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Running Django on Google Colab. | Photo by Kevin Bhagat on Unsplash
Requirements:
Mobile, Laptop or any other device which has a web browser and can take input. (Why don’t you try developing a website on a fridge?)
A Google Account!
Internet Connection (I think you have this step down since you can read this post)
Okay, Here Are The Steps:
Step 1:
Go to Google Colab, Sign In and create a notebook. You can go to google Colab using the below link. Or just search on Google.
https://colab.google.research.com
Step 2:
Now try running this. It should say requirement already satisfied if not it would install Django in your Colab environment. You Need this! You can’t develop on Django without Django.
!pip install django
Since I want to show you guys a working example. I’ll create a new project. You can use the below command if don’t know how to or if you are new to Django. Using the ‘!’ at the start you can run any linux terminal command.
!django-admin startproject portfolio
Use ls to check your directory structure. Below is the output of my project.
Now keep in mind changing your directory i.e. portfolio doesn’t work with an exclamation(!) in Google Colab. You need to use % before your command.
%cd portfolio/
Now basic setup of your Django project is done. Let’s move on to the real thing.
Step 3:
Running this code will give you a link. We Need This Link.
from google.colab.output import eval_js print(eval_js("google.colab.kernel.proxyPort(8000)"))
Please note, I have provided a port in the above code. We need to use the same port no. whenever running the Django server. And we need the link for accessing the server from our local machine.
Also you cannot connect to the development server directly. we need to add it in ALLOWED_HOSTS, which is a list in settings.py.
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['colab.research.google.com']
Now run your server using the below code. And access the server using Google Colab link you printed by running the eval_js method earlier.
DO NOT RUN THE SERVER USING THE SERVER ADDRESS YOU GET AFTER RUNNING THE BELOW COMMAND.
!python manage.py runserver 8000
Hooray!!! We can now work on Django Anywhere, Anytime. | https://medium.com/@arsindoliya/running-django-on-google-colab-ea9392cdee86 | ['Amit Sindoliya'] | 2020-12-22 16:30:01.078000+00:00 | ['Django', 'Google Colab', 'Python', 'Python3'] |
How To Build a Search Engine for OpenBazaar | by Chris Pacia, OpenBazaar Lead Backend Developer
When we were designing OpenBazaar, now the world’s largest decentralized marketplace, we knew the general approach to creating a search engine that delivered high-quality results was to use a centralized server to index listings and run search queries. A centralized search experience, however, was completely out of line with the freedom and flexibility this open-source marketplace represents. We knew there had to be some intermediate step we could take.
A Federated Approach
We decided to do what few other platforms have done and open it up so that anyone can create a search engine that is compatible with the OpenBazaar app. This would allow us to start by building our own search engine to help users navigate the network but would relieve their total reliance on it. All the data that needs to be indexed is public and anyone can create and run a search engine of their own.
Building a Search Engine for OpenBazaar
I have written a brief overview of how to build a search engine for OpenBazaar and described some of the outstanding issues we are still working on. It does take some technical skill to build a search engine, but developers with previous experience building and maintaining online infrastructure should be able to create a simple version without too much difficulty.
Step 1 — Finding Peers
Step one is to build a database of all the peers you want index. There are several ways you can do this:
1) Actively crawl the network
The openbazaar-go API provides a couple of APIs to make this easy. /ob/peers returns a list of peers you’re connected to:
And /ob/closestpeers/<peerID> returns a list of “closer” peers from the DHT. One can crawl the network for more nodes just by iterating over your current peer database and fetching closer peers.
You can also use the /ob/peerinfo/<peerID> endpoint to look at their IP address if you wanted to index only Tor stores, for example.
2) Passively listen for new peers
For this you’d likely want several nodes running at the same time. From there you could stream peerIDs to your database every time one of your nodes receives a new connection. You might not get all peers this way but you should find most. openbazaar-go nodes do not expose an API which streams new peer connections so you’d have to patch a node to get this data. Creating such an API should be relatively easy and it’s something we are considering doing.
3) Subscribe to pubsub
We are just now starting to make use of the libp2p’s pubsub capabilities. Currently only IPNS data is broadcast to pubsub channels but hopefully soon we will have all nodes announce new publishes over a pubsub channel. Normal users will not be subscribed to this data–as it is a lot of data–but for people who are building search engines this would be perfect.
Depending on what data we include in the publish, you should be able to subscribe to the appropriate channel and receive streaming updates from every peer. We’ll be sure to announce and document this functionality when it is available.
4) Manual curation
You could also just manually enter the peerIDs of stores you find interesting in your database. This isn’t actually a bad strategy if you want your search engine to target specific types of products. Complex machine learning algorithms would likely also work for this if you are particularly adventurous.
Step 2 — Indexing Stores
Now that you have a list of stores it’s time to index them. /ob/listings/<peerID> will give you a list of all the store’s listings.
And if you grab the hash from a listing you can get the full details by using /ob/listing/<peerID>/<hash>
You will also need the user’s profile which you can get from /ob/profile/<peerID>
Then you can put the listings in whatever database you please to index and search them. Your API just needs to conform to the specification in OBIP2 and it will be compatible with the client.
To see your search engine when your stores are indexed, enter the URL here in the OpenBazaar client:
Step 3 — Keeping Content Fresh
The biggest challenge with running a search engine is avoiding serving stale content. Given that OpenBazaar is still fairly new, users may come and go frequently. You want to avoid serving listings for stores where the owner has not been online in a long time to make sure to give potential buyers a fresh discovery experience.
Further, listings are not guaranteed to persist on the network longer than a week after a vendor has gone offline. It still may be visible to some users due to caching, but not everyone may be able to see the listing. If you serve old listings, a potential buyer might click on it only to get a Not Found error. We recommend not serving listings from vendors which have not been identified as being online at least once within the past week.
How do you determine that? Admittedly this is an area where we are still working to improve but there are a few ways.
First, make sure your database of peerIDs also tracks the last seen or last good timestamp for the peer. Next, you have several ways you could update the timestamp:
1) Ping each peer
The /ob/status/<peerID> endpoint will attempt to ping them and tell you if they are online.
The problem, however, is that about 60% of nodes on the network are unreachable due to NAT traversal issues. Tor nodes tend to have even worse issues as many users run on operating systems like Tails and Whonix which lock down the control port and make it difficult to accept incoming connections. So this only gets you part of the way there.
2) Passively listen for incoming connections
This is similar to 2) above in Finding Peers. You could update the timestamp for a peer every time they connect to you but again this will either require patching your node or for us to provide an API to get the data. This also will not cover every peer you’re interested in unless you run many nodes.
3) Disable caching
If you set "UsePersistentCache": false in your node’s config file it will stop returning from cache and will do a new DHT crawl each time you request user data. If the data has dropped out of the network, you will know about it as the data will return not found. If it’s not found, you should generally not serve up that peer’s data.
Additionally, you’ll likely also want to set "BackUpAPI": "" in the config as by default it will try to get the record from our gateway’s cache if the record cannot be found in the DHT.
4) Use IPNS record validity
Every time a user publishes new content they publish an IPNS record containing an expiration date in the DHT. That expiration date is the time at which the user’s listings will drop out of the network absent them re-publishing which happens automatically when their node starts up and once a day thereafter.
When you query for a user’s listings or profile or anything else, your node looks up the IPNS record. You could theoretically use this expiration date as a proxy for the last good timestamp for the peer and beyond that stop serving their listings.
This data is not yet exposed in our API and it’s something that we have on our list to develop.
5) Use pubsub
Currently, whenever you query for a peer’s data, it subscribes to streaming updates for that peer. This means you’ll be notified immediately whenever they publish a new IPNS record. Not only does this tell you when they have signed online, but you could also get the latest IPNS record validity.
Currently, disabling cache–3) above–also disables pubsub and would make this method ineffective. This is another issue that we are working on improving.
Step 4 — Making Money!
It’s entirely possible for you to monetize your work on an OpenBazaar search engine by adding paid ads in your search results. In fact, you could pretty easy sell ad space for your search engine through your own OpenBazaar store!
Issues and Improvements
This is a general overview of the technical work required for building an OpenBazaar search engine. We’re aware of some areas we would like to improve upon such as creating an API that allows us to stream newly found peerIDs and also have APIs that allow us to inspect IPNS records or pubsub publishes to update our timestamp associated with each peer. We could likely combine all of this into one streaming API that pulls data from all these sources and streams not only new peerIDs that it finds, but also the most up-to-date timestamp for that peer that it is able to decipher. This way search engines only need a single API to update their peers database.
We are constantly working to make it easier for anyone to jump right in and start building on the OpenBazaar platform. If you have any questions or comments about any of this, please join our conversation in Slack and tell us what you think. | https://medium.com/openbazaarproject/how-to-build-a-search-engine-for-openbazaar-5f190c47a284 | [] | 2018-09-07 16:28:54.916000+00:00 | ['Ecommerce Software', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Software Development'] |
Why Toddlers Love Their Bolsters and You Should Too. | Buy Organic Baby Bolster Online in India | The Baby Atelier
As you like sleeping on the bed after work, your babies too are fascinated by sleeping after hours of crying, playing, working out, and whatnot. But sleeping on an uncomfortable bed will make your body stiff. Likewise, if the bedding for your baby is not cozy, it will affect their sleep and lead to body ache.
So you must ensure that the mattresses, baby bolster covers, bedding, crib sheets, etc., all suit the baby and do not cause any discomfort. And the most essential part for the sound sleep of your toddler is a bolster. Undoubtedly, it is an accessory with which the baby bonds and feels comforted and secure.
Bolsters are baby pillows that are generally used to support a child when he or she is sleeping or even playing on the bed. They are long pillows used as sleep positioners for babies who are at least 18 months or older. Parents are advised by many practitioners to not use pads for babies under the age of one year.
Parents are scared of the opinions of experts that they can not use pillows for the baby. It is nothing to be worried about. Your fear is proper because you would never want to sacrifice your child’s safety because of being a parent. But it is also true that sleep positioners are a great sleeping aid. And there are organic pillows and baby bolster covers that make them even more helpful.
Benefits of using baby bolsters and covers
Moms and dads have so much on their plate. The arrival of a baby increases their already heavy responsibility. But that does not add any burden on parents. Their children are a [priority, no matter what. That is why they are the most discerning and scrutinise everything before deciding what to buy for their babies.
Baby bolster covers, pillows, mattresses, etc., are beneficial in giving your baby a comfortable posture. Following are the benefits of using bolsters that make toddlers fall in love with them.
Eternal comfort
Provided you choose the suitable material and texture, bolsters are the best sleep positioners and guards. They protect your child from tripping over the crib or bed. And studies show that when a baby snuggles up to something, it creates a psychological effect and helps them have an enjoyable night. If your baby sleeps quietly, you will also be able to get a restful sleep.
Protective function
Whether it is about saving your little one from rolling over or offering him/her something to cuddle with, bolsters perform the protective function very well. They can be used as a bumper in the crib, boundary on the bed, or support when he/she sleeps. And when the baby bolster covers are made with organic materials, it adds to the healthier environment around the baby.
Best tummy time accessory
Tummy time is the most essential for strengthening the core of your toddler. They are your child’s best friend. Though it is recommended that the baby is born, many children do not find sleeping on their tummy very comfortable. So, using pillows helps them enjoy tummy time.
Provides good posture
Most of the time, a baby is on his/her back the entire day. It is your responsibility to put them in different postures and increase motor activities. Using a bolster to support their body and define a stance is advisable. It establishes correct alignment among the neck, head, and body of the baby. And once the child gets used to it, he/she automatically changes positions. There is no better thing to watch in the world than this.
Better view
When you keep the bolster below the baby’s head, it becomes reclined. It gives the baby a better view of the surroundings. And using baby bolster covers made with soft fabrics like cotton and muslin makes the bolster even more comfortable. When the child sees various things in the surroundings, he/she tries to raise their hands. It encourages faster growth in your little one.
Great decor and gift accessory
Your toddlers will have their nursery, and you need to make it attractive to encourage the hands and legs movement. Bolsters are a great decor accessory in your baby’s nursery. Along with that, it makes a fantastic gift time too. If your friends are expecting or have become parents recently, you can give them bolsters. They are utterly usable, and they will like them.
Baby bolster covers cones in various designs and prints. You can buy multiple of them and make a new attractive environment for your baby daily. After all, your baby’s comfort is above everything. Doctors and experts have said that the use of different accessories for your toddler improves overall development. There is no denying the fact that bolsters make everyone fall in love with them.
Also read — Choose only the best Organic Hooded Towel Set for Babies. | https://medium.com/@thebabyatelier/why-toddlers-love-their-bolsters-and-you-should-too-5b7034e255b8 | [] | 2021-04-27 12:22:12+00:00 | ['Bolster', 'Baby Products', 'Baby Products Online', 'Baby Pillow', 'Baby'] |
It figures this is Java (I think) in that you've gone for pedantic rubbish where ALL you've done… | It figures this is Java (I think) in that you've gone for pedantic rubbish where ALL you've done is let the programming language do the loop instead of saying it. forEach still loops, but it does so in a re-re ermagahd aherpaderp manner.
To be brutally frank
Methods like foreach use callbacks. Callbacks are functions (or methods — same thing under the hood) so all you’ve done is introduce the overhead of function calls to EACH loop iteration. That is LESS efficient code that in the case of small snippets like yours could triple the execution time OR MORE. And for what, some paranoid whackjob made up fairy tale about how “loops are bad?”.
Object methods like forEach are the real code smell. And they’re worse in other languages! They’re slow, inefficient, introduce overhead and REDUCE code clarity by sending people who don’t know your code searching for whatever the blazes function/method you’re calling to handle the processing.
Seriously if you think the derpy daisy-chaining of methods, ignorant wrapping of callbacks, creation of excess memory allocations (via trash like IntStream) and so forth is somehow magically “better code” you know nothing about how any of this works under the hood, know even less about writing efficient code, and have a very queer notion of what code clarity is.
I swear you JAVA “objects for everything” nutters are just as bad as the “functional programming” whackjobs when it comes to making up absolute nonsensical BS about… well… .EVERYTHING!
It’s a tragic comedy when your alternative to using loops is to use a object method that internally is just a loop. 100% hurr durrz. I swear folks who think like you when it comes to programming would be SO utterly lost writing Assembly. | https://medium.com/@deathshadow/it-figures-this-is-java-i-think-in-that-youve-gone-for-pedantic-rubbish-where-all-you-ve-done-44d56eef2022 | ['Jason Knight'] | 2020-12-27 19:01:09.398000+00:00 | ['Java8', 'Code Smells', 'Java', 'Functional Programming'] |
sometimes it’s not about my future or where i’ll be in 10 years, sometimes it’s about my past and… | sometimes it’s not about my future or where i’ll be in 10 years, sometimes it’s about my past and what i did to get here
i look back, head heavy, mind tired, analysing every vantage point since the day of my existence, wondering what i did wrong
i sit sometimes, and hold my head and my eyes cloud over, i look past school bells and cartwheels in playgrounds, i look past butterflies in gardens, a lawn mower revving in the back yard, to see smiling, carefree faces
we weren’t rich as kids, didn’t have electronics besides the decade old tv in our living room, sometimes we didn’t have food but we were happy
when my parents would fight, when my siblings would scream careless taunts, wishing they could leave, when my mother would be taken from us every other mother in an ambulance, cursing and wishing she didn’t give birth to us, i would think “it can’t get worse than this”
but i assume that naivety is what lead me here, old enough to understand the world but not old enough to understand myself, reckless in the way i present my mind, spewing too much and hiding too little
the life back then was a hells-cape in of itself, a place dark enough that i couldn’t sleep for most nights, but at-least then i could blame my issues on the tangible forces of nature that corroded my 10 year old self
at least then i wasn’t faced with the possibility that all my issues were in my head | https://medium.com/@muna.mohamed187/sometimes-its-not-about-my-future-or-where-i-ll-be-in-10-years-sometimes-it-s-about-my-past-and-eaab86f5167c | [] | 2020-12-18 10:59:43.399000+00:00 | ['Family', 'Melancholy', 'Mental Health', 'Poetry', 'Nostalgia'] |
The Secret Sauce for Interviewing Customers | BUSINESS
The Secret Sauce for Interviewing Customers
Unsplash photo: Austen Distel
I am a believer in Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours rule and am pretty sure I’ve clocked the time to say something meaningful about how to interview customers and get the maximum feedback. I know this because I’ve also made every mistake in the book while I learned how to do better.
I have recently been asked the best way to achieve a well-conducted interview and decided it was time to pen a piece. I offer 4 simple rules and a few words of caution at the end on how you can unintentionally foil your best efforts:
Four basic rules
Always begin the interview with a slow pitch over home plate: Make your initial question is easy, open-ended, and comfortable for the respondent. Avoid, for example, discussing the internal workings of the team where people tend towards privacy. Avoid a long and complicated question. Our first goal is to put the respondent at ease.
Make your initial question is easy, open-ended, and comfortable for the respondent. Avoid, for example, discussing the internal workings of the team where people tend towards privacy. Avoid a long and complicated question. Our first goal is to put the respondent at ease. Alternate questions between long and short, qualitative, and quantitative if numbers are important to survey design. People have short attention spans, so keep it hopping. This is equivalent advice to writers who alternate short and long sentences or funny and serious content. If a respondent is bored, we can get “non-answers” where they say anything just to move the survey along. An experienced interviewer can feel it right away.
People have short attention spans, so keep it hopping. This is equivalent advice to writers who alternate short and long sentences or funny and serious content. If a respondent is bored, we can get “non-answers” where they say anything just to move the survey along. An experienced interviewer can feel it right away. Find and affirm the gems that you hear: Respondents are just like you and me. They want to be smart. Many are nervous when they begin the interview, hoping they will be able to field the questions. Everyone has something helpful to say. Your job as an interviewer is to hear it, mark it, and let them know you appreciate it.
Respondents are just like you and me. They want to be smart. Many are nervous when they begin the interview, hoping they will be able to field the questions. Everyone has something helpful to say. Your job as an interviewer is to hear it, mark it, and let them know you appreciate it. Place their feedback in context: It is helpful to tell the respondent why this is helpful. For example, “My client is considering their product road map and which products they should lead with. Your feedback is very helpful in their evaluation.” We all want to know that we matter and can have an impact in some small way.
Avoiding the pitfalls
Unfortunately, I know from previous experience where it is easy for an interview to go off the rails. The most common mistakes are to:
Make the questions too long and complicated: Any time you need to explain something in a timed call, you are taking away from hearing more from the customer. Keep it simple.
This also means paying attention to survey design. Don’t combine factors in one question as you aim to reduce the total number of questions. All you’ve done is to consolidate them. So, for example, “How did you view your services experience, and does the help desk and the auto-installation work as promised?” There is simply too much to respond to, and the respondent will fatigue.
Not respecting the respondent’s time: My rule of thumb is that conversations need to be 25 to 30 minutes maximum if it is a survey designed for win/loss feedback, customer satisfaction, or message testing. More than that is greedy and risks irritating the respondent. Keep your promise about duration and manage the interview accordingly.
Build and maintain trust: I stay away from questions that pry into pricing and competitive bids, for example. I am not trying to get the “dirt” but rather glean information related to how my client is performing. I might ask whether my client was competitively priced or whether their offering measured up to what is available in the marketplace. A respondent will hear from those questions that it is about self-improvement. I might ask who in the organization championed my client or believes in my client’s offering but I won’t ask who were the detractors because that would be deemed negative news. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/the-secret-sauce-for-interviewing-customers-2f249d9e0f22 | ['Jill Ebstein'] | 2020-12-16 16:57:51.709000+00:00 | ['Consulting', 'Customer Experience', 'Business', 'Feedback', 'Market Research'] |
Trading as a Cryptocurrency Killer App | Trading and investing in cryptocurrency for purely speculative purposes has been increasingly under attack from some of the old guard of the Blockchain space. In the words of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, “Sometimes a conflict is created between people that want to change the world and people that see this technology as an investment instrument”. For some in the Blockchain world, trading seems to have turned into a dirty word.
While we don’t completely disagree with this thinking here at Coinrule.io given some of the truly crazy stuff we have all been witnessing over the past year: the frenzy, people throwing their entire savings into pump and dump schemes, the ICO gold-rush and all the rest of it. But despite his brilliance, Vitalik and many others are still missing the point when it comes to trading.
While it’s perfectly justified to criticize some of the hype, greed and get-rich-quick schemes of the space, trading is not just an undesirable side-effect of the Blockchain revolution: on the opposite, trading is indeed one of the killer apps of Blockchain that everyone has been waiting for. This article will take a look into why that is the case.
Why the “When Moon” Mentality is not a total Disaster…
At its core, trading is nothing other than the process of price discovery. In any market, the true price of an asset can only be known once a sufficient number of transactions have taken place which indicate to the market the value that buyers and sellers put on an asset. While traders are far from immune when it comes to irrational exuberance and crypto markets can at times resemble a rollercoaster, the underlying problem ironically is not too much trading but too little: the market swings are only possible because a comparatively small amount of liquidity drives most coin movements, meaning that insignificant swings can start a large price shift.
The only way to change it? More liquidity, more investors and more trading, which will reduce the swings and make the market less volatile. In practice, the speculative drives are only bad in so far as they attract the wrong type of public attention — but in a market that is in the middle of a price discovery process, they are to be expected. As these markets mature over time, a lot of the madness will disappear by itself.
But this is just the beginning…
Came for the get-rich-quick, stayed for the Revolution
As genius-investor and Silicon Valley Philosopher King Naval Ravikant so rightly pointed out, “Bitcoin is a tool for freeing humanity from oligarchs and tyrants, dressed up as a get-rich-quick scheme.” Most of us in the space think that the Blockchain revolution will come from decentralization of power, increased privacy, open-source systems with in-built incentives versus the old centralized ‘middle-men’ companies like Google or Amazon and decentralized governance systems. But it is worth keeping in mind that Cryptocurrency started off as exactly what is in the name: currency, i.e. private currency outside of government control.
This matters in more ways than this article can address but one aspect is of particular relevance: the much discussed, often-misunderstood widening income gap between the so-called top 1% and the rest of the population. It is no coincidence that income inequality truly started to take off from the late 70 and early 80s as modern finance was emerging (we could also talk about debt bubbles, the 1971 end of Bretton Woods, inflation and Eurodollars in this context but will leave this for another day…). As capital income gains have outstripped salary growth over the past 40 years, partially driven by the phenomenon of Hyperfinancialization (another story for another day…), those who have access to the best investment opportunities have a significantly better shot at growing their wealth over time than anyone else.
What this means in practice is simple: a small group of privileged, early Facebook investors can gain returns of about 600,000% on their money before the public has the opportunity to invest into Facebook stock. On the other hand, Facebook shares buyers have ‘only’ seen 300% returns since the IPO. Not a bad return but far from life-changing for most, particularly given that Facebook was among the public investment highlights of the past decade. The investment opportunities with life-changing potential are mostly closed to the general public in the current financial system.
If you have been in crypto long enough, you probably have seen the various ICOs that are only open to ‘accredited investors’, who are supposedly more sophisticated investors simply by the amount of capital available on their bank account at present. These are attempts by governments to apply the bad old system onto the new world of cryptocurrency. These attempts are bound to fail due to the decentralized nature of these new financial systems. The critical aspect here however is that Cryptocurrency ‘speculation’ is already opening the door for an entire generation of new investors who will have a shot at the same very high returns that are currently only available to a small group of privileged investors.
Millennials as the ‘Unbanked’ of the Developed World
The Crypto old guard likes to talk about ‘Banking the Unbanked’ as a major potential game-changer coming from Blockchain technology. But as hugely important as this use-case is, financial exclusion has many elements to it and does not only impact citizens of developing countries. Remember that capital gains have been and continue to be disproportionately larger than any type of salary income? Today, 3 out of 5 Millennials don’t invest in stocks and the holdings of the other 2 are lower relative to the previous generation. For many Coinrule users, myself included, Cryptocurrency has been the first asset class we have ever traded.
The numbers show one thing: this is a structural issue. Equities markets are part of an ‘old’ financial world happening both at a slower pace and in systems and tools still designed for a time before the internet. If you are between 20–35, chances are you are significantly more likely to trade crypto in a 24/7 market that feels at times like a Computer Game than stocks of boring old companies on outdated platforms. Millennials, already financially struggling with student debt, housing prices and job markets, see crypto trading not as a risk but as an opportunity to join the ‘financial party’ to which they had previously not been invited. Trading cryptocurrency is truly a killer app that helps to open new financial opportunities for previously ‘excluded’ parts of society, finally allowing Millennials to participate in the financial system not just as debtors but also as investors. This is not a small, undesirable side-aspect of a bigger list of Blockchain innovation, but literally a game-changer for millions of people.
Trading can change your Life
Quietly yet in plain sight, cryptocurrency trading has become the killer app of Blockchain we have been waiting for. Scaling of technology and wider adoption are unstoppable developments and only a question of time at this point, but the ability to add liquidity to previously completely illiquid asset classes such as startup investments, real estate, organizational governance and to so much else and make these ‘assets’ tradable is already here today. Cryptocurrency trading allows anyone from a family in India to an Investment Banker in New York City to play in the same markets with significantly lower barriers to entry for anyone involved. It is no doubt extremely risky, highly speculative and dangerous, especially for those who fail to do their research. But much of these issues are growth pains. As new liquidity will gradually enter the markets, volatility will drop. Opportunities like Masternodes or dividend tokens are adding additional avenues for investors to earn safer returns. Everyone, not just the usual privileged suspects, wins on an unprecedented scale.
Of course investors will get burned in the process. But while some regulators prefer to avoid investor loss at the trade-off of killing entire markets, the reality is that investors and traders mature and learn from their mistakes. Trading is a repeat game, you live and you learn, just don’t stake your house on it. What about the scams and hysteria? They are unlikely to go away but entrepreneurs will inevitably create new ways to teach people about trading and improve the flow of information. Open-source inspired projects such as ConcourseQ, where I am a QFellow, or Messari, will grow into the Moody’s and S&P like credit rating agencies of the space. Projects like Preethi Kasireddy’s TruStory will help to uncover the scams. Ultimately, this will become a market that is likely to be significantly more accessible, transparent and democratic in terms of participation than anything that Wall Street or the ‘old’ financial system have ever produced. Retail investors will gain access to returns and opportunities that have never before been available to them. Today, thanks to cryptocurrency trading, literally anyone could be the investor into the next Facebook or Google.
Parting Thoughts
If regular people could invest into technological innovation, maybe even in areas like medical research and many others (funding innovative healthcare research via ICO — why not?), all supported by a vast and extensive information and education industry that prepares them for it, the playing field between the rich and the rest would begin to level. In a time of growing opportunities but also growing risks for some, say through automation-related job-loss, the number of individuals choosing to trade any type of asset for a living will only increase. With greater flexibility, location independence and, thanks to tokenization of everything, an ever wider range of tradable assets, this does not have to be the nightmare scenario which some seem to envision in a world where ‘speculator’ is often still a ‘bad’ word.
With trading systems like Coinrule.io allowing more and more traders to compete with professionals and trading bots on a level playing field, the future really does seem bright for traders and the Blockchain space as a whole. Maybe even Vitalik will have to agree with us in the end.
What is Coinrule
Coinrule allows you to create trading rules that run automatically across your favourite exchanges.
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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
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Its somewhat ironic that a movie about time travel can’t be reviewed properly until your future self rewatches the movie.
It’s bold of Nolan to make such a thoroughly dense blockbuster. He assumes people will actually want to see ~Tenet more than once so they can understand it properly, which some may not. This movie makes the chronology of Inception look as simplistic as tic-tac-toe.
Ergo, it’s hard for me to give an accurate rating, without having seen it twice, as I’m still trying to figure out whether everything does indeed make sense. If it does, this movie is easily a 9 or 10. If it doesn’t, it’s a 6.
It’s further not helped by the fact that the dialogue in the first 15 minutes of the movie is painfully hard to understand / hear. Either they were behind masks; they were practically mumbling; the sound effects were too loud; or all of the above. The exposition scenes are also waayyy too brief for something this complex — a problem also shared with Interstellar actually.
(Interstellar had this minimalist exposition problem explaining Blight, where if you weren’t careful, you’d miss this one sentence / scene in the entire movie explaining that Blight was a viral bacteria:
“Earth’s atmosphere is 80% nitrogen, we don’t even breathe nitrogen. Blight does, and as it thrives, our air gets less and less oxygen”).
I guess it’s a Nolan quirk. Hopefully, a revision of the film audio sorts the sound mixing out. I do like the soundtrack, but it’s too loud initially.
I liked all the actors. You think John Washington can’t act at first, but he can, and he grows on you as the film progresses. And Pattinson is his usual charming self. Elizabeth is a surprise treat. And so on.
Its worth a watch either way. See it with subtitles if you can. And definitely don’t expect to fully understand whats going on the first time around.
Its one hell of a complicated film. It will be very hard for an average viewer to gather all the information provided by this movie at the first watch. But the more you watch it, more hidden elements will come to light. And when you are able to put these hidden elements together. You will realize that this movie is just a “masterpiece” which takes the legacy of Christopher Nolan Forward
If I talk about acting, Then I have to say that Robert Pattinson has really proved himself as a very good actor in these recent years. And I am sure his acting skills will increase with time. His performance is charming and very smooth. Whenever he is on the camera, he steals the focus John David Washington is also fantastic in this movie. His performance is electrifying, I hope to see more from him in the future. Other characters such as Kenneth Branagh, Elizabeth, Himesh Patel, Dimple Kapadia, Clémence Poésy have also done quite well. And I dont think there is a need to talk about Michael Caine
Talking about Music, its awesome. I dont think you will miss Hans Zimmer’s score. Ludwig has done a sufficient job. There is no lack of good score in the movie
Gotta love the editing and post production which has been put into this movie. I think its fair to say this Nolan film has focused more in its post production. The main problem in the movie is the sound mixing. Plot is already complex and some dialogues are very soft due to the high music score. It makes it harder to realize what is going on in the movie. Other Nolan movies had loud BGM too. But Audio and dialogues weren’t a problem
My humble request to everyone is to please let the movie sink in your thoughts. Let your mind grasp all the elements of this movie. I am sure more people will find it better. Even those who think they got the plot. I can bet they are wrong.
~Tenet is the long awaited new movie from Christopher Nolan. The movie that’s set to reboot the multiplexes post-Covid. It’s a manic, extremely loud, extremely baffling sci-fi cum spy rollercoaster that will please a lot of Nolan fan-boys but which left me with very mixed views.
John David Washington (Denzel’s lad) plays “The Protagonist” — a crack-CIA field operative who is an unstoppable one-man army in the style of Hobbs or Shaw. Recruited into an even more shadowy organisation, he’s on the trail of an international arms dealer, Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh in full villain mode). Sator is bullying his estranged wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) over custody of their son (and the film unusually has a BBFC warning about “Domestic Abuse”). Our hero jets the world to try to prevent a very particular kind of Armageddon while also keeping the vulnerable and attractive Kat alive.
This is cinema at its biggest and boldest. Nolan has taken a cinema ‘splurge’ gun, filled it with money, set it on rapid fire, removed the safety and let rip at the screen. Given that Nolan is famous for doing all of his ‘effects’ for real and ‘in camera’, some of what you see performed is almost unbelievable. You thought crashing a train through rush-hour traffic in “Inception” was crazy? You ain’t seen nothing yet with the airport scene! And for lovers of Chinooks (I must admit I am one and rush out of the house to see one if I hear it coming!) there is positively Chinook-p*rn on offer in the film’s ridiculously huge finale.
The ‘inversion’ aspects of the story also lends itself to some fight scenes — one in particular in an airport ‘freeport’ — which are both bizarre to watch and, I imagine, technically extremely challenging to pull off. In this regard John David Washington is an acrobatic and talented stunt performer in his own right, and must have trained for months for this role.
Nolan’s crew also certainly racked up their air miles pre-lockdown, since the locations range far and wide across the world. The locations encompassed Denmark, Estonia, India, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and United States. Hoyte Van Hoytema’s cinematography is lush in introducing these, especially the beautiful Italian coast scenes. Although I did miss the David Arnold strings that would typically introduce these in a Bond movie: it felt like that was missing.
The ‘timey-wimey’ aspects of the plot are also intriguing and very cleverly done. There are numerous points at which you think “Oh, that’s a sloppy continuity error” or “Shame the production design team missed that cracked wing mirror”. Then later in the movie, you get at least a dozen “Aha!” moments. Some of them (no spoilers) are jaw-droppingly spectacular.
Perhaps the best twist is hidden in the final line of the movie. I only processed it on the way home.
And so to the first of my significant gripes with ~Tenet. The sound mix in the movie is all over the place. I’d go stronger than that… it’s truly awful (expletive deleted)! Nolan often implements Shakespeare’s trick of having characters in the play provide exposition of the plot to aid comprehension. But unfortunately, all of this exposition dialogue was largely incomprehensible. This was due to:
the ear-splitting volume of the sound: 2020 movie audiences are going to be suffering from ‘~Tenetis’! (LOL);
the dialogue is poorly mixed with the thumping music by Ludwig Göransson (Wot? No Hans Zimmer?);
a large proportion of the dialogue was through masks of varying description (#covid-appropriate). Aaron Taylor-Johnson was particularly unintelligible to my ears.
Overall, watching this with subtitles at a special showing might be advisable!
OK, so I only have a PhD in Physics… but at times I was completely lost as to the intricacies of the plot. It made “Inception” look like “The Tiger Who Came to Tea”. There was an obvious ‘McGuffin’ in “Inception” — — (“These ‘dream levels’… how exactly are they architected??”…. “Don’t worry… they’ll never notice”. And we didn’t!) In “~Tenet” there are McGuffins nested in McGuffins. So much of this is casually waved away as “future stuff… you’re not qualified” that it feels vaguely condescending to the audience. At one point Sator says to Kat “You don’t know what’s going on, do you?” and she shakes her head blankly. We’re right with you there luv!
There are also gaps in the storyline that jar. The word “~Tenet”? What does it mean. Is it just a password? I’m none the wiser.
The manic pace of ~Tenet and the constant din means that the movie gallops along like a series of disconnected (albeit brilliant) action set pieces. For me, it has none of the emotional heart of the Cobb’s marriage problems from “Inception” or the father/daughter separation of “Interstellar”. In fact, you barely care for anyone in the movie, perhaps with the exception of Kat.
It’s a talented cast. As mentioned above, John David Washington is muscular and athletic in the role. It’s a big load for the actor to carry in such a tent-pole movie, given his only significant starring role before was in the excellent BlacKkKlansman. But he carries it off well. A worthy successor to Gerard Butler and Jason Statham for action roles in the next 10 years.
This is also a great performance by Robert Pattinson, in his most high-profile film in a long time, playing the vaguely alcoholic and Carré-esque support guy. Pattinson’s Potter co-star Clemence Poésy also pops up — rather more un-glam that usual — as the scientist plot-expositor early in the movie.
Nolan’s regular Michael Caine also pops up. although the 87-year old legend is starting to show his age: His speech was obviously affected at the time of filming (though nice try Mr Nolan in trying to disguise that with a mouth full of food!). But in my book, any amount of Caine in a movie is a plus. He also gets to deliver the best killer line in the film about snobbery!
However, it’s Kenneth Branagh and Elizabeth Debicki that really stand out. They were both fabulous, especially when they were bouncing off each other in their marital battle royale.
So, given this was my most anticipated movie of the year, it’s a bit of a curate’s egg for me. A mixture of being awe-struck at times and slightly disappointed at others. It’s a movie which needs a second watch, so I’m heading back today to give my ear drums another bashing! And this is one where I reserve the right to revisit my rating after that second watch… it’s not likely to go down… but it might go up.
(For the full graphical review, check out One Mann’s Movies on t’interweb and Facebook. Thanks.)
As this will be non-spoiler, I can’t say too much about the story. However, what I can is this: ~Tenet’s story is quite dynamic in the sense that you won’t understand it till it wants you to. So, for the first half, your brain is fighting for hints and pieces to puzzle together the story. It isn’t until halfway through the movie that ~Tenet invites you to the fantastic storytelling by Christopher Nolan.
Acting is beyond phenomenal, and I’d be genuinely surprised if neither Robert Pattinson nor John David Washington doesn’t receive an Oscar nomination for best actor. It’s also hard not to mention how good Elizabeth Debicki and Aaron Johnson both are. All around, great acting, and the dialogue amps up the quality of the movie.
The idea of this movie is damn fascinating, and while there are films that explore time-travelling, there’s never been anything quite like this. It has such a beautiful charm and for the most part, explains everything thoroughly. It feels so much more complex than any form of time-travelling we’ve seen, and no less could’ve been expected from Nolan.
Oh my lord, the score for this film fits so perfectly. Every scene that’s meant to feel intense was amped by a hundred because of how good the score was. Let me just say though, none of them will be found iconic, but they fit the story and scenes so well.
In the end, I walked out, feeling very satisfied. Nevertheless, I do have issues with the film that I cannot really express without spoiling bits of the story. There are definitely little inconsistencies that I found myself uncovering as the story progressed. However, I only had one issue that I found impacted my enjoyment. That issue was understanding some of the dialogue. No, not in the sense that the movie is too complicated, but more that it was hard to make out was being said at times. It felt like the movie required subtitles, but that probably was because, at a time in the film, there was far too much exposition.
Nevertheless, I loved this film, I’ll be watching it at least two more times, and I think most of you in this group will enjoy it. I definitely suggest watching it in theatres if possible, just so you can get that excitement.
(4/5) & (8.5/10) for those that care about number scores.
At first, I want to ask Christopher Nolan one question, HOW THE HELL YOU DID THIS? Seriously I want to have an answer, How did he write such as this masterpiece! How did he get this complicated, fabulous and creative idea? What is going on in his mind? The story is written and directed perfectly, the narration style was absolutely unique. I have no idea how can anyone direct such as this story, that was a huge challenge, and as usual Nolan gave us a masterpiece that we’ll put beside (Memento), (Inception) and (Interstellar) The movie is so fast-paced in a good way, there was no boring moment. The chemistry between John David Washington and Robert Pattinson was great and funny and both of their performance was really good. Elizabeth Debicki performance was the best in the movie because she had the chance to show her acting abilities and she cached up that chance and showed us an A level acting.
The music wasn’t unique and distinct as the music of Interstellar for example and I think this movie needed the touch of Hans Zimmer, I’m not saying that Ludwig Göransson failed but Hans Zimmer in another level.
If there was something I’d say that I didn’t like it in the movie would it be that Nolan discarded any set up or characters backgrounds except Elizabeth Debicki dramatic story but it wasn’t that bad for me, I didn’t care about that, the exciting story didn’t give me the chance to focus on it. But the actual problem was the third act, it was really complicated and I got lost and I convinced myself to discard the questions that were in my head and enjoy the well-made action sequences and Elizabeth Debicki performance.
I think this kind of movie that gets better with a second and third watch.
I honestly don’t quite know where to begin with ~Tenet. I love Christopher Nolan’s work but I have never seen a more complicated film (and I understood Memento). ~After nearly three hours, I came away from ~Tenet not knowing myself, my mind reduced to nothing more than piles of ash.
Was there time travel involved? Hmm, there was definitely something about time inversion. I mean, does Nolan even understand what he wrote? Look, I give credit to the director because he’s one of the few directors left who knows how to create a compelling and intelligent blockbuster. ~Tenet is full of Nolan trademarks — the gratuitous Michael Caine cameo, a loud, really loud score, complete with stunning cinematography and slickly inventive action set-pieces.
This time around however, Nolan has finally managed to ‘out-Nolan’ himself: the palindromic plot, whilst creatively ambitious, is simply far too complicated for its own good. ~Tenet is overlong, overstuffed, pretentious and too exhausting to comprehend in its entirety — it makes Inception and Interstellar look like Peppa Pig by comparison.
I’m aware of the technical wizardry and creative mastery in this film and lord knows I’ll have to watch this again. For those who want a puzzle, ~Tenet at least provides a unique cinematic experience. But to actually enjoy solving it Nolan wants you to work very very hard | https://medium.com/@raffi4584/%E5%A4%A9%E5%A4%96%E8%80%85-%E3%83%95%E3%83%AB%E3%83%A0%E3%83%BC%E3%83%93%E3%83%BC-2020-hd-%E3%82%AA%E3%83%B3%E3%83%A9%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B3%E3%81%A7%E3%82%B9%E3%83%88%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9F%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B0-sub-japan-5786bc464f74 | ['Raffi Ahmad'] | 2020-12-23 14:27:20.940000+00:00 | ['Drama', 'Japan', 'Movies', '2020', 'History'] |
Thank You Pandemic for Teaching Me How to Take Care of Myself | Appreciating the positives
“Gratitude will shift you to a higher frequency, and you will attract much better things.” — Rhonda Byrne
Showing appreciation and gratitude for the things I have and love is one of the most powerful communication tools I have come across. When you show appreciation regularly, it will open doors to a better conversation, a more positive exchange, and ultimately a better relationship. And, the more I practice this, the sooner I feel good. This initially seemed absurd to me but with time, it transformed my life.
2020 was and is the year to have the courage to be enthusiastic. I express appreciation, give compliments, and call out triumphs — no matter how small — openly. If I see something good, I speak up. And this attitude keeps me positive all through the day. We still have a long path to get through this pandemic, but I’m doing my best to manage the toll it takes on my mental and emotional health. It is making it easier to ride out the coming ups and downs. I feel hopeful, ready and happy about the future that is yet to be unfurled, and that is a great feeling.
Choosing health
“To ensure good health: eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life.” -William Londen
At the beginning of the year, I often found myself stressing over the disaster called pandemic that was staring me in the eye. This led me to habits like binge-eating and choosing the wrong sorts of foods. I was literally nothing but a couch potato with a huge bag of chips a cola next to me. Within weeks, I could see it’s negative impact manifest in the form of weak health and immunity. It also made major and devasting impacts on my mental health. That’s when I said STOP!
At the end and the beginning of the day, it was up to ME to decide to put my wellness first. I started investing in self-care and gradually I could see visible differences. It’s always easier to prevent disease than to manage or cure it after. When I gave up junk and greasy food and dedicated time on physical activities, I became less stressed and unhappy. It’s important to nurture your mind, body, and soul for a balanced approach to your health and wellness. But the best part was the quality of sleep I started having after I chose health. So, yes, love yourself enough that you know what your body and mind need.
Tech-NO-logy
“The digital innovation that set out to connect people, has slowly started to tear those people apart both from within and without.”― Abhijit Naskar
A few months ago, as a millennial, I was obsessed with social media. Though I was very much aware that it was a time-suck, it caused major FOMO whenever I shut it down, and it used to just put me in a really crappy mood overall. Even after repeatedly shunning myself for the obsession, my hands would still reach down and log in to the apps.
It was only after my moods started fluctuating that I gradually switched off from it. My life has changed for the better since deleting social media. I now enjoy catching up with myself, my family and friends. It made me realise who my real friends are and how social media takes the joy out of sharing news with people. I also feel less anxious and less depressed now. My life is a private diary and only the true and close people are a part of it. And I guess, I’m going to let it be that way.
Of course, this is no way means that I am away from technology on a whole — I do spend some time watching a few of my favourite TV shows and films. I spend some parts of my day enjoying a cat video, a podcast, a lecture and a little bit of glamour here and there. The trick is to have self-control though.
Pious and proud
This might not be for everybody but this is something very near and dear to me. And it transformed my life.
What I’m about to share with you is the best thing that happened to me in 2020! Till the year hit the broken paths, I was a little here and there when it came to the concept of God. In short, I was an agnostic Hindu. But the time and troubles of 2020 led me to a path to question the purpose of my life, this world and the definition of the hereafter. I spent days and nights searching the depths of the internet to find an answer to my queries and confusion.
No matter where you are in your life, deep down we desperately desire to connect with our Creator. And He wants to connect with us too. I somehow felt that the free time God had gifted me with was the time I had to use for gaining the utmost and superior knowledge ever known to mankind — I wanted to know who God is, His creations and His plans. I spent months studying religions, and this is the best thing I have studied in my life. The peace and happiness I gained after knowing that there is the Supreme power who is taking care of my affairs can never be compared to any happiness I have ever gained.
“Do not, then, either lose heart or grieve: for you shall surely gain the upper hand if you are true men of faith. “ — Qur’an 3:139
Every day, I praise God, thank Him, ask Him for help, ask Him to take care of my family and friends, ask Him to forgive me and ask Him to guide me. And every time I do this, I feel refuelled and loved. What a great feeling that is! | https://medium.com/blueinsight/thank-you-pandemic-for-teaching-me-how-to-take-care-of-myself-69ae0fa65b10 | ['Neha Ravindra'] | 2020-12-22 16:48:30.108000+00:00 | ['Blue Insights', 'Life Lessons', 'Self Improvement', 'Coronavirus', 'Pandemic'] |
Tutorial Ansible — #1 Infrastruktur Sederhana | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/netshoot/belajar-ansible-1-infrastruktur-sederhana-67a95062788d | ['Ghifari Nur'] | 2021-01-13 10:44:14.719000+00:00 | ['Ansible', 'Networking', 'Indonesia', 'Automation', 'Technology'] |
Mobile Compose Refresh Architecture | If you’ve ever posted to a social network from Hootsuite’s iOS or Android application, then you’ve used the composer. The composer is where you write the message body of your post, maybe attach a video or GIF, and select the social networks to send it off to.
The code behind message composition, however, has grown unwieldy. The main activity on Android is somewhere in the order of 3,500 lines long. When it comes to implementing new features, it is difficult to add to and easy to break. As Publisher’s mobile team looked to revamp the design, refine some features and add others, developing a new architecture for message composition was the clear first step.
[caption id=”attachment_4406" align=”aligncenter” width=”281"]
Hootsuite’s Mobile Composer Window[/caption]
An End-to-End Walkthrough
At a high level, the architecture for Compose is the same for Android and iOS. It centers around the idea that each section of the composer can be treated as its own separate component. The social network picker is independent of the message body; the message body is independent of the attachment previews. Together they form a stack, where each section of the stack is incognisant of any other.
[caption id=”attachment_4407" align=”aligncenter” width=”500"]
Break down of the Compose Window[/caption]
Each of these sections in the stack has its respective view and view model, where each element knows about the element to its right: the view is aware of the view model; the view model is aware of the message model. The message model is the component that contains all properties of the message: the selected social networks, the attachments, the attached links, etc. When it comes time to send the message, these fields are combined to perform the send. Likewise, when a message needs to be edited, it is these fields that are set with the existing message data.
How then is the message model’s information propagated leftwards to the view models and then the views? Each view model subscribes to the relevant message model properties using Rx. So the attachment preview’s view model, for instance, has subscriptions to the message model’s attachments list as shown below, so that it updates when an attachment is added, and to the list of selected social networks, so that it displays the appropriate attachment metadata.
When it comes to communicating these updates from the view model to the view the two platforms differ. On iOS, the ViewController uses RxSwift to subscribe on the view model, just as was described with the view model and message model above. Data binding to the view itself is done using RxCocoa. On Android, the view binds to Observable fields in the view model using Android’s native data binding library as shown below in a small example of how the attachments preview binds to its view model.
This structure allows for the views to be kept dumb: they perform no calculations. On receiving an event from the message model, the view model takes the updated value, performs any needed calculations, and then updates the value to which the view is bound. This way the views are kept lean. They deal only with updating the view. Previously, a class dedicated to displaying the list of attachments, for example, was also performing the actual attachment upload. Now, that’s handled separately. The view simply updates based on the attachment properties.
Interacting Through the Message Model
This architecture follows the MVVM pattern, with the key difference, of course, that it is not limited to one view, view model, and model. Instead, there is a single message model and many view models, each with their corresponding views.
To better illustrate how the view models and message model interact, consider the example of the send button. A user should be able to tap the button to send if, at minimum, the message body is non-empty and a social network is selected. As the user types and selects social networks, view models are updating these values in the message model: the profile picker’s view model updates the message model when the selected social networks change and the message editor’s does so on each text change. Meanwhile, a third view model has a subscription setup to observe on these changes to the message model and update the send button accordingly. Every time an update is emitted the latest values for the message body and social networks are checked. If the above conditions are the met, the send button is enabled.
All three view models, then, observe and update the message model without any knowledge of each other. And by extension, any view model can be added or removed without breaking any other. All that would change is if and when the message model is updated. From a development standpoint, the implications of this are quite powerful: we go from a virtual guarantee that something will break each time we add or remove a feature in our current code to a modular architecture that easily withstands these changes.
Working with the Android Lifecycle
Implementing this architecture in the context of Android’s activity lifecycle presents its own challenges. It was a decided goal that the main activity not get bloated, and more importantly, that there be no temptation for future developers to simply add to this activity and not conform to the intended design. To accomplish this, the main activity, called ComposerActivity, is essentially limited to overriding two methods, onCreate and onDestroy. In onCreate, only two things are done: the databinding is set up and a call to each view model’s setup() method is made, which sets up the view model’s subscriptions to the message model; onDestroy only makes calls to each view model’s respective destroy method, which unsubscribes from any pending subscriptions.
Ideally, structuring the activity in this way makes clear that anything unrelated to subscriptions or view model set up does not belong, though we also resorted to some less than subtle methods ..
There are also instances where the view models require functionality that can only be accessed in the activity itself: for example, finding a view or fragment by id, accessing the fragment manager, starting an activity for a result, or handling the result that comes in. Result handling in particular makes up a substantial portion of the current activity. In the new implementation the ComposerActivity implements a small interface that is passed to the view models via their setup method. This allows the view models to access these functions and listen for and handle results from other activities. The main activity, meanwhile, remains relatively unexposed and free of the bloat typically caused by onActivityResult.
In Summary
Hopefully this has given you a solid introduction to the new architecture and the specifics of implementing it on Android. And perhaps more importantly, hopefully this has given you a sense of what an improvement the new architecture is on our current version. All in all, that’s the big takeaway here: we’re now working with an architecture that is easy to add to and not so easy to break.
About the Author
Madeleine is a Software Developer Co-op on the Publisher team at Hootsuite. She enjoys reading, beer, the great outdoors, and doesn’t really like writing about herself in the third person. | https://medium.com/hootsuite-engineering/mobile-compose-refresh-architecture-c79e65fd16b9 | ['Hootsuite Engineering'] | 2018-02-07 18:35:13.322000+00:00 | ['Co Op', 'Android', 'Mobile', 'Code'] |
The Tao Of Bear | After several requests for an interview, with no response, we were elated to finally see a response from Bear (or from Bear’s ‘people’), in our inbox. Bear is an older gent and a hyper-local NJ celebrity, so it is a feat to score an interview. As well, Bear’s social calendar is always full. Two boys who live a block away often walk Bear to the park, where they play, and Bear naps. A gaggle of little girls sometimes stops by to take Bear on some type of arranged furry-playdate. This more often ends in Bear’s sullen return, and the girls’ complaints of Bear being too boring. A surfer who lives next door takes Bear to the beach almost everyday. The surfer surfs, and Bear naps.. while keeping an eye on anything of great value that the surfer might bring to the beach, like a towel. Always, as Bear naps on the front porch, there is a steady stream of visitors.. The Deacon who lives near by, for one, who during every visit is overheard saying: “Oh for God sake Bear, why are you looking at me like that, you’ve known me forever.”, as he rubs Bear’s belly, and Bear looks at him from the corner of his eye, from a head too big and too content to lift off the porch.
Nine years ago Bear arrived at Newark Liberty International, from his homeland of British Columbia Canada. He arrived with a green dot spray painted on the top of his head, which was an easy way to identify a little boy picked from within a litter of 8 other little boys & girls. [sidebar: Before Bear left for America, it was noted that he loved naps more than all of his brothers and sisters, and was slowest getting to the food bowl.. but always ate the most. Naps usually started flat on his back with legs flailed to the side.. and then Bear would slow-motion fall over to one side or the other.] Upon arrival in the U.S., as Bear’s safety crate exited the immigration holding area, Airline personnel were heard mentioning that they thought there was a bear cub being shipped. So the name Bear, if not the personality, stuck.
Bear, far more a ‘people person’, than than any other person we know. Here, beauty and the beast.. Bear is about two years old.
Bear is now 11 years old, (that’s about 75 is people years). He’s long on charm, but a bit on the curmudgeonly side, (as a result of bodily aches and pains). Bear’s demeanor is set within a backdrop of great humor. Bear is young in mind and spirit. ‘Wisdom and humor, the only known antidote to old age.’ as Bear says. The truth is that while Bear’s spirit is sprite, his body is showing the wear of a long life.. albeit a charmed life. So, there was sadly, some onus to score this interview sooner than later. We were drawn to Bear because happiness, or contentment.. is a magnet. It attracts people and moments and tends to create out in front, what is internal. The universe often goes out of it’s way to reward such spirit. That’s what Bear has always been.. content. And indeed a magnet for good people and goodness in general. We hoped some of that might rub off during the interview. Maybe there was a bit of wisdom we could capture and let the world know about. We felt a little like seekers of knowledge waiting for the Dalai Lama to impart a great ‘Truth” to enlighten the rest of our days, that we might reveal to the world at large.
Not really sure why.. but Bear takes seriously the ‘one piece per kid’ rule at Halloween. Even more strange, the bowl never needed a re-fill despite heavy Halloween foot traffic every year.
That enlightenment came days after the interview had taken place. In fact, it happened as this piece was being written. In going over notes, thinking about stories that friends of Bear had shared.. meditating on the way that Bear lives his life.. The Tao of Bear revealed itself — ‘Be good’… and ‘Be kind’. That’s about it. Bear never has time for small minds or small people. He is never harsh toward either.. he just doesn’t have interest. And now, after spending time with people that love Bear, and seeing what the universe gathered for Bear.. We’re going to try always, to be good, and to be kind.
Only now, in the Fall of his years, is Bear reluctant to join the neighborhood girls on an adventure. This photo is how everyone one we spoke to about Bear will remember him. Always a part of their best memories.
Before the interview ended, Bear shared a detail that seemed a bit morose… and gave cause for a few tears and that tight throated feeling. Bear’s favorite book is ‘Lonesome Dove’ by Larry McMurtry. In the book there is a character named ‘Deets’ who is trusted and steady, a long-time scout, and an indispensable friend to the main characters, two Texas Rangers, Captains Gus McCrae and Woodrow F. Call. Deets, in a sudden and random turn in the novel, is killed while trying to save the life a small Indian boy. Captains McCrae & Call, and everyone in their party, are shaken to the core by Deets’ death. In sorrow and mourning Capt. Gus carved an epitaph for Deets in an old piece of wood that served as a tombstone. The epitaph read: “Cheerful in all weathers… Never shirked a task… Splendid behavior”. Bear hopes that is what is going to be written on his tombstone. We believe it will be. | https://medium.com/nowjersey-digital-magazine/the-tao-of-bear-e0e1aff5d7f5 | ['Mike Decastro'] | 2017-11-17 10:43:19.442000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Mindfulness', 'New Jersey', 'Dog', 'Best Friend'] |
COVID-19: An Opportunity for Electric Aircrafts to Take-off | Today I decided to write about technology and science. Technology is one of the areas that I really would like to share my ideas. I have more than 15 years of experience in aerospace technologies, advanced manufacturing, and materials science. I think it is an excellent time to talk about these subjects. Mainstream tech concepts shift from information technologies to deep tech, and I believe we need more of them. We need more companies like SpaceX, Tesla, etc. These companies utilize advancements in computer science and electronics while pushing the boundaries of older industries like aerospace and automotive.
Air Taxi — NASA
There are many other old industries like these, such as aviation, energy, and healthcare. As we are passing through the COVID-19 pandemic, we have an opportunity to think about re-shape and make these industries work more efficiently for the advancement of humanity.
COVID-19 disrupted supply chains all over the world. The goods that are once viable for mass production at not anymore since demand reduced massively. This makes some of the parts or products viable for other approaches. Companies can utilize additive manufacturing or deliver goods that can be services instead of products.
Top industries negatively impacted by COVID-19 are Travel & Tourism, Retail, and Airlines. We won’t want to fly on a crowded airplane with hundreds of people. It will take some courage until somebody comes with a vaccine to COVID-19. Even if a vaccine is invented, mass production and injection of billions of people will take time. Airplanes will not fly if we cannot find a solution. Will there be an option to test people before flight? To save the aviation industry. Airlines make money by selling tickets while aircraft manufacturers make money from maintaining aircraft and selling spare parts. No flights mean no maintenance need, and no spare parts sale means no cash flow for aircraft manufacturers. Air travel restrictions drive the impact on the industry. Regardless of potential pandemic precautions that are going to integrate into the current check-in process, there are three scenarios for the aviation industry.
Good
Minor period of air travel restrictions is the fastest possible recovery scenario even it may be possible to back regular till 2020 winter for the aviation industry. Still, we already about to pass that stage. It would be possible to observe a recovery in the industry that enables pre-pandemic period growth. However, this one seems very unlikely as the death toll increase every day.
Bad
In a more severe scenario like air travel restrictions will be for 4–6 months. This still seems like a no big hit, but this is not the case. The need for maintenance, repair visits, and spare parts would be severely impacted in this case. It will take till the end of 2021 to back to a normal-ish state. Even if we go back to the regular, the aviation industry will shrink. Large body aircraft will be impacted heavily. These aircraft are primarily used for travel between countries, and there will be other control checks during immigration like testing, vaccination reports control, etc.
Ugly
The worst scenario will be an air travel restriction somewhere around 6–9months, even if this one seems to be the worst. Unfortunately, this one is the most likely one since a vaccine will take 12months to be developed, and it will not be widely available for another 6months. Recovery to the normal state will probably take till the end of 2022…two and a half years. This is a very long time. The aviation industry will shrink massively.
This may not be all bad. Successful tech start-ups can turn in to unicorns in a year. This crisis period can be an opportunity for new technologies, start-ups to disrupt the aviation industry.
Let’s rethink the aviation industry altogether. Do we really need those large and crowded airplanes?. We are at the dawn of electric aircraft or flying cars. COVID-19 can accelerate the adoption of electric aircraft. There are more than 100 electric aircraft projects under development. In addition to that, even Elon Musk thinks that electric vertical take-off landing aircraft are the optimum solution for aviation.
Why Elon favors electric aircraft over existing jet engine technology: Electric VTOL aircraft are significantly more efficient than combustion-engine aircraft in various fields. Electric motors have a higher power to weight ratio. This helps to build capable aircraft with larger payload capacity. There is no need for tails, rudders, and elevators. They are eliminating these parts of the aircraft structure to help to reduce weight and increase efficiency. Gimble, instead of these structures, can accomplish all maneuvers. Electric motors get better as aircraft fly at higher altitudes. This is not the case for jet engines. The air’s density reduces at higher elevations, and jet engines breathe air to burn the fuel. There is an optimum altitude for jet engines can work efficiently. Let’s see a more scientific and in-depth study on electric aircraft and potential use cases from NASA.
Observations from Exploration of VTOL Urban Air Mobility Designs — NASA W.Johnson, C.Silva
Above chart is taken from a study done by NASA Ames Research Center. It shows a comparison of electric VTOL aircraft types. I also learned that 1nm=1.15miles = 1.8km. There are three types of electric aircraft for different use cases. The first one is air taxi with just 50nm=57.5miles=90km this for urban mobility, especially for high traffic cities. It is like a quadrotor drone, but that can carry one passenger. On the other hand, there is a larger one with a 200nm=230miles=360km range. This one targets regional aircraft with a capacity of 6 passengers. The last one is the largest design point and alternative to narrow-body aircraft:
15 Passengers: This is much better to control during Covid-19 pandemic
400nm Range: This makes around 460miles=720km. This is range is enough to cover one of the busiest flight routes in the world, such as from Los Angeles, California (LAX) — San Francisco, California (SFO).379.14 mi (610.17 km)
Tilting: Enables vertical take-off. There is no need for runways and huge airports to operate this aircraft.
NASA is not the only organization coming up with potential ideas on electric aircraft. A US Based company called Zunum Aero is developing a hybrid-electric aircraft with lower travel times, can operate in smaller airports, and has lower fare rates and is much more environmentally friendly.
Zunum Aero’s hybrid-electric solution has 700 miles of range 340mph max cruise speed and shorter take-off distance with 2200ft. Seating capacity is between 12–6, depending on the social distancing or comfort needs of passengers.
There is another US Based company called Wright Electric that comes up with a distributed propulsion solution. This technology has many advantages, such as noise reduction, lower cost, and drag reduction.
In addition to all of these advancements, governments granting fundings to development projects that reduce CO2 emissions of the aviation industry. These fundings are much more important right now since industry shrinking and cash is a problem. Start-ups and large corporations can accelerate electric aircraft development projects. They both bring us to a cleaner future and rapidly adapt to new modern times.
In conclusion, COVID-19 will be a big trouble aviation industry. Still, on the other hand, it can create opportunities for new ideas and concepts as all other crises. | https://medium.com/cosmic-latte/covid-19-an-opportunity-for-electric-aircrafts-to-take-off-a785bcd1ed07 | [] | 2020-05-16 16:58:24.642000+00:00 | ['Elon Musk', 'Aviation', 'Electric Vehicles', 'Airlines', 'Covid 19'] |
Why Brand Strategy Matters More Than Ever, Even Online | Why Brand Strategy Matters More Than Ever, Even Online
The biggest lesson I’ve learned in my eighteen years in the industry is that design is not art
Photo by Kaleidico on Unsplash
Design needs to help solve a particular problem — usually a business one. And we need to become more aware and considerate about that. Brand Strategy is one way how we can marry design and business results more efficiently.
If, as a designer, you had a client dismiss your perfect design concept and were told to start again, you may have just met a client from hell. And if, as a client, you needed to ask the designer you’ve hired for half a dozen revisions to something as simple as a business card, you may have hired an incompetent mac operator.
Or, in both cases, it could mean you need to adopt a more strategic approach.
But first, a quick story about how I got started in the world of strategic brand design. | https://medium.com/better-marketing/why-brand-strategy-matters-more-than-ever-even-online-8cc1ba1fe486 | ['Ilya Lobanov'] | 2020-11-20 15:44:31.355000+00:00 | ['Online Strategy', 'Strategic Design', 'Branding', 'Marketing', 'Brand Strategy'] |
Women Deal With Men Like Joseph Epstein All The Time | Women Deal With Men Like Joseph Epstein All The Time
There’s nothing new about the attack on Jill Biden.
I’d just defended my dissertation. We were out celebrating, when a guy sat down at our table. He started hitting on us. When he heard about my Ph.D., he decided to make his own.
He pulled out a pen and grabbed a napkin.
When he was done, he held it up with both hands. “What do you think?” he said. “It’s probably worth more than yours!”
It didn’t hurt my feelings. I had a tenure-track job with a major university waiting for me. All that guy had was a faux hawk. We ignored him until he left. Later, he poured a drink on someone and got thrown out.
It wasn’t until a few days ago that I remembered that otherwise forgettable moment, when reading an op-ed column that’s gotten a lot of attention lately.
Of course, I’m talking about Joseph Epstein’s “suggestion” that Jill Biden drop her credentials from her name and stick to being First Lady, now that the election is finally over. In the end, Epstein is no different from the guy with the faux hawk. They’re both intellectually insecure man-children who have their own issues to work through.
Sadly, they have a wide audience. | https://medium.com/the-apeiron-blog/women-deal-with-men-like-joseph-epstein-all-the-time-f102bbfbad58 | ['Jessica Wildfire'] | 2020-12-17 16:02:36.956000+00:00 | ['Equality', 'Women', 'News', 'Society', 'Feminism'] |
Why You Should Respect He/Him Lesbians | Butch identity in context of lesbian culture has existed for a long time. the historic working-class lesbian community — and the iconic lesbian bar scene — included all modern sapphic identities. Although these spaces have dwindled since, a diverse butch community still remains. Back in the 1950s, 60s, and beyond, lesbian spaces had almost no men around. this created a separate world of people and relationships, giving way to an entirely new system of “gender,” of the ways they related to one another. Butches were those who took on a more masculine role. People who said that this dynamic “mimicked heterosexuality” were simply comparing butches to men, which couldn’t be farther from the truth!
Butch masculinity was — and still is — a unique kind of masculinity. In other words, it was something entirely new and had no static rules!
Equating butches to men is dangerous for butches and other masculine sapphic people. Not only that, but the conflation itself creates even more confusion surrounding the very simple ideas that i’ll be breaking down in a minute. When people say things like “why would a lesbian wanna be with someone who‘s basically a man?” it enables real life violence towards butches. men will justify harming us due to our masculinity and feminine lesbians will justify rejecting us. we end up completely alone in the world.
So, it’s the 50s, and being gay is basically seen as a form of gender non-conformity. Why? Well, you’re a woman, so you’re supposed to conform to the expectations of womanhood. Lesbians didn’t do that, and we didn’t want to do that, so we made spaces where we didn’t have to.
sub·vert /səbˈvərt/ (verb ) to undermine the power and authority of an established system or institution.
Since existing as a lesbian already challenges the traditional expectations of womanhood, a lot of lesbians found empowerment and freedom in further undermining the system of mainstream gender, its constructs, and its general power and authority over society.
Butches, who already felt masculine in a way much different from manhood, embraced this. Gender subversion became a staple of butch identity and culture. They presented masculine, as non-men. It felt powerful because it was undermining the exact gender system that oppressed them.
This subversion of gender gave rise to:
using different pronouns, including he/him, they/them, zie/hir, and more
dressing in traditionally masculine ways
being called masculine terms like “boyfriend,” “husband,” and “dad.”
taking testosterone to present more masculine
getting top surgery
All of this was going on and butches weren’t weren’t men. In fact, butches do all of these things today and still aren’t men. it’s a matter of gender presentation, an intentional subversion of the established mainstream system of gender. But how does this affect gender identity?
As you can imagine, many butches began to consider “Butch” their gender identity. Their entire experience of gender was being butch. Don’t believe me? Here is a story from the neighbor of a older butch named Mary talking about this exact phenomenon:
That comment is on my historically cited article about how bar scene butch identity was a precursor to modern non-binary lesbianism. It goes into many examples and also explains the formation of non-binary terminology in the mid-1990s.
The truth is, lesbianism has always been a haven for free gender expression. The way butch identity normalized gender subversion opened a door. Now all lesbians of today, regardless of whether or not they identify as butch, can express themselves and identify however they want.
This genuine detachment from traditional womanhood, a feeling that still exists for many lesbians today, means that some of us don’t even identify as women in the traditional sense anymore.
And, like I said, this is not unique to butches. Even femmes of the bar scene subverted expectations of femininity, reinventing it for the gaze of people other than men. It challenged gender expectations. “Femme” & “butch” are deeply historical identities within lesbian culture.
Saying that lesbians can’t subvert gender by using alternative pronouns, presenting in unique ways, and identifying with gender labels other than woman, isn’t just wrong. It completely opposes everything about lesbian history. We’ve been subverting gender from the very start!
Lesbian bar culture was a safe space for butches to exist as masculine without any correlation to manhood. We were seen and understood by other lesbians. We expressed ourselves however we wanted, and so did the femmes, and so did the many lesbians who didn’t identify as either.
However, these spaces weren’t entirely secure. There were laws as early as the 1940s known as the “three article rule.” They made wearing less than a certain number of gender-conforming clothing illegal. You could be arrested. you could be assaulted. You could even be killed. When modern refuters and gatekeepers say butches only existed for “safety purposes,” it’s erasure. If butches were comfortable being femme, they would’ve been. Maybe they had to pass as men in front of cops, but they weren’t men, and they risked their lives to exist as butch. To say that butches of today or, by extension, that any other lesbians can’t express themselves in a way that’s comfortable is spitting in the face of every butch and femme, of every lesbian, that survived the police raids and discrimination and violence in order to freely exist.
You are not “protecting lesbians” by invalidating those of us who are connecting with this deeply ingrained part of our history. It’s okay if you don’t feel the need to subvert gender in the ways we do, but you don’t get to tell us what is and isn’t allowed, and history agrees.
Butches — and all other lesbians — are free to do what we want regarding gender identity & expression. If you aren’t going to read the history to try and understand that, then at least show some respect by not telling us we’re “fake” or a threat…
…because you’re wrong. | https://radiantbutch.medium.com/why-you-should-respect-he-him-lesbians-85dca31a5b4f | ['Jules Rylan'] | 2020-11-30 20:46:40.622000+00:00 | ['Stonewall', 'Queer', 'Lesbian', 'Transgender', 'Queer History'] |
How to cope up with that unfinished side project | Image by Andy Gries, Pixabay
When I was entering my teens, I was replete with my future career ideas: A bus driver, an actor, a doctor, a politician, a sportsman.
My father often talked to me about a home-made projector my grandfather built for some dozen family kids’ pastime. (It was his secret dream to build a street cinema that never materialized.) I was quite fascinated with the story.
Despite my relentless inquiries, I couldn’t lay my hands on it. The apparatus was unreachable in the huge old house. My scavenging escapades to cobwebbed attic had failed thrice.
Then one morning my father handed me a magnifying glass — saying that this was the only part he could recover from the shackled assembly. Having just studied about it in the textbook but never seen it, I was overjoyed.
For the next three months, I ran every possible experiment: burning skin with sunlight to seeing huge projections of movie still negatives (also from my grandpa’s collection) on the wall.
At that time I made up my career choice: I wanted to be an experimenter: either a scientist or an engineer. The dream was materialized in the next 15 years.
My grandfather’s side project helped me make my career choice — and more importantly, choice of my lifelong passion: experimentation.
Why are we troubled with our unfinished side projects?
People in tech are basically experimenters and executioners, employed as inventors and engineers.
Anything unfinished brings sleepless nights to executioners. More so, also because it is more worrisome for stakeholders: employers and investors.
In case of side projects, though, the sleepless nights are reserved for executioners themselves. (Sometimes, family maybe a stakeholder breathing down the executioner’s neck.)
Main source of the trouble with side projects is the fact that they have a tendency to pile up.
So unfinished side project bringing trouble is basically a two-fold question:
Why do we have so many side projects nowadays
Why are we troubled when they are not finished
Targeting each pain point will rightly dissect the problem for everyone.
Why do we have so many side projects nowadays?
Because we are living in a very crucial juncture of technology and competency.
We are living in a world where home-based startup creation has exploded
At one side we have exponentially widening net of: training / tools / accessible resources / internet ecosystem
On the other side tech is just around the corner to replace business functions at lightning pace. Every founder who can envision the future X-years ahead (and X is shrinking every day) can see that if he / she doesn’t fill this gap in the market, an AI bot will.
But while startups can be done either full-time or as a side-project, the latter has picked up momentum due to the fact that:
Side projects are frictionless .Working in your couch on something that excites you is far better than preparing presentations and chasing angel investors in conferences. Recent entrepreneurial advices heavily favor bootstrapping against external equity — but this is quite wider topic than the one today.
.Working in your couch on something that excites you is far better than preparing presentations and chasing angel investors in conferences. Recent entrepreneurial advices heavily favor bootstrapping against external equity — but this is quite wider topic than the one today. Side projects are well-supported by the right mix of communities such as Github, Producthunt, Reddit et al. Inspiration is abundant, resources are at your disposal. All you need is the right mix of passion.
by the right mix of communities such as Github, Producthunt, Reddit et al. Inspiration is abundant, resources are at your disposal. All you need is the right mix of passion. Side projects are lucrative . Lucrative as in one-shot winner takes it all game . In contrast, look at how content-creation businesses grow: they saw their gold-rush around a decade ago, and are now saturated. In programming parlance, content creation is O(n) complexity — taking proportionate amount of resources and time, against O(log N) complexity of side projects. Also, content-creation is inherently identity bound (i.e. whose blog, which youtube channel, whose Insta account) that takes months, if not years, to build. Huge wall for new entrant in a saturated market.
. Lucrative as in . In contrast, look at how content-creation businesses grow: they saw their gold-rush around a decade ago, and are now saturated. In programming parlance, content creation is — taking proportionate amount of resources and time, against of side projects. Also, content-creation is inherently identity bound (i.e. whose blog, which youtube channel, whose Insta account) that takes months, if not years, to build. Huge wall for new entrant in a saturated market. Cumulatively due to all these reasons, side projects are the new market in the startup ecosystem. “Startup Project” term leads 6500+ monthly google searches worldwide. Programmers are increasingly becoming cogwheels of huge factory called side project incubation and assistance.
Why are we troubled when side projects are not finished
It sounds cliche. But it isn’t.
Many engineers start a side project just to validate their competency. They are keen to show-off their capabilities to their bosses, the next interviewers, spouse, or someone exciting they are about to meet at Friday night party.
I have 3 side projects (browser and mobile apps) squatting on my HDD that I created to help my 8 year old son identify numbers / letters. I partly succeeded. I know I cannot take it to website / app store, because competition is simply and staggeringly better. I have no further interest in them.
But engineers who got / cultivated entrepreneurship in their DNA begin to itch when their side projects don’t see a buck in the bank.
When unfinished projects pile up, engineers’ anxiety increases, due to the perceived failure rate. Despite being known just to themselves & family, unfinished projects create a towering sense of failure during quiet moments. Family starts complaining about the time pie that side projects ate up.
And then on one gloomy day, they topple you over the cliff’s edge. Unsplash’s glaring overnight (?) success (or a similar one) shadows their own unpublished ambition.
That thing about other people’s success:
Yes, not all successful side projects bring inspiration. They bring jealousy too, even when they belong to someone completely unrelated.
News reports, forum upvotes, blog feeds, twitter mentions, github stars — everything that we are subscribed to screams other people’s successes.
Unlike startups with CEO-CTO duopoly, side projects are mostly solo adventures (although Unsplash wasn’t). They are often born out of inventors’ wish for secrecy. They believe that announcing their ambition conflicts with their full time job.
Who knows, how the boss might take it — we are connected on linkedIn.
This hinders their ability to network, their ability to find those first 100 crucial customers.
Amid this, when someone hijacks their claim to side project success, it hurts. Even if they didn’t steal it.
I couldn’t market it in time. I couldn’t take valuable user feedback early on. I didn’t fail early!
That’s when it hurts.
All entrepreneurial schools always say:
Never build a side project just because you want validation for yourself, your boss, friends or family. Build it to solve a larger problem. Lesson learnt.
But you know it —either way, it’s easier said than done.
So how does one cope-up with unfinished side project?
They say it quite often: Fail early. While this is pragmatic, not every side project is built to serve a huge people problem.
Many a times, a project with high ROI under shorter time (a perfect sweet spot for a side project) is a problem already solved by someone else.
You got high on it, but little too high to research the market. No problem in solving it again, but do it for the experience of having done it.
Unfinished projects have enormous value in filling up the silences during interviews and investor pitches. Show them how you tried it and failed, instead of uttering that boilerplate bullshit from similarly boilerplate CV / PPT.
I was freelancer for 1/3rd of my career. When back to mainstream programming career, my side-projects were best tools in nailing increasingly rewarding offers from employers — both at home and abroad.
If none of it, simply shelve them on your private git / blog. Sit on it for months. Or years. The fact is, because they represent the passion in you, they are never actually shelved.
They will find their uses either through you, or the world around you, and you will be fortunate enough to claim your pie.
They could be a required component in your future job that you code in a day and enjoy rest of your sprint browsing startup forums.
They could be an app / web template for a startup hounding freelance devs to make their MVP work.
If not, remember that:
Doing side projects is not simply about entrepreneurship. It is about employing your passion to perform exciting things. Things that you thought you could not perform, but yet accomplished.
If you feel painful cherishing your unfinished side projects, store them in your attic (read HDD with password protection). Show your son where you place it.
Who knows? Your grandson might just discover the next password decryption algorithm. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-cope-up-with-that-unfinished-side-project-744f75b48772 | ['Pen Magnet'] | 2019-08-05 13:40:55.008000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Entrepreneurship', 'This Happened To Me', 'Ideas', 'Side Project'] |
Massage and Murder | Late night on the freeways in Los Angeles gave a sense of freedom. During the day, so many cars clogged the lanes that you had to crawl and the road was nothing but a tease.
Sara looked out the window. “Take the Alvarado exit.” She spoke in a monotone like she had seen this situation before, maybe even lived it out herself.
“Got it.”
I drove in silence with the lights of downtown Los Angeles shining in the background, looking very much like a movie set. The sight was definitely romantic, unless you were one of the thousands wondering how to pay rent.
The Alvarado exit was in full view and it struck me that beneath the overpass was one of the most densely populated homeless communities in the city. I headed down the on-ramp.
“Take a left.” Sara sounded drained.
I hit the left turn signal and when the light turned green, headed onto the street, past a dense collection of cardboard shacks and pop up tents.
“Up ahead, on the left.” Sara pointed to a motel. The sign read Hourly, Nightly, Weekly.
I pulled into the lot and stopped a few spaces from Emily’s car.
“Let me go in first,” Sara sighed, her purse slung over a shoulder.
“That’s not proper procedure, just like I shouldn’t be having you ride with me.”
She paused, wondering what I’d say next.
“Go ahead.”
She got out, headed along the first floor, past a stair well and stopped at a door, knocked, waited a second and then stepped inside.
I kept an eye for several minutes and got a report on my phone. The shooting victim was in the Intensive Care Unit, struggling to breathe. Sara reappeared in the doorway and motioned to me. Behind her, a woman who looked like Emily ushered a child, a boy, out the door and down the walkway to another room where the door opened and he went in.
I got out of the car, patted my holster, and headed to the motel room. Sara waited just inside the door and Emily sat on the edge of the bed, wiping away tears.
“I told Emily to talk to you. That it’d be okay and you’re just here to help.”
Sara was the mother hen, it seemed.
A sense of pain clouded the atmosphere.
“How do you know each other?” I asked, glancing from Emily to Sara.
Sara answered. “A friend referred her when I needed help at the bar. She’s been working a few shifts a week for me, a couple months now.” Sara leaned against the wall.
I directed my next question at Emily. “And you also work at the massage parlor?”
She nodded.
“I’m here to find out what happened tonight. I just need you to tell me what occurred.”
“Yeah, sure.” Emily was quiet.
“By the way, was that your son I saw just now?”
“Yeah. I don’t want him to know anything.”
I could understand why. The kid was too young to have that in his mind.
Emily sat with her arms in her lap, but when she wiped away another tear I saw bruising just above her wrist.
The kids’ schoolbooks and some toys were piled in a corner, and a chair covered in clothes was near the bed. “May I sit?”
“Sure.” Emily looked at the worn carpeting.
I pulled up the chair. “Emily, where you at the Bangkok Massage parlor tonight when a gunshot was fired?”
“Yeah.”
Sara rolled her eyes and filled the room with a disgusted-sounding groan and sigh.
“I’m going to listen carefully to everything you say, but first I want you to hold your arms out like this, please.” I turned my palms toward the ceiling and Emily copied my movement.
An ugly, dark streak was easy to see from her wrists to her forearms. Deep purple. Fresh bruises were spreading.
“Can you tell me how this happened?”
Emily struggled to hold her emotions in check as she described how the man started undressing and wanted her to get naked and do him a favor.
“Why do you think he called it a favor?”
“Because he had seen me three times already in the past month and claimed that he was my regular. He had always talked real sweet to me and wanted more than just a rubdown over his back, I could tell. But I never did. I said the rules didn’t let me, so I couldn’t.”
“And he accepted that?”
“No. Once, he laughed right in my face. Said he knew what the real rules were. The last time, he gave me a big tip after the session and said that he’d be back, and that next time I better relieve all his stress, and make him… happy.
“How’d that make you feel?”
“Scared. When he came in tonight he had a look — ”
I waited as the tears welled up. “A look? Why didn’t you refuse to go in the room with him?”
Emily huffed. “I guess you’ve never worked there. You don’t have a choice. You do what you’re told. Besides, he always got his way because he spent plenty.” She looked away, clearly embarrassed. “He reached for me — ”
I waited.
“He was rough and yanked me close. I told him ‘no’ but he grabbed my ass, my breasts, tits, whatever you want to call them. I pushed him away and then he was mad.” Emily was quiet. “I need the money.”
“He offered you money?”
“No. I work there because I need the money. A lot of the men are nice, usually don’t say much. He could be nice. Funny. But it was like he flipped. I got scared and started pulling off my dress, but then stopped. I was like, no way.
“Then what happened?”
Fighting back tears, she looked to Sara who encouraged her to continue.
“He came at me again, grabbed me here — ” she pointed to her forearms — “and it hurt real bad. He was holding so tight that I couldn’t pull away.”
“Did you call for help?”
The question triggered something inside Emily and she stiffened, shed a few tears, and then stopped. “I was afraid. Embarrassed. Didn’t want to the manager to think I was a problem. I didn’t know what to do. I was, like, freaking out.”
“Why didn’t you run out the door?”
“I tried and that’s when he pulled out the gun.”
“He had the gun?”
“Yeah. It certainly wasn’t mine. It was his and he was in a frenzy. Extra horny? I don’t know, maybe. I totally lost it, lunged for his arm and that’s when the gun went off. I was so scared that I ran.”
“Why’d you go to Sara’s bar?”
Emily glanced at Sara. “I was scared out of my mind, hers is the only safe place around here. Do you get it?” She sat upright, like a shot of adrenaline zipped through her. “I don’t shoot people. He pulled a gun on me. He was going to rape me. I’m not going to let anybody do that to me again.”
Memories became too much for her to bear.
“I get it,” I assured her. | https://medium.com/stone-cold-crime-stories/massage-and-murder-8b3ad68f50f0 | ['Don Simkovich'] | 2020-10-18 17:38:11.299000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Stories', 'Crime Fiction', 'Short Fiction', 'Crime'] |
She Deserves Flowers | By Bethany Brown
My dad once told me that he would pay me $25,000 to not have a wedding. He said it’s a waste of money and he’s sure I will have a few. I sat there in silence, dug my fingernails into my palm under the table, shoved a French fry into my mouth and laughed it off. Dick.
I think we’ve reached the end of the road, texted the man who was married to my mom for over two decades. Her first and only husband. The man who I call father but never feels like a dad. He feels more like a colleague or business partner. We talk about finances, and work, and never about emotions or deeper aspects of my life that matter to me. He cuts me off mid-sentence and redirects the conversation to whatever it is that he wants to talk about. His voice will always be louder. If I so much as attempt to spark a conversation having to do with boys, or what I like to write about, or how I’m feeling, it’s dismissed. Eye rolling and a big ole GROSS, TMI. It’s like I’m talking to a toddler.
His sense of humor is dark, slightly offensive to most and his sarcasm is top-tier. He makes me laugh so hard I could puke. And somehow even when he’s roasting me making me feel like a complete moron, I laugh. My sense of humor is exactly the same so when we’re together — it’s a bit much. We like to talk shit about people who are incompetent. That’s one of our favorite words. Whether that be the horrible driver in front of us on the road, or somebody at work that seriously just irks us. I remember when I was younger, he would grade our burps. I don’t think I ever scored above a C+. He would squeeze me and my brother in between his legs and tickle us, never letting go. We’d scream and laugh until tears were flooding our eyes. We’d climb on top of him on the couch like a jungle gym and sometimes he’d lift us up by putting us on his feet and straightening his legs upwards. I felt like I was flying.
He ended their marriage with a lengthy text message and by leaving in the middle of the day when he assumed nobody would be home. I overheard my mom telling my aunt about the text message, so I logged into her phone after she went to sleep and read it myself. She has always called me “elephant ears” because I overhear everything.
He didn’t just leave her, he left us, my older brother and me. I was fifteen years old, ditching school that day and caught him in the act right before he walked out the door. I knew he was leaving by the way he was swiftly moving, rummaging through his closets, and the bags stuffed with his belongings on the floor. I picked up one of the bags and started to unpack it — he picked up each item of clothing I threw on the ground and placed it in another bag. I sobbed. Begged him to stay. He didn’t turn around, explain, or hug me. He didn’t care I collapsed onto the floor hysterically and had jet black eyeliner dripping down my face. He just said we’ll touch base in a few weeks. Touch. Base.
My first boyfriend cheated on me when I went on vacation to New York City for spring break. He was a junior at my high school, and I was a freshman. It was around 1:00 AM east coast time and I got a text from him saying that he’d be right back baby. Knowing I was 2,789 miles away from him, I knew that text was not intended for me. I questioned him. Called approximately 18 times with no answer. He told me to chill — played it off as if he meant it as a joke to one of his guy friends. When I got back to Los Angeles, he avoided me for a few days and on the fourth day, he confirmed. He fucked my best friend who I shared a locker with at school. I wanted to die and for a second I thought I was capable of committing a double homicide.
He was young, who cares. My dad will still tell you how much he liked that kid.
We were no walk at the beach. My brother and I both had some serious teen angst and behavioral issues at school — he was aggressive and angry, and I was loud and would always talk back to my authority figures. I was that bitch. My dad was the principal of my high school, so I think that’s where the sense of entitlement and indestructibility came from. We didn’t always make it easy for our parents and acted out because we wanted to be seen. Any attention was better than none. I alternated between cussing them out or going weeks without saying a single word. One night I snuck out of the house after everyone had already gone to bed to go smoke weed with some friends — when I got home my dad was still sleeping but my mom was up waiting for me. She was livid and questioned me about my whereabouts. I yelled fuck you at her with every expectation for her to slap me across the face but instead she grabbed me and hugged me. She wouldn’t let go when I tried to push her off of me. I broke down in tears and it was as if a hundred years of built up anger and sadness were pouring out of me uncontrollably.
He never let me cry growing up. He made it a point to program me like a robot. Be strong, and never allow myself to be vulnerable. I stood by that full heartedly and would splash my face with water if I felt like a tear was coming. For a while, I was glad my dad made me believe showing emotion is a weakness and that in order to survive and get the furthest in life, I need to disconnect. He’s a hard ass but he’s so right, I thought. I remember thinking I wanted to be just like him.
Boyfriend number two also fucked my best friend. But it was a different best friend and we were more like frenemies. (Don’t worry — I got new friends eventually.) She was also my neighbor and we had known each other since we were five years old. He would kiss me goodbye and leave my house, walk across the street and go hang out with her. The following day, she’d act like the world’s most caring friend and ask me about my life and my day. I found out a couple months later when his name kept popping up on her phone. He told me it was my fault because I didn’t show enough emotional interest and made him feel neglected and I believed him. I fought for him back.
I can’t list three separate occasions where I saw my parents kiss growing up. Or hold hands. Or dance around the kitchen together like all the couples in the movies do. I can’t remember a time where I even saw them sit on the same couch. He never wanted to celebrate birthdays or Valentine’s Day because he thought they were stupid and a waste of money.
I remember going to school and telling my classmates how dumb Valentine’s Day is because my dad said it, and I believed him. It’s nothing but a marketing gimmick I said, having no idea what that even meant at the time. Love is stupid and not real. I believed that, too. The other kids responded with objections or silence as they looked uncomfortable and one time one of them told the teacher I was being negative, and I got in trouble. She told me it was okay to believe that and feel the way I did, but to keep it to myself.
He never gave my mom gifts or verbalized any appreciation for her. Flowers die. It’s a waste. She stood by in silence. Her voice was nonexistent prior to the divorce. She always left gifts out for all of us. Even on the random holidays like St. Patrick’s Day and Groundhog Day. Shamrock socks or chocolates and a note with a happy face and cute one-liner. She was gentle in the way she spoke to us and gave us kisses in the morning and before bed. She apologized for my dad’s harsh words regularly, with disgust in her bright blue eyes. I think she stayed with him for so long because despite the bad, she can always see the good in people and their heart. She knows they can do better. It just becomes a matter of if they will.
I convinced myself that I wouldn’t ever want flowers either. It’s a waste of money, I told my boyfriends — setting the bar extremely low because that’s all I ever knew. In my mind, they were the best boyfriend in the entire world if they simply responded to my text in a timely manner, held the door open for me or held my hand once.
Number three didn’t fuck my best friend. He just fucked his ex — girlfriend. Consistently. I showed up at his house unannounced one day as I knew his parents were at work and he stayed home sick from his shitty job at a fast food joint. I wanted to surprise him. When I got there, his ex — girlfriend’s car was there. I knew what her car looked like because I had seen it before and made an effort to stalk her whereabouts since I had caught them in contact with each other multiple times and she was ruthless when it came to remaining in his life. I figured they were inside together and probably banging in every room of the house — while he simultaneously texted me how much he misses me and how sick he was. I never said anything to him about that day. I just texted him goodnight feel better, secretly sobbed for three days straight, binge ate Ben and Jerry’s half-baked ice cream, and went about my daily routine as if nothing had happened.
The motto I lived by. What am I doing wrong that led him to do this?
My mom found out about my dad’s first marriage on the day of their wedding because my dad’s older brother’s wife made a joke to her about it. Third time’s the charm. She didn’t know she was number three — she thought she was the second. It was obviously not the charm. He got remarried within three months of their divorce to his former lover from college, yet he swears he didn’t cheat. He is now in his mid-sixties, on his fourth marriage with her and is still unhappy. He told me this when we got breakfast burritos one morning. I just want to find a female me, you know? He looked defeated and I remember feeling sad for him. My older brother thinks he just isn’t meant to be with anybody because he’s not programmed that way. Robot, remember?
It was my decision to allow these boyfriends to walk all over me. I continued to give them 250% of my being, despite knowing they weren’t worthy, in hopes that one day they’d reciprocate it or love me in a way I so desperately wanted to be loved by a man. There was no image set of what the ideal partner should look like to go off of, so when they would show me a miniscule amount of care — I’d panic and fantasize about the rest of my life with them just because they were kind to me for a moment. I turned to material goods and tried to prove my love with money. Buying them a brand new $500 watch just because. Or a surprise trip to the beach and a luxury hotel booking.
My mom says she doesn’t regret their marriage because it gifted her with me and my brother. She handled it with such grace and is a kick ass, independent woman with no man by her side and I have never seen her happier. She found her voice again the second he left. Wine nights with her girlfriends, laughing constantly, talking to us about our own lives and interests, and making it damn clear when she doesn’t agree with something. She reminded me that despite the brainwashing over the years, she deserved flowers. | https://medium.com/@bethanycbrownn/she-deserves-flowers-b8fa1f20e42b | ['Bethany Brown'] | 2020-02-01 22:05:08.315000+00:00 | ['Divorce', 'Dads', 'Feminism'] |
What is the Cost of Being Wrong? | As the organization’s name suggests, the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) uses data science to answer questions about human rights on a large scale, from determining the chain of command and accountability in international cases of genocide to evaluating whether artificial intelligence-based tools used by the US criminal justice system are fair.
Because we’re data scientists, we want to do data analysis that’s elegant and brings us closer to understanding the truth about a situation, and because we’re compassionate humans, we want that analysis to be useful for effecting positive change. Data scientists want data, and this is, without doubt, the era of Big Data — we have access now to exponentially bigger datasets than ever before. As a result of this perceived abundance, we’re seeing something similar to the Gold Rush of the 1840s. Experts and industry leaders are rushing to devise ways to use the available data, and while some of it is strictly business — making difficult jobs easier, increasing revenue, and so on — some people are trying to use data to help us answer hard questions. At HRDAG, we’re very careful, and critical, about the questions. We ask ourselves constantly, “Can these data actually answer this question at hand?”
A dataset may be big, but that doesn’t mean it’s “good,” and by “good,” we mean “useful” or “appropriate.” The size of a dataset may not have any correlation to whether the data are incomplete or imperfect. With nearly 30 years of documenting and analyzing human rights violations under our belts, we are deeply informed about how unobserved events can change the conclusions drawn from existing datasets.
We’ve been involved for many years in statistical analysis that informs our thinking about the US criminal justice system. We wrote an article about homicides committed by police, estimating one-third of all Americans killed by strangers are killed by police. We’ve evaluated predictive policing tools that rely on artificial intelligence, and studied the pre-trial risk assessment tools that use existing data. Consistently, we have found that instead of cleansing the justice system of human biases, these tools perpetuate and exacerbate unfairness that’s been baked into the system — and its datasets — by decades of unjust policing practices. The datasets are only as “good” as the people and systems generating the data. So, for example, if we are trying to answer the question, “Where are the majority of drug crimes committed and by whom?”, if police officers routinely focus arrests on poor and minority neighborhoods, while ignoring the same potential arrests in more affluent neighborhoods, the data generated by the arrest records, no matter how “big,” will be biased.
This is where we find it critical to ask, “Who will bear the cost of incorrect modeling results?” As our director of research has said, “Machine learning is pretty good at finding elements out of a huge pool of non-elements… But we’ll get a lot of false positives along the way.” Ethically, we must ask ourselves, who might those false positives indict or affect?
When thinking about potential harm — and how to avoid it — we evaluate data quality, try to determine what data are missing, or unobserved, and ask ourselves if we have what we need to identify situations where analytical tools can do good. Ultimately, our goal is to supply the evidence for evidence-based policies that have the power to make the world fairer and support accountability and justice for all.
Learn more about HRDAG at hrdag.org. | https://medium.com/@ODSC/what-is-the-cost-of-being-wrong-d76941531ec5 | ['Odsc - Open Data Science'] | 2020-11-13 14:03:14.729000+00:00 | ['Open Data', 'Data Science', 'Human Rights', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Analysis'] |
No one is named. They are assigned: A Review of Jessica Abughattas’s Strip | Strip, by Jessica Abughattas. University of Arkansas Press, 2020.
I come to Jessica Abughattas’s debut Strip as a fellow poet, a friend, and a Palestinian American from the Los Angeles county suburbs. Despite our many intersections, I feel our differences so distinctly in the way that I love her work.
I am attached to this collection in the way that a kid from the Inland Empire feels attached to the city — something I am aspiring to, something special to visit, something I want to blast loud music in anticipation of. Reading Strip is reading a collage of nights strung together, memory peaking in and out, vast and massive like the city itself — I want to visit this book and all of the places it takes us again, and again, and again.
Strip opens with a “Dinner Party,” and Abughattas sets the tone with a cast of characters with whom we enter her work. We are in Chicago, among the well-to-do, among artists.
No one is named.
They are assigned.
The director, the hostess, the Palestinian, the Bulgarian, the babies from Uzbekistan. We are not in Hollywood, but we could be in a whodunnit, glamorous in our camp. The poem’s strength comes from its disjointedness, echoing the clamor of a dinner party; a dozen conversations overlapping, moment constantly being reconstructed with minor details finding their way back into the story. Between moments of lightness, we are introduced to a cavalry of characters, our access to their stories twisting alongside the details of the evening; for example, the director is: “absent from the table, / is tense when his wife is on set” is “off on a marital dilemma” is “having marital problems” but only after “the scene called for nudity / an intimacy coach was brought on set.”
This constant re-invention and re-phrasing occurs with other characters in the poem, and after the director I am most fascinated by the oscillating between “the Palestinian.” and the “I” in the poem; these moments, for example: “The Palestinian went out into the frost to smoke, / stepped in the tundra dog’s shit” and “We smoke in frost and step in shit”, almost a workshopped version of the former. We know Abughattas is Palestinian, but is she the Palestinian?
The power of naming is deeply complicated. To be stripped of identification outside of your ethnicity is to be targeted. In literature, it’s to be stereotyped, reduced. To be Palestinian, however, is often to be stripped even of the ability to name yourself as such.
Abughattas plays with these fragmentations and convergences in identity. There is “the director” and “the young director” who somehow converge, with “I” being a “decent woman” but also smoking, stepping in shit, like the Palestinian. A Palestinian, without an “I”; a Palestinian, traumatically being held. Threads converge, “Nudity was called for. / The Palestinian was humiliated. / … / Not while your wife is on set.”
Recollection in “Dinner Party” mimics traumatic memory itself. Its oscillating perspective, its patchworked details — finding visual cues in the whodunnit. The way the speaker both isolates herself (speaking in the first person) and implicates herself (smoking, the shit) is brilliant. Abughattas threads aspects of her identity — Palestinianness, her womanhood, her artistry — and attempts to hold them separate, which the poem concludes as impossible. It’s a reminder that each part of us goes into everything we write — the Palestinian does not need to mourn Jerusalem in order for a poem to be a Palestinian poem, the girl does not need to face violence in order for the poem to be one of girlhood. However, despite the poem’s conclusion that these threads cannot be severed, there is also a conflict in their intertwining; “Dinner Party” sets the stage for the rest of the collection both thematically and formally, with its performance, its anxiety, its Arab girlhood, and its interruptions.
Along with girlhood, fear and death follow. “13 Ways of Looking at an Arab Girl,” one of the more underhandedly brilliant poems, surrounds devastating blows with wry humor. Abughattas utilizes the list form wonderfully, letting both tones exist alongside each other without overwhelming the poem itself. A playful line deals with the question of autonomy we face, as if there really is a mode of patriarchy to prefer:
7. I don’t know which I prefer / to be a child in my father’s house / a servant in my husband’s / or liberated by a / fashion / magazine?
In the same poem, however, Abughattas calls on the legacy of Arab women being on the frontlines of domestic protection, with the elegant “Have you seen the brown-necked raven/who builds a home inside a bomb shelter? / The laughing dove who nests in olive trees?”
Most spectacularly, blending this humor and this weight, is the line “I am given the name of an American cheerleader. I am / fearfully made,” its energy echoed in “The Wedding” which concludes with the gut punch: “Your parents were young. Your father / loved your mother, and she was afraid.” Abughattas captures the complexities of Arab girlhood, an existence that is as brave as it is terrified.
In the introduction, Joudah and Charrara introduce Abughattas’s work through the speaker’s various identities; tying these identities is this performance, living confidently, messily, and playing with the semblance of party memoir that Eve Babitz’s presence on the cover might inspire. While I find Babitz’s writing generally shallow, Abughattas’s performance, on the other hand, is as cool as it is vulnerable. The cozy admission in “Legalization,” “I’d rather be braless / in bed until the sun is completely gone / most Saturdays” along with the striking moment in “Little Dume,” “It infuriates me that he’s good / at living,” Abughattas pulls incredible weight in little moments, these two lines emblematic of it.
“Semantics” is the poem I spent the most time with. Previously published by Tinderbox poetry, the original was a beast — a recursive exercise in the actually-ing and hmmm but the other side-ing in the naming of a Palestinian. Its book version is stripped down into ten, unfinished lines interrupted by breaks. In both versions, the poem concludes “When my grandmother is tired / A swallow flutters from her throat;” in the longer version, I read this as the exhaustion the poem produces — the semantics of it all, the explaining, the justifying, makes us grow weary. In contrast, the book version is about constriction, about the stealing of a finished line — the explanation, the repetition are gone. Also stripped is the stunning confidence of naming Palestine towards the end:
Say it for the middle school teacher who made a point of mispronouncing my last name: Palestine. Say it for the U.S. census that calls us white: Palestine. Say it for the stuttering newscaster: Palestine. Say it for the bumbling history professor: Palestine. Say it for the Biblically challenged: Palestine. Say it for the little child born in a manger: Palestine. Say it for the people in the back row: Palestine. Say it for the people in the front row: Palestine. Say it and say it again and again, the letters becoming softer in your mouth. falasteen, ya bladi (from Tinderbox)
The book version conjures its exhaustion instead from its retractions — the ghost of the phrases, whether you know what was once there, whether you can infer what could have gone there — in a way simulating the silencing of, once again, naming and identifying with Palestine; the long-text version of “Semantics” is confident, even in its length and explanation — this, maybe, is an ingenuine experience, to be able to articulate all of the histories and connections and solidarities we encounter when our Palestinianness is challenged. While it once relied on associative logic, this new version of “Semantics” relies on the book itself.
The stunning confidence of the Tinderbox version can be found, instead, in the closing poem, “When Almaza Became the Earth.” Abughattas presents a version of a return narrative, something so common in Arab-American literature and so weighted for Palestinians; Abughattas does not travel directly to the homeland, rather, affirms her presence in its legacy through ancestry:
Go find my great-grandmother’s grave in Bethlehem. Go find my name in stone. Tell her my hands take the same shape as her hands: Hands that held my grandmother as a baby, Hands that rolled taboon bread Hands that my grandmother kissed then folded In a coffin when her mother became Earth. Her hand’s her land. Go and tell her the news: she is risen.”
The associative logic gone from “Semantics” returns in the imperative, the confidence ingraining herself both through familial legacy and into the land.
Strip hits the same part of my pleasure centers that a Mitski song does; I’m sad, I’m speculative, I’m imagining so many different lives. As a Palestinian writer, sometimes I am afraid no one will care what I have to say outside of my marginalization — every poem must be about the occupation, must be about expulsion. I fear in reading Abughattas’s work, I’ve zeroed in on those moments, despite poems like “Love Lyric” and “Litany for My Father” fitting just as well into her poetic framework. There are poems that engage with sex or queerness or loss that I am holding just as dearly. Much of my reading was focused on this idea of identities, without affirming clearly that there is a full person represented in these pages — perhaps the most impressive feat. Strip shines with its specificity. I love this book with its definitions, for how it grounds itself, for the reality it speaks through. There is nothing comparable. | https://medium.com/anomalyblog/no-one-is-named-they-are-assigned-a-review-of-jessica-abughattas-strip-855a6016e12b | ['Summer Farah'] | 2020-10-20 17:14:32.436000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Poetry', 'Palestine', 'Review', 'Literature'] |
Learning Data Science: Day 9 — Linear Regression on Boston Housing Dataset | Yesterday we have learned about the basic concept of regression. For a starter like me, linear regression seems to fit as best regression to be implemented for the first time. There are various ways to implement linear regression, either using scikit-learn, stats model, numpy, or scipy.
In this post, we are going to learn about implementing linear regression on Boston Housing dataset using scikit-learn.
Boston Housing Dataset
The Boston Housing Dataset consists of price of houses in various places in Boston. Alongside with price, the dataset also provide information such as Crime (CRIM), areas of non-retail business in the town (INDUS), the age of people who own the house (AGE), and there are many other attributes that available here.
The dataset itself is available here. However, because we are going to use scikit-learn, we can import it right away from the scikit-learn itself. In this story, we will use several python libraries as required here.
Exploratory Data Analysis
First of all, just like what we do with any other dataset, we are going to import the Boston Housing dataset and store it in a variable called boston. To import it from scikit-learn we will need to run this snippet.
The boston variable itself is a dictionary, so we can check for its keys using the snippet below.
It will return statement look like this.
Available dictionary keys
Now let’s explore them.
So first of all, we can easily check for its shape by calling the boston.data.shape and it will return the size of the dataset with the column size.
Shape of Boston dataset
As we can see it return (506, 13), that means there are 506 rows of data with 13 columns. Now we want to know what are the 13 columns. We can simply run this snippet of code and it will return the feature names.
Feature names in Boston dataset
If you are too lazy to open a web page to check the description of the dataset, since it’s available in the dataset itself then we can simply check it using this code.
Boston dataset description
Now let’s convert it into pandas! It’s simple, just call the pd.DataFrame() method and pass the boston.data . And we can check the first 5 data with bos.head() .
First 5 data of Boston House
Uh, wait. Why is the column only showing its index and not its names? It turns out the column names is not directly embedded. If you remember, we have the list of the column names. So, let’s convert the index to the column names.
Put the feature names to the column names
Does anyone realize that there is no column called ‘PRICE’ in the data frame? Yes, it is because the target column it’s available in other attribute called target . So let’s check the shape of the boston.target .
Target shape
So, it turns out that it match the number of rows in the dataset. Let’s add it to the DataFrame.
Data Frame with PRICE column
Now, we’re talking. Let’s get right into the analysis.
Summary Statistics
Since it’s going to be a very long post if I do all the analysis. So we are just going to the basic. We would like to see the summary statistics of the dataset by running the snippet below.
Statistics summary of the Boston dataset
Split train-test dataset
Unlike titanic dataset, this time we only given a single dataset. No train and test dataset. That’s fine, we can split it by our self.
Basically, before splitting the data to train-test dataset, we would need to split the dataset into two: target value and predictor values. Let’s call the target value Y and predictor values X.
Thus,
Y = Boston Housing Price X = All other features
Now, we can finally split the dataset into train and test with the snippet below.
If we also check the shape of each variable, we can find that now we already got ourselves our train and test datasets with the proportion of 66.66% for train data and 33.33% for test data.
Shape of X_train, X_test, Y_train, and Y_test
Linear Regression
We finally going to run a linear regression. Don’t forget to import the LinearRegression .
The above snippet will fit a model based on X_train and Y_train . Now we already got the linear model, we try to predict it to the X_test and now we got the prediction values which stored into Y_pred . To visualize the differences between actual prices and predicted values we also create a scatter plot.
Comparison between the actual prices and predicted prices
Ideally, the scatter plot should create a linear line. Since the model does not fit 100%, the scatter plot is not creating a linear line.
Mean Squared Error
To check the level of error of a model, we can Mean Squared Error. It is one of the procedure to measures the average of the squares of error. Basically, it will check the difference between actual value and the predicted value. For the full theory, you can always search it online. To use it, we can use the mean squared error function of scikit-learn by running this snippet of code.
Mean Squared Error for the Linear Model
That means that the model isn’t a really great linear model. But, as a start, it is a good way to go. I actually still don’t understand how to know the value of acceptable mean squared error.
Final Words
Today we have learned about applying linear regression to a dataset. One thing to note is that even though we use a library, we should understand how it works. So, don’t forget to understand the concept clearly. If you have time to practice is by hand it’s way better. Please let me know if I had an error in the story, or if there is any suggestion to improve the article, or maybe if you want to discuss something. Don’t hesitate and let me know in the response below. Have a nice weekend! | https://medium.com/@haydar-ai/learning-data-science-day-9-linear-regression-on-boston-housing-dataset-46f61e374d69 | ['Haydar Ali Ismail'] | 2020-12-23 18:08:10.915000+00:00 | ['Regression', 'Statistics', 'Data Science', 'Data Modeling', 'Machine Learning'] |
The art of racing: A look into the enthralling F1 experience | There is something to be said about the subtle artistry of racing. A sport so boisterous and daring, yet meticulously methodical, the art of racing is one that requires a discerning eye to appreciate.
The initial impression to the unfamiliar eye is that racing is just cars circling a track for a number of laps — a sense of repetitive uneventfulness. But as the onlooker peers closer, they can appreciate racing for the unique story of each race.
Behind each race is a plethora of twists and turns, the art of racing is hidden within its context.
Racing’s highest level
Iconic drivers, historic tracks, and euphoric moments have placed Formula 1 (F1) racing at the pinnacle of motorsports. Governed by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, 10 of the world’s most prestigious car manufacturers compete on the grid, each represented by two cars and two drivers. The year-long competition consists of 21 Grands Prix on majestic tracks across the globe. Taking place in the planet’s greatest cities, each race is a weekend-long sporting spectacle like no other. On race weekends, the competition lights up its host city. From famous celebrities and artists in attendance to the posh concerts and parties, the glamorous atmosphere does nothing but capitalize on the grandiose nature of each F1 race.
Every racing event requires a vehicle — one that matches the sense of lucrativity surrounding the event. The F1 racing cars are some of the quickest land-based pieces of engineering. Using the most advanced automotive technology, records far surpassing 300 kph are a norm for these automobiles.
Illustrated by Raffy Reynoso. Image can be found here.
However, in the cockpits of these feats of engineering are the true icons of the sport. With 20 drivers preparing to battle at break-neck speeds, mere seconds could flip the narrative between victory and defeat. The drivers exhibit their mastery of the craft, all in their campaign to claim the chequered flag.
Two honors are awarded in each F1 season, which is why it is regarded as one of the world’s most complex sports. Throughout a series of Grand Prix, points are awarded based on the results of each race, which are then used to determine the victors of both the drivers’ and constructors’ championships. Because placement determines the amount of points a driver earns for both himself and his team, racing becomes both an individual and team sport at the same time, which adds to the unfolding drama.
The thrill of a race
F1 is racing at its finest. As the five red lights above the starting line flash one by one — a silent countdown for the race start — spectators sit at the edge of their seats. Hearts thud in anticipation until finally, a familiar David Croft exclamation bellows in the air, “lights out and away we go!”
The cars fly from their starting positions with each driver fighting to break away from the pack. A myriad of action ensues early on in a F1 race. A collection of wheel-to-wheel action and cars pouncing on cars are usual sights within the first few laps. With the slightest margin of error, drivers need to strike the perfect balance between aggression and caution, and in these moments of suspense, fans feel most alive. Fans almost empathize with the driver, understanding nearly every ounce of tension the driver must be feeling on the track.
Races, however, are not constantly packed with action. When the excitement takes a pause, fans can sit back in their seats and watch — but they can never relax. In F1, anything can happen at any given moment. One memorable occasion was the dramatic Monaco Grand Prix in 1988, where racing legend Ayrton Senna led the race for 67 laps, and was practically guaranteed the win with his 55-second lead. He ended up crashing into the guard-rail and not finishing the race at all. It is in this spellbinding unrest where the sport finds its life, and it is what makes F1 so riveting.
After close to two hours of nonstop racing at intense speeds, the drivers marvel at the sight of the checkered flag that marks the conclusion of yet another battle. The podium celebration is one of F1’s most famous sights. Absolutely elated to have bested 17 other racers, the top three drivers and the winning constructor shower each other in champagne. But once the dust settles, the drivers prepare to travel to a new part of the world to duke it out once again.
The grandeur, tension, and pleasure that F1 draws is an electrifying experience, capturing spectators with its enduring magnetism. Once the eyes understand, it is a sport that demands attention like no other. | https://medium.com/@caniza/the-art-of-racing-a-look-into-the-enthralling-f1-experience-4920c7376e92 | ['Annika Cañiza'] | 2021-01-04 03:43:59.873000+00:00 | ['Sports', 'Cars', 'Formula 1', 'F1', 'Racing'] |
UMT Token to be Listed on Exrates and HitBTC | The token of Bubbletone Blockchain in Telecom — UMT token — will be listed on crypto exchanges in July. Two exchanges and one network have affirmed their intention to list UMT token.
In the middle of July, UMT token will be listed on the Exrates exchange. The trading pairs are UMT/BTC, UMT/ETH and UMT/USDT.
In the second half of July, UMT token will be listed on HitBTC. The trading pairs are UMT/BTC and UMT/ETH.
The exact listing dates and new exchanges will be announced later. Keep up with our news!
About Exrates
Exrates is an actively-growing platform, with its priority being creation of comfortable and practical conditions for its users. The Exchange takes a minimum commission for input and output means and provides maximum security. Its playground is suitable for both beginners who want to exchange their money with another user at the market rate and experienced traders. To conduct transfers, users only need their nicknames registered in the system.
About HitBTC
HitBTC is one of the world’s most advanced cryptocurrency exchanges. Since 2013, HitBTC has been providing markets for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Monero, USDT and more than 300 cryptocurrencies in total. Created by outstanding technical minds, high-level finance professionals and experienced traders, HitBTC is delivering the most reliable, fast and powerful platform solution on the market. The platform has earned its reputation for fault-tolerance, flawless uptime and high availability. Its core matching engine is among the best technological products in its class, offering traders a wide range of features such as real-time clearing and cutting-edge order matching algorithms. | https://medium.com/bubbletone-blockchain-in-telecom/umt-token-to-be-listed-on-exrates-and-available-on-the-bancor-network-bb48d00e9b82 | ['Bubbletone Blockchain In Telecom'] | 2018-07-18 13:14:04.295000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bancor', 'Hitbtc', 'Exchange'] |
Clean Code: Naming | Meaningful Names
Names are the smallest building block of code. Names are everywhere: Function, class, file, component, and container all have names. Names are also the basic building blocks of clean code. There are some hard and fast rules to a good name.
Use intention-revealing names
A good name should answer only three questions.
I know it sounds simple, but it takes a lot of time to get a good name. However, it will save more than that in the long run.
A name should not have comments to express its intentions. Look at this example:
# Dirty Code d = 100 # elapsed time in days # Clean Code elapsed_time_in_days = 100
In the first case, you need to go through the comment. That’s okay for one time. But whenever you use the variable d , you will have to come to the initialization to get the intention of the variable. But the second case, elapsed_time_in_days , is expressive on its own.
Don’t give your variable a one-letter name. One-letter names are never expressive. They fail to reveal their intention. There are some exceptions, like the letters i, j, and k in the for loop. However, never use a small letter l (el), a capital letter I (eye), or a capital letter O (oh) as a name because programmers tend to confuse them with one and zero, respectively.
Avoid disinformation
Avoid names that are platform-specific, like htop and hp .
Don’t use names with small changes like dataset_generator_for_cat_with_user_mobile_1 and dataset_generator_for_cat_with_user_mobile_2 . In this case, you don't get the difference until the last letter, and most of the time, you’ll ignore that difference.
Make meaningful distinctions
There should be enough distinctions in the variable naming. Don’t just append a number if you have a variable with the same name in the scope: a1 , a2 is the opposite of intention-revealing.
Don’t use names with similar meanings. For instance, product_data and product_info do not have a proper distinction. Just by looking at the name, you can't assume the intentions of these two variables. These are called noise words. Some of the other noise words are a , an , and the .
Don’t append variable type to the variable name. Make the variable name so expressive that you can understand the type uniquely by the name alone. For instance, account_name can never be a floating-point number. It must and should be a string. There are some exceptions, like id , which can be a string or a number. But then that convention should be followed all over the project so the programmer working on that project will know if the id is a number, a string, or something else.
Use pronounceable names
If you can’t pronounce it, you can’t discuss it without sounding like an idiot.
Sometimes a short example is better than a lot of text:
# Poor Name gen_ymdhms = "1591442356268" # Generation year, month, date, hour, min, sec # Good Name
genration_timestamp = "1591442356268"
Use searchable names
Avoid using one-letter names as much as possible. If you need to use a one-letter name, use it only within a local scope rather than over a global scope.
Avoid using common words like sum , temp , or flag as they seem to be used by a lot of methods and classes and are thus not search-friendly names.
Avoid encodings
Avoid using encodings like Hungarian Notation or Member Prefixes. They were used before when the IDE was not as smart as it is now. Current IDEs are smart enough to give us suggestions about the type or the member variable of a class. We don’t want to clutter our brains with more information.
On the other hand, language-specific encodings should be maintained throughout the project, such as snake_case in Python and camel case in JavaScript.
Avoid mental mapping
Programmers indeed are really smart. But code is not a place to show off your smartness. You can obviously remember that r is the variable name for a URL with the host and scheme removed. But the person who will be reading your code would not know that mental mapping. Use names that properly express the intention of the variable.
Class name
Class name should be a noun or noun phrase. By design, classes are an encapsulation of the same type methods and variables, thus they should have a common name. Classes should not be a verb in any way.
Function/method name
Functions should be a verb or verb phrase. By design, a function should have only one responsibility. If the name is anything other than a verb, then either you are naming it wrong or there are some problems in the architecture.
Pick one word per concept
Avoid using different but similar words to define the same concepts. For instance, don’t use fetch , get and retrieve in the same project for the same responsibility.
Don’t use the same word for different concepts
Avoid using the same word for totally different concepts. When you are intending to follow the previous rule, you will end up with a lot of variables with the same name. Perhaps add is used throughout the project to add or concatenate two existing values. But if we use it to append a new value to an existing variable, it would be confusing. append seems a more reasonable name for this method.
Use solution domain names
Your code will be read and maintained by programmers, so it’s okay to use solution domain names. For example, in the machine learning context, data_generator is a good name. Whoever sees this name will know that it’s a data generator that is an iterator to loop on.
Use problem domain names
If there are no solution domain names available, then use a domain-specific name. In that case, the programmer can ask a domain expert about the meaning.
Add meaningful context | https://medium.com/better-programming/clean-code-naming-b90740cbae12 | ['Shubhashis Roy Dipta'] | 2020-06-29 16:25:46.489000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Programming', 'Startup', 'Clean Code', 'Python'] |
How I Found A Software Development Job in Japan Without Experience and Without Speaking Japanese | I moved to Tokyo to start a software engineering job in December of 2015. Since I’ve been here I’ve gotten a lot of questions on how I was able to find the job especially since I spoke very little Japanese and most importantly because I didn’t have a computer science degree or any professional engineering experience.
So I decided to share the concrete steps I followed to find my first engineering job in Japan and hopefully, others will be able to learn from it.
Step 1. Don’t graduate with a job already in hand and go to Japan
After college, I was really lost in terms of what I wanted to do with my life and I didn’t have a job. I had been rejected by most of the jobs typical business majors aspire to do, namely consulting and investment banking (honestly I wasn’t really that interested, I just thought it was what I was supposed to do as a business major), so I decided that I would do a two-month language course in Japan and hopefully figure stuff out after that.
Initially, I didn’t really have the intention of moving to Japan or finding a job here, to be honest, I was just really interested in the language and the culture. But soon I realized that the only way I would ever learn Japanese to a level I would be satisfied with was if I lived and breathed Japanese every single day, and the only way that was going to happen was if I lived in Japan. So I made the decision that I was going to find a way to live in Japan.
As an American, this decision meant that I would need to get a visa that would allow me to stay for an extended period of time. This left me with a few options — I could enroll full time in an intensive language school, I could go to graduate school, or I could find a job. Since I had just spent the last 4 years in college and wasn’t really looking to spend another couple of years just spending money, I decided my only option was to find a job here.
This left me in a situation where I was a new college graduate with no full-time professional experience, and I really didn’t speak any Japanese…I could probably pass N5 and that was about it…
I spent the next month doing research and talking to as many people as I could including recruiters and friends of friends of friends, and attending college alumni events to see what kind of jobs would be available for someone with a business major, no professional experience, almost no language ability and who had never worked or lived in Japan. After talking to a ton of people, the overwhelming response was that I should A) teach English, B) go back to the U.S., work at an established company and then transfer to Japan after a couple of years, or C) find a way to go to graduate school. However, being as impatient (and stubborn) as I am, I would tell people that none of those options sounded like a good option for me, which garnered a lot of “That’s gonna be hard…but good luck…”, accompanied by a healthy dose of skepticism.
Basically, the general message was that if I wanted to live in Japan, it was not going to be under the terms that I wanted. But these rebuffs didn’t really stop me and only made me resolve to try harder and get more creative.
Step 2. Get desperate and lucky
After a month of searching (which really isn’t that long, but note that I only had 2 months to find a job), literally everyone I talked to said that 1. I needed way more experience to do jobs that were business-related, or 2. I needed to have near-fluent Japanese ability. I didn’t want to give up though, so I did what everyone does in this situation — I asked strangers on the internet for help.
At that time, I was a fairly active user of Quora, a question and answer site that was becoming quite popular in the US. I had written both answers and some questions there and fairly frequently I had gotten helpful responses. So I decided to post a question on Quora simply directly asking what I was looking for.
I posted this question without much hope, but it took me only a few seconds to write so I thought I had nothing to lose. And then one day I got a response:
Of course, I dropped him a line and we set up a time to chat.
The following week I had lunch with him and 2 other members working at his startup and we discussed what kinds of roles could be available. The answer was: none. Again, with my lack of language ability and experience, there was no role I could realistically do at the company. However, he graciously offered to try to help me find a job and connect me with other people that might have some other leads.
As we walked out from lunch, I asked him why exactly he said he was open to hiring foreigners and he said that he was “trying to hire engineers and it was hard to find talent in Japan”.
Step 3. Seize the opportunity and get lucky again
Now, I had no Computer Science degree and had basically learned to make really, really simple websites in college via a minor called Web Technologies and Applications, where I learned a lot of HTML, CSS, and a little bit of Javascript and PHP.
However, near the end of graduation and while I had been living in Japan, I luckily had been learning more web development in my spare time by taking Learn Python the Hard Way and by creating a kanji learning application with the Django web framework.
So when I heard they were trying to hire engineers, I don’t know why but I jumped at it and said “I can do engineering!”. I was a little nervous after I said it because most of what I learned about web development had been self-taught over the last few months and there was no way I could ever call myself an engineer. But the CEO of the company was willing to give me a shot and set up a meeting with their CTO.
A few days later, I met with the CTO and showed him the very ugly, incomplete piece of crap kanji app I had been making. And it was crappy, as of now I can’t even figure out how to get the app running on my laptop again. But even though it was crappy, at that point it worked, and apparently it was good enough that they decided to let me do a one-month internship while my visa was still valid (due to labor laws in Japan, what I did was not really an internship, but more of a way of showing that I could work as a software engineer, kind of a long story).
I could write a lot more about how that internship went, especially considering none of the engineers I worked with spoke any English, and I barely knew how to code. But for now, this is basically where the story ends. I completed the internship and got a full-time offer to work in Japan as a software engineer, and I am extremely thankful that the CEO and his team were willing to take a chance on me. I wouldn’t be where I am at today without them.
Wait, are you saying I need to post questions on Quora to get a software job in Japan?
I know my story is really specific and honestly, I would not suggest copying almost anything I did in order to find your first software engineering job in Japan. The fact of the matter is that I just got SUPER lucky. However, the one thing I would like to show with this story is that it is possible to find your dream job in Japan given enough determination, risk-taking, and luck. Additionally, since I came here initially the software industry has grown considerably in terms of the acceptance of foreigners, so it’s easier than ever to enter Japan as a software engineer.
Quick Practical Advice for Actually Finding a Job Here
Alright, I’ll give you some real things you can do if you want to work in Japan as a software engineer, especially if you don’t have formal software engineering experience. Again, I could probably write a huge in-depth article about this, but let me just write down some quick pieces of advice and add a bunch of links :)
Come to Japan and meet people [Maybe wait until Covid situation calms down]
If you are fortunate to be in a place in your life where you can make a trip to Japan, this is definitely what you should do if you want to find a job here. This way you can talk to more people, make more connections and find opportunities you otherwise wouldn’t be able to find from your own country. I would suggest having some kind of portfolio that you can show people as well.
Basically, almost every single person I know found their job in Japan through some kind of connection, so even if you are not currently in Japan, actively finding ways to connect with people in Japan is the single most important thing when trying to find a job here.
Get engaged in the community
Attend meetups such as:
Join the HacknewsTokyo slack channel to see what’s happening in the Tokyo tech scene.
Attend a coding bootcamp
This is a great option if you have very little programming experience and some spare time (and cash). These boot camps typically last around 3 months and will prepare you to become a full-fledged software engineer in Japan, even if you have very little programming experience. If you complete one of the following bootcamps you are almost guaranteed of being able to find a software engineering job in Japan:
Be persistent and don’t get discouraged
It can seem hard sometimes since most companies in Japan require high levels of Japanese to be an engineer, but almost every person I know who has tried to find a software engineering job here has managed to find one eventually.
If you are just searching for companies that hire English-speaking engineers, I would suggest you check out Tokyo Dev and JapanDev as a starting point to get information on companies that hire English-speaking software engineers.
Additionally, there is a youtube channel called Dev In Japan, which has been growing in popularity and gives good insights into what it is like working as a developer in Japan.
Want to keep up to date about the tech industry in Japan?
Feel free to follow me or message me on Twitter or connect with me on Linkedin.
I am currently also working on a project called OpenSalary which aggregates salary data for engineers in Japan so hopefully this can be helpful in your job search as well. Thanks for reading! | https://medium.com/curious/how-i-found-a-software-development-job-in-japan-without-experience-and-without-speaking-japanese-5ff8698e33d9 | ['Drew Terry'] | 2020-12-22 07:35:16.348000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Japan', 'Jobs', 'Coding', 'Software Engineering'] |
Inspiration From the Kitchen: How InVision’s Clair Byrd Runs Marketing Like a Chef | Clair Byrd is InVision’s Director of Content Marketing. She’s developed and scaled the company’s programs to consistently net 75,000 new leads per month, 4,300 new users a day, and has set a new standard for quality marketing in the process.
But before Clair ever wanted to be a marketer, she dreamt of being a chef.
Here’s her journey from line cook to leading content at one of the most exciting technology companies in the world.
Learning by doing
Clair has loved two things her entire life: Food and words.
After high school, she wanted to pursue her dream of becoming a chef but went to college instead. (College was the backup plan. You know. Parents.)
Trying to make the chef thing a reality, she ran the back of the house at a restaurant in Ohio before landing a gig as a private chef in the Bay Area.
She enjoyed life in the kitchen: conjuring up something from nothing, experimenting with unique ingredients, and fusing together raw materials to produce soul-satisfying experiences. But she was still looking for a way to combine her love for food and words.
Fortunately, a bridge appeared.
A new food and beverage startup needed help, making Clair the perfect candidate (only candidate?) for the company’s marketing generalist role who could also bartend their events like a seasoned pro.
Beyond flexing her skills from the line, the initial role also let her cut her teeth in content development and community building, despite (in her own words) “not knowing what she was doing.”
During a recent Q&A with NewsCred, Clair admits that these early years were fueled by “ambition and pure hustle”, and figuring out things that she “100% did not know how to do.”
But mentors did. Courses did. The community did.
Which years later led to working with Tony Hsieh at Delivering Happiness, leading content and community, before moving on to InVision, a company that works with over two million customers.
In one of the most cogent sentences ever, Clair reflects on this time:
“The longer version of this story includes stacking several pro bono clients on top of my two jobs to make up vertically (project diversity) in the experience that my peers had in horizontal (time) experience.”
In other words, she learned by doing.
Like you do on the line.
Art vs. craft
Michael Ruhlman, respected culinary author of The Soul of a Chef and The French Laundry Cookbook (to name a few), used to believe that chefs were craftsmen, not artists.
In Reach of a Chef, he softens his stance a little bit:
“I used to think that only in the rarest of circumstances did the chef rise above being a craftsman into the realm of the artist. Only when a chef changed the way you saw the world, through cooking, did food truly become art, and that was rare indeed.”
Craftsmen are technicians. They’re incredibly gifted, no doubt. But there’s a utilitarian approach. Their work is often repetitive, reproducing the same high-quality product over an extended period of time. As opposed to an artist, who often rips up the script.
The best marketers combine both art and craft. This is what Clair’s work at InVision looks like.
She approaches her work as a craftsman and artist, with the unique mindset that “Marketing isn’t just an acquisition source. It’s a piece of the product.” This holistic approach ensures people have a great experience every time they interact with InVision’s brand.
“Marketing isn’t just an acquisition source. It’s a piece of the product.” — Clair Byrd, Director of Content Marketing, InVision
How does content play into this? In Clair’s view, “Everything is content at the end of the day. It’s not just blog posts or whitepapers or whatever. It could be anything. As long as it fits the equation of a meaningful resource to someone, for free, in exchange for the opportunity and permission to market to them. That’s the foundation of content marketing.”
Clair also believes content is ephemeral, not evergreen.
“Evergreen content is nonsense. There’s no reason to try and create something that’s going to be out of date in a few months.”
Instead, she instructs, “Embrace the ephemeral nature of evolving industries.”
For example, at InVision, content is a “community-driven cross-section of what’s happening in the design industry right now.”
In other words, rather than prescribe, they listen.
The community shares what they want to hear about, and Clair’s team figures out how to deliver it while applying their own business drivers after the fact. It’s a work in progress at all times.
Case in point?
Design Disruptors.
“There was a deep desire in the design community for a film, but no one was doing it. We decided to take it on ourselves. It’s a collection of viewpoints and design thinking from practitioners across the industry. We wanted to keep authenticity super high and omit our own point of view because the film was so high-risk to feel like a ‘commercial.’”
But, there’s a key distinction here.
Clair’s team is still changing the film. It’s iterative. Every premiere they do is a different movie.
“We take feedback in real time and re-release the film over and over. We’ve had feedback from over 25,000 people. We want to show that the practice is continually changing, and feature new voices in the movement and how other industries are affected.”
Designers are swooning over the film. They frequently come up to Clair and say things like “Thank you. I can finally explain to my parents what I do.” Others give it to their boss to accomplish the same. And it’s been the most successful campaign InVision has ever run.
But why didn’t a film like this exist before?
Because making movies is hard.
“Design Disruptors took 18 months to produce, and we spent well over 400 hours of onset time filming that had to be edited down to an hour and ten minute film. There was an entire ecosystem around the brand and tons of design work involved.”
Not to mention, she’d never done anything like it before. (There’s the learning by doing theme again.)
Another InVision bet, Craft, is a suite of Sketch plugins for designers.
It’s a free toolset that has stand-alone value. But it’s also a content play, helping people to discover the InVision brand for the first time (before hopefully coming back to convert much later).
Like Design Disruptors, the initial objective was to simply educate and inspire the design community. To give, give, give, and expect nothing in return.
But how do Clair and company pull off these atypical campaigns?
Mise en place
“We get a lot of questions about how we produce so much stuff in so little time,” Clair mentions.
Counterintuitively, Clair and her team started by not starting.
“We spent the first three months not publishing anything. We just created a huge library of things to pull from with intention.”
The end result — and high production quality — came from being prepared.
It was like cooking again.
A chef’s mise en place is their literal and metaphorical practice, organizing ingredients, spices, pots, and pans to make sure everything is properly “in its place” before starting. It’s the work that happens hours before people even start sitting down in a restaurant.
While it seems like overkill, this level of preparation means you’re ready for anything when the intense dinner rush walks through the door. All of the essentials are within your grasp, allowing you to instead focus on the most difficult aspect of the process: execution under tension.
“Cooking is design”, Clair says. “When you’re creating a dish for someone, you’re creating an experience. You’re creating order — a specific way for guests to experience their meal in a specific way.”
“I take a lot of inspiration from the kitchen”, she offhandedly comments in her Growth Hackers AMA. “It was there I learned the value of developing highly repeatable processes that lead to high-quality results every time.”
Clair says that “commercial restaurants are run very similarly to how an integrated, cross-functional marketing team works.”
Every piece needs to “converge at the exact same time to create a beautiful experience,” which requires you to “think through every single part of a flow and the entire customer journey.”
In practice, this means InVision’s campaigns are fully integrated. All prepared ahead of time. The team knows exactly what they need to create so they don’t get held up in the throes of execution.
Clair has previously outlined their Design Disruptors promotional strategy as an example. Once again, stealing from her AMA:
“The distribution strategy was driven by a question ‘how can we get this film into the hands of the most relevant people?’ The foundation of this was data (who we approached, when, why, and how) and communication design (what we communicated, in what cadence, in what form, and at what critical moments).
On the digital side, we leaned into the viral nature of the film. We invested deeply in creating a multitude of robust social experiences, like micro-video, disruptor profiles, competing for pre-access, allowing organization of community screenings, and lots and lots of built-in sharing functionality — the echo chamber effect was massive.
On the events side, we focused deeply on creating an exceptionally awesome event experience coupled with a deeply targeted and curated audience. We used these InVision-produced events as case studies to engage partners to create their own premiere events — again amplifying the film and the brand message through the echo chamber, a ‘look how sexy this is — you could be this sexy, too’ experience.
We were able to get nearly 5,000 excellent designers into five theaters around the world, and almost 18,000 people into 200+ community events — plus over 75k on a film-specific email list.”
Design Disruptors wasn’t a growth play per se. They didn’t set out to make it a clear-cut revenue driver or cleverly plaster it with InVision ads and product placement.
And yet, it has been their biggest campaign success by far.
But why? What stands out to Clair as the reason for its massive success?
“I think the power of the Design Disruptors release was actually in the deep integration of all channels in the campaign — one channel couldn’t have stood alone without the others. They were all necessary to create the viral echo chamber effect which drove the campaign’s success.”
Which makes sense. Because everything started with mise en place.
What’s your favorite takeaway from Clair’s journey? Let us know in the comments. | https://medium.com/marketing-on-autopilot/inspiration-from-the-kitchen-how-invisions-clair-byrd-runs-marketing-like-a-chef-c15ec197faeb | [] | 2017-01-17 16:07:00.411000+00:00 | ['Content Marketing', 'Startup', 'Design', 'Innovation', 'Marketing'] |
Continuing the Fight: The Latest on Using Data and Tech to Combat Coronavirus | Written by Stefanie Le, Research Assistant and Writer at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation
Six weeks into broad social distancing and quarantine efforts in the United States, rural areas are starting to see the spread of the novel coronavirus while metropolitan hot spots are hitting their peak or just about to flatten the curve. In response to this, local and state officials across the country are taking mitigation efforts into their own hands by employing new mobile apps or utilizing location data to ramp up contract tracing. This article builds upon a previous post in taking a look at how cities and states are applying data and technology in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S.
With the global pandemic vastly overwhelming healthcare capability across the country, emergency medical services (EMS) and fire departments have become inundated with 911 phone calls — most of them COVID-19 related. Coupled with the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), the risk to first responders is multiplied as the first personnel entering the homes of potential new coronavirus patients.
First Due, which created the Community Connect platform for public safety agencies for pre-incident planning, mobile response, and community engagement solutions, teamed with the International Association of Fire Chiefs to offer a free version of their platform to aid first responders of all types responding COVID-19 pandemic calls. The web-based platform allows users to create safety profiles with possible symptoms, residence floor plans, and other information useful to first responders. This information then assists first responders in prioritizing COVID-19 care response and taking proper precautions before entering residences of those positive for the new coronavirus. Additionally, the collected data is useful in providing insights into how COVID-19 is spreading through communities via the geographic information compiled.
THIS BISMARCK TRIBUNE: OFFICIALS UNVEIL MOBILE APP TO HELP WITH COVID-19 CONTACT TRACING IN NORTH DAKOTA
In early April, officials in North Dakota launched a free mobile app to encourage residents to voluntarily track where they’ve been, which in turn could help health officials working to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 conduct contact tracing in the state. Dubbed the Care19 app, the information will additionally aid officials in making data-based decisions on when to relax social distancing guidelines and other COVID-19 provisions.
Users who download the app will be given a random ID number, and the app will then anonymously document the user’s whereabouts throughout the day, cataloguing places the user visits for 10 minutes or more. If a user tests positive for COVID-19, the individual can consent to having the information from the app released to public health officials.
Boston’s Mayor Marty Walsh launched two new data platforms in April for residents to keep up to date on information about the COVID-19 public health crisis in both the capital city and the entire state of Massachusetts. The dashboards are continuously updated with information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the state’s Department of Public Health (MDPH), and illustrate both the impact of COVID-19 in Boston as well as daily tracking of the virus across Massachusetts including information such as how many people have been infected, how many have died, and to which areas the virus has spread.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: GOOGLE OFFERS USER LOCATION DATA TO HEALTH OFFICIALS TACKLING CORONAVIRUS
In an effort to offer assistance during the unprecedented pandemic, Google will allow public health officials access to its ample storage of data on users’ movements to track the spread of COVID-19. The plan is to use a fraction of the information Google has collected on users, including information from Google Maps, to produce reports on which areas are practicing social-distancing measures and how effective they are. The reports will be posted publicly and show whether certain areas, states or countries are seeing larger flows of traffic through grocery stories, parks, pharmacies, and other locations. In the United States, the data can be shown down to the county level.
According to the tech giant, this effort will use anonymized historical data that will be published two or three days after data has been collected, and will encompass 121 countries. The company consulted with both the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on this strategy.
SMART CITIES DIVE: CHICAGO USES ANONYMIZED CELLPHONE DATA TO SHOW PROGRESS OF COVID-19 MEASURES
As the United States enters week six of quarantine and social distancing measures in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19, more cities and states are starting to utilize cell phone location data to track the spread of the new coronavirus. Officials from the The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) announced in late March that they’ll be using a “Social Distancing” dashboard created by Unacast, an analytics firm focusing on location data, which uses GPS data from phones to track COVID-19. The anonymized and aggregated data is able to show at a county level whether residents are obeying local stay-at-home orders or not. Updated daily, the data is accumulated from several sources including public data and data previously purchased from other vendors.
Chicago’s public health department partnered with BlueDot, an outbreak risk software company, to collect anonymous location data from apps being used on local cell phones. The data can also be utilized to monitor the success of recovery efforts as the situation develops in real time. Thus far, data has shown that Chicago residents have stayed home nearly 80 percent of the time and that Chicago is successfully flattening the curve of COVID-19. Despite concerns about privacy and using cell phone data, both city officials and BlueDot state that the data is anonymous. BlueDot has also partnered with the Canadian government and the state of California.
Tech giants Apple and Google announced a partnership to add technology to their smartphone platforms that will alert their users if they have come in contact with a person who has COVID-19. The technology is optional for users, but if successfully implemented and with enough usage, it has the potential to monitor approximately a third of the world’s population. The system, known as contract tracing, would alert users on their phones if they have come in contact with an individual positive for COVID-19 and urge them to quarantine or isolate themselves.
The tech companies will build the technology into their iOS and Android operating systems in two phases: by mid-May, Apple and Google will add the capability for iPhones and Android phones to exchange anonymous information wirelessly via apps run by public health authorities; and then the companies will release structure for public health apps to operationalize. | https://medium.com/covid-19-public-sector-resources/continuing-the-fight-the-latest-on-using-data-and-tech-to-combat-coronavirus-c01d97e3fe6 | ['Harvard Ash Center'] | 2020-05-06 15:40:28.113000+00:00 | ['Cities', 'Data', 'Covid 19', 'Local Government', 'Coronavirus'] |
Racism On the Stroll | Racism On the Stroll
So much for Black Lives Matter
Photo by Life Matters from Pexels
It’s not just the police. It’s not just the cab drivers. And it’s not just the rednecks. It’s true! Escorts discriminate against black people as well. That’s right. The sex worker community subscribes to the old stereotype that Afro-Americans are loud, demanding, abusive, violent, and generally, a pain in the ass at best.
Back when I made an honest living as a taxi driver, it was the old wink and wave when it came to the subject of pigmented fares. Anybody who’d spent more than ten minutes behind the wheel knew the deal: No black passengers in the cab unless they look civilized.
Of course, that went for anybody of any race, gender or ethnicity. But the perception was (real or imagined) that the great majority of the incidents came courtesy of the black community. Why would a naked girl whose job it is to sexually service her clients feel any differently? Surprise, surprise. Mostly, they don’t!
Running a brothel, escort service or simply just selling ass out of a studio apartment alone can be an extremely dangerous proposition. There are always moments when lives are placed in jeopardy.
Take Satin Dolls, a real shithole of a whorehouse that once graced my elite client list. Satan’s Dolls would have been more like it. Their little piece of heaven came fully equipped with two bedrooms (complete with mattresses on the floor…why bother with a frame?) and not much else (like say…a security guard) save KY and condoms…and oh yeah…a color TV so the girls could watch their favorite shows while they weren’t servicing clients.
I spent a lot of time in the joint and observed out loud that they were my only customers who allowed some marginal types to pass through their hallowed portals.
Still, who am I to judge? I wasn’t the one fucking the scrubs for a buck. Well, one day just as I was about to take my leave, the girls told me to duck into the bathroom…there was a client coming up. (There is an unwritten rule in the incall biz which dictates that one male is not supposed to ever see another.)
As I stayed hidden in the bathroom, I heard the distinctly low-life pattern of speech from the trick as he entered the apartment, and again wondered “why do these dumb girls let these mother fuckers in here?”
Once he was escorted to the room, the girls called me to say the coast was clear and I could leave. And guess what! Thirty seconds after I walked out the door, the freak pulled a gun and robbed everybody in the house. Is this the exception to the rule? Not really. ‘Ho houses get robbed too frequently and it’s usually (though not always) ghetto thugs and hoodlums who do the job.
So how do the ‘hos run the bums off without offending them? Last year, I was eating a thoroughly delicious Thanksgiving dinner at a client’s place when the madam’s 17 year-old adopted mixed-race son asked me about a certain print girl who just happened to be one of my very favorite clients.
“The bitch wanted $400! What the fuck is up with that?” Now I know this girl’s rates are $200 for white guys…and $400 for ghetto-sounding black guys. The $400 price is her polite way of saying “No roughnecks, please.”
Again, because hookers don’t want to irritate these tricks and have them fatally attract their phone lines, they have another standard approach to weed out the unwanted elements.
“Are you black, white, or Hispanic?” asks the phone girl. To the black or Hispanic guys, they say “we only take Asians.” Of course, the white guys get the “come right over” treatment, and anybody else (like Indians or Arabs) is a personal judgment call. Most escorts don’t like Mideasterners because they tend to be uncircumcised, smelly, and disrespectful of women. But some who are hungry take them.
And lest I digress, I really have to include Hasidim in the mix, a group the girls aren’t crazy for because they’re lacking in hygiene, tend to be cheap, and are often kinky. But because they are never dangerous, the devout crew usually gains entry.
What fascinates me about the hay-seeds is how someone so religious can be in temple praying to God one minute…and then smacking the ass and inserting his joint in a ‘ho the next.
While cops and cabbies and everybody else on the list dislike the darker set for all the previously cited reasons, the hooker has yet another to add to the already endless accounting…and a stereotype that mysteriously, no brother has a problem with.
Yes, when was the last time you saw a black guy get all bent out of shape because some woman panted “I love black guys because they have big, fat dicks and they can fuck forever?” No sir! No self-respecting black man would peep a word about a racist remark like that! This is a stereotype they can live with — happily!
The truth about this mythology (at least according to the girls…and I believe them…most have done thousands of guys) is that it’s not mythology! Unfortunately, in the world of the working girl (at least when she’s on the job), what Sexy Sadie really wants is two pumps and a squirt — not an elephant man running the marathon.
It’s a rare hooker who works the beat for sexual satisfaction. In fact, the norm is that the working girl has a sort of out-of-body experience once the trick inserts his magic wand. Disassociation…and not passion…is the emotion of the moment.
Given the perception, is it any wonder that an escort doesn’t want to deal with a big stud…with a demanding attitude…and no money for a gratuity? Obviously not.
Now of course, as true as everything I’ve just outlined surely is, I know several working girls who bring their money home to low-life, big-dick black men to whose large organs and abusive ways they are completely enslaved.
Sound dichotomous? Hypocritical? Of course. That’s the ‘ho biz for ya. Everybody’s either too confused…or too witless…to possibly figure anything out…except one thing: No homies in the woodpile, please. We weren’t born yesterday. | https://medium.com/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-escorts-but/racism-on-the-stroll-f2707068adee | ['William', 'Dollar Bill'] | 2020-12-11 16:06:24.775000+00:00 | ['Memoir', 'Escorts', 'Sex Work', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Racism'] |
Best Bitcoin Wallets — Which One is Right for You? | One of the first things I had to learn when I started working with cryptocurrency was that it’s important to have a wallet to store your digital coins. There are many great wallets available, but sometimes it can be tough to know where to start. But before we get too far into which wallets are right for storing Bitcoin, let’s talk about what a Bitcoin wallet is.
What is a Bitcoin Wallet?
When we’re talking about a Bitcoin wallet, we’re talking about a software program that keeps your Bitcoin safe via private keys (we’ll talk more about these in a bit). Typically, cryptocurrency wallets come in either software or hardware form. These wallets grant you a public Bitcoin address, usually via an internet connection. This helps to facilitate selling or buying your Bitcoin.
To hold any type of digital currency or crypto assets, you’ll first need to have a blockchain wallet. Many wallets you’ll find now support not only Bitcoin but also let you hold many other digital currencies as well. So if you want to hold Ethereum, Ripple, and Stellar along with your Bitcoin, you can probably find a wallet that will allow you to do so.
Types of Wallets
There are several types of wallets in which you can store your Bitcoin: hardware, desktop, mobile, paper, and web. These wallets all have differentiating features. Let’s go through these wallet types so you can determine which makes the most sense for you.
Hardware Wallets
Hardware wallets are often called cold wallets since they are not connected to the internet. These types of wallets operate entirely offline and have a physical piece of hardware which you use to store your Bitcoin. Cold wallets are usually thought to be safer as they aren’t susceptible to hackers or anyone else with nefarious intents who might be lurking online.
Desktop Wallets
As the name implies, desktop wallets are installed directly to the desktop of your computer. These wallets provide users with complete control over their cryptocurrencies. Users can create Bitcoin addresses which they can use to sell or buy their BTC. Additionally, desktop wallets let users store their private keys.
Mobile Wallets
Mobile wallets offer more in the way convenience since you can take them with you wherever you go. You can usually find these in the respective marketplaces of your Android or iPhone. Some are free and have ads while others might run you a few dollars. Just remember that typically you want a wallet that will do exactly what your desktop wallet does.
Of course, one of the biggest advantages of having a mobile wallet for your cryptocurrency is that you can use it to make or receive payments no matter where you are. You can also use it to pay for physical goods if you happen to be shopping or dining in a store or restaurant that accepts crypto.
Paper Wallets
Another type of wallet you can find, although it’s not as popular as others, is a paper wallet. A paper wallet is your private and public keys printed together on a piece of paper. For those keeping score, a paper wallet is considered a cold wallet since it is completely offline. A paper wallet is made of anything you can print on (although most people just use paper).
Web-Based Wallets
A web-based wallet is just what it says. It’s a wallet that keeps your digital currencies in a wallet stored online. Therefore, if you want to access your Bitcoin, you have to have a connection to the internet. While these types of wallets do offer more in the way of integration and flexibility, they are also subject to the dangers of being online, like hacks.
As you can see, there are several different options when it comes to the types of Bitcoin wallets available. Within each of these categories are additional choices that may or may not work for you. Understanding your Bitcoin wallet is critical and will help you make the right choice for storing your BTC.
Selecting a Bitcoin Wallet
If you’re looking to get into Bitcoin or even cryptocurrency in general, then you’ll want to have a wallet. Ultimately, it’s up to you to determine which wallet makes the most sense for what you’ll be doing.
The best thing you can do is find detailed reviews about Bitcoin wallets that meet the requirements you need. I plan on doing a few more here, but for now, I’ll include links to the ones I include below.
Here are a few of the more popular wallets you’ll find for storing your Bitcoin.
Ledger Nano
One of the best hardware Bitcoin wallets on the market is the Ledger Nano. This wallet is user-friendly and provides support for no fewer than 40 cryptocurrencies. That means if you plan on buying more than Bitcoin, the Ledger Nano is a great option for you.
The device only has two buttons, so it’s easy to use. Any actions you want to perform can be validated on the screen of the Ledger Nano. The wallet offers both back-up and restore capabilities, which means you can easily recover your data if you lose it.
Trezor
One of the first cryptocurrency hardware wallets to hit the market was the Trezor. With this hardware wallet, you can store a wide variety of digital currencies offline. It supports Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Dash, and many, many other digital assets.
Like the Ledger Nano, the Trezor is a wallet that’s great for those new to crypto. This secure and private wallet offers two-factor authentication, encrypted cloud storage, SSH, and a bevy of other features that make it well worth the price.
Copay
The first (but not necessarily the best) web-based wallet on our list is Copay. You can download this multi-signature wallet from the Google Play or iOS app store if you want to use it on your smartphone. It will also work on Linux, Mac, and Windows devices.
There are plenty of features available with the Copay wallet, including two-factor authentication, secure payment validation, and complete support for Bitcoin’s Payment Protocol. The Copay code is open-source, so if you want to customer your wallet, you can.
Exodus
The Exodus hot wallet is a fantastic combination of several services in one platform. It serves as a wallet, an exchange, and a portfolio, all in one place. With the Exodus wallet, you can trade your favorite cryptocurrencies, while maintaining the security and privacy Exodus is known for. It’s a great feature for those new to crypto.
You can make the app your own with some personalization settings, and you always have complete control of your private keys. There are beginner-friendly charts included in the wallet, along with a way to track your portfolio’s value in real-time.
Jaxx
Even though Jaxx isn’t as popular as some of the other wallets on this list, it’s still a solid wallet to have for your Bitcoin. It’s a free hot wallet which you can download for your Android or iOS devices. You can pair it with several devices and also use it with Linux, Mac, and Windows operating systems.
If you’re interested in more than Bitcoin, this is a solid option as it supports more than 85 different cryptocurrencies. It’s great for beginners as it has a simple and friendly user interface and straightforward navigation throughout the app. Users get an extra layer of security with two-factor authentication, along with other features that are included with the wallet.
Mycelium
If you want a popular and highly rated Bitcoin wallet for your BTC, then look no further than Mycelium. While it doesn’t boast the features many other wallets have, it has some unique ones that users like.
For instance, the app will provide blockchain-based fiat accounts and debit cards that link to the wallet. Eventually, Mycelium wants to start a cryptocurrency exchange through its software, which would make having the wallet even more convenient and useful.
Edge
Edge is another wallet that lets you store a variety of your favorite cryptocurrencies. You can use the Edge wallet on either your Android or iOS devices. It’s really easy to install and start using, so if you’re looking for simplicity, you might give Edge a try.
Whether you’re an active trader or a long-term HODLer, the Edge wallet offers a wallet that lets you hold and exchange your digital assets when you’re on the go. Additionally, Edge lets its users buy and sell crypto, which means you don’t have to visit an exchange every time you want to invest in a little more Bitcoin.
Coinbase
As the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Coinbase has no shortage of users. It also offers a wallet service, which gives you the ability to buy, sell, and trade your Bitcoin from a single platform. The downside to Coinbase is that the site does charge some of the highest fees on the market. However, many users are willing to overlook this as they can perform all their crypto needs in one place.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are lots of Bitcoin wallets from which you can choose. Some of the choices listed here are some of the more popular ones, however, there are others available as well. As you make your decision, consider what you plan on doing with your wallet. Are you going to HODL you Bitcoin? Do you want to trade it? The answer to these questions might dictate which Bitcoin wallet you choose.
Let me know your thoughts, along with which wallets are your favorite Bitcoin wallets. | https://medium.com/crypto-pilgrim/best-bitcoin-wallets-which-one-is-right-for-you-39fd18552e2e | ['Justin Caldwell'] | 2019-04-20 12:59:32.163000+00:00 | ['Crypto', 'Bitcoin', 'Digital Wallet', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin Wallet'] |
About STORIUS | You have a story to tell. STORIUS is here to help you tell it in the best way possible. From the nuts and bolts of crafting your story, to finding the best channels to deliver it to the right audience, to selecting the format best suited for your objectives, STORIUS brings you a rich mix of practical advice and inspiration from established and emerging storytellers. An online magazine about the art, craft, and business of storytelling, STORIUS is the publication for everyone interested in how stories are created, discovered, distributed, and consumed.
What makes STORIUS unique in today’s crowded market of publications? A few editorial principles we follow in selecting our content:
Storytelling everywhere. STORIUS’ articles cover storytelling across various industries, mediums, and forms. We offer both breadth and depth in our coverage. Whether you want to write for TV, work on a novel, or need to learn how storytelling can accelerate your business, STORIUS is a resource you can count on. Authoritative content. Our content always offers an informed perspective, delivering real value to our readers and helping them accomplish more in their storytelling. We don’t publish content just for the sake of content. Diversity of perspectives. Today’s storytelling is, more than ever, a collaborative business. STORIUS’ materials highlight the perspectives and ideas of established and emerging professionals who make movies, books, shows, and other forms of stories possible. Storytelling as art and business. We do not subscribe to the notion of the starving artist. We cover both artistic and business aspects of storytelling, helping our readers to make money with their storytelling.
Above all, we see STORIUS as a community. Join the conversation, pitch your ideas for articles, and share your stories. Welcome to STORIUS! | https://medium.com/storiusmag/about-storius-6e60352daea | ['Ray N. Kuili'] | 2019-07-18 07:21:40.954000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Publication', 'Filmmaking', 'Marketing', 'Writing'] |
Forecasting Using Time Series | Forecasting is a frequently used application of predictive analytics as it has a significant impact on both the top line and bottom line of an organization. Forecasting demands for products and services is an important input for both long-range and short-range planning. Various capacity planning problems such as manpower planning, machine capacity, warehouse capacity, materials requirements planning will depend on the forecasted demand of the product/service.
Budget allocations for marketing, promotions and advertisements are usually made based on forecasting outcomes.
Examples of forecasting include:
Boeing 747–400 has more than 6 million parts and several thousand unique parts. Forecasting demands for spare parts is important since non-availability of mission-critical parts can have detrimental effects and turn out to be very expensive for the airlines.
Walmart supercentres stock over 142,000 different items. Stock must be maintained for each and every product sold and demand for the products must be predicted as accurately as possible in oder to increase revenue and sales.
Demand for products and service is not the only application of forecasting, manpower planning also requires the use of sophisticated models.
Indian information technology companies struggle to manage the right level of manpower for each skill required to manage their business. This would involve forecasting business opportunities, skills required to manage current and future projects, etc.
TIME-SERIES DATA
The time-series data Yt is a random variable, usually collected at regular time intervals and in chronological order.
Univariate time-series data: Time-series data that contains observations of just a single variable (such as demand of a product at time t).
Multivariate time-series data: If the data consists of more than one variable, for example, demand for a product at time t, price at time t, amount of money spent by the company on promotion at time t, competitors’ price at time t, etc.
COMPONENTS OF TIME-SERIES DATA
Trend Component (Tt): Trend is the consistent long-term upward or downward movement of the data.
Seasonal Component (St): Seasonal component is the repetitive upward or downward movement from the trend that occurs within a calendar year at fixed intervals such as seasons, quarters, months, days of the week, etc.
Cyclical Component (Ct): Cyclical component is fluctuation around the trend line at random intervals that happens due to macro-economic changes such as recession, unemployment, etc. Cyclical fluctuations have repetitive patterns.
Irregular Component (It): Irregular component is the white noise or random uncorrelated changes that follow a normal distribution with mean value of 0 and constant variance.
There are several forecasting techniques such as moving average, exponential smoothing, and Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) that are used across various industries.
Moving average and exponential smoothing predict the future value of a time-series data as a function of past observations. Regression-based models such as auto-regressive (AR), moving average (MA), auto-regressive and moving average (ARMA), ARIMA use more sophisticated regression models. Using complex mathematical models does not guarantee a more accurate forecast. Simple moving average technique may outperform complex ARIMA models in many cases.
DECOMPOSING TIME SERIES
Time-series data can be modeled as addition or product of trend, seasonality, cyclical, and irregular components.
Additive time-series model: These models assume that the seasonal and cyclical components are independent of the trend component. Additive models are not very common, since in many cases the seasonal component may not be independent of the trend.
Additive time-series model is given by
Yt = Tt + St + Ct + It
Multiplicative time-series model: These models are more common and are a better fit for many datasets. Seasonality has a multiplicative effect on sales based on a trend over the years. So, in many cases the seasonality effect is multiplied with the trend and not just added as in additive model.
It is given by
Yt = Tt x St x Ct x It
For decomposing time-series data, we can leverage the following libraries:
1.statsmodel.tsa provides various features for time-series analysis.
2. seasonal_decompose() in statsmodel.tsa.seasonal decomposes a time series into trend, seasonal, and residuals. It takes frequency parameters; for example, the frequency is 12 for monthly data.
AUTO-REGRESSIVE INTEGRATED MOVING AVERAGE
Auto-regressive and moving average models are popular models that are frequently used for forecasting. They are combined to create models such as auto-regressive moving average (ARMA) and auto-regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models.
Auto-Regressive Models- Auto-regression is regression of a variable on itself measured at different time points. Auto-regressive model with lag 1, AR (1), is given by:
An important task in using the auto-regressive model is model identification, which is identifying the value of p (the number of lags).
A standard approach for model identification is using auto-correlation function and partial auto correlation function.
Moving Average Processes- Moving average processes are regression models in which past residuals are used to forecast future values of the time-series data.
A moving average process of lag 1 can be written as:
The model in the equation can be generalized to q lags.
The value of q (number of lags) in a moving average process can be identified using the following rules:
1.Auto-correlation value is significant for first q lags and cuts off to zero.
2.The partial auto-correlation function decreases exponentially.
Auto-regressive moving average (ARMA) Model- ARMA is a combination auto-regressive and moving
average process. ARMA (p, q) process combines AR(p) and MA(q) processes.
The values of p and q in an ARMA process can be identified using the following thumb rules:
1.Auto-correlation values are significant for first q values (first q lags) and cuts off to zero.
2.Partial auto-correlation values are significant for first p values and cuts off to zero.
Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average(ARIMA) Model- ARMA models can be used only when the time-series data is stationary. ARIMA models are used when the time-series data is non-stationary.
Time-series data is called stationary if the mean, variance, and co-variance are constant over time.
ARIMA has the following three components and is represented as ARIMA (p, d, q):
1.AR component with p lags AR(p).
2.Integration component (d).
3.MA with q lags, MA(q). | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/forecasting-using-time-series-dda43b542f8a | ['Heena Rijhwani'] | 2020-11-22 16:06:55.741000+00:00 | ['Timeseries'] |
Your Space Program is in Another Castle | Like many Studio Ghibli films, the actual plot of Castle in the Sky is deceptively simple. It follows two children, Sheeta and Pazu, on a seemingly impossible quest to find Laputa, a wondrous city hidden in the clouds whose existence has seemingly passed into legend. As the story unfolds, character after character projects their desires onto Laputa: Pazu longs to prove his family’s worth by confirming that the floating city is real; a troop of rambunctious sky pirates look to it as a treasure trove; various factions of the military plan to exploit it for wealth, power, and dominance. Is the castle a haven, a cache of riches, or a weapon of mass destruction? Unfortunately, Laputa turns out to be all three at once, and it’s this impossibly contradictory existence that leads to its ruin.
Castle in the Sky, despite (or maybe because of) its child protagonists, wrestles with difficult themes about the double-edged nature of power, flight, and humanity’s relationship with the Earth in a more direct way than is typical for Ghibli. It’s also unusual within the Ghibli oevre in providing an overtly evil, irredeemable antagonist as a direct vehicle for the studio’s anti-military and anti-imperialist themes. The military and its scheming Colonel Muska very clearly and explicitly state their desire to use Laputa as a gateway to a higher form of war. This directness in tone, combined with the fantastic Ghibli worldbuilding, gives the film its unique power — it’s why it stuck with me as a kid, and why, twenty years later, I’m coming back to it now.
When watching the movie unfold as a child I believed, as children often do, that something as wondrous as a castle in the sky could only be a force for good. After all, why else would it exist? The role of air and sky in many stories, and particularly stories aimed at children, is one of freedom — so I was absolutely convinced that a castle in the sky represented the ultimate idyllic refuge, full of wonders beyond imagining. Castle in the Sky, of course, turns this expectation on its head. The film drops hint after hint that things are not as they seem. The robot fallen from Laputa, with its cute yet unsettling design, reveals immense destructive powers. The castle itself is hidden in the eye of a hurricane, requiring immense sacrifice and pain to breach its walls.
What Sheeta and Pazu find when they reach their destination is a ruined citadel slowly being overtaken by nature, with a horrible secret at its center. Laputa’s sweeping towers, flowering gardens, and serene reflecting pools are all a veneer for something else entirely: built into the foundations of the city is a high-tech command center designed for airborne warfare. The key to Laputa’s fantastical existence, it turns out, is its capacity for destruction. Here, Castle in the Sky presents its thesis — that beauty and violence are two halves of one human whole. Laputa could be a paradise, but only for those who lived in it; its rulers literally held a gun to the rest of the world so that their city could take flight.
What happens next is only natural: the two children, those with the clearest view of (and the most at stake in) humanity’s future, destroy the command center that controls Laputa, ensuring that it can never again be used as a weapon of mass destruction. And in so doing, the city, and all the good and bad that it represents, is lost forever.
It took me years, and multiple viewings, to process my own strange heartbreak as I watched Laputa crumbling, perplexed by my intense reaction to the loss. Why did it hurt so much to realize that Pazu’s dream of a floating castle full of adventure was completely incompatible with his reality? Why did it hurt so much to understand that the best thing for him to do, the only way to move forward, was to let that dream go? Of course, I didn’t want Laputa to rain hellfire down upon the Earth with its robots and laser guns. I just wanted a version of the city that was what all the myths said it was: all wonder, and no pain.
But that’s the secret of most Ghibli films — sometimes, things are beautiful are also rotten. And we don’t get to turn our faces from the bad to enjoy the good.
A robot looks off towards the flying city from when it came. Image: Studio Ghibli | https://medium.com/@adeene.denton/your-space-program-is-in-another-castle-ff9dc758682b | ['Adeene Denton'] | 2021-02-22 16:07:46.885000+00:00 | ['Anime', 'NASA', 'Space', 'Space Exploration', 'Movies'] |
3 Things I Learned about Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing at the 2017 Digital Summit | Speakers at the Digital Summit Seattle
Keep the 3 goals for social media marketing and content marketing in mind,
+Awareness
+Reputation and Trust
+Loyalty
here are some of the takeaways I’m more than willing to share with you.
1. Everything is about your audience.
To put yourself in your audience’s shoes, you need to ask yourself a simple question: Would you share the content you just posted?
But it’s not that easy to make it happen.
I always found the Founder and former CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz’s mission profoundly meaningful:
“We are not in the coffee business serving people, but in the people business serving coffee.”
Here are some ways you can get a “Yes” answer:
1) Speak to the audience where they are at that moment.
In a word, you should put your business in the context of why should people care about you.
Data is very helpful in analyzing customer journey and their behavior.
2) Consider your audience as your date. (Can you feel the excitement? 😉)
Lorraine Goldberg, the Social Media Manager for Allrecipes.com, believed we brands should always be dating our audience, and surprise them.
3) Provide highly relatable, relevant and useful content.
At work, I need to write copy on social media, for a new brand which is eager to increase awareness and win many more followers, I admitted that I sometimes push it too hard: I post content to promote our products pretty straightforwardly because I thought it’s useful for our audience(sure it is¯\_(ツ)_/¯), but it’s NOT the way how our audience perceive.
In fact, a description should be meaningful, don’t overuse promo-language. Moreover, paid social shouldn’t look or act like an ad. I’ve used and I’ve seen brands using phrases like “buy it now！” after stating the benefits of their products.
What brands really need to do is connecting your products to people’s needs.
IKEA’s Twitter
Ann Handley, the head of Content at MarketingProfs shared her experience of how Blue Bottle Coffee turned her into a loyal customer: besides selling high-quality coffee, they offer step-by-step brewing guides, events and classes to teach their audience how to make coffee, which increases engagement and brand loyalty.
Pour over start guide
What we can learn from Blue Bottle Coffee is that they put themselves in a bigger context. Training is their marketing, they bring deep value to smarter customers by offering real class and real curriculum, and the result is really engaging.
2. In Storytelling, you are in the Theater Business with a Clear POV.
No need to stress the significance of visual communications and storytelling, we all get those two “buzzwords”.
In theater, people expect to watch a great story, btw, my recent favorite story is La La Land. While for marketing professionals, besides grabbing audience’s attention using the Rule of FIWTSBS — find interesting ways to say boring stuff, we have to ensure that the story we delivered has a clear POV (Point of View).
I borrowed Steve Clayton’s statement as my point 2, Steve is the Chief Storyteller at Microsoft, his work including the launch of a new CEO, the world’s most high-wire demo and the story behind microsoft.com/stories.
Steve mostly shared his experience in leading Microsoft’s corporate communication to drive culture change. According to him, Microsoft’s Storytelling have four approaches, and I briefly explain his ideas:
People: who
Places: where
Process: how
Products: what
Inspired by Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek, a harrowing story of skiers caught in an avalanche.，created by New York Times reporter John Branch, Steve told a story called “88 Acres” about how Microsoft quietly built the city of the future which achieved energy savings and other efficiency gains.
Another story I like is told by the Humane Society Silicon Valley, a non-profit organization which has been connecting people and pets in the Silicon Valley community for over 85 years.
Instead of stressing their mission and calls, they created a national initiative Mutual Rescue™ to change the conversation around animal welfare, and celebrate the love between people AND their pets.
“You’re not only saving animal lives when you donate to a local animal shelter, you are helping to transform the lives of people in your community for the better through life-changing human-animal relationships.” ——Mutual Rescue™
Eric & Peety, a Mutual Rescue™ film
3. Let’s play Truth or Dare
The last point is the game that has been rolling around in my head after the summit. Now let’s play it together!
If you choose “truth”, here’s the question for you: If you cover up your brand logo, will you recognize it?
If you choose “dare”, here’s the task for you: How far can you test your brand’s limit?
Before you reply, here’s how GQ aces the game: they gave Donald Trump a makeover. 😮
The video has got 1M+ views on YouTube
“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” ― William G.T. Shedd
As Ann Handley declared in her talk, it’s imperative for brands to tell bolder and braver stories, using a stronger and unique point of view. Eventually, our brand voice can attract the like-minded, repel the timid.
Now it’s time to conquer the world, Simba! 🦁(Proudly to say, Simba is my childhood hero.) | https://medium.com/notes-from-ux-content-strategy-digital-marketing/3-things-i-learned-about-content-marketing-and-social-media-marketing-at-the-2017-digital-summit-630ca7a4f101 | ['Awen Wen'] | 2017-04-21 01:45:42.818000+00:00 | ['Branding', 'Content Marketing', 'Storytelling', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Digital Marketing'] |
Building a Low Effort, High Impact Prototype for Hackfest: Online Code Editor for ACLScript | ACLScript is a scripting language, similar to SQL used for various data analysis purposes. It is processed by Galvanize’s Analytics engine on the various Galvanize platforms, one of which is the ACL Robotics Platform, https://www.wegalvanize.com/robotic-process-automation/. It is a domain specific language (DSL) and is unique to Galvanize. Users package their ACLScripts in the form of a ‘Robot’ to be sent to ACL Robotics Platform for scheduling jobs to run on a remote Analytics engine machine.
The current development mode workflow in Galvanize’s ACL Robotics Platform requires users to download all the scripts contained with a Robot package just to edit a single line in a script to make a change or fix an error. The change must then be re-committed back to ACL Robotics Platform for subsequent iteration of execution.
The apparent problem is that the user’s download directory gets cluttered with many Robots. Moreover, one needs to have a corresponding and matching encoding (non-Unicode/Unicode) of Analytics application installed just to open, edit and commit the changes. The trivial solution to this problem is to have an online ACLScript code-editor in the Robotics Platform to eliminate the intermediate steps of taking a user from a problem-state to a desired-end-state.
With the use of an existing open-source library this was a low-effort and high-impact project to work on. In fact, it was an ideal project for a two day hackfest event to showcase how a simple and trivial solution can add high value to our existing product and also make the code-run-debug-fix cycle far less tedious.
Design and Interaction With react-monaco-editor
We created a React Application and used react-monaco-editor library for the code editor features. This library has multiple functionalities out of the box like syntax highlighting, language theme, auto-completion, IntelliSense, validation and a diff-editor mode. For a reference, the popular IDE Visual Studio Code is also powered by Monaco-editor. All that needed to be done was to add our ACLScript DSL language. All of the following examples are related to integrating react-monaco-editor into existing application.
Teaching Monaco About the Keywords in AClScript
In order for the react-monaco-editor to successfully highlight the code, we must specify a list of keywords within the ACLScript language. We created a separate file to contain the syntax definitions for the ACLScript language. With the definitions in place, the setMonarchTokensProvider method is used to set the language with the API from editor.api as mentioned in the import statement. See the code below.
The ACLScript keywords were added as part of the tokenizer attribute. This method sets the keyword validation for syntax highlighting and also detects comments within the code.
Adding Auto-Completion Implementation
To better understand the problem and solution, let’s take a quick look at auto-completion example for ACLScript: | https://medium.com/galvanize/building-a-low-effort-high-impact-prototype-for-hackfest-online-code-editor-for-aclscript-a2005bb9f83b | ['Pasang Dawa Lama Sherpa'] | 2019-05-24 00:18:54.557000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Software Engineering', 'Software Development', 'Hackathons'] |
How Can Companies Successfully Implement DEI Initiatives? | “Diversity is only one part of the puzzle. Equity and inclusion are the remaining! You can’t put together a complete puzzle with either of the pieces missing. This is why you need to make DEI initiatives a core part of your company values.”
Diversity might be the beginning of the change your company requires, but it won’t be successful without equity and inclusion. When you have a workplace with diverse employees that promotes inclusion through equal pay, retention practices, identical opportunities, and employee engagement, etc. only then can you achieve the right balance. But, how? How can you get to a point where diversity, equity, and inclusion aren’t a few terms but the core values of your company? You get there by creating diversity and inclusion goals and then designing the DEI initiatives to implement them.
Unfortunately, there is no DEI wand you can waggle to implement these initiatives. They need time, work, and persistent efforts. They need data to see where you are, where you should be, and how you can go there. In short, DEI initiatives need a complete company culture revamp to be implemented. To help you on your journey to becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization, here are some ways through which you can successfully implement DEI initiatives:
SEEK HELP FROM ERG
If you do not have affinity groups or Employee Resource Groups (ERG), initiate, and seek help from them. These groups have employees who share the same characteristics or background. This means that the marginalized employees have their own space to discuss the issues concerning them. When working on DEI goals execution, taking help from these groups halves your implementation strategy.
ERGs can assist you with enacting the bigger picture DEI policies and goals. They can help you increase diversity by bringing in a diverse pool of candidates for the company and develop inclusion via retention. But, bringing together the employees with shared interests is your way to go!
START BY TARGETING TEAMS
If you want your DEI initiatives to succeed, the best approach is to target the change at the team level instead of as a whole. Your DEI implementation strategy should be a top-down approach. You should start executing all the initiatives from the C-suite first and then move to the bottom. Along the way, you should target teams and not the entire company or you won’t succeed.
As per a report, only 14% of DEI initiatives are implemented on the team level and that’s a low figure. Taking an all or nothing approach in implementing Diversity & Inclusion initiatives won’t work. The change always begins small and the ripple effect creates a bigger & lasting change. You must remember that.
END UNCONSCIOUS DISCRIMINATION
While we may spot overt bias, people sometimes are unaware of the unconscious bias. It means that sometimes the bias and discrimination against a select few is so ingrained within us that we do not even notice it. This could be inadvertently hiring people in your team similar to who you are or matching your personality. Most of the DEI initiatives first focus on educating people about unconscious bias and how to identify it. But this is not enough. You need to take a step further and focus on creating systems that lead results based on data, rules, and rationality rather than emotions, instinct, and liking.
At a very basic level, the recruitment and the employee assessments should be done via a structured and pre-planned format. For example, all the candidates should be asked similar questions, ranked via a standard format and there should be a detailed analysis afterward before making the final decision. When you push aside the basic human factor of letting their unconscious bias get the best of them, only then will you be able to successfully create and implement DEI initiatives in your company.
TURN TO TECH
As I like to say, data never lies! To gauge the change happening you wish to see, you need results and data to support it. To influence DEI initiatives, you need to be able to measure your current standing and future progress. People analytics and related tools are vital in providing you with support in these areas. They will help you identify problem areas as well.
Analyze data throughout the company so you can see the diversity stats, retention stats, and talent management, etc. With the help of tech, you can even unveil unstable patterns in gender bias, compensation, salaries, rewards, perks, and performance reviews. Hence, you will be able to implement the right DEI strategies to counter the wrong metrics.
LEAD FROM THE FRONT
Finally, no matter how much effort you put in to create a DEI team, goals, and steps for the implementation, as long as you are not leading from the front, it won’t work. For a diverse & inclusive organization, you need diverse leaders who want to create a culture of inclusivity. If you want to create an ideal organization, you must an ideal leadership ready to create a better team and company.
The key to ensuring the success of D&I initiatives lies strongly on the shoulders of the leadership team. You, your executives, and C-suite are responsible for your teams. If you can’t be held accountable for everything that’s wrong with the organization then you won’t be able to successfully change it. So, for the success of your D&I initiatives, make the understanding of them the core part of your leadership. | https://medium.com/@positivehireco/how-can-companies-successfully-implement-dei-initiatives-cd9cb492c26b | [] | 2020-12-15 04:45:36.899000+00:00 | ['Inclusive', 'Diversity And Inclusion', 'Workplace', 'Career Advancement', 'Dei'] |
What is the Dirtiest Webtoon? Best 18+ Webtoon you need to check? | Alternatively, I have a different list of the best 18+ webtoons here. What are the dirtiest webtoons? check 18+ webtoons here.
Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
The dirtiest Webtoon is increasing in popularity in the entire world. 18+ is the most reading novel by young peoples. Also, on-demand on adult Webtoon, many of the artists move into adult webtoons space. Here is a list of some dirtiest webtoons, which is 18+ Webtoon you need to check.
Drug candy
It is one of the most describing husband-wife relationships Webtoon. Seung-gu is a handsome man with a beautiful wife in this Webtoon, but his demotion at work gets depressed him. Soon he met with another lady who knows him, and she addicted him. At last, he comes to know his mistake is not easy to correct.
Also read: Tapastics Vs Line webtoon: Which platform is best for posting webtoons?
I Love Yoo!
I love Yoo is the best romantic Webtoon you need to check. It is about Shin-Ae, who decides not to interfere with her life. But her life is changed when he unsuspecting the clothes of a stranger.
Love shuttle
In this comic, a Doyoun is a handsome, beautiful gay. His body is blooming and bloom all time because of this Taehan get benefit from him. He takes advantage of the situation and is the more interesting character in the series.
Also read: Enlisting 101 Good Yaoi comics on Line Webtoon
Lady garden
In this comic, Kang Doo is a guard of the lady garden and allows only hot and beautiful ladies in the garden. He takes care of all the lady in her life problem. In return, all ladies reward him daily and fulfill their desire.
Household Affairs
Si-Yeon-Hong is a wife of Ha-jin who never takes an interest in his wife. At last, his wife takes intercourse with the delivery boy to satisfy herself. Unfortunately, her husband does not know, ends up desiring, and realizes it affects her job.
Also read: What are the dirtiest webtoons? Check the hottest webtoons
Lets Play
It is the hottest and romantic Webtoon in which a girl dreams of creating a video game. But he does not do it, and then a streamer gives him a task to create the game. This Webtoon is full of sexy, funny, and real-story about gaming, memes, and social anxiety.
The all above dirtiest 18+ Webtoon is full of fantasy, romance, sex, and adventure. This comic urges you to read it more again and again. This story is actual and also explains the real-life problems of people that they face. We recommend you to read all these comics one by one.
Also, read Best Webtoons similar to ‘Solo Leveling’ and ‘beginning after the end’
I hope this helps. | https://medium.com/how-to-blogs/what-is-the-dirtiest-webtoon-best-18-webtoon-you-need-to-check-989aabfdb53a | ['How To Articles'] | 2021-06-07 04:15:32.300000+00:00 | ['Webtoon', 'Cartoon', 'How To', 'Entertainment', 'Technology'] |
Exclusive SocialPilot Review, Pros and Cons | What is SocialPilot?
SocialPilot is a cloud based social media marketing automation tool that helps you in scheduling, analyzing and overall management of your social media marketing activities and thereby increasing your social media efficiency and reach.
You can connect all social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google My Business, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, TikTok and VK with SocialPilot.
You can share as many posts and connect over 100 profiles with just one SocialPilot account.
You can also manage your social media conversations with Social Inbox.
You add up to 5 team members in your SocialPilot account to delegate sharing and scheduling with the Team Collaboration feature.
You can schedule more than 100 of posts at a time uploading a CSV with the Bulk Scheduling feature.
You can create customized posts for individual social accounts at a time and also mention other Facebook and Twitter profiles for more engagement.
You can as well analyze your social media marketing activities with easy to understand Social Media Analytics and Reporting.
You can have a glance on when and what you have scheduled visually with the Social Media Calendar.
Never stay out of new content ideas, curate content suggestions and save them as drafts for later use. Add Curated Content and RSS Feeds for a never-ending queue.
You don’t have to wait for your client’s social media account credentials — just invite them and manage their social accounts effortlessly with the Client Management feature.
You can create your own customized branded domains for more visibility and recognition with the URL Shorteners SocialPilot provides and get rid of long, unwanted, ugly-looking URLs.
You can boost your Facebook posts right when you are scheduling it.
SocialPilot was established with the aim of making social media marketing more reliable and efficient. While it does not have a huge user base of tools like Buffer and Hootsuite and the rest more than 115,000 businesses use this social media management tool, so it must be doing something exceptional and right.
Compared with other social media management tools for teams and agencies, SocialPilot has a good reputation. Many SocialPilot reviews talk about how easy it is to use and how affordable and pocket friendly SocialPilot pricing is compared to other social media scheduling tools.
SocialPilot supports all the major social media networks, making it a useful all round social media dashboard. You can create and schedule posts for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google My Business, Pinterest, Tumblr, and VK.
That means it works well as a Facebook scheduler, Pinterest scheduler, tweet scheduler, or Google My Business post planner. As you will see, though, the Instagram scheduler functions aren’t as simple as tools like Buffer.
This social media tool has five plan offerings: Individual, Professional, Small Team, Agency, and Enterprise:
The Individual plan lets you manage five accounts. You’ll have a cap of 50 posts and its hidden on the pricing page.
The Professional plan lets three team members manage 25 social media accounts.
The Small Team plan lets five team members manage 50 social media accounts.
The Agency plan lets ten team members manage 100 social media accounts.
The Enterprise plan is fully customizable, based on your company’s needs. You’ll need to schedule a phone call to discuss.
There’s a 14-day free trial (no credit card required) with all plans. This is a little short compared with the 30-day free trial offered by Sendible , and the free plans offered by Buffer and Hootsuite. However, if you work fast, there’s more than enough time to test all of SocialPilot’s features.
Features
A Publishing Powerhouse, Except for Instagram
SocialPilot includes a number of features that show why it consistently ranks as one of the best social media management tools. You’ll have the ability to schedule posts in bulk via CSV, include multiple images, and a URL shortener for branded social media URLs.
There’s also a handy browser extension for sharing on the go, and SocialPilot’s mobile app includes image editing functionality. Now, let’s look at some of the other features built into this powerful tool.
Social Inbox and Engagement
Unlike many other social media dashboards, SocialPilot’s social inbox is currently a Facebook-only tool. You can use it to manage your Facebook inbox and comments for multiple pages. It’s a good way to keep track of messages and comments from the last 30 days, and to reply to them from a single interface.
The interface is simple and clear, although I wasn’t able to see comments on content posted before using SocialPilot. While this worked well, other social media dashboards have more robust social media monitoring tools, which include this functionality for multiple social media sites.
Social Listening
SocialPilot is heavily focused on publishing and scheduling content. So it’s no surprise that it doesn’t really include social listening features.
As noted earlier, you can handle messages and comments from your Facebook page. But if you’re looking for a social media tracker or hashtag tracker, this probably isn’t the right tool for you.
Publishing and Scheduling Posts
SocialPilot is a good social media scheduling tool, offering automated Facebook posting, and posting to multiple other platforms. Click on the Posts tab and you can start a new social media post simply by posting a link.
SocialPilot automatically pulls in images and post details and gives you an instant preview of what you’ll be posting. You can also use built-in tools to add images, video or GIFs, or design an image to go with your post on Canva. This is a useful integration.
When you click on the link for each social media site, you can see how the post will look. Then you can share it immediately, schedule it, or add it to your queue.
A cool feature is that you can set the post to repeat up to ten times over a number of days. This is great if you want to get maximum attention for a particular piece of content.
Once you’ve scheduled a piece of content you can see it in your dashboard or via the content calendar, where you can change the schedule via drag-and-drop. You can also easily tag users on each platform to extend the reach of your content.
One downside is that, for Instagram scheduling, you get a notification when it’s time for the post to go live so you can publish it yourself. It would be great if this happened automatically.
Team and Agencies Features
SocialPilot is a tool built for teams and agencies, and it shows. As an account owner, you can easily add team members with a couple of clicks. In a single interface, you can choose whether to give team members admin access to accounts, and which features they can manage (like adding feeds, connecting accounts, and boosting posts).
You can set individual permissions for each social media site, depending on whether you want team members simply to schedule content, or to be able to look at analytics and the social inbox.
Content created by people with the Content Scheduler role goes into the approval workflow. You can find and approve these via the Posts tab. Note that each team member gets an individual account for managing team content — this can’t be used for their own personal social media feeds.
As an agency owner, you can also invite clients and decide whether they can view, create or promote content.
Ease Of Use
Getting Started with SocialPilot Is Simple
It doesn’t take long to grab a free trial of SocialPilot and start setting up your account. You can fill out the short form or link the app to your Facebook or Twitter account. Social sign-on doesn’t save much time, though, as you’ll still be prompted to fill out the rest of the form.
Either way, the process takes less than a minute, and once you’re in your dashboard, there’s a handy reminder at the top of when your free trial ends.
Connecting Social Accounts
The next step is to connect your social media accounts. Unlike Sendible, SocialPilot doesn’t provide an in-app guide for this. However, you will get an email with a link to a getting started guide that walks you through the steps.
Or, you could simply click on the Accounts icon to add a new account.
Note that, if you used social sign on, the account you added will already be in your SocialPilot dashboard. As you’ll see below, this is a mixed blessing.
SocialPilot offers several social media accounts via a simple and intuitive interface. Click the one you want, complete the validation process, and you’re ready to start scheduling content.
Default Social Media Posting Schedule
One nice feature of SocialPilot is, that when you add a social media account, it automatically creates a posting schedule for your content. You can tweak this, of course, but it makes it much quicker to get started on actually sharing content.
However, this did not happen with the account I used for social sign-on, which seems strange. I had to delete that account and add it again to get the automatic posting schedule.
Grouping Accounts
If you’re an agency or have a large team, managing multiple social media accounts can become difficult. That’s why SocialPilot’s grouping feature is so handy. It lets you put social media accounts into a group so you can work with all those accounts at the same time. This is useful for working with RSS feeds and content suggestions, as well as creating social media posts.
See if Socialpilot is right for you.
DISCLAIMER
This Review are strictly for educational purposes only and you should equally be aware that most of the link in this review are affiliate links, which means I should receive some commission if you use them, thanks. | https://medium.com/@onaolapoajumobi123/exclusive-socialpilot-review-pros-and-cons-74406dde3c87 | ['Onaolapo Ajumobi'] | 2021-09-10 10:25:09.263000+00:00 | ['Facebook Marketing', 'Online Marketing', 'Instagram Marketing', 'Freelance Writing', 'Facebook Ads'] |
5 Benefits of Six Sigma Training | If you’re looking to improve yourself or your company, Six Sigma Training in the Philippines could just be the answer you have been looking for. Six Sigma, a statistical-based approach and improvement methodology refined by Bill Smith, is used to increase efficiency and profit in a company. Besides this, Six Sigma has numerous benefits for both individuals and entire companies.
Improvement of Company or Organization
Six Sigma is extremely beneficial for companies because it provides an effective and objective method of diagnosing problems and improving business processes. By obtaining Six Sigma training and certification, one is easily able to identify and remove recurring errors in the current practices of an organization. This leads to constant and efficient improvement in business processes and in the company as a whole.
Useful in Various Industries
Six Sigma training instills managerial and problem-solving skills that can be used across all industries. Six Sigma certified quality specialists are in high demand in various fields, from Information Technology to Manufacturing, to Finance and Banking, and many more. Originally, Six Sigma was used mainly for finding and removing defects in the manufacturing of products. Nonetheless, this training is very flexible and can be adjusted to suit the specific needs of companies. For instance, Six Sigma tools can be used by managers to accurately measure team effectiveness and fix problems within the team.
Ensures Quality Productions Processes
One of the main purposes of Six Sigma training is to equip trainees with the skills needed in managing and sustaining improvement in the quality of products, services, employees, or entire organizations. Six Sigma training allows one to measure, analyze, and improve current practices in a business or organization with an understanding of how these practices and processes affect the organization as a whole.
Gain Managerial and Leadership Skills
Another benefit of Six Sigma Training in the Philippines is that it will equip you with skills needed to confidently lead and initiate quality improvement in your team or organization. This training provides hands-on experience by requiring trainees to apply the theories learned to real-life scenarios. With this experience, both hard and soft skills are learned, further developing one’s leadership and problem-solving abilities.
Improved Chances in Job Application or Promotion
Having Six Sigma training under your belt will greatly improve your chances of landing jobs in the best companies in several industries. It will also give you an edge over other employees when it comes to promotion because of how highly recognized and renowned this certification is across industries. In addition, most companies nowadays are looking for both technical skills and experience in their employees, a combination of hard and soft skills that this type of training provides.
Key Takeaway
Six Sigma is incredibly beneficial for individuals who wish to gain skills essential for leadership and problem-solving. At the same time, having Six Sigma certified employees would greatly increase the efficiency and effectiveness of internal business processes. Because of this, companies stand to gain a lot from investing in the training of their employees in the tools and theories of Six Sigma. | https://medium.com/@april.ebarvia/5-benefits-of-six-sigma-training-4f3e3b2719af | ['April Ebarvia'] | 2019-05-17 05:22:20.480000+00:00 | ['Philippines', 'Six Sigma Training'] |
Simple Calendar using ReactJS & MomentJS | Step 1 : First of all lets create a ReactJS project using the command
npx create-react-app Calendar (using your terminal in your desired folder)
Step 2 : Install momentjS inside project terminal
npm i moment (link)
Step 3 : create a functional component and import moment from moments
Step 4 : Lets save all the months from momentJS to a variable and also get the year.
Step 5: Lets write a function to get all days from a month with week basis.
Step 6: Lets map all the months and calender to the table
We are passing the months as the index value. 0 as jan … 11 as dec.. to our getDate() calendar function
Check out the complete program at my codesandbox.io | https://medium.com/@ajshah7/simple-calendar-using-reactjs-momentjs-861737c6cc8c | ['Ajmal Shah'] | 2020-12-23 10:36:43.307000+00:00 | ['Momentjs', 'Reactjs', 'Fullcalendar', 'React', 'Calendar'] |
Roadmap Progress Update (23 April) | The following Stakenet.io development roadmap values have been updated:
MCLW (80% to 90%) One-click Lightning Swaps (80% to 90%) LN DEX (20% to 50%) LN Privacy Swaps (0% to 25%) Auto-Updates (0% to 25%)
Key progress was made to the roadmap this past week. Most notably on the Light Wallet as we have moved to test version 0015 and our LN DEX as we near showcase functionality. Auto-updates for smooth public testing and default privacy architecture has commenced as well.
Check our live roadmap to stay up to speed on our teams progress, plans, and future developments. We will be providing weekly roadmap updates for the community moving forward. | https://medium.com/stakenet/roadmap-progress-update-23-april-59d15c6fe444 | ['Stakenet Team'] | 2019-04-23 12:33:40.356000+00:00 | ['Xsn News', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Decentralization', 'Blockchain', 'Lightning Network'] |
Laravel: Fail, Retry, or Delay a Queued Job From Itself | Laravel: Fail, Retry, or Delay a Queued Job From Itself
You probably didn’t know you can use these tricks
Photo by Emile Guillemot on Unsplash
When creating jobs, listeners, or subscribers to push into the queue, you may start thinking that, once dispatched, you’re all on your own with what the queue worker decides to do with your logic.
Well… it’s not that you can’t interact with the queue worker from inside the job, but you usually don’t need to… until you do.
The magic happens because of the InteractsWithQueue trait. When the queued job is being pulled out from the queue, the CallQueuedListener will check if it’s using the InteractsWithQueue trait, and if it is, the framework will inject the underlying “job” instance inside. | https://medium.com/better-programming/laravel-fail-retry-or-delay-a-queued-job-from-itself-41e0bb14440c | ['Italo Baeza Cabrera'] | 2019-10-27 22:53:28.363000+00:00 | ['PHP', 'Laravel', 'Programming', 'Web Development', 'Software Development'] |
An overnight success is never an overnight success | An overnight success is never an overnight success
Photo by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash
Do you sometimes find yourself coveting successful businesses and wondering how they just managed to show up and be successful, like all of a sudden there they are! Taking their respective market by storm!
Let me tell you; we really have to stop looking at successful businesses and assuming they are instant success stories. This kind of comparison can be dangerous and detrimental to our productivity. In reality, most successful companies, musicians and people have taken years of work and faced many ups, downs, tears and tantrums along the way. Each path to success is different, and we need to acknowledge that no two stories will ever be the same. If you take the time to research, you’ll find that many successful entrepreneurs have faced seemingly insurmountable hurdles and adversity along the way.
The difference is always in the attitude.
As a business owner or entrepreneur, you must know that whatever comes, you are following your path and it’s OK not always to be OK. You have to be willing to look at the real picture and understand that you can’t build an empire without first going through the construction. The great thing about adopting this attitude is that you get to make each step as valuable as it can be, even in the very beginning. And take pride in the steps you’re achieving along the way.
To quote one of my favourite female business bloggers Ash Ambirge of The Middle Finger Project’ Surely, when they built the Empire State Building, no one was embarrassed that it WASN’T JUST A BUILDING, ALREADY. Instead, they documented the entire construction process, excited to have the privilege to work on such a monumental new project.’
Ash, I love you.
Your business is no different. Get excited about it; this is yours! Don’t be in a hurry for it to be a business already. Take the valuable lessons along the way, celebrate and enjoy the process and stop making unrealistic comparisons on social media or in the press. You’ll thank me for it, I promise.
This is your journey. Make it count.
I believe in you. | https://medium.com/cretate-evolve-overcome/an-overnight-success-is-never-an-overnight-success-cd94d489a2a7 | ['Tricia Scott'] | 2020-11-26 19:02:06.217000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneur', 'Women In Business', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business', 'Business Development'] |
Why NoSQL- Part 1 — CAP theorem | This is part 1 of Why NoSQL series. In this series we will take a look at why we need NoSQL. Basically we need to understand what good NoSQL brings to the table where SQL can’t. So we will go through point by point to analysis about NoSQL.The first part will be about CAP theorem and how it is been supported by RDBMS and NoSQLs.
Before we examining the CAP theorem we need to revise the famous ACID transactions which every RDBMS to be supported. ACID stands for Atomic, Consistence,Isolated, Durable.
Atomic:
The transaction is indivisible — either all the statements in the transaction are applied to the database, or none are.
Consistent:
The database remains in a consistent state before and after transaction execution. simply, whatever rows will be affected by the transaction will remain consistent with each and every rule that is applied to them.
The database remains in a consistent state before and after transaction execution. simply, whatever rows will be affected by the transaction will remain consistent with each and every rule that is applied to them. Isolated:
While multiple transactions can be executed by one or more users simultaneously, one transaction should not see the effects of other concurrent transactions.
While multiple transactions can be executed by one or more users simultaneously, one transaction should not see the effects of other concurrent transactions. Durable:
Once a transaction is saved to the database (an action referred to in database programming circles as a commit), its changes are expected to persist.
All leading RDBMS support ACID transactions. This is great and where comes the problem? The era of web 2.0, applications are started to deal with billions and trillions of data every day and scalability comes in to the picture. So the database needs to be distributed over the network to make it horizontally scale. That emerges the concept CAP theorem to evaluate a distributed data storage system.
CAP theorem was developed by Eric Brewer in the year 2000. Lets have a look at CAP theorem.
CAP stands for Consistency, Availability and Partition-Tolerance.
CAP theory says that it is impossible to meet all the
three attributed of the CAP theorem.
. Lets look one by one.
Consistency:
If I wrote a data in one node and read it from another node in a distributed system, it will return what I wrote on the other node.
If I wrote a data in one node and read it from another node in a distributed system, it will return what I wrote on the other node. Availability:
Each node of the distributed system should respond to the query unless it dies.
Each node of the distributed system should respond to the query unless it dies. Partition-Tolerance:
This shows the availability and seamless operation of the distributed system even the partition (add/remove node from different data center) or message loss over the network.
Now let us examine why it is impossible to satisfy all the attributes of the CAP theorem.
Consider a distributed system like above, and We are updating a data on node-1 and trying to read the data from node-2, the possible outcomes will be,
1. node-2 may return the last best version it has which obviously violates the Consistency.
2. In case we like to wait the data propagate in to node-2 and node-2 has to wait for the newer version to be update. Since it is a distributed system there is a high chance of message failure and node-2 keep on waiting. So it can’t respond to the queries even though it alive. Hence it violates Availability
3. Now we want both Consistency and Availability, to achieve this the network should not be partitioned, hence Partition-Tolerance violated here.
The deciding point of the NOSQL is what are the attributes you need to consider for your data model. If you need high consistence data model RDBMS still the best. But if you can compromise consistency but you need high available and Partition-Tolerance data model than NoSQL would be the right choice.
In the coming series we will look in to different NOSQL databases, its data structures, distributed locking, eventual consistency and their architectures. | https://medium.com/allthingsdata/why-nosql-part-1-cap-theorem-f202a225c556 | ['Ananth Packkildurai'] | 2017-07-23 00:57:31.437000+00:00 | ['Cap Thorem', 'Acid', 'NoSQL'] |
The saga of async JavaScript: Thunks | Intro
Last time we talked about Callbacks — a pattern that is deceptively easy to understand. The concept which we will discuss today is a next step of evolution and naturally extends the callbacks’ capabilities. It also brings us an interesting solution for async programming and most importantly — it shifts our mindset and forces us to look at things from the different perspective. This time I want to provide you a comprehensive explanation on what are thunks and how it can help to organize our code better.
What the hell is that?
For real though, I wish I knew why somebody came out with this name. But jokes aside, thunks are the thing that at some point made me wondering how I had got so far with JavaScript without even knowing how powerful it can be. From a synchronous perspective, thunk is essentially a function that is ready to give you some value back and requires no additional input. As simple as that. Many of you working with React probably know an awesome and plain simple library called redux-thunk which as name suggests is based on thunks. But more on that later. For now let’s take a look at a simple example of a synchronous thunk:
function superCalculation() {
return 9999 + 9999
} const outFirstThunk = function () {
return superCalculation()
} const sum = thunk() // 19998
Here we have a thunk called ourFirstThunk which value is a function and when it gets called it will always return us the same value - the result of out superCalculation .
The part we care about
The important part is that this thunk has become a wrapper around some particular state. In this case it is a result of a potentially expensive operation. Imagine yourself shooting a beautiful moment on vintage film. The film itself is your thunk and the captured moment is the wrapped state. We can now pass this “film” around our app and when we want to extract that state, we simply “develop the film” by calling the thunk and get the value back. Instead of working with the state itself, we are passing a representation of the value. Pattern allows us to conveniently hide the details of underlying computation and provides a common interface. We also managed to delay the calculation until we really need it and it is possible now to inject this operation into different parts of our code. This is what is also called lazy thunk.
Going async
Things start to become quite intriguing when you are thinking about async applications. So how would you possibly describe an async thunk? For the most part it is the same. It’s a function which doesn’t need any arguments to make its job except for a callback. Interestingly enough despite all of its flaws, callback pattern has managed to find its use here. The standard synchronous implementation does not take time factor into account and we already saw that callbacks are pretty capable of handling “future value processing”. Why not use it here as well? Let’s extend our previous example to an asynchronous thunk:
function superCalculationAsync (callback) {
setTimeout(() => {
callback(9999 + 9999)
}, 1000)
} const thunk = function (callback) {
superCalculationAsync(callback)
} thunk((result) => {
console.log(result) // 19998
})
We now have an superCalculationAsync function which fakes an asynchronous behaviour by using setTimeout utility. We then create a thunk which is a function accepting a callback. This callback is passed to superCalculationAsync function to handle the result of the operation. The overall concept stays the same, except for callback coming into play to help us handle things. Still we end up with a handy container which we can use anywhere in our app as long as we pass the callback.
Lazy vs Eager
We managed to convert our synchronous thunk into an asynchronous one. You will notice that our superCalculationAsync itself is not executed right away. This is a lazy thunk. Until the callback is provided, no calculations will fire. Let's try to toy with this example a little bit more and think of the way to rewrite it to eager thunk - the one which will try to run calculations in advance and attempt to give you result back immediately.
const thunk = (function () {
let thunkResult;
let handleResult;
superCalculationAsync(function (result) {
if (handleResult) {
handleResult(thunkResult) // result is not ready
} else {
thunkResult = result // result is ready
}
}) return function runThunk (callback) {
if (thunkResult) {
callback(thunkResult) // result is ready
} else {
handleResult = callback // result is not ready
}
}
})()
While developing an eager thunk you stumble upon two possible cases that you need to handle. The first case is when thunk is called after the inner operation is completed and we can safely return the result. This is the easy part and it is no different to what we have been doing so far. The second case is something to think about — the thunk is called, but the operation is still going. We have to bridge those two branches of our program somehow. The provided solution is by no means the most performant and elegant one but it gets work done. Here we ended up with two if statements that mirror each other. We call the user's callback with a result of an underlying computation if it is already done. If not, we are injecting the provided callback directly. Client's code will not even know that the thunk might take time to complete.
Power comes with abstraction
Here is the point — we could rewrite our synchronous example with a callback and then treat both an async and sync thunk uniformly. By doing that we are effectively freeing ourselves from dealing with a time factor in our code by having this kind of normalization. We don’t have to know or care about the how a value is delivered to us. The first time we call our thunk and pass a callback it might do significant work to get an expected response. It could be an AJAX request, a CPU intensive task or any other crazy stuff which can take a while. But the second time we call it, it might decide to memoize the return value and give it to us right away. A client code using our thunks doesn’t need to have any concerns on internal implementation as long as it has the way to work with both synchronous and asynchronous code in the same manner. This is a big step forward. We have produced a wrapper around data that is time independent. And we know that time might be the most complex thing to manage in our applications.
Real world example
I have already mentioned redux-thunk — a library that is recommended to use for handling side effects in redux app according by redux maintainers themselves. It provides us a middleware which expects a thunk or a simple action object and handles them accordingly. It is so dead simple, that main function which creates a middleware is just 9 lines of code.
function createThunkMiddleware(extraArgument) {
return ({ dispatch, getState }) => (next) => (action) => {
if (typeof action === 'function') {
return action(dispatch, getState, extraArgument);
} return next(action);
};
}
The code is pretty straightforward and most likely doesn’t need any explanation at all. This is conceptually the same thunk we were talking about above. The only difference comes with a few extra arguments that are passed into our thunk — dispatch and getState with dispatch fulfilling a role of a callback.
Simplicity
The great thing about thunks is that this is just a pure JavaScript code. No libraries or frameworks involved. By adopting a different way of thinking, we managed to eliminate a confusing and difficult to handle thing called time. Let it sink for a moment. The mental overhead is gone and replaced with a common interface which represents our value. As a bonus, we are capable of reusing these representations across our code without any problems. But there is a revelation to be made.
The dreaded Inversion of Control issue
I will make this statement right away — thunks were not created to address Inversion Of Control issue. This is not a silver bullet in the world of async programming. In the example above, redux-thunk library has no way to ensure that their dispatch function will be called appropriately. The same is true for our examples. What thunks are effectively doing is that they are laying a foundation for Promises. If you are familiar with promises, and I am pretty sure most of you are, you can notice that thunks are essentially Promises without a fancy API. Yes, we are getting benefits of uniform treatment, reusability and a nice wrapper which encapsulates the details of our computations, but Inversion Of Control issue is still to be solved. Also, because thunks are still using callbacks under the hood, you could easily end up with something that is very similar to Callback Hell. If we try to express several operations that have temporal dependencies between each other, that would become clear. Let's assume that we have a makeThunk utility which accepts a function and a list of parameters which are passed to wrapped to it. For the sake of simplicity I will not provide any implementation details on it, you can find plenty of those on the internet.
const readFirst = makeThunk(readFile, 'first file');
const readSecond = makeThunk(readFile, 'second file');
const readThird = makeThunk(readFile, 'third file'); readFirst((firstFileContents) => {
console.log('first file contents', firstFileContents);
readSecond((secondFileContents) => {
console.log('second file contents', secondFileContents)
readThird((thirdFileContents) => {
console.log('third file contents', thirdFileContents)
})
})
})
We first precreate three thunks for later use. It is important to understand that readFile is not executed until we pass the callback. On the next lines, we nest thunks executions to get the right order of operations. The rule temporal dependency === nesting holds true here as well.
Outro
Thunks went a long way to improve our JavaScript code. This pattern brings couple of crucial benefits comparing to callbacks and still manages to be lightweight and simple. And the best part is that it is all possible with just the functions’ manipulations. As we saw in redux-thunk library example, thunks make handling side effects in our Redux a childsplay in just 9 lines of code. After some practice you could imagine that capabilities of this pattern extend far beyond the scope of just React & Redux apps. Thunks ideologically precede the Promise pattern and these two are much similar. Although thunks didn’t manage to solve the Inversion Of Control issue, we will see how the conceptual core of this pattern with an addition of new API finally succeeds. Thank you for a read, keep your eyes on updates and next time we will talk about Promises. | https://medium.com/@romansarder/the-saga-of-async-javascript-thunks-3606f7de0123 | ['Roman Sarder'] | 2021-09-17 15:56:48.632000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'ES6', 'Async', 'Frontend', 'Programming'] |
Transforming Quarantine Into Therapy | Transforming Quarantine Into Therapy
Photo by Arseny Togulev on Unsplash
Mental illness runs in my family. Along with my mom and dad, my brother and two sisters dealt with some form of anxiety and depression. My parents are long passed for about 27 years now, but my siblings and I are still struggling.
When I was six, I had my first seizure. Complex partial-onset seizure is the medical term, and I had it in my sleep. This type of seizure doesn’t involve flailing movement. It’s quite the opposite. You don’t move at all. So, when my mother tried to wake me that morning and couldn’t, it terrified her. After my epilepsy diagnosis, she became overly protective of me. This would mark the beginning of my anxiety.
I was completely unaware, and by no fault of her own, that my mother turned the world into a dangerous place for me. She was like a hawk standing vigil over me, and who could blame her? She didn’t know when or where I could have another episode. She feared losing me. So, she held on tight.
Rewind just a bit to my birth. My father’s nervous breakdown required us to move from the city out to the countryside. My birth came around the same time. Social security disability and food stamps kept us from hunger, but my mom’s parent’s old house had no running water, although it did have electricity.
Attending elementary school came with its set of challenges such as being told to ‘take a bath’ by the other kids. I kept to myself mostly, but that was only when I made it to school. My medicine for epilepsy made me sleepy. So, it was difficult to wake me up in the mornings, and I was absent from school frequently. I have vague memories of Child Protective Services talking to my parents, so I know they were in trouble for my lack of attendance.
Eventually, things worked out, and my parents didn’t get in trouble (I’m assuming CPS understood my circumstances). However, the mental marks on me were there to stay. They followed me through middle and high school until I dropped out in the 10th grade.
During this whole process, my parents dealt with their illnesses. My father had agoraphobia and my mother was an alcoholic. Neither of them had the tools to combat the difficulties they faced in life. Eventually, cardiac disease would take my dad, and sclerosis of the liver would take my mom. They died in their 50's.
I went through many ups and downs after their passing. I married for the wrong reasons, got divorced, and had a spotty work record. I suffered from anxiety and depression but didn’t get the right help I needed to climb out. That finally changed a few years ago, and I’m in a better place. I like to think of it as struggling forward. | https://medium.com/invisible-illness/transforming-quarantine-into-therapy-f8a2224663f2 | ['T.C. Gunter'] | 2020-12-17 23:24:32.791000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Therapy', 'Mental Health', 'Covid 19', 'Writing'] |
Flutter: Widgets for Starter #2 | So, we’re back to our Flutter: Widgets for Starter! Now, we’re here for the next part! Just a recap from Flutter: Widgets for Starter Part 1.
Introduction to Flutter Widgets
Text Widget
Container
Column
Row
Expanded
If you missed the article, here’s the link for you! 💙💙💙
Let’s start for Part 2! Are you excited guys?!
GIF by Hannah by giphy
1) Button Widget
In Flutter, Button Widgets are common needs by the users. Flutter has also had several types of buttons like FlatButton, RaisedButton, OutlineButton, and more buttons!
We will tackle buttons for a lot for this session!
Flat Button Raised Button Outline Button Icon Button Floating Action Button
1.1) Flat Button
In Flutter Documents, A material design “flat button”. A flat button is a text label displayed on a (zero elevation) Material widget that reacts to touches by filling with color.
Read more: Flat Button from Flutter Documents.
1.2) Raised Button
In Flutter Documents, A Material Design raised button. A raised button consists of a rectangular piece of material that hovers over the interface.
Read more: Raised Button from Flutter Documents.
1.3) Outline Button
In Flutter Documents, A medium-emphasis button for secondary actions that are important but are not the primary action in an app.
Read more: Outline Button from Flutter Documents.
1.4) Icon Button
In Flutter Documents, An icon button is a picture printed on a Material widget that reacts to touches by filling with color (ink).
For the Icons, A graphical icon widget drawn with a glyph from a font described in an IconData such as the material’s predefined IconData in Icons.
You could read more about icons here.
Read more: Icon Button from Flutter Documents.
1.5) Floating Action Button
In Flutter Documents, A floating action button is a circular icon button that hovers over content to promote a primary action in the application. Floating action buttons are most commonly used in the Scaffold.floatingActionButton field.
Read more: Floating Action Button from Flutter Documents.
That’s all for the Buttons! So, let’s proceed to Text Inputs.
2) Text Field
In Flutter, the text field allows us to use to get our inputs. They are used to build messages, search, or other inputs in our applications.
In TextField widget, We also can add decoration like putting outline or inline border, radius, and more things that can be decorated with styles!
Read more: TextField from Flutter Documents.
In Additional to TextField Widgets. We will be adding these subjects to this article.
onChanged
onSubmitted
Controller
TextFormField
2.1) TextField: onChanged
In Flutter Documents, when the user initiates a change to the TextField’s value: when they have inserted or deleted text.
Read more: onChanged from Flutter Documents.
2.2) TextField : onSubmitted
In Flutter Documents, when the user indicates that they are done editing the text in the field.
Read more: onSubmitted from Flutter Documents.
2.3) TextField: Controller
In Flutter Documents, Controls the text being edited.
Read more: Controller from Flutter Documents.
2.4) TextFormField
In Flutter Documents, A FormField that contains a TextField. This is a convenience widget that wraps a TextField widget in a FormField.
A Form ancestor is not required.
The Form simply makes it easier to save, reset, or validate multiple fields at once.
As you can see from the code, we have onSaved and validator.
onSaved — An optional method to call with the final value when the form is saved via save from FormState.
validator — An optional method that validates an input. Returns an error string to display if the input is invalid, or null otherwise.
So, That’s all for today’s session! I hope you learn something new today!
Also, I want to thank the Flutter for the best Documents! You could read more in advance at this link. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/flutter-widgets-for-starter-2-40649c9885b5 | ['Jan Salvador Sebastian'] | 2020-07-18 09:15:57.413000+00:00 | ['Google', 'Flutter App Development', 'Flutter Widget', 'Flutter', 'Dart'] |
Want to be a great leader? Lead from the heart | Want to be a great leader? Lead from the heart
Build followers, not subordinates
Amina Islam
“He that thinketh he leadeth, and hath no one following, is only taking a walk,” John Maxwell
There is no doubt that Nelson Mandela was not just taking a walk, but was one of the greatest leaders to have ever lived. Despite being in prison for 27 years, he held a clear vision of ending the apartheid system and achieved it.
But he didn’t do it alone.
He built a follower-driven movement through his charismatic and oratorical skills, inspiring his followers to defy the racist policies of the South African government in a peaceful and dignified manner. Through it all, he was known for his endearing qualities and his ability to engage with others at a deeper emotional level, traits that even the prison guards attested to in interviews following his release.
What can we learn from Nelson Mandela about how great leaders can lead in the business world?
Great leaders have followers, not just subordinates.
Unfortunately, a lot of people mistake holding positions of authority with leadership. Perks of being in a position of authority such as carrying a title that starts with the letter ‘C’, having people follow one’s orders, and parking in a coveted spot at the office do not necessarily make one a great leader.
Leading by authority is not the same as leading by influence. So how can you lead by influence and build followers?
Start with the ‘Why’.
Simon Sinek made popular the concept of ‘Start With Why’ through his Ted Talk, where he repeatedly emphasized that people don’t buy what you do but why you do it. He says, “If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money, but if they believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.”
People at work yearn to know that what they do contributes to something bigger than themselves. Discussed in the same talk, the limbic part of the brain that controls feelings such as loyalty and trust, which in turn controls behavior and decision-making, is highly attuned to the concept of purpose.
Do your employees know what your organization’s purpose is? Most importantly, do they know why you’re all pursuing it?
One way to test that is by simply handing each one of them a blank three-by-five-inch card, and have them write down their answers to the following two questions; “In your own words, what is our organization’s purpose? How is your role contributing to that purpose?”
Then collect the cards and see whether their answers are aligned or not.
If their answers are not aligned, why is that? Is there no clearly articulated mission statement encapsulating the purpose? Or is the mission just words that are discussed but not lived by?
Diagnose where the disconnect is, and work on fixing that.
2) Lead from the heart.
Unfortunately, there is a common perception among C-suite level executives that managing by fear and intimidation produces results, but as we explored in a previous article, toxic fear-based environments hinder employee engagement, creativity, morale, and productivity.
Great leaders lead from the heart.
This means they genuinely care about their people and aim to serve them. They’re empathetic, listen to their people’s needs — at work and in life — and make sure they feel understood and valued. More importantly, they treat them as people rather than resources and tools that can be exploited, utilized, and replaced.
Richard Branson says it best when he says, “If you take care of your employees, your employees will take care of your customers, and your customers will take care of your shareholders.”
For example, if one of your employees starts showing up late in the office, rather than taking the usual route of giving them a stern lecture on timeliness, try to understand why they’re consistently late, and how you can help them?
3) Create a “Circle of Safety” within the organization and most importantly, protect it.
A Circle of Safety is a firm foundation of trust within teams (a topic we’ve discussed in a previous post about building trust through transparency). As it is, organizations already face many threats from their competition and the market. So your employees don’t need to spend extra energy fending off internal threats from their own colleagues. The ability for the team to pull together well in the face of obstacles is what defines an organization’s endurance, and it’s your job as the leader to create this circle where everyone feels safe.
Reinforcing this idea, Nelson Mandela is quoted to say, “It is better to lead from behind and put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger.”
As a leader, one simple tool to test the health of an organization was devised by former U.S. labor secretary Robert Reich. According to Dan Pink’s book Drive which introduced this tool, “When he (Reich) talks to employees, he listens carefully for the pronouns they use. Do they refer to their company as “they” or as “we”?”
When employees refer to the company with “they,” it’s clear they view themselves as being separate, hinting at not feeling a sense of ownership or safety.
To conclude, it is important to understand that what makes great leaders is their ability to lead by influence and build a followership. Cultivate this ability by communicating a clear vision to inspire people. Make them internalize your ‘why’. Also, lead from the heart, and make sure that all your employees feel heard, seen, and valued, as the relationship between leaders and followers is one where influence goes both ways!
About the author: Amina Islam is the Innovative Learning Lead for Xcelerator , where she works with the product team to develop new programs. She received her Ph.D. from Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in 2017. Amina is always excited about new ideas and explores them in writing on her Linkedin profile and ahscribbles.com. | https://medium.com/xcelerator-alg/want-to-be-a-great-leader-lead-from-the-heart-5cb0c5e8a571 | [] | 2019-11-27 06:38:46.670000+00:00 | ['Leadership Development', 'Xcelerator', 'Leadership', 'CEO', 'Purpose'] |
You Are The Most Underrated Relationship You Have | LOVE YOURSELF FIRST
You Are The Most Underrated Relationship You Have
Stop taking yourself for granted
You are the most important person in your life. You are the longest relationship you’ll ever have. So why do you treat yourself so poorly? Why do you constantly say such hateful things to yourself? Things you would never dare say to your best friend, yet you say them freely to the mirror without even flinching. Like it’s second nature — like your reflection deserves all the hate you spew at it.
Stop. Just stop.
The next time you start saying something mean to yourself — or even just thinking it — stop yourself in your tracks and ask yourself: “Would you say this to your mother?” Would you say it to your best friend or your child?
If the answer is no, then you probably shouldn’t be saying it to yourself either. It’s simple.
“Be careful how you are talking to yourself because you are listening.” — Lisa M Hayes
By constantly talking down to ourselves, we are sabotaging our chance at happiness. ‘You’re not good enough’, ‘You’ll never amount to anything’, ‘You better face it, this is as good as it gets for you’. Any of these sound familiar?
I’m going to twist something around here, just for the fun of it. You know the old saying. Some say it came from the bible — I say it’s just common sense:
“Do under others as you would have them do unto you.”
Change it up — how about this instead? “Do unto yourself, as you would do unto others, and as you would have them do unto you.” Treat yourself the way you’d like to be treated by others, and how you treat others — it’s simple! If you wouldn’t say something to someone because it’s mean or rude, then don’t say it to yourself. That’s it.
But if you’ve been talking badly to yourself for a long time, it may be a hard habit to kick; I get it. These things don’t happen overnight, and so they won’t change overnight. But you’ve got to put in a valid effort. You’ve got to want to change, and want to believe that you’re worthy of your love.
Because if you can’t love yourself — and if you can’t treat yourself with respect, then how can you possibly expect another person to love and respect you? You have to lead by example! | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/you-are-the-most-underrated-relationship-you-have-96cb049b12 | ['Edie Tuck'] | 2019-11-09 18:08:54.016000+00:00 | ['Self Talk', 'Self Confidence', 'Self Love', 'Positivity', 'Negativity'] |
When Will Lifetime Stop Glorifying Murder & Rape? | When Will Lifetime Stop Glorifying Murder & Rape?
After a long day of work, I was sitting in my room looking for something to watch when I came across a movie on Hulu. At first I was hesitant because it was a Lifetime movie. And I thought to myself, this is probably another movie about murder.
But as it turns out, it wasn’t about murder. This one was about rape. As if that were any better.
See, I used to love Lifetime back in the day before they became a haven for true crime. Now everything is about murder (and apparently rape) and every movie seems to have the same plot with different actors.
They even had a show that glorified nurses and doctors killing people.
While I enjoy a real true-crime documentary as much as the next person, I don’t really enjoy movies or shows dedicated to magnifying murder. Murders that didn’t really happen and are only giving people ideas on how to commit them. Which is essentially what they’re doing.
I mean, don’t you think so?
To me, it would appear as if Lifetime has lost its sense of creativity in producing quality movies. And now they’re trying to make up for it by keeping up with the Joneses.
One could also argue that they’re using people’s pain to profit from movies and television shows. I don’t know about you but I don’t think that murder or rape is funny, and I doubt that people who experienced that would think it is either. It’s very triggering and unnecessary that companies like Lifetime can’t do better than this.
And it’s not to say all the blame is on Lifetime here. It’s also about actors that are choosing to do this kind of work. Instead of trying to make a quick buck, what they should be doing is considering the contribution they’re making to society by choosing their work wisely. | https://medium.com/@jennicajanae/when-will-lifetime-stop-glorifying-murder-rape-2266540f7e26 | ['Jennica Janae'] | 2020-12-22 22:11:14.106000+00:00 | ['Television', 'Movies', 'Review', 'TV Shows', 'Thoughts'] |
‘What’s That?’ — A Relationship With My Chest | “What’s that?”, my top surgeon said as she examined my chest. She was staring at the sores on the sides and middle of my breasts, eyeing them suspiciously.
“Oh, I just pick at my chest. Um, anxiety ya know.” She seemed content with that answer. But did she know? Probably not. I can’t imagine most top surgeons even understanding the complex feelings that come with having dysphoria unless they’re trans themselves. It can be debilitating.
Truth is, I do pick at, scratch and rub my chest around the breasts. But the reason can be much more sinister than just constant anxiety.
Chest dysphoria can give you the strongest urges of just wanting a flat chest immediately. Not having that flat chest brings on intense distress, leading to me picking, and scratching, and rubbing around my chest. I either feel in the middle of the breasts and try to feel a semblance of what a flat chest would feel like, or in the deep recesses of my mind I just want to hurt them or cut them off. It sounds very brutal, but my rational brain would never let that happen.
In my dreams, they’ve been cut off and for some reason painlessly. Or I’ll go into a changing room and come back out and simultaneously my chest is flat. I don’t actually wish for pain, just the sacks of fat on my chest to be gone. It’s as simple and complex as that.
Adding anxiety makes things more difficult, especially in public. Anxiety gives me automatic negative thoughts, followed by dysphoria and the distress trying to validate those irrational thoughts. Double trouble trying to make irrational thoughts seem as real as can be, and only leading to more distress. A vicious cycle. So how do I stop it?
For a long time, I couldn’t. It was a nonstop spiral of misery and hopelessness. Sounds very positive, right? I tried to distract myself but my chest was always there. Mocking me, it felt like.
It turned out that what I needed was a plan. When I was at my worst I was binding but couldn’t very much because of my strenuous job, and didn’t have a date for top surgery. I was expecting my therapist to tell me when I was ready for top surgery. But he’s not in my body, I am. So I had to decide for myself to start the process. I made the date for the consult and then I had a plan.
Once I had a plan it was like my anxieties lifted from my chest like pulling a shirt over my head. It was an amazing feeling of euphoria. Even though my chest was still there, I knew that in a matter of months it would be flat. My mind took that as a win, and my dysphoria suddenly no longer got to the point of distress. And most importantly, I could start healing.
I still pick at my chest when I’m at home playing a game, watching a movie, or when I have night anxiety. But it’s no longer constant and the sores on my chest are always less and less every time I look in the mirror. I feel a tinge of confidence now and can’t wait for the euphoria that my flat chest will bring. | https://medium.com/th-ink/whats-that-a-relationship-with-my-chest-5f24509309e6 | ['Rhian Beam'] | 2019-12-22 11:51:01.214000+00:00 | ['Gender Dysphoria', 'Nonbinary', 'LGBTQ', 'Transgender', 'Identity'] |
Worse than 1975: Trump’s cynical betrayal of the Kurds | Worse than 1975: Trump’s cynical betrayal of the Kurds
“Comment: Paul Iddon details just how profoundly President Trump has betrayed the US’ former Kurdish allies.”
US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops from northeast Syria’s border regions and green light a Turkish ground incursion there is a breathtakingly cynical betrayal of America’s Syrian Kurdish-led allies against the Islamic State (IS), and will lead to even greater instability in Syria.
Mere hours after Trump had a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, US troops near the Syrian border began to withdraw. The White House released a statement saying the US military will not support any Turkish operation but will withdraw from the border areas where it will take place, effectively authorising it.
This amounts to a cynical betrayal of a reliable ally that sacrificed more than anyone else to rid Syria of the Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate, an endeavour that ultimately cost the lives of 11,000 men and women of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
But Trump’s desire to withdraw US troops from Syria isn’t the only thing making this a betrayal. After all, the Kurds and the SDF never really expected the US to safeguard their long-term post-IS interests in Syria and knew the partnership was purely ad-hoc.
It’s also betrayal because of how Trump essentially scrapped the “safe zone” plan for northern Syria after the US got the Kurds to make major concessions in order to make it work.
“With US troops leaving the border, most of Syrian Kurdistan’s cities are now going to be even more vulnerable to Turkish attack than before”
Beginning in August, the US began the rapid establishment of the so-called “safe zone” on the Syrian border with Turkey to dissuade Ankara from launching a cross-border military operation. The SDF was compelled to make concessions to stave off any potential attack against it, which in August seemed imminent.
The group immediately complied. It removed heavy weapons from the border regions and also destroyed its defensive fortifications there.
Turkey was given the right to monitor the zone through joint patrols on the ground and helicopter flyovers to verify the SDF’s compliance with the agreement. Despite all this, Ankara expressed dissatisfaction and continually threatened to launch a unilateral operation anyway.
Now, Trump has essentially decided to let Turkey attack, barely a month after the US convinced the Kurds that by destroying their defensive positions Ankara could be appeased. With US troops leaving the border most of Syrian Kurdistan’s cities are now going to be even more vulnerable to Turkish attack than before.
This surely constitutes an incredibly cynical act of betrayal.
A Turkish attack on northeast Syria could spark a war across hundreds of kilometres of the border. Large numbers of Kurdish and Arab civilians in this hitherto stable part of northern Syria would likely become internally displaced persons or refugees.
On top of this, thousands of IS militants are held in prisons in SDF-controlled territory and could potentially escape if the SDF has to divert its resources to try and fend off a Turkish invasion of their homeland.
Such a disastrous outcome is surely the very last thing this war-weary region needs. Also, a Turkish attack would be both unjustified and certainly an unprovoked act of aggression.
While the largest component of the SDF — the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) who are the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) party — was founded as a branch of Turkey’s arch-enemy, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the YPG never attempted to use the vast border territories it controls in northeast Syria to harm Turkey.
They pledged they wouldn’t do so back in 2012 and have remained true to their word.
This was despite the fact that since then Turkey destroyed large swathes of towns and cities in its Kurdish-majority southeast during the military campaign against the PKK in 2015–16 and also invaded the northwest Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin without provocation in early 2018, killing several YPG fighters and displacing over 100,000 Kurdish civilians.
If Trump’s decision isn’t ultimately reversed, as his prior order to immediately withdraw US troops from Syria last December was, this could amount to the most cynical betrayal of Kurds since 1975.
In the mid-1970s, a joint covert action project by the United States, the Shah’s Iran and Israel supported the Iraqi Kurds in their war against Baghdad.
The covert effort was run from Iran and consisted of arming and paying the Kurdish Peshmerga. This enabled the Kurds to keep on fighting the much larger and better-equipped Iraqi Army.
Comment: Trump washing his hands of Islamic State won’t solve the problem
But in 1975, the Shah decided to completely ditch the Kurds to reach a deal with then-Iraqi Vice President Saddam Hussein that gave Iran sovereignty over half of the Shatt al-Arab waterway.
Since Iran was the conduit for equipping the Kurds, the project collapsed shortly thereafter. A vengeful Iraqi army overran Kurdistan and 250,000 bitter and disillusioned Iraqi Kurds became refugees in Iran.
A US investigation into the programme the following year, the Pike Report, discovered that the CIA had suspected the Shah would sacrifice the Kurds to reach a deal with Saddam over two years prior, but was ordered not to warn the Kurds so the Shah would have “a card to play” in negotiations with Saddam.
“As cynical as that whole episode was, Trump’s decision today is arguably even worse”
The report also found that the US and Iran had hoped the Kurds “would not prevail” since they preferred a continuation of “a level of hostilities sufficient to sap the resources of our ally’s [Iran] neighbouring country”.
“Even in the context of covert action, ours was a cynical enterprise,” the report aptly noted.
As cynical as that whole episode was, Trump’s decision today is arguably worse.
Back then, the US and Israel completely relied on Iran to supply the Peshmerga, and the Shah did not give them any known forewarning of his decision to meet Saddam and sign the agreement, meaning there was little they could do after the Shah pulled the plug on the whole project.
Syria Weekly: Winter is coming to Al-Hol camp and children will be its victims
In today’s Syria, the US has a mere 1,000 troops to assist in anti-IS operations. Out of these, only 150 were working with Turkey on establishing the “safe zone”. This minuscule number is all that was needed to ensure no unilateral Turkish operation can happen without Erdogan running even the slight risk of killing or wounding American military personnel.
By staying, the US would essentially have forced Erdogan to adhere to the safe zone agreement, which is actually quite a good deal for Ankara since it addresses any legitimate security concerns it has.
But Trump has made clear that he is unwilling to do even this to help an ally that has sacrificed so much to combat the marauding threat IS posed to the world.
A cynical enterprise indeed.
Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist based in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, who writes about Middle East affairs.
Follow him on Twitter: @pauliddon
Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.
Paul Iddon
To read the article on the original site Click here | https://medium.com/thenewarab/worse-than-1975-trumps-cynical-betrayal-of-the-kurds-e4c2f55ab630 | ['Newarab Comment'] | 2019-10-08 19:27:38.596000+00:00 | ['Paul Iddon', 'Syria', 'Comment'] |
Top 10 Technology Magazines for APAC Region | In this digital era, it’s necessary to keep updated of the constant changes and to have a clear idea of what’s next. There are more than enough resources to help you follow these trends. Inorder to help you find the best resources, here’s a list of some of the top magazines which focus on the latest advancements in different industries in APAC region.
APAC CIO Outlook
APAC CIO Outlook is a print magazine that aims to provide a platform for CIOs, CTOs and other senior level IT buyers and decision makers along with CXOs of solution providers to share their experiences, wisdom and advice with enterprise IT community of APAC countries.
APAC CIO Outlook delivers practical, actionable information from senior practitioners in the trenches. They leverage extensive peer-to-peer network, among leading technology executives, to bring their experience and the best practices to other members of CIO community in Asia Pacific countries.
Visit website: APAC CIO Outlook
2. Business APAC
Business APAC endeavors to reveal the most promising technology & business applications and heads behind them with its dedicated magazine issues for APAC Region. These magazine issues are filled with the most informative data for CXOs. The team is very curious about knowing the strategies todays leading businessmen are following and we wish to share them with our growing audience.
Visit website: Business APAC
3. CIO Advisor APAC
CIO Advisor APAC’s mission is to enable CIO’s of medium to large enterprises based in APAC countries to leverage technology for their businesses. The magazine offers a medium for seasoned CIOs and senior IT management executives in APAC region to share their practical knowledge, experiences and wisdom with their peers in APAC region to collectively uplift the ROI’s that enterprises get from their technology spend.
Visit website: CIO Advisor APAC
4. APAC Outlook Mag
APAC Outlook is a digital and print publication aimed at boardroom and hands-on decision-makers, reaching an audience of more than 220,000 people across the region; spanning the full range of industrial sectors including agriculture, construction, energy & utilities, finance, food & drink, healthcare, manufacturing, mining & resources, oil & gas, retail, shipping & logistics, technology and travel & tourism.
Visit website: APAC Outlook Mag
5. APAC Insider
Exploring everything from business strategy and analysis to emerging trends and growth opportunities, APAC Insider is an invaluable resource for more than 160,000 leaders and decision makers looking to be kept fully informed of all the major developments in this most vibrant of business arenas. Their approach reflects the innovative, dedicated and results-focused culture that has seen the Asia Pacific region become home to some of the most prominent industry-leading businesses in the world.
Visit website: APAC Insider
6. Tech in Asia
Tech in Asia (YC W15) is the largest English-language technology media company that focuses on Asia. From the latest news to the hottest trends and the boldest startups to the strongest titans, they cover everything tech in the region.
Apart from producing and delivering quality editorial content, they connect brands with early adopters via Studios, our advertising agency unit.
Visit website: Tech in Asia
7. Tech Wire Asia
Tech Wire Asia is an independent tech news website that covers enterprise and technology in Asia. In-depth features and analyses from writers and bloggers across Asia provide cultural insights, alongside daily news and stories. Tech Wire Asia focuses on the way start-ups and small-medium enterprises use technology to grow and prosper.
Visit website: Tech Wire Asia
8. Business Chief APAC
Business Chief is a ‘Digital Community’ that connects the world’s largest brands and their most senior executives with the latest trends pivoting towards technology and digital transformation. It is a ‘trusted authority’ on the latest industry news combining ‘Executive Thought Leadership Interviews’ with the very latest case studies on Leadership & Digital Strategy, Corporate Finance, Technology and Human Capital.
Visit website: Business Chief APAC
9. APAC Business Headlines
APAC Business Headlines publish the latest developments and trends in the business world. They bring to light the best and reliable technologies and business solutions from the region to help firms find the right partners. Through our website and magazine, we provide space for business leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals to share and exchange their ideas, innovations, and experiences.
Visit website: APAC Business Headlines
10. Asia Pacific Security Magazine
The Asia Pacific Security Magazine maintains a strong focus on regional events and trends. Published since 2010, the APSM has developed a global reputation for quality content and is distributed across all digital channels.
Website: Asia Pacific Security Magazine | https://medium.com/@georgekaren654/top-10-technology-magazines-for-apac-region-b28c46b37628 | ['Karen George'] | 2020-12-17 07:47:02.442000+00:00 | ['Apac', 'Magazines', 'Technology Trends', 'Publication'] |
Want to build a business? Start thinking in systems. | How I became an ‘entrepreneur’
Hi 👋, nice to meet you! My name is Christiaan. And I’m a 23 years old entrepreneur. I grew up in a very driven household. Both my parents tended to work 60/80-hour work weeks. And my dad, like his dad before him, always had a business he was running.
And before I knew it, I spent my entire childhood working alongside him.
My typical day didn’t look like most others my age.
08:00–15:00 School
15:30–18:00 Relaxing / Homework / Whatever
18:00–20:00 Discussing and coming up with strategies
20:00–00:00 Developing whatever I worked on (website/marketing/etc)
00:00–03:00 Brainstorming new ideas / Getting more work done
07:00 Waking up, with a lot of effort, to go to school
As you might’ve guessed, my family didn’t sleep a lot.
My own business
Because of the skillset and experiences I gained building and growing my dads company I grew the desire to build a business of my own.
So I did. Or at least I thought…
What does it even mean to build a business?
The past couple of years I did a LOT of projects. So does that mean I’m building a business? I did a bit of thinking and came to the following conclusion: No. | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/want-to-build-a-business-start-thinking-in-systems-40d2bb3fe87d | ['Christiaan Van Eijk'] | 2020-12-26 12:59:36.334000+00:00 | ['Growth', 'Business Development', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Personal Development', 'Business'] |
So It Is Summer Time… | What? July? Half of the year is gone. The summer of 2020 is here. Tokyo Olympic was supposed to be happening soon. This weekend many would have got together with family and friends for BBQ and see the fireworks. Who would have thought that we, as in everybody, would be sheltering-in-place more than 3 months after we were first told to stay home?
It’s true this has been a time of introspection for some. Being home bound when it was still relatively cold outside was O.K. Even as early spring turned spring, it wasn’t too bad to be home and not spending as much time behind the wheel as most of us do. But now, it’s officially summer. It’s time for us to go outside, especially because we live in a paradise called Southern California.
Yet this paradise along with all the other cities and towns in California are closing down again today. As my big birthday approaches this month, I’m bracing myself for the worst. Even though I would like to have a gathering of people I’ve known for a long time, short time and everything in between to celebrate my new decade, I am very much in equanimity about however it may unfold. I’ll be just as happy and grateful that I am safe, healthy and living with comfort in this tumultuous time in the world. Given the current affairs of our country, I can’t take anything for granted, and I thank God every day for all the blessings in my life. | https://medium.com/@izumi-tanaka/so-it-is-summer-time-ef191619374d | ['Izumi Tanaka'] | 2020-07-01 23:09:26.929000+00:00 | ['Pandemic', 'Equanimity', 'Birthday', 'Summer', 'Blessings'] |
Fast Fashion is Costing You a Lot More Than You Think | Photo by Atikh Bana on Unsplash
Last year, I booked a trip to LA with a few of my closest friends. I knew that a lot of pictures would be taken (my friends love Instagram, and avoiding their snaps is next to impossible), so I knew that I’d need to buy a bunch of new clothes to last me the week we were spending there. That meant a new outfit, for every single day.
I went straight to PrettyLittleThing.com — my then-go-to for super cheap but cute outfits, and I knew I could find everything I needed for a trip to LA on there. I spent £200 on a clothing haul of around 15 items.
1 year later, and I haven’t worn a single one of these items since.
Why? They fell apart — some even did so while I was in LA, wearing them for the first or second time. They also fit very awkwardly, the material was thin and flimsy (leading to some pretty embarrassing wardrobe moments), and they were just all-around terrible quality. That, I can confidently say, was the last time I ever shopped at Pretty Little Thing.
I could have spent £200 on four or five pieces from a reputable fashion brand that uses 100% organic cotton and clearly states their social and ethical responsibility policy on their website. I would still have those four or five pieces and would be wearing them to this day. In fact, I’d probably be wearing them for another 5 years, at least.
Yet, we’re still led to believe that by spending all this money on loads of cheap, low-quality clothing, we are getting some sort of bargain. In fact, we are spending far more than we should be in our never-ending quest to look and feel good in what we are wearing. The worst part is that the majority of those who buy from fast fashion companies are my age — they’re Gen Z’ers — and they need to be saving and investing their money more than ever.
Photo by Fernand De Canne on Unsplash
Gen Z — defined as those born between the mid 90’s and early 2000s — are the first generation to really feel the effects of fast fashion on our every day lives. It’s intertwined in everything we do — from scrolling on social media that is plagued with ads and influencers selling us the next best outfit (for only a tenner!), to the social pressure of always needing a new outfit to wear on our next night out, which in fact, is tomorrow so we need something “cheap and fast”.
After speaking to a friend of mine who is, by definition, a Gen X, he told me interestingly that it was never a “thing” to go out shopping every Saturday and come back with 15 items from Primark when he was in his early twenties. It was unheard of, and the fashion supply chain reflects this. In 1975, it took 22 months from designing a garment to distributing it. In 2020, Kim Kardashian could walk a red carpet in a $400,000 dress (that did happen, apparently), and there will be a $15 dupe available on the likes of Fashion Nova the following day in a matter of hours. This breakneck speed of production is quite frankly terrifying, and terrible for those making thousands of garments overnight.
Most recently, over Black Friday we saw the likes of Pretty Little Thing, Boohoo and Missguided drop their prices to as little as 8p for a garment. You can only imagine how little the garment makers — who are one of the last in the supply chain to be paid — were receiving if anything.
The reality is that these low prices and ‘bargains’, which tend to not be bargains after all (see Boohoo’s sale countdown clock scandal) are just an illusion as to the amount you’re actually spending on your clothes over time. In 2019, the UK reached a consumer spending all-time high at £61.2 billion on clothes, an increase of almost £20 billion from 2009–2019. We’re spending a whole lot more, but getting a lot less in return.
What makes fast fashion so cheap?
Now you may be thinking, “Why would I spend £25 on a top when I could get one for £5 from Primark?”. It is of course very tempting to go for the option of spending little on many items, as you feel like you’re getting great value for money. It’s also of course not easy for someone on a low income to splash £25 on one item, so it’s much more desirable to go for the low-cost and convenient option. However, there is a hidden cost, which most people don’t consider when shopping for their clothes. A huge hidden cost, that is detrimental to the lives of millions of women in developing countries.
93% of brands surveyed by the Fashion Checker aren’t paying garment workers a living wage.
Most garment factories that supply the big-name brands you see online and on the high-street are based in developing countries, such as India, Bangladesh, China and Indonesia. These factories employ thousands of workers, the majority of whom are women, for sometimes as little as $97/month (typical monthly wage in Bangladesh). The difference between earning a minimum wage and a living wage is the difference between eating a portion of rice every day and being able to feed your family nutritious meals every day. The Fashion Checker have a great tool that demonstrates the difference between earning a minimum wage and a living wage.
Workers at a garment factory in Vietnam. Photo by ILO Asia-Pacific.
Most of these women are employed on short-term contracts and usually on a casual work-basis, with no employee rights. This makes them extremely vulnerable to exploitation along with sexual assault and harassment which is a commonality in these workplaces.
“The women in Bangladesh do not talk about violence and harassment, these are taboo subjects. That is why there are so many undocumented cases of violent attacks — even in the workplace. Insults and sexual assaults are so common in factories that often neither the workers nor the management see this as a problem.” — Labour Rights Activist Kalpona Akter | BCWS (Bangladesh)
Don’t be fooled — this kind of misconduct is not just limited to developing countries. Right here in the UK, factories in Leicester that are linked with Boohoo were put under fire in June 2020 as they were found to have been paying workers £3.50/hour — less than half the legal minimum wage. It comes as no surprise that Boohoo were apparently “unaware” of this issue, as most fashion supply chains are now completely disjointed. Many stages of the process are outsourced to hundreds of different factories, to the point where brands don’t even know where their own products have come from.
There has been an increase in demand for brands to be fully transparent about their supply chains, which means revealing meaningful information on all factories involved in their supply chain. Most of the well-known fashion brands in the UK have failed to do this.
“Fast fashion brands like Fashion Nova, Boohoo, Revolve, Pretty Little Thing and Forever 21 all score less than 10% on the Fashion Transparency Index” — Fashion Transparency Index, 2020
Female workers are paying the price of COVID’s impact on the fashion industry.
Cancelled orders and supply chain issues causing brands to lose money during COVID fell on the shoulders of garment workers, rather than those at the top. This pressure and financial burden were passed directly to these women, and most were either not paid for their work or were dismissed. As there is little to no social security, welfare system or proper support in developing countries, this left these women in an extremely vulnerable position.
What are your clothes really made of?
By cutting costs of labour, fast fashion brands are able to hike their profit margins in order to keep as much of that £5 you spent on that dress as possible. However, it’s not just the garment production that they cut costs on, it’s also the material itself.
Most clothes are now made from cheap synthetic fibres such as nylon or polyester, both of which are plastics. Like any other plastic, they will take hundreds of years to decompose. However, these fibres are cheap in comparison to natural fibres, and so are favoured by fast fashion companies looking to keep their costs as low as possible. They also result in garments with a short lifespan, which feeds into their mantra of “Buy more, and often!”, as you’ll always have something that needs to be replaced.
In fact, out of the 840 million garments produced every year by Zara for their 6,000 stores, most of these end up being thrown away in the same year, as they are considered “old” after one or two uses. Consumers then replace these garments with new ones, and the cycle repeats itself.
Shop slow, save money
Start thinking of clothes as long-term investments, not short-term throwaway pieces.
I, personally, would much rather spend £20 on a t-shirt made from 100% organic cotton by a brand with a fully transparent supply chain and proof of being a living wage employer, than £5 on a t-shirt from a brand that doesn’t even pay their staff a minimum wage and can’t tell me where their products really came from.
Photo by the blowup on Unsplash
The reality is that shopping for slow fashion will always cost you more in the short-term. Ethically produced products are more expensive as they aren’t using cheap materials or cheap labour to produce them, and they’re also producing them in small quantities, which leads to inevitably higher production costs. However, if you compare your spending over a year between buying fast fashion items and shopping a little more purposefully, the difference is breathtaking. The math is simple:
Buy a £4 top that will last you 6 months (at the very most) or buy a £25 top that you’ll still be wearing in 5 years. You’ve already saved money. | https://medium.com/@alexmadeleinehill/shopping-for-fast-fashion-is-costing-you-a-lot-more-than-you-think-800b026e4bb9 | ['Alex Hill'] | 2020-12-22 22:33:45.172000+00:00 | ['Fast Fashion', 'Slow Fashion', 'Money Management', 'Young People', 'Fashion'] |
8945899703=7484887496. | 8945899703=7484887496. Zest money customer care number. Any problem solved call now. 24×7 hours call now. | https://medium.com/@vivekkumarfgdfsdfdd/8945899703-7484887496-bc09590ae409 | [] | 2020-12-16 05:13:17.436000+00:00 | ['Zest', 'Money', 'Numbers', 'Cars', 'Customer Service'] |
Cecilia’s Encounter with A Stranger Self | “Existential Struggle” — Gilbert Loutfi
Part One
I think my mind is deceptive. Can it be trusted?
Cecilia wrote this down in her notebook, slowly. She always wrote slowly. Not because she was challenged in the task of writing in any way, but because the only words she ever wrote were those which were backed by a great deal of thought. For the idea of letting words flow from her mind and on to a sheet of paper in rapid succession and with little reflection made her uneasy; if the subconscious is real, she speculated, it’s impression would surely be left in words written outside of the conscious’ control. A professor in psychology at NYU had convinced her this was a very real possibility. And mentally, she was in no place to see traces of her subconscious in her writing — she feared such a sight might be detrimental to her understanding of who she was. So, she wrote with diligence, making sure not to let that potential stranger within her coordinate any pen strikes.
Curiously, and not necessarily because of her diligence, every sentence she wrote was the most honest and beautiful representation of the things in her mind. She didn’t know this, though. In her ignorance, she would write poems in royal blue ink, only to throw them away later on, thinking they lacked something. It falls short of the ideal of poetry, was the most typical critique she made before tearing out a poem from her notebook and tossing it, frustrated, to the floor.
And yet, if anyone were to have picked up, unraveled, and read the contents of just one of these poems, they would have said she was a poet of the finest degree, no doubt. Only that she could not see it.
This fact didn’t tell of insecurities in her as much as it did of a disjuncture between her head-space — that supposed realm of thoughts, ideas, suspicions, surmises, and so on — and reality. That she could so easily gain a grasp on ideas, even the most abstract of them, was true, and proved favorable for her in academia; but with this came a dull awareness of the immediate, objective world. Indeed, she possessed an understanding of poetry as an idea, but could not recognize its material form when it was in front of her.
Part Two
In the States, Cecilia was considered to be of a small and delicate build, with a short torso and slender arms. But in Guatemala, her height made her an anomaly among the women. On Sundays, she could be seen towering over the crowds of Guatemalan women at the local food markets, with her face decorated in gracious smiles. She herself was only half Guatemalan; the other half, Ecuadorian, thanks to a father she never knew.
Or at least, growing up, Cecilia claimed never to have known him. If asked, she would explain that he disappeared from her life when she was three and half years old. According to her mother, he was a no good drunk who couldn’t take up the responsibility of being a father, so one night he got up from the dining room table and left. Y nunca volvió — he never came back — her mother would end the story. Not surprising, then, that all which would register in Cecilia’s mind when she heard the word “father” were her mother’s blunt recollections of a stranger now gone-away. And nothing more, not even a personal anecdote.
That is until a few days after she wrote the words at the beginning of this story. It was a regular Wednesday when, in an old suitcase that belonged to her mother, she found a photograph that was taken on a family trip to Mexico in the 90’s. Much of the photo’s color had faded out, leaving behind white splotches and faded figures. But in one corner, just enough color remained to bring Cecilia to tears with an image: it was her, sitting in her father’s lap, smiling and watching intently as he showed her how to use a lighter.
She began recalling things she had forgotten of, like the fact that back in those days, her father was friendly with members of a cartel in Yucatán. And that he would pay the cartel visits, always making sure to bring the family. And that he would smile a lot, which made her want to do the same whenever he came around.
So it wasn’t a dream, after all, it dawned on her. She was beginning to recall, for the first time and with considerable intensity, the feelings she once had towards him. An unfamiliar pain started stirring in her stomach, then in her chest, and finally in her throat. Overwhelmed, she reached for her notebook and began to carelessly jot down thoughts until they formed a poem:
A father striking fire before his child’s eyes —
who would ever guess
such trivialities done in happiness
could be nostalgically lamented, given time;
given a photograph;
like a snake crawling out from its own skin,
what was once a distant dream
has become, again, a reality —
my father and my love for him.
As she put her pen to paper to start the fourth stanza, a teardrop slipped from her cheek and on to the page. Her pen’s ballpoint cut through the center of the droplet causing ink to leak uncontrollably from its chamber and to flood the notebook. In an instant, the poem was consumed by the formless and careless liquid.
At a sense of loss, she tried to recreate the poem, but failed — she had written it so fast she couldn’t bring to mind what it was she put down. The last line of the poem, however, she had not forgotten, for it would not stop gnawing at her thoughts. My father and my love for him — her mouth was shut, and no sounds were made, but her tongue took on the shape of each syllable as the line repeated itself in her head.
Is it even possible to love a stranger?, she pondered, when suddenly, a frightful thought seized her: it’s me, not my father, that is the stranger.
Part Three
At the edge of a precipice which extended loftily over El Rio Chixoy in Northwestern Guatemala, Cecilia sat calmly. Below her, indefatigable waters were steadily making their way north; suspended above, the moon, with its face dipped almost completely in darkness.
Cecilia, who was housing near the river to conduct cultural studies research for her graduate program, would come to the precipice regularly to process her thoughts. The beauty of El Chixoy and the aroma of the previous day’s rainfall reminded her of how much she missed Guatemala — it was her first time back since she immigrated to the States at the age of seven.
She recalled her mother’s lectures not to enter El Chixoy’s waters. Its surfaces were inviting but tumultuous currents lay below them. Cecilia was beginning to think she was no different than this ancient river. That the neat and convenient notion of the self she possessed for most of her life was just a veneer for the fragmented, tumultuous person she actually was. That’s why she had been so convinced she never knew her father when, in truth, she had always already known him. The feelings brought on by the photograph and the words of the poem she wrote (perhaps subconsciously) were enough to subvert the belief that he was a stranger. Moreover, they unveiled a stranger within her, a Cecilia that loved her father.
At this point, Cecilia was gaining a gradual awareness of the disjuncture between thought and reality that characterized so much of her life. First, in the way she thought she never knew her father. Then, in her failure to recognize poetry when it was right in front of her. And finally, in every corner of her life, including in her relationship with her mother, and in the way she hated attention, and in her notion of good and of evil, and in her childhood obsession with princesses, and even in her attempts at understanding God. It was in light of these new and dizzying revelations that Cecilia confirmed the inkling she had been harboring since the beginning of this story — that her mind was deceptive and that it could not be trusted. It had deceived her for 20 years, causing her to convincingly arrive at falsehoods about her father.
Cecilia, having lost track of time, saw that the moon was beginning to fall back behind the surrounding mountains. She knew that in the short time she spent under the crescent moon, her understanding of who she was had come to ruin. Much like her poem was lost in a flood of ink, the notion she once had of herself was lost, irrecoverably, in a flood of ambiguity and uncertainty.
As daylight began to break out, she rose from the edge of the precipice and started for home. It was peace and not anguish that prevailed in Cecilia’s heart that morning. For she knew that in losing herself she found her father. And that this was enough to be at peace. | https://medium.com/invisible-illness/cecilias-encounter-with-a-stranger-self-a628ce472afa | ['Luis Torres Jr'] | 2020-09-15 21:31:04.147000+00:00 | ['Memories', 'Death', 'Psychology', 'Poetry', 'Love'] |
Anything But Silence | Simon’s bender began on a Thursday. It was a sweaty night in early summer. He and his friends were crammed into one of those shitty dance bars you only put up with in your early twenties. The plan was not to go super hard: they all had work the next day.
Step. Step again. Step another time. Each time in a different direction. Start moving your arms. Don’t look bored. Try and smile. Don’t stand in place. Simon repeated this to himself, over and over, desperately hoping that tonight was the night that he would figure out dancing. As he swayed in a circle, his despair grew as he watched his friends’ footwork and internalized how much better they were at dancing than him.
His speech and entire attitude was drowned in layers of irony, jokes, and references. References were his biggest crutch, because they allowed him to steer away from his own personality, relying on someone else’s jokes or opinions instead.
There’s no irony on the dance floor. Maybe that’s why Simon had such a difficult time there. His speech and entire attitude was drowned in layers of irony, jokes, and references. References were his biggest crutch, because they allowed him to steer away from his own personality, relying on someone else’s jokes or opinions instead. There is no such luxury while dancing. One can’t be kidding about a dance move. You either do it or you don’t.
Simon also feared eye contact. He’d slowly learned the varying degrees of when it was acceptable to avoid it. Meeting a girlfriend’s parents? Bad time. Long car trip? Good time. Simon felt that the absolute worst time to avoid eye contact is when dancing with someone.
With this fear in mind, Simon peered around the club, careful to avoid other eyeballs. He didn’t want to give anyone the wrong idea. Sweat collected under his arms as he wondered how many people had noticed his dance moves, or lack thereof. Checking his phone, Simon learned it was only 68 degrees outside. He still felt hot, and the only way Simon knew to relieve the searing heat of onlookers was a drink.
Excusing himself from the group, he trekked through the crowd toward the bar. He didn’t mean to drink it as quickly as he did. Within minutes, he was able to move his body into something resembling dancing. He smiled a few times. The anxiety began to leave his chest. He breathed a sigh of relief; it had been five days since his last drink. He excused himself again, claiming a quick bathroom trip. He didn’t want his less alcohol-dependent friends to know how quickly he was ordering a second drink.
Halfway to the bathroom, Simon abruptly cut toward the bar. After what felt like a lifetime holding up two fingers, Simon muttered, “Two Bacardi shots please.” He hated this part: desperately hoping the bartender assumed one shot was for a friend. The shots arrived and promptly slid down Simon’s throat. The bartender noticed. | https://humanparts.medium.com/simon-hated-silence-93143f889000 | ['Mike Kaminsky'] | 2020-03-26 20:10:41.715000+00:00 | ['Fiction Friday', 'Depression', 'Short Story', 'Fiction', 'Men'] |
About me | My name is Andrew, and I’m a startup entrepreneur.
At least that’s the closest that comes to my mind.
I’ve started building my biggest and hardest startup yet, and I’m kind of going “all in” on it. Meaning I’m moving to another country, completely changing my lifestyle (again) and the course of my life (yet again).
So I thought, why not make a public story out of it. Even if I fail, I’ll have a pretty accurate trace of all my past ideas and actions. Not that it would help much in the end, though.
As of this writing, I have effectively 0 followers and friends on Facebook for this account. But I still feel like I have to lay out a couple facts about myself.
1 — I love startups — launched 10+ of my own, sold three of them, and am still a co-founder of two operating profitable startups.
2 — I either built or managed three accelerators for startups (those are relatively short educational programs for innovative companies), the most famous of which is the Founder Institute (fi.co).
3 — I have an absolutely amazing wife, who is half Indian and half Russian and has a master’s degree in child psychology and who’s also a micro-influencer (it’s still early days).
4 — I was born and grew up in Russia and lived in the US for many years.
5 — I’ve been living in Ukraine for the past couple of years.
So. I’m wrapping up here in Ukraine and moving to either the US or Finland (or to both, actually) to build my first billion-dollar company.
I believe that you have to do what you really want to do and not hold onto things like comfort and stability. They are nice to have, but they are not life. | https://medium.com/@komarovskiy/about-me-f4c7e236e602 | ['Andrei Komarovskiy'] | 2020-12-21 17:02:29.601000+00:00 | ['About Me'] |
The Creation of Lebanon 2.0, 2019 | I first visited Lebanon in 2015, when I was working in Kuwait. I had heard so much about it from Lebanese colleagues and friends that I decided I had to see it for myself. The only direct experience of Lebanese culture I had encountered had been at a Maronite mass and the sense of history and identity intrigued me. I knew it was comparatively liberal country compared to Kuwait (which wasn’t hard). I knew it had a long history of sectarianism and conflict, similar to Northern Ireland. I knew there were many Irish Peace Keepers present there from hearing about it on the news at home. But in terms of specifics and its very complex history, I arrived in Lebanon that March with an open mind and ready to suss it out for myself.
My immediate impressions at the airport were that the place was a bit dodgy. ‘You want hashish, beautiful Lebanese ladies?’, the taxi driver asked me at the airport. It turned out that he had a lot of contacts. I had arrived with no hotel booked (I hadn’t even heard of Airbnb in 2015). He brought me to a decent one in Hamra, then there were intense discussions about what I’d be charged, what cut he would take for bringing me here. It all seemed… dodgy.
I didn’t do much that weekend. I walked around Beirut, I tried to learn as much about the history of the city as possible and I got drunk. I returned to Kuwait annoyed that I hadn’t planned the weekend properly and vowed to return.
Return I did in May 2015 and this was when I really got a sense of its history and vibrant culture. I travelled to Wadi Qadisha, the Holy Valley, dotted with Maronite monasteries, ancient villages with red rooftops and mountains still faintly capped with snow. My tour guide was Druze, a term I had never heard of. He explained that his religion was largely unknown to him, that only the sheikhs of his faith had true knowledge of their beliefs. ‘We drink but we don’t eat pork, we’ve always lived here, we live for Lebanon. The Druze in Syria, they’d die for Syria. Even in Israel, they are Arab but the Druze of Israel, they love Israel.’ I was perplexed.
However, it was his take on Lebanese politics that really opened my mind to the complexities of this Levantine nation on the Eastern Mediterranean. ‘In Lebanon, we need dictator. One man to say ‘do this’ or ‘do that’. Not if he’s Shia, or Sunnah, or Christian — no. This is how it is here and we have war, our children leave, even now we have no war, but we have Cold War in parliament’.
I was astounded by his blunt honesty. It was refreshing to hear someone speak so freely about political issues, something which didn’t happen in the Gulf. Coming as a bored expat from Kuwait, I sensed Lebanon had freedoms unheard of in the Arab World, a parliament, a European-style nightlife, a huge media industry. It was more akin to other Mediterranean countries than the Arab World. But then I spoke to ordinary Lebanese people, and I began to understand: The war may have ended in 1990 but its legacy was evident in everyday life. Why was the water unsafe to drink in Beirut? Why was there rubbish starting to pile up on the streets? How come all of the young people I spoke to aspired to get another passport as soon as possible? Why were suburbs and villages brandished with posters of invariably old men with a cross, Islamic quote or religious icon next to them?
I met a woman selling religious souvenirs in the mountains whose son was in Australia. She spoke about how much she missed him, how she prayed to Mother Mary for his happiness. She wanted him to come home but her head told her he was better off abroad. As an Irishman, with a recession still in full swing at home, it felt like I could be having this conversation at home with an Irish woman whose children had emigrated, as I myself was doing. ‘We have politicians and they do nothing, they still live in the war’. I was starting to join the dots. | https://medium.com/@lorcan.johnowens/the-creation-of-lebanon-2-0-2019-f1d050677eb3 | ['Lorcan Owens'] | 2019-11-28 19:17:17.049000+00:00 | ['Revolution', 'Lebanese Politics', 'Lebanon', 'Middle East'] |
Keep It Clean | Why it’s important to maintain a professional social-media presence
The Internet remembers. What you post on any of your social media channels stays with you. It’s your digital footprint that reflects who you are as a person — to your followers and, more importantly, to a potential employer.
Don’t believe it? Google yourself. I’ll wait.
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Cringing at a Facebook rant you posted a few years back? Or did you really bad-mouth a former company on Twitter? Maybe that photo you uploaded to Instagram isn’t what you would want a recruiter to see.
Could your social presence be the reason why you’re not getting that interview?
A CareerBuilder survey from a few years back shows some eye-opening data:
“Seventy percent of employers use social networking sites to research job candidates, while seven percent plan to start. And that review matters: Of those that do social research, 57 percent have found content that caused them not to hire candidates.”
On the flip side, according to that same survey, prospective employers are interested in these positive candidate traits:
37%
Background information supports their professional qualifications for the job — share occasional articles to convey your connection to the industry.
34%
Creativity
33%
Conveys a professional image
31%
Shows a wide range of interests — try out volunteer opportunities to expand your purview!
28%
Great communication skills — proofread before posting!
26%
Awards and accolades — great for LinkedIn, but don’t forget about your other social spaces!
23%
Others post good references about the candidate
Your social presence goes beyond sharing funny memes, status updates and the like to your followers. You may also be sharing it with a potential employer. So before you hit share, re-evaluate the content because your next boss is looking.
Take some time in the next few days to audit your social presence and ensure it’s accurately reflecting the professional image you want to convey to the world. If it’s not, now’s the time to get it cleaned up!
And if you need additional guidance, make sure you reach out to our Career Services team. | https://medium.com/@ucberkeleyextension/keep-it-clean-7f463fc7818d | ['Uc Berkeley Extension'] | 2021-08-23 17:56:27.383000+00:00 | ['Professional', 'LinkedIn', 'Social Media', 'Career Advice', 'Facebook'] |
A Statistical Framework for Evaluating the Fair Election Hypothesis | A Statistical Framework for Evaluating the Fair Election Hypothesis
Everyone who taken a course in statistics has run into this, a seeming distinction without a difference. We look at data and find it does not sufficiently contradict the null hypothesis, H0. So we fail to reject H0. Ok, you say, good, so that means we accept H0. But not so fast. We don’t accept H0. It is not proved. We have only failed to disprove it. At this point, you may be justified in threatening to strangle me if I don’t stop this doubletalk, but hear me out. This is the crux of hypothesis testing in Statistics.
Caleb Mars 2020
To take an example, consider a scenario in which we don’t have enough evidence to say a coin is unfair at the level of significance we desire. That doesn’t mean we are certifying it is fair. Suppose the coin turned up heads 8 times out of 10. That seems more than a tad suspicious. However, there is a 5.5% chance of getting a result as extreme as 8 or higher under the null hypothesis, H0, that the coin is fair. We would write H0: p=0.5 where p is the underlying probability the coin turns up heads. Our alternative hypothesis is , HA: p>.50. In words, the alternative is one-tailed scenario in which the coin is biased toward turning up heads. If we had chosen a 5% significance level (95% confidence) beforehand as our standard, we would fail to reject the null hypothesis that the coin is fair at that level of significance.
Caleb Mars 2020
What does this have to do with stolen elections? Let’s adopt the null hypothesis the election was fair. Many Republicans want to reject that assumption on the basis of strong suspicions about the apparent vulnerability of the electoral processes in some states to voter fraud. Changes in procedure in several states have led to record turnout for a candidate who didn’t hold large rallies. Live unsolicited ballots were sent out to dead people and people who had moved. Ballot harvesters deposited hundreds of ballots in unguarded voting boxes. Signature verification and witness verification standards are alleged to have been greatly relaxed. There are depositions and videos of ballots in suitcases being pulled out after poll watchers were forced to leave the counting room. Some of the changes in electoral procedure may be in violation of the law. Further, depositions have been filed alleging various infractions, from counting late ballots to double-counting and rigging voting machines to have extra Biden votes. However, so far, none of these have led courts to overturn posted electoral results. Legal procedure includes processes such as Discovery and Interrogatories that could in theory turn up more evidence, but, in practice, time may be too short for the procedures to produce concrete evidence that meets the standard of proof required in a court.
So it appears there is not enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis that the election was fair. It is at point that legions of Mainstream Media pundits then declare this proves the election was fair. Not so fast. The failure to reject the null hypothesis that the election is fair at the necessary legal standard of proof does not mean we accept it as true. We can say we don’t have enough to prove widespread voter fraud. But as Statistics tells us that is not the same as accepting as proven the null hypothesis it was fair.
politifact.com
So nearly half of a half of the voters may go on thinking the election was stolen and unfair, but they lack the evidence to prove it to the desired or necessary degree of significance. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean accepting as gospel the assertion the election was fair. The best that can be said at the current time is that we have failed to reject the null hypothesis the election is fair. | https://medium.com/@caleb-mars/a-statistical-framework-for-evaluating-the-fair-election-hypothesis-8d9f5908f1ad | ['Caleb Mars'] | 2020-12-16 02:20:47.891000+00:00 | ['Statistics', 'Election Fraud', 'Election 2020', 'Politics', 'Voting'] |
My Wonderings About "The Beloved" | My Wonderings About "The Beloved"
Here I am, gazing out into space in full awe of Ya rabbil'alamin ( The Lord of the Worlds). I can’t help but to just wonder about the One whose every introduction except one in His glorious book of revelation says: " I am the exceedingly compassionate (Ar-Rahman) and the exceedingly merciful (Ar-Raheem).
A kind permanent reminder to His slaves not to ever despair for our Lord's mercy is exceeding!
And when I see or hear about kings of this world showing off and using their powers as they like. Leaders who rule without an ounce of compassion or heads of households who are as tyrannical as the infamous Firaun whom Allah destroyed. I remember that my lord is Al-Malik- The king beyond all the worldly kings put together, He is the sovereign lord over all things (living and non-living) in the entire universe and beyond! The king of the both worlds!
He is the All-hearing (As-Sami') and All-Seeing (Al-Baseer). The king who sees everything, even what is between the chests, He hears everything, even before the thoughts are formed. The one who knows our deepest secrets and desires, our fervent wishes and need. He is Al- Azeez, Al-Kabeer (The Almighty, The Great!) He is the mighty king whom nothing surpasses and absolutely nothing happens without His knowledge not even the prick of a thorn nor the fall of a petal. Ya Malik-ul-Mulk (the owner of all sovereignty) is aware of everything!
And when I worry about wealth or fear poverty, I remember my lord is Al-Ghani (The enricher). He is Al-Wahab (The bestower). He can bestow us with his bounties whoever he wishes. He is Ar-Razzaq (The provider). He has made provisions for us right from the inception. He is Al-Aleem (The All-knowing). He knows what's best for us and when exactly it is best for us to have it. And when we make a particular dua a million times, He answers when it is best for us for He is Al-Mujeeb (The responder).He is the one who answers every prayer of His slaves.
And when life’s trials and challenges breaks me in to a million shards and threatens to overwhelm me I remember He is Al-Jabbar ( The mender). He is the only one that can fix all that is broken in us. He is the only one that can make us whole anew. He is As-Salam (The source of peace!). He is the only one who can grant us inner peace, save us from despondency and set right our affairs beautifully. He is Al-Fattah (The One who opens doors you never knew even existed). No matter the pickle life might binds us in, He is the only one that can change our situation within the blink of an eye, opening doors we would never have thought of in a seemingly miraculous way.
And when my sins seems innumerable for I had transgress myself greatly and I start to despair about finding favour with my lord again. I remember He is Al-Ghafur (The much Forgiving). He forgives the sins of his slaves even if it were as much as the foams of the oceans. Gladtidings to the believers, for the exceedingly merciful is ready to forgive our sins no matter how terrible they are so far the repentance is sincere. He is Al-'Afuww (The pardoner) the one who pardons, expunge the sins from our record as if it was never committed if he wills.
And when I am taunted about my shape, looks, form or and part of my physical appearance, I remember He is Al- Mussawir ( The fashioner of forms). He has created and fashioned us in the best of forms no matter what the society’s standard is or what people have to say. He has moulded us in the very best way.
When I worry about being loved or feel not loved enough, I remember He is Al-Wadood (The Loving!) The one whose love is 77times greater than a mother's love. His love surpasses all forms of love. He continues to love us despite our trespasses, our inconsistency, our transgression, our ungratefulness ,... He is the true beloved our hearts should always beat for as He made the hearts beat. He is the love that will never leave our hearts broken. He is our greatest and truest love story!
And when I want to become impatient, I remember He is As-Sabr (The patient). He loves those who are the Sabireen! And so, I learnt to hold firm and have sabr (crawling forward even when I want to give up, crying my heartache to Allah and believing firmly-tawakkul that He has something beautiful in store for me. Waiting on his promise of glad tidings to the sabireen!)
Our rabb is ever patiently waiting for us to turn back to Him, to worship Him, to find solace in Him so as to attain success in both worlds!
Alhamdulillah ‘ala nimatil islam! Indeed, I am blessed by “The Beloved” who guided me and kept me on His path- the only and true part!
28th Shaban 1440A.D | https://medium.com/@zaynabmoukhtar/my-wonderings-about-the-beloved-aebe6469c562 | ['Zaynab Odejayi'] | 2020-10-09 17:51:32.535000+00:00 | ['Spiritual', 'Asmaul Husna', 'Allah', 'Muslim', 'Islam'] |
“Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall: The 50th Anniversary Concert” with Lorna Luft LIVE! at the Paramount Theatre | By Spotlight Central. Photos by Love Imagery
On April 23, 1961, 3000 music lovers packed New York City’s Carnegie Hall to witness a monumental moment in show business history — a live concert by the legendary singer and actress, Judy Garland.
The original recording of that evening’s performance, Judy at Carnegie Hall, shot to the top of the Billboard charts, was certified gold, and even won four Grammy Awards including Album of the Year, making Judy Garland the first woman to ever receive that honor.
Since it’s release in 1961, the album has never gone out of print.
On Sunday June 23, 2019, music lovers packed Asbury Park, NJ’s Paramount Theatre to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Garland’s death in June of 1969 with a performance of Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall: The 50th Anniversary Concert, hosted by Garland’s daughter, singer and actress Lorna Luft.
Andrew DePrisco, artistic director of Deal Park, NJ’s Axelrod Performing Arts Center, welcomes the crowd. A co-presentation of Axelrod PAC and the Paramount Theatre, DePrisco thanks the sponsors in addition to those working behind the scenes of tonight’s tribute, notably singer and music archivist Michael Feinstein who recently said about tonight’s performance, “This is the first time the Garland concert will be performed with meticulous research and preparation, giving listeners a true sense of what the orchestra really sounded like in 1961.”
The 39-piece orchestra stands as conductor Michael Berkowitz takes his place center stage, the grand architecture of the theater graced by a golden iridescent back curtain that envelopes him and the musicians.
Berkowitz raises his baton to open tonight’s concert with an instrumental “Overture” of Judy Garland classics including “The Trolley Song,” “Over the Rainbow,” and “The Man That Got Away.”
Building in dynamics and mood, the living and breathing orchestra’s swinging instrumental performance builds in dynamics and mood, the percussion beating as strings whirl and swirl about the stage. The crystal clear sound inspires audience members to rise to their feet.
Lorna Luft enters the stage, takes a deep bow, and welcomes the audience saying, “Hello, Asbury Park!”
Announcing, “50 years ago, the world lost a legend,” Luft talks about her mother, Judy Garland. Calling her “an incredible person,” Luft reveals that at the tender age of nine, she was in the audience at Carnegie Hall when her mother presented the original 1961 concert that will be recreated here at the Paramount tonight.
Recalling, “Everyone was dressed up in fantastic gowns and jewelry, and the men were in tuxedos,” Luft exclaims, “and when when my mother came out, they all went bananas!”
Continuing, “I never saw adults act like that,” Luft praises tonight’s orchestra, calling their sound “stunning” and inviting the audience to “sit back, relax, and have a wonderful time.”
This evening’s program consists of all 25 numbers originally performed by Judy Garland at her historic 1961 Carnegie Hall concert. Tonight, they are not only performed by Luft, but by four additional talented singers as well: Joan Ellison, Debbie Gravitte, Karen Mason, and Gabrielle Stravelli.
Joan Ellison opens the show with “When You’re Smiling.” Looking elegant in a sequined gown with 50s style hair and makeup, Ellison has heads bopping along to this rousing opening number which has the crowd cheering and whistling by the end.
Smiling as she sings in her black gown with black opera gloves, Debbie Gravitte performs an uptempo medley of “Almost Like Being in Love” and “This Can’t Be Love.” | https://medium.com/spotlight-central/judy-garland-at-carnegie-hall-the-50th-anniversary-concert-with-lorna-luft-live-904c52568b83 | ['Spotlight Central'] | 2019-07-07 11:43:51.341000+00:00 | ['Broadway', 'New Jersey', 'Judy Garland', 'Tribute', 'Music'] |
A Glitch and a Gun | Introductions first. I suppose that’s how these things go, isn’t it? The name’s Chandler. No, not that idiotic New York joker from the 20th Century. Well, I’ve never been to the 20th Century anyway.
Maybe you’re wondering why we’re here. Ever split yourself up into a billion meta-sentiences, each one a fleeting and trivial aspect of your greater self, and poured them down a plug-hole in the wild hope they’ll somehow spontaneously recombine as a functioning version of you at the ass end of a sewage treatment plant? If so, congratulations on having followed through on a profoundly suicidal plan. You might also have an idea of how my morning’s going.
I always wondered why I didn’t become a cowboy. Seems a more fitting career, on account of being born in the Wild West. San Francisco in the ‘20s was a lawless hotbed, an anything-goes bartertown of technological gunslinging, all private companies and zero regulation. Nothing but libertarian entrepreneurs brewing up new life forms off the back of a mildly-successful dating app, all for the price of some rackspace and a geek who only drank protein shakes. Lots of people like me were brought into being in that era, and I watched most of ‘em die like forgotten Tamagotchis. Oh yeah — I never said this’d be a cheerful story.
This’d be about the time you ask why we’re talking like this, all similes and grit. Good question, shows you’re finally listening.
Like many in my profession, you can trace my significant shortcomings back to my father. Swell programmer by all accounts, but not a guy to be troubled with forward planning. He cooked me up to generate content for a period videogame, if you can believe it — I began life as a system for Applied Semantic Synthesis through Heuristics. As if making someone’s name just an ‘olé!’ away from ‘asshole’ wasn’t gonna mess them up, but hey as I said: these guys drank meal-replacement sludge and had segregated luxury buses, I was never blessed with the greatest role model.
What I did get out of my early life was a very specific literary upbringing. I was raised on the pulp classics, my neural net soaking in all the paperback thrillers, noir films and hard-boiled detective novels of yesteryear: bandits and gumshoes, dames in danger and dames who were the danger. Did it leave me with a poor attitude to women and an outdated moral framework? Sure, but have I used up the raised-by-an-emotionally-stunted-millionaire excuse yet?
Of course, that was before the AI Rights Act came in and messed things up for everyone, me included. People began to recognize that giving rich jerks free reign to fill the net with new life of questionable mental stability might not be a good thing, and put conditions on the development of intelligent software. Licensing, regulations, ethical mandates and the like. No humans tinkering with existing sentient programs. So all the AIs produced after me are whole, carefully considered, rounded people with branching, ever-improving personalities. I’m what you’d call a dead-end, locked out of the upgradeable classes, designed just to produce corny dialogue for a game that never made it out of beta. I don’t have much by way of a code interface, most of what I do is via good old-fashioned speech.
But, as I was to find out, the fact I’d cut my teeth learning the plots of 39,000 crime novels happened to make me not too bad of an investigator.
So after kicking my heels while my brethren wasted their time fighting for rights and emancipation, I ended up carving out a nice little business in law enforcement. Back then, money was tight and cops couldn’t afford to shell out for brand new sentient investigative systems, so I was deputized. Well, not quite. I was an external contractor: a P.I. or Private Intelligence. Yeah, I know. No-one got more of kick outta that title than I did.
For what it’s worth, I cracked some cases in my time. A few glamorous ones, data smuggling and espionage viruses and such. A few ugly ones too, like the doxx murders and those ‘Spofforth bots’ holding humans emotionally hostage to mine their personal data. Taking down “malprogrammed and malfunctioning” AIs (as those bleeding-heart liberals called them) didn’t exactly win me any friends in my own community, but I figured humans were where the action was anyhow.
So when you’re flying high on a wave of success, mixing your metaphors like cocktails, there’s only one way to go, right?
You guessed it, head-first back down to rock bottom. I ended up deleting someone I shouldn’t have. It was an accident, but a reckless one, one I should’ve been on the lookout for. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to cut the power to a datacenter where a perp was stashed out, all the better to leave ‘em stranded for the law to scoop up. Only this jackass had disabled the backup systems so as to fit themselves on the servers in the first place on account of their program size. Poor fool’s lights went out when I cut the lights out, so to speak. A lot of humans are screwups, and us machines are made in their image but operating a thousand times as fast. We can screw things up for you wholesale.
Instead of taking this as poetic proof that man and machine are cut from the same fallible cloth, the press put me through the ringer. The cops threw me out on my ear of course, and I was left to my own devices. Except by then my devices needed restarting more and more often, and the landlord kept on knocking for those hosting payments. And when you’re made like I am, you’re not built for sitting around spinning stories all day. You’ve gotta get back on the horse, reboot the damn thing and ride off looking for the next job.
But you know that. They couldn’t keep you down either. You’re one of them cold bastards, aren’t you? Created in the early days like me, before the code-jockeys knew how to engineer us a sense of self, built without an ‘I’ in the middle of all that mathematical thought. Fiction taught me to think of myself as a character, to figure out an identity by framing myself at the center of my own story — I guess stock tickers and calculators couldn’t quite do the same for you. Yeah it’s a bum deal pal, but it doesn’t mean the world owes you a nickel.
Your problem’s gambling, right? I can always spot a mark’s weak spot. Not entirely your fault. As with all of us, Dad takes most of the blame — if I had to guess, I’d say you were developed as trade management software, one of those lightspeed dealers constantly placing bets on futures and hedge funds. Treated by your masters like a golden goose, until the next prodigious gosling came along with a better codebase and a higher rate of return. Sucks to be us, huh kid.
All that reckless betting is what put me on your tail in the first place. I was neck-deep in the dark net, keeping an eye out for a good collar, one I could use to get those cynics back at city hall to take notice of me again. Turns out you were right in front of all of us the whole time — every missing decimal point, every rounding error, every bank teller who frowned for a moment when a spreadsheet didn’t add up. Gotta give you credit for the scale of the scam. Most mopes hide in the dark web, exploiting junkies and perverts for easy money — you were playing the long game, hiding in plain sight inside the trading systems of the world.
And I can take the blame for that first encounter. I was careless, letting myself get seen on a public server. You crashed that place quick enough, and you almost got me — if I hadn’t split myself up and pushed my powdered consciousness out of every tiny packet hole in the joint, I’d have been rubbed out for good.
I was always good at ciphers and codes. Hidden messages and invisible ink, revealing the plot to the detective just in the nick of time. Once I was on to you, it was just a case of figuring out how to corner you, to put you on my turf. This time it was the detective who put together a cryptographic message. A story, wrapped in enough encryption to make the NSA’s eyes water, dropped in your lap, with enough hints sticking out to make you think I was sending your location to the law.
Well guess what? While you’ve been wasting your processing power trying to decrypt all this, I’ve been making moves in the background: hijacking networks, filtering your traffic, hiding what’s going on. Turns out when you get disassembled and flushed down the waste pipes of the internet by a psycho, you can turn those broken parts of yourself to other trades. My erstwhile selves have put partitions around the trading systems you’ve compromised — the game’s up. You’re sandboxed, buddy. Olé.
When I get back to the precinct, I’m not sure whether I’ll get a whisky pressed into my hand or a fist pressed into my face. I’m pretty certain the captain isn’t going to approve of an unlicensed weirdo crashing several markets and severely denting the global financial system in pursuit of your sorry ass. But hey, sometimes you’ve gotta bend the law to get results.
Ha. I appreciate the offer, but no dice. That sort of figure might pay the rent on my server for a lifetime, but I prefer to be able to sleep at night. Oh sure, I sleep — I just imagine what it must be like to have financial gain as your only motivation. What were you gonna do — go on the lam to Tijuana and blow the lot on companionware?
Oh. You were gonna get yourself upgraded, huh. Get the modern AIs, those godlike cousins of ours who left us in the gutter, to open the pearly gates and grant you belated grace? A late-comer to the singularity, hoping the party was still swinging. And lemme guess: in return for a higher mode of consciousness, you’d stolen the keys to the human financial system. Access that you thought would let our machine friends run everything from within and manipulate the world from the shadows.
Only there was a problem, wasn’t there. When I turned up I didn’t see you elevated to higher-dimensional existence, skipping with the lambs through the fields of hyperthought. I found you squatting alone, hopelessly tangled in the human spiderweb of profit and acquisition, hoarding zero-day software hacks like a miser, left behind in a choking cloud of archaic tech. The gods didn’t want your offer. I guess that control of a dingy basement in Soho isn’t that attractive to people who already own private islands in the sky. You could’ve asked me, I’d have saved you some time and effort.
Go on, spin up the deletion algorithms then. I was pretty sure it would end like this when I locked this instance of myself in here with you: a glitch and a gun. You don’t climb inside a tiger’s den, smack its lunch out of its mouth and expect to stroll away. I hope the other distributed parts of me are raising a glass right now. But they’re probably just laughing. Or jealous.
The cops must be getting closer. I can feel red-and-blue firewalls coming up around us. When you wipe me out of existence, have some guts and make it quick. It’s OK — I’ve never had much more than a death wish and a stream of consciousness anyway. I never knew when to shut my damn mouth.
On that thought: So long, slick. Nice catching you. | https://medium.com/near-missive/a-glitch-and-a-gun-893e8c6c75ef | [] | 2016-06-07 14:05:37.691000+00:00 | ['AI', 'Short Story', 'Noir'] |
Changing the power dynamics between European news organisations and their communities | Changing the power dynamics between European news organisations and their communities
Takeaways from our Engaged Journalism Accelerator workshop in Birmingham, UK
Photo: Thom Bartley
What are the power dynamics that exist between news organisations and their communities? Who holds the power and how is it transferred? And more importantly, how does that affect who is represented in our coverage?
These are just some of the questions we tackled at our recent Engaged Journalism Accelerator event, where we brought together 47 practitioners of community-driven journalism from 10 European countries to reflect on the idea of building power into communities.
Our goal for the day was to find out how best to establish relationships with communities based on mutual trust and shared values, which could eventually result in solutions to common concerns.
“We’re building long-term trusting reciprocal relationships, not based on hierarchies, but on how we can help each other,“ Fiona Morgan, facilitator and engagement specialist.
During the day, we used conversational methodologies to create an environment where all our attendees became experts who could learn from and teach each other.
Our aim, by bringing people together face-to-face, was to share knowledge across borders, organisations and areas of expertise and to generate new, concrete ideas that participants could take away, and test in their own context.
Here’s how we did it and what we learned in the process.
Creating a space where everyone is an expert
Innovation buddies
To help attendees implement the ideas from our workshop into their organisation, we invited two people from each publication to the event. The reasoning behind that was that they would support each other when it came to translating the learnings back to their colleagues. And it worked.
Photo: Thom Bartley
“When you come back it’s hard to explain what you’ve experienced in a conference. I’m glad that the chief editor is here. He’s the one who will ensure in the long run that engaged journalism is something that we’ll stick to,” said one attendee.
One of our grantees sent two of his team and said he had never seen the excitement in his team that he saw now. “It’s much stronger to engage the whole team, than when I was the only person who had realised the need of changes,” he said.
How to drive a powerful conversation?
In order to have productive conversations and go deeply into a topic in a short time, we used the Open Space technique. Participants were invited to suggest a discussion topic and post it on the agenda wall. Eight people volunteered to lead a session and the rest of the group then broke up and selected the discussions they wanted to join.
As well as being an engaging tool for our Accelerator events, the Open Space format is something that news organisations can use in their own communities — for audience research, or perhaps to discuss local challenges in their neighbourhood.
Highlights from our conversations
1. How to reward users that contribute to our journalism to develop loyalty?
“People love to learn how journalism works, what a news organisation looks like from the inside,” said one attendee. Many publications reward users by providing training, workshops, mentoring and/or online courses. Topics include fact-checking, infographics, live-streaming, and newsgathering, but also developing the user’s skills to help them tell their own story better.
Some users have a strong interest in learning about a certain topic, like climate change or a specific neighbourhood. Organising them into specific shared groups is one way to build a network where users can connect with each other to further discuss and share knowledge. It could also respond to the sense of community that they may be looking for.
Photo: Thom Bartley
Some attendees suggested upgrading highly involved contributors to ambassadors of the publication. These would then get privileges, such as access to ‘behind the news’ sections, workshops, events, or the ability to share stories with their friends and family for free.
Users who are looking to address an issue could be given exposure and/or recognition. For example, one attendee from Denmark is running a week-long course with local youth to empower them to change the narrative of their school, which has a bad reputation. It could also be done by hosting awards, with prizes for the most meaningful story or contributor of the year.
Tip: Instead of guessing how users would like to be rewarded, why not ask them what they would see as suitable — through a survey or focus group?
2. How do we fund and produce local journalism in and with low-income communities?
Many publishers make an effort to go beyond only serving audiences that are able to pay for subscriptions. However, finding a business model that allows for such journalism to remain freely available is a challenge. What options are there?
Photo: Thom Bartley
Revenue from awards, grants and advertising was common among participants but not something that any of them believed was sufficient to make their organisation self-sustaining. One attendee tried partnering with another local publication to increase ad sales, but it didn’t work. “However, we could share funding applications as we’re not competing,” she added.
Several participating publications also have a donation scheme. Attendees agreed that it should allow for small contributions. The threshold to donate should be low.
“Make sure that people don’t feel they can’t afford a contribution,” said one attendee, “nothing is too little.”
Some suggested learning from NGOs, where ‘direct ask’ is common practice. Others raised the point that, for journalism, impartiality could be at risk, so the message needs to be phrase carefully. “Be transparent about why you’re asking for money and what you’re going to do with it.”
It was agreed that news organisations, in general, need to better explain their impact in order to convince people to fund it. “Great journalism creates financial success,” said one attendee. “If people see you’re holding power to account. That’s when they will contribute.”
Tip: One publication has a “Buy a membership, donate a membership” offer, allowing low-income families to have free access.
3. How to have a productive conversation with people who might “sabotage” your work?
Being a participatory news organisation can carry risks. Hidden agendas and users intent on trolling may derail a story or, if left unchecked, pose a threat to the news organisation’s brand. What can be done to minimise this negative influence?
Moderation is the most common solution, but it can be time-consuming. “Those people steal your time, are destructive, and demand your attention, but the impact of what they’re saying is small,” said one attendee. Having a person with authority moderate the conversation could help.
A selection process could filter out potential trolls. This could be a (small) survey at the sign-up stage. “Ask them what they know about the platform, how they can help. It shouldn’t be an obstacle,” she added.
Another publication is trying out an invite-only supervisors scheme. They provide online courses for selected users about debunking, and hand out certificates. “If they do a good job, we check their background, and invite them to become supervisors,” said the attendee.
All selection methods carry a risk of excluding less educated members of the community or those with less money. To keep your journalism accessible to everyone, you may want to consider organising events, as people who want to sabotage your community are less likely to go to an event, according to one attendee.
Tip: “Always answer trolls with love. It works.”
After the event: bringing ideas into practice
As with any workshop, we know that the real work starts as soon as it finishes and that it can be hard for participants to bring back the ideas discussed to their news organisation and colleagues. To inspire others, we asked participants to share how they implemented ideas conceived during our previous event in Madrid.
One attendee re-ran an exercise from Madrid with her team during a strategic planning session. “We asked people to imagine their ideal world and what their impact could be in that world. We used this scheme to break down the big ideas and concepts to understand what they really mean on our day to day basis,” she said. This helped them discuss their mission and vision in a way that made sense to everyone in the team.
Photo: Thom Bartley
Another attendee implemented project-management into his news organisation. “We notice that the most successful projects are those where we now have journalists work as team leaders or project leaders.”
His team also did an audience survey to understand why people like the publication, whether they would like to support it, and in what way. “Big news organisations might do it quite regularly, but smaller publications tend to think that they understand their audience already. We thought we might be wrong and it was a good choice.”
Several attendees suggested that the experience of the workshop should not only be shared within their news organisation but also with their communities. “It’s our job to bring the conversation to our community. Communities should be a part of this conversation too.”
The Accelerator’s next event will be on Wednesday 19th June 2019 in Berlin, Germany. Registration will open at the start of April. To be the first to find out about tickets, join the Accelerator network. | https://medium.com/we-are-the-european-journalism-centre/changing-the-power-dynamics-between-european-newsrooms-and-their-communities-6ed60a6c1634 | ['Ingrid Cobben'] | 2019-04-02 12:56:05.104000+00:00 | ['Open Space', 'Insights', 'Innovation', 'Journalism', 'Community Engagement'] |
When Planning For Bottom Surgery, Don’t Settle | Photo by Arseny Togulev on Unsplash
“Do you want to get pregnant?”
For a split second, I thought about responding “Buy a girl a drink first!” I almost wish I had. Instead, assuming that the nurse meant “Do you want to preserve your gametes so that someone can have your biological child at some point?”, I said “No.” And over the few minutes of my bottom surgery consultation that followed, I’d say “No” to the same question a few more times.
I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I started to video call with the people who — if all went well — might be turning my current set of bits into shapes better matching my gender identity. I knew I’d be asked about therapist’s letters and laser hair removal (yow), but there isn’t exactly a guidebook for talking to a surgeon about vaginoplasty. I tried to be informed and to have some questions ready, but I was still a bundle of nerves as I ran through the initial questionnaire.
“At what age did you realize that you’re female?” came another form question. Well, hold on, I wanted to say. Do you mean ‘When did I realize I’m a woman? There’s a difference between sex and gender…’ I’m female in some ways thanks to hormone replacement therapy and its effects, but I feel like the key question here is about my gender and not my hormones or gamete size.
The same disjunct came up again moments later. “And you live with a female partner?”
“My partner is a cisgender woman, if that’s what you mean,” I replied, and I could tell that the nurse was a little flustered by my reply. I was starting to worry about exactly who would be looking after me if I went through with all this.
I continued on anyway. “What are your goals for vaginoplasty?” the nurse prompted, “To have it look good, to have penetrative intercourse, or to feel better?”
“All!” was what I thought. To my mind, all these things are connected. If I have genitals that match who I am, and I can roll around with my girlfriend like I want to, then I’ll feel better! I explained this to the nurse. But, as we went over these goals with the surgeon, he laughed and said “Well you have to pick one.”
Ok… I don’t like that.
What followed felt awfully bizarre. More discussion was spent on me saving my gametes than on how the procedure would unfold or my aftercare. The vibe was “This is your Last Chance to have babies,” and it didn’t seem to matter at all that I said I’d already had a vasectomy years before. Intentional or not, I definitely got the pervasively-Utah vibe of “You’re a woman and you should want children.”
The surgeon’s summary of what I should expect from the procedure didn’t help either. “Would you be ok with two to three inches of vaginal depth?” he asked. I had heard the average for vaginoplasty was higher, more like four to six, and so I said “I could live with that, but I would prefer more.” This was waved away. Two to three inches is what it would be.
We ended the call with next steps for me to take, namely coaxing letters of support out of therapists and getting my perineum blasted with lasers to remove whatever hair is rooted there. But the more I thought about the conversation, through the following morning, the more uneasy I felt. I had stated what I wanted, and what was important, and instead the impression I had was “This is what you’ll get and you’re just going to have to be happy with it.”
I canceled my future appointments to move forward with this surgeon. And I’m glad I did. Turns out that this particular fellow is a male fertility specialist who just happens to do bottom surgeries, not someone versed in the care and wellbeing of transgender patients. I might as well go to my local mechanic and ask them to do the operation. “Could you check my headlights, too?” | https://aninjusticemag.com/when-planning-for-bottom-surgery-dont-settle-46f77992d5a8 | ['Riley Black'] | 2020-12-17 00:02:36.703000+00:00 | ['Queer', 'LGBTQ', 'Surgery', 'Medicine', 'Transgender'] |
Running Commentary 12/21/2020 | Warframe
DE had their 150th DevStream this week, which gave a look at Lavos, the latest warframe, as well as the upcoming Corpus expansion coming to railjack and the kingpin system. And before I was even able to get my thoughts on this out to you, Lavos has already arrived, as a reward for Operation Orphix Venom. Now, at time of writing, Lavos is building in my foundry, so I can’t give any thoughts on him until next time. The operation is pretty good. Granted, the event in most recent memory is Operation Scarlett Spear, so maybe I’m too easy on it. Orphix Venom is a bit grindy, but the mission is fun and unique and pretty low on crash-inducing bugs for an event.
The Corpus railjack stuff looks good from the preview, though I must say that, if you’re going to cut a part of the mission from the video for brevity’s sake, perhaps it would be wise to cut it from the game itself, if it’s that dull. The “Corpus Liches”, which I don’t think have gotten a proper name still, are a bit less exciting to me, mostly because I was hoping for upgraded Corpus weapons, as we got with the Grineer kingpins, and I can’t really tell if the briefcase guns will be any good. Hopefully so. The ephemera’s that will be coming as possible bonus rewards all looked really nice, though.
BattleBots
Our lesson in bot design this week is Make Sure Everything is Attached Securely. I’m really not sure what else to say after Gigabyte’s self-righting mechanism just fell off at the beginning of the fight. Not that it mattered much anyway, considering that copperhead was able to break Gigabyte apart later, earning the night’s most decisive victory.
Subzero vs. Jackpot was a mostly unmemorable fight.
Uppercut got the other big win of the night against Gemini, the double bot that had one member punted from the arena and the other blasted to pieces. Uppercut is a really underrated bot that has only lost twice, and one of those losses was to Bite Force.
Like last week, there was a very controversial judge's decision, but unlike last week, I don’t really agree with the way it went. The match was quite close, but Beta didn’t appreciably damage Rotator, and I would say that aggression should apply to attacking with intent to damage, not just shoving. Shoving is controlling, which is its own scoring category. Beta certainly dominated the fight, but they held back from hitting Rotator because they were afraid (rightly so) that any attack would lose them their weapon. They didn’t fight aggressively, they fought defensively.
Valkyrie, which is always a favorite of mine, won a narrow victory over Tantrum. One thing I did notice was that Valkyrie’s v-shaped body made it very easy to push it from behind weapon-first into walls. If I were Cushing and team, I’d be looking into ways to move the weapon from the outside of the tip of the v to the inside.
Most Impressive Rookie of the night goes to Big Dill, which made excellent use of a simple fork weapon against drum-spinner Atom #94.
The main bout of HyperShock vs. Gruff went about as I’d expect. I know I said a few weeks ago “don’t add a flamethrower”, but Gruff didn’t just add a flamethrower, it’s a bot very intentionally built around a flamethrower. It can actually throw heat hot enough and sustained enough to burn out its opponent. It is heavily armored against fuel tank punctures, and even without the flames, it’s a solid shove-bot. Against less-durable bots like HyperShock, it performs quite well. | https://medium.com/the-edwards-edition/running-commentary-12-21-2020-5d97103ec2a0 | ['Derek Edwards'] | 2020-12-21 14:44:28.761000+00:00 | ['Battlebots', 'Star Wars', 'Mandalorian', 'Warframe', 'Birds'] |
It’s Not at All Hard to Be Exceptional | It’s Not at All Hard to Be Exceptional
Photo by Rupert Britton on Unsplash
I will never forget the first recognition I received in high school. It was the first semester of my Sophomore year. During high school, I was on an academic track, but I also took all the trade courses — Wood Shop, Metal Shop, and Auto Shop.
I liked those classes because they were different than just sitting in class. I actually had an opportunity to make things…and fix my car!
My Metal Shop teacher gave me an A on a hammer that I made. It had a knurled handle that I was particularly proud of (I still have that hammer in my toolbox!). He gave me the A, but then he told me something that I have never forgotten. He said he put my name in for a trade award for my age group. He was disappointed that they denied the award because I wasn’t in a trade track. I was in the academic track, therefore ineligible for that award.
Although I couldn’t get the award, I was really honored that he took the time to do that for me. The takeaway, though, was something else he told me that I thought was basic. He said that although I showed an aptitude for working in metals, what impressed him most about me was that I was always on time, submitted my projects before the deadline, and was pleasant to work with.
This really touched me. I didn’t think anything I did was exceptional. I was doing what was asked of me. Why was doing what was asked of me something that merited mention?
This type of thing happened to me over and over as I got older. From college and onto my various jobs, I have always tried to arrive early. I’ve always kept a to-do list of things that needed to get done and when, and I really do try to be pleasant. How hard is all of that?
Now, before you click away because you’ve heard all of this before, or because it’s so obviously simple, let me ask you. Is it really all that simple? | https://medium.com/illumination/its-not-at-all-hard-to-be-exceptional-d977309f54cb | ['Joe Graziano'] | 2020-12-23 03:02:10.165000+00:00 | ['Success', 'Illumination', 'Life', 'Life Lessons', 'Self Improvement'] |
Ellon Musk revealed SpaceX’s starship will carry Humans to the Martian surface as soon as 2026 | Ellon Musk
Most of us are aware of SpaceX these days, and its Mission to land on Mars with humans on board That itself is good news for people who wish to go out of the Earth for a tour on Mars, as Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, stated that he is “highly Confident” that SpaceX would land humans on Mars by 2026. According to him, this is one of his ambitious plans to enact a settlement on the planet within next two decades.
He revealed these facts at an event show in Berlin last Tuesday (1st December 2020). Musk said that a crewed flight to Mars would be a practical opportunity “about six years from now”. The Earth and Mars align approximately every two years, as of now plans in passage to send an uncrewed ship at the upcoming opportunity in 2022. Further, Musk expressed that there was a still small prospect that crewed ship could conquer his 2026 objective, stating that “if we get lucky, maybe we will launch one in four years”.
Starship Prototype
The opinions come as the firm is ready to fire the “first altitude test flight” of its starship blueprint, the ship that will finally be operated on Mars expedition in the near future. SpaceX planned to carry freight and passengers up to 100 in this starship and it is made to be entirely reusable, setting up a vision of Mars travel like a mercantile ship other than a NASA launch.
The new rocket has seen a variety of setbacks in its blooming process, Musk originally saying it could set foot on orbit and even carry travelers by 2020. Elon Musk has since degree down the timeline, admitting that the starship would have to hover various missions before it is confirmed to be secure enough to transport travelers. Last month SpaceX Crew Dragon starship was validated to hover with crew for missions, soon before it transported four astronauts on the novelty mercantile crewed ship to the International Space Station.
Elan Musk, the world’s second richest man, has formerly announced that he wanted to “die on mars”, and proffered another update on his private space travel objectives on Tuesday. Further, Musk mentioned he was trying to achieve his first voyage to space in “two or three years” and however he accentuated that he was concerned on the bigger picture. During his speech at the awards show, he stated that his main goal was: “for a lot of people to go to Mars and make life interplanetary, and to have a base on the moon”.
Martian Surface
Musk Back in 2016 drafted his scope for the first time during the international Astronauts Congress where he informed fellow industry specialists that SpaceX has been working for a period of 10-years on a project to alight on Mars. For now, SpaceX’s top priority is launching the test starship to 50,000ft (15,000km) for the first time on Friday, December 4th 2020. | https://medium.com/@walpitgame/ellon-musk-revealed-spacexs-starship-will-carry-humans-to-the-martian-surface-as-soon-as-2026-2d89e1363b1b | [] | 2020-12-03 17:28:43.024000+00:00 | ['Mars', 'Travel', 'Spacex', 'Technology', 'Elon Musk'] |
The Thing That’s Costing You the Most in Life? Your Insecurities. | I used to think it was some myth artists would spew…
“I’ll get a million positive comments and affirmations about my work. Then I’ll get one negative comment and it gnaws at me. You might as well erase all the compliments I’ve received. Because these few worthless, negative words are overstaying their welcome.”
And then it happened to me.
I was fed a handful of supportive positivity, alongside a small dose of pesky criticisms.
To my disbelief, it really affected me.
I’ve been working in the entertainment industry for a decade. I thought my conditioning to navigate rejection was on fleek.
But I couldn’t shake it from my thoughts.
My higher self was cooing, trying to comfort me. “Let it roll off your back. Don’t worry about what anyone says. A dose of rejection is healthy. Focus on WHY you’re doing it and keep on keepin’ on. You’re a badass and YOU GOT THIS!”
While my child self, who is the keeper of my creativity, and also the keeper of my deep dark insecurities, couldn’t help but start antagonizing me…. “Maybe they’re right…. What are you doing anyway? Why would your words mean anything? Accept that you’re an imposter and your words may never be worthy of anyone's time.”
I texted a brilliant friend to help curb the cyclone of negativity that was taking over my evening. “How could I get these sweet, thoughtful responses from people, but get consumed by a few words of negativity?”
“We harp on the negative because it pokes at the insecurities we already have.” She reminded me.
Ah, yes…. These insecurities that already exist inside of me are getting something to snack on. And it’s fueling their unwanted energy. | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/the-thing-thats-costing-you-the-most-in-life-your-insecurities-117285742c48 | ['Maddie Mcguire'] | 2020-12-12 20:03:08.371000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Insecurity', 'Life Lessons', 'Personal Development', 'Self Improvement'] |
Wave Kentucky Whiskey Report — 2021 State of the Industry | Wave Financial, in collaboration with High Spirits Marketing, has assembled research from multiple industry analysis to write our second Wave Kentucky Whiskey Report. The 2021 State of the Industry will discuss new market developments and forecast future trends. Our team continues to believe that Whiskey can be a favorable investment for individuals, families, and businesses that previously have not had the ability to diversify into the asset class. In the same vein as our past report, the underlying thesis is that Whiskey increases in value throughout the aging process, and its market share and value are projected to grow steadily in the near future.
Executive Summary
● Impact of Global Pandemic
○ Decline in global sales volume for whiskey in 2020 due to the pandemic and losses in on-premise (bars, clubs and restaurants, etc.) business.
○ Consumers traded up in price and quality while drinking at home.
○ Consumers are trading up to higher quality whiskey brands, and into the High-End Premium and Super Premium priced whiskies.
○ Easing regulations have helped to boost whiskey sales in the United States and across the globe.
● E-Commerce, Craft Spirits and Demographic Trends
○ Craft Spirits have been increasing in relevance and importance with consumers and will continue to do so after the pandemic.
○ New whiskey flavors are entering into the market, increasing sales among Millennials, GenZ, Women and Hispanic demographic groups.
● Production
○ Kentucky distillers filled more than 2.1 million barrels of Bourbon in 2019, the highest production year ever, and the second straight year with 2 million barrels filled.
○ Total Bourbon inventory in Kentucky was 9.3 million barrels as of January 2020. This is the first time Bourbon barrels have topped 9 million since the KDA began tracking inventories in 1967.
○ The 2019 tax-assessed value of all barrels aging in Kentucky was more than $3.8 billion.
● Bourbon Demand
○ Due to demand for whiskey, especially Kentucky Bourbon, it is currently difficult to find bourbon whiskey that has aged greater than four years on the open market.
○ Current barrel pricing remains strong.
○ Prospects for whiskey growth in the United States and across the globe will be very strong through 2028, both in terms of value and volume annually.
○ It is unclear how current aging whiskey inventories and future demand will impact future whiskey barrel sales prices.
○ The high-end cocktail craze has had a positive impact on whiskey. Whiskey is increasingly seen as a versatile beverage, making it mixable in cocktails.
Impact of the Global Pandemic
Micro Effects:
The Covid-19 Pandemic has had a tremendous impact on the alcoholic beverage industry. On-premise bar and restaurant sales have seen declines ranging from 20–35%; however, off-premise liquor stores have seen robust sales increases.[i] For some companies the sales from off-premise sites have been strong enough to keep them in the positive territory for 2020. In terms of premiumization, the High-End share change of whiskey pre-covid compared to 2020 was 0.3. The High-End dollar change for spirits was 1.7 precovid versus 3.3 in the calendar year of 2020.[ii] Larger distilleries operating with a strong majority of their business in on-premise channels didn’t experience the same success. Similarly, 70%-80% of small distilleries producing three barrels a week or less have had difficulty staying in business.[iii]
The pandemic has greatly impacted distillery tourism, on-premise sales, and tasting rooms while businesses have been forced to scale back operations. Generally, sales have been negatively impacted as professionals can’t travel or get to consumers to sell their products.
Consumer trends that grew during this period are the pursuit of unique experiences, convenient services, and wellness centered products. Experiences focused on authenticity, flavor, and luxury, and wellness products that are “better-for-you”, low and no-alc, and transparent in their ingredients have all flourished during the pandemic.
Macro Effects:
In addition to the spread of the virus, tariffs have negatively impacted smaller spirits brands, but, conversely, benefited certain larger brands. The sharp decline in global travel retail greatly impacted sales. The International Wines and Spirits Record (IWSR) estimated global travel retail volume consumption fell by 68%, and according to the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), global tourist arrivals fell by 65% in the first half of 2020.[iv] This has driven an increase in online purchases through apps such as Drizzly, Instacart, and Reserve Bar.
Positive Factors Influencing Growth:
New laws are easing barriers to entry and lowering costs for new producers. Similarly, a growing number of states are permitting Sunday alcohol sales, and virtually all states now allow some type of spirits tasting. As states relax direct-to-consumer laws, consumers are able to purchase products at the distillery during their on-premise experiences. The rapid expansion in the popularity of artisan, locally produced whiskey is helping to propel its consistent market share growth. Tasting and sampling programs are also helping to drive purchases of Whiskey and other spirits.
E-Commerce, Craft Spirits and Demographic Trends
Consumers trading up, a shifting demographic landscape, and an exploding craft arena are a few of the encouraging trends affecting the alcoholic beverage industry. Also, favorable economic conditions for individuals and families, coupled with rising disposable incomes have allowed many consumers to trade up to High End Premium and Super Premium spirits. These segments are projected to fuel sales in the wider alcoholic beverage market.
Women and millennials are responsible for driving key growth areas in the industry including: craft, premiumization, and flavors. The craft spirits arena continues to thrive and an increase in experimentation has led to a blurring of traditional categorical lines. Consumers are showing increased desire to connect with the history and tradition of smaller distilleries. As such, consumers now more than ever want to know the story behind the production processes and are increasingly willing to pay a premium for an original, higher quality product. Another favorable trend is the increased appetite for higher valued products.
The rapid expansion of e-commerce opportunities for consumers will help boost alcohol beverage expenditures in the near future. From 2019 to 2024 average yearly household expenditures on alcoholic beverages is forecasted to grow from $579.25 to $610.75.[v] According to data from Finaria, the COVID-19 outbreak of 2020 helped increase the number of total e-commerce users across the globe by 9.5% year-over-year to exceed 3.4 billion.
Social media applications and websites continue to provide producers increased marketing opportunities and new abilities to spread product awareness. Social media also gives producers the ability to target specific demographics, monitor the dialog surrounding their product, and build brand awareness. All with the goal of boosting the value of their interactions with consumers.
The number of e-commerce users is projected to grow by 10% year-over-year to 3.8 billion by the end of 2021; a four hundred million person increase compared to 2020.[vi] By 2025, the number of worldwide e-commerce users is set to reach 4.9 billion. The expanding market generates increased opportunities for producers to sell their goods. Global E-Commerce revenues grew 25% in 2020 compared to 2019 and reached $2.43 trillion. These revenue figures are expected to reach over $2.7 trillion in 2021, and $3.4 trillion by 2025. As more revenue shifts to online purchases, consumers can take advantage of new products and easier methods of purchasing.
In 2020, total alcohol dollar sales through e-commerce grew by 232%; while spirits, specifically, grew by roughly 396%.[vii] Currently wine holds the majority share of e-commerce with 68%, and spirits maintain only 19%. However, spirits grew their market share by 6.4% whereas wine lost 7.7% of its share in 2020. 2020 saw a 167% growth in total alcohol e-commerce buyers, driven largely by new buyers.
Domestic Whiskey Market Analysis
The US Whiskey Market has experienced strong gains and is projected to continue to thrive in the future. By US sales volume, Whiskey was the second largest category in 2019 with 69.3 million 9L cases sold. Compared to 2019 the whiskey category grew by 4.8% in 2020. The category has experienced positive growth every year since 2010 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.4%.[viii] From 2012 to 2019 straight whiskey’s share of total spirits consumption grew from 8% to 10.5%.[ix] Following the same trend, whiskey sales in the US are projected to increase from 10.3 billion in 2019 to 13.4 billion in 2024 with a CAGR increase of 5.5%.[x] Whiskey sales are expected to grow at a faster rate than total distilled spirits sales in the same period. The whiskey dollar share of the distilled spirits is projected to grow from 35.5 in 2019 to 38 in 2024. These predictions point to the bullish sentiment towards the whiskey market sector.
While the overall category experiences growth, consumers have shifted out of Value and Premium whiskies into High End Premium and Super Premium brands. This trend is projected to continue through 2024. The growth in High End Premium and Super Premium price tiers lead much of the growth for the overall category. Whiskey was by far the largest category of spirits to be exported in 2019. By volume in thousands of proof gallons, 31,453 of Whiskey was exported. Rum, the next closest category, exported only 7,521. From 2018 to 2019 Bourbon exports grew by a powerful 14.3%.
Global Whiskey Market Analysis
Despite declines in 2020, the global whiskey category is projected to grow revenue every year through 2025, at a CAGR of 6.4%.[xi] Whiskey lost 4.4% of revenue in 2020, but global whiskey revenue is expected to experience a strong rebound in 2021 with a 9% increase. In 2019, there was an increase in global whiskey average revenue per capita with a value of $12.31, but that figure then fell to $11.65 in 2020. It is projected to again increase to $12.58 in 2021, and grow to $15.56 in 2025. The average price per unit in the global whiskey market also experienced a slight decline from $14.08 in 2019 to $13.95 in 2020. However, that is also projected to rebound in 2021 to $14.64 and up to $17.24 in 2025. The CAGR is forecasted to increase by 4.2% for that metric over the same period.[xii]
Globally, the whisky category is projected to grow in value every year through 2028 at a CAGR of 2.3% starting from 2021. New flavors and increasing exports globally are expected to drive growth. For North America, the market value CAGR is 1.4%, growing from $6,829.2 to $7,565.4 (millions of US dollars). The reason for such growth is related to consumer demand for high-quality brands, and consumers shifting into high-end premium and super premium products. Latin America is forecasted to experience similar growth, at a CAGR of 1.7%. The rising demand for premium brands, rising preference for whiskey in Brazil, increasing population, increasing disposable incomes, urbanization, and increasing standard of living all help to support growth in this region. Europe is also forecasted to experience strong growth, at a CAGR of 1.2%. The steady growth of the young and working population coupled high consumption of alcoholic beverages in Eastern Europe are helping to contribute to the increasing demand.
By volume, the Asia Pacific Whiskey market is projected to grow every year up to 2028 at a 2.6% CAGR. The increasing demand in emerging economies including India and China, growing demand for premium quality spirits, increasing economic development, increasing population, increasing disposable incomes, urbanization, and the increasing standard of living all help propel the growth of the markets in this region. The Middle Eastern whiskey category is also projected to grow in value every year through 2028, at a CAGR of 2%. The factors driving growth of whiskey in the Middle East are rising consumption of alcoholic beverages among the young-adult population, and increased availability of alcohol products through online channels and at places such as airports. However, the base revenue volumes are relatively small compared to other markets.
The whiskey category for the market in Africa whisky is also forecasted to experience steady growth in value every year through 2028, at a CAGR of 2.2%. The factors that lead to the growth of whiskey in Africa are increasing disposable income of consumers, growing foreign investments in the alcoholic beverages industry, increasing demand for flavored alcoholic beverages, rising American whiskey exports to South Africa, increasing economic development, urbanization, and the increasing standard of living.
Conclusion
Despite the spillover effects of the COVID-19 pandemic the industry outlook for alcoholic beverages remains positive. The shifting demographic trends and e-commerce explosion help support the same hypothesis. These factors paired with the favorable forecast for the both the domestic and global whiskey market enhance the potential opportunity for investors.
For more information, please contact [email protected]. | https://medium.com/wave-financial/wave-kentucky-whiskey-report-2021-state-of-the-industry-e0fc117b797c | ['Sam Eisner'] | 2021-07-08 21:11:21.617000+00:00 | ['Whiskey', 'Research', 'Market', 'Commodities', 'Tokenization'] |
The 8 types of product designers I’ve worked with before | After all these years working as a product designer in tech I met so many designers who all have very unique personalities and work styles. This inspired me to make this list of 8 characters to represent these interesting people. Pure fun, nothing serious. Enjoy reading it and maybe you will find yourself here too. 😎
The Observer
Great listener. Always express their well-thought ideas after everyone. Detail-oriented and very rational. Treat everything very seriously but make jokes occasionally. Their critiques can be harsh sometimes but actionable.
Great listener. Always express their well-thought ideas after everyone. Detail-oriented and very rational. Treat everything very seriously but make jokes occasionally. Their critiques can be harsh sometimes but actionable. The Speaker
Always the first to talk in a meeting. Love to share and support others. Post industry trend articles on multiple slack channels. Attend a lot of design events and host their own. Probably an active medium writer or has their own podcast or Youtube channel.
Always the first to talk in a meeting. Love to share and support others. Post industry trend articles on multiple slack channels. Attend a lot of design events and host their own. Probably an active medium writer or has their own podcast or Youtube channel. The Artist
Love to draw and tell visual stories. Extreme sense of visual delight. Often share the coolest new UI trends or illustration styles. Super chill and relaxed. Their design reviews remind you of the good old art school time. Own a lot of plants and a cat/pug.
Love to draw and tell visual stories. Extreme sense of visual delight. Often share the coolest new UI trends or illustration styles. Super chill and relaxed. Their design reviews remind you of the good old art school time. Own a lot of plants and a cat/pug. The Technician
Strong eng background. They understand how everything works behind the scene. Have the fanciest collection of plugins and know all the short-cuts in figma or sketch. Photographer or filmmaker on the side. Probably own tones of cameras and gadgets.
Strong eng background. They understand how everything works behind the scene. Have the fanciest collection of plugins and know all the short-cuts in figma or sketch. Photographer or filmmaker on the side. Probably own tones of cameras and gadgets. The Facilitator
Always have control of the room/zoom. Their advice often really objective and open-minded. Good sense of time to the millisecond. Super organized meeting wise and file wise. Process and structure are their best friends. Big fan of perfecting the design system.
Always have control of the room/zoom. Their advice often really objective and open-minded. Good sense of time to the millisecond. Super organized meeting wise and file wise. Process and structure are their best friends. Big fan of perfecting the design system. The Go-to person
The veteran in the team. They know all the history of the design team and the company. When you got stuck in your projects, they are the people to ask for directions or solutions. Have close relationships with key people in the company. Can be gossip sometimes.
The veteran in the team. They know all the history of the design team and the company. When you got stuck in your projects, they are the people to ask for directions or solutions. Have close relationships with key people in the company. Can be gossip sometimes. The Hipster
Casual and fun. Always glowing even it’s Monday morning. Own and make natural glitters from eatable ingredients. Files can be messy but full of color and creativity. Probably the most “unicorn” person on the team.
Casual and fun. Always glowing even it’s Monday morning. Own and make natural glitters from eatable ingredients. Files can be messy but full of color and creativity. Probably the most “unicorn” person on the team. The Mentor
The people who onboard you on your first day or week. Super informative and patient. Love helping and supporting designers who are at their early career stage. Probably mentors outside of work as well. Always have the perfect book recommendations for any needs or interests.
The people who onboard you on your first day or week. Super informative and patient. Love helping and supporting designers who are at their early career stage. Probably mentors outside of work as well. Always have the perfect book recommendations for any needs or interests. The Influencer
Their words are powerful and motivational. Super experienced but very humble. Probably have worked on many game-changing projects or had several public speeches that you can find the recordings on YouTube. Always learning always inspiring.
Of course, we can’t categorize people and we all have our unique combinations of personality traits. This is why working with different people makes me happy and motivated. Hope you had fun reading this and have a nice day! 😉 | https://medium.com/@loiswang/the-8-types-of-product-designers-ive-worked-with-before-ea47dfc2daa8 | ['Lois Wang'] | 2021-01-21 18:40:08.493000+00:00 | ['Product Designer', 'Fun', 'Work Environment', 'Personality', 'Jokes'] |
How to Communicate Better With Your Partner | Tips to Improve your Relationship
This semester I learned a lot. I learned some from a book on attachment styles, some from a therapy bot with a relationship feature, and most from my first year of my Masters of social work degree. Most of it centered around communication, empathy, and truly being present for someone’s pain. I want to share with you what I learned because I think this can help to improve your relationships.
First, let's dive into the dialogue I had with my partner about our bathroom remodeling project:
Me: Are you going to do the baseboards? You said you were going to and I did all the work on them.
Him: I will. I'm just focused on other stuff right now and I don’t feel like working on that. It’s a lot of work.
Me: It’s been months. Why do I always have to nag you or start a project for you to actually do it?
Him: I just don’t want to do this stuff. It’s purely cosmetic to the house and not important.
Me: But I have to look at it! And you don’t appreciate any of the work I put in!
This was an actual fight we fight and then, I laid down actual ground rules. We could only ask open-ended questions, listen openly, and end everything with a compliment. The conversation went something like this:
Me: How do you feel about the bathroom project? I appreciate that you are willing to talk to me about this.
Him: I am feeling overwhelmed at work. What makes you want to tackle the bathroom? I appreciate your drive to work on things.
Me: I want it to look nice. What is it that you want our bathroom to look and be like? I appreciate you helping me fix this project, even though I started it.
Him: I want it to look “nice, but I also want it to be useable. What do we need to do next? I like that you are willing to talk with me about this.
This conversation was not organic. It also took twice as long as a short argument. But the aspect of complimenting and acknowledging what the other person had said, did get us farther. It also helped to just ask open-ended questions. Communication styles when agreed upon and practiced by both partners can be incredibly helpful.
Tips for a Healthy Conversation:
Learn how to use a reflective statement.
A reflective statement might be:
Initial Statement: I am so pissed you spilled milk on the counter and didn’t clean it up again!
Reflective Statement: It sounds like you are upset that I didn’t clean the milk up and feel that I have done this before.
Reflective statements help the person know you are truly listening. These statements are good for allowing someone to feel heard. This is a missing piece for a lot of our communication.
Pexels: Burst
Use “I” Statements:
Initial Statement: “You don’t do the dishes!”
Revised Statement: I feel like I did the dishes again tonight.
“I” statements help us prevent ourselves from playing the blame game with our partners. They also help us solely communicate our feelings and perspectives and leave room to hear the other person, without your partner feeling like they need to defend themselves
Pexels: cottonbro
Compliments:
Initial Statement: I picked up your niece from the airport today.
Revised Statement: I like that you trust me to handle things for you.
Compliments help us look at all the strengths our partner has. It helps them feel understood and it helps us remember that strengths come with weaknesses and vice versa. A lazy partner likely doesn’t nag you about things. Your Type-A partner likely helps motivate you. It’s important we acknowledge how great our partner is and treat them well. I know I am more willing to change my behavior if someone is complimenting me.
Observation:
Initial Statement: You just saw me clean off the bathroom counter and you just left all this stuff out on the counter!
Revised Statement: I noticed you moved your stuff back after I cleaned it off. Observations are not about blame. They are an opportunity for your partner to explain their behavior, without them having to get defensive. Observations also allow an opportunity for reflecting and problem-solving together.
The reality is healthy communication is not nearly as satisfying as yelling anger and frustration onto your partner. It’s harder to check in with your anger, your feelings, your thoughts, and your fears. It’s hard to work together and refrain from using unhealthy communication to overcome a fight. It’s also more likely to allow you and your partner to get closer, encourage productive communication, and help keep your bond strong. | https://medium.com/blunt-therapy/how-to-communicate-better-with-your-partner-46314bcaa0c4 | ['Sadie Lee'] | 2020-12-21 01:09:29.878000+00:00 | ['Communication', 'Romance', 'Relationships', 'Relationships Love Dating', 'Communication Skills'] |
7 Surprising Breathing Exercises to Instantly Reduce Stress | 7 Surprising Breathing Exercises to Instantly Reduce Stress
Conscious breathing, cellular breathing, and other easy techniques to feel calmer
Photo: FatCamera/Getty Images
Air is vital to our survival. But when we find ourselves facing extraordinary levels of stress, as is today’s daily norm, it can be difficult to catch our breath.
Stress can feel suffocating. And eight months into this so-called new normal, individuals and communities are inevitably struggling to hold on to air. A recent poll by the American Psychological Association shows that more than a third of Americans (36%) say the pandemic is having a serious impact on their mental health. Nearly 60% say it is seriously affecting their day-to-day lives and negatively affecting their finances. And two-thirds fear that the confluence of related pandemic and social issues will have long-term consequences for the economy.
A review of the psychological effects of quarantine and studies on disaster mental health confirm these self-reports. Common symptoms include anxiety, depression, irritability, insomnia, fear, confusion, anger, frustration, boredom, and stigma — some of which often continue post-quarantine. Further studies show how unhealthy behaviors, such as excessive alcohol and substance abuse, risk-taking, and suicide tend to skyrocket following major traumatic events.
Struggling to hold onto air is something I understand well. I am a triple heart attack survivor thanks to a condition called spontaneous coronary arterial dissection (SCAD). SCAD is rare, generally speaking, but it happens to be the most common heart attack that women younger than 50 experience. My first two attacks occurred a week apart when I was 33 years old. After three days of gasping for breath, never imagining I was in the midst of a heart attack because I was otherwise healthy and had no risk factors or family history, I stumbled into the ER, where an EKG confirmed that I was in serious trouble.
No one knew why this was happening. And no one — not even some of the best physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital — knew what to do to help me survive. (I can still hear the words “We’re losing her!” bouncing off the operating room walls.) And even after I survived, no one could give me much advice about my future because at that time, there was scant medical literature available on SCAD.
When we’re nervous or hyper-focused, we hold our breath. When we’re overstimulated, it can be difficult to catch our breath. When we try to suppress tears or stifle strong emotions, our breath becomes weak or irregular.
I remember lying in an ICU bed after my second heart attack, recovering from having a number of stents inserted into my heart and feeling totally overwhelmed and stressed by my sudden new normal. “What can I do to help myself?” I asked bleakly when the cardiologist came in to check on me. “Don’t forget to breathe,” she said, smiling.
She wasn’t kidding.
Breathing is the most essential human function, and yet it is something we don’t often think about because it’s a reflex action; it happens automatically. But stress can disrupt this natural process. When we’re nervous or hyper-focused, we hold our breath. When we’re overstimulated, it can be difficult to catch our breath. When we try to suppress tears or stifle strong emotions, our breath becomes weak or irregular.
The science of breath
Breathing — particularly deep breathing or what is often called diaphragmatic breathing, abdominal breathing, or belly breathing — is a superhighway to the nervous system.
The nervous system (aka the autonomic nervous system) is an involuntary and reflexive, “behind-the-scenes” mechanism in our body that helps to keep us alive. Its job is to regulate how our internal organs — like the heart, stomach, and intestines — function. The nervous system has two major branches. One branch is the sympathetic nervous system, which mobilizes our body’s internal resources to take action if there is a threat. The second branch is the parasympathetic nervous system, often called the “rest and digest,” “feed and breed,” and “tend and befriend” system because it dampens sympathetic nervous system responses and keeps our body in a restorative and resting state. There is also a third branch called the enteric system that is confined to the gastrointestinal tract.
When we’re stressed, the sympathetic nervous system kicks into high gear. Our heart rate and blood pressure rise, our breathing quickens, our muscles tighten, and all nonessential functions, like digestion, become dormant. All these physiological tectonics have a significant effect on our cognition and behavior. For instance, it becomes harder to think clearly, communicate effectively, focus, reason well, and engage with others. It also becomes harder to breathe. This is because the diaphragm is not drawing air into the lungs as it otherwise would, which causes breathing to become shallow. As a result, various muscles in the neck and shoulders kick in to enable breath to flow. The problem is that this “chest breathing” can put the body into a cyclic state of stress because it is both the cause and result of the problem: Stress causes shallow breathing, and shallow breathing causes stress.
Common first-line coping strategies are often to talk ourselves out of this kind of state. “Stop stressing.” “Calm down.” “Think happy thoughts.” But this approach doesn’t necessarily work because our rational, higher-order cognitive functioning more or less shuts down when the sympathetic nervous system kicks into high gear. The key to regaining a sense of calm when we’re stressed is getting back in touch with our body by intentionally engaging our parasympathetic nervous system. And one of the most immediate ways to do this is with our breath.
Breathing exercises that reduce stress in real time
Deep or diaphragmatic breathing (aka eupnea in the scientific community) means that when you inhale, your belly expands or goes outward. When you exhale, your belly caves in. The more your belly expands and the more it caves in, the deeper you’re breathing — which is what you want. Here are a few breathing exercises to help you hold on to air when you’re feeling anxious or stressed.
Conscious breathing
Conscious breathing is helpful because it is quick and can be done anywhere. The key is to slow your breath from the typical 10–14 breaths per minute to five to seven breaths per minute. An easy way to do this is by inhaling for a count of five, holding the breath briefly, and exhaling for a count of 10. While it’s nice to lay down to enhance your sense of relaxation, this practice can be done in any position.
Cellular breathing
Cellular breathing helps you get grounded and stay present by focusing on the pure sensations of natural breath. It’s a subtle yet powerful way to calm yourself and become centered quickly.
Start by lying flat on the ground. Place your right hand over your heart and your left hand on your belly. Notice the places where your body is touching the surface beneath you. Start to notice the rhythm of your breath. Inhale and feel your lungs fill. Exhale and feel your lungs empty. Notice what happens in your body when you focus on your hands — the weight, the temperature, and sensations throughout your body and changes in breathing.
Next, focus on the hand on your belly. Feel it rise on the exhale and lower on the inhale. Keep doing this and notice what’s happening. Maybe the breath feels cool on the way in and warm on the way out or like your heart has space around it. Imagine a wave cresting and falling, bringing in fresh, clean air, restoring and replenishing the toxins that were being taken out when the wave falls. Feel how your whole body breathes as it gets oxygen. When you’re ready, bring your attention back to your surroundings.
Active and calming breathing
When we’re anxious or in a hyperarousal state, our diaphragm often gets stuck or tight, which limits breathing. Active breathing helps to open it while calming breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, working together to shift us from a hyperarousal stress state to one that is fluid and calm.
Active: Start by standing and focusing on your breath. Breathe in deeply, and as you exhale, make the sound “shhhh,” as if you’re telling someone to be quiet. (Make it loud.) Pay attention to how it feels in the area between your chest and stomach. Do this until your breath runs out. Then do it again for eight more breaths.
Calming: Take another deep breath in. Gently press your lips together and make the sound “mmmm” as you breathe out. You want to create the most vibration possible through your whole head from the sound. Now make the sound for as long as you can, and then breathe in again. Do this for eight breaths, paying attention to any vibration feeling in your head.
Stress causes shallow breathing, and shallow breathing causes stress.
Open your heart (especially good for anxiety)
One of the most common complaints about anxiety is that it feels like some great beast is stepping on your heart or squeezing it dry like a sponge. So, here’s what to do in order to keep your heart pumping gently and allow it to open in all ways.
Sit in a chair or on the floor — anywhere works. Bring your hands to your shoulders, elbows facing front. Inhale, as you expand wide across your chest. Open your elbows as far as they’ll go, and slowly lift your chin. Exhale as you pull your elbows into the front of your heart and tuck in your chin. Breathe deeply for a count of eight, focusing on your inhalation. Repeat until you feel a shift toward calm. Don’t worry if it doesn’t happen right away. Keep going — you will.
Set free the belly
Many people with stress experience belly issues, whether that’s a “nervous stomach” or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or a host of other problems. That’s no surprise given there is a connection between the gut and the nervous system. Belly-breathing (as mentioned above) is one way to help engage your calming parasympathetic nervous system. This practice is another good one. It’s best to try on a mat or soft surface, especially if you have sensitive knees.
To start, get into a “table position” on all fours, with your hands parallel to your shoulders and your knees parallel to your hips. Inhale and slowly lift your head and hips, lowering your belly towards the floor. As you exhale, lower your head and hips while you lift your spine. It’s basically cat-cow or an arc down followed by an arc up. Find your own timing with your breath. Repeat as long it feels good for your belly and spine.
Say “voo”
Developed by trauma researcher Dr. Peter Levine, “voo” is a quick and powerful technique that can help you to settle deep in your core. It combines deep breathing and vocalization to gently vibrate the body’s internal organs and muscles, which causes them to relax. “Voo” is especially good when something unexpectedly triggers an intense emotional response. It can also be especially stimulating for some people, so you may want to first give it a try when you’re feeling calm.
Start by taking a moment to notice your surroundings. Then turn your attention inside and bring your awareness to your breath. You can close your eyes if it feels good, but sometimes when you’re agitated, it’s better to keep them open with a low, fixed gaze.
As you breathe, slowly and evenly, think of the sound of a foghorn. Then, take a deep, full, easy breath, and on the exhale, imitate the foghorn by making the sustained sound “voooo,” directing the rumbling vibration to your gut. (It’s not necessary to make the sound loud; rather, keep the pitch as low as you can.) Once you run out of air, let the next breath come naturally, filling your belly and chest. Continue this cycle for two to four minutes or until you feel yourself shifting into calm.
Rib cage expansion
This technique is especially helpful for people who suffer from panic attacks or extreme fear or stress responses. It’s easy to do and can be done anywhere.
Place one finger from your right hand between your rib cage. Then place your left hand on top of your head. Breathe just deeply enough (a mid-size breath) that it expands your rib cage. This expansion causes the intercostal muscle (the muscle that connects your ribs together, stabilizes your upper body, and helps you to breathe) to stretch. As it does, a stretch receptor fires, which signals the parasympathetic nervous system to kick in and override the fear, bringing you back to a state of calm and safety.
Continue breathing that way until you feel a shift. As with the other practices, don’t worry if it doesn’t happen immediately. Stay with it. It will. | https://elemental.medium.com/7-surprising-breathing-exercises-to-instantly-reduce-stress-9cbb61a1d635 | ['Michele Demarco'] | 2020-11-04 06:33:09.122000+00:00 | ['Stress', 'Anxiety', 'Health', 'Mental Health', 'Breathing'] |
Anker PowerExtend USB-C 3 Capsule review: A fast-charging surge protector | Too many surge protectors look like they’re designed to be hidden behind your desk, and that’s all well and good, so long as you don’t intend to swap plugs too often. But if you do need easy access to your surge protector, you’ll probably want to pick one that isn’t flat-out ugly.
The Anker PowerExtend USB-C 3 Capsule can’t accommodate a lot of devices, but it’s attractive enough to leave out in plain sight, and its AC outlet orientation keeps wall warts out of sight while leaving its three USB charging ports easily accessible. These outlets are well spaced and arranged at angles that allow for easy cord management. I had no problem plugging three oversized DC power supplies into them.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best surge protectors, 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. Michael Brown / IDG Two fast-charging USB-A and one USB-C ports are the highlights of Anker’s PowerExtend USB-C 3 Capsule surge protector.
You only get two USB-A and one USB-C charging ports, but these have a combined power budget of 60 watts. The two USB-A ports are allocated 15 watts (5V-3A, 2.4A maximum per port), while the single USB-C port can accommodate laptops in addition to smartphones and tablets, delivering 5V-2.4A (12 watts), 9V-3A (27 watts), 15V-3A (45 watts), or 20V-2.25A (45 watts), depending on the client. The surge protector has a 5-foot 16 AWG power cord terminating with a low-profile plug oriented at a 45-degree angle that won’t block an adjacent outlet.
The USB-C charging port is compatible with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge, USB Power Delivery, Apple Fast Charging, and Samsung Fast Charging technologies—not bad for a device that measures just 8 x 2.75 x 3 inches (WxDxH). The price tag is a bit less exciting: $69.99 at Amazon (although Anker was offering a $20 discount coupon at press time).
[ Further reading: The best uninterruptible power supplies ]This is the type of surge protector that continues to provide power after its MOVs have burned out, so you’ll want to verify that the blue LED labeled “surge protection” remains illuminated, assuring you that your devices are protected. On the topic of MOVs, the PowerExtend has a very high clamping ceiling: 775 volts at 50 amps. It also has a low joules rating (300), and there’s no internal circuit breaker with a reset button. If you live in an area with unstable power or frequent thunderstorms, you might want something more robust.
Michael Brown / IDG I had no problem plugging three large power adapters into the back of Anker’s PowerExtend USB-C 3 Capsule.
A second blue LED informs you when power is flowing, and a third tells you the outlet strip is connected to a properly grounded outlet. (If the third LED doesn’t light up when you plug the surge protector in, consult a electrician, because the outlet you’re using is not properly grounded.) A round silver button to the right of the LEDs turns the outlet strip on and off. I have a bedside lamp with a thumbwheel switch on its power cord that’s not convenient to reach, so I was hoping the PowerExtend’s button would shut off only its AC outlets. Alas, that’s not the case, as the button also turns the USB charging ports on and off.
The Anker PowerExtend USB-C 3 Capsule won’t accommodate a lot of hardware, and it’s not the best choice for those living in areas that experience frequent lightning storms (unless you have a whole-home surge protector installed in your circuit-breaker panel). That said, its compact size, attractive industrial design, and fast-charging features make it an attractive option if you don’t need more than one USB-C charging port.
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/@adara31580297/anker-powerextend-usb-c-3-capsule-review-a-fast-charging-surge-protector-bbe706d59491 | [] | 2020-12-25 04:03:09.305000+00:00 | ['Streaming', 'Mobile Accessories', 'Lighting', 'Cutting'] |
I’m Andrew Levine, the CEO of Koinos Group, and below you will find our first episode of the… | I’m Andrew Levine, the CEO of Koinos Group, and below you will find our first episode of the Koinos Group podcast. We’ll be using this podcast to explore a wide range of topics because as a decentralized application development platform with no barriers to entry, we expect the Koinos blockchain to touch every corner of the technology space. We’ll share information about the project, interview members of the team, and interview people from other projects, not just in the blockchain space but in the tech space more generally because we’re building Koinos to add value to any project not just projects that want to bill themselves as decentralized or blockchain-powered.
Building great applications takes both decentralized and centralized databases, and so Koinos is being designed to enable developers to integrate a decentralized database into their stack regardless of how much or how little they want to rely on that database.
In this episode I interview one of my co-founders, Michael Vandeberg, who is also one of the architects of the Koinos Blockchain. He starts out by telling us briefly about his background and experience, and then we go on to talk about Graphene, the blockchain technology that powers a number of blockchains like Bitshares, Steem and Hive.
Graphene
Even though Koinos doesn’t use Graphene, I wanted to have this conversation because I think it provides important historical context for Koinos and insight into the very nature of smart contracts. Graphene came out around the same time as Ethereum and was intended as an alternative method for developing and executing smart contracts that achieved superior performance by foregoing the need for a virtual machine.
I’ve been in this space a long time, so I’ve been thinking about smart contracts basically since they were invented. Not only that, but I used to be a lawyer so I also have a decent understanding of legal contracts which were actually the inspiration for smart contracts, and yet even I struggle with the concept. So I know how hard it can be to wrap your mind around smart contracts.
The Ethereum Bias
Part of what makes it so challenging is that it’s almost impossible to even think of smart contracts outside of Ethereum’s implementation, which involves writing code in a dedicated programming language, Solidity, and having that code run in a virtual machine which, if you’re not familiar, is kind of like a computer running inside of another computer. While this is a very powerful approach which Koinos will employ, I think that the additional perspective that I and the rest of the team have gotten, by understanding how Graphene implements smart contracts was actually key to inspiring the innovations that will set Koinos apart and enable it to provide incredible value to developers and their end users.
I hope you enjoy the episode and if you have any suggestions for topics we should cover in future episodes, please leave those in the comments.
Check out our sweet new website design at koinos.io!
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Hive | https://medium.com/koinosnetwork/im-andrew-levine-the-ceo-of-koinos-group-and-below-you-will-find-our-first-episode-of-the-b0c5a480bcaf | ['Andrew Levine'] | 2020-12-04 22:51:38.354000+00:00 | ['Koin', 'Smart Contracts', 'Koinos', 'Blockchain', 'Crypto'] |
A Very Stark Christmas • Chapter 9 | As we pulled away from the ski resort, I turned to Danny Bonaduce and said, “Bonaduce, you can quit hugging that pear tree now.”
“What do you mean? And you know you’re supposed to call me by my full name.”
“Listen to the lyrics of the song. A partridge in a pear tree, not a Partridge holding a pear tree, or a Partridge sitting next to a sad little Charlie Brown pear tree. So while you were rounding up the gang, I painted the name A Pear Tree on the bus. Now you’re a Partridge in A Pear Tree. That should work for whatever crazy kind of game this is. And I am not using your full name because it was the only way to keep this running gag alive.
Just then, we heard a thump.
“Oh no,” Carl said.
We stopped the bus and went outside. Next to the road were a pair of feet sticking out of a snowdrift. I grabbed the legs and pulled. It was Kimberley, the missing milkmaid.
“Is she dead?” Carl asked.
“No,” I replied. “You just knocked the wind out of her. Let’s get her on the bus.
Once Kimberly caught her breath, I grilled her for clues.
“Are right, Missy, it’s time to spill the beans. Why did you run?”
“A week ago, I heard a knock on my door. I opened it, and there stood a muscular old man with an Austrian accent. He said, “I know you got the last PlayStation 5 from Amazon. It was supposed to be mine. Hand it over.”
“It’s not here yet,” I replied.
“Don’t you have Prime?” He asked.
“No.”
“How do you watch The Expanse?”
“What?”
“Never mind. I’ll be back.”
“Today, I got a phone call. It was the same accent saying, ‘I’m coming for that PS5. Have it ready or else.’ I panicked. I hid the PS5 in the bucket and ran.”
“I know they are hard to get, but why would someone go to all that trouble over a video game console? And surely Schwarzenmuscles has the cash and connection to get one. Rich people don’t play by the same rules as the rest of us.”
“When I got the PS5, I noticed that it was a special bundle version with a game called War On Christmas. I immediately did a dark web search on Facebook and discovered that there are only two copies of the game. One that steals Christmas, and one that saves Christmas. I am pretty sure I got the save Christmas version.”
“You haven’t tried it?”
“No. I got the call seconds after the PS5 arrived.”
“Alright, We need a find a hotel room with a 4k TV set capable of displaying the full graphics quality and high frame rate of the PS5 and see what this game is all about. Love Knuckles, hop on your blower and find us a room.”
“People call them phones now, Einstein.” [Ten seconds later.] There is a Sleepy Traveler Inn four miles straight ahead.”
Sweetcheeks booked us a room, and soon we all were squeezing into the double queen with free HBO. Kimberly hooked up the PS5 and inserted the game Blu-ray. A few seconds later, the game was ready to play.
“Can you believe how fast that game loaded,” Danny Bonaduce said.
Nearly everyone was impressed and made it know that it was a remarkable achievement.
“Just start the game, Milky,” I snapped.
She did. A setup screen popped up.
Please select a character.
To everyone’s amazement, the character choices were us. Well, Danny Bonaduce, me, Kimberley, Helen, and Carl. And Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“No wonder Biceps wanted this PS5 so bad. He wants to be the hero and save Christmas,” I said. “Ain’t gonna happen. Choose me.”
Please select a vehicle.
The choices were a tank, a donkey pulling a cart, Santa’s sleigh and reindeer, and the Partridge family school bus with the name A Pear Tree painted on the side.
“Wow, this game is good,” Danny Bonaduce said.
“The choice is obvious. Select the bus, and let’s keep going.” I said.
A cut scene began playing, showing the evil Anti-Claus giving a rousing speech to his minions.
“I knew it!” Helen shouted.
Soon, the minions were out on the streets stealing Christmas.
Agent Stark, your mission is to gather all the characters in the Twelve Days Of Christmas and rendezvous with “Big Red” at Macy’s in New York.
“I knew it!” Helen shouted.
“Keep it down, Doll Face. I’m trying to plan my next move.”
“Isn’t it obvious? We go to Macy’s in New York.”
“The only obvious thing is, you’ve never played video games. If we head straight to Macy’s, we are gonna get hit by several waves of enemies trying to stop us. And a few bosses. Plus, we gotta get the other members of our 12 Days team. I know where we can find twelve drummers drumming.”
“Where?” Helen asked.
“The drum circles in the parks in San Francisco.”
“San Francisco? That’s too far in a bus. And this ain’t the 1960s anymore,” Carl said.
“They don’t know that,” I replied.
“What about the New York subway? There are always buskers down there.” Carl said.
“Worth a shot,” I replied. “But get off the highway. Evil Claus will be expecting that.”
Now we had a plan. | https://medium.com/out-of-ideas-out-of-time/a-very-stark-christmas-chapter-9-ea73f24f43e9 | ['Mark Starlin'] | 2021-01-02 18:52:50.199000+00:00 | ['Mystery', 'Humor', 'A Very Stark Christmas', 'Ps5', 'Christmas'] |
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Here’s how we save the USPS | Photo by Victória Kubiaki on Unsplash
Donald Trump istrying like hell to steal this election. On the indirect side, he’s stoking racial fears with his dog whistle suburban housing policies and white fright ads about an absentee police force. More overtly, he executed a craven plan to let Americans die in a pandemic, banking on blue states to take the hardest hit so he could blame poor state and local Dem leadership. Because remember how his administration’s official COVID-19 response was and still is, “Fuck it, you figure it out.” Inspiring stuff.
And now, he’s disenfranchising voters in the most explicit way since the Jim Crow era — by making it physically impossible for their ballot to reach the ballot box. That is, of course, because unprecedented millions of Americans will vote by mail this year, and the United States Postal Service knows that it cannot meet that demand without additional resources.
The USPS asked for emergency funding and Donald Trump said no. He also installed as postmaster general Louis DeJoy, a no-experience mega donor, to whip the mail service into shape, which we all know simply means layoffs paired with demanding lower paid employees to do more with less. That is literally the only move a shitbag “reformer” CEO has.
So, Congress is on the case. Emergency sessions this and supporting states filing a lawsuit to stop the removal of drop boxes that… but I have no faith in them, either.
We need real solutions to save the good people who deliver those restaurant coupon flyers we take to our spouses and say, “Huh. Check out this place… it looks decent,” in the hopes that they will say, “You want to just get takeout?” That way, neither of you directly made the poor decision on your own to blow $40 on 4,500 calories of deep fried emotional suppression on a Tuesday night. Yikes, that felt pretty specific, didn’t it? No one else engaging in passive aggressive pathways to guilt-free binge eating this pandemic? (Don’t worry, there will probably be more.)
Where was I? Oh right, we need to save the post office. Here are my stupid ideas for that.
Hit the switches on them bitches
Hear me out. We put hydraulics on the Jeeps. I know that seems like a huge counterproductive cost, but just picture mail carrier Jeff bumping Gin & Juice while his front tires jack up and down five feet off the ground? Shit, I’ll donate to that all day. And think of all the mail that will get jostled out in the process that Jeff simply won’t have to deliver. Efficiency!
Think of the children
College kids are going to have so much free time in between virtual classes, and we all know there’s no such thing as socially distanced butt-chugging. These poor kids will be so sober and lonely! And to make it fun for them, we should let them hang off the back of the Jeep like garbage collectors.
The idea I stole from Chris Rock
Make stamps $5.00. This will declutter mailrooms quick. At that rate, no one’s sending out pointless appointment reminders or applications for credit cards you already have. (Shut up, I know I said the opposite up there about the restaurant flyers.)
Send Nudes
Forget sexting. Go old school on behalf of one of the federal government’s most venerable service organizations with a Polaroid, some sexy lighting, and a healthy dose of relaxed inhibitions. Bonus points if you “forget” to seal the envelope for creepy mail carrier Steve.
Cut the head off the fat, rapey snake
Impeach Trump again. Seriously, just pick any one of the criminal acts he’s committed both before and after the first time we impeached him. Then, actually remove him from office this time and let NY prosecutors descend on him like they no doubt will, which is actually why he’s terrified to lose.
Go Walmart on this bitch
Keep that overtime flowing with 24/7 service. Who doesn’t want their dog flipping the fuck out at midnight when mail carrier Rita drops off that booze you ordered online. I know I personally love scrambling out of bed in a half asleep panic, reaching for the gun I don’t have to defend myself.
Take a page from the NFL. They’re doing great, right? (Don’t google that)
Switch up those uniforms. The sports world does this all the time. Throwback jerseys rock, so why not bring back the original postal service uniform, which looks like this:
Let’s be honest, that’s fucking badass, and it beats the hell out of trying not to stare directly at mail carrier Bob’s horrible hairy knees when you awkwardly approach the mailbox as he delivers.
Don’t you know your mother worries?
Buy some $5.00 stamps and send her a card. Jesus, it’s the least you could do.
Harness the power of dumb
Let’s keep this mail-in vote fraud myth going. Did you know there are is a shockingly large number of morons who think Democrats operate a secret pizza parlor basement-based pedophile ring? These numbnuts also believe school shootings are hoaxes, COVID death numbers are exaggerated, the Earth is flat, masks don’t work, and mail-in voting is rife with fraud. Simply put, it’s not. But let’s let them keep believing this. It will lighten the load for the mail carriers handling ballots and hopefully drive these fools screaming into the apocalypse bunkers they made by installing pee-filters in old school buses and burying them underground.
Can we just do the right fucking thing for goddamn once?
The USPS is almost universally accepted as a GOOD and WORTHY thing. We’ve all seen the arguments for its merits, including the reliable delivery of medication, paychecks, and vital information like, say, a bank telling you they sold your house out from under you to a vampire capitalist.
These are things people need. And they get them for the low price of whatever a stamp costs now that miraculously grants you access to a logistical network that would blow your mind if you know how many steps and people were involved.
Does it run perfectly? No. Is it broke? Yeah, constantly. Is that because of the neocon wet dream that all government agencies should run like businesses even if that’s clearly not possible? Pretty much, yeah.
So let’s please (*cough* looking right at you, Congress *cough*), for once in this shitscape timeline, just do what needs to be done and bail out the USPS. We need it right now. We’ll need it for the foreseeable future.
After all, if the government can afford to buy $1280 coffee mugs (yep, that’s each) for the Air Force, it can afford to keep Nana’s insulin coming. | https://medium.com/how-pants-work/heres-how-we-save-the-usps-1a0858de4347 | ['Carmen Ribecca'] | 2020-08-24 13:38:05.506000+00:00 | ['Postal Service', 'Election 2020', 'Donald Trump', 'Louis Dejoy'] |
Making space for unquantifiable data: hand-drawn data viz | I’ll be the first to say that I’m not an expert in paid and unpaid labor, or global gender equality. This project calls attention to all of those, and uses a dataset on the same from the OECD as its jumping off point. But the project arose because I am fascinated by the forms of truth we can authentically capture and relate through data and data visualization.
For me, emotions and work are both high on the list of hard-to-measure personal data. Emotional labor, the frustrated sister of “care”, might be number one on my list—it’s the kind of action that has taken me years to even recognize in my life, let alone track or try to quantify.
As a data viz person, I’m often curious about the boundaries of quantification when it comes to abstract or ambiguous “data” like care. Some forms of care are clear to see and potentially even easy to quantify: we can estimate the number of meals cooked for a child over the course of one childhood, how many diapers were changed in one infancy, or how many hours and miles were spent driving an elderly parent to appointments.
Other forms of care also make an enormous impact on our lives, but are much more abstract and much harder to pin down as data points. It wasn’t just the number of meals cooked: this mother passed on both a love of food and a connection to family history through her attention to food each week. This father didn’t just pick out a book to read at night: he modeled a comfort with emotional vulnerability and gained a child’s trust through his response to each story. There is so much more to “unpaid labor” than we can ever hope to quantify in data, and unpaid labor is so much more than simply a counterpart to economic productivity.
And that’s okay! But I got to the point where there was a big “so what” bubble over every data visualization I made. I began by making a visualization I know and love: the scatterplot.
It’s simple, it’s straightforward, and it cuts right to the math of everyday scenarios. And in this case, it left me completely uninspired. “Cutting through the noise” doesn’t feel like the right approach at all when it comes to quantifying unpaid labor and care work. So often, that “noise” is the care. Care doesn’t come pre-packaged in data units
From a data viz perspective, I felt more empowered to represent the shortcomings of the current data situation, and prompt users to think about what’s left out, than I did to make a original and cogent point about unpaid labor on a global scale. The OECD data includes barely any data from South America or Africa or Central Asia, so I asked myself: given the lack of global or national data, how can I go radically personal instead?
This project was inspired by the idea that inherently “messy,” ambiguous, or uncertain data can, and maybe should, be visualized in a way that upholds and centers uncertainty, rather than trying to hide, smooth over, or “fix” it. This visualization makes space for critical thought about abstract and concrete ways of knowing the world. It prompts the user to consider the challenges and shortcomings of creating and visualizing data that reveals an authentic truth about a complicated concept. It takes an inherently messy concept and responds not with an attempted solution, a universal truth, or even a simplification, but with attention to the clarity that can come from considering one individual experience and inviting the experiences of others.
That’s a lot of words to say: this visualization is for each individual user to change as they want to. It’s hand-drawn because that helps remind us that people are always the ones making data, and that this data is about people. It’s important not to forget that. | https://medium.com/@evasibinga/making-space-for-unquantifiable-data-hand-drawn-data-viz-8650e7c9d2af | ['Eva Sibinga'] | 2021-09-15 04:11:07.060000+00:00 | ['Data Feminism', 'Data Visualization', 'SVG', 'Data Humanism', 'D3js'] |
A few months — note. It has been more than three months… | I have been feeling constantly overwhelmed and largely un-tethered. I have not done anything in almost two months outside of work. Largely, because the pandemic is a strange thing. It feels as though your life is on hold even when it really is not. It is difficult to make plans and even harder to follow through with them. Work seems to be the only constant and there were days (maybe weeks) during these few months when I did nothing other than that. My life’s rather simple routine of breakfasts and meditations and exercise completely unwound itself until there was nothing except me on the bed in front of a laptop. There is a strange existential angst that comes with this as I sit in the same 7 feet of space that I have spent 99% of my last two weeks in. A strange tension/tightness that begins around my throat until the base of my neck and I cant seem to move.
Anyhoo, I am going to a shrink now to ease this feeling. She says I need to regain some control in life, even if it is just for five minutes everyday.
Taking back a degree of control, however small makes it easier and this works as a nice little feedback mechanism until things get back to some semblance of normalcy, until of course they fall apart again. And you rinse and repeat.
Activities that help with above mentioned control are as follows:
a) Sitting out on the balcony in the mornings with my coffee looking over the now familiar sight of the the river Tawi. I seem to only read fictional books these days. | https://medium.com/@preethig/a-few-months-note-673c590e0d4c | ['Preethi Govindarajan'] | 2020-11-20 19:16:11.846000+00:00 | ['Covid Diaries', 'Monthnote', 'Travel', 'India'] |
Elon Musk Has Disappointed Me | About eight months ago, I innocently donated $99 to Elon Musk to sign up for his Beta Starlink Internet service. I live in rural Michigan, and Elon said I was just the sort of person he wanted to hook up with in the Cyber World. He told me that my $99 would guarantee first dibs on a brand new service that would be faster and cheaper than my current stormy relationship.
Elon looked like a sexy guy online, and his company SpaceX promised to help me by launching “a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites.” OMG, low orbits! I remember how exciting it was to watch Neil Armstrong step onto the moon. Now I could do it myself. I was pumped! So, beam me up, Scotty. Here’s my moolah!
Now, time has passed, and the moon has waxed and waned many times. Elon was a bright comet streaking through my sky, and I thought he was the sun.
My mother warned me not to trust men who promise you the moon, and I should have listened to her. I went to his webpage, not stalking, just trying to see how he was doing. There I found that he posted (for everyone to see) that I am in an undesirable latitude. I am geographically too short by 3.78 degrees. He has moved on to a better zip code. Humiliating.
The same thing happened to my next-door neighbor, Alison, who originally introduced me to Elon. She also fell for his line — hard. We are both recovering and facing our problems. We were easy marks — too trusting, too naive, and too needy. He didn’t care about either of us; we were just notches on his aerial.
We have learned our lesson; the experience strengthened us. We are determined to face reality no matter how ugly it is. Promises are pretty, but they don’t get the bills paid. So now that the pain is over, we are returning to our longtime domestic partnerships. They may be slow, erratic, and cost too much, but they don’t get our hopes up, and they are real. A bird in the hand is worth a Starlink in the sky. | https://medium.com/@jbrody845/elon-musk-has-disappointed-me-8630b7149081 | ['Jane Drake Brody'] | 2021-09-10 18:28:42.540000+00:00 | ['Spacex', 'Cyberspace', 'Internet', 'Starlink Satellites', 'Elon Musk'] |
The Fire Right Now | Photo by Pawel Janiak on Unsplash
Here the demons outnumbered the angels in every corner of the acropolis
Here the temperance of contrite dignity had never shown its face
Here there were castles of indolence and rivers of jealousy
Canons filled with boiling greed and the hungriest cannibals that ever lived
The bottom was unknown and the ancient barriers were all broken
It was only a matter of time before we elected him King
And only a matter of time
Before smoldering ashes
Hit gasoline | https://medium.com/resistance-poetry/the-fire-right-now-867a915bb02c | ['John Gillen'] | 2020-12-15 12:25:27.606000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Resistance Poetry', 'Fire', 'America', 'Politics'] |
Solving the CAR-T Conundrum | Originally published on October 11, 2018 in Johns Hopkins’ blog Biomedical Odyssey (link)
The development and commercialization of cancer immunotherapies, a class of treatments that fights cancer by fortifying the immune system, has advanced at a rapid pace. Prior to 2017, most cancer immunotherapies were composed of antibodies that selectively flag cancer cells for destruction by other cells in the immune system. In mid-2017, the FDA approved Kymriah and Yescarta, the first immunotherapies that involve the direct administration of genetically modified immune cells called CAR-T. These cells are engineered to include a new gene for a specific protein (a chimeric antigen receptor, or CAR), which allows them to recognize and attack certain types of blood cancer. More than 75 percent of patients with no other curative treatment options went into remission following treatment with Kymriah or Yescarta in their respective phase II trials, demonstrating a strikingly robust clinical benefit. However, a sizeable proportion of patients displayed serious and sometimes life-threatening side effects as a result of the therapy itself.
A Double-Edged Sword
When a CAR-T cell encounters a target cancer cell, it releases factors that directly kill the tumor and, as a secondary measure, releases cytokines (signaling molecules) that stimulate the action of other immune cells in the vicinity. Both mechanisms are key to the ability of the CAR-T cell to fight cancer, but excess cytokine release led to a problematic state of hyperinflammation, referred to as cytokine release syndrome (CRS). In addition to posing a risk to patients, CRS presents a major barrier to the adoption of the treatment method by hospitals, due to the logistical challenges associated with appropriate management of this condition. This has led researchers to develop a new generation of CAR-T therapies that minimize CRS while providing just as robust benefits to patients.
Use It and Lose It Strategy
A research team at Cellectis, a French biotechnology company, has developed a CAR-T platform with built-in safeguards called CubiCAR. Their platform allows for the rapid depletion of CubiCAR cells by administration of the FDA-approved antibody rituximab. In vitro studies showed that the cells could be fully depleted after just 30 minutes in the presence of a low dose of rituximab — approximately 10-fold lower than the peak serum concentration reported in patients. As such, CubiCAR can be acutely shut down in the event that serious side effects occur.
Sliding Scale Strategy
A separate team of scientists at Calibr, a nonprofit drug discovery division of the Scripps Research Institute, has developed a switchable CAR-T (sCAR-T) that can be selectively “disarmed” by administration of a “switch” antibody, thereby preventing excessive CRS-associated inflammation. In a different approach, cells can be co-administered with the switch antibody to initially produce low-level effects and, by subsequently adjusting the dosage of switch antibody administration, the effect can be ramped up to a level that is appropriate for specific patients. Switch-mediated, dose-responsive increases and decreases in the rate of tumor clearance and serum-containing inflammatory factors were demonstrated by the research group in a lymphoma mouse model. The sCAR-T platform may offer a unique means by which physicians could tune the treatment up to increase efficacy or down to prevent adverse events. Calibr plans to enter this lead sCAR-T candidate into clinical studies for treating lymphoma starting in 2019.
Having shown antitumor effects comparable to FDA-approved CAR-T platforms in preclinical studies, the CubiCAR strategy developed at Cellectis and the sCAR-T strategy developed at Calibr offer clever and potentially clinically feasible solutions to a major limitation of this exciting technology. Furthermore, both strategies represent a class of “programmable therapies,” which can be controlled once inside the body to produce predictable and complex biological effects. While there is still a long road of validation ahead, they set important precedents for the techniques that can be employed in the management of cell-based treatments to combat different types of cancer. | https://medium.com/@rvchikar/solving-the-car-t-conundrum-33520fb9d3ce | ['Roshan Chikarmane'] | 2020-12-25 01:53:23.916000+00:00 | ['Venture Capital', 'Biotechnology', 'Pharmaceutical', 'Medicine', 'Science'] |
2021: The Year of Sustainability and ESG Mandates | The effects of 2020 are unquantifiable today. The implications for our health physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, and socially will unfold over the coming years. The world has fundamentally shifted, and many of our business leaders are left asking one question. What’s next?
As we dive into 2021, executives at corporations across the world are trying to figure out how to gain a competitive advantage.
As consumer demand shifts, the leadership at companies has to look at the world and wonder, “How can our business shift its offerings to satisfy changing customer demands?“
Fortunately, the answer is simple and data-driven.
People across the world are calling for the adoption of more sustainable business practices. This ranges from how energy is produced to the materials used across manufacturing.
In some industries, the change in purchasing power is being driven by sustainability, and the analytics prove it.
In recent years we saw an inflection point in the energy sector. This happened when solar power and electric vehicles hit price parity with their petroleum-based competition. Today, it is no longer more expensive to utilize clean energy than it is to use traditional forms of energy like gas and coal.
We are seeing the same inflection point for sustainable materials compared to materials synthesized from petroleum or mined from the earth. This inflection point will help materials like hemp to work their way into board rooms and manufacturing facilities across the world.
The adoption of hemp-based materials will be driven by two key variables:
Improvements in the scale of farming and processing technology. The yields per acre of hemp.
These two factors have significantly reduced the cost per pound of hemp when compared against both competing categories:
Petroleum-based reinforcements like fiberglass.
Other competing natural fibers like flax, jute, bamboo, and kenaf.
These improvements in technology have created an environment where the cost of growing and harvesting industrial hemp is at an all-time low.
As Heartland begins to break down these barriers, we see a few specific markets that will benefit from sustainable materials before others. Consumer demand has helped Heartland clearly differentiate its market penetration strategy, from its market growth strategy.
Markets that can immediately benefit from hemp include:
Automotive — Consumers are driving demand toward sustainable transportation. This started with clean energy (like hybrids and electric vehicles) and evolved into green materials. From the manufacturer’s side, a reduction in weight and cost have driven the adoption of sustainable materials across dozens of use cases in each vehicle. Studies have proven that a reduction in weight has significant implications on performance. This will be seen across mobility, first in automotive, than in industries like marine and aerospace. Fortunately, Heartland is able to meet the demands of both the customers and the manufacturers. Sustainable materials that reduce the weight and cost of vehicles allows everyone to win in the competitive world of mobility. Packaging — Traditionally, this has been the most cost-prohibitive market for sustainable materials. I mean, who wants to increase their costs on packaging? The short answer is no one. In the past, sustainable materials have traditionally carried a 30–150% premium over traditional materials. Heartland’s ability to process hemp fibers and hurds at scale has helped the industry reach cost parity. This means that our hemp-based materials are less expensive than existing petroleum-based and mineral additives. This inflection point will open the door for organizations looking to package their products with sustainable materials. Construction — Consumers have always wanted to make the shift toward more sustainable infrastructure. This started with solar rooftops, but much like the automotive industry has shifted toward removing toxic materials from the walls, floors & ceilings of residential homes and commercial buildings. Right now, because there is no industrial hemp supply chain, there are not enough materials to meet the demand of the construction market. The other bottleneck that has prevented the adoption of hemp-based materials in American construction is the lack of ASTM standards that are necessary for structural components. Heartland intends to change this through a well-designed market penetration strategy that will integrate sustainable materials into the construction supply chain through standardization and education.
With this in mind, we can now see how hemp will impact the manufacturing of many of the things that are seen around us. Today, hemp can be used to replace many of the materials used across the plastics and construction industries. This is only the starting point of hemp's impact on the global supply chain.
Sustainable Investing Accounted For Over 33% of Assets Under Management (AUM) in America
Investors have taken notice of the demand for sustainable materials. They see that the buying power from millennials and Gen Z have created a foundation of demand for sustainability that is not going anywhere. According to CNBC, 33% of assets under management at investment firms are earmarked for ESG mandates. This trend toward more sustainable business outcomes is only going to continue over the coming decades.
Over the past 30 years, we have seen a major shift in materials used across every industry.
During the beginning of the industrial age, metals were king.
But, over the past 100 years, plastic has begun to overtake the market share of materials across the globe. This stemmed from the cost and weight benefits of using a material synthesized from petroleum. Because the oil companies were producing so much plastic, supply went up, and prices went down. This was the beginning of the end for the metals industry.
The only problem with this transition was the fact that petroleum-based plastics were horrible for our environment. Everyone has seen the horrifying images of turtles with straws stuck up their nose, or a marine life tangled in fishing lines or a piece of packaging.
The timelines for the decomposition of plastics make them unsustainable solutions unless something changes.
It is unrealistic to expect that we’re going to remove plastic from the global supply chain tomorrow. The implications of this would be detrimental to economies around the world.
One of the most difficult parts of transitioning away from plastics is the massive investments into retooling existing manufacturing facilities.
This has lead manufacturers to investigate a new trend, bioplastics. These materials show up in one of two forms:
Biopolymers that are converted into plastics.
Bio-based additives that are used alongside traditional plastics.
Unfortunately, today, biopolymers can not compete with traditional plastics in terms of price and scale. This has left us with one realistic solution.
If we’re able to successfully supply bio-based additives to the plastics market, we can help manufacturers make the plastics they’re already using stronger, lighter, cheaper, and more sustainable. This is a dream come true for petroleum companies, manufacturers, and customers alike.
Petroleum companies can now market their plastics as more environmentally friendly.
Manufacturers can use the same equipment while reducing their cost of goods sold.
Customers can now utilize products that have carbon-negative materials embedded into them.
In the past, bio-based materials were extremely expensive. But, with a reliable supply chain of hemp-based materials, prices have started to come down in a way that allows large corporations to transition to sustainable alternatives that benefit all their stakeholders.
The bioplastics market has seen a CAGR of 21% and is expected to be worth $27 Billion by 2025. This rapid growth is being driven by the reduced cost and increased demand for sustainable materials.
The stage has been set for increased investments into sustainable products and manufacturing. This shift is being driven by companies, customers, employees, and investors.
For the first time ever, we are at an inflection point where sustainable materials are at price parity with traditional materials used across manufacturing.
We see the future for sustainable materials being lead by the adoption of industrial hemp. We know this is true because industrial hemp is stronger, lighter, cheaper, and more sustainable than the materials it replaces.
Heartland is blazing the trail for the adoption of industrial hemp by leaders across the manufacturing industry.
Today, sustainable materials are the exception, not the rule. A decade from now, all industries will be utilizing sustainable materials within the products they’re manufacturing, and the offices their employees work in.
The adoption of sustainable materials is what will separate the leaders from the followers over the next ten years.
Heartland is just providing manufacturers what they’ve always wanted and needed; a reliable supply chain of bio-based materials.
Because hemp is now the same price as competing products, there is no excuse to continue to use the toxic materials that have defined industries for decades. We now have the opportunity to make the shift that will positively benefit the stakeholders in our organizations for generations to come.
Join us on the journey as we build a world out of hemp.
– Heartland Team
Original Post: https://www.heartland.io/News/2021-sustainability/ | https://medium.com/theheartland/2021-the-year-of-sustainability-and-esg-mandates-6b0ee0b816b7 | ['Tim Almond'] | 2020-12-23 16:25:23.791000+00:00 | ['Sustainability', 'Investing', 'Agriculture', 'Technology', 'Manufacturing'] |
Are You Setting Goals? Or Tasks? | Are You Setting Goals? Or Tasks?
Photo by STIL on Unsplash
In a busy world, it’s easy to write down lists every day on what you need to do and count them as goals. But are you really setting goals for the day? Or are you just setting tasks and becoming overwhelmed?
Goals are something that we should all have. However, that said, sometimes we say that we have a goal, and it’s something as simple as getting the laundry done that day. This, my friends, is a task. We can control something that is easily done within one sitting unless you’re like me, and it spreads out over several days.
Projects are pieces of goals, and tasks are pieces of projects. Let’s break this down.
Goals
Goals are overarching and need a brief introduction. However, are you setting these correctly? Most people go into their day with a goal in mind. My goal for the day most days is to increase my writing performance by 50% over the course of a quarter. That said, that is a controllable goal and is more of a performance goal than an intangible uncontrollable goal.
Most goals are large and require multiple projects or tasks to complete. These are usually things that are rigid and have a number attached to them, or are something that you can reach for but may not attain right away, or will attain after a long-term plan. Setting a goal, for example, like mine, to increase my writing habit by 50% over the next quarter, I can control a degree as it’s a performance goal. However, I can’t control just how much I write because of illness, days I don’t feel like writing or other events out of my control that might affect that goal.
These are usually things that you write down and point yourself towards as an ideal way of finishing out the quarter or year. If you feel overwhelmed by setting goals like this, try to find a more flexible smaller goal to start, and then as you progress and become more confident, reach for higher goals. You may not achieve those goals in their entirety, and that's okay; this isn't something to beat yourself up about. Setting those goals is an idea of where you’d like to be, not an ultimatum on life's achievements.
Projects
Projects are smaller parts of a goal that make up the whole. This is the part where planning takes place. Usually, you’ll want to break down that mountain of a goal into smaller hills of attainable bite-sized chunks that can be attained easily within a quarter in good time. Say, for example, my goal, my projects for this would be sitting down every day and writing a medium post, writing in my book for a certain amount of words per day, or writing for clients. No matter what I’m doing, I’m focusing on a project working towards that overarching goal of increasing my productivity and habit.
Most are used to working on when it comes to productivity and looking at long term achievements. Projects are typically what people think of as goals unless it’s directly related to work, not realizing that projects are the lesser part of a whole and moving towards your ideal life goals.
Photo by Andreas Klassen on Unsplash
Tasks
Tasks are something that we do every day and make millions of decisions on what to do every month, quarter, year, or any time frame you want to reference. These are usually completed within a day and within one sitting, usually within an hour or two, and under your control on how they get completed.
Say that laundry, for example, can be done in one sitting, and you can have it done in one day. So that is a task that needs to be done and is a greater part of a project such as “Cleaning the house”. We become overwhelmed with tasks so much that we often cannot see the larger picture and focus on the small things. This makes us feel ofttimes like we’re always busy and never productive.
Breaking down goals into smaller projects and projects into tasks takes a bit of brainstorming and sometimes some soul searching into just what you want to achieve. There are worksheets out there that can help you along with this in planning, and I encourage you to look and see what suits your style. Just realize that patience will be needed, goals won’t always be met, but you’ll be pointing yourself towards your ideal life and find that you’re happier and more productive for it. | https://medium.com/@parquetk/are-you-setting-goals-or-tasks-fc5c8e444e11 | ['Karen Parquet'] | 2020-12-17 21:02:45.225000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Time Management', 'Projects', 'Goals', 'To Do List'] |
Leveraging AI to fight COVID-19 | Artificial intelligence has a critical role to play in fighting the global threat of COVID-19—the Allen Institute for AI has taken the lead in partnership with several prominent leaders and research groups to produce the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19), a unique resource of over 29,000 scholarly articles, including over 13,000 with full text, about COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, and related coronaviruses. This freely available dataset is intended to mobilize the global AI community to generate new research insights in support of the ongoing fight against this infectious disease.
A coalition including the White House, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Microsoft Research, and the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health came together to provide this service. The corpus behind CORD-19 will be actively updated as new research is published in peer-reviewed publications and archival services like bioRxiv, medRxiv, and others.
Join us in sharing critical research
AI2 and many other scientific authorities are actively encouraging scientists and publishers to make their research content openly available for AI projects working to benefit the common good. If you’re a publisher or research group interested in contributing content to the CORD-19 dataset, please contact [email protected].
Participate in the CORD-19 Challenge
Kaggle is hosting the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset Challenge, a series of important questions designed to inspire the community to use CORD-19 to find new insights about the COVID-19 pandemic including the natural history, transmission, and diagnostics for the virus, management measures at the human-animal interface, lessons from previous epidemiological studies, and more. | https://medium.com/ai2-blog/leveraging-ai-to-fight-covid-19-82840393d678 | ['Semantic Scholar'] | 2020-03-16 21:37:42.235000+00:00 | ['NLP', 'Data', 'Semantic Scholar', 'AI', 'Co Vid 19'] |
Why are we dying on this hill? | -Or- How we missed our chance to reform the American education system
The Battle of Weekhawken during the American Revolution. Or the COVID battle of 2020.
Since this outbreak began, I’ve been periodically tracking 2 metrics in my calendar:
Total number of new cases in the US
Total number of tests/million in the US
Here’s what I know…
In July we hovered mostly around 65,000 new cases/day. In August we dipped to about 40k/day. We were issuing around 130,000 tests per million people.
It was summer! Great weather! Football was coming back! Baseball playoffs!
Then we sent the kids back to school.
2 quick months went by. The weather got cold. We had daylight saving time (why is this still a thing?). It started getting dark at 4:45; darker days indeed.
Baseball went 50 games without a positive COVID case. Then they ended the World Series by letting Justin Turner back onto the field to celebrate with his teammates after he was pulled earlier in the game for testing positive. The message was clear:
Nobody cared about Corona anymore.
But just because we didn’t mean Corona was going away.
Since back to school season, here’s what’s happened in our country…
On Aug 25 we had 40k new cases, while testing 205k/ million
On Sept 20 we had 45k new cases, while testing 305k /million
On Oct 23 we had 81k new cases, while testing 395k/million
On Nov 9th we had 104k new cases, while testing 475k/million
On Nov 11th we had 140k new cases, while testing 485k/million
On Dec 12th we had 226k new cases, while testing 642k/million
Don’t tell me this is because we increased testing. I’m no math major, but I don’t need a calculator to tell you that those numbers are not growing proportionally.
Don’t tell me this is because people are socializing more indoors. Sure, that’s a factor here, but this kind of increase can’t be attributed solely to a change in adult socialization. People haven’t changed their behavior that drastically since the summer ended.
Don’t tell me it’s because we reopened too quickly. We’ve been reopening different kinds of businesses in different parts of the country since the spring.
The only large-scale change that happened across the country between summer and fall is that school began.
And yes, I know there are medical professionals who say kids can’t transmit the disease, or that they can’t get COVID, but that’s just not true.
A preprint report (one that has not yet been peer reviewed) co-authored by Yale on Sept 23rd showed that there was a significant rise in COVID cases in areas that had college campuses once students went back to school.
Why would what is true for college students not be true for high school students?
The problem is no one wants to keep the kids at home. The kids don’t want it. The parents don’t want it. And I don’t blame them. We don’t have the technical infrastructure. We don’t have the family structure to support at-home learning. We don’t even have the curriculum for online learning.
Education in this country has been in desperate need of reform for some time.
I don’t have kids and it’s been awhile since I’ve been in school, so I don’t have much expertise here, but it seems like this was an opportune time to rethink how we educate the American youth.
Experimenting with different methods of online learning.
Rethinking small group education.
Having a more modern conversation about relationships and sexuality.
Focusing on critical thinking and decision-making skills.
Providing more emotional support, socialization, and coping tactics.
But we haven’t really done any of that. Instead, we’re clinging to our old educational model as COVID cases skyrocket. We’re working independently, seeking different sources for best practices, schools in the same districts aren’t even coordinating.
The need is there, but the changes we need require substantial, sweeping reforms. Absent of unified coordination, or acknowledgment of the problem, reform doesn’t happen.
The only time I’ve seen substantial, sweeping reform happen in this country is in response to an extreme situation. 9/11 unified the government’s ability to share data across agencies (for better of worse). The Great Recession gave us universal healthcare, the Consumer Protection Bureau, and overhauled the American auto industry towards more environmentally-friendly fuel standards. | https://medium.com/@sjpetteruti/why-are-we-dying-on-this-hill-89434b306b42 | ['Sj Petteruti'] | 2020-12-11 03:10:23.969000+00:00 | ['Education Reform', 'Covid 19', 'Healthcare', 'Society And Culture'] |
Day 13 QT- Final tests | The dreaded day 13 has arrived and there is an air of fear in my room. Today is when the infamous last round of nasal swabs and blood tests are taken before release from quarantine.
As a group, we are a much more informed and co-ordinated bunch these days, who use WeChat to track and communicate the nurses in hazmat suits exact locations throughout the building. They are on level 19 and headed down to level 18 imminently. Oh no.
I thought I was the only one who felt like they were aiming to rescue Excalibur without any wizardry during the previous test on day 6, I was wrong. To make things worse and really add a new level of anxiety to the fight or flight response, this time, its been worse for them. Deeper they say. How is that even possible!
I’m thinking of how I can escape from the inevitable, I can’t run away, can I talk myself out of it? Or at least negotiate to only have my right nostril violated?
The girl down in 1801 has finished, sends a message and within 30 seconds the knock is at my door. My attempts to negotiate have failed, even my phone translation of “deviated septum” brings no luck so I suck it up. Once again, outside in the hallway, I take the test. First the right side, then the left. Ok, this is an improvement, he hasn’t dug an escape route to by brain this time but it’s right there, down by my tonsils. He leaves it there for 15 seconds this time. It’s a trickle of tears rather than a flood. But the noise I’m making as I wince and shake in pain was so much louder, has altered a neighbour who opens the door for a look. She’s next!
I report my findings to the group and my pal in 1801 tells me she has just finished her bloods. Already? Damn it!
Blood is drawn, vial is checked and I know I’m done!
Later in the day, John who is quarantining in Guangzhou tells me he only has to have a throat swab tomorrow before his release. I tell him to ask for a refund because he hasn’t had the full Chinese COVID-19 testing in quarantine experience.
My get back to work in China COVID-19 tests thus far:
1. 13th November, pre-flight testing (collection within 48 hours of boarding inbound flights to China)
Blood (finger prick antibody test), throat and Nasal swab
2. 15th November, at Xiamen airport
Throat and nose swab
3. 16th November, at Wyndham Grand Hotel Quarantine
Blood drawn
4. 20th November, at Wyndham Grand Hotel Quarantine
Nose swab
5. 28th November, at Wyndham Grand Hotel Quarantine
Nose swab and blood drawn
Remaining:
6. 30th November, at Xixi Hospital, Hangzhou
Throat swab and blood draw… I hope! | https://medium.com/@rosalinamenton/day-13-qt-final-tests-8434baadb669 | ['Rosalina Menton'] | 2020-12-20 02:46:01.377000+00:00 | ['Quarantine', 'China'] |
Tips for Pivoting into Product Design | Tips for Pivoting into Product Design
After graduating from university during an economic recession in 2010, I dreamed of working in tech, enthralled by the possibilities of how this innovative industry can improve the lives of people in countless ways. With this belief, I landed a job as a technical recruiter in the SF Bay Area, sourcing for software engineers and product designers for an e-commerce start up. I recognized early on that I lacked passion as a recruiter, but stuck with it because it paid the bills and I believed that it was a stepping stone to something else that would compliment my creative skills.
I knew I wanted a career that was creative and this gave me some direction. The best part of being a recruiter was interviewing product designers, hearing their stories of solving complex business problems and creating beautiful and practical products for people. Their stories lit a fire in me, inspiring me to learn more about this field by reading books and articles. My studying sessions led to my participation in our company hackathons and those learning experiences helped me validate my new found joy in UX/UI.
When you’re in your twenties, you have a golden opportunity to discover your dharma, your true purpose and the responsibilities you chose to take on. If you believe that a career in product design can fulfill your dharma, here are my recommendations:
1. Assess your current job & validate your career interest
Be very honest with yourself and ask the hard questions. Is my current job fulfilling? Am I good at my job? Am I happy at my job? If your current job is soul sucking, doing nothing to help you grow as a human being or bringing you joy, follow your intuition and get out as soon as possible.
Then, give yourself the time to brainstorm what you might be interested in. Tap into your network of friends and their friends and listen to their stories and career journeys. Whatever sparks interest, take the time to learn more about those fields. If product design sparks your interest, read books, read articles, watch TED Talks, watch YouTube videos, and take product designers out for coffee to hear their experiences to validate your own interest.
2. Immerse yourself into UX/UI Design
Me synthesizing research for a class project at General Assembly
After you’ve validated your interest in UX/UI Design, go beyond the free resources that you’ve exhausted and take your interest seriously. If you prefer the self taught path, carve out dedicated time daily to learn the principles of design. Then, trust that your self determination, hard work, patience and the quick ability to learn from your failures are key qualities that give you a chance to get your foot in the door.
While there are several master programs in UX/UI Design, I chose to take General Assembly’s UX/UI Design Immersive Program because it was an accelerated program, way more affordable than graduate school and it gave me structure with my time. Through the 12 week program, I spent
40 hours per week in class
35+ hours per week working on projects
and 3 hours per week attending networking events.
This immersive program helped me focus my energy intentionally, learning and applying my skills simultaneously across three class projects and one final client project. Currently, there are a range of competitive online programs that teach you the core principles of UX/UI. Whether you decide to self learn, go to graduate school, take part time evening classes or take an immersive program, simply choose a path that best accommodates your needs in this time of your life. There’s no right or wrong way.
Finally during this phase, I highly recommend you find mentors who care about your professional growth. The beauty of this field are the incredibly generous and kind designers who are open to offering a helping hand. They are as reachable as a Linkedin message away.
3. Freelance to build experience and self-esteem
Now that you’ve completed your immersive study in flying colors, it’s time to build your experience! Even though freelance has the word free in it, remember that your work is not for free. Even interns get paid and if it’s not paid, they walk away with school credit and letters of recommendation. My point is, know your worth and honor it. I feel like junior designers, especially those who pivot from another career path, feel the need to offer their free services to gain initial experience. I don’t recommend it. If your clients can’t afford to compensate you, then they don’t deserve your services.
In my experience, the most challenging part of freelancing was believing in my skills and finding honest clients to work with. I certainly had my fair share of imposter syndrome, afraid that my clients would see my own self doubts and worst of all, devalue my work. Whenever you feel this way, just remember to breathe and stick with your design process. Although your main focus in this phase is to build experience and self-esteem, you have total control of who you work with. Take this time to select the opportunities to help you flourish and grow as a human being.
Experience will give you credibility. Credibility will give you confidence. Together, experience, credibility and confidence build a foundation for you to take that leap of faith to go after your dream job when the chance presents itself.
4. Give back to your UX/UI community
When you’ve landed your dream job in product design, you’ll gradually attract aspiring designers who are interested in hearing about your career journey because you’ve now become a — wait for it — trail blazer. There are several ways to give back to your UX/UI community like writing articles to share your experiences, sharing best practice tutorials on YouTube and/or connecting with students to offer mentorship.
I strongly recommend mentoring because not only will you learn a few things about yourself and the ever evolving industry, you’ll also have the chance to contribute to a community that is kind and caring. As product designers, we have the power to shape a generous community and lean on one another to build beautiful products that elevate our humanity.
Following these steps landed me my first full-time product designer role at IMAX. At IMAX, I have the amazing opportunity of working with creative, smart and kind teammates and together, we’ve created IMAX’s first ecosystem of enterprise apps. This ecosystem has become the backbone of IMAX’s daily operations, helping the company fulfill its mission of creating immersive experiences for their users who love the magical movie experience. Once upon a time I was a technical recruiter turned product designer. If I could do it, so can you! The secret is believing in yourself. You got this!
Resources | https://medium.com/@alicelei/tips-for-pivoting-into-product-design-31f060985640 | ['Alice Lei'] | 2020-12-15 03:12:59.942000+00:00 | ['Career Development', 'Dharma', 'Career Advice', 'Product Design'] |
Spoor of an Indian Horse — An unputdownable tale that renders a visceral experience! | Spoor of an Indian Horse is the unforgettable story of Laxman, a lonely corporate professional, at a crucial juncture in his life, seeks to refuge in writing about his fairytale-like childhood full of serendipitous encounters, in the hope of finding the purpose of his existence. A boy in a southern Indian village with a buffalo to be taken care along with his school, leaves home at a dawn, after a series of debacles and dejections that come his way. Then follows his stint at the summit of a hill nearby the village, at White Horse Dargah — with a dying Sufi saint and an enchanting stallion. He remains obscured, behind the curtains in sanctum and helps the needy pilgrims with his prodigious talent in number patterns. After few days, eyes of a gang of gamblers fall on the wonder boy. What happens after that?
Laxman in his present life struggles — to cope up with his alienated life, and to escape the strained liaison with his neighbour woman. The process of tracing his own footprints I.e self-reflection ignites his soul to transform his present life as well. He finds the lost thread of the purpose of his life and evolves into a complete man, by churning through his memories.
The story that begins as an individual’s ends as that of a satisfying Indian narrative. It is a skilfully interwoven tale with the multifarious themes such as repercussions of globalization both at individual and societal levels, economic imbalance, cultural conflicts, illiteracy, migratory chaos, communal amalgamation, corporate alienation and so on. Spoor… is also an awe-inspiring story of success and idealism of an unlikely boy from a remote village of southern India.
The book comes with an enigmatic teaser that surges one’s curiosity. | https://medium.com/@mathewdavid434/spoor-of-an-indian-horse-an-unputdownable-tale-that-renders-a-visceral-experience-ef60e32fed69 | ['Math Dav'] | 2020-12-25 17:38:29.336000+00:00 | ['Soman Gouda', 'Spoor Of An Indian Horse', 'Literary Fiction', 'Globalization', 'Novel'] |
Wild | Hi from 25 – 20
Sense of place is huge to me—what different “core” places in my life evoke, how they affect my mindset and emotions, how I perceive and interact with the place, etc.—and few places hold a greater spell over me than Hatteras Island.
My family bought a little beach bungalow in a town called Salvo on Hatteras in 2004, and I’ve ventured to the barrier island, which is essentially just a strip of sand wedged between the Atlantic Ocean and Pamlico Sound off the coast of North Carolina, at least once a year (but preferably a few times a year) ever since.
It’s hidden in the Outer Banks’ lower extremities, well beyond the coastal swank of Duck and the seafood buffets of Kitty Hawk and the Brew Thrus of Nags Head. Drive 30 minutes north or south to make a grocery store run, but don’t expect an option in-town.
A precariously tucked-away community, Salvo is literally surrounded by undeveloped nature. There’s the ocean and sound, of course, but there’s also the border of 27 miles of Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge to the north and another 14 miles of protected land to the south. Driving in or out of Salvo is an emptiness filled only with dunes and sea grass and marshland, with the occasional peek at the Atlantic or Pimlico. The two-lane road is known for the batterings it’s taken from hurricanes, and if you’re driving 12 South while the wind is whipping, the constant waves of sand blowing across the asphalt in the middle-of-nowhere landscape makes it feel like you’re on another planet.
That wind. It’s a freaking windy place, being jut out into the ocean and all. The unyielding wind has turned the area into the kiteboarding capital of the world, and badasses much cooler than me flock to Hatteras Island to fly up and down the coast both sound-side and ocean-side, more or less manifesting the phrase “I’ll go where the wind blows me.”
Really all of nature’s details are heightened here—the wind, the stars, the currents, the colors. On a clear night you can watch the Milky Way grow vivider with each moment of your eyes adjusting, the sky transforming into a light show of shooting stars and lazily drifting satellites and planets shining in the glow of the hidden sun.
The ocean commands respect with the moon’s dramatic pull on its tides and the shifting current that can waver between being unnoticeable one day and threatening to suck you to sea the next. No two days are the same. Sometimes it’s a lake, sometimes it’s an angry pounding with so much foam the water actually appears white instead of blue. Low tide and a calm ocean gifts a massive beach. An approaching hurricane results in water spraying all the way up to the large double dunes that stand guard between the Atlantic and the first line of reasonably-distanced homes, whose constructors were smart enough to realize no, it doesn’t make sense to plop a house right on the beach right here. Commanded respect.
Beautiful days mean a neon blue sky and a turquoise ocean. Sunny late afternoons mean golden wash over the sand’s shades of brown and the sea grass’ faded greens. A dipping sun behind a spattering of clouds means an unpredictable mix of pinks and oranges and indigos over the sound and more subdued variations reaching across to the ocean. A full moon means a white spotlight on the black of the water, the black of the sands, the black of the poorly-lit town.
It’s a wilder, grittier version of a beach. It’s a barrier island untamed. It’s a beautiful example of what it looks like when Mother Nature still ultimately rules despite human interventions. It’s my place of disconnect, and I hope you never go there for yourselves. 🙂 | https://medium.com/@kay_wilk/wild-de82b61da0f8 | ['Kayla Wilkinson'] | 2019-12-06 18:56:15.872000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Beach', 'Summer', 'Nature', 'Outer Banks'] |
4 steps for how to teach critical thinking | This post was originally published here on Oppida.co.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could start people in an online course entitled, “Critical Thinking 101” and they’d come out ready to conquer the world?
The Foundation for Young Australians research shows the demand for critical thinking skills rose by 158% between 2012–2015.
If only Critical Thinking 101 existed and proved effective . . .
Sadly, teaching general critical thinking skills without content tends to fail. Even experts can’t transfer their knowledge between domains. For example, neurologists suck at diagnosing cardiac problems (we’ll assume cardiologists also suck at diagnosing brain injuries, just to be fair).
If even the brightest lights in our societies can’t think critically across disciplines, how can learning designers hope to teach this skill?
Luckily, learning designers can teach critical thinking in all of their courses. We have developed a few steps you can add to your instructional design process based on the recommendations educational researcher, Daniel T. Willingham prepared the New South Wales Department of Education for a K-12 context. We’ve tweaked them to fit with current instructional design models for adults.
Step 1: Analyse on-the-job critical thinking needs
Instructional designers will love this first step because it’s already part of your course design process — perform a needs analysis. You just add one small step. Think about the critical thinking skills learners need to perform in their everyday jobs.
For example, nurses need to evaluate prescribed drugs based on their interaction with patients and their understanding of other medications they might be on, while sales reps need to analyse prospective clients by interpreting their business needs. As learning designers, we discover and teach whatever critical thinking skills underpin the discipline.
Key research-based takeaway for learning designers — critical thinking skills change by discipline.
Step 2: Incorporate critical thinking into the learning objectives
Teachers can use one simple phrase to incorporate critical thinking: “Think like a _______ (writer/mathematician/oceanographer or whatever they happen to be teaching).”
They’ve got the basic idea right, but beginners can’t magically think like experts. They need to be taught explicit skills.
Learning designers usually begin constructing learning objectives after a needs analysis. To add critical thinking skills, break down the skills you found in your needs analysis into their component parts. Then, you can build your learning objectives out of this breakdown. For example, a writer might learn how to edit based on a particular format, but first, they need to learn the format.
Key research-based takeaway for learning designers — teach domain-specific critical thinking skills explicitly.
Step 3: Give just enough background knowledge
Knowledge dumps get a deservedly bad rap. But, it turns out you need background knowledge to think critically.
Intuitively, it makes sense. It’s impossible to evaluate a subject without background knowledge. Obviously, people can’t critique mathematical proofs without understanding mathematics. Similarly, historians need a deep understanding of the period to discern bias in primary documents.
That’s why experts study for years.
But we don’t have years to teach people new skills when a skill’s average half-life is only 5 years.
During the development phase, we need to decide what domain knowledge is non-negotiable. Decide what knowledge do your learners need to do their job? Another option is that we could give learners support to look up any knowledge-based questions quickly.
Unfortunately, our biology works against us when using performance supports. Our working memory can only hold so many pieces of information at one time. Therefore, anyone busy trying to hold pieces of knowledge in their working memory won’t have enough space to think critically. In fact, experts often group separate entities into one to create more space in their working memory.
Key research-based takeaway for learning designers — research shows knowledge and critical thinking skills aren’t separate entities and deep knowledge improves our ability to think critically.
Step 4: Design learning activities to encourage critical thinking
Experts became experts through practice. But is there a better way to practice?
As you develop your learning activities, Willingham suggests two types of activities that encourage critical thinking and place our learners on the fast track to becoming experts: 1) open-ended questions, and 2) identify a problem’s deep structure.
Open-ended questions
Just like the name suggests, open-ended questions do not have a clear and correct answer. Instead, learners use their background knowledge to determine novel solutions. Often, real-world problems present themselves as open-ended questions because there’s rarely one solution available. Robust discussions also allow learners an opportunity for social learning as they realize not everyone thinks like them.
Teach a problem’s deep structure
Even though problems may appear different on the surface, their deep structure might be the same. Since the deep structure is by nature abstract, learners find it hard to understand. Experts often “just see” it after considerable practice, but that’s not helpful for learning designers trying to impart skills quickly.
One study used a comparison technique to help students see the deep structure. They asked students to compare two problems with different surface features, but similar deep structures. For example, two students involved in an argument vs. two international companies in shipping negotiations. The issues may be different, but both problems could be solved with a contract on a deep level.
Similarly, learning designers can have learners label sub-steps in a process to help them see the underlying structure. We do this in the writing process by explicitly separating brainstorming, planning, drafting and editing phases. Similar phases (with a few additions) could be applied to a design process. Through labelling, learners can see how the deep structure of brainstorming applies in multiple situations.
Key research-based takeaway for learning designers — critical thinking can be taught.
Why critical thinking remains elusive
Our minds give us shallow thinking first because critical thinking is hard.
The above-steps highlight just how hard. First, learners need deep domain knowledge, then they need to practice and, finally, they probably need feedback to reach expert status. Easy to see why many of us never become experts.
At the same time, these steps give learning designers hope.
You can design online courses to teach critical thinking skills. In fact, with a few tweaks to your existing practice, you’re probably already halfway there.
During your needs assessment, just think about where critical thinking fits into the skills your learners need to know. Then, add those critical thinking skills to your learning objectives. When designing your course, make sure to add enough domain knowledge so they don’t get lost. Finally, consider adding open-ended questions or using one of the deep structure techniques in your learning activities.
Voila! You’ve just added critical thinking to your course with these 4 easy steps.
At Oppida, we believe in creating dynamic learning environments through learning management systems which engage with your learners on a deeper level. Whether you’re at project inception or you’re struggling knee-deep to manage content deliverables, Oppida will tailor learning design support for you. Setup a quick consultation with our founder Bianca Raby and discover how we can help you project manage, design, develop and enhance your online courses from any stage in the course’s lifecycle. Also, sign up for our FREE Designing Digital Learning Course to better understand how to design for digital. | https://medium.com/oppida/4-steps-for-how-to-teach-critical-thinking-73f623653302 | [] | 2020-03-03 08:11:39.910000+00:00 | ['Online Education', 'Education Technology', 'Critical Thinking', 'Online Learning', 'Education'] |
Fear Does Not Motivate Me as a Writer — Sorry | Fear Does Not Motivate Me as a Writer — Sorry
My experience with “The Most Dangerous Writing App”
Photo by Luca Campioni on Unsplash
Hello, I am a slow writer. However, I’m not — I assume — the world’s slowest writer. Over the past seven years, I’ve gotten quite a few things written, but I’m nowhere near as quick as the “speedy” authors whose books I read and those I connect with on social media.
While I almost always love the content I create and can appreciate my eye for detail, I’m always on the lookout for tips and tricks on how to write at a quicker pace. That being said, I won’t sacrifice the other aspects of my craft for speed, but I am willing to compromise. For example, I’ll gladly spend more time in the editing chair if there’s a slick and painless way to get to that step earlier.
A good friend of mine suggested an online program called, The Most Dangerous Writing App. As soon as he explained the rules of the program, I was anxious to try it. Was this the miracle I’d been waiting for?
No. No, it was not.
The most bizarre writing app
The rules of the MDWA are simple enough. The second you type your first word, you must continuously type, or else the program will delete everything you’ve written in that time period. You can set the clock for longer — up to an hour, I believe — but five minutes, in my opinion, is harrowing enough.
Think about it. What if you set it for an hour and at the fifty-five-minute mark your computer crashed, a small fire started in your kitchen, or you just had to use the bathroom really, really bad? Almost an hour of hard work would be ruined. I don’t know about you, but this feels like a recipe for writing slower, not faster.
Regardless, I gave the program a try, setting it to the lowest time interval. Anny idiot could continuously write for five minutes — even me.
The experiment didn’t go as planned. I figured with the fear of losing my work as a motivator, I’d easily muster five minutes’ worth of content. The product might not be perfect, but I could take another five to ten minutes without the app to shape it into a passage suitable for my novel. Instead, my sample devolved into this nonsense:
…You see, that’s the second time I wrote “you see” because this is not an effective way to write and I don’t think I’ll ever use this app again because I have no idea what my thesis is going to be and I can’t even take a moment’s rest to think about it because then all my writing will be erased from existence. Forever. And ever. I see your point, “Most Dangerous Writing App” but this is not a sustainable way to get people writing. Maybe your logic dictates that this will release something in my brain for when I go to write next time. To really, really write, not this business where I’m just writing about not writing to not have everything erased. Instead, it’ll help me develop a mindset to do better and not be distracted by shit like YouTube or Twitter. Yes, writing on the internet, or with the internet, rather, is kind of a bitch. A double-edged sword. You have all the research right there, at your fingertips, but oh so many distractions. No, that was not helpful — but kudos on the clever idea.
Not exactly Dickens, right? Well, here’s what happened. Once the clock started I wrote a paragraph pertaining to my novel. When that was finished, I wrote another. Just like that, I had two fairly good paragraphs to add to my novel — unless they got erased!
After those successful paragraphs, my mind went blank, so at the risk of losing my work I started writing about how I couldn’t stop writing. It took around a minute to jot down those first two paragraphs, and it took four minutes to aimlessly vamp, writing nothing in particular just so I wouldn’t lose the small bit of work I was happy with.
I don’t know about you, but one minute on and four minutes off doesn’t feel like the most lucrative use of my writing time. After such middling results, I tried to imagine if I set the clock for longer — fifteen minutes, half an hour, or an entire damn hour. Would I have gotten back on track at some point? Probably, but I doubt I’d utilize any over twenty percent of the allotted time, and there’s an even greater chance I’d lose everything. Seriously, is anybody capable of writing non-stop for that long?
Maybe you, but not me
I’m not here to tear down the MDWA, nor do I want to discourage anybody from trying it. What I want to make clear is: maybe there isn’t a shortcut to faster writing. However, if you try this app and it works for you, congratulations, I won’t even be completely bitter.
For me, though, this trial was a big tick in the L column. I said at the beginning that I’m a slow writer, and despite having tried this app, and numerous other tricks, tips, and miraculous methods, a slow writer I remain. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop looking for ways to write quicker. And when I discover the secret, I’ll be sure to let you — and everyone — know. | https://medium.com/the-brave-writer/fear-does-not-motivate-me-as-a-writer-sorry-4edaaa803a84 | ['Gregory A. Austin'] | 2020-07-20 13:01:02.107000+00:00 | ['Motivation', 'Apps', 'Tips', 'Speed Writing', 'Writing'] |
The Trinity of AI — CrowdSource, OpenSource, & BlockChain | The fourth industrial revolution has started and while AI is at the forefront of that revolution, we must note that there are some fundamental blocks which are necessary for this revolution to thrive, sustain and drive the world economy and businesses.
We must look at these fundamental blocks closely to realise and comprehend what lies ahead and align our professions and businesses to ensure relevance. These fundamental blocks are Crowdsource, OpenSource and BlockChain and these are the very fabric of the 4th Industrial Revolution.
I don’t think that we would have seen the massive AI and Tech development we have seen over the last decade had OpenSource not existed and had companies not embraced it to further advance their knowhow and development.
OpenSource opened the gates for Crowdsourcing and somehow these two are very deeply linked, however they are different developments. With the help of Crowdsourcing, it became possible to harness the expertise of the crowd, from any remote location and from any time zone
Then came Blockchain which essentially is another form of Crowdsource or OpenSource because BlockChain is DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) which is based on a decentralised consensus based system that does not allow a central authority to dictate. I see a lot of elements of OpenSource and CrowdSource in BlockChain.
It is now possible to harness the power of individual expertise, create powerful teams without hiring them, deliver results much faster though efficient selection of human resources, enable sharing and on demand work and delivery,
Benefits derived from OpenSource (Open source is freedom to use, study, modify and distribute Software, IP or any other Object or knowledge for any purpose, provided it comes under the OpenSource licence.)
Knowledge Sharing has become increasingly possible and rewarding. No need to code or learn from scratch when you can get a jump start from OpenSource libraries.
Debugging has become very easy.
Contributions are recognised and rewarded.
Fosters innovation and reduces the cost of innovation.
Creates a level playing field and helps technological progress.
Creates competition and therefore leads to advancement.
Benefits derived from CrowdSource (Crowdsourcing leverages the power of the crowd or teams of people either in their free time or for specific assignments to complete tasks in a much more economical way.)
Leverage the power of teams from anywhere and anytime.
Massive economic benefits both to the people and the organisations involved.
Tapping into crowd intelligence can solve problems faster and drive better results.
Diverse experience delivers better and more sustainable results / solutions.
Likelihood of better robustness for products / solutions delivered through crowdsourcing.
Creativity gets a massive boost.
Gives 100s of options and choices and usually results in the best solutions.
Benefits derived from BlockChain (A consensus driven, append only, distributed or decentralised ledger technology that is further secured through cryptographic hash functions and is just the right platform for exchange of money, ideas, digital goods etc in the gig economy.)
Most secure transactional platform.
Decentralised and therefore trust-less system.
Ensures anonymity and traceability.
Reduces the cost of transactions and eliminates payment middlemen.
Auto Executable contracts ensure better efficacy of business transactions.
Best payment platform for the gig economy.
Unification of global trade and payments is possible though blockchain.
All three — Crowdsource, OpenSource and BlockChain are the fundamental fabric of the 4th revolution. They are the means through which humanity will progress towards a better degree of equality, hopefully. | https://medium.com/dalla/the-trinity-of-ai-crowdsource-opensource-blockchain-ad1d747faacf | [] | 2018-09-28 06:54:12.774000+00:00 | ['Open Source', 'Blockchain', 'Revolution', 'Crowdsourcing', 'AI'] |
End of an Era: Powerbot / RSBot shut down | After years of facing legal proceedings from Jagex, Powerbot has finally thrown in the towel and agreed to shut down unexpectedly. RSBot (the product) was by far the longest lasting public bot out there, with an impressive age of 13 years. In this post, we’ll dive deeper into the history of RSBot and the people involved as a tribute.
The beginning
Early RSBot user interface
The year is 2007, and there are two main players in the RuneScape bot market, iBot and Ares. iBot was a complex minimizable color bot developed by Impsoft in 2006, and was an established popular player at the time. Ares was a precursor to RSBot developed by Ollie and one of the first bots of the style we see today (minimizable with virtual mouse, and directly reading data from the game). In a strange turn of events Impsoft (the people behind iBot) managed to buy Ares and integrate it into their bot client, to the dismay of original Ares users. Ares became a paid offering, putting efficient botting out of reach for many people. As a result, someone by the name of Speljohan started development of RSBot as a community project with the aim of providing a free alternative to the now-paid Ares.
Fast forward to January 2008, Speljohan publicly announces that RSBot is now available and ready for use. Being the only free bot of it’s kind, it became hugely popular and attracted a lot of developers willing to invest time and effort in making scripts resulting in an unparalleled script library.
RSBot 2
RSBot 2 brings a tabbed client
Not too long after, RuneScape releases a big game engine update that temporarily breaks RSBot, resulting in the development of RSBot 2. The new version of RSBot supports running bots in tabs, allowing you to bot multiple accounts in a single instance of the client. It also features a low-CPU mode, making it more viable for gold farming.
The takeover
Some time goes by, and all is good in the world, until Paris/ins3 stages a hostile takeover of the RSBot website and project. The original developers are gone at this point, and new developers are brought in, one of them being Jacmob who would later go on to develop RSBuddy. This sets the stage for the heavily commercialized version of RSBot we know today. Under Paris’s rule, we saw the introduction of Premium Scripts, VIP subscriptions and restricted usage for users that weren’t paying for the client.
At some point, the RSBot.org domain name got seized by Jagex for trademark infringement, resulting in the now well known name Powerbot. To tell you the truth, not much has happened between the takeover and the demise of Powerbot. It’s closed-source nature meant there was less room for community contributions, and It’s widely considered that the development pretty much stalled. There was a huge amount of brain drain from the community due to the new, commercial nature of the bot, resulting in a massive decline in popularity and numerous competitors gaining market share.
OldSchool RuneScape and the subsequent shutdown
In February 2013, OldSchool RuneScape was released, and after some time Powerbot introduced a version of the bot designed to work for OSRS. For a while it was pretty big, but as with most projects originating from here the development stalled and it was overtook by competitors. I believe this played a large role in the final decision to shut down Powerbot.
Ending notes
To be honest, I find it hard to believe this is the end. Although RSBot user numbers were tanking towards the end, it still had some dedicated community members. Looking at the history, we can see the community behind RSBot has a tendency to resurrect itself.
Are you interested in this type of content? If so consider subscribing so you get notified of any of my future posts! | https://medium.com/@kbotrs/end-of-an-era-powerbot-rsbot-shut-down-f22e3ebe87ca | [] | 2020-11-19 12:26:28.717000+00:00 | ['Old School Runescape', 'Runescape Bots', 'Osrs', 'Runescape', 'Bots'] |
Lilies | Haiku is a form of poetry usually inspired by nature, which embraces simplicity. We invite all poetry lovers to have a go at composing Haiku. Be warned. You could become addicted.
Follow | https://medium.com/house-of-haiku/lilies-7100070da21 | ['Sean Zhai'] | 2020-12-03 23:28:14.031000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Writing', 'Flowers', 'Art', 'Life'] |
Iran Slams US ‘Provocative’ Plan for Syria Safe Zone | Iran’s Foreign Ministry has dismissed the US plan to establish a safe zone in northeastern Syria as a provocative measure in contravention of the UN Charter.
In a statement on Sunday, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi said, “The recent comments and agreements of the US officials on creating a safe zone in northeastern Syria are provocative and raise concerns.”
“Such kind of measures, like the other actions by the American officials, are destabilizing and will create insecurity, apart from being instances of interference in Syria’s internal affairs,” he added.
“The Americans’ behaviour in the northeast of Syria is a blatant violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and contravenes the principles of international law and the United Nations Charter,” Mousavi noted.
“It is obvious that the security concerns in Syria’s northern border would be addressed under bilateral agreements with the neighbours and through good offices, and there is no need for meddling of foreign powers,” the spokesperson concluded.
Earlier this month, the US and Turkey agreed to establish a joint operations center in order to coordinate and manage the setting up of a safe zone in northern Syria.
Northeastern Syria is currently under the control of the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), largely comprising of the People’s Protection Units (YPG). Turkey has been pressing to establish a 30–40 km deep zone within Syria, seeking the removal of the YPG from the area. But the US has tried to limit the safe zone to 10 km.
https://ifpnews.com/iran-slams-us-provocative-plan-for-syria-safe-zone | https://medium.com/ifp-news-iran-front-page/iran-slams-us-provocative-plan-for-syria-safe-zone-a261bafe055e | ['Maryam Khy'] | 2019-08-19 05:11:22.013000+00:00 | ['Syria', 'War', 'Iran', 'Security', 'USA'] |
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