology developers. Further, it eliminates the complexity, expense and risk of moving and managing huge volumes of data.
The EXAM Study I previously co-led with Mona Flores, MD, global head of Medical AI and the NVIDIA Applied Research team, brought the promise of Federated Learning to the forefront. We focused on developing an AI model to determine whether a person showing up in the ER with COVID-19 symptoms and receiving a chest X-Ray would require supplemental oxygen even days after an initial exam. We used the powerful NVIDIA Clara Train SDK, and built on Dr. Quanzheng Li’s work, combining medical imaging and health records to help clinicians more effectively manage hospitalizations during a time when many hospitals were seeing a significant influx of patients.
We collaborated with 20 hospitals around the world — making this the largest, real world, most diverse Federated Learning initiative to-date. Researchers at individual hospitals were able to use a chest X-ray, patient vitals and lab values to train a local model — and then share only a subset of model weights back with the global model. This maximized the security of the federated training and ensured the preservation of patient privacy, while rapidly improving model results.
The distributed data came from a multinational, diverse dataset of patients across North and South America, Canada, Europe and Asia. The impact was striking. In a matter of weeks, we achieved a top-notch algorithm that has the potential to impact clinical care. We demonstrated the rapid and robust development that FL can enable. It was clear to me that there is so much potential to build on this type of success, and also that there was more work to be done in order to apply the FL framework to real-world settings.
During in-depth discussions with my co-founder, Yuval Baror, it became apparent to us that healthcare AI, with its own unique challenges, can leverage many advancements from other ‘AI-enabled’ industries. In Yuval’s prior role at Google, he has scaled AI solutions used around the world. Many of these learnings can be applied to healthcare. We decided to create a platform company that could benefit all the AI developers in this market, and ultimately all patients.
Busting silos by keeping data local? Automating maintenance of AI solutions in a regulated market? It was a moonshot (and still is), but everything about this made complete sense to us. In any case, if it’s not hard, is it really worth doing? To us it’s clear that the time is now.
What’s Next
After the recent seed-round investment, we are now scaling the team to accelerate our development efforts. We are continuing to evolve our Platform to incorporate imaging data, pathology data, structured clinical data, clinical notes and genomic data — these constitute the most clinically relevant data for impactful AI-based solutions at this time. We are collaborating with leading academic and industry creators of medical devices and software applications focused on diagnostic imaging and digital pathology. And we are helping hospital-based researchers translate new AI models into clinical impact.
Watch this space for more to come. Only the Rhino Health Platform offers a turnkey Federated Learning solution that allows researchers and developers to use FL to support the full lifecycle of AI solutions. Interested in exploring what that might look like in your area of focus? Reach out at [email protected]. | https://medium.com/@ittai-97830/why-we-started-rhino-health-18ecc2312e53 | ['Ittai Dayan'] | 2021-02-22 22:29:49.250000+00:00 | ['Federated Learning', 'Platform', 'Healthcare', 'AI', 'Startup'] |
Day 3: The Covid-19 Vaccine. The Covid-19 Vaccine | Day 3: The Covid-19 Vaccine
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the United States of America took the Covid-19 vaccine yesterday. Everyone from Joe Biden to Ian McKellen, notable people around the world are slowly and steadily getting vaccinated but the image of Fauci taking the vaccine stands out. You may ask why? He has been the leading voice calling for faithful adherence to social-distancing measures and as he turns eighty years old today on Christmas, he has no plans of slowing down as he accepts Biden’s offer to continue his role at the NIAID and continues to encourage safety measures, at the same time comforting the USA about normalcy being returned by summer of next year. His taking the vaccine is a symbol of faith and trust which the world has placed on him and to me this image represents hope that 2021 is going to be our year. | https://medium.com/@aditisarawagi/day-3-the-100-day-writing-project-f6e335a7cac4 | ['Aditi Sarawagi'] | 2020-12-28 10:24:00.922000+00:00 | ['Vaccines', 'Writing Life', 'Covid 19', 'Writing Challenge', 'Writing'] |
Standard #6: Good Working Etiquette | “The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.” — Proverbs 13:4 (KJV)
This is one thing greatly attracts girls to a guy — when he knows how important (and unimportant) work is.
This is not about money — you’re getting my point wrong, but how and who he is with people he work closely everyday: Is he kind to them? Is he a leader? Is he compassionate? Is he a team player? Is he diligent? How passionate is he? Does he love his job? Does he easily get stressed? Does he do what is right even if other don’t see or do it (I’m talking about integrity)? Think about this — when a guy is very passionate to the things he do at work, imagine more the passion he will give loving you? If he can extend that kind of compassion to his co-workers, especially subordinates, imagine more how compassionate and kind he will be to you? If integrity is imbued in his core values, imagine how loyal and honest he can be to you? See my point now? (just explaining this to you make me feel so much loved — I don’t know why)
Knowing how he works (and handle work) maybe able to give you a glimpse of how he will manage your home when you get married, how he tackles every problem, how he formulate solutions, how he will bring the team (family) towards one goal, how he is not bothered by stress/problem. Basically work is his battle ground, observe (or ask questions) and you’ll learn more about him — who he really is.
I really admire a man with good work etiquette, it really tells so much more about his personality and this is raw — unfiltered. Because he really is going through the real world turns and tumbles and how he gracefully (for the lack of masculine term for being graceful) handle himself as well as his team, ugh! He is potentially a keeper! (remember, we still have other items on the list, we have to tick 95% of them or all — don’t get too side tracked, lol!)
You may ask, why is this the one on the list? Why not just tell financially stable? Well for one thing you can be financially stable but not have a good set of working etiquette — but I don’t think the opposite might happen. When he became so focused on earning so much or being promoted, and he coudn’t care less of the people that might get hurt along the way (worst is he really trampled on people just to get by)— big NO for me (and I’m not sorry). But if his working etiquette is in line to that of God’s word, then surely monetary factors will follow (remember Matthew 6:33, and besides they are not ATMs — both of you should work hard to get financial stability for your family).
I am praying that our future is a man of God even at work, imbued with the values that reflect the image God and Jesus. And that, most of all, he works hard not to bring glory for himself but for the Lord. | https://medium.com/transformed-by-grace/standard-6-good-working-etiquette-17a471b011c2 | ['Transformed Grace'] | 2017-03-01 03:02:08.543000+00:00 | ['Christianity', 'Project Standard', 'Work', 'Trnsfrmdbygrace', 'Relationships'] |
Latest Scuba Designs And Styles 2019 | Scuba dress na one of de latest trend for fashion world and na because of dat we don make beta selection of de latest scuba designs and styles 2019
De scuba material get de origin from USA where dem produce am for de first time. Before we see de beta plus ogbonge latest scuba designs and styles 2019, e go make sense say we first talk about de material.
No need make we begin tok long tok or explain how dem dey make Scuba. Na just de important things about dis wonderful material we go talk about before we check de styles.
Na DuPont first produce dis material and DuPont na American company wey begin operate for July 1802 inside Wilmington, Delaware, as gunpowder mill by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont.
Their headquarter dey Midland, Michigan, United States and as at 2018 dem get 98000 pipo wey dey work for dem.
Now make we enter de tori proper, shey you get Scuba material wey you wan sew but no sabi de style wey you go sew am and your tailor sef dey show you designs wey you no dey feel, no worry as Ameboupdate gat ya back and we don select de best and latest Scuba designs and styles wey come out dis 2019.
If you neva get de material but you dey see am and how pipo dey rock am and you like am, notin spoil as i go tell una something about dis material.
De scuba material na de kain material wey you fit say na rubber. Why e be like dat na because say during de war when rubber scarce and soldiers no dey see wetin to use again, DuPont and some other top companies try create wetin go fit replace rubber but finally na DuPont Neoprene fit do de work and after de war dem discover say you fit use Neoprene do oda tins apart from millitary equipment. Bottomline be say de scuba material dey stretch wella. Air and water no fit pass thru de scuba material and dat one mean say if you wear cloth wey you use scuba sew and e tight, you go sweat like christmas goat because air no dey enter am and de sweat no fit comot, e go just dey between your skin and de material and that na why any cloth wey dem use scuba sew suppose dey loose. De scuba material dey very good for swim suit and scuba diving De country wey dey export de material wey dem dey use make scuba pass na USA and China then Netherland and Japan.
Check out de latest scuba designs and styles for de year 2019.
VIEW PHOTO VIA LINK BELOW; | https://medium.com/@ameboupdate/latest-scuba-designs-and-styles-2019-d638c0287f99 | [] | 2019-08-01 14:02:28.027000+00:00 | ['Nigeria', 'Naija', 'Latest Scuba Deigns', 'Styles', 'Fashion'] |
The Non-Treachery of Dataset | Get this newsletter 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.
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What to take notice of when attending the Daenerys Targaryen cosplay celebration. | Followers of the American fantasy dramatization TELEVISION series Game of Thrones created by David Benioff and also D.B. Weiss these days try to resemble their favored personalities in regards to their costumes. If you are willing to be the mother of the dragons in the game of thrones as well as thinking of where to buy appropriate cosplay costumes on online, then you have to choose your personality in the beginning and check out the reputable shop recommended for game of thrones cosplay costumes. Lots of ladies throughout the globe these days fall for the Daenerys Targaryen as well as look for cosplay costumes connected with this personality..
When participating in the Daenerys Targaryen cosplay party, what to pay interest to.
Queen Daenerys Targaryen.
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Brand.
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Professionals in the cosplay costumes all through the globe these days achieve success in the costume buying. Due to the fact that they make specific about where to choose and acquire the best-in-class nature of the cosplay costumes, this is. You can pay attention to referrals from such experts and make positive changes in your method for cosplay costume buying. You can improve your presence in the upcoming special event as soon as you have chosen and bought Daenerys Targaryen costumes empty of jeopardizing the economic plan. You will impress your beloved kith and also kin in the celebration. You will certainly turn into one among celebrities in your cherished circle as expected. | https://medium.com/@thachecihear1983/what-to-take-notice-of-when-attending-the-daenerys-targaryen-cosplay-celebration-cfdb674559cf | [] | 2019-05-06 09:09:47.229000+00:00 | ['Game of Thrones'] |
How To Build A Massive Email List Using Facebook Advertising | Here are the steps to follow so you can achieve the same results:
Step 1: Create a MEGA Giveaway.
This is the most important step. Brainstorm, write down 25 ideas and then poll some of your customers and ask them what would they find really valuable. The offer should be something your audience finds tremendously valuable — so valuable they’d instantly give you their email AND “tell” (by tagging and sharing with) all their friends on FB about it. In the training, referencing a restaurant, they perceive several types of “giveaways” as valuable — particularly when it comes to winning free food. Giveaway’s such as a $50–100 gift card to the restaurant, Free Brunch for a Year, Free Burgers for a Year, “Win a Patio Party for 20 Friends, + Gift Card”, etc. — are all relevant to the restaurant’s audience. Everyone’s willing to give up their email address to gain an entry in to win. And they love telling others about it which gives you organic, viral spread of your promotion, your page, and your business.
It doesn’t matter what type of local business you are helping, you can give away the following:
Organic Dog Food Store: Free dog food for a year
Salon — Free spa day, free haircuts for a year
Travel agency: Giveaway a free 3 Day vacation o Fitness Club: 1 Year Free Membership
Consultants, for example, might give away a really valuable short video or video course — something more than just an ebook or a “cheat sheet” or free template. Those will get you a few new emails added to your list. Something massively valuable will build your list so fast your head will spin.
Step 2: Design your Facebook Post in Canva.com — it’s free and it sizes your posts for you.
□Check your image to make sure it meets the ‘text vs. image’ standards with Facebook’s image overlay tool to see if you will get the green light to run your ad with maximum reach. https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay
Step 3: Sign up for Woobox.com ($30/mo)
A Facebook approved application platform to set up a “sweepstakes” for Facebook. You can do so much with Woobox to build your list, to promote your business — all on Facebook. Get to know it, it’s Facebook-friendly.
Step 4: Click on the “Create an Offer”
button in Woobox and choose the Sweepstakes option and go through the wizard template — REALLY SIMPLE and FAST.
HERE is how easy it is to create your campaign landing page on Woobox:
Select “Create Offer/ Sweepstakes”.
You’re information from the previous screen (title / description) will show up on this screen above. CLICK “+Add Component” and choose “Image”.
It will then set the image block up on top and give you option to upload an image so it shows up like a header on a landing page and will look like this:
How do you design the header? In your Canva account (www.canva.com) — it’s free.
Click “Save.”
Don’t worry about the other tabs for Woobox (“post entry” and “ended”) — woobox has pre- templated text which doesn’t have to be customized.
TO PUBLISH AND MAKE IT BECOME A ‘LIVE LINK’: Click on “Overview” on the left side, and then it will bring up an overview screen where you have to click “Publish” (green button on the right side) for the landing page to be active.
Done.
Extra Bonus: Canva tutorials (free) will save your time and you can fire you graphic designer when you are finished going through them. Visit — https://designschool.canva.com/tutorials/
Step 5: Come up with the text copy that will go on top of the image in the Facebook post.
Persuasive copy typically has these elements:
Short and concise
Compelling offer
Sense of urgency
Scarcity
Time constraints
Step 6: Complete the post with image and text, so it’s now ‘live.’
Step 7: Boost it in Ad Manager.
Create Your Facebook Ad Campaign — Assuming you know your target audience (you have your customer Avatar), create an ad in ad manager and choose “boost a post.” If you boost from the front feed of your Facebook page do you do not have as many targeting options.
If you go to www.facebook.com/ads and “create ad” and choose the “boost a post” option, you’ll be able to set up a more targeted audience. I recommend taking a Facebook advertising course to get really good at this part. But it’s not rocket science, you can test with small $. Run the campaign for at least 2–3 days — and put what you can afford on it, but usually you’ll never need very much to start. $35 a day for 3 days is what we do to get 1000+ opt-ins. Sometimes we get that many emails collected it in 2 days.
Step 8: Rinse and repeat with new fresh offers every month
P.S. If you found this article interesting share this with your entrepreneur friends who are stuck on Facebook Advertising!
This article was originally posted here | https://medium.com/steller-media-marketing/here-are-the-steps-to-follow-so-you-can-achieve-the-same-results-de4e00f6e23a | ['Darrell Tyler'] | 2017-08-09 20:51:02.596000+00:00 | ['Lead Generation', 'Facebook Ads', 'Email Marketing', 'Marketing Strategies', 'Social Media Marketing'] |
9 Hard Lessons I Struggled to Learn During My 18 Years as a Software Developer | 1. Leave the Ego at the Door
Developers have huge egos. That’s a fact.
Why, though? I would argue that anyone who takes our profession seriously would consider themselves to be somewhat of an artist. Yes, we might not be singing in front of millions of people or painting the Mona Lisa, but we’re sometimes writing code that solves very complex problems in such an elegant and efficient way that we can’t help but be proud of our work.
I would argue that a developer is just as much of an artist as a mathematician is through the way they solve their problems.
Because of this, we tend to crawl around our code — just like a mama bear looking after her offspring. We made it, we love it, and we can’t stand when people start arguing about how wrong it may or may not be.
Then again, this is not helping anyone. We love our work, but we need to understand that we’re solving problems. By discussing our ideas and our solutions with others, better alternatives might arise. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, cooperation is normally what yields the best solutions.
I’ve seen all kinds of egos in my time, and I’ve never seen a case where that ego worked in the developer’s favor.
So my advice here? Leave the ego at the door the minute you start working as a dev. Just swallow it and hear what others have to say about your work. Accept that better ideas might come from outside your head and that they will only help you improve your skills. You can only win if you listen to feedback. | https://medium.com/better-programming/9-hard-lessons-i-struggled-to-learn-during-my-18-years-as-a-software-developer-14f28512f647 | ['Fernando Doglio'] | 2020-12-07 16:46:30.823000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Software Development', 'Technology', 'Lessons Learned', 'Startup'] |
Poker is “Wax On, Wax Off” for Startup Founders (2 of 3) | In the first post of this series, I explained why every startup founder should play poker. That post focused on the unique power of poker to build strong and valuable relationships. In this post, I will explain how founders improve their startup skills as they improve their poker skills — i.e., how poker can make you a better founder and improve the chances of success for your startup.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of poker is how closely the strategy, tactics, decisions, and risk patterns follow those of building a startup company. And I don’t just mean clever observations about superficial similarities, e.g., poker is risky and startups are risky.
I believe I have a unique vantage point on this particular aspect of poker and startups — I have played poker with more venture-scale startup founders and investors than perhaps any other person on planet Earth. Ever. Assuming that the game of poker is unique to Earth, then it may even be true that no one else in the Universe has played more poker with startup founders and investors than yours truly.
This admittedly dubious honor comes from hosting Startup Poker 2.0 events for venture scale founders and investors every month (except one) for more than a dozen years in Seattle and (with the help of amazing chapter directors) instigating similar events in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, San Diego, Portland and Los Angeles — more than 300 events so far… and counting.
In doing so, I estimate I’ve played No Limit Texas Hold’em with no fewer than 1,000 individual startup founders and many dozens of investors. I’ve had the additional privilege of having played with many of them many times over many years and have seen them progress both as poker players and as founders.
A frequent refrain from many of these founders is that they love poker because it has so much in common with building a startup and that it actually has helped them think about how they build their companies. I have long believed this to be true and it’s the single most important reason that I have kept this Startup Poker 2.0 passion project going for more than a dozen years.
Arry Yu is a favorite example. When Arry began playing in Startup Poker 2.0 events in 2008 she was a first time tech founder and had barely touched a deck of cards before then. Fast forward nearly a decade and Arry is an experienced serial founder with serious startup chops — Arry is an alumni of both the 500 Startups and 9Mile Labs accelerators. She has been playing poker at Startup Haven events all along the way.
Arry wrote about the lessons she learned playing poker and how those lessons influenced her job as a founder. Arry is an example of a founder who honed her craft by playing poker while at the same time crushing the myth that poker is somehow a “guys’ thing.”Arry worked her way up to a first-place finish in January 2017; since there are only 12 of these per year among 500 poker seats taken, that’s a big deal.
Arry’s is not an isolated sentiment. It’s actually not difficult at all to find entrepreneurs and investors (well known and not so) touting the correlative principles, maxims and axioms common to both poker and startups and how each informs your potential for success in the other.
Over the past decade, there have been dozens of articles, blog posts and podcasts about poker-plus-startups, many proclaiming the virtues of startup founders playing poker — not just because it’s a great game and a lot of fun, but because it is a source of valuable insights, skills and relationships for startup founders.
A common variant is “The n Startup Lessons Founders Can Learn Playing Poker.” Another frequent theme is “How Startups are Like Poker.” Still others focus on the parallels between poker and investing in startups.
The upshot is a long list of characteristics shared by the game of poker, the ‘game’ of startups… and the people who do both. It’s not the purpose of this article to catalog or explain all of these lessons and insights, or even the best of them — there are too many! But here is a taste to make the point and to prepare you for the waxing on and off that is still to come.
Startups are, at their core, an exercise in risk management. In poker, as in startups, resources are not unlimited. In poker, the principal resource is money in the form of a bankroll. Playing too many poker hands introduces high levels of risk and will invariably lead to leaking away all of your chips, evaporating your bankroll and ending up a long-term loser. A good poker player must thoughtfully decide which hands to invest in and which to fold. In a nutshell, poker players are in the business of manage risk.
How much risk? In the course of a three hour session of poker, a player will need to decide whether and how to play more than 100 hands. If you’re playing well, you will likely fold 70–80 of those hands — or more! It takes a lot of discipline, patience and focus to wait for potentially profitable situations. In poker, “situations” means more than just the cards you hold. It includes the skill of the other players at the table, your position in the hand (i.e., how much information you have), the size of your chip stack relative to your opponents, your “table image” at the time, and more. Maintaining the focus to take all that in while resisting all those tempting but ultimately unprofitable situations is a fundamental skill for good poker players. And it’s equally fundamental for startup founders.
Once a poker hand is determined to have a high EV (expected value) then the good poker player plays that hand forcefully, i.e., betting and raising aggressively. In this way, a good poker player puts her resources to work when the odds are in her favor — playing fewer hands overall but with better results because each hand played was a relatively strong hand for the situation. Contrast this with the alternative of playing weak hands or hands of unknown strength because they were not properly assessed. This leads inevitably to poor results and ultimately going broke.
In startups, “bankroll” is synonymous with “bank account” and “hands” are all the decisions a founder needs to make. Often, these decisions amount to choices to pursue the numerous opportunities to do all that stuff that present itself to startup founders with the regularity of bad pharmaceutical commercials — opportunities to build stuff, rebuild stuff, hire people, fire people, pursue a big partnership, launch a new market, launch a new product, launch a new feature, raise more money and on and on and on.
There are always many things your startup could be doing but far fewer things your startup actually should be doing. If a founder chases too many of those shiny but improbable, distracting and costly opportunities that come incessantly from all directions or fails to thoughtfully assess the EV of the decisions and opportunities in front of them, the company’s resources (monetary, human and temporal) get spread too thin, execution suffers, the bank account dwindles and the startup exhausts its runway.
Having (or developing) the discipline, patience and focus required to competently assess and ultimately to say “no” to all of the costly distractions is fundamental to task of risk management and a key to purposeful success in both poker and startups.
Class adjourned.
You’ve probably heard all this before, of course. Perhaps a keynote speaker, a TechCrunch article or a founder’s blog post. While it’s fascinating to read or listen to folks talking about discipline, patience and focus, I daresay you don’t actually learn much by doing so. For example, reading that patience and selective aggression are fundamental to both poker and startups doesn’t make you more patient nor does it improve your proclivity to assess situations and opportunities with the goal of deciding which to pursue aggressively. You learn these things by putting in the time to practice them.
A very favorite quote:
I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.
— Confucius
Translation: In order to get the benefit of the lessons of poker you actually have to play poker.
As you play poker you engage in many of the strategic thought processes, tactical decision patterns and interpersonal interactions that every founder faces over and over again in the course of building a company.
In this way, poker is ”wax on, wax off” for startup founders. If you don’t recognize this important cultural reference then you should watch the classic 1985 movie, “Karate Kid.” In the movie, a bullied teen, Daniel, seeks the martial arts tutelage of humble and mysterious Karate master, Mr. Miyagi.
Rather than teaching the boy the traditional Karate moves he’s expecting, Miyagi puts the boy straight to work painting his house, sanding his deck and, iconically, waxing his car… for days. Miyagi insists that the arm and wrist motions of painting, sanding and waxing be performed precisely as he has shown them to Daniel.
Night comes on the fourth day. From Daniel’s view, he has not yet learned one bit of Karate. Daniel is angry. Frustrated, aching from days of manual labor and feeling like he has become Miyagi’s servant boy, Daniel turns insolent and confronts his master.
Daniel: We made a deal here!
Miyagi: So?
Daniel: “So”?! You’re supposed to teach and I’m supposed to learn. Four days I’ve been busting my ass, I haven’t learned a thing!
Miyagi: You learn plenty. (Unphased and dismissive.)
Daniel: I learn plenty, yeah. I’ve learned to sand your decks. I’ve waxed your car, I paint your house, paint your fence.
Miyagi: Not everything is as seems.
Cursing his master, Daniel storms off. Miyagi calls him back and begins showing Daniel how the motions of waxing and painting and sanding that he’s been ‘practicing’ are actually the fundamental defensive movements of Karate. In the course of less than two minutes Daniel is blocking every punch and kick Miyagi throws at him with the aplomb of an orange belt. Daniel didn’t realize it but he was learning Karate all along — not every bit of Karate, but some of the important fundamentals.
To complete the thesis: while a startup founder plays poker, s/he is developing, practicing and/or reinforcing some of the fundamental principles and skills of building a startup company.
So, yeah, we’re playing a game in which wagers are made, but as I hope you have seen, we don’t do so as gamblers… we do so as colleagues helping each other improve our outcomes as founders. If your opinion of poker was that it must necessarily be a degenerate gambling activity, I hope that you now have a broader view of how valuable poker can be as a network-building and learning activity.
If you’re ready to startup your startup poker adventure but you’re not sure where to start, the final post in this series will provide a founders’ roadmap to poker. | https://medium.com/@bcrimmins/poker-is-wax-on-wax-off-for-startup-founders-2-of-3-e257bd7de554 | ['Bob Crimmins'] | 2019-03-17 18:23:30.016000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Poker', 'Founders'] |
Upgrade your Image Classifier with Balanced data | Upgrade your Image Classifier with Balanced data
How preprocessing & stratification can do wonders to image classifier performance
FER
This article walks you through the data munging techniques to refine the machine learning models for image classifiers, particularly facial emotion recognition. The R notebook containing the source code is available in the GitHub link here
In this project the ‘facial emotion recognition’ dataset, from the Kaggle competition Challenges in Representation Learning: Facial Expression Recognition Challenge is used. The data consists of 27000 training images (48 x 48 pixels of faces almost centred so that all the faces extend over equal spaces in the image ) and a test set containing 9000 images. This is a classification task is to categorize each image to one of seven classes (0=Angry, 1=Disgust, 2=Fear, 3=Happy, 4=Sad, 5=Surprise, 6=Neutral).
I tried several algorithms including Nearest Neighbour, Bayesian Classifiers, Decision Trees and Neural Networks to build machine learning model for the task. But, none of them was returning success rate above 30%. That left me wondering what went wrong and how to approach this task differently. Recently I came across an article by one of the top performers of the Plant Seedlings Classification Challenge, that suggests the readers deal with the imbalanced class problem before classifying the images.
In this article, I would explain how I built a better Image classifier with decision tree algorithm using clean balanced data and visualizations.
Step1: Explore the data
On visualizing the distribution of each class in the dataset, we understand that the dataset is heavily imbalanced.
A dataset is described as imbalanced if the classes are not represented approximately equal. [1]
Distribution of classes
There are more than 7000 ‘Happy ’images whereas the number of ‘Disgust’ images is less than 500. This would result in a biased classifier that predicts most of the images as majority class.
Popular algorithms like Decision Tree and Logistic Regression have a bias towards majority classes in the dataset [2]
To understand the complexity of the algorithm, I applied the technique t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE), which is considered the best approach to visualize high dimensional data.
t-SNE is a technique for the visualization of similarity data that is capable of retaining the local structure of the data while also revealing some important global structure such as clusters at multiple scales [3] t-SNE that visualizes high-dimensional data by giving each data point a location in a two or three-dimensional map[3]
The tSNE visualization of the original dataset shows us little insight into the class structure of the data.
t-SNE Original Dataset
Step 2: Partitioning
Next step is to partition the training dataset to train set & validation set. The validation set would be used for tuning and the final model will be evaluated using the test dataset
Step 3: Creating a benchmark classifier
The benchmark provides a basis for evaluating and comparing algorithms for learning from examples. [4]
If we create a benchmark classifier at this stage, the performance would be less than 27 %.
Benchmark Classifier Results
Step 4: Data Preprocessing
On Visualizing a random instance, it’s evident that the image is horizontally aligned and some amount of noise is also present as background.
Preprocessing methods normalises the image acquired from uncontrolled environments. [5]
Therefore all the images are first rotated & cropped as shown in the fig below.
Fig: Sample Image (i) Original (ii) Rotated (iii) Cropped
The instances are then centred and scaled to the range {0.8, 1.2}. The distribution of values in each pixel before and after the transformation can be plotted as.
Distribution of values in each pixel
Step 5: Feature extraction
Well, this is a high dimensional dataset with 2304 features. To reduce the dimensions, we can use the most widely used technique PCA.
Principal component analysis (PCA) is a statistical procedure that uses an orthogonal transformation to convert a set of observations of possibly correlated variables (entities each of which takes on various numerical values) into a set of values of linearly uncorrelated variables called principal components. [6]
PCA Output
From the PCA summary its clear that the first 25 principal components hold more than 80% of the data.
PCA Summary
The tSNE visualization after PCA is strikingly better, but most of the classes are mapped somewhat proximate and not categorized with clarity.
t-SNE PC 1–25
The same preprocessing steps and the orthogonal rotation from PCA are applied to the validation data and test data
Step 5: Stratification
In this step, we will deal with the imbalanced class problem in the train data.
SMOTE is an oversampling approach in which the minority class is over-sampled by creating “synthetic” examples rather than by over-sampling with replacement [1]
A combination of the synthetic oversampling of minority class (SMOTE)and random undersampling of the majority class, will give a nice balanced train data which can then be used to build a classifier that performs better. This is evident from the tSNE visualization of the new train data below
t-SNE Balanced Data
Step 6: Classification
We build a classifier using the prepared train data. From the Confusion matrix of the model, we could see that the overall accuracy has improved and is nearly 60 %.
Confusion matrix — Classifier trained using the processed data
Step 7: Hyper parameter tuning
By tweaking the complexity parameter (cp) we can reduce the relative error as shown in the plot below
Variation in Relative error with complexity parameter
Step 8: Build the final model
The last step is to build the final model with the tuned parameter (cp value with minimum Xval-Relative Error) and evaluate it using the test data.
The confusion matrix stats say the classifier performance has improved dramatically and the overall accuracy is greater than 90 %. Other performance metrics such as sensitivity, specificity etc too is better.
Confusion Matrix — Final model
Other Performance metrics comparison for various classes
Conclusion
The preprocessing, dimensionality reduction & balancing the dataset improved the performance of the decision tree classifier remarkably from 27% to 91%. Visualizing the high dimensional data using tSNE can give you a better idea of the distribution of classes, which can help significantly in preprocessing the data that can be used to build a better classifier.
References
[1] N. Chawla, K. Bowyer, L. Hall and W. Kegelmeyer, SMOTE: Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique (2002), Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 16, pp.321–357.
[2] Guest Blog, How to handle Imbalanced Classification Problems in machine learning (2017), [Blog] Analytics Vidhya
[3] L. van der Maaten and G.Hinton, Visualizing Data using t-SNE (2008), Journal of Machine Learning Research, 9, pp.2579–2605.
[4] Z. ZHENG, A benchmark for Classifier Learning (1993), In Australian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. World Scientific, pp.281–286.
[5] M.G. Sumithra and P. Rajeswari, A Survey: Pre Processing techniques for Facial Expression Recognition (2015), International Journal on Applications of Information and Communication Engineering Volume 1: Issue 1: January 2015, Pages:47–51, 1(1), pp.47–51.
[6] En.wikipedia.org, Principal component analysis (2018), [online] Wikipedia | https://towardsdatascience.com/upgrade-your-image-classifier-with-balanced-data-ddea93859c0f | ['Nishna Ajmal'] | 2018-12-23 13:36:31.453000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Visualization', 'Image Classification', 'Data Cleaning', 'Towards Data Science'] |
Hubb’s Successful Pivot | Interview with Allie Magyar, Founder and CEO of Hubb
Interview with Allie Magyar, Founder and CEO of Hubb
Tell us about your business. What do you do?
Hubb is the leader in event management, an often overlooked yet enormously integral part of the MarTech stack.
What is your startup’s origin story?
Allie is serial entrepreneur and technology maven with over 15 years’ experience driving technology enabled service companies. As President and CEO of Dynamic Events for over a decade, Allie traveled around the world producing events for some of the biggest names in technology. Seeing the need for a tool to organize and manage the events she and her team were producing, she created Hubb in 2012 and rolled it out to the wider world in 2015. In 2016, Allie helped Hubb raise $4 million in venture funding and win the Bend Venture and Seattle Angel conferences. Allie is passionate about driving positive corporate culture and her companies have won several regional awards such as “Healthiest Workplace” and “Most Philanthropic”. Allison combines her real world experience in marketing, sales, partner relationship building, and show production with a strong vision for the technology-enabled future of event management. She is CMP certified, a member of Vistage, a two-time Inc. 5000 award winner, and was also listed as one of the 2013 Collaborate 40 under 40 in the meetings industry.
Had you been involved in the industry before this startup? What is your background?
Yes, Allie is a seasoned expert in the events and meetings industry, having founded two leaders in the space.
What’s unique about your company? What are the key differentiators between you and other players?
When covid-19 struck, companies and conference teams large and small were thrown for a loop with events of all sizes, including major conferences like SXSW, being canceled. Event planners were suddenly faced with figuring out what to do, how to survive and where the industry was headed. The downstream effects on the event industry hit hard, including event tech, much of which is focused on the onsite experience. Hubb’s clients were canceling events and coming to them for help on what to do. At the same time, with the massive event cancellations happening Hubb itself was at risk. Powerhouses like CES and BIO.org had to quickly decide on a solution for their international audience as virtual events, once the red headed stepchild of the events industry, became the hottest essential.
As someone with an event planning background herself, Allie took charge and met with industry colleagues to form partnerships that enabled live-streaming. She drove her engineering team to tweak some of the previously lesser-used parts of the platform to meet the current demand for virtual events. As an experienced events industry leader, Allie led Hubb with resiliency and success to pivot the business in a way that served the changing needs of an industry brought to its knees. Events and digital experiences, whether virtual or hybrid, need the right tools to run as key elements of the MarTech stack — which Hubb was able to provide in a way that was more versatile and user-friendly than what was currently on the market.
After a bumpy initial Q2 due to covid-19 cancellations, Hubb didn’t go under, but is instead thriving due to its robust virtual event capabilities. Q2 & Q3 sales and pipeline crushed expectations- meeting the entire year’s goal in a matter of 60 days. Allie’s deft handling of the situation not only saved the company from collapse, but is leading Hubb into the second half of the year with strong revenue and a renewed company mission. In May, Hubb took it a step further by giving back with Untethered, a virtual summit for the events industry that raised $17,500 for The Meetings Industry Fund, as part of a charitable partnership for industry professionals in need.
Take us through a day in your life. What does the typical day look like?
When running a company, I feel like interesting stories happen every day! But one of the most poignant memories for me was the realization of inequality, that I was not used to in my own personal bubble, as I went to raise venture capital for the first time. I quickly understood that the world I live in is different from many others in our world and that it’s important to demand equity and inclusion, especially in the tech and software industry. Experiencing the challenges of trying to raise funds for a company as a woman leader and woman in tech introduced me to various issues pertaining to women and diversity that exist today. I hope to be a catalyst for change and support efforts that focus on inclusion and diversity in my industry and the tech ecosystem as a whole.
What has been the most challenging part of growing your company?
Hubb is re-imagining the future of events and we’re excited to lead our industry during this time of change. We’re helping to merge virtual and in person events in a very compelling way, creating value for attendees worldwide in our marketing portfolios. Our leading edge technology will help marketers worldwide because with a solution that brings a sense of brand purpose, engages attendees in a meaningful way and creates connections for a remote audience.
One recent project that I’m proud of was an event we pulled together in less than 6 weeks, to help inspire the meetings industry of what is possible with virtual events, called Untethered. This event was part of a charitable partnership for industry professionals in need. The goal of Untethered was to educate and connect event professionals during this time of profound change with a mission to educate, inspire and innovate them. We raised over 17,000 dollars for a mission driven non-profit and gained so much from the collaboration and networking we did together during this community led effort.
What apps do you use that you would recommend to others?
Asana
Do you have a book, podcast, or Youtube channel you would recommend to other Entrepreneurs?
Podcast- Adam Parry’s https://www.eventindustrynews.com/category/podcasts
If you could go back in time to the day you founded your company, what advice would you give yourself?
Focus on what’s in front of you.
I try to help the world right in front of me and find the good in people around me, rather than focusing on the negative or how they may have wronged me. This type of mindset helps inform your life, so that you can look for ways to find inspiration rather than something negative about someone or something. This is an intentional practice that I keep in my daily life and I choose this mindset each day.
What’s something you’ve learned from building your business that someone else can learn from?
One quote that I love is “Life is a journey,” and it means that you can’t feel the good without the bad and the need to overcome adversity sometimes, which is what we are living in today. | https://medium.com/startup-thread/hubbs-successful-pivot-42b433262d1 | ['Dan Stein'] | 2020-12-22 08:42:10.100000+00:00 | ['Startup Life', 'Startup', 'Founder Interview', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Entrepreneur'] |
COBOL with JDBC and GraalVM | COBOL has always been and continues to be a huge part of our lives. Yet, most of us have never heard of it. About 95 percent of ATM swipes use COBOL code — Reuters reported in April 2017 — and the 58-year-old language even powers 80 percent of in-person transactions. In fact, Reuters calculates that there is still 220 billion lines of COBOL code currently being used in production, and that COBOL systems handle $3 trillions in commerce every day.
Since approximately two decades, many big companies have been looking for downsizing their legacy applications from mainframe to other platforms with the aim of reducing costs. The problem is that it results not to be a forward-looking choice. They were simply creating a “new” COBOL solution, which would have required new skills, more resources in addition to existing ones and greater complexity. As result it would have become outdated quite quickly.
The solution has to be gradual and safe by extrapolating individual application modules from current legacy applications, and rewriting them using a modern language, thus exploiting the technological features that such language makes available. Only in this way it will be possible to reduce the number of lines of code, and consequently reduce the number of COBOL developers required for software maintenance.
GraalVM, an Oracle Labs initiative in collaboration with open source community supported by VMWare, Red Hat, Microsoft, Twitter, Amazon and more, may help in order to achieve this goal. It is a new universal virtual machine that supports both a polyglot runtime environment and the ability to compile Java applications down to native machine code. GraalVM removes the isolation between programming languages and enables interoperability in a shared runtime.
Scope
The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the interoperability between COBOL and Java code using GraalVM Native Image. It will be built a simple COBOL program that will use JDBC to access an SQL database, in this case PostgreSQL.
Prerequisites
The instructions of this post have been tested on Linux. To reproduce the following code, these tools are required:
A GraalVM Community Edition based on JDK11 (or JDK8) for Linux with the additional component Native Image.
Available here: https://www.graalvm.org/downloads/.
Community Edition based on JDK11 (or JDK8) for Linux with the additional component Native Image. Available here: https://www.graalvm.org/downloads/. The C standard library headers . On Linux it depends on the distribution adopted.
. On Linux it depends on the distribution adopted. A C compiler . It will be used to build a native shared library. In order to do that as well, install gcc or clang .
. It will be used to build a native shared library. In order to do that as well, install or . A PostgreSQL database instance. It can be downloaded from PostgreSQL: Downloads.
database instance. It can be downloaded from PostgreSQL: Downloads. Maven , a build automation tool.
, a build automation tool. nm utility tool (optional) for inspecting the results. It is usually installed by default.
The system should look like this:
$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS
Release: 20.04
Codename: focal $ gcc --version
gcc (Ubuntu 9.3.0-17ubuntu1~20.04) 9.3.0
Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc. $ gu list
ComponentId Version Component name Origin
--------------------------------------------------------------------
js 20.3.1 Graal.js
graalvm 20.3.1 GraalVM Core
native-image 20.3.1 Native Image
$ psql --version
psql (PostgreSQL) 13.1 (Ubuntu 13.1-1.pgdg20.04+1)
Setup
The project folder is created under $HOME with cobol-pg as name, but any label is valid.
$ cd $HOME
$ mkdir cobol-pg
$ export TMP_DIR=~/cobol-pg
$ cd $TMP_DIR
$ mkdir native
The first thing that needs to be done is to set up some environment variables so that all GraalVM tools can run. The commands can be found in the script setup.sh , which looks like this:
# set workdir - You can use the folder that you want
export TMP_DIR=~/cobol-pg # set graalvm home directory
export GRAALVM_PATH=~/graalvm-ce-java11-20.3.1 # set javalvm home directory
export JAVA_HOME=${GRAALVM_PATH} # set the PATH variable
export PATH=$GRAALVM_PATH/bin:$PATH # set the path for graalvm libraries
export GRAALVM_LIBRARIES_PATH=$GRAALVM_PATH/languages/llvm/native/lib # export the path for gnucobol
export NATIVE_LIBRARIES_PATH=$TMP_DIR/native # include cobc in search path
export PATH=$NATIVE_LIBRARIES_PATH/bin:$PATH # export the variable where libraries should be searched for first
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${NATIVE_LIBRARIES_PATH}/lib:${GRAALVM_LIBRARIES_PATH}:${TMP_DIR}/target
Execute the script with the command:
$ source setup.sh
Building GNUCOBOL in Native
GnuCOBOL is a free, modern COBOL compiler. It translates COBOL into intermediate C and compiles the code using a native C compiler (preferably gcc , but not limited to it).
Now that all environment variables are set, we can compile GnuCOBOL for GraalVM in native mode. GnuCOBOL for mathematical functions requires either GMP or MPIR and for file management Berkeley DB (libdb), VBISAM or DISAM. Here GMP and VBISAM are adopted.
Now download GNUCOBOL source and its dependencies:
wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/gnucobol/files/gnucobol/3.1/gnucobol-3.1.2.tar.gz
$ tar -xf gnucobol-3.1.2.tar.gz -xf gnucobol-3.1.2.tar.gz wget https://gmplib.org/download/gmp/gmp-6.2.1.tar.lz
$ tar --lzip -xvf gmp-6.2.1.tar.lz $ tar --lzip -xvf gmp-6.2.1.tar.lz wget http://rjnorman74.users.sourceforge.net/vbisam-2.1.1.tar.Z
$ tar -xf vbisam-2.1.1.tar.Z -xf vbisam-2.1.1.tar.Z
First of all compile the two dependencies, executing the following instructions for VBISAM:
$ cd $TMP_DIR/gnucobol/vbisam-2.1.1
$ ./configure --prefix=${NATIVE_LIBRARIES_PATH}
$ make
$ make install
and the following for GMP:
$ cd $TMP_DIR/gnucobol/gmp-6.2.1
$ ./configure --prefix=$NATIVE_LIBRARIES_PATH
$ make
$ make install
Now compile GNUCOBOL:
$ cd $TMP_DIR/gnucobol/gnucobol-3.1.2
$ ./configure CFLAGS="-I${NATIVE_LIBRARIES_PATH}/include" LDFLAGS="-L${NATIVE_LIBRARIES_PATH}/lib" --disable-nls --with-vbisam --with-curses=no --prefix=${NATIVE_LIBRARIES_PATH}
$ make
$ make install
Create database and datatable
The library in this project uses the JDBC Driver for PostgreSQL, which can be installed executing the following commands:
sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get install -y libpostgresql-jdbc-java
Then create a database called testdb with the following instruction:
CREATE DATABASE testdb
WITH
OWNER = postgres
ENCODING = 'UTF8'
LC_COLLATE = 'C.UTF-8'
LC_CTYPE = 'C.UTF-8'
TABLESPACE = pg_default
CONNECTION LIMIT = -1;
and the table CUS with:
CREATE TABLE public.cus
(
cus_id numeric(4,0) NOT NULL,
cus_name character(20) COLLATE pg_catalog."default",
cus_age numeric(3,0),
CONSTRAINT cus_pkey PRIMARY KEY (cus_id)
) TABLESPACE pg_default; ALTER TABLE public.cus
OWNER to postgres;
Create a shared library from Java
GraalVM allows ahead of time compilation of Java code to a standalone executable called “native image”. It includes the application classes, classes from its dependencies, runtime library, classes from JDK, and statically linked native code from JDK by using AoT (ahead-of-time compiler) directly for a specific operating system and architecture. It does not run on the Java VM, but includes necessary components like memory management and thread scheduling from a different virtual machine called “Substrate VM”.
GraalVM’s native-image command is capable of creating a shared library from Java code and thus combining the polyglot approach with native-image.
A native image can be built either as a standalone executable, which is the default, or as a shared library with the command line switch --shared. The tool is able to create shared C libraries which open up a whole new world of polyglot interaction. Take anything that runs on GraalVM native image — either Java or one of the supported target languages — and build a library that can be applied in COBOL, C and C# programs or anything that allows foreign-function-interfaces (FFI).
In this example it will be called a function that takes authentication details to a PostgreSQL, executed a simple query and returned data to COBOL caller program via a shared C library using Isolate, a virtualization feature supported by GraalVM. A Isolate is a disjoint heap that allows multiple tasks in the same VM instance to run independently in the same process, so each isolate can be garbage-collected independently (or just destroyed before any GC is needed). | https://medium.com/@rferrari63/cobol-with-jdbc-and-graalvm-f0340858f46d | ['Roberto Ferrari'] | 2021-02-12 14:21:07.342000+00:00 | ['Postgresql', 'Graalvm', 'Native', 'Cobol', 'Jdbc'] |
CBD Oil Effective for Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder | With the stock symbol CBDX, Curative Biosciences Inc. manufactures and produces top-quality CBD supplements derived from organically grown hemp. To better inform consumers on the health benefits of CBD, the Curative Biosciences Inc. webpage publishes links to dozens of scientific studies that have investigated the effects of CBD on a host of ailments, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
PTSD can develop after a harrowing encounter with abuse, violence, or other negative life events. People with PTSD often experience flashbacks of the traumatic incident, intense nightmares, and chronic anxiety. While the exact cause of PTSD is unknown, studies have demonstrated that lower activity in specific brain receptors, such as CB1, may be a factor.
Since CBD has similar properties to neurotransmitters involved in feeling positive emotions and traumatic memory deactivation, CBD may stimulate activity in CB1 receptors and promote an anti-anxiety effect. With long-term use, CBD may significantly reduce other symptoms associated with PTSD, including insomnia and night terrors. | https://medium.com/@CurativeBiosciencesInc/cbd-oil-effective-for-symptoms-of-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-179b7a4f73bb | ['Curative Biosciences Inc.'] | 2019-06-06 21:56:58.173000+00:00 | ['Cbd Oils', 'PTSD', 'Cbd'] |
Getting back into NumPy, Day 1 | Have you ever had something that you’ve procrastinated with for far too long? I have, and that is getting back into programming with Python and NumPy. Well, having some free time this week I’ve decided to start my own #100daysofcode to get started.
This is my journal, day one. Goal: using Pandas and Numpy to put out some nice graphs of my keystroke logging. I’ve just started logging the amount of keystrokes I make.
First things first: the logging is made with the software minute, a keystroke counter for Mac OS X. It is minimal, seems to be safe (I checked the source code), and the only thing it generates is a log file of the following format:
minute,strokes
1553628300, 81
1553628420, 103
1553628600, 58
1553629500, 58
....
The first entry is a Unix timestamp, the second entry is the number of keystrokes made during that minute (technically the minute before, but this isn’t important for now). Minute only makes entries for minutes when keys have been pressed.
How do I get this data into Pandas? Well, pd.read_csv() to the rescue! The only code needed is this:
def parse_date_from_time_stamp (linux_time_stamp):
return datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(float(linux_time_stamp)) df = pd.read_csv('./keystrokes/01.04.2019.log', parse_dates=True, date_parser=parse_date_from_time_stamp, index_col="minute")
The helper function parses the date from the time stamp (as you might have guessed from the function name).
The next step is a waste of computation time, and I only include it since I found it useful and might need it for future reference. Every minute that doesn’t have an entry is assigned the value zero. This was surprisingly easy to do using Pandas resample-functionality. Downsampling is exactly as easy!
upsample = pd.DataFrame()
upsample = df.resample('min').asfreq().fillna(0)
Now, let's make the Datetime-entry the index of the dataframe:
upsample.index = pd.to_datetime(upsample.index)
Now to our first graph. I want to see the distribution of the mean number of keystrokes per minute, so we need to group the data in some way. Turns out Pandas has a function for this as well, or at least half the functionality I need. You can natively group by minutes, hours, days, years, and so on, but there isn’t a native function to group by minute of the day.
To do this, you need a small helper function that computes the minute of the day from the date. The full code for grouping and computing is as follows:
def datetime_to_minute_of_day (datetime):
return 60*datetime.hour + datetime.minute # Group data by minute of day
mean_strokes_per_minute_of_day = upsample.groupby(lambda x: datetime_to_minute_of_day(x)).mean()
Now for the graphing. Since we have all we need this step is straightforward. For readability the y-axis has been scaled to show the hour of the day instead of minutes, and the nonzero entries have been removed (now you see why I told you that filling those empty entries with zero was a total waste of time!).
mean_strokes_nonzero_entries = pd.DataFrame()
mean_strokes_nonzero_entries = mean_strokes_per_minute_of_day['strokes'][mean_strokes_per_minute_of_day['strokes'] != 0] # Number of strokes per hour of day
plt.title("Mean number of keystrokes per hour of day")
plt.xlabel("Hour of day")
plt.ylabel("Number of keystrokes (mean)")
# Scale x-axis by dividing by 60
plt.plot(mean_strokes_nonzero_entries.index/60, mean_strokes_nonzero_entries, 'k.', ms=0.5)
# Set limits to 0 and 24.
plt.xlim([0, 24])
plt.show()
And that’s about it. This yields a graph looking like this (roughly a week of data, from which three days were computer free): | https://medium.com/@p.perssonmattsson/getting-back-into-numpy-day-1-8a4009005550 | ['Pär Persson Mattsson'] | 2019-04-01 19:23:26.942000+00:00 | ['Numerical Computation', 'Time Series Analysis', 'Pandas', 'Numpy', 'Python'] |
Introduction to Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) | EDA is the most important and at the same time most neglected step in the Machine Learning model development process. To overcome this neglected aspect, which causes many complications during the later stages of the ML model building process, we must understand its concepts and importance. Every aspiring Data Scientist and Citizen Data Scientist must learn the art and science of doing EDA to become a successful Data Scientist and ML engineer/Practitioner.
These series of articles and tutorials are aimed towards teaching and training aspiring data scientists, beginner data scientists, and budding citizen data scientists to do EDA as a first step on receiving data for developing high-performance ML models.
This, Introduction to Exploratory Analysis (EDA) series of tutorials are divided into the following five sections
Section ONE: EDA Introduction.
Section TWO: EDA Assumptions.
Section Three: EDA techniques.
Section Four: EDA case studies.
Section Five: EDA libraries in Python.
And each section is further subdivided into a number of topics and each topic is covered in a single separate tutorial.
Section ONE: EDA Introduction
Table of Topics:
What is EDA? EDA vs Classical & Bayesian analysis EDA vs Summary statistics EDA Goals The Role of Graphics in EDA An EDA Example General EDA Problem Categories
Each of the above topics is covered in a separate article/notebook.
1. What is EDA?
EDA is an Approach
Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) is an approach/philosophy for data analysis that employs a variety of techniques (mostly graphical) to
maximize insight into a data set; uncover underlying data structure; extract important variables; detect outliers and anomalies; test underlying assumptions; develop parsimonious models; and determine optimal feature representation. detect the presence of any missing values.
Focus of EDA
The EDA approach is precisely that — an approach — not a set of techniques or rules, but an attitude/philosophy about how a data analysis should be carried out.
‘Exploratory data analysis’ is an attitude, a state of flexibility, a willingness to look for those things that we believe are not there, as well as those we believe to be there.” — John Tukey, Author of Exploratory Data Analysis
For exploratory data analysis, the focus is on the data — its structure, outliers, provide hits for data preparation, and models suggested by the data.
EDA is art and science and comes with a lot of practice and experience. It is not just plotting a set of graphs as many believe. Though we use a lot of statistical plots as techniques of EDA, drawing inferences from the plots is the core of EDA
Philosophy of EDA
EDA is not identical to statistical graphics although the two terms are used almost interchangeably. Statistical graphics are a collection of techniques — all graphically based and all focusing on one data characterization aspect. EDA encompasses a larger landscape; EDA is an approach to data analysis that postpones the usual assumptions about what kind of model the data follow with the more direct approach of allowing the data itself to reveal its underlying structure and model. EDA is not a mere collection of techniques; EDA is a philosophy as to how we:
dissect a data set;
what we look for in the data;
how we look at data;
how we interpret data.
It is true that EDA heavily uses the collection of techniques that we call statistical graphics, but it is not identical to statistical graphics per se.
Techniques of EDA
Most EDA techniques are graphical in nature with a few quantitative techniques. The reason for the heavy reliance on graphics is that by its very nature the main role of EDA is to open-mindedly explore, and graphics gives the analysts unparalleled power to do so, enticing the data to reveal its structural secrets, and being always ready to gain some new, often unsuspected, insight into the data. In combination with the natural pattern-recognition capabilities that we all possess, graphics provide, of course, unparalleled power to carry this out.
The particular graphical techniques employed in EDA are often quite simple, consisting of various techniques of:
Plotting the raw data (such as data traces, histograms, bi-histograms, probability plots, lag plots, block plots, and Youden plots .
. Plotting simple statistics such as mean plots, standard deviation plots, box plots, and main effects plots of the raw data .
. Positioning such plots so as to maximize our natural pattern-recognition abilities, such as using multiple plots per page and overplotting multiple variables in a single graph.
In the next tutorial, we focus on various approaches to data analysis and why EDA takes center stages among them. | https://medium.com/nerd-for-tech/what-is-eda-ec2791f48de9 | ['Kv Subbaiah Setty'] | 2020-11-09 04:10:32.505000+00:00 | ['Data Preparation', 'Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Eda'] |
Sharpen The Axe | Once upon a time, a very strong woodcutter asked for a job in a timber merchant and he got it. The pay was really good and so was the work condition. For those reasons, the woodcutter was determined to do his best.
His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he supposed to work.
The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees.
“Congratulations,” the boss said. “Go on that way!”
Very motivated by the boss words, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he could only bring 15 trees. The third day he tried even harder, but he could only bring 10 trees. Day after day he was bringing less and fewer trees.
“I must be losing my strength”, the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on.
“When was the last time you sharpened your axe?” the boss asked.
“Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees…”
Moral of the story | https://medium.com/small-motivational-stories/sharpen-the-axe-f89a63b2975d | ['Abhishek Shah'] | 2020-12-07 04:33:01.685000+00:00 | ['Busy Life', 'Efficiency', 'Development', 'Skills', 'Sharpening'] |
Improving Reading Focus by Dimming Online Distractions | The Information Superhighway is Lined with Billboards — We’re Here to Help
Reading on the web is distracting. Not only are you bombarded by email dings, calendar reminders, and Slack notifications, the very website you’re reading is preventing you from focusing.
How? By surrounding the one thing you care about — the body text on the page — with a rotating cast of colorful icons, calling out to you:
SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON FACEBOOK, LINKEDIN, AND GOOGLE PLUS! Got a minute? PLAY SPIDER SOLITAIRE OR MAHJONGG ! And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWS ALERT EMAIL LIST!
Focus Mode: Blinders for the Internet
We’re helping people focus while reading by literally dimming these online distractions. Here’s how it works:
Focus Mode dims the distractions that surround the article
You can customize the level of dimming from 1% to 100%
Whenever you move the mouse, the dimming disappears — so you can click on links or navigate the site (this is also why it’s better than using the “reader mode” offered in some browsers, which has to be deactivated before you can resume navigation)
You can deactivate Focus Mode for any websites that don’t work well with it
BeeLine Reader + Focus Mode: flipping the script to make websites more readable
Focus Mode is the latest addition to the BeeLine Reader Chrome extension, which people around the world use millions of times a week. The main function of BeeLine Reader is to enhance reading ease, speed, and focus by applying a line-wrapping color gradient to text (see demo below, if this is the first time you’ve heard of BeeLine).
With the addition of Focus Mode, we’re taking things one step further to improve website readability. Instead of making you focus on boring black text — which is the least visually interesting thing on the page — we format the web in a reader-centric way. We dim the distractions and apply our focus-enhancing color gradient to the body text, which makes it supremely easy to focus while reading. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/improving-reading-focus-by-dimming-online-distractions-ae52726abe1 | ['Beeline Reader'] | 2017-07-17 17:11:38.217000+00:00 | ['Education', 'Focus', 'Accessibility', 'Productivity', 'Lifehacks'] |
Best (free) Figma Plugins 2021 | UX/UI Design + Figma
Best (free) Figma Plugins 2021
Figma, by now, has an extensive list of plugins to get lost in. Quality and update vary greatly. However, once you got the right set, they will improve your UX/UI Design significantly. So to save yourself some time, here is a selection of my favorite plugins worth your while.
Vectary 3D
source: Vectary 3D promo image, Figma community
I love the Vectary 3D Plugin for a quick mockup! With one click, you add your frame to a 3D canvas. They offer anything from mobile to desktop, apple watch to T-shirts for free. Vectary.com is generally impressive if you are looking for a tool to add some 3D to your designs. Highly recommend it!!!
GiffyCanvas
source: GiffyCanvas image, Figma community
Yes, you can make animated GIFs directly in Figma! Just set up a row of artboards with the steps of the animation you want. Select, activate the GiffyCanvas plugin, tweak the speed a little if you wish, and download! Ready is your Gif!
💡Tip: You can add that Gif you exported into Figma again and use it as part of your layout. It will play in your prototype when you activate presentation mode.
Breakpoints
source: Breakpoint image, Figma community
Now, this one is still Beta. However I love the idea, and it is something I am missing in my workflow. Once (or while) you set up all your designs for different breakpoints, you activate the Breakpoint plugin, set your breakpoints, and then assign a frame for each range (takes 5 seconds). It creates a new dynamic frame showing you the actual resizing behavior. AMAZING!
Google Sheets Sync
source: Google Sheets Sync image, Figma community
Working with real data. The Google Sheets Sync Plugin helps me to use real data from the start without copy and paste. As it updates in real-time, I always see right away when text length or image dimensions might cause trouble.
Stark
source: Stark Plugin image, Figma community
So so important and often forgotten (guilty as charged): Checking your designs for accessibility! Stark Plugin features include a contrast checker, smart color suggestions as well as a colorblind generator. It comes with a free basic plan; for more info, visit the Stark website. You might also like the Able plugin for just color contrast checking and Adee for checking the full range from typo to colors.
Redlines
source: Redlines image, Figma community
I love using Redlines when I prepare my component specs for handoff — a total time saver for all those annotations in my Specs.
Interplay
source: Interplay image, Figma community
You can connect to your code repository with the Interplay plugin and design with “real” components in Figma.
Blush
source: Blush image, Figma community
Blush is an excellent plugin for illustration by Pablo Stanley I like it so much that I wrote a separate article about it. You can choose from a selection of high-quality illustrations and mix and match them right in Figma. Free basic plan, for more info, visit the blush website.
Unsplash
source: Unsplash image, Figma community
Been around for a while, but nevertheless, the one I use probably the most. With Unsplash you can search and insert all Unsplash images (free, high-res, and amazing in case you do not know it!) directly in your design.
Iconify
source: Iconify image, Figma community
Iconify you can choose from over 40 000 free icons (FontAwesome, Material design, etc.) and insert them directly into your Figma file.
Morph
source: Morph image, Figma community
Morph has quickly become one of my favorites to mess around. You can make shapes glow like neon, add crazy glitch effects, or simply change a surface into glass.
Lorem ipsum
source:Lorem ipsum image, Figma community
Googling lorem ipsum to find a page to copy it and then go back to your design file to paste it? Yup, I have been there. The Lorem ipsum plugin will help you add dummy text with one click to your designs in precisely the correct quantity.
Mapsicle
source:Mapsicle image, Figma community
No more screenshotting google maps and adding it to your design. With Mapsicle you can add maps directly and even style them. You can also try MapMaker, which is pretty similar.
Autoflow
source:Autoflow image, Figma community
Autoflow creates simple arrows to show a flow. Handy for a quick, simple flowchart. It is a little limited when you want to show more detail or complex interactions (like arrows going backward or splitting or pointing to a specific area).
Wireframe
source:Wireframe image, Figma community
I prefer making my own wireframes, but the Wireframe Plugin works just great for a reeeely quick and standardized one. You can choose from different sizes (mobile, desktop) and stages, anything from walkthrough to forms.
Image Palette
source:Image Palette image, Figma community
I never thought much of those palette creators, but this one works surprisingly well. Choose an image, click, and done. You obviously need to add some structure to the colors, but Image Palette gives you a very harmonious palette to start.
Blobs
source:Blob image, Figma community
If you want to create those popular organic shapes you see around quite a bit lately, Blob is your plugin.
Chart
source:Chart image, Figma community
Chart uses actual data to create graphs. The best part is you can connect it with Excel, Numbers, Google Sheets (real-time connection!) and remote JSON (REST API), local CSV, and JSON files. It’s free for two chart types. For more info, visit the chart website.Find and Replace
Find and Replace
source:Find and Replace image, Figma community
The Find and Replace plugin is really basic but handy. It lets you find words and replace them across your whole project.
Super Tidy
source:Tidy image, Figma community
Jup, sometimes my files are messy, and I love a clean layers panel, so Super Tidy helps me get things back in order. You organize your frames visually and then run them through the plugin, which sorts them accordingly in the layers panel, and you can also name them (in bulk).
TinyImage Compressor
source:TinyImage image, Figma community
TinyImage Compressor helps you to compress and export JPG, PNG, SVG, WebP, GIF, WebM, AVIF, and PDF from Figma. However, only in edit mode! So if you are sharing on a “view” mode (as you would with development), that will not work.
SPELLL — Spell Checking for Figma
source: Spelll image, Figma community
Boy, do I need the Spelll plugin. I am dyslexic, and there is no autocorrect in Figma, which kills me! You need to activate Spell with a license, but it is free. The only annoying part is that it is scanning your whole document (including all dummy text). If you prefer checking single paragraphs, you might like Spellchecker. I use both. If you still see typos then be kind and email me :)
Thank you!
If you liked this article, then please follow me Medium! I am currently working on an extensive UX/UI course for Figma. Visit moonlearning.io for more info! You can also sign up for the newsletter there.
first published at: moonlearning.io | https://uxplanet.org/best-free-figma-plugins-2021-a14ad5b869c7 | ['Christine Vallaure'] | 2021-04-08 10:31:32.717000+00:00 | ['Figma', 'UI', 'Plugins', 'Workflow', 'UX'] |
Sexism in Rock | Bronte Pisz
“She’s there to love me both day and night, never grumbles or fusses always treats me right, never runnin’ in the streets leavin’ me alone she knows a woman’s place is right there, now, in her home.” Yeah… right. As a whole, the music industry, specifically rock ’n’ roll and rap, relentlessly objectifies women to their bodies and swiftly gets away with it by writing insults or misogynistic slurs in their lyrics. Some artists choose to show women in a positive light, and those who choose not to are usually the ones getting the most profit and recognition. I’ve reluctantly concluded that sexism is very prevalent in the entire rock culture yet predominantly overlooked by most of its listeners and supporters. Before sexual songs and behaviors were regulated or revolutionized in the fifties and sixties, women in songs were pictured as everyone’s ‘dream girl.’ Nevertheless, as soon as the man’s image changed, so did the woman’s. Males went from good innocent boys that everyone’s mother would approve of to lust-filled boys that “Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” Hence, women were no longer portrayed as sweet, morally-fit girls, but as sex objects which were passed around and only seen for their bodies. The enigma is that rock started as teenagers rebelling against the traditional status quo as a group. However, unfortunately rock music has not evolved so that it is equally representative of both genders. A girl went from being someone to sweep off her feet and be romantic with to being told to obey their men and then their bodies’ objectification in music and music videos.
I created this infographic to show specific points that express the inequality between men and women. It can be challenging to see the big picture or the root of the problem when different stimuli and information are mixed in. This infographic helps visually show each issue and helps distinguish the difference between those, and how it all goes into the need for supporting gender equality. I want to communicate that these are just five examples of the uncountable number of dilemmas that gender bias or gender inequality leads to. I chose the five problems that, in my eyes, are most comfortable to understand from an outside point of view and probably the five most common instances where gender inequality is found. I chose the simplistic symbolism that I did because there aren’t many pictures that can ultimately show the act of being misogynistic. I wanted this infographic’s overall look to stay very formal and organized, which is why I didn’t use pictures of real people or real objects. I believe that each problem’s symbol can be remembered better than a shot of a random man or woman. My audience is our society in general though I would hope emerging adults and their cohorts would see this blog post and hopefully recognize or start to realize the amount of inequality in our society. Yes, this post is about the inequality of men and women and other gender identities. However, gender equality is only one step in the right direction of complete equality. Not only is it hard to recognize places of bias when you’re on the other side, but it’s also even harder when you don’t know what to look for or where to look. The subject of inequality can be brought to almost anything, whether it’s music, TV, radio, movies, job opportunities, educational opportunities, and so much more. Inequality doesn’t even have to be about gender. Our society has so many different variations of inequality and so many places where it can be found that it really does need to be broken down and organized into issues that people can clearly interpret. I hope this post can help people of all ages recognize parts of gender inequality that maybe they couldn’t see or empathize with before for the new generation’s betterment.
With some songs, it becomes debatable as to whether or not there is misogyny within the lyrics. “Music is often left to the interpretation of the listener, thereby making it difficult to parse out and identify specific instances of misogyny.” (Byrd) I understand that songs can portray women sexually without doing it in a derogatory or objectifying manner. However, the problem with sexual references to women in rock music is that those references are belittling or sexist most of the time. Most people can probably reference at least five rock songs by men with lyrics that objectify or curse women, yet it would likely be challenging to think of three songs that encourage women. Women’s objectification musically expands farther than just lyrics and is specifically apparent with women’s representation in music videos within any genre. Usually, in music videos, if the lyrics reference a woman, she will embody all societal beauty standards; unless they are trying to shame or make fun of a woman. “Viewers expect to see scantily clad women, gyrating against men and each other” (Adney). It has become evident that most women in rock ’n’ roll music videos exist for visual gratification or furthering outlandish depictions of women.
Like most things, finding a career in music was also a hill women had to climb over even to be included in it. It becomes more and more aggravating to see the demise of strong, independent women in songs, while men are seen as wealthy and macho. That sort of stereotypical representation of women takes away a woman’s power from her own body, when seeing older and younger women act sexually becomes expected by society. Just because women have the same anatomy, and that anatomy has become objectified by many different groups to look and act a certain way, does not mean all women fit into the category that has become expected. There are more arguments in the aspect of the rock industry’s respect differentials from men to women. “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has included only about 10 percent women, and the Blues Hall of Fame not much more” (Randall). Men and women have both contributed so much to the cultural and avant-garde parts of music that it should genuinely bring everyone together in the hope of uplifting every person who listens.
Children also listen to this music, whether through YouTube or Instagram, TikTok, or even a sibling. The role that trending music has with any emerging adults and children is vast. What is the characterization or depiction of women that we want this upcoming generation to have? Music does change the way people perceive things, since perception is 90 percent of your reality. “Themes such as perpetuating gender norms, normalized sexual violence, and the objectification of women reflect the power differentials that shape social interaction within the wider culture” (Byrd). For me, this stereotypical perception of women being seen as dependent on men, or there to abide by a man, is ultimately a step in the wrong direction for progressing societal and gender norms. A very lucrative woman’s beauty magazine that still puts outdated ideologies and material in their articles and online is Cosmopolitan. The only advertisement I’ve seen for them is about being a “better” girlfriend or wife, usually changing your appearance. These “tips” are not to better your self in a moral way or tips to help you feel better about yourself. It is merely to please your boyfriend or husband (“21 Spicey Sex Moves Men Crave in the Bedroom”). Women have shown time and time again that we are entirely in control of how we present ourselves and that societal beauty standards are almost impossible to achieve naturally.
Photo by Jernej Graj on Unsplash
It is a fact that societal beauty standards change time and time again, just like fashion trends. The way people, specifically women, are perceived and treated should not be justified because the lyrics rhyme in a song that was most likely made to profit industries rather than express true feelings or emotions coming from the artist.
Artists who do choose to lift women up are praised by their fan base for doing so. Most of these artists are women, and I think it should be a mixture of all artists from all genres to help lift women and every minority group. One woman who was praised for the encouragement of women was Taylor Swift. “Fans praise her for the respect she shows for herself both on the red carpet and in her videos; as a minor, she wore dresses and costumes that did not expose too much skin or present her as a sex object” (Adney). How Taylor Swift presented herself for an extended period of her music career was truly wholesome as her audience was usually teenage girls. Let’s not forget the rock stars that showed some girl power, too, The Hollies. They made a really cool song that I always listen to: “Long Cool Woman In a Black Dress.”
It seems as though the older women get, the more provocative they become within the music industry. Having men and women in the music industry who decide to present themselves and their relationships in a meaningful way helps their audience perceive their situations more meaningfully.
Music’s influence is so vast that women must be treated equally to men for gender equality in the music industry. It should go without saying, but apparently doesn’t, that degrading lyrics simply shouldn’t be used. They’re just lyrics, right? Wrong. The voice that music has is thunderous, and most fans see their favorite artists as role models or someone to strive to be like. They shouldn’t be expressing hateful or degrading lyrics towards anyone, especially women. Many people think that calling women slurs or objectifying them is okay, because some women embrace their bodies and personalities. The problem with that is our society needs to learn the difference between equality and equity. Equality is what we strive for, but it doesn’t make sense to give everyone the same thing: everyone is starting in different places. We need to support the changes that get us to a place of equity. A person’s body is not one to be judged, but their own. Women are frequently called “sluts” in song and real life when they embrace their sexuality, and at times are referred to in this insulting regard unrelated to sexual behavior. “To slut-shame a woman for what she consents to do sexually perpetuates the idea that women should not consent to sex, and should instead accept it passively” (Farida D). If we cannot modify the way females are expected to portray themselves, even musically, what is the chance that society will change their perspective on gender equality in general?
The expulsion of sexism in rock and roll is a miniscule step forward in the progression of gender equality, not just between straight men and women ,or between the audience of rock and roll and the artists, but for everyone. The imprint that viral lyrics have can become ingrained into society, and we, the people, need to support the songs, artists, and labels that push for the existence of equality. A song I personally like and look to for the aspect of equality is “Come As You Are” by Nirvana. I believe that everyone should be comfortable with how they are and how everyone around them is. We truly have the power to change society’s behaviors and norms for upcoming generations, and we should take full advantage of it while we can. Our parents changed the course of community in almost every aspect, just through the music they listened to and the clothes they put on. Simply imagine what our generation can do with all of the tools we have gained to communicate through music and social media, movies, TV shows, etc. This post is not being written to the male population alone, but virtually everyone. Men who are guilty of sexism or misogyny are not the only problem, and that needs to be acknowledged. Women also degrade other women and men. People who are not yet evolved to the point of seeing every gender identity as equal usually have a problem stemming from something completely different, but the point is that, as a man, or as a woman or any variation, you should receive support for being nothing but your authentic self. Not helping the problem is only contributing to the oppression of people in your own society. | https://medium.com/music-culture-irl/sexism-in-rock-668632ddaaaa | ['Bronte Pisz'] | 2020-12-18 21:31:40.164000+00:00 | ['Womens Rights', 'Sexism', 'Rock And Roll'] |
The Greatest Generation and My Uncle Bill | The Greatest Generation and My Uncle Bill
Unsplash — Victoria Museum
I missed the last reunion but tomorrow, I’ll be on the R train headed for Bay Ridge to visit my brother, my sister-in-law, my father’s third wife, and most of all…my 99-year-old Aunt Ellie! Her late husband…my Uncle Bill…will not be attending because he died 30 years ago. Still, my memory of his influence on me is as vivid as if it were yesterday.
Bill was a curmudgeon to the nth degree — and nowhere near the cut-up my daddy was. But when my father failed miserably at parenting, he picked up Big Bob’s slack! It didn’t matter how young, spoiled or self-centered I was. I got it! Daddy may have been the life of the party…but Bill had my back!
On family vacations, Uncle Bill used to march us around the woods on some hike or other. My father would complain bitter. Just not his scene! He didn’t understand that Bill was exorcising his World War II demons. We’d stop for a break whereupon Bill would ease his butt onto a convenient boulder to reminisce “just like in the army! March 50 minutes…rest 10! And then do it again!”
Daddy bitched like the child I was…but I trudged on like a little grunt! There was something in Bill’s facial expression as we humped the trail that I understood and respected. He’d been there and done that! It was just 10 years before that my uncle had been in Europe as a medic, patching up fallen soldiers. And his pain and pathos came through loud and clear! Daddy fought the war on the BMT leading the band out at Floyd Bennett Field. But it was different with Bill. He watched people die. He did all he could to help them but obviously, he couldn’t save them all.
My uncle used to talk to me like I was an adult. Somehow, he could tell his tales of pain weren’t falling on deaf ears. And one night for what reason I have no idea, he described to me what it was like to go into battle with the medical corp…watching his fellow medics shoot up morphine trying to deal with the fear and loathing of all the guts, gore and death they knew they were about to witness. Just 8 years old, I listened intently as he bore his soul…dealing with the post-traumatic syndrome he was clearly experiencing.
And just as you’d expect, when he got home in one piece, Bill was the kind of doctor who would treat the poor free of charge. How could he do anything else? Just part in parcel of being a member of The Greatest Generation.
At one point during the war, Uncle Bill was in charge of a ward full of wounded German soldiers. In that bunch of damaged enemies lay an SS officer — the most despised of all those German prisoners — and a man who was going to die of diphtheria if somebody didn’t ride a long way to fetch the serum that could save the German killer’s life. Bill took the ride. His colleagues were of the mind “let the piece of garbage die.” But Bill had taken the Hippocratic Oath. So he saved the man who would kill his people. That was the kind of guy Bill Bloom was.
My uncle might not be there in the flesh tomorrow…but he will be in spirit. At least in my spirit. So today…I honor my Uncle Bill! A finer pain-in-the ass kind of guy never lived. And I will be sure to let my aged aunt know how much he — and she — meant to me when I was growing up. That’s what being an adult is all about! Amen!
More family nostalgia: | https://medium.com/illumination/the-greatest-generation-and-my-uncle-bill-163a69bb48e5 | ['William', 'Dollar Bill'] | 2020-11-14 12:42:09.852000+00:00 | ['Biography', 'World War II', 'Inspiration', 'Culture', 'Family'] |
Image Enhance Recipes in Pillow | Process images in 3 lines of Python
Pillow is a versatile and popular Python imaging library. The ImageEnhance module is a particularly useful module within Pillow. It can be used to adjust colour, contrast, brightness and sharpness in a few simple lines of code.
_Enhance interface
Each image enhance function is implemented as an object that implements the _Enhance interface. The interface provides a single method:
enhance(factor)
For example, the ImageEnhance.Brightness class controls the brightness of an image, It has an enhance method that it inherits from _Enhance .
factor is a number that controls the effect. For example, for Brightness a factor of less than 1.0 makes the image darker (and a value of 0.0 makes the image completely black). A factor of greater than 1.0 makes the image brighter. A factor of exactly 1.0 leaves the original image unchanged.
The basic pattern for any image enhancement is:
Create an enhancer object, passing in the source image.
Call enhance on the object, which returns a new, enhanced Image object.
ImageEnhance.Color
The Color object can be used to increase of decrease the amount of colour in an image. Here is the code to change the colour by an amount factor :
from PIL import Image, ImageEnhance im = Image.open('carousel.jpg')
im_out = ImageEnhance.Color(im).enhance(factor)
im_out.write('out.jpg')
This image shows the effect of applying various factors in the code above. Factors greater than 1.0 make the colours stronger, less than 1.0 reduce the colours. A factor of 0.0 creates a greyscale image:
As for all enhancements, a factor of 1.0 would leave the image unchanged.
ImageEnhance.Brightness
The Brightness object can be used to increase of decrease the overall brightness an image. Here is the code to change the brightness by an amount factor :
im = Image.open('carousel.jpg')
im_out = ImageEnhance.Brightness(im).enhance(factor)
im_out.write('out.jpg')
This image shows the effect of applying various factors in the code above. Factors greater than 1.0 make the image brighter, less than 1.0 makes the image darker. A factor of 0.0 results in a completely black image:
ImageEnhance.Contrast
The Contrast object can be used to increase of decrease the overall contrast an image.
As we saw above, changing the brightness makes the entire image brighter or darker. Increasing the contrast is slightly different — it makes the light areas lighter, and the dark areas darker.
Here is the code to change the contrast by an amount factor :
im = Image.open('carousel.jpg')
im_out = ImageEnhance.Contrast(im).enhance(factor)
im_out.write('out.jpg')
This image shows the effect of applying various factors in the code above. Factors greater than 1.0 increase the brightness range, making light colours k lighter and dark colours darker. At very high contrast values, every pixel if either black or white, and generally only the basic shapes of the image are visible.
Factors less than 1.0 decrease the brightness range, pulling all the colours towards a middle grey. A factor of 0.0 results in a completely grey image:
ImageEnhance.Sharpness
The Sharpness object can be used to blur or sharpen an image.
Here is the code to sharpen by an amount factor :
im = Image.open('carousel.jpg')
im_out = ImageEnhance.Sharpness(im).enhance(factor)
im_out.write('out.jpg')
Applying sharpening with a factor greater than 1.0 applies a sharpening filter to the image. This filter enhances edges in the image, making them appear better defined. Of course, if an image is blurred to start with, the filter can’t recover blurred out details, but a small amount of sharpening can make the image look better. Applying too much sharpening can make the image look odd though.
Sharpening of less than 1.0 does the opposite, it blurs the image, softening it.
Originally published at https://pythoninformer.com. | https://medium.com/swlh/image-enhance-recipes-in-pillow-67bf39b63bd | ['Martin Mcbride'] | 2020-10-14 23:15:41.089000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Image Enhancement', 'Image Processing'] |
Stranger | Stranger
Hush….Look Closer
Photo by Taylor Smith on Unsplash
She looks back at me
not a hint of recognition on her face
The lips, eyes, skin — that are so familiar
yet she looks different somehow
As if the seasons have changed on me
I don’t recognize her anymore
The woman in the mirror
she’s a stranger to me now | https://medium.com/literary-impulse/stranger-96cf0ed7e8dd | ['Paroma Sen'] | 2020-06-12 08:09:24.128000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Time', 'Mirror', 'Literary Impulse', 'Stranger Things'] |
Taiwan Taiwanese Taipei Dedicated Server with Proxmox | Known as the gateway to East Asia, Taiwan has everything to offer its tourists, especially those who are looking for a place to relax and pamper themselves. Known for its picturesque scenery, sandy beaches, skyscrapers and tropical weather, Taiwan can definitely give you a different world. In fact, it can be called the most beautiful place in the whole of Asia. With such scenic beauty to behold, one doesn’t need any convincing to visit this island nation.
When running web-based applications like mobile applications, web sites, or even enterprise applications, you want it hosted somewhere, right? In fact, some people think that a Dedicated Server is a cost-prohibitive option for hosting their websites. In truth, though, it could actually be an affordable, high performance solution for many web hosting needs. In this article, we’ll look at how a TheServerHost Taiwan Dedicated Server works, what its benefits are, and why so many businesses are choosing to go with this type of hosting for their web site(s).
With a TheServerHost Taiwan Dedicated Server, many aspects of your website can be given the same computing power and resources. This is in comparison to a Virtual Private Server (VPS), which only gives each user access to a portion of the underlying physical infrastructure. Dedicated Servers offer high availability, high performance, and a low impact on your servers’ power, resources, and maintenance. For these reasons, many companies find that a Dedicated Server offers them the benefits they were looking for in their web site infrastructure.
In Dedicated Server Hosting you are able to lease the hardware. In this arrangement, you would pay for the hardware on a monthly basis and have full access to it. You could then use that hardware for your own purposes-such as installing applications and customizing the operating system. In addition to having the ability to install your own software applications and customize the server hardware to your liking, you also have the ability to rely on the colocation facility and all this with managed services.
TheServerHost Taiwan Dedicated Server Hosting offers a number of different options, which includes hardware from several manufacturers. Two of the most common types of Dedicated Server Hosting includes Intel and AMD. These two choices are typically compatible with each other, providing the customer with a solid foundation for building a website that works well together. With most Dedicated Servers, you will have full root and administrative privileges to the server, giving you complete control and access to the underlying hardware. Many people prefer to use Dedicated Servers because of the great thing it allows them — the ability to install and modify the server to their liking, without the interference or changes to the other website components. For those who need the full root privileges, however, opting for an AMD processor, which is much less expensive than an Intel processor, may be a better option for your needs.
Proxmox
Proxmox Virtual Environment (PXE) is a powerful, feature-rich, open source full-featured server virtualisation platform. It’s a highly-scaled, robust and feature-rich virtualization solution based on the open source operating system and hardware platform of Ubuntu. Proxmox aims to provide an easy to use and advanced virtualisation platform with very high scalability. It enables efficient deployment of applications and efficiently manages storage and memory resources.
As for the supervisor, the Xen virtualization solution embedded in the Proxmox is the most advanced and feature rich. One can use it to create multiple hypervisor environments which can be further sub-divided into containers. Thus, complete virtualization of the entire system becomes possible with the help of this technology.
Setting up a Proxmox cluster is not a complicated task and can be done even by the IT staff as they have complete knowledge about the nodes, storage and servers. Also, the cluster does not require any heavy involvement on the part of the administrators. They can create, modify and maintain the Proxmox nodes. Thus, it is now easy to implement an effective enterprise solution like the Proxmox cluster in your organization.
Another benefit of using Proxmox is that it provides the application security. The Proxmox software efficiently manages the transaction requests between the tenants and the servers. Thus, it ensures that the tenants are not affected by any attack. It can efficiently handle the requests generated by the tenants for the cluster of servers and storage nodes. The nodes are managed centrally and thus there is no chance of the nodes getting attacked. This is the reason why the Proxmox storage cluster is considered to be safe from any attack and the network is highly secured.
Moreover, the system administrator can use the web management interface for controlling and monitoring the cluster of Proxmox servers. The web management interface can be customized and developed any time. In addition to that, the features of the Proxmox provide excellent performance and efficiency at a low cost. This results in cost reduction and increase in profit margins. Also, the availability of the latest upgrades and patches mean that Proxmox remains ahead of its competitors.
There are many other benefits of using the web-based management interface and application services feature offered by Proxmox. For instance, Proxmox supports the latest and the most secure technologies such as Jumbo Frames, Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Secure Data Exchange (SQL) and other protocols such as ACD, HDAC and MPLS. Therefore, any application which is based on the protocols supported by Proxmox can run on any of the Proxmox storage systems. Also, a well-maintained server will help you save money. Thus, the installation of Proxmox is easier than any other type of installations and the web-based management interface makes it extremely easy for you to deal with the tenants and the clusters.
For more info Visit TheServerHost | https://medium.com/@theserverhosts/taiwan-taiwanese-taipei-dedicated-server-9be8c1461af3 | [] | 2021-01-18 18:53:04.754000+00:00 | ['Taiwan', 'Dedicated Server'] |
Now more than ever, focus on impact: Expert advice to guide your end of year giving. | In 2015, I surprised many by leaving a flourishing career in the tech sector to lead a nonprofit organization dedicated to facilitating impactful philanthropy. My experience in tech and a lifelong involvement with charitable causes had convinced me that data held the key to smarter, more impactful giving. I still believe this to be true.
My mission, both professional and personal, is to encourage donors to harness the power of data to make the best investments possible in the causes their hearts are called to support. In this era of extreme need and economic disarray, giving with impact has never been more important.
Combining heart and science, here are my top three pieces of advice to guide your charitable decision-making during this most unusual of giving seasons:
1. Give with passion
The coronavirus pandemic has had an uneven effect on the nonprofit sector and the causes and constituencies it serves. Organizations responding directly to the pandemic, including food banks and homeless shelters, have reported record levels of funding as Americans step up to support those hit hardest by the pandemic–but that’s not the whole story. Overall, the philanthropic sector is experiencing a painful contraction as organizations whose missions are less central to the current climate suffer from severe losses in revenue.
My advice to donors conflicted about where to channel their funds this giving season is this: Follow your passion. If the plight of those impacted most severely by the COVID-19 pandemic is your most pressing concern, donate to groups that are working to alleviate the pain. If the racial justice movement that coalesced this summer has inspired you, that’s where your funds should go. As for the causes that have long been close to your heart–the environment, the performing arts, education–they need your funds, too–desperately. In a time when you may have less to give to the causes that are meaningful to you, stay true to the ones you love.
2. Follow the data
Following your passion doesn’t mean giving indiscriminately to organizations whose missions align with your values. Not all nonprofits are equally effective–and with studies showing that only a third of donors research an organization before making a donation, you could well be throwing away your hard-earned money with nothing much to show for it in the way of real impact.
Thanks to our increased ability to access digital nonprofit data at scale, we now have more information than ever with which to evaluate a nonprofit’s effectiveness. And the tools that aggregate and distill this data for donors are increasingly sophisticated.
Earlier this summer, Charity Navigator (the organization I currently lead) added 150,000 new nonprofits–many of them smaller and more recently established than those we have traditionally rated–to our nonprofit assessment platform. We also acquired the ratings startup ImpactMatters, which developed a straightforward methodology that allows an apples to apples comparison of nonprofit impact–that is, the amount of good achieved per dollar spent. For example, want to know which food bank in your city is most cost effective at distributing meals to those facing food insecurity? This methodology will tell you.
A group photo of the Charity Navigator team in 2019.
Charity Navigator is not the only organization working to promote intelligent giving: Givewell, Candid, and BBB Wise Giving Alliance all provide useful information to prospective donors.
3. Ask the right questions
Related to the point above, I encourage all donors to ask the right questions when considering a contribution. Rather than asking “where is my money being spent?” try asking, “what has my money accomplished?” Think of your gift as an investment, which you track over time.
To determine whether a particular organization is a sound investment, look for how it articulates its impact–quantifying outcomes and sharing stories from beneficiaries, for example. If the difference the organization is making isn’t readily available or easily understood, you may want to consider supporting a different organization in the same cause area.
I hope that these steps will help you feel confident in your giving decisions in this challenging time, and when many have less money to give to the issues they care about. Remember, charitable giving is an investment one makes in an organization and a cause. It’s easier than ever to ensure that the return on one’s investment is high. So, this giving season: follow your heart, use your head, and make a difference.
Michael Thatcher is the President & CEO of Charity Navigator, the world’s largest nonprofit assessment platform. He was previously Microsoft’s Public Sector Chief Technology Officer (CTO) responsible for technology policy initiatives and engagements with government and academic leaders in the Middle-East, Africa, and Asia. | https://medium.com/@mthatch/now-more-than-ever-focus-on-impact-expert-advice-to-guide-your-end-of-year-giving-bd5e82ff13db | ['Michael Thatcher'] | 2020-12-23 14:03:37.291000+00:00 | ['Impact', 'Charity Navigator', 'Charity', 'Nonprofit', 'Philanthropy'] |
Subway Diary | Just as we outgrow a pair of trousers, we outgrow acquaintances, libraries, principles, etc., at times before they’re worn out and at times — and this is the worst of all — before we have new ones. — Lichtenberg
I’m tired of being tired of work; of Mondays. I’m tired of that ‘give us this day our daily dread’ feeling. Above all I want something new and exciting — I want to look forward to my work.
The longing for ‘the new’ however, I admit, is deadly: ‘the new’ is just another phrase for a fantasy; for the fantasies that life in a commercial society demands.
The hardest thing to do is to admit that our lives will probably not change; that the slog does not abate. Fantasy — the fantasy of escape from work-a-day reality — is analogous to sugar: a heady rush that cripples our body’s ability to adapt and flourish.
Photo by Filip Mroz on Unsplash
The question of, ‘How can I get out?’ is less philosophically interesting than ‘Why can’t I get out?’
We learn more about ourselves by admitting that we’re stuck; we deceive ourselves in thinking that much can change.
The American myth of robust individualism conceals how brutal and de-individualizing American-style capitalism is. The constant hunger for self-improvement, for climbing the ladder — the fantasy of a perfect life — is integral to the functioning of this economic system.
Symbols underpin material reality. Symbols are safety pins, holding our economic system together. | https://no-valis.medium.com/subway-diary-e824f9bd3122 | [] | 2018-03-19 14:00:32.897000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Ideas', 'Alienation', 'Philosophy', 'Aphorisms'] |
This Time It’s Different | In Ireland, we are well into the second coronavirus wave, along with the rest of Europe, but it is surprising to see just how different this wave appears to be, when compared with the first wave. Despite the fact that both waves have been similar in duration, and have produced a comparable number of confirmed cases, they differ in terms of the age profile and severity of cases, because of the actions we have taken.
Wave 1 was dominated by older and more severe cases. Wave 2 cases skew much younger, and as a result cases have been far less severe, but not only because of this, because severity has decreased across all age groups.
Even though our new behaviours — social distancing, mask wearing, good hand hygiene — are apparently not sufficient to stall transmission, they do appear to limit disease severity, regardless of age.
If true then wave 2 cases may not lead to the hospitalisations and fatality numbers we saw in wave 1, but only if we continue to observe these behaviours, and only if we can continue to shield the most vulnerable.
It does not mean we can be complacent about rising cases in wave 2, just because they appear to be less severe, but it might mean that restrictions can be more measured and less draconian.
Waves 1 & 2
The graph below shows the daily cases since mid-March, highlighting wave 1 (red) and wave 2 (blue), and showing the 7-day rolling average of these daily cases and the corresponding test positivity rate. Wave 1 lasted for about 75 days and produced more than 24,000 confirmed cases with a median age of almost 48 years-old. To date we have been in wave 2 for 72 days, with over 18,000 cases, but we have yet to find its peak, and cases have a median age of 45 years-old.
The decline from the peak of wave 1 took 45 days — or 60% of the duration of wave 1 — during the equivalent of a Level 5 lockdown that began a full month before the peak. If our current wave follows a similar pattern then a similar lockdown today would see cases peaking in 3 weeks time, at a considerably higher level, which means the decline could take longer than wave 1, taking us beyond Christmas before cases fall to low levels once more. Whether this is a pessimistic prediction or not, it looks likely that wave 2 will end up being significantly larger and longer than wave 1, at least in terms of cases.
That being said, there are many differences between the waves that are not evident by looking at cases alone, particularly in terms of the severity of the disease. Compared to wave 2, test positivity rates were much higher in wave 1, and testing volume was much lower, so it is likely that we are finding many more mild cases in wave 2 compared with wave 1. If so, then we should find a decrease in disease severity. We consider this in the next section by comparing the waves in terms of their hospitalisation and fatality rates.
How do the Waves Differ?
In the graphs below we have aligned the timing of waves 1 and 2 to facilitate a more direct comparison of cases, hospitalisations, and other indicators of disease severity; the dashed vertical line in each plot marks the peak of daily cases in wave 1 for use as a reference.
As mentioned earlier we can see that wave 1 accounted for about 55% of all cases so far, compared to 41% for wave 2. However, despite these similar case numbers, >6 times as many healthcare workers became ill in wave 1. Is this wave 2 reduction due to newly improved infection controls in healthcare settings? Or is it due to fewer hospitalisations of cases, thereby reducing the exposure of healthcare workers to the most severe cases?
We can see that hospitalisations and ICU admissions are also different this time around. The steep growth in admissions in wave 1 is notably absent from wave 2 and, perhaps not surprisingly, the relative share of hospitalisations and ICU admissions between the two waves, exhibits a similar pattern to the infection rate of healthcare workers. This is consistent with the idea that the lower rate of infection among healthcare workers is due to lower hospital/ICU admission rates, and the reduced exposure to the severe cases that this entails.
The profile of deaths from the virus has been even more different in wave 2. In fact, so far wave 2 has only accounted for 72 deaths (3% of all COVID-19 deaths to date) compared with more than 1,600 deaths in wave 1. This adds further weight to the notion that today’s cases are qualitatively different from wave 1’s cases in terms of their severity and lethality.
Why do the Waves Differ?
Before we leap to this conclusion we need to acknowledge that wave 2 is still in progress and, as such, we do not yet have a complete view of its numbers. Since we have not reached its peak, we do not know what the future holds, especially since we are told that hospitalisations and deaths can lag case confirmation by a considerable margin. The worry is that an explosion in hospital admissions and deaths will follow in due course.
In this regard, it is worth noting that hospital and ICU admissions peaked in wave 1 before cases peaked. Deaths peaked about 10 days after cases, but grew they steadily in the weeks before this. Even if cases are being detected earlier in wave 2, leading to a greater lag between case confirmation and hospitalisation/death, would we not have seen some evidence of the type of hospitalisation/fatality growth by now? After all wave 2 has been with us for almost the same length of time as the entirety of wave 1. Perhaps not, especially if the most at-risk groups have not yet participated in wave 2 because they have been shielding. The point is that we should be reluctant to assume that cases will remain mild throughout wave 2.
Also, this time around we don’t want our healthcare system to become over-run with COVID-19, so we should not have to require a repeat of wave 1 hospitalisation levels to become worried. In other words, to preserve a working healthcare system we need to ensure COVID-19 cases continue produce a much lower healthcare system burden. The low hospital burden in wave 2 provides some hope that we will be able to cope better this time, and there are in fact some good reasons why the lower disease severity may be a genuine feature of wave 2 cases:
Improvements in testing and tracing mean that we are finding many more mild cases in wave 2 — the same cases were unknown to us in wave 1 because we didnt have the testing capacity to locate them — and more severe cases are being found faster and treated earlier. Social distancing and mask wearing may help to lower the infectious dose, which may in turn lead to less sever illness. At-risk groups are more likely to be shielding during wave 2 compared with the start of wave 1— this was why hospitalisations peaked early in wave 1 — and we know that the median age of cases is trending lower in wave 2.
Age Matters
The graph below shows the number of cases across various age groups for wave 1 (the red bars) and wave 2 (the blue bars); the number of cases have been normalised per 100,000 people in each age group.
Cases by Age Group
Wave 1 was dominated by older cases and had relatively few younger cases (<25 years-old). In contrast, wave 2 has many more cases from the 15–24 year-old age group and far fewer from the 65+ group. In general, excepting the younger age groups, we can see that the relative number of cases in wave 2 decreases with age as people moderate their behaviour and in line with their perceived level of risk.
My own instinct is that the difference in the younger age groups may bean artefact of testing, in part at least. Younger groups experience milder illness and we didn't have enough testing capability in wave 1 to find them, as we struggled with the many more severe cases, but we do now in wave 2. Even still the low incidence among younger kids now that schools are open, is striking. Kids in the 5–14 age group have the fewest cases per capita even though they are circulating in large groups, mixing with older family members, and less likely to wear masks. They are the least ‘shielded’ and most exposed amongst us, but they are the least likely to become infected; indeed a recent report has highlighted that the coronavirus infection rate in schools is running at about a third of the rate in the wider community.
If the difference between younger groups is somewhat related to testing, then the difference in the 65+ age group between waves 1 and 2 is probably not, and it is more likely to be a genuine difference. There are far fewer older cases because any older people have been shielding or otherwise limiting their close-contacts.
Hospitalisation Rate by Age Group
Hospitalisation rates are often used as an indicator of disease severity and they exhibit a similar pattern in waves 1 and 2, in that the hospitalisation rate increases with age; older cases are more at risk of severe illness. However, the actual rate of hospitalisation is much lower in wave 2 for all age groups, compared with wave 1. For example, over 25% of cases from the 65+ age group were hospitalised in wave 1, compared with just 15% in wave 2. This relative reduction in hospitalisation risk is even greater for younger age groups where the current risk of hospitalisation is now typically much less than 5%.
Perhaps wave 1 cases were more likely to be hospitalised simply out of an abundance of caution as healthcare professionals were still learning about the virus? If so, then the rate of hospitalisation from wave 1 will be less well correlated with disease severity, although this hospitalisation policy seems somewhat unlikely give the priority in wave 1 to preserve hospital capacity for the most severe cases.
We should also recognise that the hospitalisation rate does not provide a complete account of disease severity. One of the most pernicious features of COVID-19 is so-called ‘Long COVID-19’, in which debilitating symptoms continue to plague sufferers for months. It is not clear whether or how this aspect of the disease relates to hospitalisations.
Case Fatality Rate by Age Group
In any event, the case fatality rate has also declined significantly so far in wave 2, compared to where it ended up in wave 1. Fatalities for this virus have always been a feature of older cases; even in wave 1 fatalities among cases younger groups (<55 years-old) were about 0.2% (1 in 500) and in wave 2 it is currently around 0.04% (1 in 2,500) for these groups. Unfortunately, about 20% of the cases from the 65+ year-old group died in wave 1, but the good news is that even for this high-risk age group the fatality rate appears to have fallen significantly in wave 2; so far less than 5% of wave 2 cases from this age group have died. So far…
Once again we need to be careful about how we interpret these data. It could be that the 65+ year-olds who have been exposed recently are becoming infected because they are less anxious about shielding since they have fewer co-morbidities than the general population in this age group; they feel more confident about their ability to deal with the disease and so are willing to shield less. In other words the recently infected 65+ year-olds as less at-risk than the 65+ year-old group as a whole. This would be sufficient to explain the lower fatality rate among those 65+ year-olds in wave 2. But if a greater proportion of this group becomes infected then fatality rates could rise quickly again.
We would we well advised to interpret these data as indications that our behaviours are protecting us, rather than as any sign that the virus has weakened. Still, the lower severity/fatality rates are real and, with all the talk of vaccines and treatments, if someone had told us that there was a way to reduce the fatality rate of this disease by 70%-90%, then I bet we would have viewed this as a major win. This is what the fatality figures from wave 2 suggest today — even among the most at-risk age groups — as long as we continue to find case early, and behave in a way that limits transmission and the infectious dose, and as long as we continue to protect and shield the most vulnerable members of our communities.
Conclusions
There is growing evidence that, compared to the first wave of the coronavirus, the second wave will produce a greater number of cases, take longer to reach a peak, and that its cases will decline more slowly. The current numbers suggest that the virus exhibits a strong seasonality effect and winter-living is likely to facilitate virus transmission, all other things being equal.
The good news is that, so far, wave 2 has skewed towards younger cases, and for this and other reasons, its cases have been less severe and far less lethal than we saw in wave 1. The reasons other than age include the behaviours that we have learned to adopt in order to live with this virus more safely. Social distancing, good hand hygiene, and mask wearing help to limit the infectious dose even when we do become infected, while comprehensive testing and contract tracing identifies cases earlier, and shielding protects the most at-risk among us. All of this combined with the selfless dedication of our healthcare workers, and no doubt some improvements in treatment, have contributed to a greatly reduced disease severity profile this time around, at least so far.
Cases are less severe but their are now more abundant. Unfortunately Level 3 restrictions have not worked to stall case growth. They started well in Dublin, where the R-value did fall to 1, at least for a few days, but it has been rising consistently again over the last week or so. And while transmission rates have slowed in most counties, in many they have not yet started to decline. Level 3, it seems, is simply not powerful enough to turn things around in time. But, while our actions have not been enough to stall case growth, they have been sufficient to blunt the severity of this disease, and without these behaviours we would surely be right back to where we were in wave 1, with overloaded hospitals and a heavy death toll.
This is why we can not afford to lose heart or to become complacent. We’ve already helped to achieve the critical goal of reducing disease severity. Now we need to go further and work to bring cases back down — with a little help from Level 4+ it seems — and once we get cases to more sustainable levels, assuming disease severity remains where it is today, then we can have another shot at living with the virus, by containing transmission through less draconian measures. Here’s hoping! | https://medium.com/data-in-the-time-of-corona/this-time-its-different-b1731251170d | [] | 2020-10-19 09:44:15.964000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Second Wave', 'Ireland', 'Data Science'] |
One Simple Technique to Let Your Mind Wander to Success | The world is in a competition for your attention. Are you selling it away for cheap?
Ever found yourself thinking the most random of things on the most random of moments, maybe it’s that dream vacation you’ll have one day, or the conversations you had or might likely not have, or daydreams of possible interactions with your ‘crush’ etc. The mind doesn’t stop. And the pandemic has only made it worse.
The digital world has become almost palpable now, closer, more real, and 100 times more addictive than ever before. Every time you sit to do something crucial, your mind easily diverts your attention to the viral trends, streams of notifications, celeb stories that you just don’t want to miss; because that’s the type of influence digital has on you. And no matter how much you try, the urge takes over you and you scroll; you become a puppet in the puppet show.
While a wandering mind can lead you to creative ideas, but again it really depends on the content. Is your content leading you to your goal?
According to a study done by Microsoft, humans now have an average focus span of 8 seconds coming down from the 12 seconds in the year 2000, continuously graphing downwards as the years go by.
What does this mean for you?
While you are fantasizing about your making plans or your crush during an important meeting, you are getting no closer to your goals and dreams, but are definitely evolving backward to our ape ancestors.
Mind-wandering leads to
- Increased time to complete a task
- Low level of work quality and performance dropping you down the food chain in the competition
- Decreased brain processing of the outer environment
- High dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and stress
- High Confusion and disorientation
Getting rid of the mental diarrhea
A mind that can make unbelievable possibilities happen, when wanders out of control is a liability. Are these distractions worth your peace of mind and goals?
If not, here is one trick you can use that is guaranteed to help you get out of the vicious circles of diversion and achieve almost anything!
There is a lot of unconscious diarrhea cooped up in the mind, the only thing that keeps us away from focus. To clear out this path for a healthy mind, one thing that has helped (me and) a million people around the world is the simple 5 minutes conscious breathing exercise. It does total traffic control.
Now don’t tell me that you are too busy and you can’t spare 5 minutes for this. You already waste enough time with your wandering mind, doing things you shouldn’t be doing. It’s only fair if you spend just 5 minutes doing something that will help you breeze through the day!
Breathing can heal your mind, your body, and your heart. You need to be consciously engaging your breath to get the benefits.
Here is how you can do it-
Wherever you are, sit or lie down comfortably and close your eyes Breathe normally and start to take notice of your breath Count backward while taking 10 normal breaths Followed by 10 deep breaths- 5 sec to breathe in and 5 sec to breathe out Again, take 5 normal breaths and 5 deep breaths in the same pattern
As you inhale, say, ‘I inhale peace and positivity.’ As you exhale, say, ‘I exhale negativity and chaos.’
And as you do so, let the air carry away all the things that push and pull you. Take a moment to smile to be in this wonderful moment of existence. And then, open your eyes.
This will surely clear the clutter and strengthen your will-power to do the intended tasks. Trust me, it works like magic.
You will find yourself to be happier and more at peace with the present!
Here is a Ted-Talk video that you can watch as guidance while you are doing it. | https://medium.com/@neha-dsharma18/one-simple-technique-to-let-your-mind-wander-to-success-2abc99ecd58f | ['Neha Dsharma'] | 2021-03-22 12:52:33.773000+00:00 | ['Success', 'Mindfulness At Work', 'Growth', 'Competition', 'Digital'] |
Official Download ❀ It Chapter Two (2019) [GOOGLEDRIVE] | [HD-720P/1080P] It Chapter Two (2019) FULL’MOVIES on Lin Pictures, New Line Cinema, Vertigo Entertainment, KatzSmith Productions | EXCLUSIVE!
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❏ About Movies ❏
Film, also called movie, motion picture or moving picture, is a visual art-form used to simulate experiences that communicate ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound, and more rarely, other sensory stimulations.[1] The word “cinema”, short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it.
The moving images of a film are created by photographing actual scenes with a motion-picture camera, by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of CGI and computer animation, or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects.
❏ Google Play Movies & TV ❏
Google Play Movies & TV is an online video on demand service operated by Google, part of its Google Play product line. The service offers movies and television shows for purchase or rental, depending on availability.
Google claims that most content is available in high definition, and a 4K Ultra HD video option was offered for select titles starting in December 2016.
Content can be watched on the Google Play website, through an extension for the Google Chrome web browser, or through the available for Android and iOS devices. Offline download is supported through the mobile app and on devices. A variety of options exist for watching content on a television.
❏ Platforms ❏
On computers, content can be watched on a dedicated Movies & TV section of the Google Play website, or through the Google Play Movies & TV Google Chrome web browser extension.[12][13]
On smartphones and tablets running the Android or iOS mobile operating systems, content can be watched on the Google Play Movies & TV mobile app.
Offline download and viewing is supported on Chromebooks through the Chrome extension, and on Android and iOS through the mobile app. Computers running Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS operating systems cannot download content.
In order to view content on a television, users can either connect their computer to a TV with an HDMI cable, use the Google Play Movies & TV app available for select smart TVs from LG and Samsung as well as Roku devices, stream content through the Chromecast dongle, through the YouTube app on Amazon Fire TV devices, or through Android TV.
❏ Formats and Genres ❏
A film genre is a motion-picture category based (for example) on similarities either in the narrative elements or in the emotional response to the film (namely: serious, comic, etc.).[citation needed] Most theories of film genre borrow from literary-genre criticism. Each film genre is associated[by whom?] with “conventions, iconography, settings, narratives, characters and actors”. [2] Standard genre characters vary according to the film genre; for film noir, for example, standard characters include the femme fatale[3] and the “hardboiled” detective; a Western film may portray the schoolmarm and the gunfighter. Some actors acquire a reputation linked to a single genre, such as John Wayne (the Western) or Fred Astaire (the musical).[4] A film’s genre will influence the use of filmmaking styles and techniques, such as the use of flashbacks and low-key lighting in film noir, tight framing in horror films, fonts that look like rough-hewn logs for the titles of Western films, or the “scrawled” title-font and credits of Se7en (1995), a film about a serial killer.[5] As well, genres have associated film-scoring conventions, such as lush string orchestras for romantic melodramas or electronic music for science-fiction films. | https://medium.com/@livower228/official-download-it-chapter-two-2019-googledrive-67d88cb77ba0 | ['Si Olol Leho'] | 2020-12-19 14:18:25.022000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'TV Series', 'Movies', 'Life', 'TV Shows'] |
Itch Itch Itch: notes on a mother’s death | It’s time to go. Two giants arrive to take my mother to hospice. Humongous ambulance men. The smaller one is about 6’2” 250lbs. The huge one is much bigger in every way — he lifts my mom out of bed like she’s a toddler. Her not-5’2” is now well under five feet. Her 135-some pounds that she always wanted to lose five of now down to what must be 85, tops. “Just pretend we’re dancing, sweetheart” the giant says, as he hoists tiny rag-doll Sheila, incredible, into a wheelchair. Sheila Berger is dying, fast, but she’s just 73, not nearly as old as she’s come to look in the past month, flesh hanging off her bones, face sunken more each day, more of a skull than a head. Deathly. The two giants don’t realize they’re taking her in for good and all, they just know we’re going to the hospital. They talk to her in ways that someone talks when someone is going to the hospital for the normal reason, to get well. The way you talk to someone who’s going to be coming home again.
I have always trusted doctors, even liked going to them, because they tell me what’s wrong and eventually fix it. Until they can’t. This is what we learn, now, Sheila and I. Until they can’t. Sheila has always driven doctors up the wall. There’s a public service announcement on TV lately encouraging people to ask their doctor questions. It shows some guy asking a million questions to the phone store clerk, his car mechanic, a waiter, but then in the doctor’s office, Doc says, “Any questions?” and the guys says, nothing, shakes his head, nope, uh-uh, I’m good. That ad was not made for Sheila Berger. She researched and printed out articles and clipped and copied and brought her lists into their offices and got her goddamn questions answered. She’d sit down in their offices, unpack her bag and begin the interrogation. She made doctors miss tee-times. Male doctors especially hated it. But a month from now, when I call the woman who was her long-time GP for the last time to tell her Sheila is gone, she cries. That’s how it is with Sheila Berger. She’s a great pain in the ass, great meaning “big” and “overwhelming” and “wonderful.” A wonderful pain from which I will soon have horrible relief.
Three days after her 73rd birthday, here we are at “The Inn,” The fucking Inn, the hospice wing of St. Peter’s Hospital. No more research to be done, no choices to be made. No more questions to be asked/answered except for a few about time and pain, and I’m the one doing most of the asking. Everyone gets a single room at the Inn. People are dying to get in and then they die to get out. Ba-dum bum, tshhhh. I’ll be here all week. Good, she says, out of nowhere, once we’ve got her set up, I don’t like the number 72. You don’t like twos, it’s true, I agree. You and your nines, she replies. Me and my nines, her and her threes. When my father and I went to the track once or twice a summer, she’d always give me three dollars to bet on the three horse in the third race.
Today, the intake nurse talks to us. Sheila tells her she wished she lived in Washington (state) so she could pull her own plug, that she hates this waiting to die, that she doesn’t want to watch herself waste away. The woman tells us that at hospice they don’t think of it as waiting for death but as “another phase of life.” My mom looks the poor woman dead in the eye: Well I don’t see it that way.
Done versus Finished. I remember a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner conversation about “done” versus “finished.” Walter, my mother’s mentor and friend, her former professor, former chairman of the English department they were both in for thirty-some years, disgusted with his students for not knowing the difference between the two. “It’s so very simple.” Walter, tall and aristocratic, a British-y, deep-voiced Canadian — formerly competitive tennis player, decorated WWII vet who came back and went to Harvard for his Phd, Walter Knotts, truly elegant, probably life-long closeted gay man. “How, how can they be so daft?” To this day, with my two-going-on-three degrees in English, I can never remember the difference. Sheila is done? Is finished? When food is cooked it’s done, when we’ve eaten it all, it’s finished. Is that it? Is she done, ready to come out of the oven of this life, ready for carving? Or finished, all eaten up, nothing left but scraps.
Sheila Barbara Strongin Berger lies in her hospice room at The Inn becoming a skeleton and I think I am fucking hungry I really want to go eat some fucking KFC I really want to go flirt with that bartender girl (she’s 24, Rachel, a girl compared to me, certainly, if not the word I’d use in public) at the Thai restaurant next to the KFC. I really want to go play online poker. I want to consume, I want action action action! I crave action. There is very little action available to me right now. Sedation is much easier to come by, via drinking, via Mom’s xanax. And so I go the bar of the Thai place next to the KFC where the Rachel girl works and I drink and I chat with her and she chats with me, seems relieved to have a stranger to talk to on a dead night and when she goes off to serve someone, I read my book I’m reading. Action and sedation, perfect. She tells me about school, about her punk-rock boyfriend. I tell her about my mom. I read an amazing page I love and I read it again, and repeat: sip whiskey, flirt, watch her healthy young hands and arms make drinks, watch the rest of her as she walks away, read again, and repeat, and the world softens a bit and I am grateful and thankful for reading and sad for Mom who doesn’t even have the energy to listen to me read to her, and then for myself for not ever taking the time it would take to even conceive of writing such a page I’ve just read and reread, such an important page, a page that makes some people think about something momentous in a new way, makes others think about it for the first time, and laugh and shake their heads and maybe later take action. Read, sip, watch, repeat. I write a note about the page in a small black notebook, and now I’ve typed it here. Scribble.
Back in the apartment, I chomp down my Three-Piece, Original Recipe, holding on as long as I can to this couple-hour respite/reverie. It’s extremely hard right now to see the point in healthy living when someone who, for the past twenty years, measured her portions to the ounce, exercised exactly as much as the books told her to, did her yoga, drank her green tea . . . you get the idea … is where she is right now four weeks to four months from her end, at 73.
No more tiptoeing around the apartment. I stomp the fucking creaky fucking floors. I turn the TV up. I sleep in my mother’s bed. On the sheets she’s been sleeping on. They don’t smell like anything. Nothing left of her to smell, no sweat, no shit or piss, nothing. The idea of sleeping on this bed feels kind of creepy, but what a great mattress! I get good and sedated with one more pill and one more drink, and actually sleep six hours straight.
Through this all, friends on the other end of the phone — enlightened, liberated (what we now, a decade later, call “woke”) men, tell me to “be strong.” BE fucking STRONG. How ridiculously macho and useless a thing to say. What the fuck is in that for me. Women do not tell me this.
“Be weak. Feel EVERYTHING!” That’s my fucking motto.
Not that I live up to it or anything, but it’s good to have a motto. Carpe Mortem.
Five days before my mother is to die, 17 days after they “gave” 28–120, I sit in the huge leather lounge-chair in the fluorescent dayroom at the Inn. A pair of overweight, early-teen cousins watch TV. Visiting a parent or grandparent, I wonder. One is on the phone, she is whiny-sarcastic: You know? Why I don’t? find that funny? she asks.
I play Wurdle, a Boggle-ish word-finding game, on my iPhone, at 3am, at her bedside. I love my iPhone. Each game is three minutes: ready . . . go! Dead, Deadly, Deathly, ade, deed, dad, done, donut, enod (well, I tried), node, noded, nodes. No “mom” this screen but she does seem to show up a lot lately.
I sit, I pace, I watch TV in the day room in the middle of the night. I leave the hospital, I go to the seedy, old-man dive bar across the street. Behind the bar is one very old man, the game on the TV. I am the lone customer. One too many, by the look on his face. I have a shot and a beer and go “home.” I look at porn, I play poker online. I watch TV. All at once. It starts to get light out, so I go to sleep. They will call me if anything happens. I am positive they won’t reach me and I’ll miss it, somehow, and I’ll have fucked up again.
Daytime. I visit my father for lunch. He actually asks “How is she?” I look at him, I look across his living room. I notice he’s bought a home blood-pressure machine.
That time she said she wished I was gay. Or did it ever even happen? I’ll have to ask her. I know it happened, but in what context? There’s a sentence I won’t be thinking for long: “I’ll have to ask her.”
At the end of freshman year of college, she called me in New York and screamed and screamed at me on the phone for looking for an apartment and a summer job before finals were over. Fucking this fucking that, you’re a fuckup! The Sheila rage. (The apology a few hour later, of course.) She, obsessing over my life of distractions, of unfinished projects, flawed, unrealized, undone, distractions stopping scribbles from being more than just scribbles, sketches, beginnings so many beginnings of stories, novels, poems, plays, artifacts of unrealized potential. Teachers telling her that I had a great deal of it, it all the way back to middle school. I remember screaming back at her over the line, until I cried, she was being so unfair, but, as always, also spot-on, a C+, some Bs, an A-: it’s the life I’ve more or less led, a 2.99999 GPA life (back when a 3.0 was a B).
Day two at the Inn. She is finally getting comfort, aka more morphine. Hospice is largely about comfort/morphine. A place to go to be given it, to give in to it. A little more each day. We say we don’t euthanize, but that’s exactly what we do, if subtly. Thank God. The head nurse, an actual her-real-name Donna Reed, is very nice, and good. A bit too hospice spiritual-self-help-y peppy, of course — “What do YOU need?” she asks me, often — but good. She cares. For the first time in weeks Sheila sleeps for hours at a time, and peacefully. It’s just about all she does. When she wakes, one time, I gently rub at the furrow lines between her brow. I am getting used to touching her more. Holding her hand, petting her arm. I will do these things. She will let me. Sheila Berger is teaching me how to die. She is an excellent teacher, as always.
Sitting on the toilet in the little bathroom next to the kitchen that’s available for all to use, at The Inn. They’re nicely set up for people to stay a while, to settle in. Outside someone sits down at the dayroom piano and begins to play a player-piano-sounding version of “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” It is December after all. Plinky plink plink. A rush of memory comes:
Christmastime, years ago. Up our block were two houses shared by six of my mom’s Consciousness-Raising-group friends, her radical lesbian friends, the people she won’t let see her now. Judy wears a cashmere cowl-neck-sweater. Joan plays the piano while Francine directs us in rousing “We Three Queens of Orient Are” and other re-gendered holiday hits. Here at the Inn, the dayroom piano plinks on.
Sheila’s neck is all spine and two ropey hints of muscle. Her body is eating her to stay alive but all the while the cancer belly grows and grows. The cancer still gloating. We let it gloat. We don’t worry about it any more. Just about comfort. To get mad at it now is just to lose again.
Back at the apartment, half-drunk and rageful and full of bad Chinese food, needing sleep and wanting action action action. I google “strip club” and “Albany.” In my life of porn and peeps, I’ve never been to a strip joint in my hometown. A few minutes later, I’m down in a seedy edge of wrong-side-of-the-tracks Albany I never even knew existed. Down by the river, at “Ciro’s Place.” The club has a parking lot with a barbed wire fence around it — promising. Inside the club is very small, dark, not terribly filthy, but somewhat rundown. The dancers are black. As is the bouncer. And the bartender. A Bud is just $4.00, a bargain for a club. It’s an empty weeknight, after midnight, and it’s just me, the bouncer, the dancers, the bartender. A dancer comes up. We have the usual chat, what brings me here, do I want a lap dance, I’ll think about it. She is half drunk and pouty. I buy her a drink. She rubs against me. Hand on my thigh. Tells me about her daughter, about moving up from Philly. Do I want a dance yet? Maybe soon. How ‘bout now? Okay, sure. I really really don’t want a lap dance, but her daughter’s future education really wants me to. I pay her $15 for the dance. She rubs around on me. And I’m not even attracted to her, she’s so obviously bored. I pay for a second dance. I manage to beg off on a third and get out the door. Action, yippee.
In the living room, I watch TV and pretend that I can write while I’m watching TV because I’m allowed to do whatever I want right now, tap out some notes about the evening. Eating is just one of those escapes of mine, Mom. But she knows that. The rest was inferred. I can do whatever I want because my mother is fucking dying and she said I can, that’s why. You got a problem with that? I know how to touch-type because she made me learn how between senior year of high school and college — so YES I CAN ABSOLUTELY write and watch TV — thanks, Mom! I’m doing it right now, to NBA highlights. So there. As I sit here, post Ciro’s, I wonder, what are your secrets, Mom, where are they? You must’ve written something down, you wrote everything down. And if I find something? Or if I find something in my head that I really really want to ask you, something I want to know, some advice I need you to give, I can’t because YOU CAN HARDLY TALK ANYMORE. And in a day, maybe two, you won’t be able to talk at all. And a day or so after that . . . . I stay up late. Late late. 5am late. I will be in no shape tomorrow. I don’t need to be in shape. This is a fucking vacation. A vacation of grief. I have nothing else on my calendar, no commitments at all.
Donna Reed tells us she needs to perform a procedure to see if my mother is retaining urine, something like an ultrasound, to peer through cancer belly and look at her bladder, to insert something in her to drain fluid, maybe. My mother breathes, Is this . . . for longevity . . . or for comfort? Comfort, Donna replies. Sheila nods, this is the answer she wants. If we’d met under more pleasant circumstances, I’d fire “It’s a Wonderful Life” lines at Nurse Donna Reed. “Mary, dontcha know me?” It’s probably on TV every day now. A movie my mother and I watched together many times. My favorite Christmas movie. I think she likes “Miracle on 34th Street” a little better.
Sheila Barbara Strongin Berger is ready for her life to end. Time’s up. Pencils down.
In the day room. Lights are off, late afternoon again, dusky. Quiet but for hum of hospital. I walk down the hall. They have drained the fluid, offering some relief. My mother sits upright, her electric bed has seated her upright. After being scanned, drained, and sleeping all day, she can barely speak: I’ve been sleeping so much. Usually after they drain me I’m so much stronger. Don’t know why I’m sleeping so — . . . The pause is long. She takes a deep breath, a big effort. I’m dying.
We go to doctors, to hospitals, expecting to be made well, no matter what we know to be true. We expect. To go on. To keep scribbling. Stopping makes no sense at all.
I sit in the day room, three-AM, lights out, visitors gone except for the one family on death watch all packed into the room down the hall. I’ve been to the old-man bar plus half a xanax, but I can’t go back to the apartment, can’t bear to leave here, to sleep, can’t risk missing it. So I play poker on the screen with people awake, somewhere, people in Vegas, and Sweden. Notoriously, bizarrely aggressive, the Northern Europeans. I bet and I raise and I fold, I win and I lose, and I . . . go look in on her. I turn out the bedside lamp. “Bedside,” lovely word. Her lungs pump air, in out in out, in and out. The fucking horror. All my life I’ve had nightmares of my father dying. Never her. She is supposed to keep driving me up a wall forever. My heart won’t stop pounding and I have no more drugs for it right here and … fuck. Where’s MY morphine? Does everyone visiting The Inn think this at some point?
I am the only visitor. No one but me. They will not will not will NOT see her like this, her dictum. All those so-called friends, all those people who’ve betrayed her in one way or another. These last years she sees betrayal everywhere. Somehow never in me. They will not remember her this way. This is part of her thinking. See Mom, I do know you. I do. I just hoped there was someone, anyone besides me and Anja, you could let in, we could let in. But I am the gatekeeper, and I have kept that fucking gate. No one has dared disobey Sheila’s rules, certainly not now. The word is out. They don’t come. They sit at home and wait for word from me. At the memorial next spring they will talk to me about it, some of them, their anger a burden, impeding their sadness, their mourning, their closure of the Sheila Berger book, that I try to help them unload, that day, and we will all feel better, at the angriest memorial ever.
My mother is about to die, but I will keep on living. A simple, declarative, complex sentence. Declarative? Complex or compound? How many years teaching English in one way or another and do I even know what that means? It is a sentence making a declaration, but is that what a declarative sentence is? Did she ever teach me this? I don’t think “finished” vs. “done” meant much to her, but yes, I know she taught me compound and complex sentences. Does anyone even use those terms anymore? Sorry Mom, sorry Walter. Words don’t always mean what they mean. This I declare. This is how it goes. It goes this way. Suddenly I’m writing like Laurie Anderson. Yes. “Oh Mom and Dad, Mom and Dad, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha-ahhh.”
One of the nurses tells me she’s stable, that I can go back to the apartment and shower and rest a little. I do shower — long, hot. I hang on to that bar she made them install when she moved in and lower myself into the tub. I sit, and sob, really really go at it. I force it, like puking, until I really am almost gagging. I sleep and wake and go back to the hospital. Morning people coming to work. Others checking out. Shift change. Something very alive about all this. I want to hug them all for this bustle. In her room, Sheila tosses and turns, opens her eyes looks around, but can’t see me, can’t see this world anymore, zombified, her gaze, like nothing I’ve ever seen. Mostly just reflex. She was always so present, direct: Look at me when I’m talking to you, Jamie. Now she’s all horizon, far away. She scratches and scratches her arms, her belly, then she turns, suddenly stronger, turns and looks right at me, out of nowhere, says, Itch itch itch, assertive, almost annoyed, but resolved, an almost comic what can ya do? statement. Lies back down, closes her eyes, scratches and tosses and turns. The pamphlet told me about this restlessness near the end. I tell Donna Reed. She ups the morphine. Mom stops tossing and scratching. Donna Reed turns to tell me something. Then she doesn’t. Knows I know. That Sheila probably won’t be tossing any more. That she’s really not here any more. Nothing more to worry about. No more scribbling, no more itching. Itch itch itch — famous last words.
First the old woman with the big, weepy family was gone. Then, just today, the younger woman, middle-aged at best, heavyset, who would cry out undecipherable sounds for hours to whichever loved one was at her bedside or out in the hall. I could only see her through a crack in the door as I paced the halls. Her people scowled at me, as if I didn’t belong there. But I come this morning and they’re the ones who have no place here anymore. I’ll be staying from now til the end. Getting so close. Can’t miss her going. Can’t bear to let her go alone. Not to see her go, not to see her off. Need to see it to believe it. Sheila’s dying and death itself. To accept it. A boy can dream.
I call Anja, tell her to come in the morning. Morning comes, and here she is. So good. Young woman, those arms so warm with blood. Alive. Her lovely loving face. So alive, so warm. It’s midday, nothing changes, but it’s coming, coming.
Donna Reed adjusts my mom on the bed, ups the morphine again, for comfort, always for comfort. Sheila moves around now a little, but hardly at all. Is a mind working in there, even to dream, or just a brain sending signals to a body pumping stuff around for a last little while? Donna leaves, shutting the door behind her, and soon my mother’s breathing starts to slow. Five seconds, ten, twenty, between breaths. The inhales are gasps, the exhales define expiration. We think it’s over. Then one more…. Then one more…. Shorter and farther apart. Something still fighting. Then nothing for a long time, thirty seconds, a minute, ninety seconds. Nothing. We cry, we hold each other. I take my dead mother’s picture, I don’t know why. She would get it. She always got it, got me. We say goodbye to someone who isn’t there. Soon they will take her away. Unbearable. I keep kissing her right at the bridge of her forehead/nose. The horrible horrible relief. Cold little bones. Done. | https://psiloveyou.xyz/itch-itch-itch-8934f97ed7ed | ['Jamie Berger'] | 2019-12-04 20:57:31.617000+00:00 | ['Death And Dying', 'Creative Non Fiction', 'Memoir', 'Mothers'] |
The Most Important Lesson on Parenting From 2020 | The Most Important Lesson on Parenting From 2020
It has been a year for learning.
Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash
As the new year approaches, I can’t help but reflect on the lessons I’ve learned over the past 12 months. We like to get wrapped up in the negatives about this year, and I’m with you. There’s been quite a few. However, there have also been many opportunities for growth and learning.
Parenting has never been a simple endeavour. There’s a lot of pressure that comes with, you know, raising the next generation. And when these difficult times come around, it is easy to want to throw your hands up in the air and say, screw it, I’m done, this parenting thing isn’t for me.
But, because we love our children, we soldier on, and the easiest way to do that is to reflect on how we managed through these challenging moments and learned from the presented difficulties.
Money doesn’t mean everything.
I’ve written extensively on my family’s financial issues, mainly because it’s a tough thing to endure when living paycheck to paycheck and worried about how you will make next month's mortgage payment.
After having been laid off from our jobs at the onset of the pandemic, we were strapped for cash — big time. It was a scary prospect, to be sure. I worried about how we would provide a happy and healthy summer for our children when they weren't allowed to visit with friends, and now we could not afford to make any family trips or even buy them toys for the summer months.
I’ve never been one to think that money means everything. We’ve always lived on a daily thin shoestring budget, but now things were getting even tighter. However, we made it work because that is just what one has to do in times of strife.
We went on picnic walks with the dog. I taught my kids how to garden and use the fresh backyard veggies for cooking. We binge-watched a ton of Netflix and played more board games than I ever thought was possible in a matter of a few months.
I won’t say it was all perfect. There were moments of boredom and stress, but we came together as a family in a way that we never had in previous summer holidays.
It is a difficult thing not to be able to afford to buy the things your children want.
We scrimp on everything and still find ourselves coming up short at the end of some months, so buying little toys and video games on a whim are not in our wheelhouse of parenting techniques — at least this past year.
I can see, in moments of reflection, how difficult this must be for our children.
Sophie doesn’t go on weekend trips to the mall as many of her friends do with their mothers. Although to be fair, even if I had the money, I wouldn’t make a habit of going to the mall because that place is hell on earth if you ask me. I’d take a hole-in-the-wall retail shop along a bustling city street over a crowded mall any day.
Lars, our son, knows that if he wants a new video game, he will have to pay for it or wait until his birthday or Christmas to ask for it as a present. Our children are not spoiled with material goods, and though I want to congratulate myself on this as a parent, I can also see it from their side because this was exactly how I was raised.
Everything we received was for a purpose. No money was wasted in our family — even fast food was a special occasion, as it is in my home as an adult now.
When I was a kid, I used to think this was the most unjust thing in the world.
Why were my parents so damn cheap? What was the problem with getting me those pink plastic sparkly shoes that I wanted when we were in the Cobbs Market the other day? How could my mother deny me like that?
Now, I’ve turned into my mother. As soon as either of my kids gets that whining “I want” voice (which isn’t very often, I might add, because they know), I shut it down immediately, without remorse or further discussion.
“Nope, you don’t need that. It’s a waste of money.”
It’s cold, I know, but I’m sure it would be worse on a mental health level to say, “Well darling, if I buy you this lifesized pokemon Snorlax stuffed animal, then we won’t have money to pay our heat bill, and we might all freeze to death in the frigid Albertan climate.”
So I’ve trained my children to appreciate what they have and anticipate birthdays with a fervour that borders mania. It seems to be working out so far.
Of course, financial security is important to have. And that is precisely why we are unflinching with our finances now so that we can grow our security for the future. We teach our children the importance of savings and how life can throw curveballs, and it is important to have a security net in times of struggle.
We’ve always been careful with our money, but 2020 taught us that there is a real benefit to raising our children without the constant need to placate them with material goods. We taught them about cooking and laundry and found books that they loved to read. We went for long aimless walks with the dog and came up with fairytale stories as we strolled the banks of a river.
These are the moments my children will remember from 2020.
They won’t remember the gifts from Christmas 10 years from now. They will recall sitting around the old army green trunk we use as a coffee table and playing What Do You Meme until our bellies ache from laughing too hard.
They will remember our moments shared and when they are grownups themselves, perhaps raising their own children, they will realize that their best memories didn’t cost a thing. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/the-most-important-lesson-on-parenting-from-2020-12dafd96a2fe | ['Lindsay Brown'] | 2020-12-29 16:05:27.384000+00:00 | ['Finance', 'Life Lessons', 'Family', 'Money', 'Parenting'] |
Gossamer: Into the Polkdot-verse Pt. 2 | For those who are unfamiliar, Gossamer is an implementation of the Polkadot Host, formerly known as the Polkadot Runtime Environment. To learn more about what exactly that is, watch our introductory talk from DotCon during Berlin Blockchain Week.
We recently celebrated our most significant milestone: achieving full sync with Polkadot and Kusama!
With this achievement, we are a step closer to a multi-client reality on Polkadot. But just as importantly, we are a step closer to a productionized Gossamer, which means Gossamer will be responsible for block production and finality alongside Substrate nodes on a live network. This means we must ensure implementation of the consensus matches with Substrate’s! To do this, we will test consensus interop on a multi-client devnet (more on this later).
Nevertheless, we’ve made great strides towards a production-ready state in the past few weeks, including refactoring our documentation page to reorganize and update a lot of the outdated content.
Finally, Gossamer Tech Lead Elizabeth Binks recently gave a talk at the annual Polkadot Decoded event. She ran a workshop on how to run a custom Polkadot-compatible chain with Gossamer. You can check out the workshop here. We also wrote a supplementary blog post/tutorial, which you can try for yourself here.
Node Optimizations
Since our last update, we have made incredible progress in optimizing the Gossamer client and its performance:
Offline pruning
Memory optimizations
Gossip algorithm
Sync speed
Starting us off, the Gossamer team implemented offline state pruning to reduce the disk space used by the node. The pruning algorithm is “offline,” which means the node must be stopped for the pruning of the database to occur. The offline state pruning algorithm used by Gossamer is similar to that of go-ethereum and utilizes bloom filters to check if historical trie nodes are still in use.
A Bloom filter is a data structure for efficiently testing set inclusion. Using the bloom filter, elements can be added to the filter in O(1), and elements can be tested for inclusion in O(1). It operates probabilistically to determine if an element is definitely not in the set or if it probably is in the set with some fixed error probability for false positives.
The pruning algorithm firstly constructs a bloom filter by traversing the database for each trie node in the recent state window, by default, the most recent 256 blocks. Each node in each block state trie gets added to the bloom filter.
The algorithm works as follows:
For each block in the state window, traverse its state trie and add all nodes to the Bloom filter. Then, iterate through the database and check each node in the database for inclusion.
Nodes that are definitely not used inside the window get deleted.
Otherwise, they are kept as-is.
We are currently implementing online state pruning, similar to Substrate’s algorithm, so that node operators do not need to stop and restart their nodes to prune.
On top of the offline state pruning implementation, the team has improved Gossamer’s memory usage. This work includes improving memory usage when syncing by only keeping the current state trie in memory and increasing the default garbage collection frequency.
The team has also improved the gossip algorithm by implementing Substrate’s “polite gossip” algorithm, ensuring duplicate messages do not get sent to peers.
While node optimization is still an ongoing challenge for the team, with an improved pruning algorithm, memory usage, gossip algorithm and sync speed, Gossamer nodes are well on their way to be production-ready!
(･ω･)b
Establishing Internal Development Network
In other Gossamer news, the team has focused on updating GRANDPA, particularly the networking protocol related to GRANDPA, which has since been updated by Substrate since the Gossamer implementation was written. GRANDPA, which stands for GHOST-based Recursive Ancestor Deriving Prefix Agreement, is the finality gadget that each authority node runs to decide on block finality. To test the authority functionality (i.e. block production and finality) of Gossamer nodes, the team has created an internal development network running only Gossamer nodes. The team has established a set of test cases to work through to ensure the node is operating as intended.
These test cases include ensuring:
Block production (BABE) functions as intended.
Finality (GRANDPA) functions as intended.
Runtime upgrades work as intended.
Non-authority nodes can sync properly.
Telemetry and RPC connections, key management, metrics, and monitoring are all in place and working as intended.
After the Gossamer-only devnet milestone has been completed, the next step is to create a cross-client internal development network to test that the Gossamer BABE and GRANDPA implementations interoperate with the Substrate implementations. Finally, we will be moving towards a Gossamer audit and productionizing the codebase after that is complete.
Keeping An Eye on the Metrics
As an ongoing process improving Gossamer, the team has implemented monitoring to track and report key metrics. Using Prometheus, the team will be monitoring and gathering metrics on network traffic. The team will also be using Grafana to visualize the data captured by the metrics.
With a closer look into the metrics, the team will further develop and improve Gossamer in the places that count.
As supplementary reading: our neighbourhood Eth2 Lodestar team also recently discussed the importance of metrics as a tool for improving node performance. You can check it out here!
General Updates
Leading up to having a fully productionized Gossamer, the team has refactored their SCALE implementation to be more idiomatic and performant. SCALE is the codec used to encode and decode data that is used by the Polkadot protocol.
The team has also continued work on the RPC layer and polkadot.js tooling. We are at a point where polkadot.js + UI is fully functional with v4.6 API, and we can submit RPC calls and visualize blocks and accounts.
Next Steps
Moving forward, the team will continue to work through development network test cases and identify issues and areas of improvement. The team will also be implementing online state pruning, where, in contrast to offline bloom filtering, the node does not need to be stopped for the pruning process to run. The team is also working towards an internal, then eventually public, cross-client testnet. This means we will have a test network containing both Gossamer and Substrate nodes authoring and finalizing blocks soon! | https://medium.com/chainsafe-systems/gossamer-into-the-polkdot-verse-pt-2-aeb83e2add74 | ['Ben Adar Hyman'] | 2021-06-08 15:28:07.434000+00:00 | ['Polkadot', 'Web3', 'Blockchain', 'Open Source', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Priceless Peace | Priceless Peace
Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash
If the Right is somewhat wrong, the Extreme Right is extremely wrong. As for the Left, it is mostly dead, and the Extreme Left is extremely wrong as well. Almost everyone on the Left and a few on the Right are talking about shalom (peace), which is surely a halom (dream) when both sides — there is actually more than one side on each side — are refusing to play footsie, cooperating instead with their pricks. But a ménage à trois implicating two pricks, or even a single one, seldom ends with the satisfaction of all parties. The two-state solution has become a wet dream, and the one-state solution is a cul-de-sac. The relocation of one side may be the only way out of the swamp of violence. But which side?
The Jewish-Israeli Side - Part 1
The Jewish-Israeli side will not cede and cannot cede for several reasons. The Hebrews, the ancestors of the Jews, and the Jews after them, were in the so-called holy land before the Arabs, the Muslims, and the Palestinians. The Jews were dispersed by force and displaced by illusory choice, always promising themselves “Next year in Jerusalem” and reciting “If I forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten!” There was always a certain population of Jews in the holy land, whether it was seized by the Christians, the Arabs, or the Muslims. Jews were killed and reviled around the world, requiring a sanctuary, a country to call their own. What other country could it have been if not Israel? The Kingdom of Israel, and the name of most of the scattered Hebrew tribes, was called Palestine from fifth century Ancient Greece. Even Zionists, who were mostly secular, thought of resettling in Israel. “If you will it, it is no dream, and if you do not will it, a dream it is and a dream it will remain,” declared Herzl. Jews around the world had been dreaming of an Israel for close to 2,000 years, albeit the Arab numerals and the Ancient Greece comma. Jews finally willed it, moving to Palestine throughout the centuries but especially in the 19th and 20th to escape the panoply of persecutions in Europe, and mostly later in Arab countries, purchasing Palestinian land, often swamped and malaria-stricken, and farming it, thriving against all odds, with help from diaspora Jews and a number of Good Samaritans. Everyone living in Palestine could have been called a Palestinian. Nonetheless, in 1948, when most Arab countries attacked the newly declared country of Israel, Muslim and Christian Arabs outside the UN-mandated lines were labeled Palestinians, while Jews with numerous Muslims and Christians in their midst were naturally identified as Israelis. Jews only have one country, and a small territory it is. Palestinians and Israelis. Israelis and Palestinians. What a travesty!
The Palestinian Side - Part 1
The Palestinian side will not concede but can concede for several reasons. The Palestinians are mostly Arab Muslims who live in the so-called holy land and in surrounding Arab countries, some of them also residing elsewhere in the world. Many Palestinians left or escaped Palestine following Israel’s 1948 War of Independence and 1967 Six-Day War, some of them keeping their house keys for the day on which they would return to claim their cottages back. The keys have corroded and most of the stone cabins have disappeared. Their “Next year in Palestine” is covered in blood, and their “If I forget you, Palestine, let my children become martyrs!” is forever fulfilled. There was a larger population of Muslims in the holy land since its capture by the Arabs, but Muslims could live in any Arab country and in any Muslim state. Some of them, however, called Palestine, the ancient Kingdom of Israel, home. Arabs and Muslims were, and are, mostly religious, and their holy city is Mecca, not Jerusalem, which is not even mentioned in the Koran. Their “If you dream it, it is Allah’s will, and if you do not dream it, a will it is and a will it will remain” echoes in crimson since 1948. Palestinians mostly will it with violence, teaching Judeopathy and attacking Israelis and Jews with stones, knives, so-called exploding sacrifices, and instead-of-food-mostly-home-made rockets and missiles. Living in Palestine throughout the centuries, they had nothing to escape from, save the decreasing crusades, that is until the exodus of surviving Jews from de-Nazified Europe, followed by other fugitives from Arab countries. Arab Muslim Palestinians even schemed and planned with the Nazis the extermination of the Jews in the holy land and Arab countries. Everyone living in Palestine could have been called a Palestinian, but in 1948, when most Arab countries attacked the newly declared country of Israel, Muslim and Christian Arabs outside the UN-concocted lines were labeled Palestinians, while Jews with numerous Muslims and Christians in their midst were rancorously classified as Israelis. Arabs and Muslims have many countries in large territories. Israelis and Palestinians. Palestinians and Israelis. What a distortion!
The UN - Part 1
The so-called UN — Un-united Nations — and could-be-called VN — Veto Nations — is another farce, since five countries, namely the USA, Russia, China, the UK, and France, can veto any so-called UN resolution even if most other countries support it, which would have been a wise control measure against aggressive governments had these five veto powers promoted liberty, equality, and fraternity completely, unlike the French who professed these values but seldom followed them. When the UN voted in 1947 for the partition of Palestine into two, Arab and Jewish, states and a singular international administration of Jerusalem, the division was accepted by the Jewish representatives notwithstanding its limitations, but Arab leaders and their so-called governments rejected it, refusing to accede to any form of territorial split. The Arabs attacked Israel in 1948 and several wars and clashes ensued with no peace in sight over seven decades later. Sacrifices were offered on both sides, the Israelis turning too many of their sons and daughters into soldiers and corpses, and the Palestinians turning many of their civilians into murderers and martyrs.
The Jewish-Israeli Side - Part 2
Nevertheless, the Jewish-Israeli side is the only side that could desert its land, since its true expanse had not been physical for close to two millennia, spreading to an unrestricted mental dimension that could dominate any indefinite domain. A democratic referendum would be mandatory, involving all Jews around the world, with Jews defined as individuals who have at least one Jewish parent and who deem themselves to be Jewish, or any individuals who converted to Judaism, with the votes of Israeli Jews doubly added. Prior to this plebiscite, all Arab and Muslim countries that voted against Israel at the UN in 1947 and beyond — all ten countries did — and all other countries that voted correspondingly — three did — would be required to acquire Israel at a colossal cost, and provide Israeli Jews, along with any other Israelis who wanted to accompany them, with indubitably available arable land at least the size of up-to-date Israel, that is including Jerusalem, the so-called West Bank, and the Golan Heights, as well as assist in the relocation of the Western Wall and any other significant structures.
The Palestinian Side - Part 2
However, the Palestinian side could also abandon its acreage, since it has — should have — a home in the vast territories of Arab and Muslim countries, as well as a longing for a so-called homeland that remains, nonetheless, relatively brief. A democratic referendum would be mandatory, involving all Palestinians around the world, with Palestinians defined as individuals who have at least one Palestinian parent and who deem themselves as Palestinian, with the votes of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza doubly added. Prior to this plebiscite, all countries that voted against a Palestinian state at the UN in 1947 and beyond — the same ten countries — and all other countries that voted congruently — the same three did — would be required to acquire East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza at the right rate and provide Palestinians with indubitably available arable land at least the size of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, as well as aid in the relocation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and any other important edifices.
The UN - Part 2
The UN, including the USA, Russia, China, the UK, and France, would accept the results of such a referendum, whether Jewish-Israeli or Palestinian (two referendums would be particularly improbable), and facilitate the monumental enterprise of the Jewish-Israelis or Palestinians. It is noteworthy that an initiative for a new Israel would be much more challenging given the need for a more than adequate area in a shrinking world. Only Australia, Canada, Russia, and the USA may contain potential areas for a new Israel. Most Jews, however, would probably exclude Russia for obvious historical reasons. Many Jews would potentially exclude Australia as well given its somewhat geographical remoteness and rather problematic situation with its Natives. Jews would have to choose between a section in Canada or a sector in the USA, providing that there is such a hospitable place. The project of a Palestinian state could be easily implemented in countries that already host Palestinians in refugee camps yet do not consider them to be citizens, namely Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, with at least 30% of the latter’s population already being spot-on Palestinian.
In Closing
Still, Israelis, who sing about peace with Palestinians, and aspire to a time of settlement, and Palestinians, who teach their children to hate Israelis, and aspire to shove them all into the sea, could simply consider a lasting territorial arrangement and peace, with religion off the table, under the table, buried in the past with all other ridiculous ideas and beliefs, which would set a precedent for the resolution of other conflicts around the world. Israelis and Palestinians, mostly Jews and mostly Muslims, paving the way to a better future. Judaism had advanced the blossoming (épanouissement) of Western humanity throughout its history, and Christianity followed suit staggeringly in the last few centuries. It is time for Islam to join the journey towards the true understanding of who we are, where we come from, and where we are headed. After all, both heaven and hell are what we make them to be.
Conversely, Israel’s refusal to forego its overseeing control of all morsels of land, all tidbits of territory, could set a different precedent for the resolution of other active and passive conflicts around the world. For example, North American and South American natives, Pacific Islanders and indigenous Australians could petition for the return of their transformed territories; Tibetans could ascend and descend the Himalayas for their ancestral land; Kurds could demand a country of their own; and Palestinians could adopt Israeli-like democratic and humane values similar to many of their people who live in Israel, or migrate, with satisfactory compensation, to a neighbouring Arab country, or somewhere perhaps more welcoming. | https://medium.com/an-idea/priceless-peace-3dede507711a | ['Patrick M. Ohana'] | 2020-10-04 02:35:30.837000+00:00 | ['Palestine', 'Irony', 'Peace', 'Israel', 'UN'] |
Create Clarity From Complexities | RTI Innovation Advisors | The new year has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? I’m ready to wrap up 2020 and look ahead to the potential of 2021. Ideally, the new year will be the opposite of 2020, and improvements will replace the challenges we faced collectively. The transition into a new year also affords time to pause and reflect on what’s transpired and prepare for what’s ahead.
It’s also a good time to ask the following: Is your organization prepared for 2021 and the changes it will bring?
Are you ready to in new ways? How prepared are you to provide consumers with new products, services, experiences that will differentiate and delight? How are you signaling that you understand consumers’ needs and that you can make their lives better, easier, less stressful? stressful? D o you understand consumers’ states of mind and priorities, their views on 2021, their thoughts on navigating environments vastly different from those they knew in 2020?
We’re positioning our CPG clients to prepare for 2021, and we’re having conversations about what to anticipate and how to respond. we’re helping clients explore alternate future scenarios and use those scenarios to inform their strategic planning.
Historically, our foresight work has been longer-term — focused on the upcoming three to five years. We dive deep into trends, explore, and understand the impacts and implications of these trends. We help clients envision what they need to do to respond to trends — so that they are positioned to win in the present and well beyond.
Let’s talk about how we can leverage foresight -whether it’s our traditional methodology or sprint-to create a more compelling future for your organization and your consumers.
And may your new year be healthy and successful. | https://medium.com/@rtiinnovationadvisors/create-clarity-from-complexities-rti-innovation-advisors-9b04632879a4 | ['Rti Innovation Advisors'] | 2021-02-10 22:53:30.634000+00:00 | ['Innovation Management', 'Product Development', 'Foresight', 'Cpg', 'Consumer Products'] |
Photo of Planet Uranus Taken With off-the-Shelf Cell Phone | Pictures of Uranus are tricky, but yes, it’s very true
My goal is to photograph the trails of satellites in the night sky, with known stars in the background, to enable analysis with Python scripts to calculate things like altitude, velocity, and other parameters. My passion is using Python for creative and fun real-world applications, and this night-sky application seemed like a good challenge.
Photo by Usukhbayar Gankhuyag on Unsplash
Updated Camera
About a week ago I traded up my phone for a Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra model. I chose this phone for its cameras, although there are several other phones available with similar capabilities suitable for various types of simple astrophotography. I wasn’t sure if any of today’s phones would be up to the task of capturing stars and satellites, but I was in for a pleasant surprise!
Photo by Jonas Leupe on Unsplash
Finding a Dark Sky Location
Last night was our first drive out of town to find better dark sky conditions, with the hope of catching a satellite or two. (The Python scripts are yet to be written, but stay tuned as I plan to present some code in the next few days.) The night was a huge success, as the photographs showed many more stars than we could see with the naked eye, and we caught several satellites that we were able to clearly identify with the aid of the online Stellarium program.
Even as the Sun was setting we captured many stars in our photographs
For example, we could clearly see the constellation Cassiopeia with the naked eye, but the photographs revealed many more stars in that part of the sky than we had expected. Here’s a comparison of a zoom in on one small part of a photo with a screen grab of Cassiopeia from Stellarium:
A small part of a photo showing Cassiopeia
Courtesy Stellarium online app
It’s tricky to do the photograph justice here in this online article, but it is very possible in the original photo to see many faint stars that perfectly match those shown in the online Stellarium app as you zoom in on the same part of the night sky. Notice that even the M31 galaxy is visible in the photo as a faint smudge.
Camera Setup
To capture these photos I put my Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra camera into Pro mode, manually set the focus to infinity, the ISO to 1600 (it can go up to 3200 on this camera), the exposure to 8 seconds, and the aspect ratio to 4:3. I used a tripod, as this is an absolute necessity to get clear 8 second exposures.
Photo by Ben Collins on Unsplash — Any astrophotography requires a tripod
We came home with a couple dozen photographs, several showing Russian, U.S., and even Egyptian satellite trails. Again, stay tuned for a future article showing how we verified these satellites, and how we can do interesting calculations on those photos. But the story doesn’t stop there!
Fun Facts About Uranus
Uranus is an ice giant planet almost 20 times further from the Sun as the Earth, and its diameter is only 4 times that of the Earth. Jupiter is almost 3 times bigger than Uranus, and it’s only about 5 times as far from the Sun as the Earth. Uranus takes 84 Earth years to orbit the Sun just once. Jupiter is easy to see in the night sky, but Uranus is smaller, much further away, and it sits far out there in much dimmer sunlight. It really is hard to see, or photograph.
Planet Uranus fact: It’s almost exactly 4 times the diameter of the Earth
Catching Uranus in a Photograph
While studying the various photographs against the Stellarium display, I noticed that Uranus was marked in a position that should be in one of the photos. Sure enough, when I zoomed in on that part of the photo, the dim white dot of Uranus was there! Uranus is normally nearly impossible to see with the naked eye, or to photograph with off-the-shelf cameras without special lenses and filters, so I was totally impressed and blown away with this discovery.
Courtesy Stellarium online app | https://jccraig.medium.com/photo-of-uranus-taken-with-off-the-shelf-cell-phone-11014fbfdee7 | ['John Clark Craig'] | 2020-11-08 03:32:26.730000+00:00 | ['Astronomy', 'Cell Phones', 'Python', 'Astrophotography', 'Amateur Astronomy'] |
What makes for a successful upgrade, migration, or big change to your community | Change can be tough for many members of your community. Having the right strategy in place will help with the overall transition and mitigate any issues that arise from making significant changes to a community. It is important to remember that we, as humans, are creatures of habit and places we love such as our communities are where we are comfortable.
Communicate frequently
While it may seem like a good idea to keep the next best thing for your community under wraps, at some point, you really should let them know change is coming. While you don’t have to keep hinting at the dragons like George R. R. Martin, you should at least ensure that your community isn’t blindsided when the change comes.
Something as simple as creating a thread and updating it throughout the process can be a great benefit to your community when it comes to preparing for a large change. You can share general information on the update, photos, or even video demonstrating new features in order to educate your community. Not only does this keep your community members in the loop, it also builds hype and excitement instead of fear and resentment if withheld.
Also, don’t forget to let your community know when the update is coming; once you have a firm date set, stick to it so your users will be prepared, and let them know as soon as you do when it is coming!
Set yourself up for success
Get your administrative and moderation team involved in the process as soon as possible.
These are the people who should be intimately familiar with the software your community runs, so make sure they understand the changes. It may seem trivial, but holding a simple 1-on-1 with your staff either individually or as a collective can ensure their comfort level is kept high. In the past, we’ve seen moderation members stay quiet during a transition as opposed to helping others, simply because they did not want to say the wrong thing for an organization or community that they represent.
Small changes, such as the positioning of the moderation tools menu or the form fields on a report, can create a negative experience for your moderation team. Your team will be handling a lot of feedback from users once the changes are live, so having your team able to fully advocate for the changes will help everybody.
Create resources for new features; don’t let your users get lost with major changes.
Creating guides, such as a series of video tutorials, can help users acclimate to large updates such as new software, a new tool, a new design, and more. Combining this with staff trained in the new software, as well as notices to help guide users through new features will help minimize frustration within the community.
Give a voice to your core members with a beta team role.
You can build a beta team of your most active and vocal members who are prominent in the community; have them work along-side the rest of your team to learn the new changes and provide feedback. Involving users from the community in the process gives you even more advocates for the changes that are coming, and eases the burden off of you and the rest of your team! Plus, you can incentivize people to join the beta team by providing unique rewards, such as a special badge or title on the community. Who you pick for your core beta team should be those who spend a lot of time online, are the most vocal, and perhaps the most critical of you. If you are not sure who these people are, ask your mods or even just look at time spent online, post count, and oldest active users, as a starting point.
Why is a beta team important?
One of the best reasons to have a beta team composed of leaders in your community is that when feedback starts rolling in, those leaders who would normally be a critic of yours will now be your greatest asset. We all know who these people are in the community: the loudest and most vocal, often obnoxious, spends the most amount of time online, is in every discussion and event, etc. You want them on your side through any large change. Instead of potentially asking tough questions about the changes, potentially bad mouthing you or the community and being critical in any way, they will instead talk about how they helped be a part of this change, how exciting it is, and help others who need help by answering questions and being a true community leader. Help them help you. Talk to them and give your most active members in your community the confidence and support they need;, you will be glad you did.
How large should your beta team be?
Well, that will depend on the size of your community, and the size of the update that is coming. For something small, a couple members will be fine. For a major overhaul, get as many of the most prominent members as you can to help! Your beta team can be directed to focus on specific portions and provide feedback, but one extra benefit is that their investment in the process gives them the opportunity to feel a sense of ownership of the change, allowing them to more effectively communicate with the rest of the community about the rationale and usefulness of the changes when they go live!
Gathering feedback before and after launch
Feedback is critical in understanding how to handle the changes. If at all possible, before planning a major update, collect feedback from your community on features they’d like to have and features you’re planning to unveil with the update. During the development and testing phase, collecting feedback from your administrator, moderator and beta team will help in ironing out any potential issues that may arise before going live. Not only will your members feel grateful for being involved, but when the change does come they will feel a sense of pride, ownership, and excitement. Finally, don’t forget to ask users for their thoughts post-launch as well. A community is always growing and changing, and after a major update you may need to consider additional smaller changes in order to ensure your users are happy and your community continues to grow!
Gathering feedback can be done in a variety of ways.
Slack, Discord, or a private forum are all great ways to collect feedback. As development gets closer to completion, it is a good idea to even have your team provide feedback within the demo of the new and improved community software itself; this allows your team to familiarize themselves with it even further! You can also create simple surveys to focus on specific aspects of the update.
Here are a few resources you can use. Make sure to make a copy and edit to be unique to your community and your needs.
How to handle feedback
Some feedback from your users may not be the most positive; this is true for nearly any major community update. How you handle that feedback will determine how your community continues to respond to you and any further updates, and handling it well ensures you retain as many community members as possible. Remember that many of the most successful communities have a community manager that listens and interacts with the community. Times like these are the best time to show your commitment.
Number one, be graceful in responding to feedback
Showing good faith and humility while responding publicly can have a large impact on the community environment. In reverse, responding with hostility will drive members away and potentially create a rift within the community. Listen to your community; ask follow up questions and make notes covering any issues that seem to be prevalent with the update. Also, avoid being too long-winded in explanations; the more complicated you make an explanation, the more combative you might seem to your users.
Be empathetic with your community
Do your best to understand the changes from their point of view, because they are what makes your community what it is. Sometimes, users are just frustrated at change. It happens. As long as you are patient, humble, and ask follow-up questions to get as much detail as you can, you’ll put yourself in a much better standing. Given time, your users will probably grow to accept the change when needed, as long as you are patient and show empathy throughout the process. The users providing negative feedback could just be having a bad day, or may even have difficulty communicating their experiences. Often they will not have the technical knowledge or understanding of the platform as you do, and what may seem like trivial changes can be a jarring experience for your community members. Furthermore, simply taking it on the chin when someone provides some less than flattering opinions will show that you indeed have a bigger goal in mind and that the community is a shared platform for all.
Be prepared for common responses to change
There are a number of things members of your community may say when the new changes go live. Here are a few potential reactions you may see, and ways to respond to them.
“if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.”
Briefly explain the technical/business reason for making the change and how it benefits them.
“I don’t like how it looks.”
The creative process is pretty cool. Share how or why some of the changes were made both to user interface and user experience. For example, showing design mockups, the conversations had, resources created throughout the process, and logic behind the decisions made.
“I can’t find this.”
If your layout changed, let your members know where they can access frequently used functionality or information.
“Can I go back to the old site?”
Offer the option to give it a try for a few days. Change is tough and takes time to get acclimated to.
“This is garbage”
Ask for specifics. Be humble. Sometimes, what they hate could be as simple as the font being a bit smaller. Show them how to increase it, or consider going back to the same fonts as before.
In summary
Every update is different. Things can go perfect, things can go less than ideal. Preparing for the worst and planning for the best is always a wise outlook. Your community is a temple and should be treated with respect and care, especially when change comes knocking. | https://adjourn.audent.io/what-makes-for-a-successful-upgrade-migration-or-big-change-to-your-community-897aa44d3df7 | ['Mike Creuzer'] | 2020-07-01 21:12:41.487000+00:00 | ['Software', 'Community Management', 'Community', 'Forum', 'Community Engagement'] |
The IIoT versus Industry 4.0…What Sets Them Apart? | Photo by fabio on Unsplash
One of the most abundant resources of our age is, without question, data. Data flows through factories, offices, performance venues, amusement parks. It is omnipresent in organizations of all kinds, and it has changed them for the better. Think of all the machines in a hospital, for example, that keep track of a patient’s vital processes and then alert medical professionals when the patient needs immediate attention. Lives are literally saved because data is processed and analyzed by machines for the benefit of humans.
Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are intimately involved in the collection and harnessing of all this data. What are the IIoT and Industry 4.0? What do they have in common, and what sets them apart?
Industrial Internet of Things
Photo by WORKSITE Ltd. on Unsplash
The Industrial Internet of Things is a blanket term used to describe the industrial part of the Internet of Things. If you aren’t clear on what the Internet of Things is, I recommend reading this article.
The IIoT extends to any business or industry where data is collected, analyzed, and utilized. It’s a pretty broad term used to describe network-enabled, data-collecting devices that use data to improve the way businesses run. The example in the introduction of smart monitoring machines in a hospital shows a practical application of IIoT technology, which is also used widely by gas and oil companies, factories, office buildings, truck fleets, event centers…the list goes on and on.
Much of the IIoT has to do with robots. A robot is simply a machine that can carry out complex tasks; it’s not necessarily a walking, talking being like C-3PO from Star Wars. IIoT robots do everything from track semi-truck shipments to perform industrial work to monitor those patients in the hospital. Some of these robots, particularly those used in factories, are highly sophisticated machines that can perform tasks like scheduling their own maintenance around the needs of their employer.
This is great news for consumers as well as businesses. Keeping a machine in good working order means it keeps making things. When a robot is out of commission, production costs go up due to the loss of its work, and guess who ultimately pays for that? The consumer (when the price of the product rises). Machine learning like this helps to streamline manufacturing, along with many other processes, using the power of IIoT data.
Here are some key things to remember about the IIoT as it relates to Industry 4.0:
The IIoT has many variations in industry. Just consider the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), a consortium of nearly 200 organizations that best represents the interests of the IIoT. The major players in that group are GE, AT&T, Cisco, and IBM, and its purpose is to “catalyze and coordinate priorities and [enable] technologies in industry, academia, and governments around the Industrial Internet.” In other words, the IIoT under this consortium encourages and enables the use of internet-connected technologies in all kinds of industries.
The IIoT offers a wider supply chain web that benefits all users, not just one in isolation. This interconnectivity can be used to do things like eliminate highly reactive “ripples” in inventory based on temporary customer behaviors and track quality issues better along supply chains.
Industry 4.0
Photo by Eddie Kopp on Unsplash
Industry 4.0 (I4) is another story. It has its roots in Germany, the home of great beer and sausages. The phrase “Industry 4.0,” or “Industrie 4.0” in German, was coined in 2010 to describe a nascent collaboration between the German government and manufacturing interests in that country. Government agencies in economics and research joined forces with science, industry, and research for the benefit of the people of Germany (and the world) to create opportunities and jobs for generations.
Industry 4.0 does have to do with connecting and integrating all that information flowing into and out of sensors, but in this case, it is specifically focused on German manufacturing. The overall goal of Industry 4.0 is to form cyber webs that will add value in manufacturing, reduce waste, or both. This is the “revolution” in how products are developed, produced, managed, and consumed both today and into the future.
And the rest of the world is taking notice. The High-Tech Strategy 2020 is the German government’s initiative for Industry 4.0, and Chancellor Angela Merkel has placed a priority on education and research. You can bet this involves those manufacturing robots that can schedule their own maintenance, which I mentioned in the previous section, along with many other intriguing and potentially revolutionary innovations.
Industry 4.0 and IIot have much in common in that both are concerned with gathering, analyzing, and then using the huge amounts of data collected to increase productivity and value. However, as you’ve probably surmised, there are some key differences. Let’s compare the two:
Manufacturing is the focus of Industry 4.0.
Germany’s government is part of the framework of Industry 4.0, with support and coordination driving decisions that extend to making manufacturing more efficient through technology. Industry 4.0 originated in Germany with the goal of maintaining German global competitiveness.
Industry 4.0 is made up of nine principal technologies, communicating among themselves and the humans overseeing them all in a “smart factory” setting to coordinate and monitor:
○ Autonomous Robots
○ Simulation
○ Horizontal and Vertical System Integration
○ The Industrial Internet of Things
○ Cybersecurity
○ The Cloud
○ Additive Manufacturing
○ Data and Analytics
○ Augmented Reality
Similar, But Not the Same
Industry 4.0 has been described as a cultural philosophy to increase production and remain highly competitive within the realm of manufacturing in a limited area. The Industrial Internet of Things offers the connectivity for that philosophy to work for the benefit of industry, business, and consumers on a global scale. And on an even larger scale, the Internet of Things connects our factories, our workplaces, and our homes into an increasingly efficient and interconnected web with limitless possibilities.
Sources:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00207543.2019.1652777
https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/dem/monitor/sites/default/files/DTM_Industrie%204.0.pdf
https://medium.com/the-industry-4-0-blog/industrial-iot-vs-industry-4-0-vs-industry-5-0-a5f9541da036
https://www.gtai.de/GTAI/Navigation/EN/Invest/Industries/Industrie-4-0/Industrie-4-0/industrie-4-0-what-is-it.html
https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/germanys-high-tech-strategy-2020-setting-stage/31361/
https://www.automationworld.com/industry-40-or-industrial-internet-things-whats-your-preference
https://lucidworks.com/post/how-are-iot-and-industry-4-related/ | https://medium.com/@davidhoysan/the-iiot-versus-industry-4-0-what-sets-them-apart-549719279cea | ['David Hoysan'] | 2020-03-03 15:44:19.374000+00:00 | ['Iiot', 'Data', 'Software', 'Industry', 'Hardware'] |
Outcomes as Enablers of Business Impact | Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in a situation where you felt like a team you were a part of, or even an entire organization that you worked for, spent much of its time and attention on things that were unlikely to have significant business impact, or improve the lives of its customers. (If I were to say this to just about any random group of people, a lot of hands invariably go into the air, partially because it’s written in the past tense — it feels safer to say this about somewhere in our past than it does in our present.)
Signs That We’re Focusing Too Much on Outputs
As Christophe Achouiantz points out in the blog post Output vs Outcome vs Impact, it’s a common anti-pattern for organizations to focus a significant amount of attention on outputs, while outcomes are often an after-thought, or worse still, are rarely if ever considered. Chris calls out multiple warning signs of too much organizational focus on outputs. For example:
Devoting a great deal of time and energy to balancing the sides of the iron triangle, aka the “triple constraints” — time, scope, and cost (it’s certainly desirable to finish on time, for instance, but an on-time delivery that the customer hates is a classic example of focusing on outputs, such as a date, at the expense of achieving meaningful outcomes, like solving a customer problem)
Endless debates over small details, like whether a particular user story is 5 story points or 8 story points, or excessive focus on vanity metrics
Heavy emphasis on optimization of one part of the value stream, which can certainly make a difference, and yet, if nobody is paying attention to what customers actually care about, we can end up delivering more of what the customer doesn’t want, faster
Success Theater
A significant amount of organizational dysfunction also has to do with what John Cutler describes as “Success Theater,” aka working in a Feature Factory, where organizations focus on things that are not delivering much business value. Below are a few of the Feature Factory manifestations that John writes about:
No measurement. Teams do not measure the impact of their work. Or, if measurement happens, it is done in isolation by the product management team and selectively shared. You have no idea if your work worked Rapid shuffling of teams and projects (aka Team Tetris). Instead of compelling missions or initiatives, teams deal in feature and project assignments. Chronic multitasking and over-utilization Success theater around “shipping” with little discussion about impact. You can tell a great deal about an organization by what it celebrates Infrequent (acknowledged) failures and scrapped work. No removed features. Primary measure of success is delivered features, not delivered outcomes. Work is rarely discarded in light of data and learning. Often the team lacks the prerequisite safety to admit misfires
Note: See also John’s more recent Feature Factory post.
Differentiating Between Outputs, Impacts, and Outcomes
In his book Outcomes Over Output: Why customer behavior is the key metric to business success, Josh Seiden offers some great advice about what things make the biggest difference, and why. Consider Josh’s example below:
Imagine that you work at a charitable organization and you’ve been asked to build a well in a small village that lacks modern plumbing. You’ve been given funding by a foundation that wants to increase the standard of living in this village. They have observed that villagers spend a large amount of time every day walking to the river to carry water. The foundation believes that if the villagers had a well in the center of the village, they wouldn’t have to carry water such long distances anymore, and they could use their time for other activities–ones that would allow them to improve their standard of living.
Josh goes on to point out that in the social impact sector, one model that is popular is called the Program Logic Model, which looks like this:
Resources > Activities > Outputs > Outcomes > Impact
Using that model for the well project, it might look something like this:
Plan the resources (people, materials, money) we need
(people, materials, money) we need Undertake a set of activities (travel to village, acquire materials, build well)
(travel to village, acquire materials, build well) Create the output (the finished well)
(the finished well) (Assuming the well works as planned) Achieve the desired outcome (people in the village spend less time carrying water)
(people in the village spend less time carrying water) (Assuming the outcome is achieved) The well is an important factor in the desired impact — higher standard of living in the village
Notice that the outcome–people spending less time carrying water–is a change in behavior that creates positive results… To see if our work is actually making a difference, we need checkpoints that are smaller, measurable, and more closely connected to the work that we’re doing. That’s where outcomes are important. By setting our outcome as ‘villagers spend less time carrying water’ we have an easier time assessing the quality of our work.
Thinking in Terms of Outcomes
It takes practice to think in terms of outcomes, because, in reality, few organizations think in those terms when it comes to how they articulate business value, and the extent to which they view the value of what they deliver through the lens of successful customer outcomes.
Let’s say that we tell a team that their work will help make the business more profitable, or reduce business risk (to name a couple of common examples). At first glance, we might be tempted to think that making the business more profitable, or reducing business risk, sound like desirable objectives. That’s all well and good, but suppose there are multiple variables at play. For instance, a release might include many new features. We need to make sure we understand which things in the release have a causative relationship when it comes to customer satisfaction.
Note: For additional thoughts about metrics that matter, see this Excella guide I recently authored: Measuring Impact with Agile Metrics.
To put a finer point on the difference between outputs and outcomes, Josh goes on to say the following in his book:
We need to ask our teams to work on outcomes–the smaller, more manageable targets that, taken together, will create the impact we want. We do this by asking them to focus on changing customer behavior in a way that drives business results. You can manage a team by telling them what to make: that’s called managing outputs. It’s a problem because features don’t always deliver business value. You can manage a team by asking them to target some high-level value, like growing revenue. That’s called managing impact. It’s a problem because it’s not specific enough. What you want is to manage with outcomes: ask teams to create a specific customer behavior that drives business results. That allows them to find the right solution, and keeps them focused on delivering value.
Outcomes, Experiments, Hypotheses, and MVPs
Now let’s think in terms of practical application of some of the ideas mentioned above. One way to get there is to leverage some of the ideas from Lean Startup, where there is a heavy focus on experimentation. Returning to Josh’s earlier example, about building the well in the village:
When you start thinking critically about value delivery instead of features, you very quickly run into a problem: how can we be sure that the stuff we’re making is actually going to deliver value? For example, how do we know that the well in the middle of the village is actually going to raise the standard of living in the village? The simple answer is that you frequently can’t know in advance. This is why, when working with outcomes, you need a companion tool: the experiment… Think about the idea that a well would increase the standard of living. How could we test that? Maybe we could bring in a small gas- powered pump and some hoses, and pump water from the river to a central location in the village for a week. We could see then how people might use their extra time. Would it make a difference in their quality of life? Testing our ideas this way, before we commit to an expensive construction project is an effective way to manage uncertainty in our planning.
There are many misconceptions and failed attempts to define a Minimum Viable Product, or MVP. For the sake of keeping this brief, let’s simply call an MVP a “controlled experiment which makes it possible to get meaningful feedback from a potential customer.”
Surfacing Outcomes: The Magic Questions
One of the most powerful things in Josh’s book is the “magic questions,” which can help us remember to focus on business outcomes:
1. What are the user and customer behaviors that drive business results? (the outcome we’re trying to create)
2. How can we get people to do more of those behaviors? (small experiments such as software changes, policy changes, promotions, and so on that are designed to cause those behaviors to happen)
3. How do we know that we’re right? (tests and metrics that can help assess progress)
User and Customer Behaviors that Drive Business Results
To wrap this up and help us move from abstract concepts to actionable steps, if we truly focus on user and customer behaviors that drive business results, it fundamentally alters the way in which we approach planning activities. Let’s face it, if we take a close look at the conversations that take place in many planning contexts, we spending a lot of time talking about what we’re going to build, and how we’re going to build it, without understanding much about the extent to which it will actually make customers’ lives better.
Tip: For additional insight on which things tend to make the biggest difference when it comes to what we measure, and what those things can and cannot tell us, check out Troy Magennnis’ talk from the Agile 2018 conference: What’s the Story About Agile Data? In his talk, one of Troy’s observations is that based on the many organizations he visits, when it comes to what they spend their analytical/reporting energy on, he sees huge effort spent on data related to current status (progress reporting), a significant amount of data related to portfolio management concerns (selection and prioritization), and painfully little data about customer validation (what “impact” our work is having).
Conclusion
We would be well-served to fashion our conversations in such a way that we cannot possibly forget to answer foundational questions, such as these:
What are our customers trying to achieve?
How do they achieve that outcome now?
What can we do to make it easier for them to achieve that outcome?
As Peter Drucker once said: | https://medium.com/agile-outside-the-box/outcomes-as-enablers-of-business-impact-c228a5dbd29f | ['Philip Rogers'] | 2020-09-25 19:39:43.101000+00:00 | ['Lean Startup', 'Product Management', 'Business', 'Impact', 'Outcome Over Output'] |
The Day I Left My Husband | Home from now on was where I decided it would be, and where I felt safe.
I don’t remember what the weather was like that day. I don’t remember what I was wearing. I don’t even remember how I was feeling.
All I remember about the day I left my husband was the intense, instinctive need within myself to just GO.
I packed everything I could think of into my car while he was screaming obscenities at me, got in, put it in drive, gripped the wheel, and drove away.
I’m lucky to have made such a relatively smooth getaway considering all the years of violence and abuse.
Many women are not so lucky.
And so I drove for over an hour, up a mountain, to the city I had been commuting to every day for work. I drove to a mall parking lot and sat there. It was winter. I had no plan. I walked into the mall and purchased a comforter that was on sale. I took it back to the car and considered whether I was going to just sleep in the backseat that night.
I had never felt so alone in my whole life.
But it was nothing like the fear I had felt in the last few years of my marriage. This was nothing compared to that.
For any woman who has left an abusive marriage or relationship, I think there’s nothing quite like that surreal mix of adrenaline, terror, and absolute relief. The “leaving” really feels more like escaping. You almost can’t believe it’s real once you finally get away from an abuser. There’s always that very real fear that they will follow you, track you down, and do something violent.
That fear never truly goes away.
I never wanted to leave my husband. I had always hoped that things would get better. As I know and others like me know, however, it doesn’t tend to get better — only worse.
I had left him before, maybe for a day or two. But I always went back. I went back because I was afraid. I didn’t think I could really ever leave him for good.
But this time was different.
I had finally reached my breaking point. The life I was living could not be my final destination. I was done with the misery, tears, and darkness. I was ready for the light.
I ended up getting a cheap motel room that night I left. I got takeout and ate in my room. I locked the door and closed all the curtains.
I finally felt safe.
I slept better that night than I had slept in a very long time. I was a tiny speck in the universe and no one knew where I was. Feeling insignificant felt good. It felt like I could do anything.
I ignored the calls and texts, asking when I was coming “home”. I wasn’t going back to a home like that ever again. Home from now on was where I decided it would be, and where I felt safe.
The next day I went to work like normal and told absolutely no one about what had happened in my personal life.
I dyed my hair and cut it that week. I searched for an apartment. I even stayed for a few nights in a freezing cold Brazilian jiu-jitsu studio my co-worker offered me to save money. There was no heat or hot water in the studio but those three icy-cold showers I took there were only the beginning of my awakening into a new way of being.
I found a cozy apartment in a nice community to rent within 2 weeks of leaving my husband. The manager of the apartment was a woman who had been through what I had been through. She was kind. She was an angel. She understood that my husband could never know where I was. She never called the old apartment building I had come from for references. She waved part of my deposit. She took a chance on me and I will never forget her.
And that’s the thing about making decisions that are true to your best path. Once you start making them, all kinds of doors start opening up. Once you finally break free of poisonous relationships and toxic habits you begin to feel a freedom you either forgot about or didn’t even realize existed.
Those of us who are lucky enough to get out know the gratitude of freedom. We know the taste of primal fear. And we know that there is a life out there after abuse that is safe, fulfilling, and so worth the journey.
If you are the victim of domestic abuse or know someone who needs help, please call The National Domestic Hotline at 1–800–799–7233
More from Michelle: This Is Why So Many Women Don’t Like Their Partners Watching Porn | https://medium.com/heart-affairs/the-day-i-left-my-husband-a453391fc1d8 | ['Michelle Brown'] | 2020-06-27 23:04:29.150000+00:00 | ['Divorce', 'Life Lessons', 'Relationships', 'Domestic Violence', 'Marriage'] |
Why I can’t stop recommending ‘A little life’ by Hanya Yanagihara | “My phone rang, and although it wasn’t a sinister time of night, and although nothing had happened that I would later see as foreshadowing, I knew, I knew.”
Yes, it is an 832-page novel. And it will probably make you cry. But even though it’s a difficult read, as soon as I finished it, I only wanted to go back to the beginning and start reading it again. Going back to when they were all young, and you were not aware of how their lives would develop.
‘A Little Life follows four college classmates — broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition — as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.’
I had spent the last years reading non-fiction books, with this weird idea that any time spent reading should improve myself.
However, the pandemic shook things up for everyone, including me, so I was navigating Pinterest trying to find new hobbies or stuff to learn in order to fill my days. I started reading lots of blog posts on great books or favorite books of famous people so, after reading ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’, I stumbled upon a post with 31 you ‘won’t be able to stop thinking about’. Right under ‘The handmaid’s tale’, there was A little life.
I did not give it that much thought and I just ordered it.
I became absorbed by the book, up to the point that I was telling the story to my partner (whom I know would never read it).
Why did I like it so much? Because it makes you feel something, it actually makes you feel a lot. The book has nothing to do with me or my story, I am lucky enough to have had a healthy and happy childhood. But it gave the phrase ‘everybody is fighting a battle you know nothing about’ a whole new meaning. We sometimes get caught up in our problems at such a high level that we forget that we have all the tools to be happy, or at least I do. But some others don’t, and reading it in the first person, learning so much about trauma, and the good and evil in humankind moved me.
You shall expect a disturbing and dark book, with some broken characters and their struggles through life. But there is also something beautiful about it (otherwise why would I recommend an 800-pages long hard time) and a great description of unconditional love.
Be ready to be amazed and to be disappointed and full of hope by our society, but most of all, be ready to be deeply moved and feel extremely close to the characters as if they were your own friends. I think by the time you finish it, you will have a fresh outlook on life, love, and relationships, with a stronger focus on what matters most.
Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified.
You will want things to develop differently. The young men will become part of you and I think it has been a before and after in my life. I felt compelled to share the story, to let people know about this experience they can get by reading this book. It will make you fall in love with reading again, as it made me.
As ‘The New Yorker’ puts it: Elemental, irreducible.
I was so moved by this dramatic story, that I’ve chosen another long novel with complex issues, ‘I know this much is true’ by Willy Lamb for my next reading. I’m also reading ‘A Marriage Story’ by Tayari Jones. Looking forward to sharing my thoughts with you all.
Let me know in the comments if you’ve already read ‘A little life’ and what’s your feedback. If you’ve read other books that have shaped your view of the world, please share! | https://medium.com/@mflocastro/why-i-cant-stop-recommending-a-little-life-by-hanya-yanagihara-62fd8cb78137 | ['Florencia Castro'] | 2020-12-14 23:54:37.596000+00:00 | ['Book Review', 'Reading', 'Novel'] |
Day 3: Big Oof | I got my laptop at like 11am today and got straight to configuring it, but as expected, it didn’t go well. I still need to do it tomorrow and I also got assigned some stuff to self learn with.
On a positive note, I was able to return my headset today, and got two new recruits to join my army, which is very nice. I also got my vertical mouse, which I plan to use later. Overall, work should be fine once I figure this configuration stuff out, and I’m happy with the deliveries that arrived today.
Also, I just remembered I impulse bought new dumbells ($25 bucks each) and a set of food storage container ($8) which I think are both dank deals. Yea I wrote the previous line to try out the hyperlink thingy.
So anyways, today was ok, and I don’t have much to write about but hopefully I can get thru tomorrow and then weekend is coming up so yea, bye.
Tip: Some coupons are good for more than one, like Wienerschnitzel coupons say something like “good for up to two orders”. You can use the same coupon to order two of whatever is on there, so don’t just assume that coupons can’t be mixed or that they cannot be used more than once to abuse its full potential. | https://medium.com/@joomyatoyota/day-3-big-oof-c134c9d104f0 | ['Joomya Toyota'] | 2020-11-13 03:53:07.727000+00:00 | ['Plush', 'Coupon', 'Saving', 'Money', 'Diary'] |
Artist Nathan Hayden discusses Time and Meditation. | Nathan Hayden is a visual artist based in California.
Nathan Hayden — http://nathan-hayden.com/
Nathan Hayden’s solo exhibition work spans close to two decades; his organic shapes, patterns, and sequences have a profound transcendental quality. Hayden conjures elements of nature, but simultaneously these elements maintain a subtle but extraterrestrial origin. In our most recent chat, Nathan Hayden discusses his influences with psychedelic impressions, dual notions of time, deep work, and how he communicates through his art.
Ai: Hey, Nathan, Hope you’ve been well. How have you been dealing with the times? Any thoughts on the passage of time?
Nathan: It’s one of those interesting times when the days seem really long. But they're all are kind of similar..so there's this compression and expansion of time. There’s this feeling of “when is this day going to be over?”, But then, there is this sort of rhythmic thing, and we’re by ourselves in the pandemic. There's this repetition, and for that reason, it's hard to remember; what happened in July…..Is it different then what happened in June?
Ai: That’s a really interesting way of describing it.
Nathan: I’ve been thinking a lot about time more than I generally do. And thinking about what that does mean in relation to making objects because I’m primarily an object-based artist. I think you have to define what time is, which is the idea of objects moving through space and keeping track of that. I’m interested in different types of time. A watch, moves through space much differently from the human body, animals, or other living organisms. For me, something is exciting about the time that happens when I’m working, especially when I'm doing a big project or a wall drawing.
Sometimes I have a certain amount of time that's bracketed by mechanical time, the sort that’s measured by a clock, specifying the time I have to finish it.
But If I have the opportunity to spend the entire day on the project and I don't have to worry about clocking-in or clocking-out, I basically sleep and take breaks to eat.
Other than that, I’m just looking at the pattern I’ve done, and it starts to talk to me and develops a conversation. And that becomes very meditative. The pattern tells me what it needs next; it starts to be less and less about decision-making. I call it “talking to the wall.”
That, to me, is more connected to that organic time; it becomes more meditative. Sometimes I work for 15 hour days just to get into that meditative state and stay there…. I think if I were to stay there more than a week, there would probably be some health risks. But for about a week, it's a really amazing experience, and really amazing things come out of it.
Ai: That meditative process. Did it develop naturally, or did it come from some external source of inspiration?
Nathan: I think you could say it's organic. However, those differences are tough to separate. I’m not an outsider artist by any stretch of the imagination. I have knowledge of artists working contemporarily and within the various historical context. Maybe we’re thinking of things in similar ways, maybe Agnes Martin, for example, she’s got this meditation, probably making really subtle, simple decisions. When I think of it, that's just how I imagine how she’d work.
I’ve always used music as a stimulant of sorts, for ideas. Part of that is a practice of dancing to music in order to get blood flowing and ideas flowing to my head. Whenever I’m doing wall drawings, I have music going, and If I get stuck on an idea, I just dance for 10 or 15 minutes. And I don't know; it makes the brain pliable in a way that allows you to receive the message.
Lauren Halsey made this awesome food bank since the pandemic hit. They've been bringing a massive amount of farm-fresh foods to South LA and Watts… they're giving it away, and that’s just amazing. When people care on that level, that’s just amazing. | https://medium.com/artinformation/artist-nathan-hayden-talks-time-7d792b02052c | [] | 2020-12-20 15:10:05.927000+00:00 | ['Artist', 'Nathan Hayden', 'Louisville Ky', 'Kentucky', 'California'] |
HyperX Cloud Stinger Wireless Gaming Headset Review | BUILD/DESIGN
The Stinger Wireless uses the same frame and materials as the original Cloud Stinger, save for the slight weight trimming I mentioned above.
But that’s okay. And I think the changes to the design have appeal beyond their weight reductions. The thinner microphone, while still permanently attached, is more visually appealing, and looks a little less silly if you decide to wear these out and about. It’s also more flexible and adjustable than the original model.
And the removal of the obvious HyperX logo color is a first for the company. The etched-in non-colored logos give these a sleek, professional look that none of their other headsets really have, especially if you opt for the black version.
Materials-wise, it uses a plastic frame with steel reinforcement in the headband, and steel adjustment sliders. And if you’re someone that doesn’t like exposed screws, prepare for disappointment as there are little screws all over the place.
Still, it’s a Cloud Stinger but made more subtle, and it feels nice enough in the hands and on the head for the price.
FEATURES/EXTRAS
HyperX employed the same USB wireless dongle that the Cloud Flight uses here on the Stinger Wireless, and that’s a good decision.
It’ll work out of the box with a PC, PS4, or docked Nintendo Switch. The volume knob on the back of the right ear cup spins endlessly and controls the digital volume level, and it does seem to save this volume between sessions and devices.
The 17 hour battery life claim is accurate in my testing. The power light uses an LED that progresses from green-orange-red to show you descending power percentage levels, and the headset has no audio prompts other than simple beeps when you turn it on and off, or hit the extreme ends of its volume range.
I got about 40 feet of wireless range in my apartment before it started to cut out. The wireless dongle is the only way to connect this headset to anything, there’s no wired connection option available. Recharging uses micro USB, which is great for compatibility but bad for the USB-C fans out there. The power light changes colors during charging to give you an idea of how far along you are, just like it does when in use, which is a nice touch.
The ear pads are removable in case you feel like doing that, or need to buy replacements from HyperX, and it comes with their standard 2 year warranty.
MICROPHONE
My only complaint about this mic is that the thinner design of the adjustment arm, combined with a stiffer/higher quality rotation hinge, means that it’s not as easy to flip up to mute as on the original Cloud Stinger.
But that’s a teeny tiny complaint.
The mic has a good, natural, reasonably clear tone to it, with only a hint of the muffled digital compression that often plagues wireless headset microphones. It’s on the same level as the wired Cloud Stinger, and doesn’t sound as good or clean as the Cloud Flight’s microphone. The noise gate on the microphone isn’t super aggressive, thankfully, meaning you can talk at a normal volume and be picked up.
Background noise cancellation is exceptional, and there’s probably both acoustic and digital trickery in play here.
There’s no mic monitoring/sidetone feature, which is not a huge issue for me in a lower-priced headset but might irritate some of you. I don’t blast my games loud enough that they block out my voice, but if you’re a loud listener, the isolation of the leatherette here might have you wishing this had sidetone.
If you’re wondering whether these will get loud enough for you, the answer is a resounding yes. I listened to Spotify comfortably at about 25 percent volume, and cranked it up to 48 or so in high dynamic range games like Assassin’s Creed Origins. And that was plenty of volume. So the amplifier can bring it.
You can hear some quick mic tests I recorded right here.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Cloud Stinger Wireless has better, more balanced sound than its wired predecessor, an enhanced subtle design, and the same great comfort. It doesn’t have some of the frills of more expensive wireless headsets, but acquits itself very well at its $99 price point.
Of HyperX’s wireless lineup, the Stinger is the only one that really embodies their old ethos of value for the money. It’s got the perfect combination of features at this price and a solid battery, and it’s a great and more comfortable alternative to the Corsair HS70.
It doesn’t have the red lights, longer battery life, wired mode, or detachable mic of the Cloud Flight…but if you don’t need those features, I’d go for this one every single time. It’s a better deal compared to its price analogues than the Cloud Flight is at $159.
I’ve had a great time listening to this over the last few days, and I plan to keep on using it. | https://medium.com/@xander51/hyperx-cloud-stinger-wireless-gaming-headset-review-4e17b246a5b7 | ['Alex Rowe'] | 2019-04-30 23:24:24.553000+00:00 | ['Gaming', 'Gadgets', 'Headphones', 'Videogames', 'Technology'] |
ConnectData Sintel and VirtualMetric Deliver End-to-end Infrastructure and Monitoring Solutions for MSPs | VirtualMetric and ConnectData Sintel stepped into a partnership to deliver all-in-one monitoring solutions for cloud service providers, managed service providers and telecoms in France. The new partnership combines the experience of ConnectData Sintel on the French market with the advanced capabilities of VirtualMetric to deliver in-depth data analytics for the health and performance of large infrastructures. Both companies address the growing need of the market for simplicity in infrastructure management, in-depth visibility across large public, private and hybrid environments, better infrastructure utilization and higher reliability.
ConnectData Sintel is an expert in data transmission solutions, security and monetization solutions, Carrier Ethernet Access, IOT. The company specializes in voice over IP and security solutions, PBXs, Microsoft services distribution and cloud services. They build services in cooperation with leading and emerging manufacturers and IT service providers.
ConnectData Sintel is recognized for their innovation and the quality of products delivered. For the MSP segment, the company helps providers to create their own offering and ensure the best environment for hosting virtual machines. It also connects manufacturers with MSPs to get the best possible solution.
The focus on MSPs is of joint interest for both ConnectData Sintel and VirtualMetric. While ConnectData Sintel helps MSPs to build their technology stack, VirtualMetric ensures that their infrastructure and virtualization will work smoothly and as expected. With its all-in-one monitoring suite, VirtualMetric helps MSPs to ensure reliability and maximum uptime on a reasonable price. The monitoring solution combines into a single interface monitoring and tracking of hardware, network, virtual machines; log analysis; change tracking; predictive analysis and advanced alarming. The solution is completely agentless and real-time and focuses on ease of integration and use for the end-customer.
Ali Vargonen, VirtualMetric
“We are happy to partner with ConnectData Sintel and be able to address the needs of MSPs together. By combining their experience in the French market with our technology expertise, we are ensuring a competitive edge for local MSPs in the constantly evolving global market nowadays.”, said Ali Vargonen, Co-Founder of VirtualMetric.
Gregory Destombe, Connect Data — Sintel
“Our partnership with VirtualMetric was born out of our mutual desire to provide a solution to the monitoring needs of our IT and MSP resellers. By studying the market, we were looking for a solution that would optimize the performance and efficiency of our customers’ network equipment, databases and servers, while targeting small and medium-sized businesses and VSEs as a priority. Convinced by the richness of its functionalities, its user-friendliness, its high level of support and its price positioning, it was natural for VirtualMetric to win our agreement.
The partnership with VirtualMetric enriches our offer in the security sector and brings the publisher our knowledge of the local and international market, thanks to our extensive network of IT partners.”, Gregory Destombe, Sales Engineer at Connect Data — Sintel.
Yusuf Ozturk, VirtualMetric
“VirtualMetric is a product made by engineers and for engineers. Our experience enables us to understand better the pains of MSPs when managing infrastructure and to deliver ready-made solutions for their reliability.
Thanks to our cooperation with ConnectData Sintel, companies can now invest their time in innovations, while we do care for their technology stack and its constant monitoring”, said Yusuf Ozturk, Chief Software Architect and Co-Founder of VirtualMetric. | https://medium.com/@virtualmetric/connectdata-sintel-and-virtualmetric-deliver-end-to-end-infrastructure-and-monitoring-solutions-3617aaf295b4 | [] | 2020-12-16 12:32:32.111000+00:00 | ['Partnerships', 'Monitoring', 'Infrastructure Monitoring', 'France', 'Infrastructure'] |
CRYPTOWARE can be a side income, even though we are sleeping. | Cryptoware trade employees provide the opportunity to earn money by trading cryptocurrencies for each investor in company. The mission is to establish contact with people around the world and provide them with the best investment conditions, with the least risk and greatest profit. Cryptoware strive to provide better conditions compared to competitors, so that more and more people begin to cooperate with the company and achieve their financial goals. Cryptoware Trade is run by professionals who have vast experience in the cryptocurrency industry, thereby gaining reliability and great confidence in the platform. In order to conduct a highly profitable business, the company has a specialized and powerful trading technique that fully ensures smooth operation. All experts purchase equipment directly from manufacturers at factory prices, which reduces overall costs and leads to greater financial results of the company. In addition, They have an additional group of third-party specialists have great knowledge and potential in the field of trading.
Cryptoware LTD is a UK registered company, under the number 12953753, which offers investment services. The activity of our company is aimed at the cryptocurrency trading and providing investment services worldwide. Any kind of investment activities and fiduciary management services are carried out on legal grounds. Cryptoware has built the the safest, most efficient and convenient online investing platform centered on digital cryptocurrencies trading.
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#cryptoware #mining #invest | https://medium.com/@murtifilter/cryptoware-can-be-a-side-income-even-though-we-are-sleeping-ae1fb7317a10 | ['Rahadyan Harimurti'] | 2020-12-27 23:22:09.032000+00:00 | ['Investment', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin', 'Cruptocurrency', 'Cryptoware'] |
Hd ▷ 心灵奇旅 (Soul) 完整版 | 心灵奇旅 劇場版心灵奇旅 (2020)完整版 — 在线观看【心灵奇旅 劇場版】-心灵奇旅 -(2020)-完整版 — →【HD 1080p】← 心灵奇旅 劇場版 (心灵奇旅 [2020] ZH Chinese
⇨[現在觀看 Chinese] »➫ https://t.co/vS2hfB7uCx?/Soul-Zh
⇨[現在觀看 English] »➫ https://t.co/5DftmyXyuD?/Soul-En
一个中学音乐老师，一心想成为真正的音乐家。好不容易在一次公开表演中被爵士音乐家看中，却因为跌入下水道丧生。他的灵魂开始了一段奇妙的旅程…
发布日期: 2020–12–25
运行时间: 102 分钟
类型: 家庭, 动画, 喜剧, 冒险, 音乐, 奇幻
明星: Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Ahmir-Khalib Thompson, Phylicia Rashād, Daveed Diggs
导演: Trent Reznor, Bobby Podesta, Steve Pilcher, Pete Docter, Pete Docter
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In 1889, on November 1 in Gotha, Germany Anna Therese Johanne Hoch, who later would be known as Hannah Hoch was born. Being the eldest of five children, the girl was brought up in a comfortable and quiet environment of the small town. Her parents, a supervisor in an insurance company and an amateur painter sent her to Girl’s High school. However, at the age of 15 Hannah had to quit studying for the long six years to take care of her newborn sister. Only in 1912 she continued her education with Harold Bengen in School of Applied Arts, mastering glass design. As the World War I broke up Hannah returned to the native town to work in the Red Cross.
The first years after war the young woman recommenced her studying, getting to know graphic arts. 1915 was highlighted by an acquaintance with an Austrian artist Raoul Hausmann, which grew into the long-lasting romantic relationship and involvement in Berlin Dada movement. For ten years till 1926 Hoch worked in Berlin’s major publisher of newspapers and magazines. Her task was to design embroidering, knitting and crocheting patterns for the booklets.
Being on vacation with her beloved in 1918, Hannah discovered ‘the principle of photomontage in cut-and-paste images that soldiers sent to their families’ (National gallery of Art). This find affected greatly on her artistic production, and she created mass-media photographs comprising the elements of photomontage and handwork patterns, thus combining traditional and modern culture. Her prior preoccupation was to represent the ‘new woman’ of the Weimar Republic with new social role and given freedoms.
Hoch was the only woman in Berlin Dada, who took part in all kinds of events and exhibitions showcasing her socially critical works of art. Till 1931 she participated in exhibitions but with the rise of National Social regime was forbidden to present her creative work. Till her last breath in 1978 Hannah Hoch lived and worked in the outskirts of Berlin-Heiligensee.
The piece of art which is going to be analyzed in this research is ‘The beautiful girl’ designed in 1919–1920. It combines the elements of technology and females. In the middle of the picture one can clearly see a woman dressed in a modern bathing suit with a light bulb on her head which probably serves as a sun umbrella. In the background a large advertisement with a woman’s hair-do on top is presented. Maud Lavin describes strange human as ‘she is part human, part machine, part commodity’ (Lavin). The woman is surrounded by the images of industrialization as tires, gears, signals and BMW logos. A woman’s profile with the cat eyes, untrusting and skeptical, in the upper right corner is eye-catching as well. This unusually large eye symbolizes DADA movement — a monocle, which is present in almost every Hoch’s work. The colour scheme does not offer rich palette of tints, including mostly black, white, orange and red pieces. The photo is surrounded by the BMW circles which add the spots of blue.
An apt description of the piece is given in the book ‘Cut with the Kitchen Knife’ and states that it is ‘a portrait of a modern woman defined by signs of femininity, technology, media and advertising’ (Lavin). In other words Hannah Hoch focused on the woman of the new age, free and keeping up with the fast-moving world. The artist promoted feministic ideas and from her point of view urbanization and modern technologies were meant to give hope to woman to gain equality of genders. With this photomontage she commented on how the woman was expected to combine the role of a wife and mother with the role of a worker in the industrialized world. The light bulb instead of a face shows that women were perceived as unthinking machines which do not question their position and can be turned on or off at any time at man’s will. But at the same time they were to remain attractive to satisfy men’s needs. The watch is viewed as the representation of how quickly women are to adapt to the changes.
In a nutshell, Hoch concentrated on two opposite visions of the modern woman: the one from the television screens — smoking, working, wearing sexy clothes, voting and the real one who remained being a housewife.
The beautiful girl’ is an example of the art within the DADA movement. An artistic and literal current began in 1916 as the reaction to World War I and spread throughout Northern America and Europe. Every single convention was challenged and bourgeois society was scandalized. The Dadaists stated that over-valuing conformity, classism and nationalism among modern cultures led to horrors of the World War I. In other words, they rejected logic and reason and turned to irrationality, chaos and nonsense. The first DADA international Fair was organized in Berlin in 1920 exposing a shocking discontentment with military and German nationalism (Dada. A five minute history).
Hannah Hoch was introduced to the world of DADA by Raoul Hausman who together with Kurt Schwitters, Piet Mondrian and Hans Richter was one of the influential artists in the movement. Hoch became the only German woman who referred to DADA. She managed to follow the general Dadaist aesthetic, but at the same time she surely and steadily incorporated a feminist philosophy. Her aim was to submit female equality within the canvass of other DADA’s conceptions.
Though Hannah Hoch officially was a member of the movement, she never became the true one, because men saw her only as ‘a charming and gifted amateur artist’ (Lavin). Hans Richter, an unofficial spokesperson shared his opinion about the only woman in their community in the following words: ‘the girl who produced sandwiches, beer and coffee on a limited budget’ forgetting that she was among the few members with stable income.
In spite of the gender oppressions, Hannah’s desire to convey her idea was never weakened. Difficulties only strengthened her and made her an outstanding artist. A note with these return words was found among her possessions: ‘None of these men were satisfied with just an ordinary woman. But neither were they included to abandon the (conventional) male/masculine morality toward the woman. Enlightened by Freud, in protest against the older generation. . . they all desired this ‘New Woman’ and her groundbreaking will to freedom. But — they more or less brutally rejected the notion that they, too, had to adopt new attitudes. . . This led to these truly Strinbergian dramas that typified the private lives of these men’ (Maloney).
Hoch’s technique was characterized by fusing male and female parts of the body or bodies of females from different epochs — a ‘traditional’ woman and ‘modern’, liberated and free of sexual stereotypes one. What’s more, combining male and female parts, the female ones were always more distinctive and vibrant, while the male ones took their place in the background. Hannah created unique works of art experimenting with paintings, collages, graphic and photography. Her women were made from bits and pieces from dolls, mannequins of brides or children as these members of the society were not considered as valuable.
Today Hannah Hoch is most associated with her famous photomontage ‘Cut with the kitchen knife DADA through the last Weimer Beer-Belly Cultural epoch of Germany’ (1919–1920). This piece of art highlights social confusion during the era of Weimar Republic, oppositionists and government radicals (Grabner). In spite of never being truly accepted by the rest of her society, this woman with a quiet voice managed to speak out loud her feministic message.
Looking at Hannah Hoch’s art for the first time I found it confusing, because couldn’t comprehend the meaning. It was quite obvious that every single piece and structure is a symbol of the era, its ideas and beliefs. However, after having learned about her life and constant endeavors to declare about female’s right, little by little I started to realize what’s what. As an object for research I chose ‘The beautiful girl’ as, to my mind, its theme and message intersects with the modern tendency: a successful, clever, beautiful and free woman has to become one in no time, cause the world is moving faster and faster. I enjoyed working with this artist as her example is inspiring and is worth following | https://medium.com/@abdulbotako/hd-%E5%BF%83%E7%81%B5%E5%A5%87%E6%97%85-soul-%E5%AE%8C%E6%95%B4%E7%89%88-%E5%9C%A8%E7%BA%BF%E5%85%8D%E8%B4%B9-2020-%E7%94%B5%E5%BD%B1-zh-en-4k-f610c5cb4dc6 | ['Abdul Botako'] | 2020-12-21 14:57:58.534000+00:00 | ['Animation', '2020', 'Soul', 'China', 'Full Version'] |
‘Keep Oakland Alive’ Helps You Shop Local Online This Holiday Season | ‘Keep Oakland Alive’ Helps You Shop Local Online This Holiday Season
Oaktown Spice Shop’s Popcorn Spice Gift Box, a product featured on Keep Oakland Alive. Photo: Courtesy of Instagram via @oaktownspice
Small businesses in the Bay Area have been dealt one devastating blow after another this year amid a carousel of openings and closings. Some have survived; many haven’t. Now that the holiday season is upon us and gift buying is in full swing, remember that your money can make a world of difference to local shops — not so much for Amazon.
During this time of shapeshifting consumerism, online platforms and curbside pickup programs have become saving graces for our Bay Area retail businesses, tea shops, bookstores, dispensaries—you name it. But sometimes knowing where to start in finding a good gift locally online is hard. That’s why Keep Oakland Alive, an online small-business aggregator, has made it easier to shop Oakland without even leaving your front door.
“We’re incredibly busy right now and have seen an outpouring of love from this community,” Brett Rounsaville of Keep Oakland Alive told The Bold Italic in an email. “We’ve been filling holiday orders almost nonstop — Oakland really has shown up in supporting local businesses.”
Looking for a kick-ass matcha powder? Oaktown Spice Shop has you covered. Keen on sipping your morning coffee from a very cute and rustic (and locally made) mug? Oaklandish will be more than happy to ship you said handcrafted cup. All of the above — and much more, including cannabis, face masks, clothing, etc. — are available online to purchase through Keep Oakland Alive.
For some gift-giving inspiration, check out the site’s well-curated gift guides to find the perfect present for a certain someone this holiday season.
Like we hinted at in our Bay Snapshot yesterday: These next few weeks are going to be incredibly taxing on the local businesses that had to shutter overnight this past Sunday.
Sign up for The Bold Italic newsletter to get the best of the Bay Area in your inbox every week.
Now’s the time to really double down on supporting small businesses. Shop local as often as you can. Side with quality over quantity. We don’t need to let bloated consumerism send us into crushing debt and even more environmental disorder.
You can shop Keep Oakland Alive’s digital collections, which feature products from more than 30 local small businesses, at KeepOaklandAlive.com/collections. The aggregator is also offering free local shipping throughout the pandemic. | https://thebolditalic.com/keep-oakland-alive-helps-you-shop-local-online-this-holiday-season-bf367067a18d | ['Matt Charnock'] | 2020-12-10 22:21:56.888000+00:00 | ['San Francisco', 'Bay Area', 'Oakland', 'Business'] |
The 3 P’s Of Manhood | Duties Of A Man
Zeus on his throne
I woke up to see Zeus crowning Hercules and welcoming him home. Everyone present were like a dragon but they were the most welcoming and alive men I have ever seen. Though they never said a word to me, I could see it from their gaze that they all were questioning me. I had to look down and look away.
We danced, partied and Hercules shared stories of his exploits to everyone. Deep inside, I kept wondering what made him who he was. How could someone achieve all these feat as a man? What didn’t I know that kept me in chains when it came to my manhood?
“My son,” Zeus called out to me.
“My Lord,” I trembled. How could I be talking to Zeus himself?
“It seems you are lost. What made you lose your manhood?” He asked
“How do you mean my Lord?” My voice still shaking.
“You were thinking out loud, I guess. You were asking yourself how Hercules achieved all he did as a man and what you didn’t know about manhood. Am I right?
“Yes, my Lord.” I said
“Let me answer your question. Climb on my hand and let’s go see the world.” Zeus said and I stepped on.
He lifted me onto his shoulder and as I watched, the view changed as He started talking.
“In times past, men were defined by their strength and any man who didn’t measure up ended up dead. There was no room for weakness for any man. Whenever a woman met a man, she naturally looked up to him because she knew he was stronger and more capable of surviving than she was. To her, he was the ticket for living. The world was harsh and unforgiving to all, men and women alike.
Then I blessed men with wisdom and they grew. They started to grow and build what is known today as civilization. I was happy, seeing them rise but not before long, I noticed something. Men started losing sight of their true purpose and started giving in to weak things. Some even lost sight of what it means to be a man completely. As these men started giving birth, they started to teach their sons the wrong ideology they had taught themselves and so, weakness became a way amongst men.
That is why today the amount of weak men is more than the strong. I believe you sense something is missing in your life as a man and are on a path to restoring it, am I right? Zeus said
“Yes, my lord.” I said. “I know something is missing but I don’t know what it is. Could you teach me Sir? I promise to share it with the world.”
“I know you will.” He laughed, his gaze piercing my skull.
There are only three things that every man should do. Failure of a man to master any of these three things will make him weak, insecure and unable to fulfill his mission.
“What are they, my lord?” I asked, my heart pounding loudly because I was about to know what was wrong with me.
First, a man has to be able to PROVIDE. This is the most promoted duty of a man in today’s world. Corporations and industries tell men to buy this to get girls, buy that to become an alpha male and all that nonsense. Buying all those things doesn’t account for the fact that you are a man. It is just one piece of the puzzle of being a man.
The ability to provide is of utmost importance to a man because he has more strength than the woman. He has the capacity to kill, to create weapons, to focus his energy on one thing and take that thing to its greatest height. This capacity though is at its peak in modern times, it takes more energy and focus now because everywhere a man turns to, there is distraction. The world has made men think it is a safe place because of high rise buildings, the internet, offices and all that. The fact is that the world is still as it was in times past where men faced lions, bears and all that; the only difference now is that men have to battle big corporations.
To provide today, a man has to have a business and make people know about the business. This means he has to do a good job of capturing people’s attention on Instagram, google, Facebook and all that. Attention is an asset today.”
“That is true my lord. What is the second one?” I looked away, still afraid to look at his face. His face shone so bright they could burn my eyes.
“Secondly, a man has to be able to PROTECT. Religion and society has frowned upon this role and made it something terrible yet, humanity would have been extinct if men of old didn’t know how to protect. There is no way you can protect without knowing how to fight. It’s funny when humans ask us (gods) to protect them from evil yet they say fighting is not good. What do they think we do when they ask us to protect them?” He smiled
Man training martial arts
“We think you gods have magical powers that you use to control demons to stay away from us.” I said
“It doesn’t work that way son. Demons can’t touch you physically but can cause things to happen spiritually, which will affect the physical world. When you ask us to protect you, we have to physically stop those demons from creating those situations spiritually and that entails fighting.
A man has to know how to fight. No matter how civilized humanity makes itself, a man that doesn’t know how to fight will never become a full man. He will always know that something is missing in his manhood but will not be able to put a finger on it. Your confidence as a man goes through the roof when you know you can defend yourself if things get out of hand.
It’s one aspect of the duties of a man that religion and society will keep frowning upon as long as humans exist. But it is essential for a man to know how to fight. Because men want to release this innate duty, they watch action films. Seeing other men fight help men release the emotion that comes with fighting. Yet, this isn’t something to be kept hidden. Join a gym and learn combat.
If there is one area most men are lacking today, it’s in this area. Men who can provide abundantly for their family most times lack the ability to protect themselves, let alone their family. Work on this.”
“Wow. That is true my lord. My religion and society criticizes fighting so I always avoid violence as much as I can. I know nothing about self-defense my lord.” I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well, now you know what to do. So DO IT.” His voice boomed gently.
“I am going immediately after I learn the third my lord.” I said
“Thirdly, a man has to be able to PROCREATE. The ability to procreate starts from being able to seduce a woman and make her see you as her king. Only after this will she be able to open her legs to you willingly. When she opens her legs, then you plant your seed in her to create offspring who will carry on your legacy. It will now be your sole focus to PROVIDE and PROTECT your offspring as a man.
Can you see the cycle?” He asked
“Yes my lord. I have to learn how to PROVIDE and PROTECT first, then I have to PROCREATE. After I plant my seed in a woman, then it’s my duty to PROVIDE and PROTECT my offspring and the woman.” I said
“That is the duty of a man. If you can achieve the three, then you will go on to create your Herculean feats. Remember to share these secrets with other men, okay?”
“Yes, my lord.” I smiled
Then I woke up from the dream, opened my laptop and wrote this article. In summary, the duties of a man are to PROVIDE, PROTECT and PROCREATE.
Knowledge Maketh Manners And Manners Maketh Man. | https://medium.com/@man-on-a-rise/the-3-ps-of-manhood-e6c5cd818641 | [] | 2020-12-26 06:33:35.581000+00:00 | ['Man Up Campaign', 'Manhood', 'Masculinity', 'Man Up', 'Men'] |
Over here, on the first ever rainy Christmas Day, we are all for it. But we have to add: | Over here, on the first ever rainy Christmas Day, we are all for it. But we have to add:
A. The flea
B. The tick
Two reasons I had to give up cats in our household. My wife simply forbade a next generation, after Doerak, Dolphy, Sien, Miw and Knoop. They all got very old. All died before my eyes on the vet’s table, by the way.
I wish y’all a merrier Christmas and an injection in 2021. | https://medium.com/@chriscoolsma/over-here-on-the-first-ever-rainy-christmas-day-we-are-all-for-it-but-we-have-to-add-d212d50f10a8 | ['Chris Coolsma'] | 2020-12-25 09:48:12.315000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Cats', 'Best Wishes', 'Fleas', 'Ticks'] |
We No Longer Need to Judge Devotion | A Christmas Intuitive Guidance + Psychology Message
Photo by Annie Spratt
I am currently in lockdown in an area that I thought would be spared from more restrictions. I am an American in Canada with locked borders already — separated as a single person from family (like so many of you). When I made the decision to not stay in the city of Toronto, I thought that things would be calmer. I’m in the country, outside a major city, and while things have not been exactly normal, they were (up until now) functional. The fear and the panic has increased this week as the government has announced extremely stringent policies to help curb the spreading of COVID-19. I feel the pain of the community in my legs and in my heart — its a mixture of panic, fear and grief.
As I went for a walk yesterday, I walked past three churches. This little town is brimming with spiritual energy and history. Yet, all three of these churches have been closed for months leaving the energy surrounding the buildings deadened. Most of us think that this is a good thing given the medical crisis we are facing but when it comes to Christmas, winter, and a huge increase in mental health challenges triggered — most often by family — we need to take a moment and reflect on the message being sent. It is message from the spiritual world that we need to look within for we are always connected even when it feels like our freedoms have been taken away. We also need to be more mindful to energetically care for institutions that are meant to serve our communities — small churches, libraries, family owned businesses etc… have not only been financially destroyed, their empty buildings destroy the magic in a given town or city.
While we can no longer use our churches, synagogues, mosques, spiritual temples or wellness retreats to fuel us with a higher vibrational energy, we can begin to up level our spiritual training. We can no longer afford to argue over whether someone should be following a religion or a spiritual practice. We are exhausted and the fighting, especially as it pertains to Christian and Catholic traditions, needs to take a chill pill. Christianity and the story of Jesus (and Mary Magdalene) speak to love. But we do not often speak to the suffering that we need to experience in order to learn what unconditional love truly is. It is not just our religious institutions that need healing but our medical systems, educational systems and the mental health system. We have all forgotten that we are spiritual beings with a life mission and some of us are meant to devote our love to a religion and others are meant to find another path. Neither way is superior. We all have healing work to do and religion will need love to begin to take the responsibility needed to start the process.
As our communities have been torn apart and replaced with virtual meetings, our ego likes to jump in and tell other people what to do. We have lost the art of collaboration and compassion. We have also lost the art of setting boundaries and asserting our power, when necessary, instead choosing to blame others. It is only through remembering who we really are and through the devotion to love (in whatever form that you believe in) that we will remember that the Universe is wiser than we are and has simply given us multiple options to explore our spiritual paths.
So on this holiday, please extend love to religion. Not because you believe in it but because it is time for it to be healed. We have been digging up the shadows and exposing the darkness for some time — it is time to remember that the purpose of shadow work is eventually to bring the light to the darkness with love.
What Does Psychological Science Say about Religion?
Research indicates that many people need religion or faith for our mental health. Interestingly, many of our medical doctors and scientists do not believe in something beyond themselves while the majority of Americans do.
“There is a chasm between doctors and patients. A 2018 survey of American physicians and patients suggests that about 64% of physicians believe in the existence of God or a higher power, and more than 90% of patients claimed the same. This is consistent with a Pew study which concluded that about 90% of Americans believe in a higher power. In contrast 25% of physicians reported uncertainty in their beliefs.”
In addition, as we move forward into a more heart centered culture, our professionals will need to rectify their own beliefs in order to help their patients find their way toward the healing modalities that would be of most benefit. Unfortunately, not all medical providers (and mental health providers) are comfortable with spirituality.
“While many in the medical community may think it inappropriate to ask patients about beliefs and faith, patients disagree. One study concluded that 77% of patients thought physicians should consider patients’ spiritual needs. More specifically, 48% welcomed or desired that their physicians pray with them, and another 37% wanted physicians to discuss religious beliefs with them. Despite these desires, the same study found that almost 70% of patients claimed their physician had never broached the topic of religion with them.”
As a psychologist who trained in New York City and then moved to New Orleans post-Katrina, I can attest to why it is so hard for professionals to open up. We are trained in logic and rational thinking (hello NY culture). Yet, when it comes to healing the human heart, our emotions, and our soul — there is no room for logic (one of the things I learned from being in NOLA). From this perspective there is beauty when a spiritual patient and a non-spiritual doctor meet — they are each other’s teacher and such a relationship should be honored and respected. There is no room for control and it is often the doctor who needs to learn this lesson.
@Alana_Fairchild Lightworkers Oracle Deck
What Does the Sixth Ray of Devotion Mean?
The Sixth Ray of Devotion refers to the feeling that, even when we do not believe that we have power, the power of our thoughts and feelings are powerful tools for change. It is also a reminder that the energy of our thoughts and emotions can become easily unbalanced and that we need to channel the energy into creative projects or simply play! Love comes from lightness and we often forget this when the circumstances of the outside world seem dark and dreary.
It is also a reminder that we are all here to shine in our own ways. Like tiny drops in the ocean, when we are following our own path, we all come together to create our physical reality. We often forget that we have a life path and too often get caught up in the details of which spiritual practice one should use in order to get on to the “right” path. There is no right path — only your path.
So on this day, take the time to contemplate what love means to you. Take the time to send love to those that identify with a religion and are seeking support that may be very different than the way you operate in the world. Most of all, send love to everyone in the world who is doing their best just to get through this difficult season. Devotion to love is what the world needs right now and we should not get caught up in what that looks like. Those are the humanly details not the universal energy that we are all capable of passing to each other though human kindness. Our ego loves an argument and to pass judgement but the little voice inside our heart knows better. It is time to go quiet and turn within.
And in the meantime, I will walk past these churches knowing that the love in my heart and the vision in my mind will be received by the ground that these spiritual institutions are build. With any luck, they will serve the community in healthy ways in 2021. | https://medium.com/beyond-toxic-insecurity/we-no-longer-need-to-judge-devotion-d22eca8cfcc6 | ['Dr. Jennifer B. Rhodes'] | 2020-12-25 15:59:54.814000+00:00 | ['Spirituality', 'Mental Health', 'Astrology', 'Personal Development', 'Psychology'] |
Subsets and Splits