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My Two-Cents on Negative Oil Prices | I got a text yesterday from a friend of mine informing me that Oil is being traded at $1. My first reaction was: Did you mean $10? But apparently, it was $1 indeed, and soon enough it fell into negative territory.
I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that a commodity is being traded at a negative price, but then again does anything make sense these days?
I thought this is it. This is the end of the world as we know it, but I was mistaken.
Looking deep into it, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was the only crude oil instrument being traded at a negative price, and this makes the case very specific. Brent was still being traded at positive, yet low prices, and so are other benchmark crude oil.
Benchmark crude oil is the petroleum that serves as a pricing reference for other types of oil and oil-based securities. The 3 main dominant ones are WTI, Brent, and Dubai Crude
The specific case of WTI
West Texas Intermediate is the main oil benchmark in North America as it is primarily sourced from the United States, and unlike Brent which could be delivered to any point in sea or land, WTI contracts are delivered almost exclusively to the town of Cushing, Oklahoma.
The storage facilities at Cushing and other inventory locations are apparently full due to a shortage in demand. This pushes producers to give money to storage facilities to store the oil, as keeping it with the producer means incurring more costs.
As a matter of fact, CNBC has published a report on April 1st predicting that oil prices could soon turn negative due to storage issues. In other words, it wasn't a total shock that prices went negative.
Crude Oil benchmarks are not traded at spot price, but rather in the form of futures contracts, which are legal agreements to buy or sell a particular commodity, asset, or security at a predetermined price at a specified time in the future.
It is noteworthy to mention that the financial instrument that was traded at negative prices is WTI May 2020 Futures, which is traded in NYMEX. The prices of different oil instruments fell down as well but didn't reach negative prices. The chart below shows other futures prices for WTI:
WTI Futures- As of 21st April 11:00 AM GMT
So in a nutshell, your country will still import its oil at around $20 a barrel. The negative prices are specific to the American market, and only applicable to a few future contracts that were settled at negative prices.
Implications on the US
Falling oil prices usually have a positive impact on the majority of industries, since it means lower energy costs for production. So, any industrial country should benefit from falling oil prices.
On the other hand, the US is the world’s largest producer of oil. Moreover, it is not a secret that oil companies are one of the main supporters of Donald Trump, and he had publicly pledged to support them, putting political pressure on the current American leadership.
What makes things worse for the American oil industry is its relatively high cost of production as it uses expensive extraction technologies like fracking. It seems that the Russian and the Saudis know very well that lowering oil prices might push the American oil industry out of business.
Oil Production Cost- Total Cost covers direct production costs, Capital expenditure, taxes, and other administrative costs
To conclude, the American oil industry which is politically aligned with Trump is under huge pressure, but other sectors of the economy are benefiting from these low prices, making it hard to know the net impact on the American economy. What’s for sure though, this is a major hit to Trump and his allies.
How is this affecting the Dollar?
It is well-known that the value of Dollar is closely linked with petrol. This dates back to 1945 when the Americans reached an agreement with the Saudis and other oil producers to sell their oil exclusively in Dollar, and that was the birth of the Petro-Dollar.
The relationship is inverse: as the value of the dollar falls, the price of petrol increases.
The price of petrol now is at a record low, which is mainly attributed to a shortage in demand. Nevertheless, this is also signaling that the dollar is somehow overvalued, raising the question of whether or not the value of the dollar is sustainable, and this is a political question not an economic one.
The dollar is in a bubble in economic terms. There is too much debt denominated in USD, and more of it is being printed to rescue the economy. Nevertheless, as long as the US is maintaining its position as the World’s leader, they can sustain the dollar as much as they want. Its value will get into question when other major powers decide not to trade with the dollar, and this scenario doesn't seem so far fetched now.
Does it all make sense?
No, it doesn't. Nothing makes sense these days. Commodities being traded at a negative price is a first in history. If anything, this shows the historical significance of the crisis that we are at. It is something that we haven't dealt with in our entire history.
In the depression of 1929 currencies were pegged to gold, so there was a ceiling on money printing and monetary solutions. Now, currencies aren’t pegged to anything, and the sky is the limit for financial innovations and monetary solutions. The only thing that matters is to maintain trust in a fiat currency by any means possible.
The Dollar is merely backed by military power, making it easy to peg all world commodities to USD, but the dollar is in a bubble, and the US is losing its military dominance as the world’s only superpower.
If you are interested to know more about how money work, you can check my article:
What will happen next?
Nobody knows. This is the biggest application of game theory in our lifetime, and there are too many players and variables to predict an outcome. Nothing is predictable. If anything, negative oil prices show us that the fundamentals of economics as we know doesn't work anymore. | https://medium.com/the-domino/my-two-cents-on-negative-oil-prices-96eb74b947eb | ['Abdullah Al-Basha'] | 2020-04-26 12:53:59.170000+00:00 | ['Economy', 'Economics', 'Politics', 'Oil', 'USA'] |
A Fascist Internet? | chapter 2. fascism reloaded
As with any problem of technology, Seymour stresses that it only ever exaggerates existing contradictions, rather than inventing new ones. For example, he notes that even though ‘Modi, Duterte, Bolsonaro and Trump have all used the social industry and messaging services effectively to bypass legacy media, they have each benefited from the (perceived and actual) corruption and stalemate of the political establishment.’ Likewise, ISIS ‘exploited social media far more efficiently than the protest movements of 2011, without unconsciously mimicking or depending on the model of association found on the platforms.’ Indeed, as extensively outlined in The Twittering Machine, the problem is not limited to fascism, however conducive social media is to it. Any kind of degrading and repressed content can be elevated by this peculiar, anonymised and exploitative media:
The content agnosticism of computational capitalism has political valences, but the algorithm’s effects go well beyond political content. The artist James Bridle has written of the surprisingly outré and noir YouTube content for kids, which involves erotic or violent content: Peppa Pig eating her daddy or drinking bleach, for example.
Moreover, the problem cannot be overcome so long as the social industry exists on the basis of a for-profit infrastructure. A 2017 study, for instance, ‘found that Trump alone was worth about $2.5 billion to Twitter, a fifth of its share value at the time.’ Therefore, it would seem, ‘the social industry firms can’t afford to lose the alt-right’. Society’s are made up of people and their decisions, but human beings create and occupy elaborate systems and technology is adapted to these systems. That online systems of the social industry favour the far right should concern is greatly, not only because it puts the left at a disadvantage, but because it tells us something about the society that gave rise to that social industry.
We should begin to take seriously the possibility that something about the social industry is either incipiently fascistic, or particularly conducive to incipient fascism
In one of the most important statements of the book, and the main take-away from this essay, Seymour urges: ‘We should begin to take seriously the possibility that something about the social industry is either incipiently fascistic, or particularly conducive to incipient fascism.’ When that is applied as much to the internet’s left ecology as to the right, it is my contention that we ought to be profoundly alarmed and distrustful of even most attempts to combat it. No medium is ideologically neutral, and this medium has proven itself to be especially dangerous.
Still, whatever one has to say about examples of misbehaviour from the left, it is to creeping fascism that we must turn most of our concern. Here, again, Seymour has insights. Mirroring much of Faulkner’s analysis of the far-right politics that has taken hold across the world, Seymour notes that fascism today — while still fascist — is shaped by different forces than the fascism of the past.
For Faulkner, the fact that the fascism of the 30s had to fight an organised and militant left explains most of its differences with its contemporary iteration. Those experiences of street violence fashioned militant reactionaries into what he dubs the battering-ram fascism of, for example, the German Nazi Party. For Seymour, this is also the case, ‘fascist movements of the interwar period were rooted in imperialist ideologies, popular militarism, paramilitary organizations and a world system run by colonial empires and menaced by socialist revolution. These circumstances will not return.’ That is focal for understanding the far right we now face.
However, what Seymour adds to Faulkner is a keen sense of how the social industry, with its excessive unleashing of the repressed, socially atomising technology and faux countercultural dressings, also shapes the new fascism in unique ways. It is therefore the case that even were such a fascism to break down at the electoral level, it would remain an iminant threat to society: | https://medium.com/swlh/a-fascist-internet-9a9297aa9878 | ['Rowan Fortune', 'Rte'] | 2020-01-28 15:45:43.406000+00:00 | ['Fascism', 'Celebrity', 'Socialism', 'Politics', 'YouTube'] |
Sony Mobile Talk forums to shutter | “I think my Xperia broke…where do I go for support again?”
Sony Mobile Talk forums to shutter
You might be shocked to hear this, but Sony Mobile hasn’t done so well in the decade that was. From a high of selling nearly 40 million phones in 2014, to finishing 2019 with only 4 million units sold, the trajectory has only been downward for the Xperia maker. When you’re selling so few units, you’re forced into certain business decisions. For Sony Mobile, that’s meant retreating from most countries, shuttering a majority of services, and unfortunately laying off large chunks of their team.
In order to consolidate their support structure, Sony Mobile now has their eyes locked on their forums. XperiaBlog writes:
The same fate is now befalling the Sony Mobile Talk forum, which has been an invaluable support forum for Xperia owners for a number of years. A notice on the forum says that the “forum will be closed down early 2020 and moved to other Sony Electronics Community Forums worldwide.” The header page includes links to generic Sony support forums for different regions including US, Canada, Asia Pacific and Europe. While the Sony Mobile Talk forums will remain open for comments for the time being, no comments generated from today will be transferred over to the new forums.
From Sony:
We aim to transfer parts of the existing content to these new Communities, but it might take some time before it is completed. We will keep this forum open for comments for some time but please note that any comments posted from now on will not be transferred. Members from USA, Canada and Asia Pacific can begin using these Communities now. Members from Europe should continue to use the current Mobile Forum until it is closed down.
Context of why this forum is closing aside, even if Sony Mobile was in the opposite position, and the division was doing exceptionally well for itself, if I were Mr. Sony, I would have still shuttered them. One of the problems that’s always plagued Sony is too many of the same thing — countless divisions, marketing teams, Presidents, websites, and so on. By consolidating Mobile Talk forum with other Sony support forums, consumers now will have one clear destination when it comes time for getting help online. No matter how healthy a division is, this would have been a good move to make, and because of that, I’m glad to see it finally take place.
Are you sad to see the forum shutter, or are there other places you frequented for help? | https://sonyreconsidered.com/sony-mobile-talk-forums-to-shutter-56191a921839 | ['Sohrab Osati'] | 2020-01-17 19:43:28.870000+00:00 | ['Support', 'Mobile', 'Smartphones', 'Sony', 'Sony Mobile'] |
Automated GUI Testing Guide | Testing is an important part of software development, as well as release management or development. Its purpose is to provide information about product quality. Automated testing uses software to simplify the testing process and verify results.
The purpose of test automation
The main goal of test automation is to speed up testing while keeping the quality high. Test automation frees manual testers from regression scenarios so they can focus on checking the business logic of the application from the user perspective.
Benefits of test automation
Excluding the human factor ensures that test scripts will be the same, eliminating errors.
Automated test scripts are several times faster than manual tests.
Test automation is cost-effective as scripts require much less time for support and analyzing the results.
Generated reports can be automatically sent to all interested parties.
Tests can be run any time or for a specific event. Often, automated tests run overnight so that testing resources are used more rationally.
Levels of tests
There are several levels of tests:
As unit and integration tests are performed by developers and we’ve already mentioned manual tests, let’s focus on automating GUI tests. Automating GUI tests is becoming increasingly popular.
GUI automation refers to automating the testing of an application via the graphical user interface (GUI). The main advantage of this type of testing is that the application can be tested in the way it’s used by the user. It also doesn’t require the source code.
GUI automation in the development process
For successful automated testing, you need to determine the role of autotests in the development process. As GUI automation mostly covers regression scenarios, should tests be assembled manually every time? No, as we use Jenkins. After each successful build, the project is assembled automatically. There’s also the possibility of starting test scripts manually or scheduling it overnight (when there’s minimal load on test benches).
Tools for GUI automation
Through trial and error, we’ve chosen to the following tools for GUI automation:
Java as the language for writing test scripts
Maven for building the project
Selenide as the framework for writing GUI tests (Based on Selenium Webdriver)
TestNG as the framework for launching tests
Selenoid for direct management of browser sessions
Allure to create and effectively present reports
Jenkins for continuous integration of tests in the development process
Example of GUI automation in use
Let’s create a project with tests
Let’s look at GUI automation using a simple test example. First we’ll create a Maven project and connect the dependencies for Selenide, TestNG, and Allure. Then we’ll add a simple test that will open the main page (https://www.ukad-group.com/) and check that the footer is displayed. To write this test, we’ll use the PageObject pattern. To control the browser drivers, we’ll use WebDriverManager.
The source code for this project is available .
The project can be started with the command mvn test . (Maven must be installed and added to the system variables). At this point everything works , but the test will be launched in the local browser and we need to run it on the test bench. The most popular options for remote testing are Selenium Hub and Selenoid. Let’s look at Selenoid.
Selenoid is an implementation of Selenium Hub using Docker containers to launch a browser, which allows us not to worry about managing browsers and sessions. A Docker container will be launched for each test and will be stopped after the test is over. After installing Selenoid, we only have to change the driver creation code a little.
Now we’ll run the project again with the command .
The test works. But what if we want to see the test progress? To do this, just add an additional parameter when creating the browser and use Selenoid containers with VNC support. For example, you can use selenoid / vnc: chrome_66.0 for Chrome version 66 and only add browser.setCapability (“ enableVNC “, true) ;
Here’s what the browser.json looks like after the update. To keep it simple, I left only Chrome version 66.
Now let’s run our test again and go to the Session tab where we can monitor the execution of the test.
Continuous integration is necessary for effective autotesting. For continuous integration we can use Jenkins.
Jenkins is an open source project for continuous integration that’s written in Java. It’s used to build and supply software. We can use Jenkins to run tests for each new assembly. To create a test build, we’ll install additional plugins:
Maven Integration for more convenient integration with Maven
Allure Jenkins Plugin for generating and displaying reports
Let’s create a new Maven project in Jenkins.
We’ll add the repository with our tests in the Source Code Management section.
To generate the Allure report, we need to add Post-build Actions -> Allure report.
Now after assembling the project with the tests, we can see the test run report for each assembly in the history and we have quick access to the last assembly.
And here is the Allure report:
The final integration stage is to link the test assembly to the assembly of the tested application under Build Triggers -> Project to watch.
After each successful assembly of the test project, the test assembly will automatically run. It remains only to inform the team about the test results via email or Slack notifications.
Conclusion
As code becomes more complex, new functionality is added, and bugs are fixed, testing takes more time. A manual testing team can’t keep up with the rhythm of the development team. After all, testing new functions involves not only functional tests but also resource-intensive regression runs. Automated testing frees up manual testers from having to manage a huge number of regression runs. Keep in mind, however, that neither full automation nor 100% manual testing can guarantee ideal results. The best approach is a reasonable balance.
The task of automation is not only to create automated testing scenarios but also to integrate into the software development process.
Using an automated and manual testing bundle and closely interacting with the development team from the beginning of the project through release will improve the quality of the final product. | https://medium.com/@ukad/automated-gui-testing-guide-500a02731e78 | [] | 2019-11-21 16:12:09.973000+00:00 | ['Software Testing', 'Test Automation', 'GUI'] |
And Now Our Watch is Ending… | True fans knew that Game of Thrones wouldn’t have a happy ending…
It was only nine episodes in to HBO’s big budget, ambitious Game of Thrones that viewers learned never to expect a happy ending. In “Baelor” (the series’ ninth episode), the show’s noble protagonist Eddard “Ned” Stark was shockingly murdered. Now, of course, this was no surprise to the millions who pored over George R. R. Martin’s dense and sprawling book series A Song of Fire and Ice, from which Game of Thrones was adapted. But to those who were learning about the fictional land of Westeros from the series, it was a jarring moment that left no doubt that this was not a land where one should expect good to prevail, right to be rewarded, or character arcs to end happily.
The show doubled down on this over the course of the 67 episodes that aired over the course of seven seasons (airing from 2011 to 2017). In that time, numerous beloved heroes endured unspeakable horrors or met grisly fates (the Red Wedding still haunts me) and unfathomably cruel characters reaped great rewards (here’s looking at you, Cersei). Although many found the show excessively bleak and brutal, it became a massive cultural phenomenon in part because of its unflinching and risk-taking narrative (in addition to its stunning production values, captivating characters, and impeccable cast.)
By the time the final six episodes that comprise the abbreviated eighth and final season of Game of Thrones began in April, no real fan could have reasonable expected the show to have a happy ending…
…but they did it expect it to have a logical ending
After four highly revered seasons, criticisms began mounting about the writing on Game of Thrones as it entered its fifth season. At this point, most of the main plot lines had moved beyond the narrative contained in the novels, leaving it largely up to the team of writers to decide where to take the characters. Some fans were never going to be satisfied, as demonstrated by how they obsessively analyzed each plot twist and character decision and interrogated whether they unfolded as Martin had intended. Some were willing to give the team of writers the benefit of the doubt, but bemoaned increasingly sloppy writing marked by heavy foreshadowing, convoluted plot twists, nonsensical timelines, and unearned character pivots. Some loved every moment of the spectacle and simply didn’t notice or care that certain aspects of the show might be going off the rails. Honestly, I was in the third camp until the start of this season.
The final season of Game of Thrones has made headlines for its blockbuster ratings, its shocking twists, and the outrage it has elicited from many fans (e.g., the abrupt routing of the White Walkers, the infamous Starbucks cup). Countless articles have been written about its missteps, ranging from hysterical hot takes to deeply insightful critiques. I won’t recap all of the points that have been made here, but I will highlight what I believe are the three problems dragging down the show’s final season and what Sunday’ finale can do to redeem it.
Maisie Williams as Arya Stark (Image Copyright: HBO/Warner Bros.)
#1: A shift from character-driven to climax-driven storytelling has fundamentally altered the show
As was well-articulated by an insightful fan on Twitter, a significant problem with the show’s final run of episodes is that it has shifted from a narrative driven by character evolution to one driven by wrapping up the action.
For better or worse, Game of Thrones is a show that has always taken its time. Nearly every fan has their vote for most infuriating meandering subplot, be it Arya’s time becoming an assassin in Braavos, Daenerys being marooned in Mereen, or anything involving Bran (the latter has my vote). As much as they may have outstayed their welcome, each of these plot lines was about developing a character arc or a theme.
As the show rushed into its final batch of episodes, the pace picked up rapidly and it became apparent that the whole approach to writing changed. Rather than leisurely following the characters around Westeros, the writers clearly decided how it was going to end and then contorted each character’s arc to fit that ending.
Don’t get me wrong. I have loved seeing the plot threads tie together. And, indeed, many of the long-awaited character meetings and reunions have been handled beautifully. But the problem here is that the characters are now changing in ways that are either too abrupt or utterly illogical. And none has been worse than Daenerys going mad.
#2: The final episodes hinge on an unearned plot twist
Daenerys Targaryen has had arguably the show’s richest plot arc. She was born to the mad king who was overthrown and sold into slavery, only to discover and embrace what she believed to be her divine right. From naif to warrior, the “Breaker of Chains” and “Mother of Dragons” set off on world domination. With that description it shouldn’t be that shocking that she went utterly bonkers this season. But that description doesn’t tell the whole story. For dozens of episodes the writers have painstakingly showed us that Daenerys has developed a strong moral center and a passionate desire to bring justice to Westeros. She moved past long-held grudges to embrace wise and noble men from enemy families (Tyrion and Jon Snow) and allowed herself to be vulnerable and find love.
So, what was the point of softening Daenerys up for half the show’s run only to have her go on an unprovoked terror spree including the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocents when she realized that most of Westeros wasn’t rooting for her (and why was she surprised by this)? Was it to show that she couldn’t escape the madness of her family? Was it to make commentary about the chaos and incoherence of war (as if the show needed to show that once again)? Was it to give a shock to viewers who found the idea of her ending up on the Iron Throne all too predictable? Or was it because the writers have no idea what to do with their female characters?
#3: Game of Thrones evolved into a show about the strength of intelligent women and now the writers have no idea how to give them a proper ending
For a show that has long been criticized for its graphic sex scenes, gratuitous nudity, and reliance on rape as a plot device, it came as a surprise to many that the majority of main characters left standing at the end were women. Not just women, but strong, powerful, intelligent, complicated women. Survivors. Warriors. Leaders. Assassins. Tyrants. By the time the show entered the second half of its run, it had one of the most fascinating stable of strong female characters on contemporary television. This is precisely why the ways in which their character arcs are ending are so disappointing. Let’s take a look at what’s happened to the women on Game of Thrones this season.
The mystical Melisandre re-emerges after a long absence to save the day with her magical powers and then quietly wander off to die alone (but not before the writers remind us that her hotness was only the product of wizardry, she was actually ugly and old).
After rising from slave to right hand of the Queen, Missandei is put back into slavery and beheaded. (The fact that she is the only woman of color on the show and dies in chains is a particularly ugly choice by the writing staff.)
Gwendoline Christie as Brienne of Tarth (Image Copyright: HBO/Warner Bros.)
The stoic and loyal Brienne of Tarth was knighted by her comrades in a beautiful scene early this season, only to lose her virginity to Jaime and then get her heart broken, leading to pleading and ugly crying.
Speaking of the loss of virginity, loner assassin Arya spent an episode seducing Gendry so she could have sex before the big war.
Sansa, who arguably had the most impressive character progression of any character on the show regardless of gender, is still rock solid but her power was sharply undercut by numerous references to the fact that she’s only strong now because of the rape and torture she was subjected to by men.
And then there’s Cersei. The show’s most fabulously evil, utterly spellbinding character has spent the entire show’s run overcoming the odds through sheer wit, tenacity, and brutality and has never once let sentiment distract her. So how did she die? Crushed to death by bricks while relying on her lover to help her escape as she sobbed “I don’t want to die” and clutched the unborn baby in her womb.
As described above, Daenerys went mad for no reason. You know, as women do.
Oh and who knows if we’ll ever see Yara again. But judging by how this season is going, if we do see her it will probably be in a reprisal of her salacious lesbian sex scene.
It is by no means wrong to have female characters fall in love, have sex, care about their unborn child, or meet untimely deaths, but the cumulative effect of so many egregiously stereotypical endings for it female characters is deeply disappointing.
Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister (Image Copyright: HBO/Warner Bros.)
What the finale needs to do to salvage things
There is absolutely no way Game of Thrones can right all the wrongs of the past few episodes. Nor can it tie up the loose ends as far more significant characters and plot lines are left unresolved than can ever be dealt with in 80 minutes. But hopefully it will do many things right. My hope is that the finale …
Resists the urge to spend time setting up the spin-offs. Sure, we know HBO is investing a lot in turning Game of Thrones into a franchise, but — please — no distracting allusions to what will come. Provides some logic or nuance to Daenerys’ descent. The writers don’t have to try and rehabilitate her character at this point (that ship has sailed off to the Iron Islands) but there are things they can do to bring her plot arc to a less disastrous close than it looks destined for. Leaves the Three-Eyed Raven mythology alone. There are some things I would rather see unexplained than have to see the precious remaining moments of the show focus on. Chief among these is what the hell the point of the Three Eyed Raven arc was. Sends Tyrion out with a bang. As his three Emmys (and probably a fourth come September) indicate, Peter Dinklage’s sharp-tongued Tyrion Lannister was the soul of the series from start to finish. He deserves a grand finale; at the very least, something more satisfying than his brother and sister received. Gives a noble end to Sansa and Brienne. The disappointing endings befalling the women of Westeros could be partially rectified by Sansa and Brienne’s arcs wrapping up in an empowering, thoughtful way. Doesn’t end too happily or cleanly. My all-too-possible nightmare scenario: There will be a blood bath that leaves Daenerys, Jon, and Arya dead. Sansa and Tyrion decide to destroy the the terror-breeding Iron Throne once and for all and let the seven kingdoms self govern (Sansa in the North, Tyrion in the remains of Kings Landing, Yara in the Iron Islands, etc.) Peace is restored. Spring arrives. As pretty as that might be, it’s not true to Game of Thrones. Admittedly, my dream of seeing Cersei outmaneuver everyone at the last minute to remain on the Iron Throne is now impossible, so whatever dark twist they (hopefully) conjure up will just have to take me by surprise. | https://medium.com/rants-and-raves/and-now-our-watch-is-ending-be1c6824c0e9 | ['Richard Lebeau'] | 2019-05-21 18:24:37.940000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Television', 'Game of Thrones', 'Feminism', 'Media'] |
America’s Democrats can’t risk another ‘basket of deplorables’ moment | Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash
Remember Hillary Clinton’s “ basket of deplorables “ moment? The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee stood at a lectern emblazoned with the inclusive message “Stronger Together” and basically let rip at a sizeable proportion of America. Half of Donald Trump’s supporters, she said, were “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it”.
They were, she said, laughing, a “ basket of deplorables “.
The disdain set off a firestorm two months before election day and Mrs Clinton quickly apologised, but still lost to Mr Trump. It was a teachable moment for the Democratic Party, except that it seems to have learnt nothing from the incident.
In 2021, after Terry McAuliffe’s defeat to Glenn Youngkin in the Virginia governor’s race, liberal Twitter, Democratic Twitter and highly educated Twitter have been slagging off Mr Youngkin’s voters as dupes or disguised racists.
This is not the way to appeal to voters. Especially when the following points emerge from the November 2 Virginia election:
** Voters not only chose Mr Youngkin, they also picked Virginia’s first-ever black female lieutenant-governor, and its first Hispanic attorney-general. Both are Republican. It’s hardly a sign that Virginia’s voters are racist and misogynist.
** Mr Youngkin came across on the campaign trail as more balanced than a lot of frenzied anti-racism campaigners. In response to parents’ concerns about the rather extreme critique of the existing system, Mr Youngkin said: “We will teach all history, the good and the bad . . . We have an amazing history, but we also have some dark and abhorrent chapters. We must teach them all. We can’t know where we’re going unless we know where we come from.” This made a lot of sense to people. After all, as Ed Luce, the Financial Times US national editor, recently pointed out (paywall), “there is nothing liberal about telling children their race is their most important characteristic,”. He added that in so doing, the Democrats give “Republican critics of CRT [critical race theory] the space to ‘bash the left and earn cred by merely sounding like . . . Obama ‘08’,” a point made by Nate Cohn in The New York Times. Mr Luce is very clear (and I agree with him) that all of us who want to teach children the skills of critical thinking, would find it hard to disagree with Mr Youngkin’s comments on the campaign trail.
** Mr Luce also recently provided a link to what the Virginia education department is reading. Click on the link and check it out for yourself. It is a revelation. He says, correctly, that liberal Twitter may have been right in a pedantic sense that CRT is not being taught in most schools and that it “is a college-level discipline that originated with legal scholars (in a nutshell, enforcing equality of rights is not enough in a society suffering from the structural legacy of slavery”. But, most parents don’t particularly know or care about the technical definition of CRT. As Mr Luce said, parents “do know that what their children are being taught sounds a lot like it.”
Perry Bacon Jr is right to say in the Washington Post that the Republican Party “has embraced a strategy of White grievance” and is constantly “attacking how public schools teach about race and racism “ with false narratives. That said, Democrats need to look at how their message is heard and the response to the Republican messaging.
** Naturally, all sensible people move away from extremes. Hence, the so-called “revenge of the pissed off suburban Mom”, which basically refers to the 13-point shift towards Republicans in 2021 compared to November 2020 among white women in Virginia’s northern suburbs. Mr Bacon quotes University of Denver political scientist Seth Masket: “A substantial faction of the Democratic Party reliably blames any loss on the party’s commitments to diversity and civil rights.”
I’m not sure if it’s the commitments so much as how they’re pushed. If it’s faculty-lounge politics, there are undoubted challenges for the Democratic Party. So too their tendency to regard other points of view as suited only to “a basket of deplorables”.
Some might question if Twitter debate is representative of the real world. It isn’t. But liberal Twitter and Democratic Twitter do give a sense of the mindset.
Originally published at https://www.rashmee.com on November 13, 2021. | https://medium.com/@rashmee/americas-democrats-can-t-risk-another-basket-of-deplorables-moment-7ef299bcd043 | ['Rashmee Roshan Lall'] | 2021-11-13 11:15:20.584000+00:00 | ['Hillary Clinton', 'Democratic Party', 'Faculty Lounge Politics', 'Basket Of Deplorables', 'Critical Race Theory'] |
I am buying a liability — Agreement of Sale — Part 1 | In this series, I have been talking about my purchase of a property. (Which is a liability for me). The first two parts of the series are published which you can read here. 👇
Now, after deciding that I want to buy a property and finalizing a property, price negotiation, etc., the next step is to get the agreement of Sale registered. In this story, I will be sharing all the research that I did for the same and what the process was like for me. (My place of purchase being Karnataka, India). This is part 1 of 2. The main reason I decided to split it into two stories because it was getting to long and I wanted to keep the read times short.
What is Agreement of Sale?
This is the first document which needs to be registered in order to officiate the sale of a property. As the name says, this document is an agreement between two parties that a property will be sold. It has not been sold yet, just agreed that it will be sold in future when the conditions specified in the agreement are met. This is an assurance that the seller will sell the property on receiving the funds and the buyer will buy the property when it the construction is finished.
This document also prohibits the seller to sell the property to someone else whereas if only the token amount was paid and the Agreement of Sale was not registered, then the seller technically can sell the property to someone else. This is a good thing for buyer as the seller cannot go back from this deal. But, at the same time. If the Agreement of Sale is done, then the token money given by the buyer will be forfeited in case the buyer refuses to buy the property. This is a good thing for the seller.
So basically, this document gives peace of mind to both the seller and the buyer that the sale will happen in the future. After getting the Agreement of Sale registered, now I am peaceful that the property will be mine. (It is technically not yet mine as the Sale deed has not been executed yet).
Things to Check in this document
This is a very long document. (For me, it was roughly 55 pages of legal-technical language). This document was prepared by the builder and I found that most of the times, it is prepared by the builders as they have a strong legal team and wants things in their favours even if the deal goes south. Still, I checked the following things and made sure that the Agreement was fair enough for me as well. Now, obviously this will change from builder to builder and from property to property based on who creates the document, but for me I checked these things in the 52 pages long fine print.
Details of both the parties
This includes checking the name, addresses and identifiable information (Like Aadhaar Number, PAN Number, etc). For builders, this maybe the representative who might hold POA (Power of Attorney) to sell the property on behalf of the builders. This is to ensure that both the parties are who they claim to be.
Description of the property
This involves checking the size, dimension as well as location of the property. Generally a map is also included in the Agreement which shows the location of that specific property with respect to the whole project. This might also include a brief description of things which are on each side of the property. Checking this ensures that I am getting the property I paid for.
Earnest (Token) money information
Also referred to as Advance Payment, Blocking Amount, Booking Amount, etc. This is the money paid upfront to make the booking and block the property. Generally this is 10% of the Total Property Value (sometimes also referred to as Total Sale Value). It is to note that this excludes the GST that is paid on the property as that goes to the government. I also checked what would happen if the deal was to be backed off from my side and as expected, that would be forfieted.
Payment schedule
Since only 10% of the total property value is paid to the builders, I need to pay the rest of the amount. In my case the builders have given a 12 month payment schedule with payments being due every quarter. So, I checked the amounts and timeline. I also checked the bill generation date and the bill due date. So, on the generation date, the builders will generate the bill and send it to me and then I will have a couple of weeks to make the payment. If I don’t pay within those couple of weeks (defined in the due date), I will be charged penalties.
Penalties on Late Payment
Now, although I don’t plan to miss any of my payments, I still would check this part of the agreement to get an idea what territory I am getting into. For my case, teh builders were following SBI standard interest rates with additional 2.5% interest on that. I also checked the charges on dishonouring of check or non payment as well. It was pretty standard stuff.
Posession Date
This is important. This is the date before which the sale deed has to get executed. So, as a buyer, this date ensures that I will get the property before this date. Now, obviously this is a couple of years after what the builders have promised, but then this is considering any issues that might arise during the construction and might delay the project (like COVID-19). So, to be on the safe side, builders put buffer time on the officially promised posession date.
Penalties on Late Posession
Now just like if I make late payments I have to pay a fine to the developers. Similarly, if the developers delay the handover beyond the promised posession date, they will have to pay penalties to me. This is not something I expect, but again. It is good to know what will happen in a ‘What if?’ kind of a situation. | https://medium.com/@aayusharyan/i-am-buying-a-liability-agreement-of-sale-part-1-4c1c82174ea4 | ['Aayush Sinha'] | 2021-08-27 11:32:51.645000+00:00 | ['Property', 'Personal Finance', 'Legal', 'India', 'Money'] |
Setting The Trajectory | Insights from the first decade of our Republic
I’ve been reading Joseph Ellis’ Founding Brothers, a book about the first decade of the United States. Ellis, who wrote a National Book Award-winning bio on Jefferson, did this volume as a follow up, no doubt because of his love for that period, but probably also to utilize all the research he’d dug up to produce the first book.
Ellis argues that of all the decades in our history, the first was preeminent in importance because it set the trajectory our country would take. From the manner in which conflicts were resolved to the manner in which power was wielded, there is probably a measure of truth to Ellis’ assessment.
Take, for example, the matter of Washington stepping down as president after two terms. This was unheard of in the era of monarchies. King George III called Washington the greatest man ever if he could do that. Well, he did it. The torch was passed to another, John Adams. It was unprecedented, but served as just one example of how things were different over here. Instead of being about power, Washington’s presidency was about service.
The book begins with and account of the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. It’s inconceivable today that a sitting Vice President would kill a man in a duel. The significance of the Burr-Hamilton event is this: even though Burr won he lost. When he shot Hamilton, his reputation was shot. The real significance is that the old order, the code of the duel, and all those “gentlemanly” things that were vestiges of the old British ways, fell to the wayside and from this instance on were no longer to be a part of the New America.
Another major chapter in the book is about the manner in which the founding fathers avoided resolving the slave issue. In thinking about how to tell it I was reminded of a dream I once had.
In the dream there was a giant tortoise in my small house. It was making a mess as turtles do, but it was also so enormous that I could not get it out of the house because it was wider now than the doors. I was in despair, and I prayed to God for help. A ray of light came down from above and shone on the tortoise, and almost immediately the critter began to become translucent, then transparent and a misty nothing… but just before disappearing altogether, she gave birth to four more baby turtles which were just so cute. Then I woke up.
The meaning of the dream for me was this: deal with a bad habit or situation when it is small and you can maybe get rid of it, but allow it to stick around and you have a major problem on your hands. The only way to get rid of that tortoise would have been to tear a wall out.
Well, the slave issue was not cute like those little baby turtles, but it was a much smaller problem in 1790 than in 1850. The founding fathers would have been better off facing it, and dealing with it while there were fewer slaves and a lesser economic impact. Instead, though they knew sooner or later it was going to tear the fabric of the Republic, they shuttled it off for another time the way many groups and individuals deal with their problems. Try to put a good face on it, try not to make waves, and hand it off to the next generation. (Sound familiar?)
For sure reading Founding Brothers has me eager to find the Jefferson book by Ellis. I very much enjoyed David McCullough’s John Adams a couple years ago and recommend it to you as well for an intro to this period of our history. They were remarkable times and remarkable men. They were not passive about the world they lived in. The issues they wrestled with, and how they resolved them, set the tone for what made America the influential nation it later became. | https://ennyman.medium.com/setting-the-trajectory-c616ed9f5161 | ['Ed Newman'] | 2018-08-20 19:36:33.313000+00:00 | ['Hamilton', 'American History', 'History', 'Remarkable Times'] |
Patriots vs Dolphins Free Monday Night Football Pick, 12–11–2017 | Free NFL Spread Pick by Chris Coleman of ATS Experts
New England Patriots (10–2) vs Miami Dolphins (5–7)
Date: December 11th, 2017
Game Time: 8:30 pm
NFL Odds: Dolphins +11, 48
A pair of AFC East teams squares off on Monday Night Football in South Beath when the New England Patriots travel south to take on the Miami Dolphins. The Patriots are (8–4 ATS) and (6–0 SU) on the road while the Dolphins are (4–6–2 ATS) and (3–3 SU) at home.
The Patriots are looking to wrap up their 9th straight AFC East title but they will have to do it without Rob Gronkowski. Gronk was suspended for a late hit on Buffalo rookie cornerback Tre’Davious White last week but the Patriots won the game 23–3. The Patriots defense was the story in this game, holding the Bills to just 85 passing yards.
On the season, New England is averaging 413.2 yards per game (1st), 292.6 passing yards (1st) and 120.6 rushing yards (9th). They are allowing 375.7 yards per game (28th), 254.9 passing yards (29th) and 120.8 rushing yards (26th) with just 18.6 points per game allowed (9th).
Tom Brady has 11 touchdown passes and one interception in his last four games versus Miami.
On the other side of this matchup is the Miami Dolphins who have had a disappointing season, but finally got back onto the winning track in their last game. The offense got clicking, and the defense stepped up against a very bad Broncos offense and that led to a 35–9 victory. Prior to their win vs Denver, they had lost five games in a row, mostly because of the defensive struggles.
Miami has struggled under the bright lights this season, losing all three prime-time matchups and getting outscored 112–45.
Once again, the question is whether or not any team can beat New England? Sure, this is a division game and the Patriots will be without Gronk but it’s next man up for this team. I just don’t see how Miami can cover even this large of a spread at home? Brady didn’t have a good performance last week in Buffalo so I fully expect him to bounce back. I’ll lay the -11 points and back the Patriots en route to another AFC East division title.
Patriots vs Dolphins Pick: Patriots -11 | https://medium.com/verifiedcappers/patriots-vs-dolphins-free-monday-night-football-pick-12-11-2017-b9e2b8700a0c | ['Ats Experts', 'Sports Professionals Network'] | 2017-12-11 14:02:37.348000+00:00 | ['NFL', 'New England Patriots', 'Miami Dolphins', 'Sports Betting', 'Gambling'] |
5 Hats You Need to Wear to Crush Your Entrepreneurial Goals | 5 Hats You Need to Wear to Crush Your Entrepreneurial Goals
Focusing too intently might be ruining your productivity.
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
Let’s be real y’all — being an entrepreneur isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. As Thomas Frank pointed out in his recent YouTube video, 5 Things I’d Tell My 19-Year-Old Self About Running a Business, every entrepreneur has to wear several hats. Whether that’s shifting between creative and managerial tasks, or something completely different, every business owner/entrepreneur/self-employed individual different modes of working.
After recently starting a blog, I’ve felt this on all sides. Not only are we responsible for the upkeep and layout of our website, but we’re also responsible for managing our social media, responding to people’s questions and comments, and let’s not forget actually writing the blog.
“mode”, noun, a way or manner in which something occurs or is experienced, expressed, or done.
What’s important is that we try to shift through different modes on purpose. This list of the five modes of entrepreneurship is meant to help you do that. It’s meant not only to remind you of your responsibilities towards yourself and your business but of the different modes, you have the opportunity to flip between to be the most effective and happy.
1. The exploration hat
The exploration mode is the mode that every future entrepreneur goes through before they even decide what they’re going to try doing with their life. In the exploration mode, an individual will think of ideas. They’ll lay down before they fall asleep every night and think about all of the things they want to do, all of the places they want to go, the person they want to be and the things they want to create.
“explore”, verb, inquire into or discuss (a subject or issue) in detail.
In the exploration mode, the creator must let themself think and dream and feel without a filter. You must not control what is going through or prevent something from passing through your mind. Anything goes. Let it through, let it pass, or let it stick. Don’t lock yourself down on a particular idea — open yourself up to a vast array of possibilities.
For my own business and entrepreneurial pursuits, I’ll often put this down in my calendar as “tinkering time”. This is what Barbara Oakley, author of A Mind For Numbers, refers to as diffused thinking, as opposed to the productive focused thinking. Exploration mode is where it all begins — which kind of makes it the most important. If it’s not where you start, if it’s not where you begin, then everything you produce can still be good, but it will miss a key ingredient — unbridled creativity.
2. The brainstorming hat
Now you have your ideas. Once you have your ideas, your unbridled and unfiltered list of things you’ve come up with, you have to get into actionable steps. Now that you’ve decided what your options are, you have to pick something. The brainstorming mode isn’t as much of a creative process, but a revisionary process. Once you have your ideas, you have to decide which you are going to use in your life/business/etc.
Whether it be throwing your ideas out on Reddit (my favorite pass-time) and waiting for feedback or talking with a few friends on Skype, get your ideas out into the world in a brainstorming and experiential way.
“brainstorming”, noun, group discussion to produce ideas or solve problems.
But, as you can see in the definition of brainstorming brought to us by Google, brainstorming is about more than just yourself. When you have a brainstorm, you have to have a whirlwind of brains, plural. We often mistake brainstorming for sitting in our room by ourselves — but that’s just thinking, maybe it’s idea generation.
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” — Maya Angelou
To truly brainstorm, you have to work with other people. Whether it be throwing your ideas out on Reddit and waiting for feedback or talking with a few friends on Skype, get your ideas out into the world in a brainstorming and experiential way. I’ve talked with friends over the phone, co-workers over Zoom, and family at the dining table and come up with more ideas than I ever could on my own. When you have your idea and are ready to get to work, don’t forget to bring your crew together and get some ideas.
This is also the mode where you’re researching, reading articles, books, etc. on what you’re looking into as a potential idea to proceed on. And if you don’t have anybody to brainstorm with about your ideas, write a letter to yourself. In brainstorming mode, your mind is testing out ideas, deciding how to proceed.
3. The monk hat
Monk mode is the third mode and it builds off of the results of your two previous modes. Once you have your ideas, and once you’ve filtered those ideas through your mind and the minds of others, you have to apply them to your life and your model of business.
“A monk may be a person who decides to dedicate his life to serving all other living beings, or to be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live his or her life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many religions and in philosophy.” (“Monk”, from Wikipedia)
In her TED talk, “Want to be more creative? Go for a walk”, Marilly Oppezzo talks about something called “appropriate novelty”. Creative ideas can come from anywhere, but they must be practical.
“Monk mode will increase your resilience and independence. If you were able to cut people and pastimes from your life, what does it say about you?” — Lucio Buffalmano
The monk mode of the entrepreneur’s creative process is the most spiritual and introspective of the modes. In the monk mode, an artist is focused on what is most important for their life, mission, and goals right now. I write often about my commitments list, but there’s another thing that I use to postpone my goals and dreams. I have a chart with a timeline for the next eleven years of my life.
“I plan to live a few months in San Diego, I plan to pursue a certain career, I want to join a climbing gym. These three goals, among the dozens of other goals I have in this chart and in my head, are no less real or exciting to me as those I’m pursuing now. They’re simply not those I’m ready to pursue. I have intuited and factually know that the time is not right.” (From my 2019 personal journal)
I figured that out in monk mode. Monk mode is when we can journal, when we can process where we are, get in touch with how we’re feeling and who we need to be, and what we need to be pursuing to keep ourselves interested and passionate about the work that we’re doing.
4. The grinding/working hat
Now you’ve thought of ideas, you’ve filtered the ideas, and you’ve ideologically processed them, now you’re ready to work through those tasks — and once you’re done, you’re going to see the results. This is often our least favorite mode, but it can be one of the most important ones. It becomes especially productive when you invite creativity into it. [“grind”, noun, hard dull work.]
“Greatness is sifted through the grind, therefore don’t despise the hard work now for surely it will be worth it in the end.” ― Sanjo Jendayi
This is that 4-hour block of time you’ll spend designing your website or the 10-hour day you’ll spend rounding up a list of clients who might actually be willing to speak to you. It’s the weekend you spend in constant writing mode, or the endless research hole you go down into for your next piece.
This is where the real work happens — and you’re prepared for it. Don’t forget to grind. Otherwise, everything else you’ve done in preparation for your work is kind of a moot point. This is where I will put about a five-hour block of time into my calendar where I’ll go either to a quiet coffee shop, the library or somewhere else I know I won’t be disturbed.
5. The executing hat
In this mode, you have to use your executive functions to say “yes” to the things you need to say “yes” to and “no” to the things that you need to prevent from cluttering your schedule at the current time in your career path/year/etc. [“execute”, verb, carry out, or put into effect (a plan, order, or course of action).]
Executing mode is all about taking your ideas that align with your current stage of life and your current goals, and making them happen. In executing mode, you’re emailing people, you’re making phone calls, you’re filling out your calendar, creating a clear and actionable task list, and preparing to sit down and work.
Not only are we responsible for the upkeep and layout of our website, but we’re also responsible for managing our social media, responding to people’s questions and comments, and let’s not forget actually writing the blog.
For me, executing mode is when I’m finally able to check off my task. It’s where I finally hit send on the email, or add the meeting I wanted to schedule to my calendar, buy the product/membership, and more.
Execution mode is all about getting balls rolling, whether that be planning for you to do the work or delegating to someone else. This is where stuff gets done. Save this mode for when you’re brave enough to really do something. This is when you buy the domain name, publish the blog, outline the next post. When you finish in this mode, the task is complete, the plan has been executed, and it’s time to move onto the next amazing project. | https://medium.com/swlh/5-hats-you-need-to-wear-to-crush-your-entrepreneurial-goals-3db159e33d68 | ['Katie E. Lawrence'] | 2020-12-24 19:02:07.738000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Productivity', 'Startup', 'Technology'] |
SCI Daily Crypto Digest: Bear Trap! | July 23, 2018
Image from Coindesk
Bitcoin (BTC) rallied after initially correcting yesterday to the ~$7,300 price level. BTC reacted positively after the selloff, and broke out of $7,500. The cryptocurrency is now threatening the $7,700 resistance. The broader market followed BTC, pushing up market cap to $288 billion.
Support levels are at $7,500 and $7,200 while resistance levels are at $7,700 and $8,000.
*BTCPHP: 425,020 / 397,070
*ETHUSD: $468.54
*USDPHP: 53.413
*BTC market cap: $131B
*Crypto market cap: $288B
Image from coin360.io
News:
*The Business Insider reports that Coinbase has onboarded a $20 billion hedge fund through its Coinbase Prime broker business. Coinbase Prime’s services, which essentially offers the same services as a traditional prime broker such as custody and financing, makes it easier for institutional investors to get into the crypto space.
*The CME Group tweeted in that Bitcoin futures’ average daily volume rose 93% QOQ, while open interest increased by 58%. The volatility over the past quarter made futures trading attractive, since traders can profit on both directions, going short or long Bitcoin.
*Coindesk ran a feature on Chinese crypto millionaires using Bitcoin to buy real estate abroad. The article said that the Chinese are turning to foreign real estate markets to diversify their assets and use crypto, either directly or converting through an exchange dealer first, for settlement. Propy, a real estate crypto platform, said that half of its website views come from China and that they are mostly interested in US and UK locations.
SCI | buybitcoin.ph | Bitbit | Keza | Rebit.ph | https://medium.com/sci-ventures-blog/sci-daily-crypto-digest-bear-trap-4239edf64a74 | ['Jervis C. Tinimbang'] | 2018-07-23 04:50:15.595000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Fintech', 'Philippines'] |
Entrepreneurship vs Employment | Let's be really clear here if you are not born in a rich family, you don’t develop any extremely differentiate talent during a young age or your close friends/families are at the top of the game or extremely well connected an in a certain industry. You cannot choose between entrepreneurship and employment.
You have to be pragmatic and understand that your financial decisions will affect you during your whole life.
Nowadays entrepreneurship is been sells like this magic pill that can give you this amazing lifestyle with luxury, travels, chicks, and freedom. In order hand been an employee is been devalue to a phrase like ( rat race, modern slavery, extremely sadness life)
Well, neither of those positions are complete truth, let me put some salt on those wounds.
(The statistics are grim: 96% of all businesses fail within 10 years, with 80% failing within the first two years. But even the 4% that make it aren’t necessarily successful or profitable; it just means they’ve survived. Suby, Sabri. )
According to Us. Bureau of Labor Statistics Individuals held an average of 12.3 jobs from ages 18 to 52, with nearly half of these jobs held before age 25. In this news release, a job is defined as an uninterrupted period of work with a particular employer.
That means that you 96% chance of your business to fail and you will be fired from a minimum of 12 workplaces during your whole career. Anyone who tells you that any of these options are safer, or is very silly or is selling you something. The only sure thing in this life is that someday you will die.
So now that you understand that, What should be your approach?
You need both ones a soon as possible.
Why? because having both ones you increase your chances of multiple streams of income, so you don't depend completely on only one solution.
How you do it? — you invest your free time, money, and resources in some kind of side hustle while you are working for someone else.
Your first milestone while is that your business self sustains itself without you taking money from your normal salary, a second milestone that your business starts making profits.
When can you start thinking about quitting your job? — when your business brings you enough money to pay your salary as a self employee and also have left for reinvesting on it, without hurting the company.
So stop listen t all those gurus that want to paint the entrepreneurship journey as something easy like those get rich quick schemes, also stop listening to your parents or anyone that tell you that being an employee is also secure.
Data warns us of a problem we wouldn't have seen otherwise.
Take ownership of your mistakes, a don't trust anyone at first hand, look for information. | https://medium.com/@fjuanl2000/entrepreneurship-vs-employment-d776baca2d8c | ['Franco Lopez'] | 2020-09-22 07:42:15.775000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Reading', 'Employment'] |
Optimism about fighting corruption in Guyana | The average Guyanese would probably agree that corruption is pervasive and has not only impacted negatively on ourselves as individuals, our families and our communities, but also hampered national development. In recent years though, there has been a measure of optimism about the potential for a turnaround. This is strongly linked to a change in government that occurred in 2015.
Latest results from the Global Corruption Barometer
Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) broke new ground this year by including Guyana. This is an important contribution to the monitoring of corruption in the country. Some highlights from the report are:
· 40 per cent of Guyanese citizens think that corruption is decreasing;
· 67 per cent think the government is doing well in the fight against corruption;
· 82 per cent think that ordinary people can make a difference in the fight against corruption; and
· 27 per cent of public service users paid a bribe for public services in the previous 12 months.
A regime change
In 2015, a regime change came after 23 years of rule by a single political party. Signs of political corruption became more obvious the longer the party was in power, with ministers and other well-connected individuals accessing state contracts and resources inappropriately. This included the establishment of a housing scheme for themselves and paying below market rates for the lands. Criticisms of the then recently established local transparency outfit and its directors by the political class were especially harsh and personal (see, for example press reports here, here and here).
In 2015, there was great hope that the impunity enjoyed under the previous government was about to come to an end. The party that formed the new government in 2015 campaigned on an anti-corruption platform, and it promised to hold former members of government accountable for misuse of state resources. Once in government, forensic audits of state institutions were commissioned.
Addressing past abuses
The audits revealed a dismal picture of abuse of entrusted power and, although the promise to hold people accountable has not been realised as anticipated, the exposure of what went on has been enlightening for Guyanese citizens. That no one has yet been convicted is largely due to the weakened state of the public institutions, a lack of whistleblower protections, and extremely limited investigative and prosecutorial capacities.
Perhaps more of a concern than the failure to address these past violations, there have been some troubling developments under the new government. Failure to adhere to the rule of law is a common complaint and there have been new corruption scandals.
Citizens Protest Parking Meter Contract outside of City Hall (Image by Amanda Richards)
What the current government is doing
Despite this, freedom of expression and freedom to challenge the political class have improved. This is corroborated by the Global Corruption Barometer which found that 56% of the citizens believe that the media has greater freedom to investigate and report on and criticise government actions and performance. There have also been a number of positive steps taken by the new government, including:
· Making petroleum contracts publicly available;
· Dismissing employees found guilty of corruption;
· Halting a major contract for parking meters in the capital city, which violated the procurement laws, following protests by citizens;
· Re-establishing the Integrity Commission;
· Updating the code of conduct for public officials;
· Appointing an ombudsman;
· Establishing a State Assets Recovery Agency;
· Activating anti-money laundering laws;
· Passing whistleblower protection legislation; and
· Implementing several other interventions with implications for integrity in public life.
The establishment of anti-corruption agencies and the passage of laws do not necessarily mean that everything is functioning well, or that things are fully operational. These developments are still significant though, and might account for a growing optimism that ending impunity for corruption is finally possible.
Bribery challenges
One area of corruption that appears to continue unchecked is bribery. Bribery seems to have become the means by which one gets things done. Some would say that it is necessary in the prevailing environment. Though this problem is not restricted to specific institutions, the police have come in for much criticism in relation to bribery (or even extortion), as has the Guyana Revenue Authority. In recent years, some Guyana Revenue Authority workers were dismissed for such activities. To a lesser extent, disciplinary measures have also been applied in the police force.
Moving forward
While there is optimism about the fight against corruption, and about people being able to influence change, Guyana still has a long path ahead. The positive developments in recent years need to be continued, while other areas for improvement, such as compliance the law, establishment of political financing laws and ending impunity, need to be addressed. | https://voices.transparency.org/optimism-about-fighting-corruption-in-guyana-f5307f402344 | ['Troy Thomas'] | 2019-09-26 00:01:10.528000+00:00 | ['Guyana', 'Anti Corruption', 'Bribery', 'Corruption'] |
NumPy: Everything A Data Scientist Should Know | Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Numpy is one of the most used library of Python in Data Science field. In this article I’ll explain all the functions of Numpy that a Data Scientist should know. This article will outline the core features of the NumPy library.
Contents
What is Numpy?
Why we use Numpy in Python?
Advantages of Numpy library
Core features or functions of Numpy
Numpy Special Functions
What is Numpy?
NumPy is a python library used for working with arrays. It also has functions for working in domain of linear algebra, fourier transform, and matrices. NumPy was created in 2005 by Travis Oliphant. It is an open source project and you can use it freely. NumPy stands for Numerical Python.
Why we use Numpy in Python?
NumPy is an open-source numerical Python library. NumPy contains a multi-dimensional array and matrix data structures. It can be utilised to perform a number of mathematical operations on arrays such as trigonometric, statistical, and algebraic routines. Pandas objects rely heavily on NumPy objects.
Advantages of Numpy library:
The core of Numpy is its arrays. One of the main advantages of using Numpy arrays is that they take less memory space and provide better runtime speed when compared with similar data structures in python(lists and tuples). Numpy support some specific scientific functions such as linear algebra. They help us in solving linear equations. Numpy support vectorized operations, like elementwise addition and multiplication, computing Kronecker product, etc. Python lists fail to support these features. It is a very good substitute for MATLAB, OCTAVE, etc as it provides similar functionalities and supports with faster development and less mental overhead(as python is easy to write and comprehend) NumPy is very good for data analysis.
Core features or functions of Numpy
First of all , import Numpy library :
import numpy as np
Create an array of one dimension or two dimension as you want:
a = np.array([(1,2,3),(4,5,6)])
print(a)
#output will be an array of two dimensional.
Get dimensions of an array:
a = np.array([(1,2,3),(4,5,6)])
print(a.ndim)
#output : 2
Find data type of array:
a = np.array([(1,2,3),(4,5,6)])
print(a.dtype)
#ouput: int32
Find size of an array:
a = np.array([(1,2,3),(4,5,6)])
print(a.size)
#ouput : 6
Find number of rows and columns:
a = np.array([(1,2,3),(4,5,6)])
print(a.shape)
#output: (2,3) which means array has 2 rows and 3 columns
Use arange function as range and find byte size of each element:
#create an array using arange function
M = np.arange(1000)
print(M.size*M.itemsize)
#output will be like:
4000
which shows that memory occupied by numpy array
Reshape an array:
a = np.array([(1,2,3),(4,5,6)])
a = a.reshape(3,2)
print(a)
#In output we'll have an array of 3 rows and 2 columns because reshape function will change shape of array
Slicing for getting a specific element from an array:
a = np.array([(1,2,3)],(4,5,6)])
print(a[0,2])
#output: 3
print(a[1,1])
#output: 5 print(a[0:,2]) #getting 2nd element from all the rows
#output: [3 5]
Use linespace function:
#print three values between 1 to 5
b = np.linespace(1,3,5)
print(b)
#output: [1. 1.5 2. 2.5 3.]
Some Math function:
a = np.array([(1,2,3),(4,5,6)])
print(a.min())
#output: 1
print(1.max())
#output: 6
print(a.sum())
#output: 21
Sum for row and column , for that we use axis where axis = 0 means column and axis = 1 means row:
a = np.array([(1,2,3),(4,5,6)])
print(a.sum(axis=0))
#output: [4 6 8]
print(a.sum(axis=1))
#output: [6 12]
Finding Square root and Standing deviation:
#for Square root
a = np.array([(1,2,3)])
print(np.sqrt(a))
#output: [1. 1.434 1.732]
#for Standard deviation
print(np.std(a))
#output: 1.2909944
Basic Math function:
#Addition of two arrays
a = np.array([(1,2,3),(4,5,6)])
b = np.array([(1,2,3),(4,5,6)])
print(a+b)
#output: [[2 4 6]
[6 8 10]]
#Substraction of two arrays
print(a-b)
#output: [[0 0 0]
[0 0 0]]
#Multiplication of two arrays
print(a*b)
##output: [[1 4 9]
[9 16 25]] #Division of two arrays
print(a/b)
##output: [[1 1 1]
[1 1 1]]
Stacking arrays:
#vertical stacking
a = np.array([(1,2,3),(4,5,6)])
b = np.array([(1,2,3),(4,5,6)])
print(np.vstack((a,b)))
#ouput: [[1 2 3]
[3 4 5]
[1 2 3]
[3 4 5]] #horizontal Stacking
print(np.hstack((a,b)))
#output:[[1 2 3 1 2 3]
[3 4 5 3 4 5]] #column Stacking
print(np.column_stack((a,b)))
Convert whole array to a column:
a = np.array([(1,2,3),(4,5,6)])
print(a.ravel())
#output: [1 2 3 4 5 6]
Initializing Numpy array with zeros:
import numpy as np
n1 = np.zeros((2,2)) print(n1)
#output: [[0. 0.]
[0. 0.]]
Initializing Numpy array with same number:
import numpy as np
n1 = np.full((2,2),10) print(n1)
#output: [[10 10]
[10 10]]
Initializing Numpy array with random numbers:
import numpy as np
n1 = np.random.randint((1,100,5) print(n1)
#output: [10 23 56 86 51]
Numpy Special Functions
First one is any Trigonometric Function:
#for example Sine plot
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
a = np.arange(0,3*np.pi,0.1)
b = np.sin(a)
plt.plot(a,b)
plt.show()
#output will be a graph of Sine as below picture shows
Second special function is Exponential Function:
a = np.array([(1,2,3)])
print(np.exp(a))
#output: [ 2.718281 7.3890561 20.08553692]
Third special function is Logarithmic Function: | https://medium.com/python-in-plain-english/numpy-library-all-a-data-scientist-should-know-f61b159f23b1 | ['Jitendra Singh Balla'] | 2020-10-30 06:18:04.726000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Numpy', 'Python', 'Data Science'] |
Progress Report #4. (17/05/2021–23/05/2021) | (17/05/2021–23/05/2021)
Making New Strides
As pioneers of a new model of education — a decentralized and democratized system — we have continued to work behind the scenes to bring our vision to as many people as we can. We did not rest on our laurels since the last time we spoke. We know that the only way forward is, well, Forward; that is why Forward Protocol is proud of the latest strides we have made.
English Forward to be the first to integrate the Forward Protocol
English Forward is an online community of teachers and students, engaged in a symbiotic ecosystem. It is a 19-year-old platform that has seen over 300 million unique visitors in its lifetime. Most of the visitors to the English Forward platform are students from the Asia-Pacific region, especially the developing nations of East Asia. With this demographic, English Forward has already nurtured a large vibrant community that would be the ideal launchpad for a vision like ours at Forward Protocol.
Deployment on the English Forward Platform
As we aim to decentralize and democratize education, we set out to build a framework that incentivizes the transfer of knowledge using blockchain technology. Forward Protocol provides -amongst others — a blockchain reward and incentive framework to education verticals like English Forward.
Forward Platform offers a plethora of benefits to education. Consider this practical example for instance -
Anna, a student from Thailand offers to pay $20 to anyone that helps her review her IELTS sample essay for correctness. Different experts offer solutions to Anna’s problem. She then chooses the most useful solution to her problem. The person that provides the most useful solution according to Anna gets the $20 reward she initially offered. The others also get rewarded for their efforts thanks to Foward’s Protocol’s fractionalized incentive system that rewards everyone involved in the education process.
No effort goes unrewarded! That is what we are working towards here at Forward Protocol. What do you think? Does that sound like something you could get behind?
Forward Protocols runs on five smart contracts to maintain its infrastructure –
- Proof of Value-delivered
- Proof of Value
- Distributed reward/Revenue sharing
- Proof of Ownership
- Initial Knowledge Offering
Each of these proofs works to ensure equitable reward and incentive distribution, as long as learning takes place. That is the Forward Protocol vision and you can read all about it in detail here.
Our Community is Growing
Not to brag, but our hard work is starting to pay off. The Forward Protocol message continues to spread and gather steam as we near our token sale launch. Our Twitter community is now over 6000 members strong, and it will probably be more by the time you read this. Follow us to get the latest information and progress of the platform, blockchain education, and news. | https://medium.com/@forwardprotocol/weekly-update-4-a13060a1048b | ['Forward Protocol'] | 2021-07-10 21:09:37.184000+00:00 | ['Edtech', 'Integration', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Education'] |
Famous Female Lawyers | There is no question that the field of law has been male-dominated for centuries. In fact, it was not until 1870 that the first woman, Ada Kepley, graduated from law school. Even after her graduation, she was denied the opportunity to practice law as it was illegal at the time for a woman to do so. It took a change in the law before she was granted a license in 1881. Since that time, there have been many female lawyers who have blazed a trail in the legal field.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg earned her law degree from Columbia before taking positions as a law professor at Rutgers University and Columbia Law School. She was fought for gender equality, co-founding the Women’s Rights Project at the ACLU. In 1980, she became a U.S. Court of Appeals Court judge in the District of Columbia and became a United States Supreme Court Justice in 1993, serving until she passed away in 2020. She is remembered for her decisions related to women’s rights and the barriers she broke in her field.
After earning her law degree from Stanford in 1952, Sandra Day O’Conner was an attorney in Arizona and served two terms in the United States Senate. Eventually, she was appointed as a judge with the Arizona Court of Appeals. Two years later, she became the first female Supreme Court Justice, appointed by President Ronald Reagan. In her 24 years on the bench, she established herself as one of the most influential voices, retiring in 2006.
A champion for women’s rights, Gloria Allred is one of the most influential legal minds today. She has represented a wide range of clients over her 40 years in practice. She has represented women who have been the victims of sexual harassment, wrongful termination, employment discrimination, and more. She has successfully litigated cases for women against such high-profile celebrities as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Herman Cain, Anthony Weiner, and more.
, the first female United States Attorney General, earned her law degree from Harvard Law School in 1963, one of only a handful of women in the class. She began her career at a small law firm in Miami as larger firms refused to hire her before moving into private practice. She began working for the Dade County State Attorney’s Office in the 1970s where she completely revamped the juvenile department. Protecting children was the main focus of her career, often connecting crime to social conditions like poverty and poor education. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton as Attorney General, holding the position longer than any other Attorney General in the 20th century. She died of complications of Parkinson’s disease in 2016.
Kamala Harris earned her law degree from the University of California Hastings School of Law. She eventually became Deputy District Attorney for California and the District Attorney for San Francisco as well as Attorney General for California, the first woman of color to hold those positions. In 2020, she became the Vice President of the United States, becoming the first woman, the first person of color, and the first South Asian American woman to hold that office.
These women are just a few of those who have blazed a trail of success in the legal field, opening doors for many who followed in their footsteps. | https://medium.com/@ayanafree/famous-female-lawyers-25008eec952 | ['Ayana Free'] | 2021-12-28 19:27:33.797000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Lawyers'] |
Aloe Vera and the Void | (Notes — Transgender people are sometimes asked to bless people as it is believed that their blessings have merit.
- Guru-Chela translates as Teacher-Student or Master-Disciple. This relationship carries a tradition of community, and the chelas often live with/near the guru.
- The transgender community in India is very marginalised, and has limited access to employment opportunities and housing. Transgender women often depend on begging and/or sex work for income.
- The caste system in India is a system of social stratification which is centuries-old, and there are many theories about its origin. Under this system, people were categorised by their occupations. Individuals were born into, worked, married, ate, and died within those unalterable groups, there was no social mobility. This inherited, physically invisible difference eventually became discrimination.
Though in present day, caste discrimination has been outlawed and reforms are in place, the political and social force of this system still prevails.) | https://medium.com/kadak/aloe-vera-and-the-void-8000fbac51fa | ['Aarthi Parthasarathy'] | 2019-03-01 06:19:47.424000+00:00 | ['Bangalore', 'Lgbtqia', 'Transgender', 'Gender Bender 2016', 'Kadak Collective'] |
How Venezuelans use Twitter to protest the ongoing humanitarian crisis | Hashtags expressing criticism of the Maduro-led government’s insufficient allocation of funds to public services were able to break through Nicolás Maduro-aligned accounts’ dominance on Venezuelan Twitter in 2020. Even though pro-regime hashtags were still more prevalent among the country’s trending topics overall, the mere fact that hashtags critical of the regime appeared in the trending topics is a sign that pro-Maduro actors’ attempts to maintain strict control over social media conversations occasionally falter.
According to ongoing monitoring by the DFRLab and its partner organization ProBox, hashtags about problems with public services started to gain prominence in April, one month after the first cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in the country. In all, 267 different hashtags linked to protests trended on Twitter between January 1 and September 30, 2020 (some of them trended more than once). Among those hashtags, #SinLuz (“Power Blackout”) was the one that reached the trending topics most often, a total of 16 times. The research found that Venezuelan media outlets and leaders opposing the Maduro regime — such as former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles — were among the most influential accounts using the hashtag #SinLuz.
Corruption and the mismanagement of public funds by the regime, as well as the economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union against Nicolás Maduro and his closest allies, has deepened the economic and humanitarian crisis in the country. Access to public services has been hit particularly hard in 2020 amid the pandemic. For instance, in the Andean states of Táchira, Merida, and Trujillo, the regime recently announced a “campaign” to distribute firewood due to the scarcity of gas. A recent blackout — one of many — on September 23 affected 19 states, including the country’s capital Caracas, which had no power supply for more than 10 hours.
Demonstrators reacted by blocking the streets temporarily or protesting peacefully from their homes by banging together pots and pans — a popular form of protest known as cacerolazos in Spanish. The Observatorio Venezolano de Conflictividad Social (OVCS), an NGO that monitors human rights in Venezuela, reported that 7,004 protests occurred over the course of 2020, 1,193 of them in September alone. OVCS also found that topics such as public service failures as well as lack of access to fuel, health, and food triggered 91 percent of the September protests, of which 394 of them were related to failures in the public electrical system. Moreover, OVCS highlighted that regime security forces blocked and repressed 74 protests in September, leaving one dead, 52 injured, and 233 arrested.
ProBox’s analysis
ProBox monitors daily Twitter activity to identify, record and process the top political and social trends in Venezuela. These trends are then divided by categories, subcategories, and sectors. Likewise, it uses an in-house tool that measures inauthentic activity based in 12 indicators.
On Twitter, ProBox analyzed a sample of 1,134,966 tweets out of more than 2 million between January 1 and September 30, 2020 related to demonstrations on topics such as food, human rights, education, health, and public services. ProBox labeled the posts about the demonstrations under “social protests,” a category that has been growing since the start of the pandemic in Venezuela.
In March, 22 hashtags related to “social protests” trended in the country. This number increased to 63 hashtags trending in April. The number of tweets also increased: in March, there were 107,100 tweets mentioning these hashtags. In April, they jumped more than threefold to 331,500 tweets.
Narratives linked to protests, however, showed lower activity compared to tweets classified by ProBox as oficialista — a term in Spanish that includes official regime narratives — which have been more active than other issues in the Venezuelan Twitter conversation. In March, 51 pro-regime hashtags reached the trending topics, increasing to 69 in April. Between January and September 2020, more than 7 million monthly tweets on average were connected to the oficialistas, which is around 30 times more than those recorded about social protests. ProBox found that hashtags about social protests were the second most used during 2020 in the Venezuelan Twittersphere, only surpassed by hashtags promoted by the Maduro regime and its supporters.
In 65 percent of the pro-Maduro posts, however, ProBox found signs of inauthenticity. ProBox identified 361,126 accounts that used the hashtags categorized under social protests. Of these, 12,265 were identified as bot-like accounts, responsible for generating 27.95 percent of the total tweets (percentage of inauthenticity, as shown in the table below). ProBox found that the analyzed hashtags trended the most during August (64 times), followed by April (63), May (46), and September (46). | https://medium.com/dfrlab/how-venezuelans-use-twitter-to-protest-the-ongoing-humanitarian-crisis-db46611b5ee8 | [] | 2020-12-16 16:20:14.266000+00:00 | ['Human Rights', 'Venezuela', 'Protest', 'Twitter', 'Social Media'] |
Fundraising Solutions for Edhi Foundation | The Edhi Foundation is a non-profit social welfare program in Pakistan, founded by Abdul Sattar Edhi in 1951. The Edhi Foundation provides 24-hour emergency assistance across the nation of Pakistan and abroad. The Foundation provides, among many other services, a shelter for the destitute, free hospitals and medical care, drug rehabilitation services, and national and international relief efforts. Its main focuses are Emergency Services, Orphans, Handicapped Persons, Shelters, Education, Healthcare, International Community Centers, Blood & Drug Bank, air ambulance services, Marine And Coastal Services.
Edhi until his death on 8 July 2016 was the head of the organization. After his death, there is a gradual decrease in funds. So, being a part of the nation, I and my fellows decided to come up with different ways to raise the funds. The three ways that we followed were:
1. Collection of money at Public Places:
To collect money y visiting different places. We went to different people and told them about the current condition of the foundation and asked them to donate the money. For this purpose, we arranged a box for collection.
During collection
This way helped us to collect a vast amount.
2. Awareness to university students:
We decided to start a campaign to aware people about the decrease in funds. For this purpose, we made charts and went to 2 universities “COMSATS” and “Punjab University”.
Many students decided to take part in our campaign. Some students funded as well.
3. Donated money online:
We decided to collect money on a monthly basis from our parents and from our own pocket money to donate online.
This was the way through which we donated online.
“You have two hands. One to help yourself and the second to help others.” | https://medium.com/@lovelymanahil/fundraising-solutions-for-edhi-foundation-a1a6a9ed1802 | ['Manahil Nasir'] | 2019-08-02 12:32:34.294000+00:00 | ['Help', 'Support', 'Fundraising Advice', 'Fundraising Ideas', 'Fundraising'] |
Staying Sober After the Loss of My Cat | I got Lucius at a farm on my way home from work one day. It was a rainy September day and a coworker had mentioned that there was a family giving away kittens. I had wanted a cat for quite some time, and with my wedding coming up in less than a month, I thought the timing was perfect. My then fiancé/current husband and I were unsure about whether or not we wanted to have children at the time. I was 23 and he was 25, and we only knew that we loved each other and wanted to spend our lives together. I thought raising a cat together would be a wonderful experience and bring even more joy to our lives. I was absolutely right about that, but I wasn’t prepared for how much it would hurt to have to say goodbye to him 14 years later….
Lucius was such a sweet cat. He was playful, affectionate, and goofy. He loved to play, especially with those sticks with feathers at the end of them! We’d hold the stick up in the air and he’d jump so high to grab the little feather with his claws. We often did this whenever we had company because we were so proud of how high our kitty could jump. People were always impressed and delighted by it.
He had some funny quirks as well. He liked to eat catnip, not just roll in it. He hated the sound of anything that rattled. And he was terrified of laser pointers…for some reason. We were never sure why, but we discovered that randomly after getting him a laser pointer for Christmas one year. He didn’t want to chase it like most other cats do. He would just run away from the little red dot and hide upstairs immediately! We got rid of it after he did that a few times.
A few weeks ago, we noticed Lucius was sneezing a little bit, but we really didn’t think anything of it because he seemed perfectly healthy otherwise. His breathing sounded fine and he didn’t have a runny nose or anything like that. He was eating and drinking normally, sitting with us on the couch. He even chased our son’s mechanical lizard toy around the kitchen one night! We chalked the sneezing up to dust from the furnace running since he seemed fine.
Then, on Friday night last week, my husband called me upstairs. Lucius was in the office and was breathing heavily and making a funny noise. I figured he had a bad cold and he probably needed an antibiotic. I called our vet and asked if I could bring him in that afternoon, but they said they were too busy and suggested we call another vet if it couldn’t wait until Monday. I didn’t want to risk his cold getting worse, so I called around to other veterinarians. Finally, I found one that could see him in the morning. I figured that would be soon enough. We brought Lucius’ food and water upstairs and made a comfortable bed for him with some blankets. He had stopped making the funny noise, but his breathing was still labored. My husband and I checked on him throughout the evening. He mostly slept.
In the morning, Lucius was still breathing funny and he didn’t want his food or water. He hadn’t eaten or drank anything the night before as far as we could tell either. He also didn’t want his morning treats. And when he meowed, I noticed it sounded different. But he still seemed alert and he was moving around on his own, so I still wasn’t too worried. I was just glad we had an appointment with the vet so we could find out what was wrong and get him healthy again.
My husband put Lucius into his carrier and I headed out the door with him. I remember telling my husband, “I’ll probably be about an hour, maybe less. I’ll keep you updated.” I was completely unprepared for what was coming.
I arrived at the vet and called to let them know I was in the parking lot with Lucius (because Covid precautions). They called me back a few minutes later and said to bring him in. The vet tech asked me a few questions about his condition and asked if I could give him medicine at home if needed. I said that I could, then she took Lucius in the carrier to the exam room and told me the vet would call me when he was finished. I went back out to my car to wait.
Those 5–10 minutes while I was in my car are the last thing I remember clearly. My phone rang and the vet asked me to come inside. He was standing in the lobby when I walked in and he immediately said, “I’m sorry, but your kitty is not doing well.” My heart sank, but I thought maybe he meant he needed surgery or some other kind of big treatment to get better. Then, the vet said, “He’s trying to die and he’s suffocating. The most humane thing to do would be to put him down.” Shock and horror. I brought my sweet kitty and companion of 14 years in for what I thought would be a quick visit for some antibiotics to make him feel better and now I was being told he was dying, suffocating, needed to be put down. I started sobbing immediately. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It made no sense! I told the vet I had had him since he was a kitten, that I’d gotten him just before my husband and I were married. The vet seemed truly sympathetic, but he said there was nothing he could do and that suffocating was a terrible way for a cat to die. I told him I needed to call my husband.
The rest was a blur. I think I was in shock from the moment he told me Lucius was dying. I couldn’t think straight. All I knew was that I couldn’t let him suffer and I wouldn’t let him die alone either.
My husband got there about 20 minutes later. By then, I was sitting in a private room with Lucius on my lap. The vet tech had wrapped him in a towel and he had a catheter placed in his arm to make the injection easier. His breathing was still labored and I think they had given him something already to relax him because he seemed really calm. They gave us some time to say our goodbyes to Lucius, but it went so fast. Before I knew it, the vet was walking into the room with the syringe and he knelt down in front of me. He explained that it was an overdose of an anesthetic that would cause my cat to fall asleep and die quickly and painlessly. My husband pet his head as the vet administered the injection. He twitched once as the fluid started to go into his arm and then he was gone. I felt him go limp in my arms and sobbed. My husband and I stayed with his body and cried together for a while. When we finally pulled ourselves away, we were both so shaken and raw. It was all I could do to make out the check to pay for the “procedure” and his cremation costs. My husband placed his empty carrier in the trunk of our car and we drove home in silence.
My cat Lucius wasn’t the first pet I have lost, but it was the hardest pet loss I have faced so far. I wasn’t prepared for it at all and, although I am doing much better now, I am still trying to make sense of what happened.
After we returned home, my husband and I were destroyed. We could barely do anything. We tried in vain to distract ourselves. I barely ate or slept for three days. The sadness came in waves, and I sobbed at random when each wave of sadness reached its peak. Everywhere I turned in our house reminded me of Lucius. His food bowl, his basket, his toys, his favorite spots to snuggle…I couldn’t escape the reminders. Late at night on the day after he died, my husband and I went around the house and lovingly placed our kitty’s things in a box, then put it on a shelf in the garage. It was heartbreaking.
Someone told me, the first few days are the hardest, and they were absolutely right. I wanted to drink SO badly! But instead, I allowed myself to feel it all. I was in so much pain for those first few days, but every day it has gotten a little easier. I still miss my cat, but I am eating, sleeping, and functioning again. I made it through the hardest days of grief without alcohol and I am so grateful for that.
How do you survive a loss like this without drinking? I don’t have a simple answer, but I can tell you that my spirituality and the coping techniques I have developed in the first months of my sobriety had a lot to do with it. If you’re struggling with losing a pet right now, I am so sorry. I don’t think there’s any one right way to get through it, but here are a few suggestions based on my experience:
Read something inspirational or comforting. Every morning and throughout the day when I was feeling really low, I would turn to the Bible. The verses that came up randomly each day were oddly specific to my situation and, whether that was a coincidence or not, I found that so comforting.
Write about how you’re feeling. Especially early on, I found it easier to write about the feelings I was having than to describe them. It gave me a way to organize my thoughts about what had happened and I think it calmed me, too.
Pray or meditate. I prayed for strength often as I rode out the difficult emotions that took over after I lost my cat. Each time I prayed, I felt a little better.
Keep your “why” in sight at all times. I reminded myself why I got sober in the first place more in the days after losing my cat than I probably have in the past 5 months. My emotional state was so raw and unstable that I had to keep doing this. Write it out, post it somewhere visible, talk about it with someone…just never forget why you quit.
Reach out to friends and family for support. I really went all out with this because I was an absolute wreck and I knew I needed lots of support if I was going to make it through this loss sober. I told my parents what had happened, I told my sisters, and I talked with friends, I posted on Facebook, I posted in a support group on Reddit, and I wrote this blog post. Having so many outlets helped me a lot, especially when people shared that they had been through a pet loss as well and could relate to my pain. It made me feel less alone.
Know that your pet wouldn’t want you to drink. I knew that Lucius wouldn’t have wanted me to return to the dark place that I had so painstakingly worked to escape. He loved me, after all! Drinking also wouldn’t bring him back or make me feel any better in the end. Staying sober through the pain was important for me to honor his memory.
I hope that this post has brought you some comfort, inspiration, and strength today! If you’ve lost a pet, I am so sorry for your loss. Please be kind to yourself as you work through the grief.
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.” -Isaiah 9:2 | https://medium.com/@soberspiritualandfit/staying-sober-after-the-loss-of-my-cat-9642adbe8ea0 | ['Heidi J.'] | 2020-12-28 18:53:58.375000+00:00 | ['Recovery', 'Pet Loss', 'Alcoholism', 'Relapse Prevention', 'Grief And Loss'] |
How the BTS Universe Successfully Engages Thousands of Fans | Images from BigHit’s official Twitter.
BTS is known around the world for their relatable music, dynamic concert performances, and their passionate fanbase. But another large element behind this successful group of young men is the “BTS Universe” (BU), a fictional world with a narrative that depicts characters inspired by the BTS members. The BU started with just a handful of music videos, but it later went cross-platform with the introduction of the “HwaYangYeonHwa Notes,” small booklets of text included in the group’s Love Yourself albums. Additional music videos and short films fed the storyline, and BigHit Entertainment recently released a physical HYYH The Notes book and launched a webtoon on Naver titled “Save Me.”
Dedicated fans spend hours deconstructing and analyzing this narrative, which spawns countless Twitter threads, blog posts, and YouTube videos about the storyline. Although the narrative began in 2015, fans are still consistently involved in discussing this story as new information continues to come out. It’s clear that the BU successfully intrigues fans, pulling them into the narrative and the world of theories as deeply as they wish to go — but what lies beneath this narrative’s ability to draw people in?
In his book on writing technique titled The Emotional Craft of Fiction, author Donald Maass writes, “To entertain, a story must present novelty, challenge, and/or aesthetic value.” Maass encourages writers to “force the reader to figure something out,” because that will both engage the reader and make it more likely they’ll remember the story. The BTS Universe, though not strictly a narrative in the form of a book, manages to hit on all of these points.
The BU is a novel concept, a first for K-Pop, as no other group has ventured into storytelling at this level, across this many platforms, and with this level of cohesiveness before. In addition to music videos, short films, texts, and the webtoon, the BU was further expanded by the Smeraldo blog, which provided lore surrounding the smeraldo flower, a fictional flower that appears in BTS’s storyline. Smeraldo was also used to name the Twitter account that promotes the webtoon and the HYYH The Notes book. Additionally, a real Smeraldo shop that sold special flower-themed merchandise opened at the group’s Love Yourself Seoul concerts. The Smeraldo tie-in bridged the gap between the BU world and our own, adding yet another layer of interactivity and immersion. Fans are captivated by the level of detail and amount of content that’s been put into the BU.
The challenge of the BU lies in its storytelling. The story is fleshed out mainly in the “HYYH Notes,” which are epistolary in nature. Each note bears a name and a date, but despite the three albums’ worth of Notes and the full-length HYYH The Notes 1 book we have so far, the full story is yet unknown. Events that take place in the Notes sometimes appear in videos or the webtoon, but no medium gives the full picture. Gaps in the narrative leave fans to put the pieces together themselves and to theorize about the missing portions, symbolism, and character motives. It’s particularly effective since bits of the story are released only periodically, intriguing fans to wait for the next piece to drop. BTS’s content is often released in media res, effectively drawing fans in with the promise that more of the backstory will be revealed later.
An additional challenge exists in the outside sources that occasionally influence BTS’s work. With the release of title track “Blood, Sweat & Tears” off their 2016 album WINGS, the band noted the influence of Demian, a German Bildungsroman by Hermann Hesse. Later, BigHit Entertainment’s official shop released a book bundle that included Demian as well as Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving and Murray Stein’s Jung’s Map of the Soul, giving fans even more to connect to BTS’s releases. With their upcoming release bearing the title Map of the Soul: Persona, it’s clear that fans will have even more material to unravel.
When it comes to aesthetics, there’s much to appreciate in BTS’s music videos and short films, which are all shot cinematically and with great care to detail. Both the visual storytelling and the aesthetically pleasing videos serve to hold the audience’s attention. Since BTS’s content provides a long-running story rich in symbols and connected themes, fans are encouraged to re-watch past videos to look for information they may have missed. Truly, by hitting all three points of novelty, challenge, and aesthetics and utilizing so many forms of media, BigHit ensures that fans stay engaged, and when we stay engaged, we develop deeper attachments.
Maass touches on emotional attachments to fiction in his book, discussing how psychology’s affective disposition theory explains why readers become emotionally involved — we tend to make moral judgments about characters and attach emotions to them as a result. If we feel something in relation to a fictional character, we’re that much more bonded to them and the story.
From the very start of the BU, even before it was billed as the BU, BTS’s characters played into disposition theory. In the first string of BU music videos including “I Need U” and “Run,” the members of the group are shown as innocent but troubled youth, with each character confronting his own struggles. At the time, fans had nothing more to go on than the music videos, but these videos served as a great emotional hook. Fans could relate to some of the realistic characters and sympathize with others because of how they were depicted — we judged them to be good characters, despite their bad circumstances. Creating relatable and likable characters is one huge step in the direction of successful emotional attachment.
What makes the experience even more emotionally invested for fans is that the fictional characters are portrayed by the real BTS members. They use their real names for these characters, and occasionally real personality traits bleed over into their fictional counterparts. Fans who already have an attachment to the real BTS will more easily attach to this fictional story and world. This ease of attachment eliminates a hurdle in traditional fiction writing, because in a book, the characters are unknown. In the BU, however, they’re unknown and revealed only incrementally, but they are presented in a familiar form.
With so many sources of information and a slew of gaps to fill in, the BU allows fans to play an active role in the group’s narrative. Other K-Pop releases may be momentarily engaging, but if there’s not much to mull over, we’re not as likely to keep thinking about them and may lose interest. But the BTS Universe is special because it extends its storytelling beyond just a music video, or even a series of videos, enabling fans to actively engage and solidifying the fans’ attachment to the series, the characters, and the members of BTS themselves. Maass may be talking about writing novels, but his formula for effective, engaging fiction concisely explains why so many of us are willing participants in this cross-platform fictional universe.
Interested in learning more about the BU? I’ve opened up my website, The BTS Effect, where most of my BTS-related content lives! | https://medium.com/bangtan-journal/how-the-bts-universe-successfully-engages-thousands-of-fans-78152ad8338f | ['Courtney Lazore'] | 2019-12-03 14:51:01.913000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Music', 'Kpop', 'Bts', 'Bts Army'] |
Leading a Data Science Team when you are not a Data Scientist | This was me when I took a position managing a data science team. My background is in social science and policy. I never coded before outside of some Stata for my masters degree (and the use of “coding” in Stata is arguable) and most of my math and statistics ware based on social science research. Honestly though, I usually leaned more on qualitative methods for my research and work.
Now I was sitting down with a team trying to understand how they were pulling together data and compiling it into dashboards. Not only did I need to understand this in quick order, I was expected to help them do their jobs better and add value for the organization. I wasn’t really certain where to begin.
Luckily, I had recently began a doctorate program and had been getting more interested in performance measurements, evidence-based policy, and the realm of data analysis. This had at least made me familiar with the term ”data science”.
Additionally, I had a good plan for myself coming into this position. I built this plan based on The First 90 Days by Micheal Watkins. One of the key takeaways is to set a learning schedule for yourself.
This does three important things. First, it ensures you are intentionally learning about the people, things, and relationships that you need to learn in your new job. Second, it allows your new team to see that you are coming in with an open mind to learn from them, rather than just thinking you know it all already. Lastly, it gives you time and space in your day to really dive into learning what you team is doing and how they are doing it.
Take advantage of this time, it will help you immensely later on. You will also be surprised by how much you will learn about the team and organization this way rather than just scheduling a march of one-on-one meetings. Really take advantage and get into the work, try to actually contribute rather than just going through the motions.
In my own case, this is how I became more familiar with the tools the team was using. SQL, R, Python and Tableau were all foreign to me previously. It also allowed me to understand how I might be able to add value to the team. More about that later. | https://towardsdatascience.com/leading-a-data-science-team-when-you-are-not-a-data-scientist-540db8fa9acf | ['Joel Nantais'] | 2019-11-15 19:17:19.547000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Leadership', 'Goal Setting', 'Leadership Development', 'Self Improvement'] |
3 Questions and 1 Prediction for Seattle AirBnB | Photo by MILKOVÍ on Unsplash
With this project I set out to use the AirBnB property listing datasets for Seattle in 2016 to answer 3 questions and make 1 predictive machine learning model that could be beneficial for their business:
Question 1: What is the average overall occupancy for all properties in Seattle over the course of the year?
Question 2: Does it pay to be a Superhost? How do the occupancy, prices and reviews of Superhosts compare to normal hosts?
Question 3: What neighborhoods have the highest occupancy rates?
Prediction: Create a machine learning model to predict the average annual occupancy rate for a given property listing.
Below I will explain my findings for this project.
Visit the Github repo to see the data, code and notebooks used in the project.
3 Questions to Answer
The analyses of these questions are meant to be a starting place to inform deeper explorations of each topic, so we can gain further insights that we can apply to help guide the business.
Question 1: What is the overall occupancy in Seattle over the course of the year?
Are there periodic shifts in the overall AirBnB occupancy in Seattle over the course of the year and if so what does this look like? This can help the company decide when and how to run promotions of various kinds and to work with hosts to help them get the most out of these time frames.
Dates on the x-axis and average occupancy of all Seattle AirBnB listings on the y-axis
The trends here are fairly easy to understand. There are three distinct periods where we see a dramatic build up of reservations followed by a leveling off. We’ll take a closer look at each region.
New Year
New Year’s would appear to be the time we see the greatest spike in occupancy for AirBnB in Seattle, as occupancy never gets close to that level throughout the rest of the year.
Spring Break
Looking more closely at the March-April time frame we see a spike around the beginning of April that would seem to correspond to the spring break time frame, which makes sense.
Summer Vacation
Again we see an occupancy spike in the June-July time frame, which would correspond with school being out and summer vacations.
Holidays
This last trend is somewhat interesting. The dramatic spike at the end of the year corresponds to New Year’s, but there is a pretty dramatic drop before this spike, right after Christmas.
Question 2: Does it pay to be a Superhost? How do the occupancy, prices and reviews of Superhosts compare to normal hosts?
Superhost is a special title that is automatically applied to listings where the host maintains high marks in many areas and has an established positive trend with AirBnB overall.
I explored whether there is a correlation between being a Superhost and other metrics, such as occupancy and rental prices to get a better idea if the Superhost program is effective for AirBnB. Our findings here can potentially help guide changes and improvements to the program.
How do occupancy rates compare between normal hosts and Superhosts?
Interestingly there really doesn’t seem to be much of a difference between normal hosts and Superhosts in terms of their ability to maintain occupancy.
Occupancy rates are actually slightly higher for normal hosts, but only by about 1.3%. This is somewhat counterintuitive, as you would expect superhosts would be in higher demand.
This may call into question the efficacy of the Superhost program, but this is only one means of evaluation. Others may reveal advantages for Superhosts.
How does average rental price compare between host types?
Given that occupancy rates are roughly the same for both host types, maybe average price of rentals is different between them and this is an area where Superhosts gain an advantage.
Here we see a distinct advantage for Superhosts. While the Superhost rental rate is slightly lower than normal hosts (-1.3%), the mean prices for their listings is about 8.2% higher.
This alone might make striving for Superhost worth the effort. However, we should also look at the spread of the prices. There could be some really high outlier prices that are driving up the average price.
How does the distribution of prices for the two hosts’ listings differ?
This plot shows the shape of concentration of prices for hosts and Superhosts. These spreads look quite similar.
Box plot showing concentrations of prices and outliers as the circles extending from the boxes. The box plot graphic shows the middle 50% of prices (25%-75%) as the blue and green boxes with the red line as the 50% mark.
This is a numerical representation of what we see in the box plot above.
The occupancy rates of Superhosts and hosts are very close to each other, within about 1%, with the occupancy rate of normal hosts being slightly higher.
However, the average price of a Superhost listing is notably higher than that of a normal host, about 8% higher, as we saw before.
So in general, it does not look like unusually high prices for Superhost properties explain the overall higher price. It seems as though on average Superhosts do indeed make more per listing than normal hosts.
However, I would recommend looking deeper into this trend to see if it is indeed the Superhost title that makes the difference or some other factor.
Question 3: What neighborhoods have the highest occupancy rates?
Are there significant differences in occupancy rate by neighborhood? If we find differences we can look deeper into why that is and perhaps extract useful data on what makes a neighborhood more or less attractive. This information could be passed on to hosts to help them be more effective at attracting guests.
Here are the occupancy rates for each of the 81 neighborhoods:
Neighborhood name on the x-axis and annual occupancy rate on the y-axis
While most are clustered in the 20–40% range there are clear examples of much higher and much lower occupancy.
Highest Occupancy Neighborhoods
There’s not a standard way to define the “top occupancy” so we’ll look at the chart above see where there is a distinct spike for the top performers. This seems to be the spike to over 50% occupancy, which would be the top 5 neighborhoods. This also corresponds to around the 95th percentile of occupancy.
Price vs Occupancy
Pricing may be a factor in occupancy so it would be good to see what the relationship is between occupancy and mean price of a listing.
Occupancy rate on the x-axis and listing price on the y-axis
This plot strongly indicates there is no relationship between occupancy and listing price. The trend line is almost flat and the points look randomly scattered. If there was a relationship we would see a more dramatic upward diagonal line, indicating that price and occupancy increase together or a downward diagonal line, indicating that one increases as the other decreases.
Since the most obvious differentiator, price, does not seem to be a factor in occupancy in a particular neighborhood there are undoubtedly other factors at work. This initial analysis provides a good starting point for further exploring the other factors that may be at work with per-neighborhood occupancy. | https://medium.com/swlh/3-questions-and-1-prediction-for-seattle-airbnb-240aed8b5c72 | ['Torin Rettig'] | 2020-10-27 19:24:26.244000+00:00 | ['Exploratory Data Analysis', 'Airbnb', 'Regression', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning'] |
Building an Algorithmic Trading Strategy with Enigma Catalyst | Building an Algorithmic Trading Strategy with Enigma Catalyst
Walking you through the Enigma project and using Catalyst to build an automated trading strategy.
Introduction to Enigma
Blockchains, in their current form, don’t handle privacy well. The data that is stored on a blockchain is available for everyone to inspect — a side-effect of radical transparency. Although this is still better than the current data model (whose problems I summed up below), some data is just not suitable to put on display.
Problems with the current model:
No Privacy ~ theft (hacks), selling to other parties etc.
~ theft (hacks), selling to other parties etc. Lost Natural Income ~ your data is a natural resource
~ your data is a natural resource Sensitive Product Problem ~ some data is extremely personal
~ some data is extremely personal Aggregated Power ~ large companies own basically all of our data
Machine Learning, and especially Deep Learning, has given us insights on our data that are invaluable. With our rapid increase in computational power, together with the enormous growth of data, there is no better time to train these models. Deep Learning is on its way to reshape almost every industry out there:
Industries disrupted by Deep Learning [Source: Insight AI whitepaper]
The need for a new way of storing our personal data, that addresses the 4 main problems I mentioned above, on which Machine Learning models can still be trained, is huge. This is where Enigma comes in.
Enigma is a decentralized computation platform with guaranteed privacy. Data can be stored both on the public blockchain (non-sensitive data like ENG token transactions) or on the private Enigma network (sensitive data like medical logs). The private Enigma network architecture, which is not a blockchain, is that of a Distributed Hash Table, which is also a huge part of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). Read about that here. You own your data, so in essence, if a large company wants to train a model (like a targeted advertising model), you would sell your data to that company in order for them to use it. Computation on sensitive data is still possible, due Enigma’s secure multi-party computation. If you want to know more about Enigma, read their whitepaper.
Catalyst
Inspired by the rapid growth and proliferation of crypto-assets, we propose Catalyst — the first investment platform that enables developers to build, test, and execute micro crypto-funds.
This extract is from the Catalyst whitepaper, and it pretty much sums up what they aim to do. Catalyst is the first Application on the Enigma protocol, since the crypto-data that powers the platform comes from the Enigma decentralized data marketplace.
It aims to be the one-stop shop for quantitative traders to test their strategies in the crypto-asset domain. It also aims to be a platform on which people can buy strategies from Catalyst developers. The Python Software Development Kit is a Zipline based engine in which strategies can be back-tested or live-traded.
Building the Strategy
The first step will be to install Catalyst on your system. Follow the guidelines their documentation provides here.
What we’ll build is a simple strategy that utilizes the RSI or Relative Strength Index. This is a momentum indicator that signals the strength of price movements. This will be the logic:
If we are not in a position and the RSI is oversold (≤ 30), go long
If we are in a long position and the RSI reaches 60, close long
If we are not in a position and the RSI is overbought (≥ 70), go short
If we are in a short position and the RSI reaches 40, close short
These random exit-position numbers (40 for short, 60 for long) are chosen arbitrarily. It’s to make sure that the strategy can actually exit a position once the RSI has pulled back. One thing you may try is to optimize these values for maximal profit. Not like that will be a whole lot.
This is what the complete strategy looks like in Python, and we’ll break it down part by part:
I suggest just copying lines 1 through 12. This will basically be any strategy’s skeleton (along with initialize, handle_data and analyze) and I won’t go deeper into these.
If I run this algorithm with the catalyst.run_algorithm function (providing the right parameters), this is the output. First graph being our portfolio value, second graph price, with the buys and sells displayed as arrows. The third graph plots the RSI, and the last graph shows our percentage gain (Blue) compared to just holding the asset (Orange). Courtesy of our analyze function. | https://medium.com/coinmonks/building-an-algorithmic-trading-strategy-with-enigma-catalyst-1a407e9c02f8 | ['Jonas Bostoen'] | 2018-05-30 04:05:33.107000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Blockchain', 'Trading', 'Algorithmic Trading', 'Bitcoin'] |
The October Surprise: Will Americans Even Care? | Typically, the month leading up to Election Day includes deliberate, carefully timed news stories designed to sway public opinion enough to influence the outcome. The strategy, for most campaigns and political organizations, is to leave the public with what they view as the most damaging and scandalous story they can find before everyone goes to the polls.
However, the public has seen such a constant bombardment of political news these past few years, fueled by intensifying partisanship and outlandish rhetoric by the President, that another ‘wild and unforgettable’ scandal reported in October may do little to persuade anyone. How truly surprised can we be about anything anymore?
In the past, the October surprise tactic usually makes sense given America’s short attention span. Campaigns, especially for the presidency, have historically waited until October to release the story they hope will captivate the nation and push them to victory. Political scientists prefer not attribute the October surprise to election results due to the numerous factors present at the end of an election, and some political scientists go as far as saying these stories do not usually have a lasting impact on vote choice.
Keeping in mind that it’s difficult to quantify the effects that these last minute stories have on electoral outcomes, it’s safe to say that they have the potential to reinforce a victory or flip the script in favor of the underdog. This much is clear, and campaigns have been observed employing this strategy since as early as the 1980 election between President Carter and Republican nominee Ronald Reagan and beyond. In order to get a better understanding of how this tactic works, we can look at a few cases from recent history.
Presidential Election of 1980, Carter v. Reagan:
The leading story in 1980 was the Iran hostage crisis in which 66 Americans were held for 444 days, until the day of President Reagan’s inauguration, at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. The timing of the hostage release on January 20th, 1981 prompted what is now referred to as the October surprise conspiracy theory where it was alleged that the Reagan campaign negotiated with Iran before the 1980 election to continue holding the American hostages until after Reagan had won.
The charge was that the Reagan campaign knew the successful negotiation and release of American hostages by the Carter Administration would have hurt their chances at victory, so an under-the-table deal was struck to prolong their release.
This October surprise is considered a conspiracy theory because both the House and Senate investigated these charges nearly twelve years later and found no corroborating evidence or documentation that the deal had taken place. Notable figures assured the public that the exchange did occur, like then-Iranian President Abulhassan Banisadr, naval intelligence officer Gary Sick, and former Reagan White House analyst Barbara Honegger.
Presidential Election of 2012, Obama v. Romney:
Sometimes, October surprises arise organically — like in 2012 with the emergence of Hurricane Sandy. Many in the media viewed this as constituting an influential factor because President Obama’s response as President could make or break his chances at re-election.
A more deliberate, less natural surprise was when the left-leaning news organization Mother Jones released an audio clip of Mitt Romney making his infamous 47% of Americans comment. In a speech to wealthy donors, he said that President Obama was starting off with roughly 47% of the Americans that do not pay federal income taxes, and that those people would never be persuaded to vote for him.
Mitt Romney is recorded saying, “those [47% of] Americans believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.”
Although the release of this audio-clip was released on September 17th, there was speculation that the effects of this remark went all the way to Election Day. Further, there was speculation that Mother Jones held on to the clip so that it could be released closer to Election Day, although they deny this notion and state it was withheld pending negotiations with the source.
Presidential Election of 2016, Clinton v. Trump:
Lastly, who can forget the two rather massively covered October surprises in the 2016 election?
On October 7th, The Washington Post released the Access Hollywood tape in which presidential candidate Donald Trump detailed the ways he could touch women due to his celebrity status. The video, from 2005, was prompted by a conversation with television host Billy Bush. Trump captivated the nation with these comments, and he lost major Republican endorsements due to the heavy coverage and public outrage. Even prominent supporters of Trump, like Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and Mike Pence expressed their disapproval of his comments.
A political communications study found that the release of this tape “modestly, though significantly, reduced support for Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign. Surprisingly, these effects were similar among men and women; but they were noticeably larger among Republicans compared to Democrats.”
Then, just one week before Election Day on October 28th, FBI Director James Comey resurrected the Hillary Clinton email scandal. In a letter to Congress, Comey stated that he would be taking further investigative steps regarding Clinton’s private email server. Despite concerns by the DOJ that commenting on this ongoing investigation was not proper, Comey made the independent decision to amend comments he made months earlier to Congress which stated that the investigation was over.
Many describe this event to be detrimental to Clinton’s campaign. Re-entering the email scandal into the public discourse with so little time before Election Day inserted an ominous cloud of mismanagement and corruption over Clinton and her candidacy.
Presidential Election of 2020, Biden v. Trump?:
With less than two months before Election Day, we are officially in October surprise territory. Similar to the previous electoral examples, and the numerous others I omitted for the sake of brevity, it is all but certain that there will be news stories meant to make a lasting impact in the minds of voters.
Yet, I ask again, will it matter?
In the case of Trump, the American public has heard it all — from racial prejudice in his housing developments to the con-artistry of Trump University. From top-level Trump officials like Michael Flynn being arrested to nearly 200,000 Americans dead from coronavirus. From not releasing his tax returns to his impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives which has all but faded from the public consciousness.
These stories are much larger than what most October surprises have constituted in recent years, but they barely move public opinion. Imagine Trump coming out during a press conference and saying, word for word, the 47% remarks which Romney was so aggressively penalized for? The media and general pubic wouldn't bat an eye.
Trump, in my view, is largely immune from the shock and awe that is traditionally able to follow a heavy news cycle before the election. Perhaps a story fresh enough, and outrageous enough, to capture the public eye for longer than two days may do damage, but I fear that is unlikely. A better strategy, more than focusing on just one more crazy story about the President, would be to offer a concise summary of his scandals and mismanagement up to this point. Remind the American public what has happened, since it is far too difficult for even reasonable observers to keep up.
Further, it seems that a genuine October surprise could adversely affect Biden’s candidacy, but that may be difficult to do as well. Even stories which may have usually helped Trump gain some traction can be overshadowed by the overwhelming fatigue felt by those wishing to vote out Trump. The good news for Biden is that the Republicans had a three decade head-start on crafting the Hillary Clinton narrative that made her so disliked — exacerbated by the last minute email investigation. They have no such lead on Biden, even with his extensive political career.
As a disclaimer, I do not mean to leave readers with the idea that neither candidate can do anything to win the election, or that their placement in the polls are somehow not subject to change anymore (they are). I am not arguing that the stories leading up to the election will play no role in the result, but that the effect will be less significant based on the volume of scandal the American public has encountered in recent years.
More than likely, the results of this election will be determined by an aggregate of all the stories Americans have encountered, not just one silver bullet near the end of campaigning. It will be the accumulation of all the feelings, grievances, and emotions toward the two major party candidates. Even still, it will be interesting to see how the campaigns use these last remaining weeks. | https://medium.com/discourse/the-october-surprise-will-americans-even-care-fef018cd7a63 | ['James Holley'] | 2020-09-06 20:33:15.837000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'News', 'Media', 'Election 2020', 'Government'] |
Three Important Reasons You Can Change a Recipe | On a lazy coronavirus Saturday, watching cooking shows on our local PBS station, America’s Test Kitchen aired a Tomato Gratin recipe in that week’s episode. With a garden full of tomatoes, and always a need for new recipes, I was excited to test out the recipe and share it in my weekly newsletter for our fresh-picked produce boxes.
But halfway through making the recipe, I diverted from the original directions.
America’s Test Kitchen goes to great lengths to make sure that their recipes are well tested and optimized for home cooks to recreate on their own.
I thought that if I was going to make changes to a recipe from a source, like that, I should be able to justify my reasoning for the difference.
But why?
All home cooks should feel comfortable changing a recipe.
Recipes are not a doctrine to be set in stone. Home cooks need to understand that they are permitted to make changes in any recipe even when they come from a reputable source.
(I’m not even touching on the fact that, thanks to the internet, anyone can publish a recipe. Be careful out on the web.)
Here are three factors that you should consider when cooking at home.
Your kitchen is different.
Most ovens and stovetops have their quirks and hot spots. And, on top of that, the output from your gas or electric range can vary from burner to burner, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not.
I rented for a very long time and got accustomed to cooking with bottom-of-the-line appliances. When I purchased my first home oven, I realized every oven is very different. It took me over a year to feel comfortable cooking some of my favorite dishes.
The convection was perfect for baking cookies, but cooking pizza crusts and roasting vegetables took adjustments with the rack positions and adjusting oven temperatures.
Be careful with all recipes until you make them successfully.
Your kitchen’s size and the equipment you have might not allow you to make everything exactly like the original recipe. If you don’t have an oven, can you cook it on the stovetop in a covered Dutch oven? If you don’t have a heavy bottom pot, something I lacked for years, you will need to change the burner temperature to get the same results.
You might not start with an equivalent kitchen, but you can still cook the same meal. Or maybe you will find an easier way to make something.
Overcome the challenge with a little improvisation.
Your ingredients are different.
Vegetables come in different sizes.
Your grains and beans might be more or less dry than the standard.
Meat will vary in fat and water content depending on the grade and if it was frozen or always fresh.
One year at the farm, all the cauliflower we grew was more than double the size from the store. I was translating every recipe from “one head” to equivalent cup measurements, so our customers could figure out how much to use.
Even though recipes have directions such as chop five carrots or three tomatoes, carrots and tomatoes come in different sizes. You can end up with vastly different amounts after chopping.
Now on the flip side, you can often include more or less of many ingredients and still end up with the same product. If you have five carrots, but the recipe calls for four, and you don’t have any plans for that last carrot, you can probably throw it in without any catastrophic results.
In addition to size, the quality of all ingredients can vary. In the tomato gratin recipe in question, I was using very ripe heirloom tomatoes, and I knew that they were much sweeter than any store-bought tomato, so I left out the added tablespoon of sugar.
Think about how your ingredients are different from the original recipe writer. It’s okay to substitute, but you need a plan.
Your tastes are different.
This one is a little more self-explanatory, but maybe the most important.
It’s why I like to cook and half the reason I became a chef. I am such a picky eater I want to cook things the way I want.
If you don’t like cilantro, leave it out. Don’t like spicy food, don’t add the red pepper flakes or the jalapeno. Everyone has different tastes, and while you want to know what an ingredient contributes before you take it away, you can make changes. You have to eat it.
In the gratin recipe, I realized that I don’t really like mushy bread. Especially after frying the bread in the first step of the procedure. (There is nothing better than fried bread.)
As I was snacking on freshly toasted cubes of sourdough, I realized that this dish was about soft and squishy bread. No matter how good my heirloom tomato sauce might be, I had no intention of soaking my crunchy croutons in the oven for 40 minutes.
You are your own chef.
Don’t be overwhelmed with the details. Cooking is the ultimate science project. And the best part, you get to eat your results.
Just like they say, if you make art, you are an artist, and if you write, you are a writer. If you cook, you are a chef.
You have the freedom and ability to create your own cooking world in your home.
Happy Cooking. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/three-important-reasons-you-can-change-a-recipe-fe12cc8e05dc | ['Julie Moreno'] | 2020-09-18 20:06:40.497000+00:00 | ['Learn To Cook', 'Food', 'Change', 'Adaptation', 'Cooking'] |
6 Reasons Why You Need Heroku Cloud Services for your Next Project | 6 Reasons Why You Need Heroku Cloud Services for your Next Project 360degree Jul 7·3 min read
Heroku is a well-known cloud-based platform that allows developers to build complex web applications and run them efficiently without setting up underlying hardware, network, or infrastructure requirements. Heroku cloud services have become a common option for businesses to acquire highly functional enterprise-level applications.
Heroku not only frees developers from the hardware requirements for app development but is also user-friendly to even allow non-technical people to work with it.
Why Consider Heroku App Development?
As the importance of Heroku is well-known, we have listed some of the prominent reasons why you might consider Heroku app development for your company.
User-Friendly
Heroku is an easy-to-adapt tool and can be used by people who haven’t mastered working with cloud configurations. It provides you access to a well-defined dashboard to manage, deploy and track metrics easily. The user experience of the tool is designed concerning a technical person as well as non-technical end-users.
Useful DevCenter
Initially, as you start to use Heroku, you might face some issues related to the deployment or configuration of the platform. But Heroku cloud services make it easier to find most of the answers through its DevCenter. In the DevCenter, you will find the steps to configuration, along with an explanation of everything done in the background.
No Need for Infrastructure
Heroku is a container-based tool and tends to support different programming languages and numerous add-ons. It provides everything that a developer would need with Heroku app development, allowing them to focus on the project without worrying about the required infrastructure.
Developers working on any project would not need to stress about having the required version of OS, the configuration of hardware, or the firewall as the Heroku platform has it all.
Multi-Language Support
People who use Heroku would know how the platform is very much agnostic about its language support. Heroku supports more than eight languages, including the highly used Java, Node, and Python. For the users of the C language, Heroku has got Buildpack that allows users to build anything with the use of any other language.
Great Community
Despite being a small tool, Heroku is still in demand because of its quality and the community associated with it. The community of Heroku is a great platform for users to divulge and share information and work on tutorials to get a better understanding of the platform.
Ease to Deploy from Different Sources
Heroku has an option of git-based deployment. This allows users to link the app with GitHub for enabling default deployment when a code is pushed. There is another option in Heroku git that allows it to use the repository. Also, you can use more third-party applications to deploy code in Heroku.
Get the Best Heroku Cloud Services with the Experts
All of the above-mentioned points are enough to understand how effective and impressive Heroku has become for businesses these days. The numerous features of Heroku have made it an exceptional option for developers to craft enterprise-level applications.
We at 360 Degree Cloud have a team of Heroku developers who know the platform well and can provide you applications that suit your business structure.
For More Visit :- 360 Degree Cloud | https://medium.com/@360degreecloud-salesforce/6-reasons-why-you-need-heroku-cloud-services-for-your-next-project-6cbdf24c4e96 | [] | 2021-07-07 07:07:53.488000+00:00 | ['Sms', 'Heroku', 'Salesforce', 'Salesforce Implementation', 'Salesforce Integration'] |
Analog Innovation | Innovation permeates. Health tech ideas emerge on a daily basis that help predict, prevent, and even control health in new and unexpected ways. Artificial intelligence personalizes relationships in ways we’ve never imagined possible and provides data that can be leveraged to link patients, healthcare providers, and communities to their health outcomes, and so much more. Wearables will continue to grow to help drive routines and keep people accountable for their health. AR and VR allow customers an empathetic experience and are now available in a group setting. And voice-activated devices will take our healthy living to whole new levels.
With all these technologic advancements in healthcare, one has to question other types of innovation. Technology may be the foundational source of innovation, but as the definition dictates, innovation is the introduction of something new — whether it’s a new idea, method, device, or novelty.
This year, two poignant examples have shown that technology-based ideas are not the only way to innovate. No one’s denying that the health tech innovation trend will continue to evolve, but we’ll also see the re-emergence of analog ideas, which can be equally effective. And when a “big” analog idea is activated, we see a shift in which technology now plays a supporting role.
The famous “Fearless Girl” statue, which stares down the Wall Street Bull on behalf of female leadership on Wall Street, was installed on the evening of International Women’s Day to make a bold statement. This powerful proclamation fueled conversations around female leaders in all kinds of business, and this activating idea gained international fame. It became symbolic of the “empowered woman” and was so broad in its rallying cry that it impacted our future leaders. “Fearless Girl” took hold with a brilliant PR play and naturally went viral because it moved people. It was a big analog idea that was so simple, so bold, and yet so powerful that it drew worldwide attention. This idea set out to make a statement and change behavior, but its impact was far greater and more meaningful than even imagined. Now that’s innovation.
See the video.
In healthcare, another brilliant analog idea, “The Immunity Charm,” was incredibly innovative and filled an unmet need in Afghanistan. It’s a simple bracelet, similar to other lucky bracelets traditionally worn in Afghanistan to protect children from evil spirits. This idea harnessed the deep-rooted cultural beliefs to save lives in Afghanistan by creating the immunity charm bracelet, which keeps records of vaccinations. It mashed culture and tradition to create an idea that would naturally assimilate into the lives of Afghanis. Another simple yet powerful idea that captured the attention of an entire nation and could potentially impact future generations.
See the video.
These ideas really brought home the need to think of innovation differently. Innovation brings a new, unique idea or method to market and these two examples showcase the need to be mindful of the problems we’re trying to solve while considering the most surprising or even organic way to answer these problems. And, lastly, we need to recognize that ideas can be equally powerful whether they’re technologically based or analog in nature. | https://medium.com/healthwellnext/analog-innovation-4c3f2ab76315 | ['Elizabeth Elfenbein'] | 2017-11-14 17:01:33.451000+00:00 | ['Innovation', 'Healthcare', 'Healthtech', 'Technology', 'Analog'] |
About Me — Iva Ursano. This is gonna be a wild ride! | Growing up in a dysfunctional family
I was born and raised in Northern Ontario Canada in a strict Catholic Italian household. Yelling and physical violence was the norm. I was the 3rd girl out of 4.
I moved out at 18 and was in and out of school, jobs and abusive relationships. My entire life up until I turned 52 was chaos and struggle.
My job history goes something like this:
Waitress/bartender
Loans and mortgage officer at a bank
Income tax corrector for Canada Revenue
Counselor at shelter for homeless teenage boys
Hairstylist
Personal trainer/aerobics instructor
Social media manager/ghostwriter
Online business owner/writer (that’s what I do now)
Colourful yes? I did an awful lot always trying to figure out what the heck would make me happy. Clearly the last one does.
I left my last abusive relationship at the age of 51 with no money, no job and had just recently declared bankruptcy.
I completely reinvented my life then and have never been happier in my life. Ever never ever! | https://medium.com/about-me-stories/about-me-iva-ursano-425b8ba0b843 | ['Iva Ursano'] | 2020-12-15 12:02:57.761000+00:00 | ['Volunteer', 'Solo Female Travel', 'Writer', 'About Me', 'Personal Story'] |
How to write blog content when you are not a writer by using conversion.ai | Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash
As a web developer, one thing I have always struggled with is writing blog content for both my clients’ websites as well as my own. It’s hard to come up with new content on a regular basis, and it takes so much time that I often put off the task of writing blog posts for weeks at a time — or worse yet — never write them at all.
I started looking around for tools to help me out. I stumbled across conversion.ai which is an interesting service that can not only generate blog post ideas based on search queries or keywords but also write the content as well! You can enter anything from industry keywords as well as topics related to your business, and conversion.ai will generate relevant article titles along with over 600 words worth of ready-to-go text content about those subjects right there under your fingertips! What could be easier?
So what is conversion.ai?
Conversion.ai is (among other things) a blog writing service that helps non-writers generate blog content for their website with just the click of a button. The conversion process starts by uploading your existing blog posts, social media posts or articles to be analyzed by Jarvis — their AI copywriting assistant which uses CPT-3 and spaCy the Natural Language Processing library to analyze your existing blog posts, social media posts or articles and extracts information that is relevant to what you are writing about. From there it identifies words that might make for a good topic sentence of the new content.
Once Jarvis has identified topics and keywords from the original text, it then generates sentences based on that information. It may also insert content for a title or a conclusion sentence in order to make the article flow more naturally but this is optional and can be turned off.
Amazing right!
Benefits of conversion.ai
Using Jarvis as your writing assistant can help you save time on writing blog posts, and will even make your content more engaging for readers.
Jarvis is able to take care of all the data gathering, research, and sentence generation so that you can spend less time coming up with new topics or crafting original words-saving hours each week in the process.
This can help business owners spend more time working on their business instead of trying to write content for their websites, whilst saving them money on hiring copywriters!
So how much is it?
Conversion.ai currently comes with a 5-day free trial. After the free trial, there are 2 pricing options. The starter package at $29 per month for 20,000 words and access to 40+ short-form copywriting templates.
The second is a pro package, currently $99 per month, for unlimited words, access to all the templates, plus access to their long-form assistant.
These prices are however going up from the 1st May, more information can be found on their pricing page
How to create a blog post in Jarvis
This example uses the long-form assistant which you have access to within the 5-day trial, or as part of the pro package, but you can achieve similar using the individual tools in the starter package and copy+paste into a text editor.
I am going to write a blog post about the importance of servicing your mountain bike as I friend of mine owns a mobile cycle repair business, so this is the type of content he would need to produce for this website.
Think of topic or keyword you want to write about. Add a quick paragraph about the topic and the tome you want the post to be in — friendly/informative/formal — there are loads to choose from! Add in the keywords you want Jarvis to include in the text, then continue.
Next up is the title, you can add one yourself, or ask Jarvis to generate some ideas. Select 1 you like or ask Jarvis to generate some more.
Then we come to the intro paragraph, again we can write something or Jarvis can do this for us.
Once you have selected the intro you like it will take you over to the editor view.
From here, I can get an additional outline by viewing the Blog Post outline in power mode. You can select how different outlines you want, and once generated you can pick one or select what you think best from the different options. | https://medium.com/@martyntaylor/how-to-write-blog-content-when-you-are-not-a-writer-by-using-conversion-ai-5752a229c514 | ['Martyn Taylor'] | 2021-04-26 20:50:21.375000+00:00 | ['Jarvis', 'Conversion Ai', 'Copywriting', 'Blogging Tips', 'Blogging For Business'] |
Canny Edge Detector | Developed in 1986 by John F. Canny, Canny Edge Detection algorithm is an algorithm of multi-stages. It identifies the key structures in an image/video by implementing 5-stage process.
The Canny edge detection algorithm mainly follows:
Noise reduction Gradient calculation Non-maximum suppression Double threshold Edge Tracking by Hysteresis.
We are gonna look at its implementation with Python’s Opencv library. My input image —
Firstly import opencv library:
Since, I want a trackbar in my output window, I will be introducing a function “nothing” only because we need it as an argument in the next few lines of code
Now we create trackbars of two kinds, one named “upper” and another “lower.”
Now we read the input image, make sure to mention the path correctly,
Convert the image to grayscle using inbuilt function from cv2
Now we will run a while loop to ensure the output is displayed properly and we use the canny edge detector fucntion whose parameters are “ gray “ which the above grayscale image, and it takes two more arguments namely “x”, “y” which are the trackbar thresholds that is obtained through the slider in the output window.
By runing the code and after setting the trackbar, we get the output as shown below,
Resources: | https://medium.com/@krithikanagi/canny-edge-detector-be1383b13245 | ['Krithika Nagi'] | 2020-11-26 08:04:11.487000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Canny Edge Detection', 'Opencv', 'Edge Detection', 'Edge Computing'] |
“Give a shit!”; a story on activism — 5 questions for Teresa Borasino | “Give a shit!”; a story on activism — 5 questions for Teresa Borasino
@Interactive Storytelling Meetup #6 –9 June 2016
Interview by Femke Deckers and Klasien van de Zandschulp
Teresa Borasino @ Interactive Storytelling Meetup #6
Teresa Borasino (Lima, based in Amsterdam) is an artist and activist working on environmental issues and social justice. She creates situations that allow for collective experiences and dialogue in public space. At Interactive Storytelling Meetup #6 she told us the story on how she got politicians to wipe their asses with science. In this interview we spoke with her about this act, the strength of combining art with activism and her newest project about fossil free culture.
1. What is the story of your project ‘Give a shit’?
“’Give a shit’ is an art and activism project. I organised this project as part of COP21 (COP21 is the annual climate yearly summit on climate change by UNFCCC). The last summit (December 2015) was a very important event, as the goal was to get to an agreement to reduce the CO2 emissions.”
“Before the conference started, all countries had to submit a pledge on what they would do to reduce CO2 emission in their country. Scientists analysed these pledges and evaluated them. If these pledges are implemented, we will have a global warming between 3 and 4 degrees Celsius. The IPCC publishes the most exhaustive and comprehensive scientific reports on climate change. We can read in this report, that scientists have agreed that we should limit global warming under 2 degrees. Beyond that threshold the world will become unliveable and catastrophic. This report serves as the scientific basis for politicians to negotiate about how to reduce CO2 emissions globally. But it seems that politicians are not following the facts and measures the IPCC report puts forward. The report serves as a basis to politicians to negotiate about the position on climate change. But it seems that politicians are not following this report.”
“So… I printed this IPCC report on toilet paper. I distributed 100 roles in the toilets of the summit in Paris, together with other activists and organisations who were accredited to visit the conference. We smuggled the toilet rolls inside the conference and placed them in the toilets to leave the message and to literally create the act that politicians wipe their ass with science. After our communal action it expanded and other organisations were using it by spreading the roles and using it to spread the story that politicians are not taking climate seriously.”
“Politicians wipe their ass with science”
The audience is reading the IPCC report on the toilet paper @ Interactive Storytelling Meetup #6
2. What was your motivation to execute your project ‘Give a shit’, and what were the reactions of attendees and activists?
“The Urgenda case. The Urgenda Foundation sued the Dutch government because the government was not doing enough to reduce the CO2 emissions. The Urgenda Foundation won the case. The judge ruled that the government should indeed aim for more. But two months later the government decided to appeal the ruling of the court. In my opinion, this is completely insane.”
“This case and the knowledge about the IPCC report is when the idea and motivation to do this project started. I want to send a message to all the politicians in the world who are obstructing climate progresses and remind them of the important details from the IPCC report.”
“I executed this action in an unofficial way, I didn’t have a permit. I had to convince a lot of people to help me and do this together. I had to bring in the toilet paper roles one by one to not be noticed by security. So to be able to execute this project, I had to talk to a lot of people beforehand to see if they are interested to join and help.”
“The people that took part and saw the paper in the toilet were very enthusiastic and created their own message and shared this online through Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.”
3. Do you think when we become more creative in telling our stories through activism, we can achieve better results?
“Yeah definitely. I think so. Actions and protests are usually very boring and similar to each other. Like people shouting and using banners that always look similar. Activists hardly look for more creative ways to bring on a message or tell a story.”
“Activists hardly look for more creative ways to bring on a message or tell a story”
“I’m working on socially engaged art over 10 years now, to give more visibility to social problems or change situations. But usually these changes are very small or temporary. So I’ve always tried to make change happen with art. Since I started to work more in an activist way, this can have far more impact if you work in a more artistic and creative way.”
“Artists have the ability to trigger imagination. Artists can imagine how certain issues can change and how we can live differently. Activists, on the other hand, are far more strategic and are communicating in a very straightforward way, but they might lack the ability to trigger imagination. I think it’s very powerful to combine both these expertises as a movement.”
“I’ve always tried to make change happen with art. Since I work more in an activist way, it has a far more impact .”
4. How important is storytelling as part of your work in combining activism and art?
“I try not only to tell a story, but also to make a change happen. The toilet paper project is a symbolic action. But the people who took part or experienced this action did notice how stories and messages in activism can happen in a more creative way and more artistic. I tried to raise awareness by telling the story in a different way. But also, to make people part of a movement.”
“I tried to raise awareness by telling the story in a different way. But also, to make people part of a movement.”
5. In your presentation you shortly announced on a new activism project. Can you shortly describe the discussion you want to start with this project?
“We started a couple of months ago with a new collective project called Fossil Free Culture. With this project we want to raise awareness about the oil sponsorships of the cultural institution. For instance companies like Shell sponsor major museums in the Netherlands. Not because they like art or are socially responsible, but because through these relationships they obtain a social license to operate. They use museums to organise lobby events and network events. They use museums to wash their image. We want to challenge these relationships. The goal is to expose and confront the influence of the fossil fuel industry on cultural institutions in the Netherlands.” | https://medium.com/interactive-innovative-storytelling/give-a-shit-activism-stories-5-questions-for-teresa-borasino-89442cbd26c8 | ['Interactive Storytelling'] | 2016-09-02 15:22:52.267000+00:00 | ['Environment', 'Climate Change', 'Storytelling'] |
Imagine if robots could learn from watching demonstrations: you could show a domestic robot how to do routine chores or set a dinner table. In the workplace, you could train robots like new employees, | Making progress on that vision, USC researchers have designed a system that lets robots autonomously learn complicated tasks from a very small number of demonstrations — even imperfect ones. The paper, titled Learning from Demonstrations Using Signal Temporal Logic, was presented at the Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL)
The researchers’ system works by evaluating the quality of each demonstration, so it learns from the mistakes it sees, as well as the successes. While current state-of-art methods need at least 100 demonstrations to nail a specific task, this new method allows robots to learn from only a handful of demonstrations. It also allows robots to learn more intuitively, the way humans learn from each other — you watch someone execute a task, even imperfectly, then try yourself. It doesn’t have to be a “perfect” demonstration for humans to glean knowledge from watching each other.
“Many machine learning and reinforcement learning systems require large amounts of data and hundreds of demonstrations — you need a human to demonstrate over and over again, which is not feasible,” said lead author Aniruddh Puranic, a Ph.D. student in computer science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.
“Also, most people don’t have the programming knowledge to explicitly state what the robot needs to do, and a human cannot possibly demonstrate everything that a robot needs to know. What if the robot encounters something it hasn’t seen before? This is a key challenge.”
Learning from demonstrations
Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Unsplash
Learning from demonstrations is becoming increasingly popular in obtaining effective robot control policies — which control the robot’s movements — for complex tasks. But it is susceptible to imperfections in demonstrations and also raises safety concerns as robots may learn unsafe or undesirable actions.
Also, not all demonstrations are equal: some demonstrations are a better indicator of desired behavior than others and the quality of the demonstrations often depends on the expertise of the user providing the demonstrations.
To address these issues, the researchers integrated “signal temporal logic” or STL to evaluate the quality of demonstrations and automatically rank them to create inherent rewards.
In other words, even if some parts of the demonstrations do not make any sense based on the logic requirements, using this method, the robot can still learn from the imperfect parts. In a way, the system is coming to its own conclusion about the accuracy or success of a demonstration.
“Let’s say robots learn from different types of demonstrations — it could be a hands-on demonstration, videos, or simulations — if I do something that is very unsafe, standard approaches will do one of two things: either, they will completely disregard it, or even worse, the robot will learn the wrong thing,” said co-author Stefanos Nikolaidis, a USC Viterbi assistant professor of computer science.
“In contrast, in a very intelligent way, this work uses some common sense reasoning in the form of logic to understand which parts of the demonstration are good and which parts are not. In essence, this is exactly what also humans do.”
Take, for example, a driving demonstration where someone skips a stop sign. This would be ranked lower by the system than a demonstration of a good driver. But, if during this demonstration, the driver does something intelligent — for instance, applies their brakes to avoid a crash — the robot will still learn from this smart action.
Adapting to human preferences
Photo by Julian Rivera on Unsplash
Signal temporal logic is an expressive mathematical symbolic language that enables robotic reasoning about current and future outcomes. While previous research in this area has used “linear temporal logic,” STL is preferable in this case, said Jyo Deshmukh, a former Toyota engineer and USC Viterbi assistant professor of computer science.
“When we go into the world of cyber-physical systems, like robots and self-driving cars, where time is crucial, linear temporal logic becomes a bit cumbersome, because it reasons about sequences of true/false values for variables, while STL allows reasoning about physical signals.”
Puranic, who is advised by Deshmukh, came up with the idea after taking a hands-on robotics class with Nikolaidis, who has been working on developing robots to learn from YouTube videos. The trio decided to test it out. All three said they were surprised by the extent of the system’s success and the professors both credit Puranic for his hard work.
“Compared to a state-of-the-art algorithm, being used extensively in many robotics applications, you see an order of magnitude difference in how many demonstrations are required,” said Nikolaidis.
The system was tested using a Minecraft-style game simulator, but the researchers said the system could also learn from driving simulators and eventually even videos. Next, the researchers hope to try it out on real robots. They said this approach is well suited for applications where maps are known beforehand but there are dynamic obstacles in the map: robots in household environments, warehouses or even space exploration rovers.
“If we want robots to be good teammates and help people, first they need to learn and adapt to human preference very efficiently,” said Nikolaidis. “Our method provides that.”
“I’m excited to integrate this approach into robotic systems to help them efficiently learn from demonstrations, but also effectively help human teammates in a collaborative task.” | https://medium.com/@mustakahamed891/imagine-if-robots-could-learn-from-watching-demonstrations-you-could-show-a-domestic-robot-how-to-3f64c09908f7 | ['Mustak Ahamed'] | 2020-11-20 06:40:41.384000+00:00 | ['Robots', 'Demonstrations', 'AI', 'Learning', 'Future'] |
Party men at the helm of bank boards again | Prothom Alo illustration
The government has been recruiting party men as directors to the boards of state-owned banks in violation administrative rules.
Finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal is appointing directors on political consideration.
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http://www.tenandahalf.co.uk/mvw/joshu-v-bbc001.html
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http://jurassicjaunts.co.uk/wod/Videos-Jo-v-po-esp-001.html
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http://jurassicjaunts.co.uk/wod/Videos-Jo-v-po-esp-004.html
http://jurassicjaunts.co.uk/wod/Videos-Jo-v-po-esp-005.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/video-jos-v-puv-bg-061.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/video-jos-v-puv-bg-062.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/video-jos-v-puv-bg-063.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/video-jos-v-puv-bg-064.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/video-jos-v-puv-bg-065.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/Jos-v-Pul-dazn-01.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/Jos-v-Pul-dazn-02.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/Jos-v-Pul-dazn-03.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/Jos-v-Pul-dazn-04.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/Jos-v-Pul-dazn-05.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/v-ideo-Joshua-orario-it-01.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/v-ideo-Joshua-orario-it-02.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/v-ideo-Joshua-orario-it-03.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/v-ideo-Joshua-orario-it-04.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/v-ideo-Joshua-orario-it-05.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/Js-v-Pv-voir-fr-01.html
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https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/Js-v-Pv-voir-fr-03.html
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https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/Jos-v-Pul-es01.html
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https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/joshua-v-pulev-mma-01.html
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https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/joshua-v-pulev-mma-04.html
https://johnsoncountytaxoffice.org/tdn/joshua-v-pulev-mma-05.html
http://www.tenandahalf.co.uk/rex1/video-jos-v-puv-bg-061.html
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http://www.tenandahalf.co.uk/rex1/v-ideo-Joshua-orario-it-01.html
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http://www.tenandahalf.co.uk/rex1/Js-v-Pv-voir-fr-01.html
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http://www.tenandahalf.co.uk/rex1/Jos-v-Pul-es01.html
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http://www.tenandahalf.co.uk/rex1/Jos-v-Pul-es03.html
http://www.tenandahalf.co.uk/rex1/Jos-v-Pul-es04.html
http://www.tenandahalf.co.uk/rex1/Jos-v-Pul-es05.html
http://www.tenandahalf.co.uk/rex1/joshua-v-pulev-mma-01.html
http://www.tenandahalf.co.uk/rex1/joshua-v-pulev-mma-02.html
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“The government is taking the wrong steps by appointing party men as the directors of the banks. The entire bank sector has to bear the brunt for this. Professionals and skilled people should be appointed as directors,” Bangladesh Bank former deputy governor Khandaker Ibrahim Khaled told Prothom Alo.
There are 30 resumés of party men at the finance ministry.
Sources said current and former leaders of Awami League, Jubo League, Swechchhasebak League and Chhatra League have been visiting the financial institutions division of the finance ministry. Some are lobbying over phone.
The government is taking the wrong steps by appointing party men as the directors of the banks. The entire bank sector has to bear the brunt for this. Professionals and skilled people should be appointed as directors.
Bangladesh Bank former deputy governor Khandaker Ibrahim Khaled
However, economists, chartered accountants, financial market, monetary policy and financial management experts, former bankers, private sector business representatives, and at least one professional woman have to be recruited in the board, according to a finance ministry circular published on 12 April 2009.
Flouting the rules, Rajib Parvez, assistant secretary of Awami League central finance and planning sub-committee, was recruited as director to the BASIC Bank on 22 March 2020.
While recruiting him, he was identified as founder and executive director of ‘Governance Policy Explore Centre’, but no website of this organisation was found. The Facebook page of this organisation has not been updated since 2017.
Rajib Parvez sought nomination from Patuakhali-1 constituency in the 11th parliamentary election. He launched a campaign in his constituency, but the party did not give him nomination.
Similarly Awami League’s international affairs committee assistant secretary KMN Manjurul Haque wanted nomination from Gopalganj-1. He launched a campaign, but failed to get nomination.
This former Chhatra League leader was appointed as director of Agrani Bank on 9 September 2019. Earlier, he was the director of this bank.
Although the party men were not given nomination for the parliamentary elections, they were appeased with appointments as directors of the state-owned banks
In 2009, directors were recruited in the same way.
Directors were recruited in the banks on political consideration after Abul Maal Abdul Muhith had become the finance minister in 2009. There were allegations of financial scams in the banking sector. When he became the finance minister in 2014 again, he recruited former bureaucrats and bankers as the directors instead of party men.
There is no training for the directors. There is no instance of punishment if they are found to be involved in lobbying and taking bribes.
While secretary of the financial institutions division, Younusur Rahman took an initiative for training, but the move came to a halt when Md Asadul Islam joined as the secretary.
The Awami League government randomly recruited party men as directors of the bank between 2009 and 2015.
Some of them include Jatiya Party former leader Sheikh Abdul Hye Bachchu, Mahila Awami League leader Jannat Ara, Awami League former leaders Nagibul Islam, Saimum Sarwar Kamol, Mahbubur Rahman Bhuiyan, Jubo League leader Khandoker Jahangir Kabir, former Chhatra League leaders Bolram Poddar, Shuvas Singha Roy, Shahjada Mohiuddin, Jakir Ahmed and Abdus Sabur.
Financial scams of different business entities and banks including Hall-Mark, BASIC Bank, Bismillah Group, Annon Tex and Crescent Group surfaced during the period.
When asked about the recruitment of party men as directors of banks, financial institutions division secretary Md Asadul Islam advised the Prothom Alo correspondent to talk to the additional secretary of the division ABM Ruhul Azad.
Speaking to Prothom Alo, Ruhul Azad said, “Directors are being recruited after scrutiny. If there are any allegations against anyone, Bangladesh Bank can inform the Anti-Corruption Commission.”
Directors above the accountability
Bangladesh Bank observer Lila Rashid recently raised allegations against Agrani Bank chairman Zaid Bakth, saying that he took decisions ignoring the opinion of the directors. When the allegation was raised on 17 August, the central bank investigated the matter and found the allegations to be true.
BASIC Bank chairman Abdul Hye Bachchu surpassed all in corruption. Late bank director Rezaur Rahman filed a complaint with the financial institutions division about anti-bank activities of Bachchu . But the division removed the director.
Financial institutions division joint secretary Kamrunnahar Ahmed was the director at BASIC Bank for entire five years during the tenure of Abdul Hye Bachchu. Questions were raised about her role. But she had no problem to become additional secretary.
Former Bangladesh Bank deputy governor Khandaker Ibrahim Khaled said former reputed bankers, lawyers, good businessmen, accountants and neutral researchers should be appointed as directors of banks.
The accountability of directors has to be ensured, Khaled added.
*This report, originally published in Prothom Alo print edition, has been rewritten in English by Rabiul Islam. | https://medium.com/@srabonsharkar47/party-men-at-the-helm-of-bank-boards-again-d67bbd1b514 | [] | 2020-12-12 22:29:39.407000+00:00 | ['Bangladesh Bank', 'Bankawami Leagueexclusive', 'Recruitment', 'Scam'] |
Reviewing Queen’s Gambit* | Monday December 7, 2020
She is looking out through her eyes. She is being in her eyes. She is seeing how it goes. She is being it alone and quiet. She is not then missing anybody. But she cries two times to mean something.
She was grieving for herself those times. For the knowing of herself and remembering the being special something that’s within her, and for the one that occasioned her to see it. She is only then remembering that one and his gift when she sees an image of them both together at the time of her awakening to her path way.
Seeing is important. It is inside and it’s outside. It is her’s when she is looking at the world and she’s playing, and it’s someone else’s when they’re looking at her, and it is an abstract thing that’s haunting everyone because it’s never happening but happened. And then, tag, you’re it, in play with your moves to be determined by it.
She remembers she should close her eyes.
They are seeing her through her eyes. She is seeing one or two or three of them and waiting. One of them can’t be with her that way. It is a defining heartbreak. One of them will not, then might, then will, but then she will not want to be with him that way. But he will then help her learn about a family of friends.
One of them is wanting her to with her, and she will be with her in a different way. That one’s going interrupting any other way of anybody going different from her. That one is commanding any way it goes and the thing that anybody else is planning for will be interrupted in the way that it was going.
She does interrupt her and it leads to her then knowing that she is not ready.
What is being ready for someone who has it in them coming out of them so perfectly unplanned, yet knowing all of it right there in the moment like a zen flash understanding intuition. Yes, what is that? And it is compelling.
She is being tranquil when she’s made to be that way.
She is open waiting and they’re coming to her starting her or waking her or helping her be tranquil and be ready. What is being ready mean and the series tries to show you.
Because you love her you will be with her to know it. Do you know it when it’s over. When it’s over, is it over? When it’s over, does it linger? Do you let it go or do you linger with it, trying to be knowing it, to understand it, and to get it through your intuition, and be living it?
Some of them are giving her a gift. Does she see it? Does she know it? Can she use it? It is difficult to give a certain gift to her. She’s not wanting it or needing it the way that they are trying to be giving it to her.
How then should a gift be given is a part of learning how to be with her a friend to her and family.
What are the gifts? One is an introduction to a world and the guidance to the way to get around in it, directions. One is tranquility and the way of seeing it deliberately and deeply for a long time as a dreaming which is knowing.
Both of these gifts have been given to her by someone, but she makes them into something for herself given to herself. She is giving to herself the knowing of the power of her dreaming and her seeing and her intuition about how to move around in that world, and her quiet being tranquil in her solitude.
Because it comes to her at first from outside, it is hard to see that it is coming to her from the inside. But it will be learnt, where it is coming from and how to be ready to receive it. There will be pain and suffering to help her work that out.
She is getting it from doing something. She is getting it. And it is happening. It is coming from the outside. When is it coming from the inside is a question that is part of it.
She is quite determined and she’s quiet.
She is starting off by reading and by playing and by seeing. Is she ever, when is she ever, hearing? There is someone playing something and it’s beautiful to her. What can that be meaning and the way it might relate to her knowing what it’s all about, her gift and her knowing it’s a gift and the meaning of it, and her intuition? And the outside and the inside. I wanted her to hear it.
First there was reading and the way it helped her to get ready, be ready, and be there with it, feeling it and knowing it and going with it and be winning.
And what is winning, should be thought about some more.
Then she stops reading and starts drinking. This often happens in the stories to the genius. The genius is a way and it’s easy to believe that it is someone. Because we like to point at people and be knowing if they’re queens or kings or princesses or princes if they’re fools or theifs or whatever, and then find out if by knowing them, or a lot about them, can we be like them, and feel better about who or what we think we feel we are? That is what a lot of many like to do and believe.
Does it ever happen? The knowing and becoming and thinking and the feeling? Does it matter if it does? Or is it just about the trying, the making of the gesture, and the following the movement and getting into it, the wanting and believing? After all is said and done, it is just something to do.
It often happens to the genius because first, they are receiving it, they are taking it, communion, to be full of knowing and of grace. Then they’re full and ready and prepared and they don’t know what to do with all of it when it isn’t asked of them to do it, whatever it might be. She is quiet then, but cannot quiet it. Quieten it.
There can be confusion in expressing and expression, with what is it that is expressed, and what the right way is to make it show itself, express it. The right way often is confusing, and it can be incorrect the way it’s said it should be done. Sometimes recipes are not the way to get something to come again.
Who or what is her mother? Who or what is her father? It is all about the way that she is cared for.
It’s important that she does have friends but she doesn’t get back on the plane.
She is beautiful alone. Because it’s there so quietly and perfectly expressed with a knowing that’s intuitive. That is grace and light, and they are longed for.
Can she give it to us? No, she cannot. But it can.
She has a lot of style.
*(Queen’s Gambit is a show on the video streaming service Netflix, adapted from the novel by Walter Trevis) | https://medium.com/mjbreviewing/reviewing-queens-gambit-99e89d40bbb8 | [] | 2020-12-07 18:56:19.526000+00:00 | ['Review', 'Genius', 'Creative Process', 'Creativity', 'The Queens Gambit'] |
Barrett Brown on Pursuance | Process democracy, pretty colors
Transcript of Gregg Housh Show, November 2020
Video: https://youtu.be/vSJilxRUxzo
GH: All right everyone. We are live and there is Barrett popping in
BB: Here I am popping in
GH: Look at that. Look at Barrett over there in England now, jolly old England
BB: Merry old England.
GH: All right, so let’s just jump right into things. You’re no longer here in America. It is late as hell over there isn’t it?
BB: I’ve been planning my departure for a couple years [00:01:09] and just to add insult to injury I announced my impending departure first on Russia Today a couple of years ago after the Federales re-arrested me for giving interviews to Vice and PBS when I was entirely legally allowed to do that.
And so, I left for Antigua about a month and a half ago, and I left from Antigua about a week ago, I set sail as it were, on a plane, to England and arrived here safely and now I’m an Englishman. So there you have it.
GH: So [00:01:39] we’ve got enough time here go back a little closer to the beginning of all this. There are a few people who know some of our background and most people don’t out there, and I’m sure some of the viewers will too, but I always find it interesting to kind of start out this way.
So, when I first learned of you, it was an article you had written in the Huffington Post and it was an article where you so strangely [00:02:09] said that some of the tactics that me my friends were putting together there over at Anonymous, were going to be used to take down nation-states in the future.
Whether it was us or some other entity using the strategies, and I of course, initially thought you were insane, and then I reached out to you anyways, because I loved the idea, and I sent you an email from one of our more official-looking [00:02:39] email addresses, even though of course, nothing is official, but it was Anonymous at why we protest dot net Just to kind of make the point of ‘it’s one of us’.
You responded and after a few days we got to talking and I think it was a week or so later that I invited you into some of the chats and that’s kind of how you met up with a lot of the people on our side of things, but it wasn’t that long later that we were kind of working in Op Tunisia and Op Egypt [00:03:09] actually doing what your article said. Until those Tunisians showed up in chat, I thought you were insane on that one point.
BB: Well, I might have been. I mean a stopped clock is right twice a day and if you’re a crazy clock that just hits all kinds of numbers throughout the week, you’re going to be right about a couple of things and then only those things would be remembered.
So, it’s just like cold reading. But [00:03:40] just like our opposite numbers in the military and intelligence communities of the world we, you and I, well you first, were cognizant of what the power was that existed in these new forms of collaboration and so forth. We saw they were weapons.
You guys took the lead in turning what was not yet a fully realized weapon into a weapon to an extent that the next 13 years to follow since the activist [00:04:10] portion of anonymous began, was responded to in very significant ways that I will always treasure as recognition from the GCHQ and NSA and CIA, the FBI and DOJ and Palantir and HBgary and so forth, recognition that I was right.
We were weaponized, that we did have a grasp on something that could and would inevitably be used to confront nation states and institutions that are corrupt [00:04:40] through and through on their own turf and win. And push back.
GH: You know, it definitely started on that side of things with the protest and activism stuff. But we built on top of an existing foundation that you were already aware of at that point. You just weren’t heavily involved. You weren’t sitting on the chans like some of us all day. You came around though.
BB: I dipped in here and there, and I was there for some of the Hal Turner stuff. I was [00:05:10] late to the Habbo Hotel raids, but I did get in toward the end.
GH: Those early anons really built a lot of mystique, a lot of ominous nature that we could build on top of when we went and did chanology and all of the other protest actions later on. So, shout out to everyone who put in all that effort before.
So, there we are, we’ve done operation Tunisia, Egypt, we’ve all backed out at that point because Libya’s going to hell, Syria is [00:05:40] starting and I know I ran for the hills.
You were still on some of the IRC’s for a few minutes longer than me, but I don’t think much longer because they were asking for weapons and shit and we wanted out. I did at least.
So at that point you start talking initially about some of your ideas towards taking these things that we’ve done, the tools that we’re using because at this point it’s on 50 different networks, you know, it’s these IRC servers, it’s these websites, it’s this Google [00:06:10] doc or this pad and every time someone started up a new operation, they would need to figure out 50 different tools and find them and be taught, you know, here’s where we did and you decided that was a mess.
A few of the others of us had been thinking about it and you started thinking about what it would look like to make a platform and it took a little while before like Pursuance became a real actual mission if you will with a name and everything else, but that’s what you’ve been putting a lot of [00:06:40] effort into recently or for the last few years?
BB: There’s two different threads here, one is that Anonymous thread and in terms of some of what you’re talking about, in terms of making available in one package all the tools and the concepts and all that, I can’t come anywhere close to taking credit for that. There were people pushing for that and not just pushing for that but doing it before that was my emphasis.
What I was doing prior to that though before you pulled me into the anonymous servers when op Tunisia began in very late December [00:07:10] 2010, was pursuing something alongside Michael Hastings and a bunch of very strait-laced individuals. My second-in-command for Project PM before it became what is known for, was a retired IRS attorney, to give you a sense of how mainstream I was back then.
Our emphasis had been to build these structures, and this was before I had the knowledge and the experience which has been [00:07:41] gained with difficulty over the last 10 years. How organizations work, how activists work, how movements work, how structures work, how institutions work, and what the weak points of all these things are. That was the hard-won experience that I got, starting really with Anonymous.
My prior experience had been too well organized to really learn anything from and so Project PM00:08:11] started out doing what Pursuance is now doing. It ended up becoming known for being a crowdsourced collaborative investigation into the intelligence contracting industry and a number of the intelligence agencies, our opposite numbers and their programs.
That was so successful that the FBI came and shut it down and served a search warrant listing that website and so forth and then blah blah and so we got so bogged down with Tunisia and Bahrain and [00:08:41] Egypt and so forth and then HBGary and the DOJ, and then going to prison and getting out of prison and I had set aside my ultimate goal, which was to build this platform.
I didn’t know what it was exactly back then. I had a basic premise which has been vastly improved upon as I have gotten input from people who unlike me, have a real basis in the scholarship of information theory, and some things I don’t even know the names of, and so what we have now with Pursuance, which was formally created[00:09:11] as a non-profit a few months after I got out of prison in late 2016, is this platform, this framework that is intended to be a universal solution, a very open source entirely ground up, truly democratic yet versatile solution to every problem of collaboration that we approach. It is a universal [00:09:41] thing that can be used to run a lemonade stand or whatever.
It is intended more specifically and one of the problems here is that, and we won’t go into the mechanics of it here, for those who aren’t familiar with it, I would advise reading a great Observer article. It has an embed of the presentation I gave and has a great description in the article by[00:10:11] the author there, of what some of the use cases of this are, how this would operate, what it is, which I’ve certainly done a very poor job of explaining.
That’s why we have people to help me explain these things. So we’ll skip the mechanics and we’ll just leave it at this, it is a framework that is intended to move the ball forward in ways that I think compared to 10 years ago, will ultimately reach the hype that we were getting from Michael [00:10:41] Hayden and so forth at the NSA back when he was giving speeches about how Anonymous was going to start taking over this, knocking down that, and in terms of information operations it’s entirely legal, entirely dutiful and necessary civic functions. Pursuance will allow these things to happen in a way that this time unlike Anonymous or occupy or anything else, will be vastly formidable to an extent that will prove itself when it comes into fruition.
GH: [00:11:12] So, you know as a lot of people who watch this, especially on YouTube later are going to wonder what this is all about, we’re talking about platforms, we’re talking about our old tactics and what it comes down to is this idea that there are certain ways you organize online.
There are certain ways you build an operation that’s going to be successful. There are even more confined ways in which you gather data safely from people and [00:11:42] use sources and all the other fun things that are needed all the way including from original idea to planning real life events. There are 50 steps in there and until even recently that’s been a hundred different tools you’ve got to learn to use, it’s been putting all your events on Facebook which you know, that’s fun. That’s where I want all my data.
It’s all of this work and all of these different things that you have to train new activists on when you could just [00:12:12] take all of this distilled knowledge from all of these people who have already done all of this work and turn it into a set of tools that guides you through doing these things and as I understand it that’s what you’re building?
BB: The best way to describe it I think, to the extent we don’t have visual aids, is to compare Anonymous or occupy or the civil rights movement or the anti-war movement or a hundred other things to a jellyfish.
A non-institutional movement is a jellyfish [00:12:42] in so much that it is soft, its agile, it can extend its little appendages, that’s not how jellyfish work, but let’s pretend jellyfish work like that, it can move quickly and change shape and so forth and that is a great strength, a jellyfish is also quite vulnerable. It has very little protecting itself from the say the sharks which we’re going to pretend to eat jellyfish. I’m assuming they don’t in real life and that’s a shame, but jellyfish have this great potential. People aren’t expecting jellyfish.
Which again, the [00:13:12] US military, we did see papers from 2009 in which one of the five big threats to whatever we represent to the US military was going to be these versatile, non-nation-state, non-institutional, pseudo structures. And so, if you take that jellyfish and you give it not a skeleton to make an institution or to make it a hardened and set-in stone thing that can no longer evolve but give it an exoskeleton that can grow along with it. Again. We’re pretending [00:13:42] exoskeletons do that, I don’t think they do, but something that can protect it, can keep its shape, can give it a consistent and understandable, fair and democratic ongoing shape procedurally in a way that I will describe in a bit.
Then you have something very, very potent. You have something that has not been seen before in any real form, but you’ve seen pieces of it here and there and [00:14:13] you populate that using a procedure whereby not everyone is welcome.
Fascists aren’t welcome, people who support the national security state are not welcome, people who oppose democracy and open society are not welcome and you define that. You don’t actually enforce that, you don’t have someone sitting there determining that, you just tell people, ‘Hey, here’s what we’re about and you if you are coming in with these views, you will probably not find anyone seeking to help you. In fact, you won’t, so stay out.’
You won’t [00:14:43] deter everyone who shouldn’t be in there. You won’t deter all police informants, you won’t deter all corporate intelligence operatives, but between that element, and this element of setting in stone and here is what it has been founded to be, here is the ethos around it. You do help to settle a lot of [00:15:13] unnecessary disputes in advance, especially if you have an anonymous or an Occupy Wall Street or anything else where there’s no charter and anyone is free to interpret its charter or lack thereof in any way they want.
You are freer from the splitting from the unfortunate associations one ends up having to deal with as one becomes a successful activist. You are freer from all these things that turn out to be in my opinion, or in [00:15:43] my estimation over the years, much more deleterious than anything the FBI can do.
So again, this is all very abstract, it’s very hard to sort of prove this, or to really give a good sense of how I can sit here and say this is better than this, or better than that, without visual aids, but those are available, just Google Pursuance and Barrett Brown and so forth.
It’s so important for us to address after all these struggles some of which [00:16:13] have been successful and then maybe robbed of their effects by bad actors, some were not successful, both of which we can learn from. We can take all of that and expect to have all of the good parts of this, the advantageous and necessary parts of civic collaboration using the internet, we can expect to have this kind of take off in a way that can grow exponentially, defend itself from attackers, and improve itself and maintain the ethical [00:16:43] and moral underpinnings that movements always start with before quickly losing them.
These are broad claims, I’ve made them before with more specifics. It would help I guess if everyone just assumes that everything I just said is correct, for the record that’ll make everything go easier.
GH: Of course, always does always does. So here we are. A platform is coming, the general idea of the platform is that activists will be able to honestly do activism better. But one of the things [00:17:13] that I think could come from a platform like this if implemented, would be the ability for activists who are looking into starting something, whatever their activism is, I don’t care if you plan on overthrowing the government of Eritrea, or you’re just trying to get rid of your local mayor. I don’t care what level it’s at.
BB: Both of those are fine ideas actually.
GH: Exactly. I’m just saying like, you know, there’s a ton of countries that need it but at some point you have to find comrades, you have to find people who [00:17:43] want to help and I would think platforms like this, you know, if I’m talking a perfect world, I’m going to be able to set up an operation and people on the platform are going to be able to see it or there’s going to be way for me to invite people beyond just my friends, but other people who have successfully run ops on this platform before, like is that is that a big piece of this?
BB: Yeah, it is, it is. That is one of the main pieces really. This is what this comes down to is having a pool, having a [00:18:14] framework, a medium, a shared space online, that’s accessed by an app that will be you know, used on cell phones, including ones of lower quality around the world so no one is kept out of this due to financial background.
Having that and having a protocol whereby you can expect the people that you are dealing with, the pool of people on here, you still have to use your own judgment as always as you always do, but you can have a good [00:18:44] sense, a strong sense, that the population you’re dealing with is on the whole more along the lines of your own sort of support of the open society than you would find in, say in nations like the United States, which I recall elected Trump to office four years ago and just barely got rid of him or is in the process of perhaps getting rid of him depending on what happens in the next two months.
So that’s a big thing, you know arbitration, being able [00:19:14] to have a free collaborative system or freedom of association that drives things and is a fundamental sort of right.
That is an important aspect of all this. It is the aspect that when not properly done as it, you know, never can be in a charter less system or a movement. No one’s in charge. In the absence of that it causes a massive amount of failed opportunities and threats and dangers and [00:19:44] so forth.
Being able to approach that problem and reduce it, alleviate it, not solve it, but alleviate it via ways that everyone can understand, that is a huge deal. It’s been a bigger thing to me and I’m sure to you, the more time I spend dealing with other people.
It’s one thing to sit and plan and think this is the way things would be but dealing with the other people who for whatever reason are involved in activism in your sphere, you know, there was a French philosopher once said, ‘hell is other people’ and that may be true. [00:20:14] But of course other people are also a necessity in collaboration and so to diminish the frictions and diminish the miscommunication, diminish the disputes over rights in which both sides have a point, and nothing can be solved in that sense, to diminish that would be a massive, and to me a more important goal.
So, if that was all Pursuance came to do it would be worth doing from my standpoint. It does aim to do quite a few other things which will overlap with this same sort of impulse, but that’s a good way of describing it[00:20:44] and as you said being able to find others, being able to evaluate others according to shared consensual methodology, being able to find other projects that you might want to participate in, or learn about, or learn from, or adapt, and to be able to articulate them and to build them and evolve them with others in structured ways that are not institutional but are processional, that is vastly important.
It is the most important thing we could be doing because that is how [00:21:14] we form ourselves into something that is up to the task of fighting a vast apparatus around the world, a very segmented, you know fragmented apparatus of kleptocracy and corruption and nationalism and so forth.
We have to have the best possible procedures. We can’t just win this thing on the strength of our ideals or the intensity of our feeling. Twitter will not suffice. The streets will not suffice. Nothing [00:21:44] in itself can suffice at this point and our opponents do not use any one venue, they use every single one. They engage in full spectrum warfare. We must do the same, and we must do it better than DARPA. That’s a tall order.
GH: With a lot less funding.
BB: With none. There are advantages that we have being open society people, transparency people, who police our own and try to maintain ethics, and [00:22:14] who do not believe in obscurantism because there’s very little that could be revealed about us nor should there be as in, you and I both have been hit by the feds, you’ve been sued by Scientology and so forth, and in that process, they go through everything you have.
They go through communications and so forth. In my case they went through all my Gmail accounts of eight years, my other mail accounts, you know all my IRC chats, with the intention of not just imprisoning me, but discrediting me. [00:22:44]
I’m proud to say that as a transparency activist, they were not quite able to meet that hurdle even with the advantage of having intelligence and FBI and DOJ with a couple years head start going through discovery files of my entire communications that I never had access to during this whole trial, and so that should be, I’m saying this probably to toot my own horn and to remind everyone that I should be trusted at the very least.
Not my judgment necessarily, but my character, and my intent should be trusted. My judgment, [00:23:14] you know, if my judgment were perfect, we wouldn’t need decentralized process democracy. We would just need me running secret cells of things. And that’s a lot of pressure to put on someone anyway.
So, what I’m saying is that we have advantages to the extent that nothing can be leaked about us as such, ideally. Nothing can be exposed about us. We never have to like to have a meeting saying oh no, they’re going to find out this this and this. That puts us very much the opposite spectrum of everything we’re against and so there are advantages to a free society kind of setup, people who [00:23:44] advocate for free society so long as they are willing and able that’s the key word, we’ve not been able, to police our own movement and ensure that it pursues exactly what it stands for publicly and that those two things are the same.
With a black box operation like Wikileaks or Project PM when I ran it, where essentially everyone had to trust, you know me, or Assange or any other you can think of, you never have that guarantee do you? You always have [00:24:14] someone which pressure can be put upon. That was the whole point of giving me a hundred years’ worth of charges to have to fend off, charging my mother was to get me to, you know somehow, actually I don’t even know what they wanted from me in this case because they pretty much had everybody by that point but, you know, that should never be the case.
There should never be a single person who is the leader that they go after, or a leader or whatever. There should be influencers. There should be people with ideas, but they should be in the business of influencing and having ideas, and there should be a place [00:24:44] for those ideas and that influence in all these little bits and pieces of a movements to be presented safely and securely and openly to people who voluntarily would like to take those ideas and run with them.
Pursuance is intended to do that. It is intended to give everyone regardless of if they have the charisma or the adventurism or if they just have the sheer innate criminal tendencies like you and I were born with because of who our parents were.
GH: Indeed
BB: [00:25:14] Everyone should have, not just for their sake, but for the sake of the movement, the ability to efficiently bring that to the table, whatever they have, the work ethic, the idea, a slogan, the ability to draw, the ability to put out things, the ability to understand the press, to write, to march. Everyone should be able to come to a shared space and sort out amongst themselves using the best tools possible how these things best add up and that’s what Pursuance is intended to do.
GH: So, you brought up the idea of [00:25:44] no leaders right there, people bringing ideas to the table, people bringing their thoughts, their missions, their ops to the table and hopefully others would join them, and that’s very much how we expected Anonymous to run, and how it did for a very long time and to a lesser extent how it still kind of does.
One of the things that we would always describe when asked, ‘well how does that actually work’, was very simple, you know, once you know it but very hard when you’re standing on [00:26:14] the outside looking in.
That’s this idea that just because you had the idea you’re not in charge, just because you started this off, you control nothing, you are in charge only in so much as you are here to transfer the knowledge of why you did this, who you’re doing it against, and how you want it done, in hopes that people will join you, but in the old Anonymous ways at any point the person who started it up could be run out of the op, in the old school [00:26:44] Anonymous is Anonymous’ worst enemy kind of a way.
So, with Pursuance when someone starts an operation and they kind of kick things into gear, is it possible to just ignore them at that point and move forward with other people. Do they have total control over it? Are you working on that?
BB: So, the answer to that is, and the answer to most questions along these lines is going to be, that it varies entirely on the nature of the Pursuance. So, anybody in the [00:27:14] pool of the Pursuance, of the process democracy mechanism, process democracy being the overall framework theory here, the practise, and Pursuance being the one iteration we’re building and then curating. Anyone in there can either create a Pursuance or ask to join one.
Creating a Pursuance starts out always in the exact same way and then it gets different immediately, but at the first step is always that person who creates an [00:27:44] operating Charter somewhere between DNA and you know the very beginning of an organizational charter and that person at that point has entire control over everything.
Now that person presumably wants to have other people involved. So that person has a number of methods they can proceed with by which to delineate how that happens. They could immediately create several spokes. If we visualize this in which and allow anyone [00:28:14] to come and occupy these positions and set it so that those people will be entirely equal to them or superior to them depending how the voting goes. So, when you create a Pursuance, it is a dictatorship originally just like it is when you write something on a notepad. No one has access to that until you give it to them.
GH: Or when you create a Facebook group before you add another admin, which is pretty much exactly same.
BB: The exact same thing. So that person can make an entirely Democratic one. There’s a number of ways they can do that. Just saying Democratic [00:28:44] doesn’t really give us the full spectrum of options here, one can have it so that you know, there’s seven people and they all have to have a unified vote to do any major thing or anything at all, they could do it so that anyone can fill those positions, or the positions are temporary and then they are refilled by somebody else a week later or a month later so forth, they can set it up so that so that has to be majority vote, they can set it up so that this person who created it and then two others who have to sign off on everything that person does from here on immediately and then they can [00:29:14] proceed from there, and every iteration of that.
A person can also create something that is entirely a dictatorship and people can join knowing it’s a dictatorship and to the extent people are willing to operate along those lines and some people are, in some cases, it is desirable. We don’t call it a dictatorship in that case, we call it other things, but to the extend people want to participate in that they can do that, and to the extent that they don’t, well, the person who created that is out of luck.
Now in terms of kicking someone out, probably the most [00:29:44] common alternative in Pursuance will be rather than kicking someone out of the project will be replicating the project which is one of the big features of Pursuance. Is that you build these structures, there’s a template for setting up a march somewhere or investigating a corrupt bank or something, and any person can see that and see the structure of it depending on how the system is set up in some cases they’ll be opaque and that’s something we can get into another time but suffice to say for the most part these Pursuance’s will not be high security, [00:30:14] they won’t need to be.
The average Civic business does not need to be kept secret from Bank of America’s little corporate spies, but you can if you need to, and many will.
Anyway, someone can take a copy of that structure and set it up themselves and then run it themselves and then tweak it, change it to be different so you can have different leadership with the same structure if people think that structure is great but it’s just a leadership [00:30:44] issue, they just don’t want to deal with that one person or they can take it and tweak it to make it, you know, preferable in structural ways.
That’s a big feature of this because it means a number of things. It means that people who come into Pursuance, they don’t have to sit around figuring out what Pursuance’s are and how you design a Pursuance, and what’s the best way to do that?
They just look in the data library of Pursuance’s that have existed and have been uploaded, and there will be templates and notes, saying this template or this structure we have found was good in this [00:31:14] instance for organizing a mail in campaign to a congressman here and there and also dealing with the press on it, take that as a template copy, make it your own, put in the pursuance deal, tweak it as you need be and then that evolved version, if it is an evolved version, and if the iteration you’ve evolved from the original deal seems to be better you can notate that about it. So, it’s constantly evolving.
You have constantly evolving, individual, discrete entities and templates. That’s one of the ways in which it evolves.
The other ones being [00:31:44] as more people come in, as people better associate with each other, learn who can do what, build trust relationships etcetera, so, there’re several means of evolution any one of which I think would be pretty awesome. They’re combined in a way that kind of overlaps and just solves a lot of the problems that people are going to anticipate when they think about Pursuance.
At this point I should note, and I know I’m rambling here but
GH: I love it.
BB: We spent a lot of time [00:32:14] asking and introducing some makeshift user testing and talking to a lot of NGOs, non-profits and small activist groups and reformers around the world, including west Africa and the Arab world, we asked: what is it you want? What do you have right now? What are problems you’re facing and besides the problems you identified do you think this is a problem that you may not have thought about?
We’ve done a lot of question-answering and so at this point, I’m very confident as I am at all things, that we are able to, [00:32:45] any objection any concern, any sort of reason why someone might not be on board for this even if they are interested in getting involved in civics we’re generally able to explain in our favor and that’s because we’ve done a lot of thinking and work on this, including my four years in prison, which I had plenty of time to think and work on it. I’ve had regular input from a lot of great outfits that have been around for much longer than us.
I always hasten to add that, because any thinking person who’s really interested in this [00:33:15] is going to have objections, are going to have concerns, and I just want to make sure that they’re aware that to the extent that they have one, it may be addressed online already. And if you can’t find it, I’m always available to expound on how great it is.
GH: You know relying on the knowledge of the people who came before has been something that we’ve always done, all the way back to like the beginnings of chanology, when we had the first two videos out, [00:33:45] you know related to that, the message to Scientology in the Call to Arms.
We were telling people to go out in the streets who had never really been the activist types and we talked to old school protesters to get an idea of what we might be facing with this type of a hostile enemy and they gave us a list of things, and we turned that into the third video called the Code of Conduct and so that was really important, you know dealing with the old schoolers [00:34:15] who already had a lot of this knowledge, So I’m glad to hear that’s going on.
BB: Exactly and that right there is a great example, I’m glad you reminded me, because it’s a great example of one of those many things that one doesn’t necessarily think of, is the hurdles of everyday activism when just thinking about like, you know, what does activism what does it entail blah blah in that case it was an environmental organization I won’t name just in case, I don’t know, that that approached you guys early on to find you guys, to find the command centre as it were of [00:34:45] of the chanology campaign.
They had to go through a few steps to figure things out. It wasn’t that hard I imagine. So ideally, you know, those kinds of extra efforts, on the path, that’s someone who wants to help.
Those should be facilitated, those should be easier smoother and to the extent we deal with those seemingly mundane, sometimes hard to think of little problems to the extent We create a mechanism by which people can solve not just those [00:35:15] that we can anticipate, or know of, but those in the future to the extent they have the tinker toys as it were to build and to establish and to grow and to recruit and where those recruited can know going in what they’re involved in and have certain rights that are delineated in all respects.
We get around a lot of those things, again not just the anticipated problems, not just the problems that you and I whine about all the time, me especially, but the problems that will come forward next as these things continue to evolve on both sides. [00:35:46] I’m kind of saying the same thing over and over again as I often do in Pursuance.
It’s just different ways of saying the same deals that were trying to facilitate, we’re trying to create something set in motion something that can be a unified in a way like a meta superorganism but not in a way where any one person is directing it and not where any one person can compromise it, or any one person can turn into a cult of personality. Even me.
GH: So, what’s the basic [00:36:16] timeline here? I mean, we’ve been just to say it bluntly waiting a while for something to do with the Pursuance and the last thing I got to see was just an install of Mattermost. So tell me where we are.
BB: Right. So, the last time I spoke publicly about Pursuance was in January of this year. It was an article I wrote in Counterpunch where I used to write a column, in which I sort of went over a recent Der Spiegel article as well as a not so recent NPR piece that [00:36:46] had come out, both of which were about me and Pursuance, and both of which were to me very chilling, seeing what I’ve seen.
To better convey this, before we did our Kickstarter in late 2018, you know in the run-up to that as you know, as I, you know was dealing with the DOJ and dealing with them going after my publisher, going after my editors and employers [00:37:16] subpoenaing people, seizing my money and so forth while we were navigating all this and still chugging along bringing on a board of directors establishing a non-profit doing all these things.
We were also, of course trying to explain to the public what it was we were about to build, what it was, why it mattered, why it was worth paying close attention to and not just half-assed freelancer attention to and so forth. And that went pretty well for the most part.
Then NPR interviewed me in their studio and some months later they [00:37:46] came out with this broadcast that went out to the whole country. Most people probably weren’t paying attention, but people who, when they hear Pursuance from then on are going to think of what NPR told them and what NPR chose to tell them was to me, remembering quite fully and having actually been employed as I have unless couple of years writing my life story over again for this Memoirs for Farrar Straus and Giroux and then the screenplay I’m now doing having had to go back and look at the coverage and look at how the coverage [00:38:16] affected how vulnerable we were, not just me, not just the people and other people whose names are known for all the volunteers contributors and so forth all people who ended up getting spied on illegally by DOJ as the Washington Times reported when Kevin Gallagher took them to court a couple years ago.
All the people who were raided in Norway and England and all that whose names are unknown, people whose names I don’t even know, who were hit, who were easy to retaliate against for doing things were entirely legal and necessary and helpful and aboveboard and open [00:38:46] because certain elements of the press decided for whatever reason, or for varying reasons that it would be a good idea or fun or cute or perhaps profitable or whatever to say things publicly that were not just false but sometimes insane.
So, this NPR piece among other things you may recall this broadcast, or there’s also an article about it called t [00:39:16] ‘an anarchist explains how hackers could cause global chaos’ that was the headline.
The broadcast itself compared me and you, everybody involved with anonymous and so forth and my non-profit to Russian agents attacking democracy. They attributed things that were done by a character in a show called. Mr. Robot that is based more on you than me I think, because it’s a hacker, it is only based [00:39:46] on me to the extent that they use a heroin addict who was emotionally volatile, which you’re not, and that’s why you’re not fun, because you’re emotionally balanced, they could never make a good character out of you.
I even had to give your counterpart on House of Cards a ferret to really humanise him.
GH: Guinea pig
BB: Guinea pig, right. But anyway. They made me worry again about what we were going to face and how little it would matter if [00:40:16] once again, we were to exposed those things as in FBI, you know background activity like Jennifer Emick and so forth, a lot of this stuff that’s memorized in books by Gabriella Coleman and Parmy Olson, which is to say the half-assed books, and a lot of articles since then, the things that happen to us behind the scenes and in some cases which we exposed after they were leaked or hacked.
It occurred to me that, I don’t want to go through another whole several years of this where we’re being attacked and we’re being set [00:40:46] up and we’re being framed and softened up and there’s no one I can go to and say ‘hey, please help us’, or at the very least ‘please stop kicking dirt in our face, or please correct this’, and I realized after that broadcast came out, and I started emailing the reporter saying hey, could you maybe change this because you just accused several thousand volunteers of being a part of a hacker network, which they called it, which has nothing to do whatsoever with Pursuance.
You know, I realized wow, there’s nothing about the press having re-embraced me [00:41:16] a few months after my arrest when we kind of put out the real story about here’s what the search warrants were about, here’s the companies we exposed blah blah. There’s nothing about that and the national magazine awards and all that shit that I got, that was going to stop them from doing the same shit again that they had done that already threatened all of us and more importantly threatened the work we had uncovered and put out there.
But we rolled with it, we had the Kickstarter few months after that, we barely made our goal for $48,000 and so now we’re [00:41:46] able to pay, an executive director to oversee all these things, pay some money to programmers to build a really early kind of primitive iteration of it, expenses to send people out to this this conference Ontario, to have Thomas Drake out there and Jesselyn Radack and have them present the ideas behind this.
We got that money, and over the next year I think we made good use of it. We weren’t able to produce the actual prototype, that went wrong very quickly. [00:42:16] We were working with people who had their own full-time jobs, they had their own constraints and as always, we’re not necessarily getting all of the resources that we might have liked to have given the scope of what we’re trying to do and given the difficulties in them.
But we did do a lot in terms of figuring out and Illustrating and documenting some of the more minute aspects of all this, of [00:42:46] building a process democracy and of determining the security aspects, which became more and more important to me as I saw how many of these same factors that were in play back in the bad old days of 2012, how many of them were back in action.
When you are creating something is going to be used by Arab reformers who if they get caught, they die or are tortured maybe for a few years you start to think more and more seriously about, ‘hey is this going to be [00:43:16] enough, and how much harder will the state department make this that it has to be, how much harder are they going to make this?’ and so by the time, earlier this year when Der Spiegel put out an article about me claiming I’d spent the last couple of years harassing women on Twitter without citing any examples of this and claiming in the sub headline that I was now spreading conspiracy theories without citing any examples of that.
I just, I was done. I was going through [00:43:46] a lot of difficulties in terms of PTSD and stuff that caught up with me over the years and I wrote an article in Counterpunch just making fun of the article, referring back to the NPR article citing some of the articles from some of the military funded outlets like Radio Free Europe, that came out about me years ago and just explaining, ‘Hey so my goal for the next year as I said was going to be to try to alleviate the situation to try to convince the press that it’s not worth it to do this and then [00:44:16] when that is done when I feel we are ready we will revamp Pursuance; we will get back to work on it’, and I’m happy to announce today that that time has come.
Now with me no longer being within the immediate reach of the DOJ and having I think and I’m quite proud of this quite frankly because media reform was what I really got into all this for, before anonymous and all that.
I have made it clear to the press in several countries that I’m not going to tolerate libel that exposes us to [00:44:46] criminal malfeasance by the government at all, and that just because you’re a reporter or journalist as I was when I was dragged into cages by ex-military people, back to prison for giving interviews, that doesn’t mean I can’t voice very strong opposition to the shit that you guys do in some cases.
So long as I could explain it and you’re afraid to respond to it I’m going to feel justified in making those objections very strong to the extent that a particular outlet, New York times, the New Yorker or whatever is [00:45:16] willing to, explain or defend any of the things that’s done and there’s been quite a few, to an extent that really is shocking to me. I’ve learned things over the last couple years doing this research.
And so, I do feel that having made a few moves in the last six months in particular physically and otherwise that Pursuance can now proceed along [00:45:46] the lines that I envisioned it as.
It can do so in a way we all feel comfortable telling people in Bahrain or Egypt or India or the U.S, you can use this and you can expect it to be safer, not totally safe because nothing is, but safer and better suited than anything else out there. And so Pursuance, having been on hiatus for about nine months now is now back on [00:46:16] course.
So, in terms of timelines beyond that all the time I have provided have been wrong for the most part except to the extent that I have said I don’t know so I’d prefer not to do that. I don’t want to disappoint people. I don’t want to say things. I do take full responsibility for all the delays. Some of them have been for reasons I just discussed some of them had to do with the book which I’ve been Writing, the Memoirs I signed a deal on when I got out of prison, the Memoir Manifesto thing which has been delayed for some [00:46:46] similar reasons but is now finished. I turned in this final draft, I turned in the original draft two years ago, this final draft has been turned in.
You and I did a book back in the day you remember
GH: That’s right
BB: We got some of the money at least from Amazon. I spent that money.
GH: We tried. It was fun. I love that story.
BB: So that is now done. (memoirs) The plan was always that Pursuance would launch after the book comes out because the [00:47:16] book was necessary, not just as a book, and not just as a means of me being able to support myself and continue to do this stuff, but also to neutralize some of those press elements and police elements that are out there.
The book is also because I want to explain better, ‘Here’s why Pursuance is so needed, here are the problems, here are the specifics of these problems, here are the problems that are relevant to activism itself, here the broader problems, here’s the solution, here’s the examples [00:47:46] of a solution, the real examples of how we solve things that have not perhaps been fully conveyed by us and some cases, or the press because for whatever reason, here is the scope of how hopeful this kind of activism is, and here is the thinking that has gone into this solution, and here is the extent to which you yourself as a citizen who participates in this will be able to inform that solution further’.
So that’s what the book will do along with providing more opportunities for [00:48:16] people to get involved, to volunteer. Our first lead developer got in touch with me after seeing a wired article that came out that accurately explained when I got out of prison, you know, Barret Brown is back, he’s still crazy, he’s going to go after this this and this here’s what he’s building, here’s why it makes sense, here’s the pitfalls it might face, you know, that’s how we attract people. That’s how we bring in informed participants, by accurate representations in the public.
One of the other with the other factors that has made things more [00:48:46] difficult is that my Twitter account and the Twitter account of Pursuance itself have both been removed from Twitter over the last year and a half and there’s some articles about that by David Gilmour over on Dailydot, and Facebook more recently was also taken down.
So, I’ve lost a lot of the tools that I’ve historically used in the last couple years to organize these kind of campaigns, crowd-sourced investigation, crowd-sourced civics, so that [00:49:16] was a lot big part of the picture on how we would spread Pursuance.
We’ll get around these things and I feel that when my book comes out and my author status solidifies again, and they say you can’t actually take away his Twitter, he does have some presence here. I think I’ll get those back, or at least Pursuance will.
There are all kinds of other things I could whine about in terms of here’s the problem, Here’s why it’s not my fault and all that. But the main thing is that it has been my fault. I’m a notorious [00:49:46] drug addict, substance abuser, and a lazy person and getting out of prison was tougher than being in prison for me, and the last couple years, just the things I’ve come across have been very disconcerting and we’ll just leave it at that.
I started methamphetamines about a year and a half ago, and I’m glad I did it because when on methamphetamines I really wreaked havoc on a lot of these old opponents of ours, and elements the press, [00:50:16] police agencies and I really just outdid myself in terms of just bothering them. Just making a claim like, ‘look you don’t want to start an illicit conflict with me because I’m like a rabid dog who will be biting your leg’, and you know that may make me look bad, but I’m used to looking bad.
GH: I just want to make it clear to the audience that in order to get Back at your various enemies out there and have the energy to do so do not take the Barrett Brown School of Science and [00:50:46] do methamphetamines.
BB: Or if like me you’re willing to then go to rehab as I did a few months ago because you feel like, ‘I’m done now, my work here is done. I have terrorized everybody, everybody is going to leave us alone, are not going to be helping the police come after activists for donating to my legal fund’, that’s over, then go to rehab and then leave the country if you want to take those steps then you should do it. Take all the methamphetamines you need to.
GH: I am not endorsing that.
BB: Of course you’re not
GH: you know me. I’m a teetotaller.
BB: I know. You kill me. Anyway, so that is the best I can summarize. It’s a very baroque situation as usual. That’s what the situation has been and it’s one of the reasons I haven’t put out an announcement or updated Pursuance in quite a while.
I didn’t know what to say yet because things were still in flux. Now that things have settled down, I’m able to finally [00:51:46] tell people like ‘Hey, here’s that thing you’ve been waiting for. Sorry. It’s coming, here’s the deal. Mea culpa and also fuck you because you know all those things at once’.
GH: So, there was a hell of a lot there and I’m getting asked why I’m not talking as much and it’s because Barrett can talk for hours and it’s great.
One of the best reasons to have Barrett on your show, anyone else out there is you don’t have to prepare, just give him a question and then sit back, it’s amazing.
But a couple [00:52:16] of the things you brought up there that are really important, you brought up this idea that when the powers that be, the evils in control of everything the FBI’s the DOJ’s of the world…
BB: Control is too strong of a word
GH: Sure, but when the people who believe they are in control would like to continue holding on to that fallacy you don’t have a higher authority if you will, to reach out to and say, ‘Hey could something be done about this’, [00:52:46] because you can’t ask them.
It’s like telling your bully to stop punching you, that’s just going to encourage him to keep punching you. So at that point we need other structures and activism is one of those structures. So for me Pursuance is definitely going to be heading down that direction and I’m hoping it does what I want.
I have so many questions about the tools that I know aren’t even written yet. But your general idea, you had talked about anyone being able to [00:53:16] launch one. Does that mean that your goal is still a somehow centralized system, so you get those libraries or are we getting open source that we can run on our own servers or what are we getting?
BB: The answer to that is yes, and with the with the proviso as usual that whenever we’re talking about these specific mechanics, techno mechanics, you know me very well, you have fixed my computer number of times and so you know that the specifics of that are best [00:53:46] best referred to documentation that we have some of which is still subject to change out there, some of which is not yet published, but the answer is yes.
A lot will be decentralized. So these libraries I’m talking about for instance, on a Pursuance, on a particular server of process democracy, like think of it this way; process democracy is the mechanism that I have coined as the term for this, for this this procedure that I define in certain ways, and which can be run on a pad of paper and a pen and mail if need be.
[00:54:16] But it is best run for the most part, on a server or a series of servers online, and Pursuance itself, that we curate, in which we have a mechanism for deciding who gets in, and basically anybody who applies gets in unless their answer to our question is just terrible.
So, there will be a centralized server for the data library to the extent that a particular Pursuance or so that particular iteration of a Pursuance, a structure, I’m just trying to think of another word for the actual Pursuance, to the extent that that is made accessible to it.
So some cases, but I think probably very few, it will be proper and necessary and dutiful [00:55:16] to not make the structure of the Pursuance available in any way shape or form. That will generally be doing high-end operations assessing things that bite back like Deutsche Bank, Russia or any country at all frankly unfortunately.
For the most part, yes, the generally accepted custom will be to make your structure of Pursuance available to others in Pursuance, in the universe established there.
Anyone can take the same process democracy framework, [00:55:46] the software that runs it, and run on their own server. Now that leaves open a lot of questions so I’ll set that aside unless anyone wants to ask anything in particular, but I can assure you that the implications of that are something we have thought through quite a bit as much else here and hopefully pretty much all of it.
So if anybody does have any questions along those lines we have some answers to that and sometimes the answers are unfortunately ‘that could be the case’ or ‘that is one of the problems we run into when we invent anything or create anything’, but in many cases I’m happy to say we do have some pretty hopeful answers as to those kinds of problems that do come up whenever you have a platform, whenever you bring something out in the arms race that’s going on internationally.
GH: Anonymous and all of those fun tactics that were come [00:56:46] up with by others, and me, and everyone kind of early on have been used for great things and terrible things.
The issue here is always that if you give it more structure than an idea that is put out into the world then by its very nature, you are giving it a surface area for attack, be it a single person a single server a single programmer, whatever it might be, so you have to open these things up.
You [00:57:16] have to allow anyone to take them. Your general hope with this type of stuff at least in my case, has always been when we put ideas out there that help people actually organize, and organize stronger and better and especially more anonymously, like we did early on, we hoped and prayed that more people were good people than bad people.
And so, when you put a set of tools out there more often than not it will be used for good. So in the end [00:57:46] the greater good is served. You can’t do anything in the more general sense about the fact that you’ve put out an idea and the bad guys have now decided to use that idea.
The only thing you can do is, you know, like the current fun that is being done attacking qanon where a bunch of people like Kirtaner whose name I now know how to actually pronounce good, ol Aubrey there, are starting to fight against people who are using [00:58:16] Anonymous’ tactics.
Or generally just kind of piggybacking on the name in a way that we don’t like because they are not Anonymous. They’re being attacked and this goes back to the old adage of Anonymous being Anonymous’s worst enemy, you know.
Pursuance I would imagine that there will be a day when the Nazis throw up a version of it and another Pursuance pops up literally to fight that Pursuance. We had that happen with all of our old tactics, where the bad guys would take [00:58:46] our tactics and attempt to use them and then we would use those same tactics against them. So that’s how I would see this going. I mean is that your basic assessment?
BB: I read that assessment and I would say that I take even a more pessimistic view than you do.
GH: That was my decade-old pessimism speaking. I now have lost almost all faith in humanity. So, I’m there with you now.
BB: [00:59:16] Here’s the thing. unlike inventing a weapon or nuclear submarine or a submarine with weapons on it or sharks that shoot bees out of their mouths, a reference which you don’t seem to recognize because you don’t enjoy having fun.
We’re producing something here that is a format that does have natural appeal and thus will be more utilized. We can expect that in advance without being hopeful which neither of us are.
[00:59:48] I think I can articulate. Back in the 90s especially and up until today AM radio has been the province of conservatives. There are very few exceptions.
You remember Air America Radio came out around the 2004 election al, it wasn’t successful because for whatever reason we won’t get into it here, but certain kinds of people prefer certain kinds of formats.
Some people like reading, some people like to have Vlog posts and hyperlinks proving the things that are being said, some people like their President [01:00:18] to tweet stuff out that’s nonsense over and over again.
So, you know Biden for instance, as was pointed out by Trump jr or somebody who’s sighting some kind of evidence of the electoral fraud, Biden has far fewer followers than Trump, but he’s the President now, or is about to be. So that’s a great lesson.
There are differences in format such that if we are conscious of these, we can expect to put out something with the certainty which we rarely have, the certainty that this is going to be on [01:00:48] the whole better utilized and more utilized by our side, open society people in this instance.
I think it’s especially true because it doesn’t take that many people to think of a lie. It does oftentimes take a bunch of people to figure out the truth. Crowd sourced research, which is one of the things that I’ve spent a lot of time of course on, is a collaborative effort and the things we’re countering generally aren’t.
The things we are countering although there’s other people involved, as with most [01:01:18] things, we’re generally countering black box apparatus like Palantir, the CIA, GCHQ, shit that we see glimpses of whenever someone like Snowden comes along, leaks stuff or someone hacks deals here or there.
We have a situation in which the other side has all these advantages and most of the operations are being done from these very tightly wound apparatus of course, you always have qanon people you [01:01:48] do have distributed crowdsource nonsense, and that’s the case, that’s a fact.
But I do think that given that qanon itself almost certainly came from one of these black boxes, I haven’t followed it as closely as I some of you guys have, but I do know that has been the thinking for a while, that it was conceived and then operated or whatever or taken over or whatever or some combination thereof.
GH: It was taken over very quickly by those types, but initially it was just two people on 4chan, Paul Furber and Coleman Rogers trying to sell t-shirts.
BB: [01:02:18] Another lesson which may be contradictory to my lesson here, but still a lesson.
GH: But it went very quickly. I mean it was weeks later before it was off on YouTube and the conspiracy nuts were starting to move and then higher production value started coming behind it if you will, and then you noticed, you know the change.
But early on it was literally a ploy to sell t-shirts from one of those print-on-demand t-shirt shops from a couple of guys on 4chan. Like it was an absolute joke.
BB: And as you know better than anyone else a couple of guys on 4chan [01:02:48] can end up holding a great deal of power.
GH: Yeah
BB: Because you were once one of them and so yes, that’s a great lesson right there. Qanon could be an exception almost, but also an important part of the example.
I’ve always felt I think the last nine years since the Palantir incident, Team Themis when we first started to get a glimpse at these intelligence contracting firms and how they work with the FBI and GCHQ and so forth and what that entails, we’ve always been up against a certain kind of apparatus for the most part.
To the extent we have been against these, [01:03:18] it has generally been with the active participation, encouragement, pushing, supplying by the FBI or by Palantir and so forth. We’ve always found those connections in the end, long after we suspected they were there.
So it’s a situation in which they these advantages, their black boxes. We don’t have the things we should have and by putting them out there, the scales will tip in our favor even to the extent that there’s a great deal of use of it by people who can’t really make use of it that well on the other side.
People [01:03:48] who aren’t trying to find the truth and collaborate to do so and people who already have advantages in the Mercer family and Palantir and so forth.
And the reason I go on about this so much is because it’s one of the big concerns I had for a long time, a lot of us did. How can we expect this to be any better in terms of humanity’s fate than the internet or Facebook or a thousand other things and in this case, I do think [01:04:18] that we can, and I’m always happy to have other issues brought up because we do want to address them and think about them, but I do think from what we’ve been able to examine and hear and analyze that this will be a net positive for the open society.
GH: That is the most optimistic thing I’ve ever heard you say. so, I would like to address one key thing here. You have called me not fun now three times during this …
BB: You don’t play video games, you don’t drink, you don’t smoke weed
GH: [01:04:49] Okay, all I do is play video games. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
BB: What is your what Your steam code?
GH: On Steam I’m PFF Gregg if anyone wants to send the old connection, that is my old clan from the Counter-Strike days way back when. When you knew me, I wasn’t gaming because I was too busy doing activism. I had no time. The thing that I think really spoiled you on me having fun, the last like [01:05:19] the three times we really had the most fun I would say,
BB: Oh year, working on that damn book proposal
GH: Working on the book proposal or the couple of times we got to hang out in like bars with me, you, and Michael Hastings. You guys got smashed and I’m sitting there completely not drinking just drinking water and soda the whole time
BB: We call that not fun in the western world. What you’re explaining does not refute what I’m saying
GH: I was having fun.
BB: I’m glad you were having fun.
GH: Another one of those pieces of this puzzle that I think I want to see addressed a lot more by hopefully a Pursuance is what happened with Michael Hastings.
GH: I mean if someone wants to put up a Pursuance to try and figure out how to make me have some fun out there in the world. I’d love it because I need a little more of that.
BB: Regarding Michael Hastings, I’ll just say this ,you will love the last three or four pages the book [01:06:19] because it is a verbatim email.
You’ll love the last three four pages the book. I waited a long time on this to address this in any real meaningful way publicly. I wanted to get my ducks in a row and now I have.
In this case it’s less of a question of what happened, but what happened afterwards, and what didn’t happen and what should have happened. This was a journalist who died and the way that his work and himself and I’ll be the first to say this: A journalist or an activist, [01:06:49] our lives are expendable, they are absolutely expendable. There is nothing about any of us that should be memorialized and fetishized the way that Assange has been subject to no doubt against his will for the last 10 years. We are here to serve and to fight and to die.
Michael Hastings, his life, how he regarded all that stuff is meaningless. What’s meaningful is the work he did that was important and the things [01:07:19] he was working on and the extent to which that was essentially wasted.
His work was cut off from any potential further amplification and use. That was not something that anyone on the other side could do. The only people who could have done that was the working press in this country. The press failed in every measure possible to evaluate this. [01:07:49]
I’ll tell you this, over the last year and a half until about three or four months ago I was planning on committing suicide. One of the few reasons why I didn’t was because I knew what my obituary would look like. I knew this because I’ve seen Michael Hastings. I knew that nothing would be gained [01:08:19] from that. There would be nothing gained.
This is one of the things that has affected me a great deal. It’s why it took me so long to finish the last chapter of the book, because it goes into these things, and unlike everything else; prison, having my mom charged and so forth, being in the Shu, none of those things really did anything to me. I’m fine with those things.
The base character of our most important institutions, which [01:08:49] is journalism, the base character of those who have just slid into that over the years, and the helplessness that I see, I now have in the face of that, to force people to examine it, or just get them to stop doing it, was to me terrifying and again, like I said earlier, I’m glad I took amphetamines for a year and a half. I’m glad I terrorized Adrian Chen and John Cook, and Glenn Greenwald. [01:09:20]
The FBI can do whatever, but it’s really our colleagues, my former colleagues in the press that get to decide what the meaning of it is and they have not made the right decisions I think ever. Not in our lifetimes.
GH: We hung out with Michael. We talked to him a lot. One of my kind of oddly almost morbid things that I own, that I have here in my house, is [01:09:50] I still haven’t been able to take his Rolling Stone business card out of my wallet.
I still keep it there just as a reminder of how bad things went there, and how little we truly know about what really happened at the end. But for everyone who doesn’t know, as there’s going to be people who watch this who have no idea what we’re talking about, Michael Hastings was a journalist.
He was an investigative journalist and a very good investigative journalist [01:10:20] his work got the wrong people out of places they shouldn’t have been. It got McChrystal removed from the Middle East and just many other things. His work was important, and it was always punching up.
He was going after people who were in positions of power and shouldn’t be and who were abusing those positions of power. And in the end, I do truly believe that he was killed for his reporting. [01:10:50] I don’t believe the accident.
I don’t believe the stories of him being drunk and having some kind of a car crash. I don’t believe the stories that maybe the car itself had some kind of a malfunction. I believe that his car was actually hacked in some way.
What’s funny about that belief is, at first you say that to people like right afterward, literally the day it happened, and they tell you ‘you’re [01:11:20] insane’, and then that week on national TV General Alexander, former head of the NSA goes live on TV, and when asked that exact question says, ‘Yeah, we can do that like, the NSA’s had that technology for a decade’, like yeah, I mean it might have happened.
I don’t know, but you know it goes from an insane theory that just his friends are now passing around in some kind of, almost a way to deal with the grief, then it becomes a theory that needs to be investigated and never was. [01:11:51]
The night that it happened, I was on the phone that night with the people at Rolling Stone, his director, his co-workers like we got on a phone call, but like five of us with what little information we knew from the day before and that day because I don’t know, I don’t remember our conversations right around that time, but I was on the phone with him the night before and it [01:12:21] was crazy because there was definitely no sign the night before that he was doing that.
We were talking about specifically his next piece and the big thing he was working on and when he was going to come out to the east coast again, so we could meet up and all that fun stuff and then the next day he’s gone.
The media’s reporting on it was basically about this journalist who it was sad that passed away, in a way, but not in a super mysterious way that maybe he was reporting on something [01:12:51] the powers that be think he shouldn’t have, just ah it sucks that you know, maybe it was suicide by car. Maybe it blew up. Who knows? No, I think he was killed personally.
BB: Whether or not he was and I will say that if I were in charge of whatever let’s say Booz Allen Hamilton and if I was tasked with dealing with those journalists or whistle-blowers who of course as we know have been a major [01:13:21] concern of many governments for 15 years now, and I had to figure out which person it makes the most sense for us to get rid of, who based on their past performance over last two years, can we project over the next 10 years will cause much more trouble to the national security apparatus that we all believe in for some reason, I would kill Hastings immediately.
GH: And I think they did.
BB: I’m not stupid. I don’t have a position on that. I’ll put it this way when it happened, I was agnostic. I [01:13:51] remained agnostic for a few years. I have since had back channel conversations as I’m sure you have, that led me to believe that it’s definitely worth investigating and I do think it’s more likely than not.
What kills me is the fact that I should feel uncomfortable saying that. Knowing how this kind of thing is dealt with by my ex-colleagues who have no fucking idea about [01:14:21] any of this stuff have zero ideas about this stuff and are not worth killing. Which is the meanest thing I can say about them.
The fact that they get to decide ultimately, whether or not anything gets looked into and can even punish those of us who want to look into it, who think it’s our duty when a journalist dies under unusual circumstances that it should [01:14:51] be looked into in a way based on the evidence, which has to be picked up first. It can’t be discarded.
There’s a great deal of evidence that came out months later from the FBI and so forth that contradicts the original narrative that became the permanent narrative, being the media narrative.
It’s despicable and it’s unfortunate and again the reason is not because Michael Hastings needs to be sainted or because his life had special meaning [01:15:21] it doesn’t.
It’s because he served a function and the function is not a small one. It is news and media information that determines who gets to be president, who gets to be considered president, who gets to give advice that is taken seriously by a vast apparatus in the United States and elsewhere, which countries can be invaded [01:15:51] which countries can’t, who can die in Yemen, how many weapons can we sell the Saudis. These are no small matters.
There have been more articles about me taking a bath on webcam during the Zeta thing as a joke in order to show that I wasn’t being executed by the Zetas as most the press said I would be, than there are about Hastings and his coverage of things.
There’s not a single article out there, about the fact that a few months before he died, he was on The Young Turks [01:16:21] and he talked about having been under surveillance and he had been told this by his friends at Special Forces that he was under surveillance.
There’s not one article about the fact that, contrary to the FBI’s original claim that they had no interest in him and no files on him, which they later reneged upon a few months later and then they did show they had a couple of documents with some weird wording on them.
My gag order hearing which I was legally required not to talk about my case or anything involving it like Palantir and things I investigated as a journalist for a year and a half, [01:16:53] Michael Hastings is mentioned in there and they admit to having notes on him.
He was in my e-mails, he was involved in the Tunisia thing. The day after you brought me in to the Tunisia thing, I was already in touch with Hastings via my Gmail account, it was under discovery. He was member of Project PM early on.
Project PM was designated a criminal organization by the DOJ. We all know the DOJ investigated to try to identify every single person who contributed to my wiki, my journalistic wiki, and every single person who donated to my legal fund, they did that illegally [01:17:23] and they were sued for it later on.
So, the idea that Hastings, the guy who was already on their radar obviously and already a target of any number of interests around the world would not have been someone the FBI had files on when they had files on every single other person, including 17-year old’s in Norway who wrote for my Wiki, or was in a chat room, is not just absurd, it is something that to the extent that it is voiced or maintained, the person maintaining that should have their face spat upon and beaten. [01:17:53] I just can’t even tell you how worse it’s been. I prefer the FBI to my former colleagues.
GH: The last two conversations me and him had went similar to the last conversation the three of us had together, you know, those last two conversations me and him had the day before and three days before his passing.
He joked with me as he read some of the death threats he was [01:18:23] getting from military and former military about his articles that had gotten people removed from the field of battle. He thought it was both scary and funny.
BB: As things often are.
GH: Yeah, you usually laugh in the face of fear, whether you’re actually being strong or not, it just you know, it’s a natural reaction to these things. I mean you got to find the humor somewhere.
One of the stories I’ve told a few people [01:18:54] that you might remember is me, you, and Michael in New York, and we’re at a bar and you do a very deft move of changing the focus from you because at this point it’s probably eight months or nine months before you’re actually about to get raided and be in serious trouble, but you’re already very clearly, you know, not giving a fuck about whether it’s coming or not.
BB: I had been informed that I was [01:19:24] going to prison. So, I already knew. The charges just hadn’t been figured out yet.
GH: So, I’m sitting there yelling at you to slow it down a bit because you’re going to go to jail for the rest of your life and just, not to stop what you’re doing but to just know that you’re on your way to prison here and we’d like to not lose a friend.
So, do what you can to minimize your exposure.And you’re telling me basically in the nicest terms among friends who talk to each other like this to, fuck off with that, and that you aren’t slowing down at all and you quickly, I mean, I’m like three sentences [01:19:54] in and you say well this guy is just going to get himself killed.
I’m only going to prison. And we spend the next 10 minutes yelling at Michael about the fact that he’s getting you know; three and four death threats a day from ex-military and within a year and a half in my life you’re in prison and he’s dead.
BB: You’ve always given good advice. No one’s ever accused you of not giving good advice. It’s just that you’re not that fun.
GH: Yeah, you know like I mean, it’s one of those things where you look back on [01:20:24] different times in life when you were right about something and sometimes, you’re like well thank God I was right about that. You know, this is one of those times I really wish I was wrong. I think about it a lot.
BB: This is worth mentioning here just in the greater context, you know, this is all sad shit in a way. But WW2 in which both my grandfather were bombers, you never heard of them because they were among the millions and millions of people who voluntarily went and risked their lives to fight fascism. [01:20:54]
It was standard to expect he might die, or friends might die. It was standard. No one called you a hero for it. No one said you’re brave and all that. There were no articles about every single person like there have been for me and you, particularly me as a martyr as I was going to prison. It was just basic shit as a human, as a citizen. It really does alarm me the extent to which people come to me and say basically thank you for your service.
GH: Yeah, [01:21:24]
BB: Really, I’ve gone through very little compared to what someone in WW2 did. One of the main things that we’ve done aside from frameworks, aside from learning lessons about tactics and so forth what needs to be done is, there needs to be a very self-confident, self-assertive, perhaps even bullying movement to get people to accept that [01:21:54] self-sacrifice absolutely a hundred percent will be necessary.
In the absence of a rule of law, the absence of institutions that work and are fair and are decent and can justify themselves. What happens is you have something along the lines of chivalry or feudalism. You have trust networks, which are fine things to have, you have adventurers, [01:22:24] you have a heroic age.
A heroic age sounds fun, it sounds really cool, but it is not the ideal thing and it is what I’ve been preparing for and what you have been preparing for. There is time in which we have adventures and people who strike out against, but it is not ideal but any means, and so as much as I enjoy it, as much as I enjoy being a Homeric hero, not a hero in the positive American bullshit sense, like you saved people from our plane, but the trickster Odysseus, you know, [01:22:54]. That’s just not ideal. It’s not.
I have benefitted from all this. The money I’ve made in the last 10 years, what little there’s been, and the status I’ve gained has all been on the backs of the public who have been the true victims of all the things that I’m complaining about.
I came out of this smelling like a rose. It is the public in the US and in Yemen and in [01:23:24] every other country in the world who would have better benefited from a more open and less corrupt less insane authoritarian world.
They’re the ones who have suffered due to the sins of our opponents in different spheres. And so, I try to reiterate that because there’s a certain kind of person who finds it difficult to understand.
They can’t imagine why anyone can object to injustice unless it’s because they themselves are whining about it. [01:23:55] If it seems like a weird thing to bring up because I’m thinking very clearly of a number of our colleagues and the press, I’ve become more neurotic in the last couple years I’ll tell you that. I was always pretty neurotic, but always fun.
GH: I want to kind of clear something up. When you say rule of law, you’re not talking about the general sense of there are laws and the people have to deal with it. You’re talking about the ideal. [01:24:25]
BB: I’m an anarchist who longs for a republic. Look, I’m an anarchist because I have so little faith in the ability of most human beings at this point in time and probably in all time before us to maintain the ideals that they are so ready to assume that they practice. So, I’m a conservative Anarchist. I’m an anarchist not out of utopianism but out pessimism and out of experience increasingly.
[01:24:55] To me the rule of law is a beautiful idea. Government is a beautiful idea. There’s a difference between professing something and just everyone papering over something as we did for the last 20 years before [01:25:25] the Trump thing kind of knocked some sense into people and made them realize that just saying, oh we’re a unified America, we’re the Obama speech of 2004.
We are a divided nation, and we should be. Europe was divided in 1938 and it should have been. There are battle lines. They don’t happen to coincide with national borders at this point, but hopefully some day they will. [01:25:55]
GH: Very rarely have they. I mean look at Libya as a fine example of a set of borders that don’t actually work and don’t actually maintain any level of peace. in fact, they inflict damage on the people just by where they exist. So, our national borders have always been a bit of a problem.
BB: It’s the ethos which reminds us again how important ethos is and how easy it is to establish an ethos, but our ethos of American exceptionalism, [01:26:25] and just the narrative that has been allowed to exist even after it’s been nullified and contradicted over and over again over the last four or five decades. That is such an act of violence to allow that ethos.
Contrary to all actual facts, contrary to the situation globally and domestically, that has been the greatest act of violence perpetuated in our lifetime, even greater than the Arab genocide that our country has perpetuated [01:26:55] since I was in third grade.
I say that again and it may sound like I’m getting kind of crankish because I’m going to have these weird new emphasis as I keep reiterating in strange ways. But the reason for it I hope this will be better illustrated with the book which will be coming out in a few months finally.
I hope you will be better able to understand why I’m so freaked out and why I’m so focused on this. What seemed [01:27:25] to be kind of obvious things that maybe need to be repeated.
GH: So over here in America where you have so wonderfully left me, we have Nazis in the streets and in every major city and you’re now over [01:27:55] there having fun with all the Brexiters. So it’s not like you’ve completely left this level of insanity behind.
BB: I’m loyal to the queen I’ll tell you that
GH: As loyal as Australia
BB: Fuck Australia. Here’s a great thing about England. And again, I’ve had ties to England to an unusual extent for 12 years. I started writing for the Guardian 2009 and so forth and even before that. So, I’ve dealt with a lot of brits over the years and I’ve come to admire them in certain ways.
When you come over here and you meet like the guy upstairs who is Scottish, your random neighbor, just a random guy and you start talking about politics and he is totally cognizant of things that in the U.S people have to go to IRC chat to find [01:28:55] people who are cognizant in these things. You realize that a percent of this country is on a high level of awareness and ability to articulate their views versus like maybe 20 percent in the US, you start to realize, ‘Boy I sure am glad I let Gregg Housh back in the US and came here to England. Fuck Gregg Housh.
GH: I have as much money as I always had, none. You are of anyone who is not related to me, the person I’ve spent the most money on in my entire life.
Two of the computers that [01:30:25] the government stole from you during various raids and whatnot I had purchased and so I felt like I was being stolen from as well, it was just horrible.
I will say I loved your mom. I loved the time we got to spend down in Dallas. So, one of the things I’ve told people is I love going down there and actually staying in her guest room because it’s nicer than my house. She is a [01:30:55] wonderful person.
BB: Yeah, you like the cowhide barstools? And the western cowpoke art?
GH: She doesn’t just live in Texas. She like is that Texas mother
BB: She is that Texas mother. Yes.
GH: Yeah. So, you have a book coming. You’ve been working on this for quite a while originally, we started on one long ago that didn’t end up going anywhere.
BB: So, this book, I started writing it in prison and it’s finally been completed and sent in. There’s something else. I have this whole little thing I’m executing here with this book and elsewhere in which I have chosen to [01:31:55] further fortify my position vis-à-vis the US government to the press by putting out some information about my prosecutor Candida Heath.
The same one who presided over this cover-up over Michael Hastings and his files. Someone who I resent quite a bit. We were approached a few months ago by an individual in Dallas, a black individual who had [01:32:25] had several very bizarre encounters with Candina Heath and her husband, and a third person who I won’t mention here because they are not a public figure, and who made some claims that we saw and then followed them up with some links to some things and then a video.The video was being sold on amazon.com by digital download.
It turns out the Candida Heath [01:32:55] former Assistant USDA for the Northern District of Texas and current senior counsel for the DOJ’s internet evidence division, which is to say that she is in control of vast amounts of the evidence that is used in DOJ cases, and is also involved very closely as we’ve seen in documents recently, in International security related cases involving Russian hackers.
She has a great deal of blackmailable material out [01:33:25] on her that we now have because we were given it by one of her victims. It turns out that Candina Heath, this long time DOJ stalwart who tried to get me to, for those of you who are not familiar with this, tried to get me to plead to a linking charge for copying and pasting a link to information that was stolen from STRATFOR.
Had I plead to it which I didn’t thank God, it would have allowed the DOJ to go after anybody, journalists’, researchers, whatever for copying and pasting links in the future [01:33:55] which would have been vastly disastrous as the EFF and other organizations around the world pointed out back then.
It turns out she is into secretly filming herself having sex with black men, filming without their consent. One of her victims came forward with this stuff and then his Twitter account was deleted after he came forward with it. My Facebook account was deleted. [01:34:26] Long story short we have a 25-minute video that she produced, she was involved in producing, and that was being sold under a different name. She goes by the Queen of Spades in the pornography world. Spades for those who aren’t familiar is an archaic racist term for blacks.
Audio disconnected due to shenanigans.
NOTES
AMA 1 — Heath
Heath is legendary for trying to establish dangerous precedents and engaging in overreach, most notably when I was prosecuted for the link but also in other, lesser known cases before and since. Regardless of what one thinks of the fascist little ex-Marine who was trying to give Eichenwald a seizure, Heath is a greater threat to our society than almost anyone she’s prosecuted. See the gag order hearing, when, as widely reported, Heath tried to stop me from writing due to a piece I’d done for The Guardian on the Snowden revelations having been “critical of the government” with a “tone” that was “a problem.” There’s lots more, much of which has been covered in the press, some of which will be in my book (many of the key documents are still not public).
AMA 2 — Press
Column — Friedman
Unfortunately, the mainstream press didn’t really have the gravity or the integrity of action to prevent other, even worse outlets from popping up. Had the New York Times not continued to employ Thomas Friedman even after it became clear that he was less than worthless in terms of explaining world politics, they would have more room to make their own case. Same thing with the Washington Post and Charles Krauthammer, who, as I showed in an old Vanity Fair online piece, was wrong about every U.S. military engagement since Kosovo. Those aren’t the only problems with these respectable national outlets, of course, but they’re very telling regarding the cowardice of editors and publishers who continued to promote incompetent commentators simply because they’ve made some vague name for themselves.
And of course WaPo’s failed attempt to identify some website that could sort out “fake news” is indicative of the chief fact of our press culture — that much of how it operates is haphazard at best, and that falsehoods can creep in to any outlets, regardless of pedigree, if its operators lose track of basic principles such as hiring competent people and firing incompetent ones. Personal relationships, inertia, ambition, and that sort of things are the chief problems facing our political press, rather than corporate interference or anything else of that sort.
AMA 3
To first question — that’s the most important question of our age, really, since there is a huge amount of talent, energy, and outrage that is going to waste for want of a reliable mechanism to harvest that energy. The purpose of the pursuance project, which provides a framework for “process democracy” whereby anyone may create their own civic entity for research, movement work, opposition, and the like, is to provide a better answer than currently exists. It takes some of the lessons we’ve learned over the last 15 years of net-facilitated revolutions abroad as well as effective campaigns in the West, facilitated by Anonymous and the like, and tries to maintain the fluidity, the agility, and the ability of anyone to have their ideas aired and acted upon, while also adding a degree of rigor to the process.
Check out that presentation I link to towards end of my post above and send it out to anyone else you know who’s interested in taking responsibility for the broken institutions that act in our name. | https://medium.com/@barrettbrown/barrett-brown-on-pursuance-ae7a2255b11f | ['Barrett Brown'] | 2020-12-13 19:55:57.798000+00:00 | ['Anonymous', 'Activism', 'Media Criticism'] |
Bitcoin, The Internet, and Rock n’Roll: An Analogy By Bowie. | The interviewer then makes a face that says “how the hell did he connect those two random things like that? Is he high?”
But before he can say anything, Bowie interrupts and says:
“Oh yes it is! Forget about the Microsoft element, the monopolies do NOT have a monopoly… maybe on programs.”
A Call To Arms Against The Monopoly
Some of the smartest people in the world have compared Bitcoin and the technology that has emerged from its wake as something as significant as the internet itself, and I completely agree. The parallels are pretty obvious.
Anyone working in Bitcoin or the broader blockchain technology industry will understand what David was talking about. Just like with the first Rock and Rollers, that call-to-arms feeling was exactly what attracted most of us to work with Bitcoin in the first place. That feeling that something had to change in the existing system, in this case, in the world of money and finance, was a common denominator among the first movers in this industry.
He couldn’t have been more accurate in describing it as a “dead-dodgy” kind of occupation to have. It took my own mother over three years to understand and believe that this was a real industry we were trying to build, that I wasn’t going to go to jail for what I did for a living. To this day, we get looks of skepticism from most people when we tell them that our business is built on Bitcoin and blockchain technology platforms. The world is only starting to see this as a career opportunity, and not something subversive or chaotic. In many ways, it is still as chaotic as anything can be.
David also talks about how the monopolies have lost their monopoly. This is a perfect analogy with the complete destruction of the monopoly on money creation by nation states and central banks brought upon by the Bitcoin protocol. When the first person other than Satoshi Nakamoto started running Bitcoin, that monopoly suddenly became a sand castle in a fast-rising tide.
Hal Finney was the first user of Bitcoin other than Satoshi Nakamto. RIP, Hal.
Interviewer: “What you like about it is the fact that anyone can say anything? Or do anything?!”
This was the biggest argument against the Internet back then — everyone can say anything or do anything or be anything, therefore, it won’t work. It is a great underestimation of the power of the individual when expressed through a collective network.
David Bowie responds:
“From where I am, by virtue of the fact that I’m a pop singer and writer, I really, like, I embrace the idea, that there is this demystification process going on between the artist and the audience. Now it’s a communal kind of thing , it’s about the community, it’s becoming more more about the audience, because the point of having somebody who “led the forces” has disappeared! Because the vocabulary of rock is too well-known, as a currency it is not devoid of meaning anymore. It’s only a conveyor of information, not a conveyor of rebellion. — And internet has taken on that, as I say, and so I find that a terribly exciting idea, so from my standpoint being an artist, I’d like to see what the new construction is between artists and audience. It’s almost like the artist is to accompany what the audience is doing, and that feeling is very much permeating the internet.
A Demystification Process
Let’s analyze that statement for a bit. Bowie talked about the demystification process going on between the artist and the audience due to the Internet’s ability to breakdown the importance of the artist versus that of the audience, where the audience now becomes as important, if not more important, than the artists themselves.
When the world of money and finance started to become global, the rise of institutional financial gatekeepers have become personified and glorified in the role of banks and bankers. Banks were the most revered institutions of the new industrial era, providing credit, savings, and safekeeping of our wealth and assets. If you wanted a good and stable job, find work in a bank. Up until the 80s and 90s, this was a common narrative.
In this context, banks are the artists (and maybe the record label), and everyone else is the audience. Big banks “led the forces” and had vast amounts of power and influence over society. They still do to this day, but the coming of age of the internet and the vast improvement in the interface between the user and the network is rapidly changing all that. Fintech, Insuretech, Regtech, mobile payment platforms and the like have come out strong in the last decade, and the customer is now as important, if not more important, than the institutions themselves. New applications using technology have begun to show us that these revered institutions have been sleeping on the job, and that they have been too slow to adapt to the changing needs of their audience.
Going back to the interviewer, he again mentions what he believes to be the absurd idea that “anyone can say or do anything”:
“But what is it specifically about the internet? Anybody can say anything… but it all adds up to what? There is nothing cohesive about it in the way there was something cohesive about the youth revolution in music…”
Here we go again, that same narrative. “If anyone can say anything, it must be worthless, it will be meaningless.” If anyone can say or do anything in a way that it becomes censorship-resistant, with permission-less access, then nothing will come out of it except chaos. This could not be further from the truth, and David knew that, with conviction.
Bitcoin’s invention allowed anyone in the world to “say anything” in the context of commerce and value exchange, the same way the internet did in the context of communication and information exchange.
David responds:
“Oh but absolutely! Because I believe that, at the time, up until at least the mid-70s, we really felt that we were still living under the guise of a single and absolute creative society where there were known truths and known lies, and was no kind of duplicity of pluralism about the things that we believed in. That i started to breakdown rapidly in the 70s and the idea of a duality in the way that we live, in there are always two, three, four, five sides to every question that the singularity disappeared, and that, I believe, has produced such a medium as the internet and it absolutely establishes and shows us that we are living in total fragmentation.”
The Breakdown of the Singularity
Up until 2008, we were still living under the guise of a single and absolute financial society where there were known truths and known lies, and nothing can be questioned. This started to break down in the midst of the confusion caused by on of the biggest financial meltdowns in modern history and the house of cards that fell along with it. Suddenly, we realized that there are two, three, four, five sides to every question, and that monopoly disappeared forever.
It produced an entirely new medium in the form of Bitcoin, as a new kind of software, a new kind of network, a new kind of money, and a new subversive idea that came out of nowhere and completely demystified the relationship between the gatekeepers of money and the consumers of money. Things like blockchains, consensus algorithms, and peer-to-peer networks showed us that the emperor had no clothes, and that we are living in total fragmentation because of all the trust we gave to these institutions.
Interviewer: “You don’t think that some of the claims that are being made for it are hugely exaggerated, I mean, when the telephone was invented people made amazing claims for it —
David interjects:
I know! The President at the time, he was outrageous! He said he foresaw the day in the future when EVERY TOWN in America will have a telephone. Now that, how dare he claim that, absolute bullshit (Sarcasm). So, no, I don’t agree, I think the internet — I don’t think we have even seen the tip of the iceberg. “I think the potential of what the internet is going to do to society, both good an bad, is unimaginable! I think we are actually on the cusp of something exhilarating AND terrifying.” he says.
Interviewer: (Still looking exasperated) It’s just a tool isn’t it?!
Some would argue that David was an alien. Ziggy Stardust, Major Tom… (Image from Google images)
“No, it’s not. No, it’s an alien life form… Is there life on Mars? YES, and it just landed here.” Says David.
Bitcoin, The Alien Life Form
Right now, some of the claims about the potential of Bitcoin as a new decentralized global monetary standard or how blockchain technology will change our fundamental understanding of trade, ownership, and trust seems hugely exaggerated, and rightfully so. Just like the early days of the internet, there is a lot of hype in the industry today.
But, like David, we believe that what we are seeing today is not even the tip of the iceberg. We believe that we are on the cusp of something both exhilarating and terrifying, like an alien life form landing on Earth. Bitcoin’s impact has barely made a ripple in the coming wave of innovation and disruption in the world of finance, yet here we are, only ten years in and moving trillions in value on a global scale, enabling millions of people to transact with anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Interviewer: “It’s simply just a different delivery system there. You’re arguing about something more profound…”
To which David says:
“Oh yeah, I am talking about the actual context and the state of content is going to be so different from anything we can envisage at the moment, where the interplay between the user and the provider will be so in sympatico, it’s going to crush our ideas of what mediums are all about.”
Something More Profound
Isn’t Bitcoin just another payment system like VISA or Paypal? Isn’t it just another delivery system for money? No, we argue that it is something much more profound, just like David argued for the Internet in 1999.
We live in a world of digital commerce and value exchange that was severely limited by the restrictions placed by gatekeepers, where every action is monitored by a middleman, every participant is vetted by a process that excludes two-thirds of the world’s population from participating in the global internet economy, because it was the only solution to a problem we could not solve — the double spending problem.
The release of Bitcoin in 2009 gave the world a better practical solution based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, and it has opened a pandora’s box of possibilities that cannot be undone.
The actual context of transactions and the state of the content being exchanged, not just money, but entire classes of value both tangible and intangible, will be so different from anything we can envisage with our limited perspective today, where the interplay between the two parties in a transaction, between the user and provider, senders and receivers, become perfectly in sync with little to no friction.
It is going to crush every single idea we have of what mediums of value exchange are all about. | https://medium.com/@MiguelCuneta_21450/bitcoin-is-the-new-rock-and-roll-d03ee51996eb | ['Miguel Cuneta'] | 2019-02-27 16:44:40.300000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Rock'] |
Major Layoffs | BUSINESS
Major Layoffs
And what can we learn from them
Photo by Jiw Ingka on Shutterstock
Ok, the topic itself does not shout unicorns and rainbows. It’s not news that during the pandemic, companies are engaging in mass layouts to save their companies. Some are ugly and others are uglier. However, we can make the most of it and learn from them.
Airbnb
Toshifumi Kitamura by Getty Images
Airbnb survived the layoffs with flying stars and won the hearts of many. The CEO sent a message for the laid-off employees which is now public. If you had a chance to read it, you might have sensed how much they care. First, the CEO acknowledged the value of people they had to let go of. Secondly, he admitted the uncertainties they were facing and showed his sincerity admitting their shortcomings. Moreover, he was empathetic and offered help in the ways he could. He granted access to laid-off employees:
Alumni Talent Directory — It is a website to help the leaving teammates find new jobs. When they pool them into a platform, it is easier to manage.
Alumni Placement Team — For the remainder of 2020, a significant portion of Airbnb Recruiting is announced to work as an Alumni Placement Team. That means recruiters that are staying with Airbnb will provide support to departing employees to help them find their next job. It sounds like it is too good to be true.
RiseSmart — It involves four months of career services through a company that specializes in career transition and job placement services.
Employee Offered Alumni Support — This is for all remaining employees to join a program to assist departing teammates to find their next role.
Laptops — They allowed everyone leaving to keep their Apple laptops. Just like a good place to work scoreboards, there should be a good place to leave.
The company really made an effort to lead with transparency. They showed they care and made those leaving feel supported and those staying feel proud to be working there. It is relieving to see such examples -wait until you scroll down and you will appreciate them too.
Airbnb recently launched what they call Online Experiences on their website, where customers pay to watch people make origami, produce cheese, and take dancing lessons or any other activity. It is a way to keep the cash flowing and help the company survive the pandemic. One thing I didn’t get is the wine tasting though, I wouldn’t pay to watch people drink and talk about how good it is but maybe you will. That initiative combined with the $1 billion they recently secured in April will keep them going.
Uber
Photo by Robert Anasch on Unsplash
Nobody used car services for a while. Where would anyone go when the world stopped and we all stayed at home?
Consequently, Uber lost $2.9 billion in the first quarter of 2020, its biggest loss in three quarters. The CFO Nelson Chai told investors “The reality is the world has changed”. This resulted in the company cutting 14% of its workforce laying out around 4000 jobs. The CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced he will forego his $1 million this year. I would call this leading by example. Let’s admit it, it wouldn’t affect him much anyway. Many airline CEO’s also take pay-cuts including United Airlines, Delta Airlines, and JetBlue Airways.
Some employees formed a list of ex-Uber employees called Uber Alumni to help people find new jobs and ease the stress a little bit. It is great to see people helping each other out this way.
A twist in the story. Even though the ride-hailing business fell, bookings in the Uber Eats division were up more than 54 percent year over year, thanks to increased demand for food deliveries. This shows the importance of having side businesses, what you invest in aside from your core competency could save you the next day. In the case of Uber, it is the food business the company entered in August 2014 and is continuing to grow.
Khosrowshahi announced it might not be all bad with the pandemic:
“There is a silver lining to this unbelievably tragic Covid virus, which is that the business we have of Eats, and the category in general, just looked like it is going to be substantially increased — some would say by multiples.”
The company is getting ready for the next phase of recovery, including adding extra measures to its ride business such as making the drivers wear face masks and some other precautions. It is expected that they will announce what they are exactly in the following weeks. It is important to be proactive and adapt fast to situations, including the pandemic. If they are to fall behind during this period, it might cost to their survival.
Bird
Photo by Editorial Team on Silicon Canals
Well, this one is an example of what not to do when laying people off. I don’t like to believe we live in a world where over 400 employees were fired in a 2-minute Zoom meeting, “Black Mirror” style. It wasn’t the CEO who did it, but a disembodied voice read a script informing the employees that they’ve been laid off while their accounts were shut off immediately. It’s like a dream, but one you want to wake up from.
What we can learn from it?
It is not only what you do but how you do it. Airbnb’s CEO showed us that.
Why not take the time to explain everything, show your appreciation to people, and answer any question they might have? More importantly, why not deliver the bad news yourself? It could be a good strategy to let good news delivered by others, but that doesn’t apply for the bad news. Reputation is everything and it is so much more than the valuation. I believe they would be better off if they lost more money, then they are after this unforgettable inhuman act.
WeWork
Photo by Brandon Hooper on Unsplash
Even though the company is affected hugely by the pandemic, its layoffs are attempts to put together what is already broken in the company. So let’s learn from them.
A failed IPO in October 2019, a ridiculously overvalued company $47 billion to be exact, combined with an irresponsible CEO… That would not be the best combination for business. The new CEO Sandeep Mathrani, as of February 2020, is trying to undo the damage of Neumann’s. Let’s say the former was not your ideal CEO who sold his own company the name “We” in the WeWork for $6 million or entered the wave-pool business out of his love for surfing. With the same logic, because I love cheese, should I invest in it? For the record, don’t fool your company or your board or no one in general. He stepped down as CEO due to “intense public scrutiny” that has become a distraction in running the firm. I would be distracted too.
WeWork wanted to give the impression that it no longer strived to be viewed as a tech company but rather as a real estate with the new CEO. Why was it viewed as a tech company in the first place anyway? No one knows. However, the company could not get to see his effect as the pandemic hit right after he sat on the chair.
The office-sharing business is hit tremendously as fewer people work in offices. Sandeep warned staff weeks ago that more jobs would be lost on top of the 2,400 eliminated in 2019 and 250 more in March. As of April, SoftBank’s CEO said its $9 billion bets on WeWork and Adam Neumann was a mistake. The CEO is optimistic though, “We’re now confident that we put in new management, a new plan and we’re going to turn it around and make a decent return”. Their future will tell if a company will be able to succeed despite consecutive prior wrong decisions, a CEO change, board members quitting after another, bosses frequently sleeping with subordinates, and finally a pandemic. This seems like a rare combination to me. | https://medium.com/swlh/major-layoffs-45742ce24a3b | ['Beril Kocadereli'] | 2020-05-18 17:31:00.132000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Technology', 'Business', 'Learning', 'Coronavirus'] |
What’s the difference between Event Handlers & addEventListener in JS? | What’s the difference?
There’s a subtle, but important difference between these 2 methods of handling events.
If you’ll use the first method, event handlers, the difference is that if you add two event handlers for the same button click, the second event handler will overwrite the first and only that event will trigger.
Which takes us to the main learning:
For a given element, you can only have one event handler per event type, but you can have multiple event listeners.
That’s the key difference. So what does this look like?
Here, the second event handler will overwrite the first one.
const button = document.querySelector(".btn") button.onclick = () => {
console.log("Hello!");
}; button.onclick = () => {
console.log("How are you?");
}; // This wil log "How are you?" to the console.
In the example above, the “onclick” event handler is used twice.
That way, the first one will be overwritten and when a user clicks the button, it will log “How are you?” to the console.
So what happens when we use “addEventListener”?
Using event listeners, we can call multiple functions when a user clicks on the button.
const button = document.querySelector(".btn") button.addEventListener("click", event => {
console.log("Hello!");
}) button.addEventListener("click", event => {
console.log("How are you?");
}) // This wil log
// "Hello!"
// "How are you?"
// to the console
In the example above, we add multiple event listeners to the button.
This way, when a user clicks it, it will trigger both functions and log “Hello! How are you?” to the console. | https://medium.com/dailyjs/whats-the-difference-between-event-handlers-addeventlistener-in-js-963431f05c34 | ['Twan Mulder'] | 2020-11-18 13:51:26.519000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Software Engineering', 'Software Development', 'Technology'] |
What is the difference between proper introspect and self-pity? I think the answer is results. | The only real way to measure the futility of your thought patterns is to see the number of things that have changed around you. So at any point in which I feel like it might be indulgent to track my thoughts as long as I making progress towards the goals which I have laid out for myself then the act of thing about it can be at least justified. I’m not sure why I am worried about being conceited. I am conceited, there is no way to look at the world other than through a primarily selfish lens.
I’ve fallen in love with skateboarding as a metaphor for mastery of self and environment. Skate ollie-ing the six stair at House Park in Austin, Texas. -Michael Baez
The things that are good in the world are only good because they are for you. For me. If the only want to progress through the next 50 years is by debating myself into existence then I will do that. The alternative path of not considering my emotions has been a fun ride but after 4 or 5 years of it, I’m over it.
The obvious sorta or nihilism behind my personal outlook stems from a couple of things. Whatever awkwardness that I have internalized. I think being in the space I have for the last 3 days has given me some confidence that the world is as simple as I make it out to be.
There are rewards for giving up your time, and those rewards are undeniable safety and comfort. I have more food than I have had in the last 6 months at my disposal. It is weird to know that something that is such a simple resource for a powerful corporation is what helps me go to sleep at night. I think I will get used to being safe, or I will start to resent it. I will only resent it if I don’t do the things that I wanted to do before I started this job. WHICH IS ENTIRELY ON ME.
Okay so for the last couple of days I have been clunking out after work. This is a new routine and I think I will be okay for a couple of days to get used to it. I also pushed myself a little rough on rock climbing, which is an amazing activity of self-mastery/fitness. I think its something I would enjoy in the long run as a membership. But for now, I think I need to get more in shape in order to enjoy rock climbing more safely. Also, this amount of food has made me realize how much I wasn’t eating before I started this new job. Capitalism aye. I just couldn’t afford more than one shitty meal a day.
But that is fine now I need to work on the choices I have when I do decide to fuel my body at work. I want to continue to build the skill of self-control in more than one aspect of my life. Something like dedication, something like hard work, something like being smarter. Thinking on my own personal growth over the last year, I’m honestly disappointed.
There is something I can honestly proud of, me becoming a nicer person over the last year and half. I have definitely chilled out on my angst and aggression. Also, all my friends are a touch older and wouldn’t put up with me if I constantly streamed my aggression out of my face.
And I have become much more in tuned to when I might be more susceptible to that kind of mentality. I could call it blowing off steam when I am talking shit or I can call it being an asshole. Neither of those feels particularly good.
So there fine. I’ll be nice. But “being nicer” is more of a correct to normal than it is an ascendance of a goal. It is more like a sigh of relief than something to be proud of. Its progress and that is fine but, being an averagely good person isn’t the mark of worthy of some medal. But every other connection in my life besides this general nice has stagnated in terms of progress. So this process of writing and working out are just was to express my experience of the true tests. | https://medium.com/@michaelbaez12/what-is-the-difference-between-proper-introspect-and-self-pity-i-think-the-answer-is-results-5e5c7e72ef5a | ['Michael Baez'] | 2019-03-21 03:01:33.654000+00:00 | ['Personal Journal', 'Journal', 'Self Improvement', 'Journaling'] |
A really simple guide to Stellar | As we’ve explored in our guide to ‘RIPPLE’ , moving money across borders is something that at present is slow and expensive, but could be quick and fast thanks to blockchain.
Stellar has similar ambitions. But while Ripple wants to be the banker’s crypto, Stellar is focusing its efforts on being the bank for the everyman. We’ll explore their approach below.
What is Stellar? 🤔
Stellar is a cryptocurrency that wants to help the world’s unbanked population have access to financial services.
“Stellar connects people to low-cost financial services to fight poverty and develop individual potential.”
How is it planning on doing that? By making it cheaper and quicker to move money from one currency to another.
It’s important to understand the current financial system when it comes to sending money overseas.
Let’s give you an example:
💸Aysha wants to send its American friends some money.
🏦Aysha needs a bank or account to send that from, and the details of the bank and account they want to send it to.
💬In the present financial system, many international banks use a system called SWIFT, which is a messenger service for banks to tell other banks if they need to credit or debit money from one of their account holders.
✍️Aysha’s bank receives an instruction from Aysha: pay Aysha’s American friend £10.
📝Aysha’s bank changes the balance of Aysha’s account, and then looks up the bank Aysha wants to send money to, and sends an instruction via SWIFT to tell that bank to credit the account holder Aysha has mentioned in its request.
While this is happening there are several other aspects that we have to take into account:
🗣️In order for money transfers to work between banks, the banks need to have an agreement that allows them not only to talk to each other but to make requests to alter the balance sheets of clients of those banks.
⛓️If two banks do not have an agreement in place, they need to find one bank, two banks or even several banks to create a chain to allow the two unconnected banks to make these credit/debit requests.
💱On top of that because Aysha’s friend wants his £10 in dollars, a currency exchange needs to take place somewhere along that journey as well.
All of these steps incur costs. The more complicated the chain of banks involved, and the fewer exchanges there are willing to convert currencies, the more expensive this all becomes. Sometimes these transactions can take weeks.
Oh, and if you don’t have a bank account, things get a lot tricker still.
What Stellar is trying to do is to remove a lot of those steps and allow people without bank accounts in the traditional sense to be able to send money wherever they wish.
Who invented Stellar? 👩🔬
Jed McCaleb invented Stellar, who, as it happens was also the inventor of Ripple. He left the Ripple team in 2014 to focus on Stellar full time.
🤔 Did you know?
Stellar’s backers include the founder of WordPress, Angellist, Stripe and the president of Y Combinator.
A brief history 📜
🙅♂️2014: Jed McCaleb leaves Ripple to focus on the development of Stellar
📋April 2015: The Stellar Development Foundation releases a white paper for how Stellar will work.
⚡November 2015: The Stellar network goes live
🌎October 2017: Stellar and IBM agree to a partnership to increase the speed of global payments.
What’s so special about it? ✨
Stellar is a platform that can connect regular banks to a payment system that anyone can use to move money across borders, quickly and at virtually no cost. But before that, we need to understand that there are several different bits to Stellar.
Stellar is the payment network the team behind it are building to help people move money around the world, and Lumens is the cryptocurrency that was created as a result.
They are both overseen by a non-profit organisation called Stellar.org. To use Stellar, you upload funds to what they call an ‘anchor’, on the network. Think of it as a PayPal or bank that lives on the Stellar network.
Let’s say you wanted to send some dollars to a friend who lives in China. The anchor verifies you have uploaded your dollars to the network, Stellar then converts the currency into Chinese Yuan and moves the money to your friend’s Stellar address.
The friend can withdraw the funds from an anchor that supports Yuan and get access to the currency. This whole thing takes between 3–5 seconds!
The speed, paired with the cost — transaction fees are fixed at 0.00001 XLM per transaction — suddenly means sending money overseas is a lot easier.
Want to know more?
This is just the tip of the crypto iceberg. Aysha has a a whole host of easy-to-understand articles that make learning about cryptocurrencies, blockchain and DLT technology really bloody simple.
Click here to learn more. | https://medium.com/aysha-io/a-really-simple-guide-to-stellar-2126834d01ad | ['Matt Hussey'] | 2018-05-16 09:57:41.600000+00:00 | ['Stellar', 'Crypto', 'Stellar Lumens', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Fintech'] |
Call Me Winston | I watch myself upon the telescreen
and wonder on which story I am based —
a cause without its brother, traitor, queen,
a rebel only downward from the waist.
The rocket bombs paint grey my hometown sky,
the shrieking sirens scatter through the smoke,
the streets beneath me reek of death, and I
can only mourn the body that I broke.
This higher brand of selfish cannot last
(though so it seemed when I first made it mine);
the thought that tempts to renovate my past
intends to make it harder to define.
How black the market of my mind and yet
it seems I’ll still remember to forget. | https://medium.com/sonnetry/call-me-winston-4a2dd479a191 | ['Jordan Michael Becker'] | 2020-04-16 04:21:36.932000+00:00 | ['Current Events', 'Awareness', 'Poetry', 'Self Reflection', 'Society'] |
Don’t Worry, this is How the Future of Mobile Apps looks like. | We are living in an era dominated by technology, all around us we see people on their smartphones talking to people through social media, or browsing through videos on YouTube. With over 1 billion smartphones and 179 billion mobile applications downloaded per year, we can say that mobile app development is certainly one of the innovative and actively growing sector.
But with the advent of chatbots, we will see fewer and fewer people making the use of an app to raise a ticket or book tickets. All the things that one does with the help of hundreds of apps will be outperformed a single AI-based chatbot. This will reduce the need of apps which fears a lot of developers as their income is based on the number of downloads and overall subscribers.
The mobile application market is arguably dominated by Google apps (Gmail, Maps, Search), Social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube) and Gaming apps (Angry birds, Temple Run). Giants like Walmart, Bank of America and Amazon have started using mobile applications for branding, improving customer engagement, direct marketing etc. Small and midsize businesses are also following the mobile trend.
Ultimately an effective mobile strategy involves more than just a mobile-friendly website. Mobile application development is driven by advancements in technology which requires businesses to have a vision for next few years.
With the advent of chatbots, we see fewer and fewer people making the use of an app to raise a ticket or book tickets. All the things that one does with the help of hundreds of apps will be outperformed a single AI-based chatbot in the coming years. This will reduce the need of apps which fears a lot of developers. You can read this blog which clearly explains how chatbots can replace mobile apps immediately. But with extended use of chatbots there are also massive advancements made in mobile app development that are said to awe developers. Below are some of the trends which will determine the future of mobile application development.
1. Wearable devices
According to IDC, 101.9 million wearable devices were shipped in 2016, up by a strong 29 percent from the 79 million units shipped in 2015. Smart wearables like the Apple Watch and Microsoft’s Hololens shows an upcoming change in computing and the transition from basic to smart wearables. This opens up new opportunities for vendors, app developers, and accessory makers.
The smartphone will become the hub of a personal-area network consisting of wearable gadgets such as on-body healthcare sensors, smart jewellery, smart watches, display devices (like Google Glass) and a variety of sensors embedded in clothes and shoes. These gadgets will communicate with mobile applications to deliver information in new ways. And will enable a wide range of products and services in areas such as sport, fitness, fashion, hobbies and healthcare. Thus, wearable devices connected with smartphones will influence the next generation of mobile application development strategies.
2. Internet of Things and Mobile-connected Smart Objects
Gartner says there will be 26 billion connected devices by 2020 which includes several hundred smart objects such as LED light bulbs, toys, domestic appliances, sports equipment, medical devices and controllable power sockets etc. These domestic smart objects will be a part of the Internet of Things and will communicate through an App on a smartphone or tablet. Smartphones and tablets will act as remote controls, displaying and analyzing information, interfacing with social networks to monitor “things” that can tweet or post, paying for subscription services, ordering replacement consumables and updating object firmware. Established companies such as Microsoft, with its Intelligent Systems Service, and enterprise software vendors likes SAP, with its Internet of Things Solutions, are also adding Internet of Things capabilities to their offerings.
Currently RiotOS and Thingsquare Mist are software technologies and RFID, WiFi, EnOcean etc are communication technologies used for IoT. Google has two projects Nest and Brillo specifically targeting IoT. Nest develops home automation products- smoke alarm, camera, and thermostat, whereas Brillo is an IoT operating system which supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy, and other Android things.
Apple recently launched some products of ‘Homekit’ that will enable you to have wireless and electronic control of your household appliances. The products include light dimmers, air monitors, a thermostat, and an entire smart home hub which can be controlled through apps and Siri, allowing homes to be automated by voice command. On the similar lines, Amazon launched ‘Amazon Echo’ which is a voice command device for answering questions, playing music and controlling smart devices. A comprehensive list of technologies driving IoT can be found at the Postscapes labs.
3. M-Commerce
Various analysts believe positive trend in mobile purchases will continue over the next 4 years as more and more consumers adapt to m-commerce. Increasing popularity of Apple Pay and Google Wallet will facilitate purchases using the mobile phones instead of debit or credit cards. This will require developers to build a mobile application that can process transactions without the need of physical debit/credit cards or cash. Coupled with wearables that can process payments m-commerce will take a different shape. Beyond data collection and predictive analytics, wearables will also play a key role in the future of mobile payments and customer loyalty.
4. Motion and Location Sensing
Most mobile phones have location sensor capabilities which use multiple positioning methods to provide different granularities of location data. Knowing an individual’s location to within a few meters is useful for providing highly relevant contextual information and services. Motion sensing apps are used in security, anti-theft, power-saving and games. Location sensing is useful in Geotagging, Games, Vehicle navigation, and fitness apps. Apps exploiting precise indoor location currently use technologies such as Wi-Fi, imaging, ultrasonic beacons, and geomagnetic. In the longer run technologies such as smart lighting will also become important. Precise indoor location sensing, combined with mobile applications, will enable a new generation of extremely personalized services and information.
5. Innovative Mobile User Experience Design
Effective display of data and content on your mobile user interface is important for a sound user experience. Successful mobile application companies, such as Houzz, Instagram, Pinterest, and Wunderlist, have developed new patterns depicting intuitive designs and interactive interfaces.
Designers are also creating apps that can accommodate mobile challenges, such as partial user attention and interruption. Apps should exploit technologies with novel features such as interactive content layers, circular design pattern, cards and manipulation of content. These features create an “augmented reality” by allowing the users to interact with the content in further detail. Leading consumer apps are setting high standards for user interface design, and all organizations must master new skills and work with new partners to meet growing user expectations.
6. Application Performance Management (APM)
There are two factors which lead to performance bottlenecks in app testing i.e. diversity of mobile devices and the non-deterministic nature of mobile networks. But mobile metrics and monitoring tools collectively known as Application Performance Management (APM) has improved the testing and quality assurance.
APM provides visibility into app behavior, delivers statistics about which devices and OSs are adopted, and monitors user behavior to determine which app features are being successfully exploited. With the application landscape and enterprise infrastructures shifting to the cloud, APM tools face increased challenges to provide real performance benefits across systems with virtual perimeters. Modern enterprises require robust tools that can monitor resources used by applications, correlate that data with meaningful user insights, and align performance with business processes.
7. Enterprise mobile management
Enterprise mobile management (EMM) is a set of people, processes, and technology using mobile computing for streamlining businesses. The main dimensions of EMM are security, application management, and financial management. It also includes mobile device management, mobile application management, application wrapping and containerization, and some elements of enterprise file synchronization and sharing. Such tools will mature, grow in scope and eventually address a wide range of mobile management needs across all popular Operating Systems on smartphones, tablets, and PCs. Thus, EMM represents the future evolution and convergence of several mobile management, security, and support technologies.
We cannot deny that mobile applications have become an integral element of the digital ecosystem. The skills required in building consumer apps are in greater demand than ever now compelling businesses to take mobility seriously. Businesses should keep an eye on these trends to align their mobile application development strategies. | https://medium.com/dayone-a-new-perspective/dont-worry-this-is-how-the-future-of-mobile-apps-looks-like-8d582d672f1d | ['Maruti Techlabs'] | 2018-12-24 11:27:21.927000+00:00 | ['iOS', 'Smartphones', 'Mobile App Development', 'Technology', 'Apps'] |
Move. | Buzzing chatter fills the chilled carriage.
I exit the public transport — going home…
pulling out my wallet, the ruler of all,
my card beeps with agreement.
I traverse the streets — to reach my personal transport,
Then realise that I am at bliss.
No one but myself to disturb and be disturbed
the life that is truly desired — by who though?
I contemplate, as I step into the car — transport to wherever I can muster.
Wouldn’t it be better to be like this… or not at all?
Go home. Alone. Be Quiet. Alone.
Or do I crave that for poor intentions? — Uncertainty is all that I hate
I return home, to a full house, no idea where it exists though
I hate existing in such a space
but, when they leave — enjoyment
…No troubles to share or people to care.
What do I really want? | https://medium.com/void-dcd/move-d63f7b54ed0a | [] | 2020-06-30 12:08:18.834000+00:00 | ['Postvoid', 'Poetry', 'Poetry On Medium'] |
Regrets at 50, I’ve had a few | Regrets at 50, I’ve had a few
Here are a small fraction of the regrets I have from my first half-century of living.
I recently turned 50, which is as good a time as any to look back on one’s life. When I do, in addition to appreciating all the good stuff that’s happened to me (mostly by luck), I realize there have also been lots of, um, poor choices on my part. Below is a small sampling of the many things I regret having done over the years, in no particular order.
I plan on updating this every 50 years, so check back! | https://chumworth.medium.com/regrets-at-50-ive-had-a-few-342fd143dd0b | ['Phil Johnson'] | 2020-10-20 00:27:28.340000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Comics', 'Aging', 'Life', 'Cartoon'] |
Regarding BitcoinX (BCX) Distribution | Dear users,
Since BitcoinX (BCX) is scheduled to fork at the height of 498888, Huobi Pro will take a snapshot of users’ BTC assets after the fork happens and all address holding bitcoin will receive corresponding amount of BCX at the ratio of 1 BTC：10000 BCX. If you have BTC assets in otc.huobi.pro, you will get BCX in the next 3 days. Please transfer your BTC to Huobi.pro account to ensure a timely distribution. We will also enable BCX/BTC trading after the distribution. If you have BTC assets in Huobi Wallet, you will receive BCX in your Huobi Wallet account.
Regarding SBTC distribution, please refer to announcement: https://www.huobipro.com/en-us/notice_detail/?id=741
Regarding UBTC, BTH and other types of hard fork assets, Huobi Pro will take a snapshot of users’ BTC assets and distribute corresponding hardforked assets to users. We will also support trading of some types of hard fork assets if it gains widespread acceptance.
Regarding our positions on Bitcoin hark fork, please refer to: https://www.huobipro.com/notice_detail/?id=704
The prices of chain split coins are extremely unstable. We hope that users can have a full understanding of the investment risks of chain split coins and be prudent of your own investment decisions.
Huobi Pro
December 11, 2017
https://www.huobipro.com/notice_detail/?id=749 | https://medium.com/huobi-global/regarding-bitcoinx-bcx-distribution-824e23b7ece2 | ['Huobi Global'] | 2017-12-11 13:22:01.746000+00:00 | ['Announcements', 'Huobi', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin'] |
The Politics of Public Whisper Networks | Esha Datanwala, Class of 2020
This piece is the first amongst our newly instated theme for the month — Sexual Harrasment & #metoo.
— by Kristina Flour
Whisper networks are quite possibly the biggest open secret in modern culture. Women have been creating and sustaining these for decades, keeping each other wary of people in their workplaces, educational institutions — even families. They’re one of the best-kept secrets within the female community, allowing the network to thrive and inform; keeping women wary of men but not enough to move towards some form of due process prosecution. It’s tacitly understood that these networks are to keep women in a community connected with those who have sexual harassment stories related to the people they’re around. With the dawn of the #metoo movement, these unsaid and unseen whisper networks have turned into loud, powerful declarations and allegations, carrying forth the hesitancy of possibly fake accusations but remaining, at its essence, a system to warn and inform.
Whisper networks have never been completely devoid of dubiosity — the possibility of false allegations or inflated accounts was just as real then as it is now. However, the restriction of the network to the women who were directly concerned by it kept those apprehensions buried. It wasn’t a question of who was falsely accused, but instead of who’s left to trust: a question that remains at the crux of today’s movement. Ultimately, though, the #metoo movement is a public whisper network, complete with all of its advantages and faults but massively inflated. This inflation is what has led to the creation of the dangerous yet firm ground on which the movement stands. It benefits most out of the expansion of the network, and yet is susceptible to mis-narration and mischaracterization by virtue of this large base.
Public whisper networks are fundamentally different from private ones because of their politicized nature. They are warped into questions of falsity and ethicality, yanking the narrative away from the widespread abuse of power in nearly every single industry to instead the cases that are innocent until never proven guilty. The solidarity of the network is now lost because those involved within it cannot be trusted to keep the information to themselves and disseminate it only to those who need to know; Twitter becomes a platform where the network dies a brutal death in the arms of a keyboard warrior who would rather fight for the (few) unsung heroes it finds in men who rise above their accusations, than fight for the (many) women who get buried under the weight of their unaccepted truth.
This line of thinking leaves me with one haunting question — can Ashoka sustain its whisper networks in this age of #metoo? Or will names slowly begin to trickle out of the community, leaving no choice but mass public declarations?
It would be foolish to assume that Ashoka doesn’t have its whisper networks — the rooms of SH2 and SH4 have seen and heard conversations laced with secrecy and caution, but more importantly, have experienced the anxiety and fear that comes with telling your story. Ashoka, as a community, is quite possibly not equipped to deal with its own #metoo movement; this campus, as small as it is, is also not enough to contain the sharp tremors that would be felt in our social fabric. Admittedly, there exists distrust around our own internal due processes, and the entire purpose of this public movement is to shake things up where due process was unable to and where laws and policies failed to protect its people.
However, are we equipped enough as a community to even fathom the true impact of this movement seizing Ashoka at its infantile stages? This isn’t a question about how many people may be involved, or which people are involved — it runs much deeper than that. As a community, we have never dealt with something that would run as dirty as the exposition of this university’s whisper networks. But will there ever come a point where these networks can no more serve us in the way they’re meant to? The biggest downside to whisper networks is that they aren’t political enough — they keep stories and accounts contained amongst women in private conversations. The political whisper network is one that is public, and it is one that comes from an ineffective private network. In essence, that’s where the #metoo movement sprung from — the inefficacy of private whisper networks led to the creation of the biggest, most public and political one ever, one that stretches across countries and industries, professions and age groups.
Can a public whisper network at Ashoka handle the onslaught from a community that is small enough for you to be whispering about the person sitting next to you every week? | https://medium.com/the-edict/the-politics-of-public-whisper-networks-4897eac348c6 | ['The Edict Staff'] | 2018-11-07 09:11:19.793000+00:00 | ['Ashoka University', 'Metoo', 'Opinions', 'Whisper Network', 'Sexual Harassment'] |
Open Up The Room Where It Happens | Who are we putting in the room where it happens? Is it the Group Creative Director who’s not particularly close to the campaign but whose title holds sway? Is it the Senior Vice President who had drinks with the client last Saturday night or who (more likely given the times) has a private text thread with the brand’s CEO? | https://medium.com/@dobetterhere/open-up-the-room-where-it-happens-8501c079d40b | ['Do Better'] | 2020-12-08 15:19:23.377000+00:00 | ['Systemic Change', 'Culture', 'Creative Process', 'Advertising', 'Growth'] |
Why Everybody Wants to Start an Online Business and Quit Their Traditional Jobs | Why Everybody Wants to Start an Online Business and Quit Their Traditional Jobs
Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash
Nowadays, everybody dreams of becoming their own boss. The internet and social media influencers make it look easy. Whether you want to sell physical items over the internet, sell courses, be an influencer over social media, or even stream gaming videos over the internet, someone is willing to teach you how to become successful in “insert niche here.”
Recent studies show that people are becoming frustrated from their 9–5 jobs and would like to quit. People want to travel more and have more time with their families. That, along with the fact that social media personas make it look easy, clarifies why more people want to have their own online business.
Seeing all these people have money, talk about their online success, doing what they want on social media makes you want to do the same thing. It’s not that hard to be successful online, as many of these influencers say it is. You must feel that your 9–5 is hard, stressful, and underpaid — why not venture to this online world of business. In the end, it can start as a side hustle.
How could you say no to making money online while roaming the world? — well not in 2020 as of writing this post 😁.
Here are some reasons why everybody wants to “make it online,” and nobody wants a traditional job anymore: | https://medium.com/the-money-plot/why-everybody-wants-to-start-an-online-business-and-quit-their-traditional-jobs-cfbabebc2edb | ['Walid Ao'] | 2020-12-05 15:13:59.233000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Startup', 'Online Business', 'Influencers', 'Business'] |
10 Ways Businesses Can Emerge Stronger Post-Pandemic | 10 Ways Businesses Can Emerge Stronger Post-Pandemic
By Irving Wladawsky-Berger
“What now?,” asked a recent McKinsey article on the implications of Covid for business.” Over the past six months, they have reorganized supply chains, set up remote operations, and made tough financial decisions. But without a COVID-19 vaccine yet available, not much feels different, and the summer pause hasn’t done much to relieve fatigue.”
“One priority, then, is to reenergize the organization — to act rather than react. Even as the COVID-19 crisis continues to create a world of uncertainty, the goal must be to rebuild for the longer term. Companies that are strong and resilient will be better placed to survive and prosper. Those are qualities that can’t be taken for granted; they need to be cultivated.”
But, how can a company— regardless of size or industry— formulate a rebuilding strategy for the longer term in such an uncertain environment? As former president Dwight Eisenhower famously when he was the overall Commander of Allied Forces in WWII: “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable.” In other words , rather than doing so on-the-fly, planning during highly uncertain times requires that companies thoroughly map out their rebuilding strategy, and quickly and flexibly react to the continuing changing circumstances.
“There are many different ways to lead, but regardless of the type of business or geography, we believe that the ten actions detailed here are those from which a path to emerge stronger can be found,” according to the article:
Let me briefly comment on three of these actions.
The recovery will be digital
Digital infrastructures and applications firms and economies operating during the pandemic. A 2019 study found that the average digitization level across all industry sectors was only around 25% of their ultimate potential. The pandemic has now made the case for accelerating the digital transformations they were forced to make to help them cope with the crisis.
For years, companies and industries found all kinds of reasons not to embrace telemedicine, online learning, work from home, virtual meetings and other online applications. But, necessity is the mother of invention. We’ve been finding that not only do these digital applications work remarkably well, but they offer a number of important benefits, like not waiting for a doctor’s appointment in a room full of sick people, or not having to travel to participate in a 45 minute meeting.
Physical products and services have evolved and been perfected over many, many years. A straightforward digital recreation of a physical offering will generally result in a much inferior user experience. Instead, the offering must be reinvented for the digital world.
In the coming years, we can expect superior user experiences and other innovations across many online applications.
Image: Shutterstock
2. Reimagine the post-pandemic workforce
The Covid crisis white-collar America to reconsider nearly every aspect of office life. Before the pandemic, around 10–15% of workers were already working from home on any given day, but once the pandemic took off earlier this year, companies had to close their offices and ask nearly all their employees to work from home. Generally, companies have been quite pleased with how well remote working has gone, given that the change had to happen on short notice and with little preparation.
Working from home may well have succeeded during the pandemic because it was viewed as temporary rather than permanent. It worked particularly well for groups that had already built up a reservoir of social capital through countless hours of meetings, informal conversations and other social interactions. But, corporate cultures could erode over time with mostly remote interactions. Newer employees, in particular, may feel isolated rather than part of a kind of workplace extended family .
It’s difficult to judge whether the surge in remote work will last, but it’s likely that office work will never be the same. Companies should redefine what the workplace now means and how to best organize a more distributed, remote workforce. They should carefully examine what has worked well and what has not. Some previous practices now seem to have been wastes of time, but others seem to be particularly important and impossible to replicate online. Many miss the good-old pre-pandemic days when you could bump into colleagues over lunch or coffee.
Properly organized, remote work could contribute to building a more diverse, more capable, and happier workforce, helping companies draw on a much wider talent pool, making work more accessible for people with disabilities, and offering much needed flexibility to parents and caregivers.
And, beyond increasing the productivity and job satisfaction of their employees, another attraction for employers is shrinking real estate costs.
3. Make purpose part of everything
In September of 1997, the Business Roundtable (BRT)— an association of CEOs of major US companies — issued a Statement on Corporate Governance which argued that “the paramount duty of management and of boards of directors is to the corporation’s stockholders; the interests of other stakeholders are relevant as a derivative of the duty to stockholders.”
But things started to change after the 2008 financial crisis . In August of 2019, the BRT released an updated statement on the Purpose of a Corporation , which overturned it’s 22-year old commitment to shareholder primacy to now emphasize a “Commitment to All Stakeholders” and to “An Economy that Serves All Americans.” This new statement , originally signed by almost 200 CEOs, now places shareholder interests on the same level as the interests of all its other stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers, and communities.
Corporations clearly have fundamental responsibilities to make money and reward their investors. But, successful companies serve more than just the bottom line. As McKinsey points out, “ The pandemic has brought this issue to the fore in powerful ways, prompting many CEOs to gut check what they really believe and take action accordingly… Repeatedly during COVID-19, CEOs have found themselves consulting and coordinating with governments, suppliers, partners, employees. They have been experiencing multi-stakeholder capitalism in a more visceral way than ever before.” | https://medium.com/mit-initiative-on-the-digital-economy/10-ways-businesses-can-emerge-stronger-post-pandemic-19c9ea083ad5 | ['Mit Ide'] | 2020-12-10 16:14:22.079000+00:00 | ['Pandemic', 'Digital Economy', 'Work From Home', 'Covid 19', 'Remote Work'] |
A Simple Google Sheet Template for SaaS Cash Flow Projections | A Simple Google Sheet Template for SaaS Cash Flow Projections
Save yourself some time while building your financial models for your fundraising
A few weeks ago, I published an in-depth analysis of Customer Acquisition Cost and how to forecast it:
I received many questions about the Excel model I used to build the Cash Flow Projection, so I decided to write this article to explain how you.
Add the template to your Google Sheets
You can use my model on Google Sheets by following this link and clicking “Make a copy” when prompted. This will copy the file in your own Drive.
Inputting your assumptions
On the left side of the sheet, you will see this table.
Change the assumptions in the blue cells to suit your own business model needs.
For your Gross Margin and your Monthly Fixed Costs, go to the respective sheets and do the same, edit the blue cells!
Author’s note: this model only takes into account 1 monthly plan paid monthly. It doesn’t account for various tiers of service or the possibility to pay yearly in advance.
Doing this will update the table on the right side of the sheet and the charts accordingly.
What you’ll get
A Cash-Flow table
This will give you a simplified overview of your cash flow over the next X periods. You can easily extend it to cover more periods.
Use it as a basis to create your own, more detailed model.
3 charts
One for users, one for your cash burn, and one for your cash in bank. | https://medium.com/pitchdecks/a-simple-google-sheet-template-for-saas-cash-flow-projections-181e51792802 | ['Nicolas Carteron'] | 2020-10-25 19:15:25.423000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Startup', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Financial Projections', 'SaaS'] |
Showing of the Comedic Opera The Barber of Seville in Medford | The Barber of Seville is considered one of the great operatic masterpieces, perhaps the best use of comedy within music of all time. Enjoy a replay of a performance of the opera, written by Gioachino Rossini, on Saturday, Oct. 22 at 2 p.m. from the comfort of the Medford Leas Theater located at 1 Medford Leas Way.
Conducted by Antonio Pappano, currently the music director of the Royal Opera House in London, it will feature opera legends Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Florez. The state-of-the-art projection screen and surround sound system at Medford Leas will immerse you in the show and the music. Enjoy scrumptious hors d’oeuvres and other delicacies during intermission.
The great performance and cuisine is the next best thing to being at the opera in-person. A suggested donation of $5 is payable at the door. More information is available at: http://www.medfordleas.org/event-categories/leasmusicast.
Medford Leas is a nationally accredited, not-for-profit community guided by Quaker principles for those aged 55 and older, with campuses in Medford and Lumberton, New Jersey. For more information, call (609) 654–3000 or visit www.medfordleas.org. | https://medium.com/the-medford-sun/showing-of-the-comedic-opera-the-barber-of-seville-in-medford-e786147da6b2 | [] | 2016-12-19 15:56:05.941000+00:00 | ['Barber Of Seville', 'Headlines', 'Entertainment', 'Families', 'Antonio Pappano'] |
Smart Glasses Don’t Have to Look so Bad | Even though Glass failed to click with consumers, writing off the whole category of consumer smart glasses is misguided. Microsoft, Amazon, Google (again), Snap, Facebook, and Magic Leap are working on some form of consumer smart glasses (or headsets). Apple most recently announced that they’re working on their own smart glasses, aiming to release them in 2023. All of these devices promise to augment the world around us and hope to replace our phones by allowing people to speak to and look through these lenses to gain information.
Yet there is a tension remaining, forcing a divide in the field of smart glasses. One side sacrifices wearability and fashion to show off the unbridled potential of augmented reality. The other tones down the augmenting functionality to boost the device’s physical appearance, making a device that looks and feels more like normal eyewear.
So, how can these companies make smart glasses not only socially acceptable but also desirable? It’s pretty simple:
Take a fashion-first, technology-second approach and focus (initially) on form over function.
First, just consider the unique characteristics of head-worn products. These devices are incredibly tricky because people assign a lot of attributes to wearing something on their face. Doing so says something about their personality, and communicates an intentional message to those around them. While fashion is no stranger to trends, in the end, it boils down to an expression of individual taste that’s fueled by an immeasurable amount of options.
Many early smart glasses were built with function in mind, pushing aesthetic and form to be a secondary consideration. Yet, the glasses we wear are an intentional, emotional decision, very much at odds with typical consumer electronics. As glasses are such a personal and customizable object, companies must reverse their approach. Start with form — something that is discreet and optimal for everyday wear — then work on the functionality.
Consider the smartwatch market as an example. Both smartwatches and smart glasses are technology-enabled products bringing value to consumers in a category historically lacking in consumer-focused technological innovation. The winning strategy is to make a product that can be worn all-day and whose functionality will evolve over time. Apple Watch outsold conventional watch brands such as Rolex and Omega within just three years of being launched.
Approach One: Build In-House
One option is simply to attempt to build stylish and appealing smart glasses in-house. Take North, for example. These smart glasses are designed to look like any other pair of normal glasses, and it might even take your friend 10 minutes to realize they’re not. There are 90-different styles and they take a 3D scan of your face, which they use to can custom build each frame. Rather than take over what you see, North displays small, glanceable information such as text messages or directions that you can view, act on, or dismiss. These are helpful features, yet don’t push the limits of AR to uphold the glasses’s sleek design. A prime example of form over function.
Approach Two: Collabs and Partnerships
Additionally, companies can partner with third-party eyewear brands to launch glasses in a wide variety of styles. Take Facebook who has reportedly partnered with Ray-Ban parent company Luxottica to develop augmented reality glasses code-named “Orion”. This collaboration between credible, sought after brands will attract the masses to the product — techies and fashionistas alike. For a product that is part technology and part fashion, a partnership like this allows each stakeholder to play to their strengths.
Approach Three: Opensource Hardware Kit
Finally, companies could take an even more radical approach — making the smart glasses hardware an open source kit. For example, Google or Microsoft could release a small hardware kit accessible to any company for them to make smart glasses. Typical electronics manufacturers would still produce the products, but this type of kit would spur a completely new wave of designer manufacturers. High fashion icons such as Gucci would likely design a pair, and who’s to say retail stores like Costco or Target won’t create whole new lines of the product at a price point for the masses. | https://medium.com/swlh/smart-glasses-dont-have-to-look-so-bad-a1b403f25942 | ['Adam Masters'] | 2019-11-22 16:18:54.964000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Smart Glass', 'Fashion Technology', 'Wearables', 'Augmented Reality'] |
Dental Emergency During Coronavirus Outbreak | Maybe you took dental treatment for granted until now, during the coronavirus pandemic, when it’s no longer easy to come by. Since most elective medical procedures including dental treatment have been sidelined by the current public health crisis, you’re likely worried about where to get treatment when you have a dental emergency.
Although the spread of COVID-19 has upended life as we know it, you still have some options for getting the dental care you need at this time.
Is Your Dental Appointment Cancelled Because of Coronavirus?
Although requirements vary by state per the local risk factors, the general recommendation by bodies such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is for dentists to temporarily stop providing elective dental procedures. Such recommendations and regulations are subject to change at any moment given the volatility of the situation.
What does this mean for you?
You must be ready to accept the possibility that your previously scheduled dental appointment could be canceled at the last minute.
Dental offices may have to close or cut down on scheduled appointments for reasons like:
A shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) including masks and face shields
Changes in the staff availability or dental practice finances
Sudden changes in local legislation governing the administration of dental care
Your dentist isn’t happy about cutting back on their work. It might seem that dentists are wealthy people with few financial worries, much of what they earn goes to things like the overhead costs of running a practice, paying their staff, paying off student and medical equipment loans, and lab fees.
Just know that your dentist is feeling the pinch, as well, and wants to do all they reasonably can to make sure you get the care you need. There’s no need to panic or get upset if your appointment is cancelled. Try to be understanding and realize that while a canceled dental appointment is an inconvenience for everyone, it is for a greater good in this fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Dental care currently takes a backseat to the much bigger ongoing health crisis. But dental treatment is still necessary; dental emergencies don’t stop for human coronavirus.
The good news is that even if routine dental procedures are canceled, there’s still a provision for emergency dental services. | https://medium.com/@theteethblog/dental-emergency-during-coronavirus-outbreak-2b5ad171b4b2 | ['The Teeth Blog.'] | 2020-04-23 09:12:30.757000+00:00 | ['Teeth', 'Coronavirus Update', 'Stay At Home', 'Dental Care', 'Corona'] |
LOCAL & LONG DISTANCE YEOVIL TAXI SERVICE | A2Z Taxi Service has been in the business long enough and offers cost-effective and 24 hours taxi services all through Somerset. You can look for instant and convenient booking on the phone, in person or online mode, avail pick and drop facility at any hour of the day, safety and comfort ensured along with the highly trained driver and keeping up to the strict guidelines of the authority we operate in. Book with us in advance, and get 100 % customer satisfaction at the best price. A2Z Taxis Yeovil is the name to trust for whenever you plan to visit in and around Somerset, Dorset, Devon and we will be more than happy to deliver the best of the service to you always. Feel free to contact us and we assure you of the best of the travel times. With years of experience in the transport & cab service industry, you can be sure that A2Z Taxis Yeovil will always give you the best service. Our aim is to offer a great alternative to the existing solutions, but in a simpler way. Rest assured that whatever requirement you might have, we are here to fulfil it, Twelve months a year at your service. We strive to take the stress out of travelling to and from the airport, giving you more time to enjoy your holiday or prepare for your business meetings. The door to door Taxi service.
Call now 07484 098722 | https://medium.com/@abdalwadood2/local-long-distance-yeovil-taxi-service-eb23d50170e0 | ['Yeovil Taxis'] | 2019-06-17 10:07:36.644000+00:00 | ['Yeovil Taxis', 'Yeovil Taxi Service', 'Local Taxi Service', 'Uber'] |
Data Pipeline Architecture Optimization & Apache Airflow Implementation | Data pipelines are essential for companies looking to leverage their data to gather reliable business insights. Pipelines allow companies to consolidate, combine, and modify data originating from various sources and make it available for analysis and visualization. However, the numerous benefits that data pipelines provide depends on a company’s ability to extract and aggregate its data coming from different sources and thus on the quality of its pipeline architecture choices.
One of TrackIt’s clients had implemented a big data pipeline running on AWS that needed to be optimized. The client was leveraging the big data pipeline to enable its data scientists to gain additional insights by exploiting data that originated from CSV files.
However, the company was running into certain architecture-related problems with its pipeline that needed to be fixed and sought our expertise to address these issues.
This article details the TrackIt team’s approach to optimizing the architecture of the data pipeline.
Initial Pipeline
How the initial pipeline worked:
The company’s CSV files were first added to an S3 bucket
Once the files were added to the S3 bucket, an AWS Glue job was automatically triggered to fetch the data from the CSV files and make it available for a Python Spark script, the next step in the pipeline
A Python Spark script modified the data to make it more suitable for use in Redshift Spectrum
The modified data was then stored in a new S3 bucket (now in the Parquet file format)
Once files were added to the new S3 bucket, another Glue job was triggered that made the data available for use by Redshift, an SQL database
Files from this S3 bucket were also replicated into another S3 bucket hosted on a different AWS region using AWS S3’s cross-region replication feature. They needed separate S3 buckets in each region because Redshift Spectrum, which was being used in both regions separately, requires the S3 bucket to be located in the same region.
An AWS Glue job then fetched data from the latter S3 bucket and made it available to Redshift
Data scientists could then use a Python script to query the data on Redshift
Problems:
The pipeline implemented by the company had certain issues that were hindering its ability to make the most of its data.
Problem #1 — Inability to Individually Test Jobs
The initial pipeline did not provide the company with the ability to isolate and test individual components of the pipeline. Manually triggering one of the steps of the pipeline launched all the other events that followed it.
Problem #2: Too many steps in the pipeline
The initial pipeline included quite a few additional steps — such as the Lambda functions and CloudWatch events before and after the Glue job — that made the pipeline harder to test and manage. These extra steps could have been avoided with different architectural choices.
Problem #3: Cross-region data replication
There was also an issue arising due to the cross-region data replication feature on S3. The data replication between AWS region 1 and AWS region 2 was not instantaneous and took a few minutes. However, the completion of the AWS Glue job in region 1 was immediately triggering the Glue job in region 2 before the data had finished replicating between the S3 buckets.
Problem #4 — No error notifications
The initial pipeline provided the company with no error notifications. The company often discovered the occurrence of errors weeks after an event, and then only because the data scientist realized that they were missing data. When an error did occur, the next job would simply not be launched. The pipeline did not include an error notification component that would allow the company to immediately become aware of errors happening within the pipeline. The company’s engineers had to go onto the console and investigate the history of executions to try to identify and pinpoint errors in the pipeline.
Optimized Pipeline
The following modifications were first proposed by the TrackIt team to the client.
The first modification to the pipeline proposed by the TrackIt team was to use Glue Workflow, a feature of AWS Glue to create a workflow that automatically launches the AWS Glue jobs in sequence. The Glue Workflow would also allow the company to launch and test jobs individually without triggering the whole workflow.
The implementation of the Glue Workflow would also enable the company to simplify the pipeline by getting rid of extraneous Lambda functions and CloudWatch events that had been implemented in the initial pipeline. Instead of having multiple Lambda functions, the new pipeline would have just one Lambda function that triggers the Glue Workflow when files are uploaded into the S3 bucket.
The second modification proposed by the TrackIt team was the addition of an error notification component using Amazon CloudWatch. CloudWatch events would be triggered immediately when an error occurred in the Glue Workflow and would then send either an HTTP request or an email to the team, or could trigger a Lambda function that would execute additional tasks if there was an error.
The third modification to the pipeline proposed by the TrackIt team was to eliminate the use of S3 cross-region replication. Instead, the files are directly added to both S3 buckets (each located in a different region) so that when the Glue job is triggered in region 2, all the files are already up to date in both S3 buckets.
The client was quite pleased with this proposition and wanted to incorporate these new changes to the pipeline using Apache Airflow, a tool used to create and manage complex workflows.
Apache Airflow Implementation
The TrackIt team assisted the client in incorporating the suggested modifications to the pipeline and implementing it on Apache Airflow. The different parts of the pipeline were coded in Python as modules that the client could reuse in the future to build similar pipelines or to further modify the existing one.
How the final Apache Airflow pipeline works:
The company’s CSV files are first added to an S3 bucket
The AWS Glue crawler fetches the data from S3
A Python Spark script is executed that modifies the data and makes it more suitable for use in Redshift Spectrum
The modified data is then stored in a new S3 bucket (now in the Parquet file format)
Then in one region, a Glue crawler fetches data
In the other region, the Glue crawler fetches data and a Redshift script is used to modify data and then update changes
Data scientists can use a Python script to query the data on Redshift
If any error occurs within the pipeline, a CloudWatch event is immediately triggered and sends an email to notify the team
About TrackIt
TrackIt is an Amazon Web Services Advanced Consulting Partner specializing in cloud management, consulting, and software development solutions based in Venice, CA.
TrackIt specializes in Modern Software Development, DevOps, Infrastructure-As-Code, Serverless, CI/CD, and Containerization with specialized expertise in Media & Entertainment workflows, High-Performance Computing environments, and data storage.
TrackIt’s forté is cutting-edge software design with deep expertise in containerization, serverless architectures, and innovative pipeline development. The TrackIt team can help you architect, design, build and deploy a customized solution tailored to your exact requirements.
In addition to providing cloud management, consulting, and modern software development services, TrackIt also provides an open-source AWS cost management tool that allows users to optimize their costs and resources on AWS. | https://medium.com/trackit/data-pipeline-architecture-optimization-apache-airflow-implementation-915821d5ce5b | ['Simon Meyer'] | 2020-11-09 17:49:16.587000+00:00 | ['Apache Airflow', 'Redshift', 'AWS', 'Big Data', 'Amazon Web Services'] |
Why Ontario’s COVID case numbers are BS (and how to fix this) | Today is the first day of Ontario’s month-long lockdown — mandated by the provincial government after case numbers seemingly spiraled out of control.
While I’m tempted to, I’m not going to make any political commentary here. Much more eloquent people than I have criticized this policy from front-to-back.
Instead, I want to examine how bad stats have led to drastic measures.
Ultimately, it comes down to the scary looking graph above.
Our main “temperature-check” on COVID (case numbers) is telling us that things are out of control. That is, our case numbers are sky-rocketing.
And if you don’t look at the data too deeply, the calls for lockdown almost make sense.
As of late December, we hit 3X more daily cases than we ever saw during the first peak.
To those uninitiated in data analysis, this spells out a seemingly obvious truth: the second wave is way worse than the first. And as such, we need to take whatever measures necessary to curb these numbers.
But does this data actually represent the reality? And if it doesn’t, what data can we use to get a more accurate reading of the situation?
To answer the first question, we need to understand what this data actually represents.
Keep in mind, while some of this stuff may seem elementary to most people — these basic definitions are vital to teasing out the truth.
So let’s get down to it.
What exactly is a “case”?
The average person (or even a medical professional not trained in data analysis) believes that the scary chart above represents the spread of COVID-19 infections.
The higher the number, the more COVID-19 has spread across our province. The bigger the rise, the faster COVID-19 is spreading.
Right?
Not quite.
To understand what the number of “cases” is actually telling us, we have to understand what the number isn’t telling us.
And this number is not telling us the total number of infections.
Here’s why.
An infection is when someone gets COVID-19.
And there are way more infections in our community than there are cases, because we simply can’t test everyone. At least 80% of infections seem to be asymptomatic or mild. Further, symptomatic people don’t like to get tested, and we don’t even have the infrastructure to test everyone.
To truly know the exact number of infections on any given day, we would need to do the following:
Create a 100% accurate COVID-19 test (not possible)
Test the entire population on a daily basis (not possible)
So, if the number above isn’t measuring the number of infections, what does it measure?
A “case” is when a PCR test comes out positive.
Let’s repeat that.
An “infection” is when someone gets COVID-19, and a “case” is when a PCR test comes out positive.
Why is this distinction important?
1. An infection exists regardless of whether or not we test for it
What would happen if we stopped testing for a week and reported 0 new cases?
For one, our graph would look a lot better (for a week, at least). But surely, it wouldn’t mean that COVID infections have stopped dead in their tracks.
In essence, this means that infections may be a prerequisite for positive tests (in theory, a person has to have COVID to get a positive test), but they are not the same thing.
2. Total “cases” are a function of total tests
Assume that there is a community of 100 people with 50 infections.
If we test 1% of the population (1 person), there’s a 50 / 50 chance that we’ll get a positive.
But what if we test 10 people? We’re likely to find about 5 cases.
What if we test 50 people? 25 cases.
What if we test the entire population of 100? We’ll get 50 cases.
And what happens if we conduct 200 tests (2 per person)? We’ll still only have 50 cases.
This may seem a bit elementary, but there are a couple of important truths we can extract from this exercise:
If we have undiscovered infections in the community, the number of cases will increase with the number of tests Cases won’t completely plateau until we discover all infections
The reality is a little bit more complicated — because the number of infections isn’t a static. The number of infections is increasing and decreasing constantly (with people recovering, and more people getting infected). But the two principles above are nevertheless accurate.
3. Our primary testing method has false positives
Without getting too deep into the PCR (our primary COVID testing method) debate, there are a few uncontroversial facts that most medical professionals will agree with.
PCR tests can find and amplify RNA from dead virus (i.e. a person may be immune, and no longer infectious, but will still come out as a positive case)
(i.e. a person may be immune, and no longer infectious, but will still come out as a positive case) PCR tests have an estimated false positive rate of 0.8% to 4% (but we have no way of knowing for sure)
Now, in general, this is to be expected. No test is going to be perfect.
And isn’t 96% — 99% good enough?
Well, that depends on what you are trying to achieve.
If you’re treating a patient (and need to quickly determine whether or not they’re likely to have COVID or something else), a test with 96% accuracy is beyond excellent.
However, if you are trying to determine the absolute number of infections in a population, even 99% accuracy may be troublesome.
Here’s why.
Let’s assume for a second that we have a completely healthy population with no active infections of COVID.
If we used the PCR test with a 1% false positive rate, 1% of all people tested would be COVID-cases — despite the fact that no infection actually exists in the community.
If you test 1,000 healthy people, you would have 10 “cases.”
If you test 10,000 healthy people, you would have 100 “cases.”
If you test 100,000 healthy people, you would have 1,000 “cases.”
While this distortion shrinks in magnitude as real infections increase in a population (i.e. if 10% of the population was infected and you had a false positive rate of 1%, only 1 / 10 cases would be false) — we don’t have an accurate method of determining how many of our “cases” are false positives.
Summing up the issues
In short, using cases as a representation of infections is not a good idea, because:
Cases and infections are not the same thing Even if infection numbers stay the same, case numbers will grow as testing grows Our main testing method can make it seem like a totally healthy population has a 1–4% positivity rate
This is why there is a heavy correlation between the number of tests completed and the number of COVID cases:
Sure, this is not a 1:1 correlation. This is because COVID infections most likely did increase starting in September. But looking at these numbers alone, it’s unclear how much of the spike in cases is caused by increased testing, and how much was caused by increase in infections.
How can we effectively measure the spread of COVID?
With the data we have today, there are two significantly more accurate ways to measure the spread (and subsequent impact) of COVID-19.
1. Using statistical methods
The first way to determine the growth of COVID-19 is to measure the percentage of positive cases — instead of measuring the absolute number of positive cases like we do right now.
To explain why this might work, we need to go back to first-year Stats. Here’s a quick primer:
If you can’t sample the entire population, sample a representative portion (e.g. demographically)
Try to control for variables that would skew your results (i.e. testing populations that are much more likely to be positive than the standard population)
If you are trying to find trends over multiple time periods, ensure that your test conditions remain the same across tests
In theory, we can randomly test a representative portion of the population (based on location, age, social tendencies, etc.) to determine what percentage of the population is likely to have COVID-19. And if we do this multiple times, we can determine if more or less people are infected over a time-scale.
But because our tests are not conducted on representative portions of the population, they cannot be used to accurately determine what percentage of the population is likely to have COVID-19.
Nevertheless, we can still use our current stats to measure the relative growth or shrinkage of infections. This is because our testing conditions have remained the same throughout the pandemic:
We use nasal swabs for PCR testing
We test travellers, at risk populations, self-admitted patients, and those who were in contact with a COVID case
In other words, while we didn’t control for all the variables, we have been using the same methods to test the same types of people.
2. Measuring downstream metrics
There are 3 metrics that we are currently tracking that tell a much more accurate story about the spread of COVID-19. These are:
Hospitalizations
ICU admissions
COVID-related deaths
These metrics are superior for multiple reasons.
Firstly, they are not a function of total tests completed.
Sure, to hospitalize someone for COVID or attribute a death to COVID, a test is conducted. But most people that end up in the hospital are admitting themselves, and hospitals are testing 100% of people that are admitted with respiratory symptoms.
This means that Increasing testing volume will not linearly increase the number of hospitalizations, ICU cases, or deaths.
And secondly, because doctors have additional diagnosis methods, we can be confident that these numbers represent real infections, and not false positives.
While PCR testing remains an important tool for diagnosing COVID in a hospital setting, doctors have additional methods for confirming COVID in patients, like symptom screening, antibody tests, CT scans, biopsies, autopsies, etc.
Here’s what the second wave actually looks like
Percent of positive cases
COVID-related hospitalizations
COVID-related ICU admissions
COVID-related deaths
Putting it all together
These numbers all tell the same story, and it’s a very different story from the one that absolute case numbers tells us.
The story is this:
Ontario is indeed in the middle of a second wave. But it is on par, if not milder than the first wave (especially when looking at death tolls).
What do we do now?
Like I said at the beginning, this is not an article about politics. I’m not going to lambast governments or experts for misleading the public. I believe most of the people involved have good intentions, and are simply trying their best.
However, it is clear that our province, country, and world is being pulled into another round of hysteria — unrightfully so, and as a consequence of bad analysis.
The first thing we have to do is re-calibrate our compasses.
We’ve been paying attention and reacting to the wrong thing. And we’ve been doing this with real consequence to our economy, to our business, to our families, and to the collective psyche of our community.
Would we have done things differently if we based our decisions on more accurate numbers?
I don’t know for certain.
But I do know that if we keep paying attention to the wrong thing, the damage is only going to be worse.
Note: all data came from Ontario’s COVID-19 data-pool. | https://medium.com/@vladimir.ilinov.marketing/why-ontarios-covid-case-numbers-are-bs-and-how-to-fix-this-f3acdc885b31 | ['Vladimir Ilinov'] | 2020-12-26 08:40:05.418000+00:00 | ['Lockdown', 'Covid 19 Testing', 'Covid 19 Crisis', 'Covid 19', 'Ontario'] |
The Weekly Authority #58 | The Weekly Authority #58
We scour the web to give you the latest, proven Content Marketing and Social Media Strategies to grow your business with the Weekly Authority.
The Sales Funnel Series Pt. 3: How to Increase Brand Awareness with Social Media
Social media provides a great way to directly engage a target audience, prospects, and clients. By starting and joining conversations on major social networks, you can build a following for and interest in your brand. From there, brand awareness can snowball.
Of course, though, social media is a crowded, noisy place. That can make it challenging to grab and keep an audience’s attention — let alone, get them to remember your brand (the same can hold for Content).
With the right strategies, you can overcome this challenge and leverage social media to launch brand awareness to the next level. That’s the focus of this week’s segment of the Sales Funnel Series. So, let’s dive in!
Amplifying Brand Awareness with Social Media: 7 Helpful Tips
Keep the text concise and compelling — Text in social posts should be short and sweet. No one wants to read a novel on social networks. They want to find the most interesting posts and then decide whether to dig in more. So keep it punchy and interesting. Include great visual content — For many people, an image will catch their eyes before they ever look at the text. Don’t let your readers overlook your thoughtful, catchy text. Make them want to read what you have to say by including an engaging image (or video). Use hashtags — Include 2 to 3 hashtags in each social post (more than 3 can kill engagement). Pick relevant, memorable hashtags. This can help catapult your posts into new circles, expanding their reach (and increasing your audience). Respond to comments — This not only shows that someone is actively managing your brand’s social pages (rather than just throwing up posts every now and again); it also highlights that you care about what your audience, prospects and clients think (especially if they are expressing frustration or have a complaint related to your business). Addressing comments in a helpful, positive manner can resolve conflict, preserve your brand’s reputation and build awareness of (and maybe even respect for) your brand. Engage — Join communities, comment on others’ posts, share their content and otherwise demonstrate that you are an active member of a social community. Your brand is sure to be remembered by people who see that you’ve liked, shared or commented on their posts. Be consistent — Both in the regularity of your posts and in the tone and “voice” used in the language, be consistent. Maintain this across different networks so your followers know what to expect from you (and so they begin to develop trust in your brand). Always provide value — If you want your content to consistently engage your audience, this golden rule should guide any piece of content you create. Content that’s educational, insightful, helpful or otherwise valuable will hook readers. Once hooked, readers can be compelled to regularly visit your site, check out your social pages, share/comment on your content, respond to your calls-to-action and otherwise provide value back to you.
Driving Brand Awareness via Social Media: A Few Final Tips
Get it right on a small scale first — In other words, start small — like on one or a couple of social networks — when getting started with social media marketing. This can help you develop your brand’s voice, as well as figure out what does (and doesn’t) engage your audience, without expending a ton of resources in the process. You can always move into new social spaces when you’ve got the fundamentals down (but taking steps back from social networks can kill any following you’ve built on them).
— In other words, start small — like on one or a couple of social networks — when getting started with social media marketing. This can help you develop your brand’s voice, as well as figure out what does (and doesn’t) engage your audience, without expending a ton of resources in the process. You can always move into new social spaces when you’ve got the fundamentals down (but taking steps back from social networks can kill any following you’ve built on them). Use tools — Tools like Hootsuite and SproutSocial can help you organize and schedule posts (across various networks) while allowing you to meticulously track performance. Using these types of tools can save you time rolling out social campaigns while helping you continue to improve them.
Have you been able to use social media to increase brand awareness? What type(s) of social posts (and networks) have you tried? What have you found to be more (or less) successful?
Tell me about your experiences, challenges and successes on Facebook and LinkedIn. And don’t hesitate to get a hold of me on social media to ask any digital marketing question or just to say ‘hi.’ I look forward to hearing from you! | https://medium.com/digitalauthority/the-weekly-authority-58-8473046f0d3a | ['Digital Authority Co'] | 2017-05-10 12:31:01.162000+00:00 | ['Sales Funnels', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Lead Generation', 'Social Media', 'Conversion'] |
girlhood | Shot by a wonderful girl, Olivia Bee.
girlhood
I remember what my girlhood was
I remember when it began
I remember how it lasted
and that my girlhood
has a sister now
womanhood is her sister
and when sisters sit together
they brush their hair
and hold hands
sometimes they smoke cigarettes
on the windowseats
sometimes on the football pitches
where boys get dirty
they get dirty there too, when no one is watching
they climb fences and pick apples from trees
they hide flowers in their pockets
sometimes skirts
their knees are bruised from falling off from bicycles
or roller skates
they hide them under the clothes
while baking elderberry pies with their mothers
making pear jams with lemon peel
you sit straight in white socks and tennis shoes
while your mama braids your hair
bubble gum splashes in your mouth
your whole lips are covered
with the sticky flavour of youth
the girlhood begins
when you see
a cherry sized stain
on your tomboy jeans
when you take your father’s shaver
and you sit in a bath with bleeding legs
like this would be enough for the boys to stop teasing you
for being a girl
the girlhood begins
when men and boys look at you
like you’re something on sale
a cream pie on a platter close to sugar hill
the girlhood begins
when you start putting tape
over your young breasts
the girlhood begins
when you don’t know
if you can still run in the grass
and make yourself dirty
because they want you to be a good girl now
only the sky is the same
sometimes grey
sometimes cerulean
my girlhood
was like a sweet bee
I tried to keep it in a jar filled with flowers
making holes on the top with my nana’s fork
you know, on a good summer day
you stick your nose there
and for few seconds, before the sleepy bee wakes up
you can smell the real sweetness of this world
everything’s real for this short time
and you don’t have to get lost anymore
the womanhood
tells you
to let your bees free, out of the jars
you can’t keep ’em there
you can’t keep it anywhere
every little thing has to be right
it ain’t right to be you right now, you’re a lady now
you, always dressed for every occasion
the clear stockings on your smooth legs
the make up, the hair, the glowing hands and feet
food on the table
kids cleaned
money in the bank
you leave your girlhood where no man can see it
but
there’s a secret in it
the sisters
keep all their jars with the syrupy bees
in the midst of their hearts
where the longing of girlhood
and the need for womanhood
mix and dance together in those small fractions
of your world
where boyhood
and manhood
doesn’t dare to enter | https://medium.com/poets-unlimited/girlhood-ab2dca246f9f | ['Kamila Zguzi'] | 2017-03-23 20:50:49.875000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Women', 'Girls', 'Life', 'Short Story'] |
Is Deepmind too expensive at $500M a year? | There have been several media articles the past few days scoffing at the $500M annual loss that Deepmind is making for its owner Google. Is that a lot of money? Yes, it is. Is it actually expensive? Well, that depends on what you compare it to.
Let’s examine.
The team
So for those of you who don’t know, Deepmind are effectively the Yankees of A.I. research. The best of the best. Most trophies, all that. So yes, the total salary of almost $500M divided by just 700 employees seems excessive. But these aren’t developers. These are the best researchers in the world, in the hottest field right now. So what does an A-team look like?
So yes, expensive when compared to tech companies like Apple. Same ballpark as top banks like Goldman Sachs, but remember they have 36,000 employees! Deepmind pays a high salary for a low number of specialists, most of who have a Ph.D. If you took top executives at Apple and Goldman Sachs, we’re talking seven figures easy. And what about them Yankees? Yeah, forget about it. It’s a lot of money, but not for an A-team.
The brand
Another way to look at the value Deepmind brings is their brand. They are one of a handful of labs in the world with a singular focus on developing General Artificial Intelligence. They believe if they can solve intelligence, then they can solve any problem. Cancer. Quantum Gravity. Any problem. Big statement.
As part of that journey, they have tackled some of the hardest problems humans have developed, like playing Chess and Go. Deepmind beat the humans, all of them, and is now developing even harder problems like multiplayer online games. Deepmind’s AlphaGo made the headlines globally when they beat the world’s top-ranked player Lee Sedol back in 2016.
So what other reference points do we have for such high-brow, high-budget marquee projects?
These are literally the biggest undertakings of mankind to date. So it’s interesting to see that $500M a year definitely registers on the scale. It’s big-spending for sure. The LHC project is considered one of the most expensive science projects ever and has uncovered the Higgs Boson, making it one expensive particle. But after adjusting for inflation, the 20th-century big-ticket items like building the nuclear bomb and going to the moon take the cake. Plus, it’s worth noting that most of these projects spent this budget over a decade. Deepmind is just a few years in, although also growing it’s spending steadily… but what is it worth to own the leading A.I. research lab in the world right now? A lot. Probably more than $500M if you asked for bids.
The business
So if we look at other similar companies that have come up in recent years, is this really a crazy amount in the world of unicorns? In the race to escape velocity and market monopoly, we’ve seen startups raising bigger and bigger rounds to outgrow and outspend each other.
Yeah, not really. Deepmind isn’t even in the race. But there’s a significant difference to point out. These other guys are spending like it’s someone else’s money, which it is actually, because they’re trying to build a moat through money. Becoming so big it’s impossible to compete. To even think of competing would require a massive war chest.
Deepmind is real deep tech. They’re building all kinds of crazy I.P. that while most of it gets shared through public research, Google has first dibs to commercialize. Many are rightly concerned about the long-term sustainability of the cash-burning unicorns, but I wouldn’t put Deepmind in that group. The spending is at least producing something.
The acquisition
So finally, if we back up to how much Google actually paid for Deepmind. It matters in the sense of how deep the hole is, to begin with. If you overpay massively, you better see ROI big time. Makes sense?
Dirt cheap, is the answer. Google paid more than double that for Youtube. Now, what these other companies did have was millions of users. But that’s a different play. Youtube has worked out pretty well for Google. Deepmind is an investment in the future, not the next quarter, and Google can afford it. They know someday the ad teet will run out of its golden milk, so they better diversify while they can. Hence, Alphabet.
Google’s competitors would pay multiples of that half-bil to take Deepmind off their chest if Google wanted to ship it. Not gonna happen. Recently, Microsoft paid a cool billion for a minority stake in the other big A.I. lab, OpenAI. If anything, Google’s investment has already had a killer return. Having the best A.I. research team in the world, and by far the strongest brand in A.I. across the industry, is simply priceless.
So in conclusion, it’s not expensive at all. | https://akiranin.medium.com/is-deepmind-too-expensive-at-500m-a-year-b3451cd7af1b | ['Aki Ranin'] | 2019-08-14 08:29:29.055000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Technology', 'Business', 'Venture Capital', 'Startup'] |
Waiting for Gestalt | By Gene Wilburn
Gestalt (ge STALT). A word meaning, roughly, when the brain perceives with clarity that the whole of a system is greater than the sum of its parts, and everything clicks into one awareness. One can have a gestalten moment. But can one achieve a gestaltenexistence?
When I was coming of age intellectually at university in the early to mid 1960s, there were a number of explorations of the mind making the rounds. Existentialism, the sometimes bleak philosophy that arose strongly in Paris after the Nazi occupation at the end of World War II, was alive and well. Sartre, Beauvoir, and Camus were still publishing and there was something compelling in the message that you’re responsible for who you become, creating a personal integrity in the face of the meaninglessness and absurdity of the universe. This is, of course, an over simplification.
Along with the primary existential philosophers came “Theatre of the Absurd,” a literary form of existentialism, perhaps best seen in the play by Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, in which “logical construction and argument give way to irrational and illogical speech and its ultimate conclusion, silence.” [Wikipedia, “Theatre of the Absurd”]
Another prevailing line of thought came from the field of psychology, in the form of Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” with “self actualization” at the top of the pyramid. In its wake people were self actualizing all over the place, or at least that’s what they professed. It certainly launched a full-blown pop psychology business and fuelled New-Age-style thinking before “New Age” had even become a word.
A different branch of psychology, from Germany, had earlier in the century introduced Gestalt Theory, a holistic psychology that seemed to imply that if you could attain a gestalt with yourself and your environment, you could flow through it with understanding, and perhaps appreciation, in the way that listening to a symphony is an experience that transcends the individual notes of the musical score.
Looking back on this fifty years later, I think existentialism has held up rather well, especially when augmented with a generous helping of late Roman-style stoicism. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs still has a sound feel to it, though there is a sense that Western society, as a whole, has slipped down the pyramid a bit in this era of anti-enlightenment, anti-science populism.
But the one that still teases my mind is gestalt theory. At the turning of each decade I’ve been waiting for that gestalten moment when everything would click into place and I would reach an understanding — “Because something is happening here / But you don’t know what it is / Do you, Mister Jones?” [Bob Dylan, “Ballad of a Thin Man”]
The problem is, how does one achieve gestalt when everything keeps changing?
The Impact of the 1960s
I emerged from the 1950s like most boys who had reached their teens by the start of the 1960s, interested in cars, playing basketball, grooving to the week’s Top–10 radio, and thinking about going to university after high school. In other words, I was as cookie-cutter naive as one could be.
It was the folk music era which, in my relative isolation, I took to be the music of the Kingston Trio, Limelighters, Chad Mitchell Trio, Burl Ives, and that new group on the radio, Peter Paul and Mary. It was when I heard Joan Baez sing a couple of old ballads like “Barbara Allen” I began to perceive a different kind of folk music that was less slick and more personal. Back then it was just music I liked. Later it would change me.
My intellectual life began when I went to university where I first majored in engineering. It was a tough study, but I was getting by, being moderately good at math and logic. There was, however, a problem. I enjoyed learning folk music more than studying STEM subjects and the lyrics of Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs left me questioning what I was doing. I bought a guitar, learned a fistful of chords, and learned to sing and play the songs that were haunting me.
My taste in folk music had also led me to discover the Weavers, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, and a rich vein of black blues singers from Big Bill Broonzy and the Rev. Gary Davis to Mississippi John Hurt. I loved all these voices of the people.
I couldn’t square my study of engineering with my awareness of what was happening. The civil rights movement in the American South highlighted the inappropriate treatment of black people. President Kennedy had been assassinated, then Martin Luther King, then Robert Kennedy. There was a strange, unpopular war being waged in Vietnam.
Things were changing, blowing in the wind, as it were, and the gestalt of the time was changing with it. I switched my major to English and my minor to French, and began studying literature with its plays, novels, poems, and essays. In French classes, we frequently read the existentialists Sartre and Camus. I studied philosophy, social history, and art history. I met and became friends with dozens of like-minded individuals, some male, some female, some straight, some gay, a few who were black or hispanic, all of whom shared a passion for literature, art, philosophy, and music. I had found my people.
Something happens to your mind when you embrace the Humanities — something that comes as a series of epiphanies that raises your consciousness into new realms of thought and feeling resulting from contact with the great writers, poets, playwrights, philosophers, artists, and musicians of all eras. It’s intoxicating and exhilarating and, as Thomas Wolfe proclaimed in the title of his novel, You Can’t Go Home Again. You’re changed.
You reach for a higher kind of gestalt, the gestalt of the modestly well-educated. You begin to read the New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Le Monde, The Times (London), The Guardian, Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, The Globe and Mail, and university quarterlies. You listen to folk music, cool jazz, classical music, and opera. You see Verdi in the same tradition as Shakespeare, and taste the richness of Old English in Beowulf and the delightful Middle English of Geoffrey Chaucer.
It’s a heady experience, all in all, but the question always arises: what are you going to do with all this when you head out into the “real” world?
One Pill Makes You Larger, and One Pill Makes You Small
For one gestalten period it seemed as if the world had changed. The war in Vietnam was vigorously opposed, campus radicalism was on the rise, and hair got longer. The folk music I’d grown up with was woven into a new kind of rock music and the voices of Joni Mitchell, Grace Slick, Janis Joplin, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young filled the airwaves, along with new bands like the Doors, Led Zeppelin, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, and Frank Zappa.
Alan Watts taught us about Zen, the tarot deck came back into fashion, and decorated VW vans filled with flower children with headbands, victory signs, peace medallions, and bloodshot eyes were common sights.
Among the reading favourites were One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me, Catch–22, The Vedas and The Upanishads, The Teachings of Don Juan, The I Ching and The Whole Earth Catalog.
Everyone was for “getting back to nature” and many communes were started, mostly ending in failure, and from the broadway musical Hair to massive rock concerts, it was assumed that the Age of Aquarius was upon us. The Mexican poet Octavio Paz described it as an “explosion of consciousness.”
It’s sometimes said that if you remember the 60s, you weren’t really there. My own memory of the time is patchy, with psychedelically-coloured gaps and an enduring sense of mysticism. But, like many, I didn’t see how it was sustainable. In the words of the Jefferson Airplane, “You are the Crown of Creation / And you have no place to go.”
The Origin of Species
The flower-power era couldn’t last, of course, because someone has to pay the bills. I trimmed my hair, picked up a degree in library science, and took a job. Through sheer good fortune I ended up as Head Librarian at the Royal Ontario Museum, in Toronto. It was there that I began hanging out with ornithologists, palaeontologists, mammalogists, geologists, mineralogists, ichthyologists, and entomologists, as well as archaeologists. It has shaped my thinking to this day. I had encountered the gestalt of scientific thinking and research.
One of the curators, a palynologist (one who studies modern and ancient pollens) challenged me with the question: “Have you read Darwin’s Origin of Species?” Being a lit major, I hadn’t, so I decided to give it a go.
What surprised me the most was how clear Darwin’s Victorian prose was. I was mesmerized by the concept of “descent with modification” or as it came to be known, “evolution.” Shortly after reading Origin, a new volume by Stephen Jay Gould passed through the library — a collection of essays entitled Ever Since Darwin. I gave this a read and subsequently read every book of essays Gould produced, culled from his monthly column in Natural History.
As a newly-minted amateur naturalist and birder I became hooked on reading science books written for the general public. The 60’s mantra “all is one” took on a philosophically material interpretation when I studied how the universe started, how suns ignited and planets formed, and how, on this one we call Earth, life sparked and evolved, going through great periods of diversity, extinction, more diversity, more extinction, and so on, leading eventually to a group of suddenly sapient simians. As Carl Sagan pointed out, we are made from the remnants of star dust, and every living thing on the planet is related.
My readings in science and science history led me to reaffirm the existentialist theme that life can be heaven or hell, but human beings mean very little in the face of the universe. I shed any last remnants of religion. Materially, we are bodies that live and die, each of us randomly sorted into different situations, different cultures, different countries and it’s these things that shape our sense of who we are.
There are people for whom science is enough. To paraphrase Darwin, there’s a grandeur to this concept of life and its descent with modification through time and its tangled branches and the sudden bursts of evolution that Gould referred to as “punctuated equilibrium.” This is a gestalt that most naturalists come to feel through their observation of life’s many remarkable species.
But is science alone enough to sustain the human spirit, or psyche, that je ne sais quoi that some people call a “soul”? Perhaps, and perhaps not, depending on the individual. What science does, for me, is to throw into relief all the amazing works of mankind, from art, history, philosophy, literature, and music to the increasing technological achievements that accompanied the industrial revolution.
By the time I had begun to assimilate this naturalistic view, information technology was picking up the pace. Television, radio, newspapers and other media shaped us and moulded us in ways that perhaps only Marshall McLuhan could sort out. But that was merely a preface of things to come: the computer revolution.
Bits, Bytes, and Qubits
From the late 70s onward the computer revolution picked up momentum until it reached nearly Biblical proportions: “And in that time a great change came across the land” [my paraphrase]. Computing became personal, portable, and profoundly ubiquitous.
Like others, I joined the revolution, pivoting my career from librarianship to Information Technology (IT). From the earliest whimsical days that included an ad in Byte Magazine for dBase II, entitled “dBASE II vs The Bilge Pump,” to the corporate adoption of personal computers as strategic tools in the workplace, to the computer (aka smartphone) in one’s pocket or purse, a virtual Pandora’s box of consequences was unleashed.
My work involved setting up workstations, email servers, database servers, storage servers, web servers, and firewalls, with a little programming tossed in for spice. I enjoyed decades of computing projects and by the time I retired, in 2006, the industry had progressed from 8-bit personal computers such as the Apple II, to 64-bit powerhouses running Microsoft Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and a few dozen lesser-known operating systems. Smartphones and tablets had become almost a birthright.
Computing begat digital photography, streaming audio and video, automobile electronics, appliance electronics, social networks, and, with lesser success, self-driving cars. I now listen to streaming music, watch streaming videos, and get my news and opinion pages from the Internet.
On another level, machine learning (ML) has grown and penetrated the Internet so such a degree that one can examine a product on Amazon and see ads for it within hours on Facebook. Privacy has suffered. The Internet, invented for the purpose of sharing scientific information, developed a dark side, the extent of which is still being assessed — surveillance, phishing attacks, the hacking of personal information, and possibly enough manipulation to sway elections.
The pace is still swift and the increasingly successful bids to harness Quantum Computing (whose basic unit of information is called a Qubit) will likely bring unforeseen changes. Nothing stands still.
End Game
“You can’t stop the future. You can’t rewind the past. The only way to learn the secret, is to press play” ~ Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why
In my retirement, I’ve once again become a student. I read incessantly, both fiction and nonfiction, I take the occasional online course, and I think, if not profoundly, at least genuinely. It aids thinking to have a philosophical framework to compare one’s thoughts to, and I continue to find the challenge of existentialism worthwhile for this. It’s an honest philosophy, derived from the human spirit looking at an irrational and uncaring, absurd, universe and deciding to carve out a personal meaning for being human. It’s a difficult challenge (never underestimate existential angst) but it’s more open and honest than clinging to a derived set of values, liberal or conservative, from those around us.
I’m beginning to understand why Camus used the story of Sisyphus to highlight the challenge. In the Greek myth, Sisyphus was condemned to roll a huge boulder to the top of a hill. Every time he reached the top, the boulder would roll back to the bottom and he was required to repeat the procedure, for eternity. “Camus claims that when Sisyphus acknowledges the futility of his task and the certainty of his fate, he is freed to realize the absurdity of his situation and to reach a state of contented acceptance. With a nod to the similarly cursed Greek hero Oedipus, Camus concludes that ‘all is well,’ indeed, that ‘one must imagine Sisyphus happy.’” [Wikipedia, “The Myth of Sisyphus”]
It would be neat and tidy, at this final stage of my life, to wrap up my thoughts with a pretty bow attached, but I’m unable to do so. There have always been random elements in our story that change the story itself: a colliding meteor, a world war, an economic depression, climate change, the overthrowing of the monarchy and aristocracy, the re-establishment of a wealthy set of plutocrats, the place you were born, the family you emerged from, the schools you attended, the number of freedoms, or lack thereof, of the prevailing government, and, not least, who you fall in love with. It is difficult to piece all this together into a holistic understanding. I am, in my final years, still waiting — waiting for gestalt. | https://genewilburn.medium.com/waiting-for-gestalt-e72da6a29c14 | ['Gene Wilburn'] | 2019-05-08 20:40:06.491000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Gestalt', 'Existentialism', 'Science', 'Philosophy'] |
Collection of JavaScript Range Sliders | Collection of free vanilla JavaScript range slider code examples from codepen.io. 10 JavaScript range sliders on https://freefrontend.com. Thanks! | https://freefrontend.medium.com/collection-of-javascript-range-sliders-9a6df2ca93d4 | [] | 2020-05-06 14:53:32.378000+00:00 | ['HTML', 'CSS', 'JavaScript', 'Web Development'] |
How Interaction Design Foundation helped me advance as a User Experience Designer | I wanted to share a journey I have been on. I enrolled in classes at Interaction Design Foundation a few months back to hone my UX skills. I had researched for a month before choosing. I loved the mission statement and the Scandinavian style education model.
We are a movement to create accessible and affordable Ivy League-level design education.
As of today I have completed 4 classes and taking in 3 more. My first classes were Design Thinking and Gestalt psychology.
These classed have changed the way I come at problems at work and in my personal life. I used the design thinking process during my recent job search. I had heard of it prior, but had never taken a official class on it.
I have spent hours at my computer learning fascinating topics. My favorite class so far was Gestalt psychology and Web Design. This class taught about how the brain perceives images and how to use that in web design.
Gestalt psychology is often applied to user interface design, as the organisation of visual displays is heavily influenced by the perceptual biases that influence and help to create our perception of the world.
After completing the class I never looked at interfaces the same way again. I was at a whole new level and it showed at work. My new skills got me a team lead position on a project shortly after completing a few classes. The time and money I had invested in myself was well worth it.
As we all know the Tech industry is fast changing. In order to keep up with the trends as a professional you need to stay up to date. For me Interaction Design Foundation helps me deepen my knowledge and learn about new trends. I have personally found that if you fall behind in the tech field it can massively impact self-esteem and performance. The reverse is true as well. Continuing your education will help you gain a new appreciation for your job and give you the confidence boost you need to advance.
My second favorite class was Design Thinking. After taking these classes I decided to apply my knowledge. I wanted to use the design thinking framework to look for the perfect job.
You might be wondering what Design Thinking is and why I would use it in a job search. It is a non-linear, iterative process that helps understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test.
There are 5 basic steps to design thinking:
Stage 1: Empathize — Research Your Users’ Needs
Stage 2: Define — State Your Users’ Needs and Problems
Stage 3: Ideate — Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas
Stage 4: Prototype — Start to Create Solutions
Stage 5: Test — Try Your Solutions Out
Teo Yu Siang and Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Design teams use design thinking to tackle ill-defined or unknown problems (otherwise known as wicked problems) because the process reframes these problems in human-centric ways, and allows designers to focus on what’s most important for users. I believed that this process would help me clarify and narrow down the positions I was applying for. Design thinking is a non linear process but you have to start somewhere. | https://medium.com/@DreptateYvonne/how-interaction-design-org-helped-me-advance-as-a-user-experience-designer-662c5038b642 | ['Yvonne Dreptate'] | 2019-08-08 14:12:25.653000+00:00 | ['UX', 'Design Thinking', 'Interaction Design', 'Job Search Tips'] |
A Day In The Life | Hey guys so look, this is my first post (God I hope no one i know finds this, cuz thats hella embarrassing) and I just want you guys to know how I do things. Im a teenage girl, and Im just here for a good time. This site is probably filled with a lot of like descriptive, poetic, well-written stories. Not here! Maybe after I get better at writing but on my page, it’s a little different. Yes, there will be typos. Yes, there will be “slang” terms as my english teacher loves to call it. But if you want to read some interesting things about my life, feel free to stick around. Thanks yall :) | https://medium.com/@tessyjogirl/intro-5895d1912b9c | ['Tess Meyers'] | 2020-12-19 20:03:29.362000+00:00 | ['Teenagers'] |
Community FAQ’s at WePower: November 2018 | The year may be drawing to a close but the WePower team is feeling more motivated than ever! We’ve just had a very successful live AMA session on Telegram where our community raised lots of questions and shared their interest in the WePower story. We are thrilled to have so many people supporting our journey.
Thank you, dear community!
For those of you who missed it, or wanted to revise the answers to all of the questions, we have put together our first Community FAQ’s at WePower blog…happy reading!
Questions from Live AMA on Telegram on Monday 19 November:
With the new business model applied how has the token use case changed, if it did change at all?
The use case of WPR did not change, it provides 2 features at this stage which is access to priority auctions and what is the most important — access to donation pool.
What happened with Arturas moving to a more passive role? Everybody is scared that there’s something bad happening in the team…could you explain?
Good question, nothing bad has happened. With around 60 contributors to WePower today, internal organisations need to change to be able to grow. It is very common that organisations outgrow positions and people and Arturas has moved to a different role. He is a co-founder of WePower and part of WePower but in a less active role.
How will private people have the access to the auctions if its an B2B model?
The goal has not changed and the platform will be open for all the participants (individuals will be able to participate), from the business perspective and to provide most benefits possible we refocused where most of the traction is today and where the results can be achieved this year with highest benefits to the community.
Hi Nick, you wrote that the use case did not change at this stage it provides 2 features. Should we be expecting any changes regarding these 2 features in the future?
The features will be expanded with additional functionalities coming to the platform, those are focused on all of the customers as in the energy world we are transitioning from a old utility driven sector to a buyer driven sector.
Will businesses that will have priority access to the platform B2B be required to hold WPR tokens as well?
Absolutely! If you do not have WPR you are unable to enter in to the priority stage of the auction.
Have many business who intend to purchase electricity (ie users) signed up?
We are currently working with some of the top 100 energy consumers in Australia who are very keen to purchase energy through us and see the value we provide.
Is it correct that priority access is for big companies first and later in some years also for private people? Any specific market rules applies?
Actually the limitations for purchasing energy for your home as a small consumer are still the same as in the whitepaper — you need to be grid connected, there needs to be a way to deliver that energy to you. So if we are starting in Australia, then grid connected small users will be able to participate very soon — for other markets — at scaling speed. Also, KYC and credit scoring requirements will apply, like with any financial purchase.
Will businesses (B2B option) in regards to WPR token be subjected to exact same rules as individual investors? When you say “If you do not have WPR you are unable to enter in to priority stage of the auction” it does not exactly refer to corporates that will be engaging in the B2B (as opposed to individual investors)?
You are absolutely right, all rules are the same.
Is the contribution to the donation pool still at 0.9%?
Yes, donations are 0.9%, however the size of the auction has increased as not 20% but 100% are being sold right now through the platform. Initial model was based on the fact that we were able to technically sell only 20% of the energy through the platform. With the work the team has done we were able to move to selling 100% of energy from any renewable power plant that is ready to be built. 0.9% donation from the amount of energy the renewable power plant is selling through WePower.
Is my thinking right: if projections in white paper was prepared for only Spain and Italy, so with Australia can we reach our goals faster?
You are right, initial projections do not represent Australia.
Have many businesses who intend to purchase electricity (ie users) signed up?
Around 10 companies will be able to participate in the first WePower auction. We are oversubscribed by a dozen. And when we think about large companies, then we need to understand that the volumes and patterns of energy consumption are different and at scales which are difficult to imagine for normal people.
Is it possible to update the projections?
When the quiet season hits, we will look at updating it, for now the focus is on business development.
You started hiring in Germany and other EU countries. Can we expect WePower as an energy deliverer in EU in 2019?
Yes we have plans for Europe in 2019. But availability as an energy deliverer in a specific region will depend on a few things, for example having a smart meter installed.
Are you partnered with AGL and Origin?
We have partnerships in place that were announced during this year which have provided a lot of support and value to us but we are happy to engage with all possible market players.
What happened with plans on launching business in Spain?
During Summer time when Spain went on vacation there was a choice for us in either do nothing until Spain comes back from holidays or focus on Australia as a priority as it was winter time here. We refocused on launching the Australian market first and we are happy about it as it allowed us to expand the business case as well. A lot of work has been done in Spain and we are working in the background to launch Spain ASAP.
How will the Buyer companies get access WPR? I presume that there is an arrangement with them ? They will not come exchanges to buy the coin like most of us.
Buying of tokens will be done through exchanges.
In essence, is the main change in the business model who actually can purchase the electricity (businesses instead of retail/individual)?
The business model has not essentially changed, its only a change in the market entry strategy. Pieces of the puzzle are the same, they are just put together in a slightly different order. Companies have large volumes, and they are a good place to start simplifying the power purchasing process. The buy-process for companies and individuals is a bit different, but both will be developed.
When will you guys update officially the projections and the white paper with this amazing new information?
We are changing format, and will keep it in a form of business focus around the market and potential of the market we are in.
When do you think you will be in a position to share the timeline for the first auction?
We are working to make it happen as soon as possible, and we will happily share this news as soon as possible.
How was it on Utility Week in Vienna? Was it instructive?
EUW in Vienna was intense. WePower co-founder Kaspar has been going there every year for 5 years giving talks as a former energy grid executive. However this year, with WePower, both Nick and Kaspar had the the opportunity to share their bold vision for the energy transition and that was really exciting to see it resonate. We will be talking more about that vision as we move forward.
May I ask about Peter Diamandis? Why is he giving so little about WePower? Is he still with the team?
Peter is advising us on the long-term aspects of WePower’s vision for energy digitalization — in scaling exponentially beyond our first target markets — this is his specialty. As we move forward, this will be more visible. | https://medium.com/wepower/community-faqs-at-wepower-november-2018-ce4190c8daf0 | ['Greta Jonaitytė'] | 2018-11-23 10:03:09.965000+00:00 | ['Energy', 'Blockchain', 'Renewables', 'Renewable Energy'] |
5 Best Ways To Earn Money Online Other Than Freelancing | Wanna make some easy money from your laptop, lying in your bed? You’ve come to the right place.
We already know what freelancing is and the methods to make money online so, I’ll not bore you by giving some brief introduction or something like that.
Why Other Than Freelancing
The online marketplace is stuffed with freelancers and skilled people that offer their services online.
People opt for different methods like graphic designing, content writing, programming, app development, program cracking, web development, etc.
But as you know that these skills have a lot of professionals and they make freelancing platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, PeoplePerHour extremely competitive platforms.
People face a lot of difficulties in securing a job.
Intro:
This antagonistic environment made me think that you must be looking for alternate methods for making money online.
Well, these methods exist and they do require some hard work and skill but you don’t have to fight your way through a horde of competitors.
Let me tell you that these methods are not even a bit related to those cheap methods like filling captchas, surveys, playing games on some mobile app, and crypto-currency trading.
These methods are completely legit and they promise a lot of money for their practicers. These jobs are:
1) Social Media Influencer
You must have seen famous Tiktok celebrities or Instagrammers promoting some brands in their videos and posts. They are social media influencers and they use the popularity of their social media pages to make money.
If you have the ability to make creative content that can attract viewers, then you should definitely go for it.
You can utilize your time on the internet to make some money rather than scrolling uselessly and sharing memes.
This job has a plus point that your work will not remain a boring job because the same thing you previously did for recreation or enjoying will become a good source of income.
All you have to do is to create social media content that attracts people. Use all methods of optimization and marketing tricks to gather more and more followers.
Scope:
This field has a lot of scope in the future because marketing is the need of every major or minor brand.
This field will always be waiting for newcomers because Instagram marketing proves to be much cost-effective for brands than TV marketing.
Income:
You can:
use affiliate links
be a brand ambassador
create promotion posts, stories, and IGTV videos
All of them offer a large sum of money as salary.
The income varies with the number of followers you got. It also depends on the brand you’re advertising for and the country you live in. No matter where you live, you can still earn a handsome amount of money.
Christiano Ronaldo, the football legend earns approximately $40 million per annum from Instagram.
But here we are talking about beginners like you. The rate is charged per post. In the US people charge $100 per Instagram post if he has less than 10,000 followers.
2) Sell Your Best Shots
If you’re talented in photography and love to click the best moments, nature, and animals, then you can turn your passion into cash.
You can spend your job time in the lap of nature instead of some boring room with computers in front of you.
Even if you are not trained enough to be an expert photographer you can still use photo-editing and graphic designing software to create bewitching pictures.
There are many websites that buy photographs like,
Shutterstock
Getty Images
Foap
Adobe Stock
Alamy
Fine Art America
Scope:
This niche has extensive scope now and also in the future. This method is a respectable way to earn money for photographers especially in South Asian countries like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh where photographers are not given a good status.
Many magazines and bloggers are in need of good photos. You can supply them with your valuable clicks and get paid.
Students can make more than sufficient money and still study because this skill just requires your recreational time. You can make money and still enjoy.
Income:
Income here is commission-based. Different websites have their own rates. Adobe pays 33% as commission. Foap, Alamy, and Shutterstock also have their rates to roundabout 20%-40%.
The money you earn is based on the number of photos you upload and for how many times it is used. Agencies rent the photos for a specific time and you get the royalties
You can easily earn about $300 a month by stock photography. Hence it is a much-worthy platform for South Asians.
3) Sell Domain Names
This niche is much like the real estate business.
You’ll have to make a little investment for the registration of a domain. You must apply SEO rules to make a perfect domain for a specific purpose.
Name the domain according to the buyer's needs and interests. You’ll have to wait for a considerable time for selling your domain at the best price.
There are a number of websites that sell domains according to your needs like,
Domain.com
Namecheap
Bluehost
GoDaddy
Buydomains
For selling a Domain at a good price, you should have a website that ranks at a good position at Google.
You should do some research before buying a domain, for example, if you acquire a domain that much resembles a popular one, then there are high chances that it’ll help you earn a lot of money.
Strategies like creating more and more backlinks can increase the worth of a domain.
A cheap bought domain can actually create thousands of dollars. A well-curated domain can earn you $5000 per month easily. All you have to do is to follow some steps to increase its worth and wait for the right time to sell.
4) Gaming
The best method to earn money as a gamer is by creating a YouTube channel. There are other methods like winning E-sports tournaments, but these are relatively difficult.
The gaming industry has seen a substantial expanse in the last few years. Games that were previously regarded as a waste of time are now being pursued as successful careers.
Scope:
Gaming channels are one of the most viewed YouTube channels.
Good graphics, interesting story, fascinating gameplay are a complete alternative choice for any other story-based content.
What you need is just a regular gaming setup which some of you might still have.
Good story-based gameplay coupled with some interesting commentary from your side can create a bewitching video for viewers.
It is expected that the circle of E-sports will be expanded. Each country will have its own team. Domestic tournaments will be regularly held like we see today in cricket and football.
This step will increase the number of players required hence more players can pursue gaming as a career.
Income:
As aforementioned, the source of income is YouTube monetization. Moreover shorter TikTok videos can also be availed for making money.
YouTube earning can be increased through ads and promotions.
5) YouTube
This platform has been used for many years to make money.
It has millions of users across the world that’s why its monetization program proves to be much cost-effective.
You just have to pick up a niche of your interest. It can be a tech channel, gaming channel, comedy skits, or music channel.
Every niche gathers lots of viewers if the video is perfectly cured with the right tools.
The most trending topic right now to make a YouTube video is “Making money online”. Young YouTubers are explaining in their videos that how to get orders on Upwork, Fiverr, etc. These videos have a lot of viewership.
The reason is that Covid 19 and the recent trend of online earning have inspired many to increase their income.
Scope:
YouTube will remain a continuous source of entertainment and infotainment. Every person needs to get some rest after his arduous job. YouTube is the most commonly used free platform that provides quality content.
Hence, anyone with good entertaining skills can gather a lot of viewership.
Income:
YouTube monetization can be activated by achieving a goal of 4000 hours of view time and 1000 subscribers in the previous 12 months.
Forbes estimated the earning to be almost $5 per 1000 views. Using this pay rate a video having 1000,000 views can make you $5000.
More sources of income are | https://medium.com/@gull66332/5-best-ways-to-earn-money-online-other-than-freelancing-c6c171be24aa | ['Abdullah Gull'] | 2021-12-22 03:39:54.396000+00:00 | ['Gaming', 'Money', 'Online Earning', 'Instagram Marketing', 'YouTube'] |
Season Of Everything | Source: Christianity oday
You have a world of your own,
That rotates around your self,
Where oceans of emotion flow,
On which floats your thoughts.
When dark clouds hide the light,
When expectations rain down on you,
When success rushes away like the wind,
You submerge under the deep ocean,
Whose heart lies unknown.
When the snow covers you,
It’s cold touch and chilled heart,
Hiding you from everything,
You lay still freezing the moment,
Waiting for the warmth that never comes.
When the golden glow shines upon you,
Warmth embracing your soul,
And the sun kissed thoughts go wild,
The moment you rise up in the air and fly,
As high as the sky.
When flowers bloom at your feet,
While birds sing your glory,
And the world spins around you,
You will be as radiant as the morning sun,
And as content as the ocean.
When your world changes,
Just like the ever-changing seasons,
And when you accept the changes,
Acknowledging the temporalities,
Is when the season of everything-ness begins! | https://medium.com/paperkin/season-of-everything-de646abe428a | ['Arya Parameswaran'] | 2020-09-21 13:18:13.510000+00:00 | ['PaperRhymes', 'Perception', 'Poem', 'Seasons', 'Change'] |
It was not quite as he had imagined (1) | As always the curiosity of the youth I bought a microcomputer TK 82 C (Sinclar), Basic interpreter with 16k of RAM, recording of data in tape cassette and the monitor a TV.
Programs in Basic and difficult recording of files and / or data on the tape player. At the time the control of the recordings was made by the tape counter where you wrote down on paper or by the noise of beginning and ending. (Detail already had a hearing difficulty)
Thinking about money to play my next venture (set up small sound team — 2 players, 6 boxes, lights, etc.)
I put an idea on the improvisation on a sheet of paper and showed the financier “Father”. I bought an elgin printer with 80 character printing per second and do mailing.
Yes, with all the equipment I paid the investor and I set up a sound team that later helped my next venture a new MSX computer with a floppy disk and a 10 mb HD.
I see today that the idea was to generate money for the next investment, be it personal or a new venture.
This is cool.
Technological limitation was no obstacle.
And today, what’s your idea?
With so many resources / ideas, the tip is to not waste time.
In this technological evolution I was fortunate to participate.
This is for the next story | https://medium.com/@progiuri/it-was-not-quite-as-he-had-imagined-1-9db2cb1d4289 | ['J Iuri Antunes'] | 2019-02-18 22:27:13.357000+00:00 | ['Storyofmylife', 'Computer'] |
Shopify & Dynamic Remarketing | Shopify & Dynamic Remarketing
The “what, why & how” guide to winning back your non-converting customers
iStock Photo by Getty Images
The holiday season is here and due to the special circumstances we live in (COVID-19), merchants should think about investing more in digital marketing strategies. The most common pain point of online merchants around the world is non-converting customers: people who visit your e-store, search around a bit, and then leave without purchasing.
Well, not for long — dynamic remarketing ads are the answer to all your problems.
By setting up dynamic remarketing campaigns, you will be able to personalize the ads displayed to your customers and stop guessing what they would be interested in. Trust me on this: the results in sales are outstanding.
Unfortunately, this is not always an easy task to complete, especially when we talk about Shopify stores. The implementation is often complicated and the results are not always to be trusted.
What you will need: | https://medium.com/better-marketing/shopify-dynamic-remarketing-613111c3b9af | ['Alexandra Poulopoulou'] | 2020-12-07 16:02:48.177000+00:00 | ['Shopify', 'Dynamic Remarketing', 'Marketing', 'Google Ads', 'Digital Marketing'] |
How To Make a Vision of a Country that Works For All of Us | How To Make a Vision of a Country that Works For All of Us Susan Corso Jan 21·7 min read
“One year ago today, health officials told Americans about a traveler who had just come home from Wuhan, China, sought treatment at an urgent-care clinic north of Seattle after falling ill — and set off alarm bells. The man had the first confirmed coronavirus case in the United States.”
Enter our constant, mutating companion of the past year, the coronavirus — something we had definitely not envisioned.
“[The] inaugural committee contacted [poet] Amanda Gorman late last month. … Jill Biden had seen a reading she gave at the Library of Congress and suggested Gorman read something at the inauguration. She wasn’t given any explicit guidelines about what to write, she said.
“Gorman began the process, as she always does, with research. She took inspiration from the speeches of American leaders who tried to bring citizens together during times of intense division, including Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She also spoke to two of the previous inauguration poets.
“When she asked Elizabeth Alexander for advice, ‘she just basically told me, “The poem is already written, it’s already done. Now, it’s just up to you to bring it to life as best as you can,” Gorman said.”
This, Beloved, as we well know, is how all manifesting works. As Steven Covey advised, Start with the end in mind. Business guru Simon Sinek admonishes, Start with why. It’s called having a vision.
Both are correct. Why you want what you want the end to look like. And when manifestation is between just you, and say, a new car, the Cadillac has no preference, so it’s easy. You want a new car. You go see the Potemkins. You pays yer money. You drive off the lot in new wheels. Done and done.
But what about when the vision is a shared one? Maybe better said, what about when the vision has to be a shared one? Well, that’s quite a different story. Contemplate these recent visions that have been offered up for our consideration.
The Quotation of the Day in The New York Times is from President Biden’s inaugural remarks, “We must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured.” That’s one vision. How about this from an essay by Roger Cohen? “As Simon Schama, the British historian, has observed, ‘When truth perishes so does freedom.’” Ouch. Here’s another:
“If the pomp and circumstance were constrained by the challenges of the day, Mr. Biden’s determination to get off to a fast start unraveling the Trump presidency was not. In the Oval Office, where he had Mr. Trump’s portrait of Andrew Jackson taken down and one of Franklin D. Roosevelt put up, Mr. Biden signed 17 executive orders, memorandums and proclamations aimed at reversing major elements of the last administration, a significant repudiation of his predecessor and a more expansive set of Inauguration Day actions than any in modern history.
“‘Here we stand, where 108 years ago, at another inaugural, thousands of protesters tried to block brave women marching for the right to vote,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘And today we marked the swearing-in of the first woman in American history elected to national office: Vice President Kamala Harris. Don’t tell me things can’t change.’”
Okay, I like that one. How about you? Here’s one from the always-insightful Charles M. Blow.
“Donald Trump is a racist and a white supremacist. And yet, millions of Americans — again, mostly white — either agreed with his views or were willing to abide them. I know that there will be those who warn that I should just let this go, that holding on to it is ‘divisive.’
“To them I say, ‘Hell no.’ You can’t have a feeling of unity after there was enforcement of a practice of cruelty. There must be acknowledgment and accountability. There must be contrition and repentance.
“It is not enough to simply let the co-conspirators and abettors of a white supremacist president quiet down and cool off, biding their time, waiting for the next opportunity for their riotousness and wrath to be unfurled and unleashed.
“How is it that people of good conscience and good faith are supposed to make common cause, to find healing and unity, with people who have demonstrated their contempt for the equal humanity of others? Where is the center point between my determination to be free and your determination to contain or constrict that freedom?”
He asks good questions, Beloved. Ones we ought to be asking ourselves as we build our vision.
Bradley Onishi is a religion professor. His article, “Trump’s New Civil Religion: The storming of the Capitol is a creation myth for a political movement” gave me shivers. He lays out another vision entirely.
“Since the presidential election was called for Joe Biden on Nov. 7, President Trump has cultivated the myth that the election was stolen.” … “But myths are often invulnerable to reality.” … “The myth became the basis for contesting the facts.” … “A myth becomes reality through ritual, when its story is dramatized and its adherents brought to collective participation in it.”
Sound familiar? Spookily so, to me. How about this one?
It is a great irony that the one thing former President Trump values above all else is loyalty. Uh, that would be loyalty to himself. The Proud Boys and their compatriots are already defecting.
“But by this week, the group’s attitude toward Mr. Trump had changed. ‘Trump will go down as a total failure,’ the Proud Boys said in the same Telegram channel on Monday.
“As Trump distanced himself from the Capitol violence, ‘The disappointment was immediately palpable.’ One Proud Boys Telegram channel posted: ‘It really is important for us all to see how much Trump betrayed his supporters this week. We are nationalists 1st and always. Trump was just a man and as it turns out an extraordinarily weak one at the end.’”
So much for loyalty. Another vision, this from the Letters to the Editor today. “Donald Trump never drained the swamp. He pardoned it.” Tom Goodman writes from Philadelphia. What’s a person to do in order to create a collective vision, one that works for everyone?
Professor Onishi clarifies and offers a clue, “If we are going to reckon with the import and legacy of Jan. 6, we must look inward.”
Ohhh, I see. That’s where why is to be found. Within. And if we’re honest, not serving some ideological demi-god, so is genuine vision. It’s an inside-out job, Beloved.
Chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman also points out a clue. “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Make Meaning the Hottest Inaugural Fashion Trend,” she leads. “But most striking of all was the ubiquity of purple, which turned out to be practically the signature color of the inauguration.
“Perhaps because it combines the red and blue of recent political schism into a unified whole (the theme of inauguration was, after all, ‘America United’). Perhaps because, along with white, it was one of the colors of the suffragists, and to wear it was to acknowledge the fulfillment of their dream embodied by Ms. Harris. Or perhaps because, as the National Woman’s Party (the original suffragist organization) wrote in a 1913 newsletter, ‘Purple is the color of loyalty, constancy to purpose, unswerving steadfastness to a cause.’”
There’s been an awful lot of swerving in the past four+ years, hasn’t there? I wrote of whiplash earlier this week by no mistake.
Amanda Gorman, 22, is the youngest ever inaugural poet. “But none of her predecessors faced the challenge that Gorman did. She set out to write a poem that would inspire hope and foster a sense of collective purpose, at a moment when Americans are reeling from a deadly pandemic, political violence and partisan division.”
See that word, Beloved? di-vision. Traditional etymology would tell us that this meant two visions — usually contrasting, divergent ones. But what if we muse instead on my brand of folk etymology? Di- is also a prefix meaning of God. What if, instead of division, we were to choose God’s vision for these, please God, Soon-to-be-United-again States?
“On Wednesday, as [the stunning young poet] recited ‘The Hill We Climb,’ in front of the Capitol in the bright sunlight, her voice animated and full of emotion, Gorman described her background as a ‘skinny Black girl, descended from slaves and raised by a single mother,’ who can dream of being president one day, ‘only to find herself reciting for one.’”
If you didn’t see her live, you may do so below. A more exquisite poem I may never know.
There is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it
There is always light, if only we’re brave enough to be it
There is always light, Beloved, and I’m with Ms. Gorman, sometimes it takes real bravery to see it. When we willingly turn inward to see that light, that’s when, at long last, we finally learn the truth that makes us free. We are the light we’ve been waiting for.
See it. Be it. Now.
Dr. Susan Corso is a spiritual teacher, the founder of iAmpersand, and the author of The Mex Mysteries, the Boots & Boas Books, and spiritual nonfiction. Her essays address the intersection between spirituality and culture. Find out more at www.susancorso.com | https://medium.com/@susan-15721/how-to-make-a-vision-of-a-country-that-works-for-all-of-us-ccba689fee02 | ['Susan Corso'] | 2021-01-21 16:17:21.293000+00:00 | ['Amanda Gorman', 'Vision', 'Suffragists', 'Kamala Harris', 'Joe Biden'] |
Introduction to Blockhives | The Blockchain Ecosystem
Every one of the blockchain and cryptocurrency enthusiasts have been used to the chatting environment of Telegram, Discord, Kakao among others. But is chatting everything you seek in this evolving ecosystem? If it is, then this article or the project discussed here isn’t meant for you. But if it’s not or you are a little curious of what lies ahead in this revolutionary environment, then please read on to have your mind blown away.
What will you give to have an environment that will enable you to not only chat, but also create image and video posts and share? An environment that doesn’t only facilitate communications in one-to-one or group chat but also gives you the opportunity to listen to online broadcasts from various channels while at it. Perhaps, just chatting in those exchanges segregated chat boxes is only your thing, wouldn’t you rather prefer a platform that enables you to do that in the same interface as your trading without having switch or close one for another? What will be your impression to have a platform that combines everything you can ever need in the evolving ecosystem all in one? A blockchain and cryptocurrency planet where you truly belong.
Blockhives can be perceived to be an environment where all crypto enthusiast converge to discuss, share information and influence the growth and realization of the blockchain dream. The idea was originally developed from the Poloniex trollbox back in the days as it was a place for all to engage, share knowledge and of course attempt to influence the prices of other markets by providing useful information. But, most importantly, it was a gathering of all crypto believers who wish to see the dream more widely shared and realized. It creates an environment where traders can easily decide which path to follow and what to do, even at the expense of prevailing bad news.
View from the blockhives
This unique blockchain ecosystem presents you the various opportunities and entertainment embedded in its several columns, ranging from the unique chat environment, to the podcast/internet radio broadcasts, the amazing cryptube (a specialized social media for blockchain and cryptocurrency), no to forget the jobs and services uniquely merging employers with job seekers, among others such as survey, voting, article writing among others. Blockhives’s mission is to be everything an existing or new member of the cryptocurrency ecosystem will ever need.
Subscribe to: www.blockhives.io
Email us at: [email protected] for more information and partnership opportunities. | https://medium.com/@blockhives/introduction-to-blockhives-1ea19215a69c | [] | 2019-03-17 11:17:57.369000+00:00 | ['Blockchain Technology', 'Ecosystem', 'Community', 'Blockchain', 'Community Engagement'] |
Best Flower Arrangement Gifts on International Daughters Day2021 | The international Daughter’s day falls on the 27th of September this year on the fourth Sunday of September. A daughter is always someone special a caregiver someone who helps in every manner is it either monetarily or by just being present when required the most. So as a parent it is their primary duty to take care of their daughters to the best of their ability on this special day and shower them with all the love and affection possible. As said in a previous article there are various ways in which international Daughter’s day could be celebrated which I am not elaborating on. Another way in which it could be celebrated is by creating a flower arrangement for daughters on International Daughter’s day. Flower arrangement is arranging the flowers in such a manner that enhances the beauty of the flowers. Choice flowers have lined up their best flower arrangements for daughters on International Daughter’s day. Here are some of their choicest picks.
Peach & Pink :
Peach & Pink is a combination of roses with peach and pink roses. It’s a bouquet and with the usual wrappings that come along with a bouquet. It is one of the best flower arrangements for daughters on International Daughter’s day, not only due to its low price but also the fact that there is a mega sale with prices slashed from the low 41 USD to 36 USD. Comes in three variants shown, deluxe and premium, and a simple and detectable flower arrangement suitable for your daughter
Divine feminine
Every daughter is a diva in her own way. The divine feminine is one of the best flower arrangements for daughters to bring out the diva in them on this International Daughter’s day. It’s a bouquet of pink flowers with a dash of spray roses and special green fillers. The prices have come down this mega sale from 95 USD to 88 USD and come in two variants shown and premium. The premium version is for 122 USD and is a bigger version of the shown one.
Always in my heart
An assortment of flowers and fillers, this flower combination is for a range of occasions including father’s Day and graduation day. This flower combination is used to express one's feelings when words fall short. Comes only in the shown variant and the price drop is of a good 9USD from 58USD to 49USD.
Baby girl
This assortment of pink Oriental Lillies is another of the best flower arrangements for daughters on International Daughter’s day. A daughter however old she might grow she will always remain a baby girl and this flower is just a reminder from her father to her daughter that it signifies innocence and beauty. Comes in three variants shown, deluxe and premium. Comes beautifully arranged in a glass vase. Also mega sale price drop from 68USD to 54USD. A beautiful flower arrangement all in all.
Forever Fabulous
Another from the stables of choice flowers, one of the best flower arrangements for daughters on International Daughter’s day. This combination of Rose and Lilly signifies pure love. Rose on its own symbolizes love and Lilly symbolizes purity. So this combination signifies pure and true love.
Princess
One of the favorite choice from choice flowers is one of the best flower arrangements for daughters on International Daughter’s day. Has colour pink as a theme with pink roses, gerbera, and pink lilies. Pink signifies love and is wound up wrapped attractively. It's a good reminder to a father to a daughter that she will always remain a princess in their life. An all-occasion flower with a price starting at 74USD.
Pink Rose & Chocolate combo
A combination of red and pink roses along with asparagus Ferrero Rocher Chocolates. One of the better flower arrangements for daughters on International Daughter’s day. It comes in a premium variant. | https://medium.com/@vibemaker/best-flower-arrangement-gifts-on-international-daughters-day2021-d38421d84073 | ['Ameer M M'] | 2021-01-21 07:53:34.239000+00:00 | ['Dubai', 'Daughters', 'Daughters Day', 'Abu Dhabi', 'Flowers'] |
Weight Loss Pills That Actually Work? | Topiramate is a drug used alone to treat seizures, but like phentermine, it also has appetite-lowering properties (11, 12, 13). In addition, studies have shown that the combination of phentermine and topiramate is by far the most effective weight loss drug. One year after taking the maximum dose, people lost an average of 21.6 pounds (9.8 kg) of weight (15). In users, this weight loss leads to a significant reduction in waist circumference, improves insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control, and has a beneficial effect on triglyceride and cholesterol levels (16, 17).
Losing weight can also improve some other health problems associated with overweight and obesity, such as joint pain or sleep apnea. On average, people who take prescription drugs as part of a lifestyle change program lose 3–9 percent more of their initial body weight than people who do not take drugs who participate in a lifestyle change program. When combined with changes in behavior, including eating habits and physical activity, prescribed medications can help some people lose weight.
Prescription pills can lead to some weight loss but can have side effects. Some pills can cause unpleasant side effects, while others may not be proven for weight loss. The best diet pills may contain one or more active ingredients designed to increase fat burning, decrease appetite, or decrease fat absorption.
Weight loss drugs include a series of prescription drugs and over-the-counter drugs designed to help users lose or control their weight. Weight loss drugs affect body processes that affect weight by suppressing appetite, increasing metabolism, or inhibiting fat absorption. OTC diet pills should help you lose weight by stimulating your metabolism, the body’s energy use system.
Diet pills can reduce appetite (Belviq (r), Contrave (r)), increase energy (Phentermine, Didrex (r)), or block fat (Xenical (r), Alli (r)). Continued use of these pills can cause insomnia, constipation, pulmonary hypertension, heart valve disease, and withdrawal symptoms. The short-term effects of stimulant diet pills include energetic energy, increased blood pressure and heart rate, redness of the skin, dizziness, and dry mouth.
These appetite suppressants have received FDA approval, but if you go down this route, you may experience a side effect never associated with supplements: insomnia. According to the Cleveland Clinic, a wide variety of prescription appetite suppressants can seriously affect your sleep cycle and keep you awake through the night.
Losing more than two pounds a week can be unhealthy, and pills claiming to lose 30 pounds in 30 days are not only unrealistic but dangerous. Any claims of significant weight loss in short periods of time should be a wake-up call — these pills can cause serious side effects or simply be ineffective. Many stimulant-type weight loss drugs, such as phentermine or diethylpropion, are only recommended for short-term use (up to 12 weeks) due to the risk of addiction and other side effects.
Amphetamine-type weight-loss drugs may be related to constipation, dry mouth, anxiety, withdrawal or insomnia (difficulty falling asleep), drug abuse, and dependence. Weight loss drugs that act on neurotransmitters in the brain to affect appetite, such as lorcaserin (Belviq, Belviq XR) or bupropion and naltrexone (Contrave), can cause headaches, nausea and vomiting, constipation, mouth Dryness and dizziness.
Really Work Safety and Effectively Method
Bonus Tips Free (3-book) Download
While they carry the risk of addiction, FDA-approved stimulant diet pills include Adipex-P, Didrex, Bontril, Desoxyn, and Qsymia. Often, these stimulants are prescription drugs that have been banned from the market but are being returned illegally in these pills due to poor nutritional supplementation regulation. Some diet pills are not safe for teens because they are powerful stimulants and addictive.
It’s also important to understand that some diet pills contain ingredients that are not listed on the labels or approved by the FDA. “Although the ingredients are approved for consumer use, they may contain chemical variations of prohibited or hazardous substances and dosages that far exceed what is considered safe,” says the doctor. Cohen. Dr. Moyad adds that just because a dietary supplement can help you lose a few pounds doesn’t mean it’s safe.
Just talking to your doctor can help you determine if the side effects of prescription diet pills are worse than the side effects of living with obesity. It can sometimes be difficult to find a safe medicine to help you lose weight. Ask your doctor or other healthcare professional about weight management lifestyle treatment programs that are right for you. People taking Belvik should stop taking their pills and talk to their doctor about alternative weight management strategies.
Many dietary supplements are harmless, and some may even be effective in keeping you feeling full, burning fat, or speeding up your metabolism. Federal regulators have warned that many of these dietary supplements are ineffective and can even cause serious side effects. But in many cases, these products are abused by adolescents or adults who have no medical need to lose weight. While these pills, smoothies, teas, and more claim to help reduce fat, many of these foods hide some unexpected side effects.
But just because these medicines can be bought without a prescription does not mean that you can safely use more than the recommended dosage or combine them with other medicines without experiencing serious side effects. Nutritional supplements are available in almost any form you can take by mouth, from tablets and capsules to powders, liquids, and teas. The NIH provides a comprehensive list of nutritional supplements, along with the latest information on the safety and effectiveness of each.
Tell your doctor about all medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. Do not take any other medicines while you are taking CONTRAVE, unless your doctor has told you that you can take them. Avoid taking large amounts of opioids, including opioid medications such as heroin or prescription pain relievers, to try to overcome the opioid blocking effect of naltrexone.
People who are already taking medication or suffering from diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes should discuss the risks of taking phentermine with their doctor. Before taking these drugs, you should tell your doctor if you have anxiety or mood disorders.
In addition, some people may have comorbidities (such as depression or eating disorders) and become addicted to weight-loss drugs. Other factors that contribute to weight loss addiction include biological factors, environmental factors, family and family, peers and school, early use and how to take the drug. Depending on their eating behavior, up to 50% of people who meet the criteria for eating disorders use over-the-counter weight loss drugs, herbal supplements, or prescription weight loss drugs.
Really Work Safety and Effectively Method
Bonus Tips Free (3-book) Download | https://medium.com/@yannyeinaung86/weight-loss-supplement-side-effects-98eeff6852e6 | [] | 2021-12-30 08:48:19.108000+00:00 | ['Diet', 'Weight Loss', 'Dieta De 17 Dias', 'Weightloss Foods', 'Weight Loss Tips'] |
What Does it Take to be Vulnerable? | What does it take to be vulnerable? What does it take to really open up about every single thing that we said would be known to nobody but us — to start talking about all the bitter memories and experiences we have gone through, or witnessed someone close go through, and has affected us — what does it take?
What does being vulnerable really mean? To what extent should we be vulnerable so that we feel strong? Is one of the reasons we feel better after talking to a psychologist is because we talk about and admit things that we normally wouldn’t tell anyone else? Because we trust that there’s a confidentiality enabling us the freedom to literally talk everything?
Why do we feel sad? Melancholy? You know, if I have to truthfully start talking about everything that ever disturbed me, there are quite a lot of things. I shared a certain few, and I haven’t an uncertain other.
Why did I not share?
-Because we are humans. When we have two flavours of ice cream, we instinctively judge which one is better. Now, if I have to share everything, my first fear is exactly that — judgement. Judgement of either me or the people involved in the story I share.
See, as the first person in all the incidents of my life, I have a different connect with every bad thing that happened to me. It is a bad thing, I really wish it hadn’t happened and I definitely hate the people involved in it for that particular thing.
That last part, “that particular thing” — did you catch that?
I hate the people FOR THAT PARTICULAR incident only — I hate their negatives that caused that incident, I hate everything about them that resulted in that particular incident — BUT, and this is a very huge and important “but”, I don’t hate the people themselves. I do not hate the people. I hate their negatives and I wish and pray that they didn’t have them, but I don’t hate the people. I believe that’s a dynamic that nobody but the first person in the story can understand.
If I do come across anyone whom I could trust to not judge me and my people, I’d happily talk and share a lot of things. Honestly, I did too. But a super selective few. But that’s also the problem for everyone, right?
We all need people in our life who listen without judgement. If you’re reading this and agree to any of what I said, perhaps you could be that person in someone’s life. Be a listener and listener only and if you have any judgements to give, make sure they are not on the people themselves and rather their decisions and negatives. Because people have negatives. We cannot sit around judging people for that.
That having said, without later sounding like a hypocrite, I do want to tell you that I have one person in my life that I just don’t want to forgive. At-least in the time I am writing this, I don’t want to. But that’s also immaterial to you as a reader.
Now, vulnerability. What does it take? It takes a leap of faith to be vulnerable. It takes a lot of strength to let go of what you are holding on to, because the fear of being known by the story you share has always been louder than anything in the mind. It takes understanding — that you are not defined by anything that ever happened, any decision you have ever taken, anything you have said. What defines you is who you choose to be now — that’s the understanding it takes to be vulnerable. And beyond just “understanding” it takes trust.
Trusting yourself, the world and the process. The process of being vulnerable, a little at a time. And a little more every time.
As for me, I’d stop there with talking about what it takes and how to. I will, in all commitment, try and put my vulnerable times into words — perhaps one blog post at a time.
I don’t want to remember them, because I feel good not recollecting them. But I don’t want to feel good by conscious idleness of memories, I want to feel good knowing they happened in all my conscience, and knowing that I am through them more consciously — without using my superpower called “forgetting”. | https://medium.com/@naahushi/what-does-it-take-to-be-vulnerable-3e48d87544d9 | ['Naahushi Kavuri'] | 2021-07-07 17:36:47.456000+00:00 | ['Vulnerability', 'Writers Life', 'Broken'] |
Analytics of gaming smart contracts by examining the Cryptokitties Game. Part 3 | Continue study of Cryptokitties game. To read from the very beginning follow the link and link2.
What needs to be done to increase the number of transactions?
All in all, the number of transactions depends on two reasons — the size of the audience and the intensity of the gaming process. Regarding the first factor we have already talked about above — this is primarily analytics, marketing and business strategy — then the second one is mostly connected with the developer of a smart contract.
Cryptokitties smart contract methods called
Also you need to get to know why the players like this or that game. Such data can be obtained by analyzing the statistics on the methods called. If a bet was made, say, on the crossing of cats, but the audience is interested in the auction part of the DApp, then it may be worthwhile to adjust the logic of the game. Chaingraph.io easily provides you with these data: one may calculate not only the overall retention to the smart contract, but also to the each of the contract methods.
The intensity of Repeated Calls to Cryptokitties methods
The lack of demand for some methods can be associated with problems on user interface, errors when making a transaction, and even the amount of gas needed. Therefore, it is necessary to have constantly updated relevant statistics on all technical aspects of the decentralized application: trace not only external calls but internal ones as well, event logs, gas statistics, etc.
Events that triggered on Cryptokitties Smart Contract
Have there ever been any fraudulent activities?
It is almost impossible to foresee all the vulnerabilities and loopholes of your application, but you can minimize the likelihood of their occurrence and rapidly track the possible failure if happens . The first may be implemented by the Security Check service, which detects possible bugs in the smart contract code. For the second item you need a tool to monitor user activity. All these instruments are at the disposal as soon as you start using Chaingraph.io.
Chaingraph.io: Security Check Tool
Chaingraph.io: Live Section
Some examples of atypical user behavior on the example of CryptoKitties:
A kitty bought for 600 Eth
Buying and selling kitty from one and the same account may testify on a bubble of statistics and kitty price. Without analyzing the situation, a third-party user can observe a picture of active trades of a certain token, but this can only be a game to create the illusion of its “demand”. Such action can lead the local market of the application to undesirable consequences and the developer, at least, should be aware of the current economic situation in order to react adequately to it.
The addresses that were involved into a transaction for 600 Eth
Kitties with three hundred resale
Next is one more illustration of cheating statistics, this time the number of sales. More than a dozen kittytokens are far ahead from the nearest top (the gap is 20–30 times). If to go deeper it becomes evident that all 16 Kitties that have approximately the same number of transfers (about 300) were transmitted through the Auctionity smart contract for the same price. The representative of this crypto-auction commented that those actions were made to demonstrate the capabilities of the service, to boost initial stats and are not real sales. Perhaps this is a good example that statistics alone sometimes is not enough, it should be digested first.
The gap in the statistics on the number of cat sales
What needs to be done so that users buy and sell more active?
The answer to this question is mainly got from two previous ones. With the stable game process, the increase of the audience and the interest to the DApp, apart from gaining more transactions you also get the increase in value for your token. Also, bear in mind that cryptogames are about money. Therefore, the trading volume of your token depends on the economic success of the entire project, that is composed of many aspects. Competent analysis gives an understanding to which parts of the project you should pay attention foremost.
Live Section that allows for tracking activity in the real mode
Instead of a conclusion
What does the user need to do to make money by selling or buying cats?
These are several cases:
Long Play
Buy a rare (exclusive, special) cat, preferably at some in-game event. Wait. Monitor the graphs of user activity (the number of transactions, the number of accounts calling the smart contract). When bursts of activity happen, put up a cat for sale at an inflated price. Gain profit.
Fancy Boom
Monitor the occurrence of the event on the crossing of Fancy cats. Buy the maximum number of cats with the required genes. Quickly crossbreed new fancy cats. All kitties that have the right genes that remained after receiving fancy cats put up for sale a little more expensive than the buying price. A couple of fancy cats sell immediately at an average price in the market. The rest leave on the Long Play. Gain profit
Hard Illusion Risk
Create a number of Ethereum addresses — these will be pseudo players. Trade kitties between them, breedcross, etc, i.e. create an ecosystem with a local economy. Choose one cat or more for promotion — preferably with some special feature (interesting name, description, body part, etc). Create around it an artificial picture of demand: resell it for big money, boost the price, offer for sale on Opensea.io. The bigger and more unexpected the numbers are — the more interesting. It is advisable the Kitty to be covered in the crypto-media. Sell a cat at a high price. Gain profit.
What does the Cryptokitties Team need to do to attract more players?
Airdrop
Get statistics on the most active players of other decentralized games that have not played cats yet. Send them an egg with a cat.
Affiliate Advertising
Analyze the first environment of CryptoKitties users. Detect which other decentralized applications the audience uses. For example, online casino Dice2Win, cryptokitties-similar-like games Blockchain Cuties or collection game MLB Champions. Analyze the smart contracts of competitors and figure out regions with potential audience. In this case, it is even not necessary to determine the region, it is enough to compare the graphs (data shown in UTC +3):
Number of Requests per Hour for January,2019 — May,2019 for CryptoKitties:
for Dapp: MLB Champions:
for Axie Infinity:
for 0xUniverse:
for Dice2Win:
Out of the charts above, 0xUniverse matches the best: the region coincides and a large number of CryptoKitties users play this game.
4. Start cross-promotion (preferably from 9 pm till 2 am (UTC +3)).
5. The idea is to exchange tokens if some special conditions are met. For example, if you have certain kittytokens, then you can get a bonus in another game and vice versa.
Regional events and advertising
By analyzing the activity of the audience, you can hypothesize the time zone of most users. Add information from the application database and get the most active regions. We, in contrast to the developers, are limited in obtaining information about the IP-addresses of players, so we can only assume: the main audience of the game is located in the American region. It is more likely to talk about the United States (especially the eastern coast) and Canada, however, as an option, it may be a country of South America. Now you can attach gaming events to events of importance for this region: Christmas (cat-Santa), Halloween (cat-zombie), Thanksgiving (cat-turkey 0_o), Black Friday (cat-discount 0_0), etc. Do not forget to monitor the figures and the reaction for each activity and thus, single out the most profitable regions.
Hope you found our series of articles useful and interesting.
Do not hesitate to share your thoughts: write comments, we’re ready to discuss :) And visit our app Chaingraph.io or contact us if needed. | https://medium.com/@chaingraph.analytics/analytics-of-gaming-smart-contracts-by-examining-the-cryptokitties-game-part-3-e20e11fe38df | [] | 2019-07-19 11:34:13.401000+00:00 | ['Smart Contracts', 'Ethereum', 'Analytics', 'Cryptokitties', 'Blockchain'] |
Best Game Design and Development Software | Making a game is not as easy as playing it. One needs to have the required knowledge and skills to make a game. To create games, you need to learn programming languages such as C++ or JAVA. With the advent of good software tools, it has become possible for everyone to make a game, even at home. We have brought you some of the best game making software. These software tools will help you achieve the dream of making a game. Let’s check them out.
Indie Game Maker
Indie Game Maker is a great game making software that will help you make a game in an easy way. The software is intended for beginners. Putting your ideas into action with the help of this great software is now even easier. From designing to 3D modeling, Indie Game Maker offers almost all relevant features. You can customize the characters and make something of your own using the Indie Game Maker.
Adventure Game Studio
Another good game making software on the list is Adventure Game Studio. It offers all the tools that will help you create a fantastic game. You can design a game easily in the software as it comes with several pre-made materials. It is an easy to use software that doesn’t take much of your time and effort. The downside is, you can create only simple games using this free tool.
GameMaker Studio 2
GameMaker Studio 2 is a recently-released excellent game making tool that will help you put your ideas into action. Turning your dream of creating a game into reality is no more difficult. The features to design, customize the elements are really good. It is a lightweight software tool that you can use on your laptop also. From arranging to organizing the elements, GameMaker Studio 2 does an excellent job. The game making software offers a free trial so that you can decide whether to pay for it or not. The paid version costs $39.
RPG Maker VX Ace
It is a decent tool for creating fabulous games. Its simplicity and great features make it one of the best game making programs on the list. It comes with many characters and pieces of equipment that you can use to create a fantastic game. Its features allow you to customize characters in the desired way. The game is exported to an EXE. File, which is playable only on Windows PC. It offers a free trial. The paid version costs $69.
Construct 2
Using Construct 2 may seem difficult to some in the beginning, but it is an effective game making software. It will help you make games in just a few simple steps. The drag and drop feature on the software lets you arrange elements in an easy way. You can make objects act in the desired way using the software. You can put to life the elements in the game. Various effects and features such as flash, wrap, and drop will make your game more fantastic. The free version of Construct 2 offers limited features. The paid version costs $255.
The purpose of the list was to help you familiarize with the best game making software.
Everleig is a Blog expert and has been working in the technology industry since 2003. As a technical expert, Everleig has written technical blogs, manuals, white papers, and reviews for many websites such as 4yellowpaes.com
Source: Development Software | https://medium.com/@addisonwalker922/making-a-game-is-not-as-easy-as-playing-it-2795efcedaf6 | ['Addison Walker'] | 2020-11-24 06:09:54.599000+00:00 | ['Game Design', 'Development Software'] |
4 Skincare Ingredients To Add In Your Skincare Routine Right Away — Approved by Dermats! | 4 Skincare Ingredients To Add In Your Skincare Routine Right Away — Approved by Dermats! Slova Mar 11, 2020·3 min read
What would you say your skincare goal is? We say healthy & beautiful skin. We know you would too, because we know that’s what we expect the most from our skin.
But when it comes to the best way to achieve the goal, we kinda get hard-pressed and it makes sense right, with thousands of skincare choices we have in the market we tend to have diverse opinions and it’s tricky to know what lives up to the claims.
So, to cut through the clutter and find products that help achieve your goal, we consulted top dermatologists to look for the formulas that contain proven ingredients. Here are the top four skincare ingredients that you need to add in your skincare routine.
Hyaluronic Acid
Hyaluronic acid is a humectant — a substance that retains moisture — and it is capable of binding over one thousand times its weight in water.
As we age, hyaluronic acid along with collagen and elastin decreases and our skin loses its volume, hydration and plumpness.
Hyaluronic acid reverses these skin concerns & improves natural skin hydration levels. This potent skincare ingredient is great for dry and mature skin due to its hydrating and anti-aging properties and it can also help oily complexions due to its lightweight formulation.
Slova HYDRATE, infused with a powerful blend of hyaluronic acid & pollustop delivers a fresher, healthier-looking skin & offers protection from pollution stress.
Retinol
Retinol is another form of Vitamin A. This most favored skincare ingredient is clinically proven to boost the skin’s elasticity, thickness of dermis and epidermis.
When retinol or retinoids come into contact with the skin, enzymes in the body convert retinol into retinoic acid, the active form of vitamin A.
This retinoic acid improves cell turnover, stimulates collagen and elastin production, fades hyperpigmentation, and helps skin stay hydrated and glowing without irritation.
Slova FILL, an instant wrinkle filling serum powered by retinol is a perfect fit for lessening the appearance of fine lines & wrinkles on the go.
Peptides
Peptide is simply a compound made up of two or more amino acids that are linked together. As we age, skin begins to lose its shine and elasticity, produces fine lines, wrinkles and skin becomes thinner.
By applying peptides topically, skin looks younger and regains some of its thickness, resulting in a more youthful appearance. Research has found that by topically applying peptides to the skin, the body thinks it’s receiving a message to produce new collagen.
This collagen production helps to reduce wrinkles and to provide more elasticity to the skin, which is what gives skin its youthful appearance.
Using anti-wrinkle creams & serums help minimize wrinkles around the eyes and forehead, all thanks to these powerful skincare ingredients.
Slova REVIVE, an antioxidant & peptide powered, facial serum-cream, fades signs of dermal damage & reduces the depth of fine lines and wrinkles.
Vitamin E
Natural body processes, certain lifestyle choices, environmental pollution and UV radiation can cause the formation of free radicals which damage skin cells and tissues and accelerate the aging process.
There is significant evidence that vitamin E, when topically applied, plays a crucial role in protecting the skin from these free radical damages.
The changes in the skin produced by lack of vitamin E resemble those in aging and using vitamin E topically may have a raise in slowing down the aging.
Apart from this, Vitamin E is the most sought-after skincare ingredient that can reduce dark circles or under eye bags.
Slova REFRESH, a Caviar & Vitamin E complex cream that improves the appearance of your skin tone, texture and firmness while supplying all-day protection from free radicals and premature aging. | https://medium.com/@slovacosmetics/4-skincare-ingredients-to-add-in-your-skincare-routine-right-away-approved-by-dermats-fca1402f7d0b | [] | 2020-03-11 06:41:41.087000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Skincare', 'Trends', 'Beauty', 'Cosmetics'] |
Scaling the Right to Retrofit | This article proposes key principles which we believe could be the foundation for replicating democratic models of retrofitting. It is part of the ‘A Right to Retrofit’ series, and you can read all other related blogs by following the links at the bottom of the page.
The way we retrofit needs to be redesigned to meet the urgent need for climate transition in the built environment. To overcome the systemic constraints on the potential impact of retrofit, a fundamental shift in the system is required. [For more on this, see The System Challenges to Retrofit]
We believe this systemic shift can be achieved by testing strategic interventions in the ‘dark matter’ of the retrofit ecosystem: through piloting and proving out new infrastructures, new standards, new legal patterns, or new institutions. Our ‘dark matter’ experiments and propositions will be oriented around these key principles which we believe will begin to deliver a sustainable, socially-just future.
01 — Collective and democratic
The individualisation of responsibility over retrofit continues to frame retrofit solutions with individualised approaches. [For more, see this section of The System Challenges of Retrofit] Instead, when a whole street is considered as the subject of retrofit, the ambition of retrofit is a scale of magnitude beyond the sum of individual households, by considering not just these private spaces themselves, but in combination with the public spaces in which they coexist. The ambition of collective retrofit could include public realm, green mobility, and community amenities; these are necessary in a climate transition that includes all of the built environment. As a minimum unit of organisation, a street-wide community provides a critical mass to test systemic changes that reshape the retrofit market and the wider ecosystem, such as exploring new models of collective financing that remove cost burdens from the individual. The street as a unit of organisation is also a familiar, natural scale for deliberative decision-making as a community.
02 — Performance-oriented
The justification for retrofit is still viewed primarily through its ability to deliver decarbonisation, yet retrofit’s ecosystem is rarely structured around its actual performance in doing so, relying on theoretical and indirect measures. In restructuring incentives around measured performance, the dynamics of the system will not only shift in favour of better performing retrofit, but have wide-ranging systemic impacts — from providing the upstream impetus for improving skills, tools, and services to deliver on this demand for performance, to broadening the definition of what makes a high-performing retrofit project by analysing and accounting for its full range of co-benefits. We think that with this new knowledge infrastructure, built on data from IoT, sensor technology, and automation using smart contracts, the definition of ‘performance’ can evolve from energy use into a more holistic and precise resident-oriented metric such as ‘comfort’ instead, and be built right into the incentives of contracting for retrofit work. [For more on how performance-based incentives can shift the retrofit system, see this section of The System Challenges to Retrofit]
03 — Empower the local
Moving from being “done to” their communities, to being “done with” them, a future retrofit ecosystem must empower residents to be in the driving seat of their community’s climate transition. Building their trust, agency and capability is fundamental to have enough community buy-in for its long-term success, and to ensure a democratised transition. This also means challenging the false economies of delocalised, value-extracting approaches. Instead, leveraging local supply chains, local skills, and local networks of knowledge and trust ensure that retrofit is not just about short-term investment in emissions reductions, but also long-term investment in community wealth and resilience. This emphasis on the local also means moving away from assumptions of one-size-fits-all retrofit service models, instead moving to modular, adaptive models that may be built on wider systemic learnings, but tailored to the specificities of the local context. [For more on our research on local retrofit models, see this section of The System Challenges to Retrofit]
04 — Built on open knowledge
Knowledge and data around retrofit drives better decision-making, yet data gaps exist in the ecosystem for many stakeholders, from residents, to suppliers and municipal governments. Building this open knowledge infrastructure serves as an evidence-base for new infrastructures, new standards, new legal patterns, or new institutions, and each future retrofit project has the potential to become a longitudinal study, offering a wealth of data into the comprehensive impact of deep community retrofit. This knowledge infrastructure must be in place to harness the future utility of these insights. Building this open knowledge infrastructure for the long term ensures that innovation capability in the retrofit ecosystem is not exclusive to proprietary services and governments, but too is democratised. [For more on our research on why this knowledge infrastructure is critical, see this section of The System Challenges to Retrofit]
Future retrofit starts now: testing and demonstrating
These principles need to be translated from ‘thinking’ into ‘doing’. The work of Dark Matter Labs is currently scoping and investing in strategic experiments to make this future retrofit ecosystem a reality. These ‘system demonstrators’ consist of what we believe to be the minimum viable propositions to prove out a systems change, based on the dynamics of the system we’ve mapped out so far, and in line with the principles we believe are necessary for a democratised climate transition.
It is important to note that these propositions and demonstrators are part of an ongoing iterative process: as our learning evolves from sketch to prototype, concept to context, so too will the nature of these propositions. Based on our work so far, we believe there are some interesting lines of enquiry that include;
Service journey for community retrofit
Can we redesign the citizen experience of retrofit for a community at the scale of a street or block to maximise the potential of its ‘beyond the individual’ approach? By building and ensuring processes to empower the community’s democratic, and deliberative, decision-making capability, can this collective approach form the critical mass needed to reshape the wider ecosystem, such as broadening the range of financing and reinvigorating local supply chains?
Can we redesign the citizen experience of retrofit for a community at the scale of a street or block to maximise the potential of its ‘beyond the individual’ approach? By building and ensuring processes to empower the community’s democratic, and deliberative, decision-making capability, can this collective approach form the critical mass needed to reshape the wider ecosystem, such as broadening the range of financing and reinvigorating local supply chains? Data platform
Can we lay the foundations for retrofit’s knowledge infrastructure, and design an open platform that presents relevant insights to stakeholders across the retrofit ecosystem for holistic, data-informed decision-making, at all stages of the service journey? Can this foundation include a protocol to capture the potential insights from future retrofit projects to help grow this knowledge infrastructure?
Can we lay the foundations for retrofit’s knowledge infrastructure, and design an open platform that presents relevant insights to stakeholders across the retrofit ecosystem for holistic, data-informed decision-making, at all stages of the service journey? Can this foundation include a protocol to capture the potential insights from future retrofit projects to help grow this knowledge infrastructure? Smart comfort contracts
Can we structure contracts so that their incentives are not based solely on completing agreed retrofit work, or relative energy savings, but instead contract around broader definitions of performance, such as comfort?. Can potential beneficiaries of retrofit outcomes extend beyond the residents? Might these standards be co-created with the communities who will use them, and might they be structured with financing to overcome high upfront costs and tenure barriers?
These interventions aim to target fundamental and interconnected leverage points in the retrofit ecosystem, with propositions that we think could shift the underlying dynamics, rebalance incentives, and empower actors. In the next phase of this work, our ambition will be to build and test these interventions in-situ with the residents of these retrofitted homes, to ensure these interventions create cascading, multiplied impacts and prioritise deep, comprehensive retrofit through systemic changes that are sustainable in the long-term.
Over the next few months, Dark Matter Labs will be pursuing these and other lines of enquiry, applying future retrofit principles in real places to test propositions with system-shifting potential. We believe that the system not only needs to change to deliver wider adoption of deeper retrofit, but these changes must ensure that the climate transition of the built environment is democratised, equitable, and just. We will begin building this collective, democratic vision of retrofitting, and also rebuilding trust in the systems of how our built environment is made and remade. As our testing progresses, we will be updating blogs in this series with a deeper look into some of the prototypes/propositions that are emerging. | https://provocations.darkmatterlabs.org/scaling-the-right-to-retrofit-3b74aa6b08ad | ['Dark Matter'] | 2021-04-01 17:29:19.385000+00:00 | ['Retrofit', 'Smart Contracts', 'Community', 'Climate Justice', 'Democracy'] |
My Daughter Believed That She Was Nobody’s Hero | My Daughter Believed That She Was Nobody’s Hero
Jeannine
After my daughter, Jeannine’s death in 2003, all of her favorite things were meticulously placed in several storage bins, which can be found safely tucked away in the lower level of my home. Whenever I am feeling nostalgic and yearning to connect with the essence of my daughter in new and novel ways, I will go bin surfing. The memories are inevitably pleasing to me, a reminder of the 18 years that she gifted me, my wife, and her two brothers with her presence on earth. Sometimes memories of Jeannine can trigger feelings of longing or thoughts about who she would have been if she were alive today. But those episodes are usually short-lived, as I have learned to accept and embrace the yin and yang of nostalgia and grief.
Jeannine’s Essay
I recently opened up one of Jeannine’s bins and an essay that she completed for her eighth grade English class was right on top as if it were waiting for me to find it. It was simply titled: My Heroes. In the opening paragraph, Jeannine defines what being a hero means to her:
A hero is someone you look up to, someone who is always there when you need them. The person you can trust. Heroes make you laugh when you’re crying. Some people only have one. I have more than one.
Jeannine went on to identify her mother, older brother, and me as her heroes, describing how our actions coincided with her definition. I want to share an excerpt from her paragraph about me so that you can get a brief glimpse of our bond:
We have a really good relationship. He’s always been fair in punishments. If we have a problem we can usually talk it out. I can be in the worse mood and he can always make me laugh, whether it’s with a stupid joke or an impression. He is a very strong man just by the way he handles all of his and everybody else’s problems. I love him a lot, and I hope he knows that.
I don’t believe that Jeannine’s essay found me to remind me of her love for me. In fact, the last thing that she said to me before she slipped off into a coma a few days before her death was: I love you. If anything, perhaps her essay was the impetus for me to examine if Jeannine herself met the requirements of her own definition of heroism during her short time on earth. With that being said, there are three events that come to mind:
Heroes Make You Laugh When You’re Crying
It was June 3, 2002. We just pulled into our driveway after an approximately 5 hour trip from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Earlier that day, we were informed that Jeannine had alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma (connective muscle tissue cancer) and a Stage IV tumor with extensive bone marrow and lymph node involvement. The oncologist assigned to her case informed us that her cancer was incurable. She further stated that our only hope was aggressive chemotherapy that would put Jeannine’s cancer into remission until a cure could be found. I was in shock and Jeannine was in tears. What I heard was that in all likelihood Jeannine was going to die.
I drove from Boston in silence and shock and Jeannine was in excruciating pain. Every bump in the road made her pain that much worse and she emphatically let me know how badly she was hurting.
After we got home, Jeannine settled in on the couch and I went up to her, buried my face in her lap, and cried uncontrollably. I don’t believe that I have cried that hard since. I eventually looked up and saw that her eyes were filled with tears. I told her that I didn’t mean to hurt her and that I was sorry that my driving caused her so much pain. Jeannine told me not to worry, that she was yelling only because her pain was so bad. She then said: Dad, if you can’t sleep and need to talk, come and get me.”
She was dying and at that moment the only thing she was concerned with was my well-being. She also told me that she was not going down with a fight.
Her words weren’t designed to make me laugh but more importantly, they stopped my tears and gave me the courage to go on.
The Person You Can Trust
Photo by Jannis Lucas on Unsplash
I have had a history of grand mal seizures since I was a young child. Thankfully because of medication, I have been seizure-free since the late 1980s. One evening when Jeannine was approximately 14 and cancer-free, she and her friend were sitting at the kitchen table in our house. During her conversation with me and my wife Cheri, she was agitated because an acquaintance was making fun of a person who had a seizure. Jeannine called this person out on his behavior and told him: My dad used to have seizures.
Jeannine trusted that I would always have her back; she let me know that she would always have mine.
Grace Under Pressure
This is a quality that I added to my daughter’s definition because she was the epitome of grace under pressure throughout her 10-month battle with cancer. I could list several examples of how she demonstrated grace and composure during her illness, but one event stands out. During the summer of 2002, when her chemotherapy seemed to have the greatest therapeutic effect, she went out to a restaurant with friends. Jeannine was wearing one of the many bandanas that she collected during her illness. When she got home she told Cheri and me that she overheard a man say these words to his daughter:
She is wearing a bandana because she is probably in a gang.
Jeannine, never one to not voice her point of view in any situation, told me that she calmly walked up to him and said:
I wear a bandana because I have cancer.
Nobody’s Hero
If Jeannine were alive today, she would reject the notion that the above-described events qualified as acts of heroism or that she was a hero because of her actions. She was not into labeling her human experience.
Jeannine was focused on living life to the fullest according to her own self-determined values while taking care of those family and friends whom she loved dearly. Through it all, she believed that she was nobody’s hero. But by her own definition and her actions she was a hero not only to me but to the 300 people who came to pay their respects at her wake and celebration of life. | https://medium.com/assemblage/my-daughter-believed-that-she-was-nobodys-hero-140829f5e9c2 | ['Dave Roberts'] | 2020-12-18 12:48:47.428000+00:00 | ['Death Of A Child', 'Life', 'Nostalgia', 'Assemblage', 'Heroes'] |
Why So Many Startups Fail | Startups are seen as risky.
People that quit their jobs to become founders are called “dreamers” — or uncontrollable creative types. People who choose to work for startups are seen as having a higher threshold for internal chaos. Despite the fact that the dream to build a startup has never been stronger (or more socially acceptable), the truth is, most people still see the whole undertaking as a house of cards.
According to Forbes, 90% of startups fail.
But startups don’t fail because they’re startups.
They fail because of the founders.
We talk about startup issues as if it’s the company’s problem. Startups themselves are risky.
But a startup is nothing more than a small room full of people, all working on an idea. If something goes wrong, it’s not the room’s fault. Those four walls didn’t make a bad hire, or spend too much money, too quickly. The people inside them did.
Which is why, when we talk about startup failure rates, we should be talking about people more than we talk about the business nature of an idea in the making.
The worst mistake of all, however, is that most startup founders get stuck on their original idea and refuse to pivot.
I do a fair amount of consulting for entrepreneurs and brands on their messaging.
One thing I run into, over and over again, is that people tend to want me to validate the ideas they already have, rather than me tell them what I genuinely think.
This isn’t an isolated problem.
In most cases, startups fail because the founders get so stuck on their original idea, they want to do everything in their power to prove it can work. Even worse, startups that raise money tend to spend a good portion of those funds on marketing and PR — which means spreading the message of something you aren’t even sure works yet.
What happens then is the founders feel married to the original idea. If you spend $2M on a marketing campaign, only to realize half-way through your product has some major flaws and you need to pivot, you’re going to have to admit (to the world you’ve just advertised to) that you’re changing the direction of the company.
Many founders see this as a blow to their ego — and would rather try to make the original broken idea work than admit they didn’t have it all figured out and keep pivoting in a better direction.
Startups fail because founders get stuck in their egos.
That’s the truth.
Founders fail because they want to believe they have it all figured out, even when they don’t.
Founders fail because they want to be seen as the smartest person in the room — and not seen as the student.
Founders fail because they can’t admit when they’re wrong.
Founders fail themselves, long before they fail their startup. And yet, it’s “startups” that are seen as risky. It’s “startups” that are seen as having low success rates.
What’s risky is following a founder that has never led a team before, has no track record for success, and has nothing but a vague idea and a little bit of runway.
And you should be able to spot that from a mile away. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/why-so-many-startups-fail-a6c04641be8a | ['Nicolas Cole'] | 2020-03-26 18:33:12.422000+00:00 | ['Failure', 'Startup', 'Business', 'Founders', 'Startup Lessons'] |
How I Launched a Successful Gig Business with Only Gig Workers | Five key reasons for this business model
Running a gig business with gig workers can be efficient and smooth when done right. Here are five key reasons why I choose this business model:
1. Pay for what you need when you need it
One of the most beneficial aspects of utilizing gig workers in a gig business is that you only pay for what you need when you need it. When the projects are flowing, I’m happy to be hiring these creative experts to do amazing work.
But when things are slow, I don’t have any recurring salaries or overhead expenses chipping away at my bank account. I am able to quickly adjust expenditures whether in an up or down season, keeping my hard costs manageable.
2. No additional equipment
Most freelancers have their own tools. For video production, it’s very common. Camera operators will typically have their own camera gear, lights, and other accessories. Editors will have the latest workstation loaded with editing software and plugins. Sound technicians will have the latest microphones, mixers, and sound tools.
Since freelancers typically come with their own gear, I don’t have to purchase expensive equipment or keep up with the latest technology.
3. No office space
For my gig business, I have chosen not to have a business office. I know this is not ideal for everyone, but I want as little overhead as possible, so I run all of my productions from a home office. The bulk of my work is production management and client communication, which I can do via the Internet and through phone calls. A home office is perfect for my situation.
4. High-quality service
As I mentioned earlier, I quickly learned that I could produce much better work by hiring talented freelancers. As my productions expanded into Fortune 500 companies, I had to deliver high-quality work. This was key in transitioning my business from a small, mediocre video service into a thriving production company with a healthy list of recurring clients.
I’ll say it again and again — if it weren’t for my team of creative freelancers, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
5. Scalability
And finally, another great aspect of using gig workers in a gig business is scalability. The ups and downs of a gig business can be both terrifying and exhilarating. In the down times, yes, you can scale back accordingly and keep your costs slow. But when the projects are flowing, the ability to ramp up using freelancers is incredibly appealing.
A few years ago, I was in one of those flow moments. I was juggling about 15 different productions using a variety of freelancers from around the nation. It was intense, but it was also incredibly rewarding both creatively and financially. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-i-launched-a-successful-gig-business-with-only-gig-workers-f8573d577f26 | ['Russ Pond'] | 2020-11-03 13:02:54.566000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Small Business', 'Gig Economy', 'Startup Lessons', 'Startup'] |
SpartanDEV: 20DEC21–26DEC21 | Seasons Greetings
Hope you all have had a wonderful holiday season spent with those that matter to you. It’s truely been a ‘year’ & I am sure we all have a greater appreciation for those moments and memories than we have had in the past.
New partnerships & collaborations
57M+ SPARTA burned permanently out of the supply
Token distribution phase ending
FallenSpartans fund retired/expired
Protocol (DEX) all-time highs!
Exchange (CEX) all-time highs!
Twitter all-time highs!
And more! No rest for the warriors of Sparta, read on:
Moonlight News
Our recent partnership with Moonlight & their unique tool ‘BubbleMaps’ has kicked off with our community leader Thespis jumping into an AMA with Moonlight’s community this week.
We also breached their top 10 list for most used Bubblemaps:
Also dont forget to have a look at the SPARTA Bubblemap here:
Bubble Maps | by Moonlight
Shape a unique perspective of BSC tokens.
by Moonlight
Phase 2 of $SPARTA Burns — Complete
Massive news this week, with a grand total of 57,480,300 tokens (over 37% of the current total supply) sent to the 0x0..DEAD address closing out the token distribution phase of the project after a very long road!
This brings some major changes to the tokenomics of the project, and as seen by the token price movements following the big burn event, the Spartans consider it to be a very positive step for the project. Please read more about the big burn and it’s effect on us all here
And join the convo on Twitter here:
Fallen Spartans Closed
Coinciding with the big burns and closure of the token distribution phase of the project, the remaining SPARTA in the FallenSpartans contract has now been expired too (a month or two after the due expiry date to give more time for Spartans to claim). The remaining $SPARTA has been transferred to the reserve and removed from the circulating supply.
Please note this has nothing to do with the ‘upgrade’ function of V1 token holders to V2 tokens. This remains open with no expiry date at this time.
V1 tokens holders can still upgrade to V2 via the DApp! No expiry date!
DEX All-Time-Highs
An exciting few days at the end of last week where we saw All-Time-High values for almost every protocol metric we can think of!
The contributors are truly excited that protocol activity is increasing across all metrics & with general growth/integration building up. The protocol was built for the community so it is rewarding to see that dream come to fruition.
CEX All-Time-Highs
The centralised exchanges didn’t miss out on the action either, flippening even LUNA’s massive volume on Binance as seen below! Crazy stuff! Ongoing volume like this is what we need to see if we want to work towards a stablecoin pairing on Binance.
Mainnet Global Safety Tests
The large run-up in price triggered inbuilt systems that paused value extraction methods within the protocol (automated and as expected; without centralised reliance). The swaps remained active, allowing arbs to come in and balance pools. As Spartans have learned, arbitrage & time are crucial aspects of a balanced pool, critical in keeping the pools in a ‘safe’ state.
The intent of this and other similar features is to prevent nefarious value extractions from the protocol. Sometimes false positives occur such as large run-up in value as seen recently, this was totally expected and discussed as a community during the building and testnet testing processes. Amazing to see these safety features triggered and acting perfectly (and the community actioning the public function to re-enable value extraction features once pools were rebalanced)
Read more below:
Twitter Followers
Another ATH for the protocol is seeing 20,000 warriors join the Twitter shield wall. Let them hear our voice…
Aroo..Aroo..Aroo (Yes… 300 is our Christmas Movie!)
#FridayFor300 Quiz
The weekly quizzes have continued to be a nice little community boost at the end of each week, with many happy Spartans learning and earning along the way.
This week’s quiz question:
“Name 3 cool things currently being worked on by Spartan community contributors”
Follow the tweet link below to see the hint and get involved!
SecondLive Metaverse Promotion
With the recent grant to the community wallet supporting promotional/marketing activity, we were presented with an opportunity to join in on a Binance Smart Chain ecosystem promotion that we otherwise would not have had the capital to be apart of.
Tune in between January 6th and 12th to join in the holiday festivities in the Metaverse with Spartan Protocol, SecondLive & many other BSC projects as many token, NFT & knowledge gifts are handed out in true festive fashion!
Community Xmas Caption Competition
As always, the community suprises with their passion and devotion, and this Xmas caption contest is no exception. Big thanks for EvilMessiah & SpartanNinja for setting this one up to celebrate the holiday season as a community.
Spartan Socials — Twitter
Community Tweet of the Week:
SpartanSocials — Telegram | https://medium.com/spartanprotocol/spartandev-20dec21-26dec21-556462a2f388 | [] | 2021-12-27 11:33:51.829000+00:00 | ['Buidl', 'Sparta', 'Defi', 'Binance', 'Bsc'] |
Seth Godin — We Are All Weird: Book Summary | The Fall of Mass Marketing
Being weird is the new normal. This is the message that Seth Godin put’s out with this book. There are a lot of similarities to The Long Tail.
People who aren’t normal are called weird. These are the people who have chosen to avoid conforming to the masses. Weird means you’ve stood up for what you believe in and not what the marketer wants.
Attainment of mass had been the goal for about 50 years. Average products for average people sold at a high price in volume.
We were trained from birth to please the many, to sell to the many, and to serve to the many. Now the weird are the many.
Mass Marketing is dead. Treating everybody the same and the one size fits all is no longer the norm. You have to market to the weird. Because now mass is the weird.
Remember You are rich if you get to make a choice. Poor means no choice, so the provider gets to choose. Here Take it or leave it is the only option.
The Bell Curve
The Bell curve is spreading. Almost everyone consumed the same thing before the internet. There was less choice and hence mass did well back then. Everyone cared about the juicy middle (mass) and people didn’t bother about the edges.
Mass Marketing and Mass Production allowed us to be efficient. The effort used to being heard was easier when everyone was listening, and there were fewer mediums battling for our attention, particularly the TV. TV ads were cheap and delivered mass to marketers. If you could advertise on TV, you could reach everyone because everyone watched the same thing.
Mass Marketing worked because there were only so many options. We had to enjoy doing what other people were doing and had to fit in. All of our choices are now heading in one direction, and that’s away from the normal.
Pick a Tribe
We can no longer be bothered by mass advertising. We simply shut them down. We no longer pay attention and we are sick of it. If normal isn’t your thing, choose a tribe.
Find a group or tribe where people share your interests and thoughts. Where there’s more choice, there’s less mass. You can become a part of a tribe on the other side of the world with just a click.
The ability to get connected with like-minded people will get your work amplified. You’ll be in a place where you’ll be appreciated for your work and you can have a bigger impact.
The main reason why people are shifting away from the normal is that there’s a loss of connection. When they become a part of a tribe, there’s a feeling of community and importance. Tribes matter and tribes lead to movements.
Consider the tragic story of Vincent van Gogh he sold only one painting in his lifetime and lived in isolation. His work could have been appreciated way more and he could have had a greater impact had he been a part of a tribe.
The Problem and Solution to Mass Education
As Einstein said, Everybody is a Genius. But If You Judge a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will spend the rest of its Life Believing that It is Stupid.
Everyone’s different and the world’s obviously going to judge them, but it doesn’t have to start from the school itself. The purpose of school is to just prep you for a 9 to 5. We go to school to be a worker bee. Just take orders and do what you’re told and if you don’t, there’re others waiting in line to take your place.
You can push a child in a direction they don’t want to go, but if he or she doesn’t want to do it, they are going to quit when the time comes. Instead, find out what weirdness they excel at and encourage them to do that.
A simple solution to the education system would be to embrace the weird. It’s going to be difficult, but it’s necessary.
Mass is no longer a scalable, predictable way to engage with the public. We’re not normal. We’re weird. All of us. | https://medium.com/@muthusblog/seth-godin-we-are-all-weird-book-summary-6071d09f18dd | ['Muthuraja Ramachandar'] | 2021-03-10 10:29:57.754000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Marketing', 'Marketing Strategies', 'Book Review', 'Seth Godin'] |
Medium Earnings Survey —September | Every month, there are lots of posts asking about earnings on Facebook and other Medium chat groups, so I regularly post this Google survey.
I encourage everyone to submit their data!
The survey is completely anonymous and there are many interesting insights for authors based on the data.
Without surveys like this, writers have a limited understanding of the realistic Partner Program earnings.
Overall, the past earnings charts above suggests that readers of Blogging Guide are more successful than the general writing population.
Some useful articles for writers looking to better understand their Partner Program earnings:
In the general Medium writer population, typically 7%-9% of all active writers earn more than $100 in any given month. Among the Blogging Guide respondents surveyed last month, 51.2% earned over $100 per month!
In the general Medium writer population, typically 7%-9% of all active writers earn more than $100 in any given month. Among the Blogging Guide respondents, 51.2 % earned over $100 per month!
I am not surprised by these results, since Medium Blogging Guide readers tend to represent a group of highly engaged writers, who actively look to boost their earnings.
While this survey can only tell us so much, it is one of the few data points tracked other than the official earnings results from Medium, which focus on extreme outliers (highest earning author and highest earning article each month).
While these stats are fun to look at for inspiration, they fail to report earnings information for the vast majority of writers (with the exception of the over $100 per month, metric).
Please consider filling out the survey below. It is immensely helpful to other writers and only takes a few seconds.
The total survey group results are viewable after you submit your own. Your answers are completely anonymous. I’ll keep this open for the next week or so.
Please let me know if you like this/find it useful, and I’ll be sure to do it again!
Medium Earnings Survey
After submitting your own results, click the “see previous responses” button to view all the earnings data.
— Casey Botticello | https://medium.com/blogging-guide/medium-earnings-survey-august-346bbce71203 | ['Medium Formatting'] | 2020-10-02 17:27:54.520000+00:00 | ['Surveys', 'Medium', 'Blogging Tips', 'Making Money Online', 'Medium Partner Program'] |
The Price We Pay For Fashion | Do you know the backstory of that new tee?
There was a time when shopping was a rare and exciting activity. Now, it is a hobby. Fashion brands are always looking ahead, designing clothes to meet the demands of fast fashion. But we need to look further ahead because the environment is suffering because of every single piece of clothing we buy on a whim.
In the trade-off between fashion and the environment, the mass is choosing the former. That has to change. Often, even people concerned about the environment and human rights fail to realize how significant the share of fashion is in environmental degradation and exploitation of labor.
The high-end fashion brands that we adore are exploiting labor in order to keep up with ‘fast-fashion’. That is how they are able to amass huge profits while staying in the fashion game. Workers have reported ‘slave-like’ conditions at international fashion giants like Zara, H&M and Primark. Women, men, and children in countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and India are employed by these big fashion labels for producing clothes at the lowest cost possible. They sometimes work for over 16 hours a day and get a meagre wage of around 13 dollars per month, which is barely enough for sustenance.
Have you ever wondered about the environmental impact of that plain cotton tee hanging in your wardrobe? Probably not. For starters, it takes about 2700 liters of water to produce the cotton for a single t-shirt. That’s enough to fill 22 bathtubs, or to sustain a human for almost 900 days! Its carbon footprint is nearly 7 kilograms.
Given that an average human buys 20 pieces of clothing every year, the cost the environment (and community) pays for our fashion is enormous. It is imperative that we reuse what we have, and resist the urge to buy more.
There will always be some new outfit that we wish we could have. But there’s only one earth. Degrading it in the process of buying what we want but don’t need, promotes not only pollution but also unethical and unfavorable working conditions for workers. As consumers, and as citizens of this planet, we need to make wiser decisions.
In a nutshell, here’s how you can do your bit for the environment -
Don’t trash your clothes, donate them. You’d be helping the community and the earth. (it’s a win-win) Choose sustainable brands which use natural fabrics like hemp instead of synthetics like polyester (which harm us by entering the water supply and food chain) Choose slow and sustainable fashion, or green fashion, instead of fast fashion. Slow fashion consists of clothing that lasts several years, as compared to fast fashion, in which cheap and new clothes are introduced each micro-season (which can be as many as 52 a year!). Please repeat outfits. It’s NOT uncool. (trashing the environment is)
We can save the environment, one t-shirt at a time! | https://medium.com/@thethinkinglane/the-cost-we-pay-for-fashion-5ab988b988ba | ['The Thinking Lane'] | 2021-05-19 10:16:38.655000+00:00 | ['Sustainability', 'Consumerism', 'Environment', 'Fashion', 'Lifestyle'] |
How did the Deep Learning model achieve 100% accuracy? | It is important to look through the datasets before solving a Deep Learning problem. This article will take you through a scenario where the test set and validation set contains the same data as that of the training set. Have you ever wondered if this can happen? Well, there are possibilities that datasets can be biased and this article is a result of my personal experience with one such problem.
Introduction
The data set used here is a subset of food-101 data set and can be found in TensorFlow datasets. My aim is to classify the images into four categories ‘chicken_curry, hamburger, omelette and waffles’. The data set consists of 8,345 images belonging to four classes and is divided in the following way:
Training set: 4000 images belonging to 4 classes
Validation set: 2217 images belonging to 4 classes
Testing set: 2128 images belonging to 4 classes
With this knowledge of the problem, let’s get started.
ResNet50 Pre-Trained CNN
It is a deep residual network and the number ‘50’ refers to the depth of the network, meaning the network is 50 layers deep. It belongs to a sub-class of Convolution Neural Network. The network has over 23 million trainable parameters. ResNet-50 came into existence to solve the problem of vanishing gradients. ResNet-50 uses a skip connection where the input is added to the output of the original block and this mitigates the problem of vanishing gradient. You can also refer to the original research paper for more details. I assume that you are aware of the architecture if you have chosen to implement a deep learning solution using ResNet. The ResNet-50 model consists of 5 stages with each stage having a convolution and an identity block, where each Convolution block has three convolution layers and each identity block also has three convolution layers. The ResNet-50 model looks like this:
Transfer Learning
It is a method of training the data where the model has already been trained earlier on a large data set and has been used for classifying a huge number of classes. ResNet-50 has been trained on ImageNet database consisting of millions of images and the weights are saved. These weights can be used while implementing the Transfer learning approach. There are two ways of using Transfer Learning, Feature-Extraction and Fine-Tuning. The solution to the design problem here focuses on the fine-tuning approach. In the fine-tuning approach, a fully connected layer is added on the top of the pre-trained ResNet-50 base model. The entire pre-trained model is frozen, which means the weights are not updated, and the learning process is halted. The fully connected layer added on the top of ResNet-50 base is trained for small number of epochs and then the 5c block of ResNet-50 pre-trained model is set trainable by unfreezing the relevant layers. The layers which are unfrozen, in conjunction with the fully connected layer added are trained and used for training the data to obtain the classification result. The initial layers of a Convolution Neural Network learn the low-level features and as the network goes deep, higher level features are learnt. Hence, the higher layers are unfrozen and further used in the training process. The dimension requirement for ResNet-50 model is (224,224,3). Hence, all the images are converted or resized to this dimension before feeding into the pre-trained model.
Having understood the concept of fine-tuning based transfer learning approach to image classification, I am moving ahead to the core of this article.
Exploratory Data Analysis
I regard this as the most important section of this article.
Upon starting the training process of the model, I was astonished to see a very high accuracy from the initial stages of training. That didn’t seem like everything was alright with the network and the images. I started peeping into the network and found nothing guilty in there, that is when I tried to peep into the data set and to my surprise found that all the images in testing and validation set were available in the training set. This seemed very strange to me as the validation and test set should contain those images that aren’t part of training set. We are supposed to train the model on the training data and evaluate the performance of the model with the validation and test set. Whereas, in this case, since all the images of validation and testing set are already present in the training set, we are training the model and evaluating the model’s performance using the same images. This isn’t the regular process for working with the Convolution Neural Network or be it any Deep Learning model. Hence, I wrote a script to show that the files (images) in testing and training set and validation and training set match with each other. Please refer to the python script in the Google Colaboratory notebook where I’ve explicitly compared the matches found in the given data set.
Result of exploratory data analysis
Design of the Convolution Neural Network and Model training
As mentioned earlier, I have fine-tuned the pre-trained ResNet-50 model and have added a fully connected layer on the top to classify the images. The architecture of the CNN model is shown below:
Fully Connected layer added on top of ResNet-50
I have added Flatten() layer followed by Dropout with a percentage of 40. Therefore, 40% of neurons are excluded randomly in the training process. Dropout is a regularization method used to rescue the model from overfitting. There are rules of thumb while implementing a CNN model, you can let the model overfit the data and later implement regularization methods if the model overfits the data. I have deliberately added Dropout to make the model’s training process tougher, which makes the model jump close to 100% accuracy later than expected. The Dense layer consists of 2048 neurons with ‘relu’ as the activation function and the last layer is again a Dense layer with 4 neurons, because the aim here is to classify the images of four different categories. ‘Softmax’ classifier has been used since this problem is a multi-class classification problem. The architecture when the entire ResNet-50 base is frozen looks like this:
CNN architecture with frozen ResNet-50 base
Notice the number of non-trainable parameters when the entire base is frozen. The weights aren’t updated when the layers are frozen. The architecture when the last block is unfrozen and combined with the fully connected layer looks like this:
Architecture of fine-tuned CNN model
As mentioned about the peculiarity of the data set given, the performance of the model recorded 100% for all the training set, validation set and test set. I used RMSprop as the optimizer with the learning rate of 1e^-4. I could notice that the training and validation accuracy started to converge towards 100% as soon as the learning rate dropped to 1e^-5. The learning curves and confusion matrices are shown below:
Learning curve of training and validation accuracy
Learning curve of training and validation loss
Confusion matrix of validation data
Confusion matrix of test data
Callbacks: I used ReduceLROnPlateau. It is to reduce the learning rate by a factor of 0.1 if the val_loss does not reduce after running five epochs. I tried using the EarlyStopping callback but I noticed that the training accuracy and loss kept improving even when the validation metrics stalled. So, I felt it would be good to let the system run for the whole 50 epochs. But if the number of epochs is increased by a lot, say 200, the training loss becomes close to 0 then this callback can be used to stop training when the necessary loss is obtained. The performance metrics of the CNN model is shown in the Google Colaboratory notebook.
Summary
I took you through the process of exploratory data analysis, model training and displayed the architecture of the model when it is fine-tuned. ResNet-50 is being used as classifier for majority of the image classification problems. Its technique of using skip connections has solved the vanishing gradients problems in Convolution Neural Networks. You can implement a ResNet-50 model on your own or you can implement the transfer learning approach. You should now be able to understand the importance of exploratory data analysis and implement it to your deep learning model as well.
I hope you find this article useful. You can visit my GitHub repository to understand the implementation completely. The colab notebook has been documented very well and it will help you understand the implementation further.
References:
[1] ‘food101 | TensorFlow Datasets’, TensorFlow. https://www.tensorflow.org/datasets/catalog/food101
[2] K. He, X. Zhang, S. Ren, and J. Sun, ‘Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition’, ArXiv151203385 Cs, Dec. 2015,
Available: http://arxiv.org/abs/1512.03385.
[3] P. Dwivedi, ‘Understanding and Coding a ResNet in Keras’, Medium, Mar. 27, 2019. https://towardsdatascience.com/understanding-and-coding-a-resnet-in-keras-446d7ff84d33
[4] T. Shermin, M. Murshed, G. Lu, and S. W. Teng, ‘Transfer Learning Using Classification Layer Features of CNN’, ArXiv181107459 Cs, Mar. 2019, Available: http://arxiv.org/abs/1811.07459.
[5] ‘ImageNet’. http://www.image-net.org/
[6] japeshmethuku17/food_101_4class | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-did-the-deep-learning-model-achieve-100-accuracy-6f455283c534 | ['Japesh Methuku'] | 2020-05-27 18:17:57.287000+00:00 | ['Fine Tuning', 'Resnet50', 'Computer Vision', 'Exploratory Data Analysis', 'Deep Learning'] |
Holiday Humor Volume Two | Do they know it’s Christmas?
A sampling of MuddyUm’s latest Christmas stories
The ultimate Hallmark Christmas Film of your dreams
A tragic story that could only happen in 2020 — but there is still hope! Check it out for CDC guidelines on how to best prepare your household for Santa’s arrival.
An open letter to Americans from F.A.C.T — Free All Christmas Trees
Sookie, Instagram’s 11th most popular poet, is coming home for Christmas with a simple list of demands for her life-givers.
She’s got options, but which to choose? | https://medium.com/muddyum/holiday-humor-2ee56b972aa1 | ['Sara Zadrima'] | 2020-12-24 20:36:18.002000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Humor', 'Funny', 'Winter', 'Holidays'] |
Latest movie 2019 : It Chapter Two with HD quality | Watch or Download here : http://watch.movie4u.xyz/movie/474350/it-chapter-two
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27 years after overcoming the malevolent supernatural entity Pennywise, the former members of the Losers’ Club, who have grown up and moved away from Derry, are brought back together by a devastating phone call.
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Memorable 24 hours at HackNSUT! | It has been more than a month since we did what no one would have ever imagined, when we made a very step out of our home. Actually not even us!. Remembering the evening of the March 30th, 2019 still sends shivers down my spine. It was the final of the prestigious Hackathon HackNSUT organised by NSUT. The competition was tough. Teams came from entire North India to participate in the overnight hackathon with their eyes full of dreams, belief and hope of winning the Hackathon. We were also among them. But we always knew that it’s not going to be easy for anyone of us. Many teams despite of having brilliant potential ideas were unfortunately not able to make it to Top 10. Selected Teams were gathered for the result. The environment was so tense and the competition was so high that by the time the result was announced probably no one in our team was left with nails on their fingers. It is a story of turning dream into reality, It is the story of achieving something great in 24 hours.
It is story of Team Enigma — Winners of HackNSUT’19.
Team Enigma — Sejal Bhatia, Sarthak Sadh, Jatin Kumar, Ashish Aggarwal
Dramatic Beginning
Till date we had attended many hackathons in various colleges throughout Delhi. But If I’m being honest the start we got in HackNSUT might be the one of the worst starts we ever got. Like any other team we came prepared with two ideas ~ a main idea and a backup idea. We found our primary idea quite innovative and were really excited about it. But, as we started to implement it, we began to explore loop holes in it, which apparently went unnoticed during the research phase (before hackathon). But we knew that we had ample time and we could fix them comfortably. But as we dug deeper and the number of loop holes also started to increase significantly and project started to make less sense overall. So at this time , we all knew that we had it all messed up and it needs to be replaced. Sadly till the time we realized, we had already wasted a few precious hours on it and guess what, the first evaluation was also just a mere few minutes away. At that instant we were nothing more than a bunch of helpless participants looking at each other with nothing to say. After some minutes of awkward staring, we realized that we were not done yet afterall. We still had something to offer.
Backup Idea - The Saviour
Our backup idea was also a decent one. But the problem was that we had not done any sort of research on it till yet and were not sure whether it can be implemented in given time frame or not. And let me please tell you, that in a hackathon implementation of an idea holds a real great importance. It might not matter how awesome your idea is, if it’s practical feasibility is in doubt.
Alright! Now what was the Idea ?
So the idea was to build an easily accessible application having every potential to turn your outdoor gym reluctant. In a nutshell we aimed to bring an artificial gym trainer in your mobile, so that you as a user can have an experience of a gym even when you are not at home or for some reason are not able to go to the gym. Due to the shortage of time, we could only train the application for one exercise as training ML models takes time. However in future we aim to expand the app even more, But for the time being it remains as it is. If you want, you can even see the final project live here.
Problems that it solved -
Busy people tend to have a hectic lifestyle and they do not have a fixed time routine to exercise. Due to which in the most cases they just pass on it and sometimes as a consequence may suffer from health related problems like obesity. But this app can help them solving this issue by giving them a possibility to exercise anytime they want completely as per thier will. When a gym goer is unable to go to gym due to any understandable purpose like business trip, marriage etc. Their exercise routine kinda breaks and which is not a nice thing to happen. But in case he has our app he has nothing to worry about. He just need to find some time for exercise and then open our app in order to take advantage of the personal gym trainer feature. Problem Solved! Some people who might be shy or don’t feel safe going to gym, can do the same exercises staying at home using our application. Many more…
This app has endless use cases and it’s integration with other apps might expand the horizon even more. So if I’ll continue to talk about the problem’s it cam solve, we might not be able to talk about anything else. Which I surely would not wish to happen.
So how does it works ?
Let’s explore the app working through a diagrammatic representation. | https://medium.com/@jatin15011999/memorable-24-hours-at-hacknsut-7be441b1dc1 | ['Jatin Kumar'] | 2021-08-23 18:37:37.498000+00:00 | ['Coding', 'Achievement', 'Fitness', 'Hackathons', 'Competition'] |
The Night Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Caught a Flicker of Christmas | I heard the bells on Christmas day,
Their old familiar carols played
And wild and sweet, The words repeat
Of peace on Earth, good-will to men
If there’s one Christmas carol that sums up 2020 for me, it’s “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”
The lyrics come from a poem Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in 1864. (Isn’t that an amazing name, by the way?!)
It has been musicalized many times, including by the Christian band Casting Crowns. But my favorite version is the one my friend David Burleson wrote for the Christmas EP God at First Sight. (You can watch David sing the song here.) I think David’s composition perfectly captures the journey the poem takes us on.
It begins as a standard Christmas carol. The narrator reflects on the angels’ words on the night Jesus was born: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14, NIV). They are, as the narrator points out, familiar to us.
But then things take a turn. Sentiment doesn’t match up to reality. The narrator is suffocated by grief:
Then in despair I bowed my head,
“There is no peace on earth,” I said
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on Earth, good-will to men.”
I love how honest that verse is. Hate is strong and seems to mock the promise of Christmas.
2020 has been a rough year. A global pandemic, racial, injustice, political division. And that doesn’t even touch on the “normal” bad things that happen in any given year. Tragedies occur every day that don’t make it to the news headlines.
“There is no peace on earth” sounds like a proper response to many of life’s catastrophes.
I was having a discussion about God with a friend this week. She told me the story of a tragic circumstance in her life and then said, “What did I do to deserve that?”
It’s a natural question to ask.
And she didn’t do anything to deserve the horror she endured.
Not surprisingly, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” was born out of tragedy.
In 1861, Henry’s wife, Frances, burned to death. Her dress caught fire while she was sealing envelopes with hot wax. Henry tried to save her and was burned badly in the process. He couldn’t even attend his wife’s funeral due to injuries.
On Christmas 1862, he wrote these words:
A merry Christmas’ say the children, but that is no more for me.
And the tragic circumstances weren’t over. The next year, Henry’s son Charley joined the Union army. In November 1863, a bullet went through his back, barely missing his spine. He was released from the military into Henry’s care.
On Christmas day that year, Henry “heard the Christmas bells ringing in Cambridge and the singing of ‘peace on earth.’” But the joyous celebration didn’t match the brokenness Henry was experiencing. We understand why he bowed his head in despair.
Where have you bowed your head in despair this year?
One of my favorite things about David’s musicalization of the poem is the tension we feel. After the narrator cries out in despair, there is a 25-second musical interlude. 25 seconds of no words. 25 seconds to soak in how tragic this world is.
In those 25 seconds, I imagine the narrator putting his hands in his pockets and walking down the snowy sidewalk, head still bowed. He slowly walks away from the sound of the bells, because, well, where can God possibly be in all this?
And then — although he’s walking away from them — the sound of the bells grows louder. He lifts his head and looks back toward them. And he is reminded of the hope of Christmas:
Then pealed the bells, more loud and deep:
“Our God’s not dead, nor does He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on Earth, good-will to men.”
He can’t manufacture this hope from inside himself. It can only come from an outside source, manifesting itself in the ringing of bells.
It’s the hope of a God not asleep; he can’t be asleep because he’s crying in his mother Mary’s arms. And he has entered into the mess to take it all upon his shoulders. We look forward to the day when all the wrongs of this world will fail at the hands of Jesus, and there will be true peace on earth.
On that morning in 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow caught a flicker of Christmas as he heard bells ringing. Maybe it lasted only a moment. But it was long enough for him to pen these hopeful words while experiencing despair.
Peace on Earth, good-will to men
Peace on Earth, good-will to men
It’s my prayer that this week, we would all catch a flicker of Christmas, if only for a moment. | https://medium.com/nobody-left-out/the-night-henry-wadsworth-longfellow-caught-a-flicker-of-christmas-2cc31f7a38dc | ['Michael Murray'] | 2020-12-24 13:16:24.213000+00:00 | ['Spirituality', 'Christmas', 'Christmas Songs', 'Religion', 'Hope'] |
Robert’s Rules Suck: | Robert’s Rules Suck:
Photo by Bill Oxford on Unsplash
Taking Action
I was ready to do more than take a knee or carry a cardboard sign. I felt like it was time for me to move beyond protesting and get involved, somehow, in creating change. That was why I joined an ad hoc committee formed by our city council to address police policy. Think global, act local. At last, I felt hope. I felt like maybe I can make a difference that matters. And then I faced reality, and was shocked by how bad it is.
I was not naïve going into this. I fully expected that whatever good policy change our committee was able to craft might be diluted or rejected by the city council in the end, or that the Police Chief might find ways to circumvent them, or that even if enacted, the police union would still allow officers who violate those policies to be exonerated. With that in mind, I stayed focused on the long haul. I wanted to craft strong and demanding policies that could become part of a list of demands to be relentlessly rallied before the city officials until they are adopted. I kept my eye on forming alliances with others on the committee that could grow into lasting coalitions. This committee, to me, was only the beginning.
It looked promising. The city had called on 13 civic organizations representing BIPOC and other marginalized communities. I was there on behalf of a nonprofit that services transgender and gender non-conforming folx. There are 30 members, in all. As we went through brief introductions at the first meeting, I was encouraged. The committee is facilitated by a team of three individuals, including a Black woman who is the Equity & Access Coordinator for the county. She and I conversed at the outset about the challenges of facilitating a group the size of ours over Zoom due to the pandemic. We talked about setting group agreements. We talked about equity over equality and elevating voices that were underprivileged, especially those of women of color. I mentioned the need to give each member enough of a platform to feel seen and recognized at the beginning, even though that would be a big time investment, because it would save time in the long run by deterring potential internal conflicts. I also expressed my opinion that we would need to work in smaller subcommittees in order to be effective.
Thwarted by the System
But then we ran into two great obstacles; public meetings law and Robert’s Rules of Order. The first curtailed our ability to network and converse with each other on the committee. The second is an infuriating silencer that obstructs everything I have come to learn about good problem-solving and decision-making. I’ll start with public records law because that is more straightforward. The law states that we must have a quorum, in our case 16 or more, of members present at each meeting. Each meeting must be posted and publicly broadcast in real time. Since we were airing our meeting over Zoom due to the pandemic, the meetings are live streamed and recorded. But because the live stream and recording do not show the chat box, we cannot use that feature to communicate things like consent with what the active speaker is saying, or to ask clarifying questions. It all has to be voiced to be recorded. Furthermore, since only the Zoom hosts can see non-verbal signs, we cannot use the raised hands nor the Yes/No functions built into Zoom. Instead we have to wait the three to four minutes it takes for the host to read off each of the 30 names, wait for the person to unmute, and get a recorded response with a “yes”, “no”, or “abstain” for every motion we attempt to pass. We have yet to do this without someone in the middle asking for the motion to be restated. I don’t think there is anyone involved who is not finding this irritating, but everyone seems resigned to endure it.
The worst aspect of the way the city is interpreting public records law is that they have instructed all of us not to communicate with each other as a group outside of the public meetings. Email correspondence, file sharing, and social media can all become violations of public records law. If there are 16 or more of us involved, or even if there is not a quorum but we are discussing content that affects decision-making, it all needs to be publicly broadcast. While I can understand the reasoning behind these stipulations, where does that leave us? We are 30 members of very diverse parts of our city, we don’t know each other very well, and many of us have never served on a committee like this before. How are we supposed to work together? We have been reduced, effectively, to responding in the moment. We cannot even use file sharing to look at and consider ideas or share resources except by going through the facilitation team.
The facilitation team has directed us to send all communication to them and they will disperse information to the committee. That would be fine, if it were simply a procedure to go through. But the facilitation team does not simply pass along information. They hold onto it, decide whether or not it is information that should or should not be shared, sometimes rewrite or re-position it, and pack everything into one overwhelming information packet that we receive on Friday night before a Monday meeting. One reason behind this is that all the documentation must also be publicly posted alongside the meeting announcement. It also consolidates things so that committee members do not get bogged down with frequent emails. The danger is in editing out or misconstruing some of our voices, often those that most need to be heard. Also, there is the disabling effect of leaving us inactive and unable to work productively in the two weeks between meetings. I find myself struggling to resist the idea that the facilitation team has an expected outcome for us, and they are guiding the committee to meet their expectations.
Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash
Killing the Creativity
Then we come to Robert’s Rules of Order. For those who are not familiar, this is a set of meeting protocols that dates back to before the Civil War. Basically, the facilitator calls on people to speak, one at a time, without interruptions for a given amount of time. In our meetings it is 3 minutes. When someone wants to propose a decision, they make a “motion”. Someone else must second that motion. Then the facilitator calls the vote. The motion, the person who presented it, the person who seconded it and the total numbers of votes: yes, no, and abstain, are all recorded. That’s it in a nutshell.
What is missing from Robert’s Rules of Order is the magic of good problem-solving. There is no room for contained chaos, a free flow of energy, voices, and ideas. I taught engineering design in high schools for ten years. One of the most enjoyable, and innovatively genius, aspects of problem-solving is brainstorming. Brainstorming is meant to be messy. It’s a chance to air everything out and look at it from as many different angles as you can dream up. You start to notice patterns and connections. Someone poses something “crazy” and it piques your interest. Then there is this very important concept called “piling on.” Piling on happens when your idea sparks a new idea in my mind. I share my idea and that, in turn, sparks a new idea for someone else. This phase of problem-solving is divergent and for traditionalists, it goes against every fiber in their “we need to narrow this down” trajectory. But the traditional “narrowing down” linear approach leads to very limited and narrow solutions. Whereas, the creativity and mutual discovery of the brainstorming process culminates in a kind of magical synthesis of ideas and approaches. The team then needs to choose what approach they want to take. It might be evident in a general idea that rises up out of the chaos in a way that is unifying and electrifying, which leads to a much smoother process as you narrow in on the solution. Or you may see two or three different approaches that you either need to choose between as a group, or make a choice to split up and try all of them. Besides being a good way to get fresh and, at times, brilliant ideas, brainstorming also results in better teamwork because everyone was able to contribute fully and feel seen, heard, and involved.
But the public meeting format has no room for that. We can’t even utilize Zoom break-out groups because the public would need to see all of the break-out groups simultaneously. Here is where it becomes de-humanizing to me. There is no place to form ideas in the public meeting. Members are expected to bring ideas, pre-fabricated, and see how they hold up to a vote. I used to function like that, bringing my ideas to the table in a battle for the best articulated argument to slay all others and take the lead. Then I studied feminism. When you value the people and the process, everything changes. It’s no longer a contest to see who has the best idea. It becomes about the whole, all of us together as a group, facing a problem and learning from each other as we go. I don’t want to presume to bring a solution that will address everyone’s needs. I want to hear from others and I want my thoughts to be affected by those stories. I want our collective ideas to become as we meet. What if our government were like that? What if the premise was that no one has the answer going in, but if we all bring our perspectives together and listen to one another, the answer will take form out of the collective whole? I know. It sounds ludicrous given the extreme partisan attacks that happen all the time in our current system. But once you have experienced this kind of collective solution-making even on a small scale; it can make you a believer.
White Supremacy Playbook
Robert’s Rules of Order and the general meeting protocols really do fall right in line with what we know about white supremacist culture. What I mean by this is that we value this methodology and purport that it is the “best” or “most fair” way to conduct a meeting because it validates and maintains the dominant white culture, thereby preserving whiteness as supreme. The protocols and meeting procedures we tend to follow throughout our governmental bodies, from local all the way up to D.C., are so quintessentially mired in these values that we take them for granted. Of course we need to have one person speak at a time uninterrupted, you say. What else would we do? Well, if you think critically about it, you begin to recognize that someone needs to decide who speaks first, who gets to speak more than once (or not), who gets cut off at the end of their 3 minutes, and who gets an extension. The very idea that speaking individually, in turn, is the best way to go implies valuing individualism over collective values. What happens to the input and values from people whose culture teaches them to wait until called upon, or that it is prideful and wrong to claim to be wise and one should speak with great humility, or those who experience the world from their heart more than their mind. No, those who do not meet the criteria of the dominant values are suppressed, devalued, and overridden by the system. This keeps the people in power unchallenged, even as they say they are inviting BIPOC folx and marginalized communities to come and have input.
Borrowing from Tema Okun’s handy guide, we can just go down the list to make the point. The characteristics of white supremacy culture that Okun lists are perfectionism, sense of urgency, defensiveness, quantity over quality, worship of the written word, one right way, paternalism, either/or thinking, power hoarding, fear of open conflict, individualism, progress is bigger/more, presumed objectivity, and the right to comfort. I see all of these characteristics playing out in our ad hoc committee, as well as in the city council, police commission and other such public meetings. The sense of urgency sets us up with unrealistic expectations, taking on way too much in too limited a time and space. This puts me, and likely all of us, in a position to pass motions that are not what we want them to be, but if we don’t pass it, nothing will get done. Also, we tend to rate how well a meeting went by how many motions we got through, valuing that over how well the process went or how thoroughly we were able to address all concerns on the matter. This committee is talking about envisioning new police policy and many on the committee, the facilitation team included, wants to confine our conversations not only to a sanctioned set of reformist reforms, but narrowing those down to only the ones that are completely within the purview of the city. This is portrayed as “right” and “objectively” sensical. However, it is clear to all of us, though no one says it out loud, that the reasons we are having this conversation are racism, corruption, and the people’s demands to defund and disarm police. We cannot be effective if we narrow our vision to the degree that we put on blinders to the big picture. We need to be addressing community safety as a whole and looking at alternatives while we consider policy changes.
My point is that even though only one of the three facilitators is white and the majority of folx making up the committee membership are not white, we all have to conform to an old boy’s mentality and set of values that severely limits what we could be bringing to the table. And this is a really old white boy, we are talking about. I looked it up. Henry Martyn Robert would be 183 years old today. He was a U.S. soldier who was asked to mediate a discussion at the church he attended, and things got out of hand. Embarrassed by his inability to keep things under control, he wrote and published his Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies This was written at a time when wealthy white men ruled and no one else had a seat at the table. The purpose of it, though presented to be about fairness, is really about control and maintaining order.
Daring to Dream of Difference
The June 19, 2020 episode of Facebook Watch’s “Red Table Talk” centered on racism. From L to R: Adrienne Banfield-Norris, Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith and Tamika Mallory. (Screenshot: Red Table Talk)
I think it’s high time we stop trying to create 21st century change with 19th century models. We have so many alternate models to choose from that have either come to light or evolved over the years. Many indigenous cultures incorporate much more communal and sustainable decision-making models, such as the Iroquois commitment to consider the impact of every decision on the next seven generations. What if we followed the lead of innovative tech companies and moved to a more Agile methodology? The tech industry discovered that moving through phases of production in a linear fashion has a lot of downsides. Instead, they now have inter-departmental groups work together to come up with a plan, then teams split up and work simultaneously on different aspects in short spurts called sprints. They frequently come back together for very short stand up meetings where they simply state what they have accomplished, what they are now working on, and what is in their way. This allows managers from all different departments to stay in tune with each other and better guide their teams. In terms of conflict resolution, what if we stopped having debates or hearings in which people “claim their time” in order to see how scathing a blow they can deal out? What if politicians sat down and dialogued with each other in a way that was more like Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk? I mean, I could totally have seen Biden’s top VP picks having a talk like that. Wouldn’t it have been great to watch Stacey Abrams, Susan Rice, and Kamala Harris sit down and casually laugh and sigh and kindheartedly challenge each other for all the country to see? That’s easier to imagine than Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell. It would take time and concerted effort to imbed a new set of values, but it would totally be worth it.
If we want to make a more perfect union, an anti-racist America, with liberty and justice truly for all, we won’t be able to get there without really fundamentally changing the system. Why is that so hard to get behind? The fact that we are so resigned to deal with systems we know to be flawed shows how tightly we are held in the grip of conformity. I will continue to struggle with my city council and rattle the cages. Maybe I can at least make people more aware of the inherent injustices that no one seems to be identifying or addressing. For instance, while writing this, I was awaiting the results of a Doodle poll for the meeting of a subcommittee that I am serving on. When I hadn’t heard confirmation, I checked in and was informed that the meeting is being postponed because the Police Chief couldn’t make it. The Police Chief is not on our subcommittee. He has been invited (by the facilitation team I will point out, no one asked me) as a consulting expert. I don’t mind him being invited and giving us answers to questions we might have, but the fact that they cancelled the meeting because he couldn’t be there speaks volumes about who really has a seat at the table.
It’s high time we hit the reset button on our values. Let’s value the collective good before the individual benefit. Let’s value justice before order. Let’s value lives before profits. Once we claim to hold these values, let’s recognize that the system we have inherited is rooted in individualism, maintaining order, and maximizing profits. Finally, let’s resolve to adopt new systems that better reflect our values. Just because something has been around for a long time does not make it infallible. Just because something is comfortable and we have been conditioned to think of it as fair doesn’t make it so. In fact, it should be clear that the system we currently have has led us to build a society that is plagued by racism, corporate greed, climate disaster, and a bloated and dangerous military/prison industrial complex. How can we expect to change these symptoms using the same rules of order that established them in the first place? | https://aninjusticemag.com/roberts-rules-suck-47b689f3c48f | ['Marty Wilder'] | 2020-12-09 01:19:21.788000+00:00 | ['Local Government', 'Police Brutality', 'Racial Justice', 'Activism', 'White Supremacy'] |
It Hurt Me | by N.A.R.P
I was bleeding,
It was an inner pain,
I took a Tylenol pill so that I felt better,
It didn’t work, the pain was there, still there…
I was so desperate that I couldn’t look at my phone,
I used to search up stuff,
tips to make me feel better,
I needed to forget you,
This time I had piles of reasons,
Nothing helped me get better but I needed that,
I needed to let that fairytale go,
I needed to forget that stupidity that became a storm in the middle of my rainbow.
I felt replaced but even that thought is stupid, how can I feel replaced if I was never yours? but then why do I feel like this if you were never mine? | https://medium.com/@narpx/it-hurt-me-aeba48e59b5 | ['Nitzy Rodriguez'] | 2020-12-24 22:13:27.740000+00:00 | ['Poem', 'Pain', 'Simple', 'Hurt', 'Sad'] |
The Torment Of Hope | Pandora’s Box by Rene Magritte
“Because in certain circumstances, hope can be the worst torment of them all.” — Tom Holt
One of the most famous Greek myths is the story of Pandora’s box. Pandora was the first human woman created by the Greek gods, and as a celebration of her existence, each of the gods bestowed her a gift which were gathered into a box. The gods told her that these gifts were beyond beautiful, yet Pandora was forbidden from ever opening the box.
Pandora, being a human, believed the gods’ promise of beautiful gifts, and was beset with an intense curiosity of the splendor that she expected to be inside of the box.
So Pandora broke the gods’ one rule and opened the box. However, instead of glamorous gifts, all of the world’s evilness and illness escaped from the box and spread across the world. By the time Pandora had came to her senses and closed the box, only one gift was left inside the box: hope. When humans were faced with plague and illness, hope was their lifeline to help them get through.
But a more important question is raised by various writers:
Why was hope in the box in the first place?
Maybe hope was never meant to be a savior from the torment of illness and pain.
Maybe, hope was one of the torments. | https://medium.com/journal-kita/the-torment-of-hope-abaf16ca9631 | ['Haikal Satria'] | 2021-04-10 08:15:32.955000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Emotions', 'Personal Development', 'Writing', 'Musings'] |
Jack Mason, Group CEO of Inc & Co, and Making a Virtual Christmas Party | It’s the time of year when social calendars are typically filled with office Christmas parties. Donning festive clothes to unwind with coworkers over glasses of wine while anticipating the festive period is a time-honored tradition and one that jack Mason knows office workers look forward to each year. But this year, in the midst of a global pandemic, in-person parties are off the table. Does that mean your office should forget the Christmas party?
Jack Mason, founder of Inc & Co, said that with all the added stress, uncertainty, and upended routines this year has brought, the office Christmas party is more important than ever. Mason advises company leaders to plan a virtual Christmas party this year that encourages people to gather, celebrate, and unwind safely and to make sure that it still reflects the company’s culture and feels personal. The virtual Christmas party, he says, will serve to remind the team that this difficult stage is temporary, that traditions persist (even if they look a little different), and that there is still opportunity for fun and community at work.
Jack Mason’s core business, Inc & Co, brings together numerous digital companies and provides them with a suite of support services for their operational needs to help them grow — including marketing, HR, finance, and recruitment. Clients include the e-commerce apparel company Brass; venture fund Neon; Cuhu, a mobile app development company; on-demand laundry service Laundrapp and Skylab, a sports innovation agency that works with high-profile clients like FIFA, Manchester United, and Swim England.
When Jack was planning his company’s own virtual Christmas party this year, he wanted an event that would bring together these diverse startups and agencies, along with employees from Inc & Co and incspaces, in one blowout, virtual gala. Mason created a free virtual Christmas party — called the incparty — that included live music from prominent Manchester-based musicians, a DJ, and giveaways and discounts from local businesses.
“2020 has been a tough year for everyone, but there is still time to end on a high,” Mason said. “Our virtual Christmas party — the incparty — is for all of those businesses, freelancers, furloughed and individuals who are not attending a Christmas party this year and may be struggling with feelings of loneliness. We wanted to do something to bring everyone together but from the comfort and safety of their own home.”
Musical acts included dreamy, upbeat singer Ellysse Mason, and soulful singer-songwriters Tim Gallagher and Joe McAdam. DJ Clint Boon, one of the UK’s most sought-after club DJs, closed out the night. The event was designed not as a lesser version of the company’s typical Christmas affair, but as a memorable, one-of-a-kind experience that would be remembered and talked about long after.
Just because it’s virtual, said Mason, does not mean the company Christmas party should be less interesting or fun. Below are Mason’s top tips for designing a virtual Christmas party that leaves people talking. Get creative. Think about what you can offer virtually that wouldn’t be possible in a live setting, said Mason. Start with space. A typical office party needs a single location — a local restaurant or hall for a catered event. Online, there are no such restrictions. The event services company Hire Space, for instance, is offering virtual parties that includes various Christmas-themed rooms for guests to enjoy, including crafts, a DJ, a wine tasting (small bottles are delivered to each guest), and a baking tent.
Keep people engaged.
When everyone’s on Zoom together enjoying their beverage of choice, make sure to keep the mood interactive and fun through planned activities, Mason said. You can invite everyone to wear their favourite Christmas jumper or participate in an office-related quiz.
Take time for celebration.
This has been a difficult year for everyone and it’s important for company leadership to acknowledge those hardships and to take time to thank staff for their work and clients for their loyalty during tough times. These sentiments don’t have to be long — and it’s better if they aren’t — but make sure they are meaningful and sincere, said Mason. And since the medium is virtual, be sure to prepare something in advance with visuals that will leave an impression. And don’t forget to capture images of the night for sharing on social media.
Incorporate food.
It may seem counterintuitive, but with a little advanced planning, it is possible to connect the office team around a shared Christmas dinner. Work with a local restaurant or catering service to have meals delivered to teams so that everyone can log on and dig in together.
Include a special guest or two.
One of the advantages of a virtual event is the ability to attract performers, speakers, and entertainers from anywhere. Just as Jack Mason was able to bring together numerous musical acts for his incparty, develop a theme and find special guests that will really help to make the event memorable and meaningful, Mason says. Think about people whose words and performances will elevate the mood — music is always good, but you might also consider comedians and inspirational speakers, he says. Decide what impression you want people to be left with — hopeful, grateful, connected — he advises, and use that as your guide.
Give a gift.
Even a small token of appreciation can go a long way if it is thoughtful, Mason notes. A Christmas party is typically an occasion for delivering a little gift to let employees and clients know they are appreciated. Think about how you might best honour them this year. You can use this opportunity to support local businesses, making the gift extra meaningful. You might consider a branded hat or sweatshirt that everyone can wear to help them feel a connected part of the team. Or perhaps it’s an extra day or half day off to let your team know how much you value their time during these extraordinary times.
About Jack Mason
Jack Mason is the Group CEO of Manchester’s digital collective Inc & Co. He directs the group’s vision and meticulously plots business strategies for each acquisition, helping numerous teams to hone their operations and collaborative practices. Jack embraces entrepreneurial approaches to accelerate business success, harnessing cutting-edge technologies, and market approaches to achieve optimal results for Inc & Co’s acquisitions. | https://medium.com/@jackmasoninc/jack-mason-group-ceo-of-inc-co-and-making-a-virtual-christmas-party-35ab6a8dc94b | ['Jack Mason'] | 2021-02-10 18:02:13.872000+00:00 | ['Holiday Party Ideas', 'Party', 'Christmas', 'Company Culture'] |
On Data Science / Machine Learning Workflow | Analysis Workflow Template v1.9 (Data Science in Python)
In the interest of moving towards a discussion of best practice workflow for analyzing data:
This is a general model, but each project will vary. Sometimes you will start knowing almost everything: task topic, goal target, data, models, etc. Sometimes you may know just the topic, or have just a dataset, or just a target and have to make or discover everything else. Or if you run R&D, you may start with nothing at all.
1. Goals
State your Goals:
- Where are you? What are you looking at?
- Where do you want to be? What are you looking for?
- How will you get there (to where you want to be)?
- vs. “solving a user problem”…it could be translated into this, but often is not.
2. Standards, Best Practice, and Terminology
Identify Standards, Best Practice, and Terminology that you will (aim to) adhere to:
- PEP8 (Python standards?)
- Unit Tests
- package / library version records documentation (readme)
- repeatability, auditability (?maintain-ability?)
- clarity on hypothesis, null-hypothesis, chosen benchmarks for significance(95%vs. 99%)
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/null_hypothesis.asp
- Terminology and Lexicons: Especially when working on cross functional teams, or preparing to explain to others, be aware of what terms you and others are using, and be wary of or aware of terms that may overlap or conflict with terms from another discipline: e.g.
Synonyms for ‘y’
- y
- output variable
- Target
- Dependent Variable
- Response
- Response Variable
- Outcome Variable
- Predicted Variable
- Measured Variable
- Explained Variable
- Label
Synonyms for ‘X’
- X
- input variable
- Independent Variable
- Explanatory Variable
- Regressor
- Covariate(s)
- Correlate(s)
- Feature(s)
- Class(s)
- Attribute(s)
- Predictor(s)
3. Hardware & Software
Pick hardware and software on which to run:
(Note: you may need to know something about your data before you do this, e.g. distributed massive spark/no-sql data)
- “local” (your computer hardware) or remote (over the internet)
- windows or POSIX (unix, BSD, MaxOS, Linux)
- vim and a terminal
- Google Colab (a remote debian virtual linux environment)
- Local jupyter notebook in anaconda-python
- Text Editor / IDE (integrated development environments)
Note: for Python-DS, the line between a text editor and an IDE is blurry,
in part because you will be running code sometime in a ‘python terminal’ (ipython or pipenv shell etc) and sometimes in a ‘normal command line terminal’
- Spyder in Anaconda on your Local Computer (built in terminal)
- docker containers, and AWS-EC2
- etc.
4. Environment(s)
Set up your Virtual Environments, Kernels, etc.
Create and setup environments and virtual environments and begin organizing libraries packages and dependencies:
- pipenv shell
- conda env
- venv
- conda kernel
pip vs. conda package installs
- rule of thumb: pip before conda
- best practice: record exact versions of all packages used. (e.g. requirements.txt)
Reproducible and Replicable: (a distinction discussed more in science and six sigma than Data Science, but still important.)
- “Reproduce”: Using same data, software, hardware, (e.g. by same person)
- “Replicate”: By different people (maybe at different sites, on different equipment), following the same instructions.
- colab notebook are very portable and easy to share
- conda and pipenv/virtualenv environments should have clear package version lists
- random seeds should be documented for reproduction of results
- for some models, hardware differences can produced somewhat different results even when seeds etc are the same
- maybe containerize or dockerize your environment so others can recreate it.
5. Software Libraries & Versions
Import your (main, initial) libraries noting versions:
- keep track of what versions you are using and what versions you need of packages
- Maybe create a bundle of that software to be used later by other people
Best practice: document what all of your software packages and library versions are
- os
- python
- conda
- packages/libraries
- etc.
6. Get & Load Data
- Obtain Data: Getting data may be an entire process: source, scraping
- Raw Data: issues, file formats, conversions
- Load Data: dataframe, arrays, database
- Check data is loaded: headers, indexes, shape, etc.
7. EDA: Exploratory Data Analysis (~5 Parts)
Initial Exploration 1: First Observations
- Is the distribution Normal or is transformation needed?
- Did the data load properly (or at all), header, etc.
- shape: rows, columns
- data types
- NaN (like null or empty values), (but formatted as float64)
- odd characters
- cardinality
- redundancy
- empty columns
- formatting of columns (may look like int but be string or vice versa)
- is it time-series?
- seen knowledge about topic from sources and experts
- other messy or unusual items: e.g. using 999etc instead of NaN or None or ‘ ‘
EDA initial exploration 2: basic patterns
- Use basic visualizations to analyze basic patterns in your data.
Tools for Explore: pandas profile (can be buggy)
EDA initial exploration 3: “Artifacts”
- A data-artifact is something that data appears to show but it turns out to be an artifact of how the data was collected or obtained. A classic example is from astronomy, where ‘chromatic aberration’ can lead to images that differ from real objects.
http://www.vikdhillon.staff.shef.ac.uk/teaching/phy217/telescopes/phy217_tel_refractors.html
- (a nice article on 4 common data exploration and data handling topics)
https://medium.com/@ageitgey/four-basic-data-science-lessons-illustrated-by-covid-19-data-7d94134a5b0e
EDA initial exploration 4: Weed Out
What will need to be weeded out?
- redundant features
- leaky features
- high cardinality
EDA initial exploration 5: Feature Discovery
- parametric method/model: factor analysis / pPCA / PMF
- non-parametric method/model: infinite latent factor models
8. Cleaning
- Rule of Thumb: 90% of time will be spent cleaning data
- You may need to do some cleaning and ‘wrangling’ just to be able to look at your data at all (before EDA exploratory data analysis)
9. Formatting, “feature engineering,” etc.
Explanation: What is “feature” engineering? Literally: making a new column of data (a new “feature”) based on existing data
- “Tidy” Format (the name of a standard)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidy_data
https://cfss.uchicago.edu/notes/tidy-data/
10. Features, Focus,
- What is y (what you will predict)
- What X features should you include (/ exclude)
(including features you engineered yourself)
- note: “time-series for splits”
This may not come up until later, but think about what you are looking for and how to take things like the risk of ‘time leakage’ into account (see here)
https://medium.com/@GeoffreyGordonAshbrook/less-is-more-2070da966db7
- How to turn data like natural language data into X and Y data:
Explanation of a Natural Language Model
https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1n0QHVKLmjHhb1J0PVumoxq58-1OevP5b
11. Hypotheses
- What is your (Alternate) Hypothesis?
- What is your Null Hypothesis?
12. Baseline
Establish a baseline and the testing-foundation for your baseline so that you can soundly evaluate the performance of your model (and develop your model making choices for better performance along the way).
12.1. Baseline
Establish A Baseline: Results to compare and score your model’s performance
(car race analogy)
(however narrowly your model wins over the baseline, making a ‘better’ or ‘more useful’ model is a binary measure of whether you have succeeded in making a successful model.)
Rules of Thumb for Setting a Baseline:
- For ordinal, continuous ‘y’ data: e.g. mean, median, mode, etc.
- For categorical ‘y’ data: The ‘majority “class”’ is your baseline. (a “class” is a category, majority means the most common/frequent one)
Python code to see majority class: >>> y_train.value_counts()[:1]
majority class / total = baseline (percent)
- (some say) Start with a kitchen sink “baseline model”: a “kitchen sink” model as baseline is usually a basic model like a regression with ‘all feature columns’ included.
12.2 Baseline “Score”:
pick score type: e.g. from confusion matrix:
- accuracy, (majority class mean), etc.
- precision
- recall
- F1 (great self explanatory name, huh?)
- MSE
etc.
13. Split your Dataset: Make your sets: Train, Val, & Test sets
- issue: random or time based split
- issue: split ratio
(for cross validation:
randomized_searchcv,
(not-preferred-gridsearchcv)
(also,bayes-search?(library?)
Explanation: You are running an experiment where you need to compare your results. You not only need to compare your model to a baseline, but you need to compare how the model works on ‘real data’ compared with the data that you used to train the model.
14. Standardized Wrangling
Make sure the data processing steps that you did are standardized for easy repetition and application to your split datasets
(for all: train,val,test)
Create a function to automate the process of cleaning, handling, and reshaping your data, so that all divisions of split data (and new future data?) can be handled in the same way. This systematizes what in the past you did through exploration.
Wrangle items:
- duplicates
- datetime formatting
- outliers
- drop empty data
- some “encoding”
- the formats of dates
- splitting times and dates into separate columns
- feature engineering (new features)
15. “Family of Variables”
Make Your Family of Variables: Establishing a ‘family’ of standardized varibles will help regularize the process of making pipelines and running models.
e.g. # Set Target & Features target = ‘feature_column_that_is_y_value’ features = [‘colum_you_use_1’, ‘colum_you_use_1’, ‘etc’] # Wrangle train, validate, and test sets in the same way train = wrangle(train) val = wrangle(val) test = wrangle(test) # Arrange data into X features matrix and y target vector X_train = train.drop(columns=target) y_train = train[target] X_val = val.drop(columns=target) y_val = val[target]
16. Try and Compare Suit of Models
Pick what models you will try running. Try and compare multiple types of models if possible. Try to ‘argue’ why you have picked and not picked types of models based on your situation.
https://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/40-techniques-used-by-data-scientists
On Model Selection and Consideration:
Unsupervised or Not:
- Unsupervised Clustering
Supervised:
- tree or linear
Categorical or Not
Tabular or Not
Neural Networks:
- pre-trained vectorization
- pre-trained models
Note:
XGBoost tends to work well, but will not always be the best.
17. Pre-Pipeline phase
Some say: Before doing a pipeline do a model without the pipeline with each step separately for debugging.
18. Model-Pipeline
Make a pipeline (e.g. sklearn) so that you can easily switch in and out different models and change parameters and hyperparameters and processes.
If your data is in the form of a family of variables, you can easily run processes in a few short lines.
# Feature Scaling from sklearn.preprocessing import StandardScaler sc_X = StandardScaler() X_train = sc_X.fit_transform(X_train) X_test = sc_X_transform(X_test)
19. .fit .predict
Run Your Model(s): Proverbially “.fit .predict”
Once your data is organized, creating and running and evaluating your model made be unexpectedly brief:
e.g.
model = LogisticRegressionCV(cv=5, n_jobs=-1, random_state=42) model.fit(X_train_scaled, y_train) model.score(X_val_scaled, y_val)
20. Evaluate, Compare, Refine, Redeploy Models
Evaluate, Compare, Refine, Redeploy Models, adjust hyperparameters, squeeze out large and small improvements.
Tools to evaluate model:
- confusion_matrix+
- PDP
(Note: the term ‘deploy’ may be used here different than in WEB-product-deployment)
21. Feature Comparison
Formally analyze the roles and relationships between the features columns.
- Are there interactions between columns?
- What columns have more of an effect?
- As in the case of time leakage, will some columns be disruptive and need to be discarded?
Tools:
- Shapely
https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-explain-any-machine-learning-model-prediction-30654b0c1c8
22. Pick Final Model
Pick a final model or combination of models to use. (e.g. conventional models are often combined with neural networks)
23. Export Results / Model
Export the final “Test” or other final real-data results (using whole dataset to train)
When your results are the best you can achieve, fully train (and pickle) your model, and apply it to your final test or real world data.
or, if you are producing a model rather than resulting output, serialize or pickle that model so it can be deployed.
24. Analyze Performance
Examine the proverbial “accuracy” or score of your model and “publish” your results and commentary.
- Articulate your conclusions in terms of your null hypothesis and the significance of your results.
25. Documentation
Review and complete documentation of and for your code.
26. Model Deployment for Users
- API for backends
- interactive web apps
27. Dashboard / Report
- Clear, Concise & Contextual
- Actionable
- Repeatable & Replicable
Note:
Data Visualization and Data Storytelling may be both or either a part of the early processing (helping you to understand how to process the data to begin with) or a later higher-order final product for a stakeholder (helping the stakeholder/user to understand data). It may also play a role in analyzing and tuning the model (understanding feature interactions, prominence, etc., weeding out time-leakage) in the middle. So while ‘visualization’ is not a single distinct phase of workflow, it may nevertheless be prominent and important. In particular cases you may want to articulate how datavisualization takes roles in exact places in the workflow.
…fine, Redeploy Models
Evaluate, Compare, Refine, Redep
Further Reading: Another person’s account (with some overlap):
https://towardsdatascience.com/a-data-science-workflow-26c3f05a010e | https://medium.com/wooden-information/on-data-science-machine-learning-workflow-21bc6f3089f8 | ['Geoffrey Gordon Ashbrook'] | 2020-09-15 13:23:54.191000+00:00 | ['NLP', 'Data Science', 'Workflow', 'Machine Learning'] |
#CampaignaForDana Days 26 and 27 | Yesterday was a busy, fun day. Since we were out and about, I had the opportunity to wear a real OUTFIT, which was a fun excuse to wear pretty, girly earrings. I chose these pressed purple flowers (real flowers!) and really enjoyed wearing them all day. I don’t know why I remember this so vividly (usually Elliott’s the one who remembers random details from our childhood) but I know with great certainty that a very little Elliott picked these earrings out as a gift for mom at her favorite jewelry store (previously mentioned) Twist.
My lobes are blossoming!
And then today was a wonderful day in the Bay with my dear friend Amanda (a friend from Pomona, then LA living, then San Francisco living, who is now across the country) and our (also dear, but not visiting from out of town also never gave me any jewelry so don’t get the same special mention as Amanda in this particular context) friends Jon and Nick. And of course Rob and Finlay!
I commented on this beautiful ring Amanda was wearing a few years ago and she took it off and revealed that it was a puzzle! Even cooler. Time passed and my birthday came along (actually OUR birthday — Amanda and I have the same one) and what did she give to me but my very own puzzle ring. I absolutely love it and I love her and it was really fun to wear them together today as we dined at the Google office in SF, explored Moma, and wandered the Ferry Building. And, speaking of strong women, Amanda is incredibly ambitious, hard working, and STRONG, making her dreams come true. She definitely inspires me and she’s a perfect woman to celebrate as part of this campaign.
Amanda puts my nails to shame
PUZZLE RIIIING
Fun with friends at Moma (not pictured: Rob and Nick ❤)
ALSO thanks so much to my dear friend (since preschool!) Laura for joining the Campaigna today!
Photo by Laura
In Laura’s words:
I decided to wear my great-grandma Laura’s ring for the first day at my new job yesterday. What a great day to join my good friend Martha’s#CampaignaForDana (to donate: http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/marthauphayes/campaigna2016)
Donate here: http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/marthauphayes/campaigna2016 | https://medium.com/@marthapreston47/campaignafordana-days-26-and-27-9b4e182c8a45 | ['Martha Hayes'] | 2016-10-28 07:21:05.602000+00:00 | ['Jewelry', 'Breast Cancer'] |
Github lanza el Modo Oscuro | GitHub: Where the world builds software
GitHub is where over 56 million developers shape the future of software, together. Contribute to the open source… | https://medium.com/zurvin/github-lanza-el-modo-oscuro-4b80c529a755 | ['Kike Sanchez'] | 2020-12-09 22:04:45.829000+00:00 | ['Universe', 'Dark', 'Github', 'Repositories', 'Dark Mode'] |
An Introduction to Hyperledger Sawtooth and a Guide to Setting It Up | An Introduction to Hyperledger Sawtooth and a Guide to Setting It Up LeewayHertz Follow Jul 6, 2019 · 7 min read
Image Source: Hyperledger
What’s the Hype About Hyperledger Sawtooth
Hyperledger Sawtooth is an open source Blockchain platform founded by the Linux Foundation’s open-source blockchain project, Hyperledger. Proposed by Intel, it is an enterprise-grade distributed ledger and was one of the first projects under the Hyperledger Umbrella.
With a pluggable consensus model, Hyperledger Sawtooth is :
Modular Scalable Supports Permissionless and Permissioned Infrastructure.
Its underlying design is aimed at keeping ledgers distributed and adding business logic to smart contracts.
In many standard blockchain based platforms, applications and core are executed and hosted on their platform, that may cause performance issues and security concerns.
However, Hyperledger Sawtooth is different from such platforms in a way that it isolates the core ledger system from the application specific environment. As a result, it simplifies the application development yet keeps the system safe and secure.
With Sawtooth’s modular architecture, developers can develop applications in the programming language of their choice and can host, run and operate it on system periphery without hindering the core blockchain system.
An application on Hyperledger Sawtooth can be based on a core business logic to run business operations, or it can be built and run as a smart contract virtual machine with a self-governing mechanism to create, notify and execute the contracts between various members on the blockchain network.
Sawtooth’s core system allows both of these applications to co-exist, allowing different types of applications to stay in the same instance of the blockchain network.
Applications on Sawtooth can select transaction rules, define the consensus mechanisms and select the required permissioning to decide the working of the digital ledger in a way that it meets the requirements of an enterprise.
Being extremely scalable. Hyperledger Sawtooth can offer high transaction throughput of data and is, therefore, a great option for handling production supply chains.
Features of Hyperledger Sawtooth
Private networks with the permissioning features
Sawtooth overcomes the challenges of the permissioned network as the cluster of its nodes can be deployed with isolated permissioning. No centralized service can leak confidential information or transaction patterns.
The blockchain manages the settings that specify identities and roles so that participants within the network can access the information on the network.
Ethereum Contract Compatibility with Seth
The Seth, Sawtooth-Ethereum integration project allows the interoperability of the Sawtooth platform to Ethereum. The project makes it possible for Ethereum smart contracts to get deployed to the Sawtooth platform with Seth transaction family.
The Seth, Sawtooth-Ethereum integration project allows the interoperability of the Sawtooth platform to Ethereum. The project makes it possible for Ethereum smart contracts to get deployed to the Sawtooth platform with Seth transaction family. Parallel Transaction Execution
Many blockchains need serial transaction execution to ensure consistent ordering at every node on the network. However, Sawtooth contains an advanced parallel scheduler that classifies transactions into parallel flows. Based on locations in state accessed by a transaction, Sawtooth separates the transactions’ execution from one another while handling contextual changes.
Transactions in Sawtooth are executed parallelly to prevent double spending even with several modifications to the same state. This type of scheduling leads to the potential increase in performance as compared to serial execution.
Isolation between the core system and the application level
Hyperledger Sawtooth eases the development and deployment of an application by separating the application level from the core system level. It offers smart contract abstraction to allow developers to create contract logic in the programming language of their choice.
Hyperledger Sawtooth eases the development and deployment of an application by separating the application level from the core system level. It offers smart contract abstraction to allow developers to create contract logic in the programming language of their choice. Each application can define the custom transaction processors to meet the unique requirements. It provides transaction families to serve as an approach for low-level functions, like storing on-chain permissions, managing chain-wide settings and for particular applications such as saving block information and performance analysis.
Pluggable Consensus Mechanisms
The consensus mechanism is the process of coming to an agreement among a group of participants on the blockchain network. Algorithms for achieving consensus with arbitrary faults need some kind of voting among a specific set of participants.
General consensus approaches comprise Nakamoto-style consensus that selects a leader through the lottery and variants of Byzantine Fault Tolerance mechanisms that run multiple rounds of explicit voting to form a consensus.
Sawtooth supports multiple consensus types on the same blockchain which is chosen initially during the network setup and can be changed on a running blockchain with a transaction.
It supports the following consensus implementations:
Proof of Elapsed Time (PoET):
It is a Nakamoto-style consensus, designed as a production-grade protocol that can support large network populations. Relying on a secure instruction execution, it can achieve the scalability of Nakamoto-style consensus mechanism without the drawbacks of power consumption of the PoW algorithm.
PoET Simulator:
It enables PoET-style consensus on any hardware and a virtualized cloud environment.
Dev mode:
It is a simplified random-leader mechanism used for development and testing.
Sample Transaction Families
Transaction language and the data model are implemented in a transaction family. Though users can build custom transaction families to represent their unique requirements, Sawtooth also provides various transaction families as models:
1. IntegerKey for testing deployed ledgers.
2. Identity for managing on-chain permissioning for validator and transactor keys to simplify identity management for public keys’ lists.
3. Settings to provide an implementation for saving on-chain configuration settings.
4. BlockInfo for providing an approach to store information about a number of historic blocks.
5. Smallbank for managing performance analysis for performance testing and benchmarking when doing the comparison of blockchain systems’ performance.
Getting started with Hyperledger Sawtooth Application Development?
Image Source: Hyperledger Sawtooth Documentation
You will have to set up and execute a local validator to test your application before you start developing an application on Hyperledger Sawtooth platform. Once the network will be running, you can conduct new transactions and fetch the block data and resulting state from the blockchain via Sawtooth REST API and HTTP.
Sawtooth validators can run from prebuilt Docker containers which are installed using Ubuntu 16.904 or deployed in AWS from the AWS marketplace.
We will walk you through the process of Hyperledger Sawtooth Application Development using Docker Compose.
Installing Docker Engine and Docker Compose
Windows:
Docker Compose can be installed automatically when you install Docker Engine on Windows.
Linux:
On the Linux operating system, you will need to install both Docker Engine and Docker Compose.
macOS:
On macOS, you will have to install the latest version of the Docker Engine. Similar to Windows, Docker Compose is also installed automatically with Docker Engine on macOS.
Setting up Environment
A Docker Compose file is provided to state the process for building a Sawtooth environment. The Sawtooth environment comprises of the following containers:
REST API connected to the validator
A client container to run Sawtooth commands
A single validator that uses dev-mode consensus
The Settings, XO transaction processors and IntegerKey
Docker Compose file also represents the container images to obtain from Docker Hub and the network settings required for containers to interact correctly.
The Docker Compose File serves as the basis for the multi-container Sawtooth application development environment. Download the Docker Compose File and set up the environment for the development of Sawtooth application.
Starting up the Sawtooth environment involves the following tasks:
Open a terminal window.
Switch the working directory to the same directory where you stored the Docker Compose file.
Run the command: % docker-compose -f sawtooth-default.yaml up
Downloading of the docker images may take a few minutes. After you find the containers registering and building initial blocks, move to the next step.
In case the environment needs to be stopped or reset, you need to log out of the client container to return to the default state and then press CTRL- C from the Windows system where you initially executed docker-compose.
How to Create and Submit transactions to the Sawtooth network
Sawtooth provides the intkey command to make sample transactions of the IntegerKey (intkey) transaction type for testing. This method uses intkey for preparing batches of intkey transactions that assign a few keys to random values, then increase and decrease those values randomly.
These batches are stored locally and distributed to the validator within the network.
Run the mentioned-below commands from the client container:
$ intkey create_batch — count 10 — key-count 5 $ intkey load -f batches.intkey -U http://rest-api:8008
The terminal window where you ran the docker-compose command will start logging output as a validator and intkey transaction processor manages the transactions submitted recently.
Rather than using intkey load, you can also use “sawtooth batch submit” command to submit transactions. For instance, submit the transactions in batches.intkey file with the command:
$ sawtooth batch submit -f batches.intkey — url http://rest-api:8008
Viewing the Blockchain
Following are the different commands for viewing the block, list of blocks, a specific block and global state:
sawtoothblock
This subcommand is used to see the blocks saved in the blockchain.
This subcommand is used to see the blocks saved in the blockchain. sawtoothblocklist
This command is used to view the blocks stored by the state.
This command is used to view the blocks stored by the state. sawtooth block show — url http://rest-api:8008 {BLOCK_ID}
This command is used to view a specific blockchain using a block ID.
This command is used to view a specific blockchain using a block ID. sawtoothstatelist
This command is used for listing the nodes in the Merkle tree.
This command is used for listing the nodes in the Merkle tree. sawtooth state show — url http://rest-api:8008 {STATE_ADDRESS}
This command is used to view the data at a specific address.
Connecting to the REST API
Use the command “$ curl http://rest-api:8008/blocks" to ensure that you can connect to the REST API via the host.
To connect the REST API from the host, use the command: “$ curl http://localhost:8008/blocks".
Due to the potential of Hyperledger Sawtooth to build modular and scalable blockchain apps, it is being used widely by blockchain companies to provide blockchain business solutions to enterprises and startups.
Shameless Plug a.k.a Our Work on Hyperledger Sawtooth
We have built a distributed ledger platform called TraceRx on the Hyperledger Sawtooth that enables end-to-end traceability across the pharma supply chain on the blockchain. The platform allows UNO to track the distribution of free aid and perform recalls quickly.
Image Source: LeewayHertz
At LeewayHertz, we have a team of Blockchain Consultants who can assist companies and individuals interested in advancing their business operations with distributed ledger technology. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/what-is-hyperledger-sawtooth-51b90f10096c | [] | 2019-07-06 03:07:04.879000+00:00 | ['Blockchain Development', 'Blockchain', 'Hyperledger', 'Blockchain Platforms', 'Hyperledger Sawtooth'] |
The Smart Contract Wallet Bringing DeFi to the Mainstream — with Itamar Lesuisse & Julien Niset of Argent | Today’s Topics
[035] Julien’s background as an engineer in physics and quantum info researcher
[1:31] Itamar’s experience in product management, payments, and startups
[2:00] The definition of quantum cryptography
[3:31] The overlap between cryptography in infotech and the quantum world
[5:25] The early days of Argent
[6:37] Itamar’s initial interest in building consumer applications on Ethereum
[7:18] How the team identified wallets as the biggest problem to solve in the space
[8:38] How Argent rapidly identified smart contracts as the best way to circumvent the need for users to remember a seed phrase
[9:49] The article that inspired Argent’s design
[10:48] The different user types in Argent and why it isn’t technically a multi-sig platform
[11:50] How Argent creates a smart contract wallet around an EOA
[13:20] Other functionalities smart contract wallets enable (e.g.: orchestrating a logical set of transactions)
[14:21] How funds entrusted to Argent are deposited into the smart contract
[15:01] How the Argent architecture is tailored to a mobile device but could work on a desktop or laptop
[16:10] The possibilities around having an embedded experience within a smart contract model
[17:39] An overview of the Argent wallet architecture and the different types of contracts it supports
[21:41] Creating new modules on Argent
[22:32] Argent modules that integrate with other DeFi protocols
[23:42] Upgrading modules on the Argent registry
[24:27] How Argent modules integrate with Uniswap and Kyber
[25:25] How Argent thinks about integrating with other blockchains
[26:37] Argent’s general strategy around DeFi
[28:25] How Itamar and Julien will know that Argent has made it and their biggest roadblocks to that end
[31:13] The importance of transparency re: non-FDIC insured transactions
[32:49] How Argent works with Solidified in the auditing process
[35:29] The need to improve the developer ecosystem on Ethereum
[36:09] Argent’s go-to-market strategy and how the team thinks about attracting users in emerging markets
[39:07] The value prop for Argent
[40:05] Argent’s plan for monetization and why the team is exploring a subscription model
[41:50] Why Argent is not concerned about open sourcing their smart contract technology
[44:06] The Argent team’s view of competition and capturing market share
[45:13] The role of gaming and NFTs in the Argent landscape and their Wallet Connect initiative
[47:00] How Argent is outsourcing the regulatory burden and their plan moving forward
[48:19] The markets Argent is focused on at present | https://blog.sendwyre.com/the-smart-contract-wallet-bringing-defi-to-the-mainstream-with-itamar-lesuisse-julien-niset-of-b5c5b74bda57 | [] | 2019-09-04 13:28:22.518000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Wallet', 'Blockchain', 'Wyre Talks', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
The Difference Between Data And Information | The Difference Between Data And Information
It’s important for everyone to know the difference between information and data.
Photo by Stephen Dawson on Unsplash
Data can be anything like the name of a person or a place or a number, etc. Data are most useful when they are interpreted and processed to determine the true meaning, at which point data becomes what is called information. Thus, information is data processed in a way that makes it meaningful to the person who receives it via any means of communication.
While data alone may not be very informative or useful, it is, however, the basis for all reporting and analysis. The importance of data cannot be understated as it provides the basis for reporting the information required in business and other operations.
Data are the raw facts and statistics that are accurate and timely, and which are specific and organized for a particular purpose. Thus, data are crucial in supporting all types of decision-making after being transformed into useful information.
Qualitative vs Quantitative Data can be qualitative or quantitative. Qualitative data is descriptive information (it describes something) Quantitative data is numerical information (numbers) — Math is Fun
Information is data presented within a context that provides meaning and relevance, and which can lead to a decrease in uncertainty and an increase in understanding. Another way of putting it is that information is data that has been interpreted and then presented in a more meaningful and useful context.
The definition of information is news or knowledge received or given. An example of information is what’s given to someone who asks for background about something. — YourDictionary
For example, raw climate data are analyzed and processed, resulting in information interpreted for various purposes, such as is the case with climate data turned into useful, actionable information. With such information in hand, farmers can then determine which crops to grow.
Another example is raw data utilized by military commanders. After such data are processed and analyzed, a commander can then use the output as information to gain situational awareness of what is happening across the battlefield and thus make informed decisions accordingly. Correct information derived from accurate data input is critical in not only making decisions but in making the right choices; a wrong decision made in a military context can cost lives!
The bottom line is that the value of data is only as good as the quality and validity of the data used in the first place. The old maxim of ‘garbage in, garbage out’ very much applies. Good, relevant data will become valuable information that is then acted upon to make smart decisions to affect various outcomes.
However, as a cautionary note, it’s important to remember that data also can be manipulated and then interpreted in specific ways to present information that is false or misleading. As an example, in today’s divisive political environment, unscrupulous partisans of all persuasions often manipulate data to get an information outcome that favors their particular point of view or perspective at the expense of truth. Companies often do the same thing in their advertising campaigns.
Thus, consumers of data and any associated information must always be vigilant about carefully examining whatever is put before them, to make sure it is valid and worthy of believing.
__________________
Thanks for reading.
These are my most popular pieces: | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/the-difference-between-data-and-information-c02f4b0fbc1e | ['Terry Mansfield'] | 2020-10-30 04:51:59.636000+00:00 | ['Information Technology', 'Data Science', 'Information', 'Data Visualization', 'Data'] |
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