title
stringlengths 1
200
⌀ | text
stringlengths 10
100k
| url
stringlengths 32
885
| authors
stringlengths 2
392
| timestamp
stringlengths 19
32
⌀ | tags
stringlengths 6
263
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Firehosing: Um grande aliado da desinformação | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/ted-uneb/firehosing-um-grande-aliado-da-desinforma%C3%A7%C3%A3o-d43ee5811b06 | ['Simony Souza'] | 2020-12-08 01:55:13.922000+00:00 | ['Fakenews'] |
Holidaying in the Wasteland | Video game comfort food
The thing that really set me off on this path is actually YouTube. These days, I watch far more YouTube than Netflix or anything else. There are so many great creators out there making gaming videos. I love discovering channels for the first time and digging into their libraries. I was particularly struck by this incredible, four hour documentary (which I still haven’t finished), about The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The more I watched it, the more it got me in the mood to play an Elder Scrolls game. Skyrim is my favourite, and the remastered version on PS4 was just the ticket.
When it comes to Skyrim, I went in with a very forgiving mindset. That is, forgiving to myself. Having completed the game, I appreciate how utterly vast it is. Right off the bat, I’m not committing myself to dozens of hours. I’ll dip in and out, take what I need from the experience, and leave whatever I want on the table. Video game self-care; that’s how I’m approaching it. Ignoring the critical path, and completely disregarding the busywork that should be banished from all video games (no thanks, I’m not hunting around for those flowers you want — bore someone else with your tedious requests); it’s remarkably freeing.
The same is true for Fallout 4. Yeah, I’ve just reached Diamond City and spoken to Nick. But it took me a while to get there. I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time building in Sanctuary and exploring the world. I know a lot of players do this, but when I first played Fallout 4, I approached the central mission a little more seriously and with greater urgency (after all, my son had been taken from me and my husband had been shot before my very eyes— Preston Garvey’s incessant requests seemed trivial given my personal circumstances). Fuck off, Preston.
Ignoring the critical path, and completely disregarding the busywork that should be banished from all video games (no thanks, I’m not hunting around for those flowers you want — bore someone else with your tedious requests); it’s remarkably freeing.
In both cases — Skyrim and Fallout 4 — Bethesda’s best and worst qualities as a developer are on display. For now I’m not going to dwell on the negatives; the bugs are iconic at this point, and the shortcomings with Fallout 4’s story are something I’ll touch on in a moment. What Bethesda does exceptionally well is create space. It’s tempting to employ the term “wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle” to describe both of these games (and I’d argue it’s especially applicable in the case of Fallout 4). This term tends to be used as a pejorative for understandable reasons. But let’s not be so quick to dismiss the wide ocean. The broad scale that Bethesda is so good at crafting isn’t simply a case of adjusting a slider and fiddling a dial to make the map larger. There’s a real artistry to designing compelling locations and considering how they connect to each other in the world. Setting aside story and depth for now, both Skyrim and Fallout 4 are wonderful spaces to explore. Long before Nintendo’s outstanding Breath of the Wild, Bethesda has already mastered the magic of discovery — spotting a curiosity in the distance and knowing you can approach it to find out more. You can try this yourself: stand in any outdoor location in either of these games and look around. I absolutely guarantee you’ll see something of interest. Maybe it’s an ominous, lone shack nestled amongst a clump of trees. Or maybe you can just spot some movement on that partially-crumbled raised highway in the distance. What is that? I wonder if there’s anything interesting there…
Long before Nintendo’s outstanding Breath of the Wild, Bethesda has already mastered the magic of discovery — spotting a curiosity in the distance and knowing you can approach it to find out more.
Regardless of the objective I’m following at the time, there’s something about being in these worlds that is enjoyable in and of itself. In Skyrim it’s the exploration and thievery that do it for me (I’d much rather join the Thieves Guild and follow their quest line than progress the critical path, honestly). I can spend an entire play session sneaking around nabbing valuables from elaborate, fiercly-guarded mansions in the dead of night. What fun. And in Fallout 4, the predictable-yet-engaging explore > discover a location > kill the enemies > loot the area cycle is addictive regardless of story context.
In both Skyrim and Fallout 4, I occasionally found myself skipping through dialogue just so I could get back out into the world. I did this on my first play throughs as well, though perhaps less frequently. Is this an indictment of Bethesda’s often-bland writing, or an endorsement of their enticing world design? Hm… | https://medium.com/super-jump/holidaying-in-the-wasteland-34f9dcde8285 | ['James Burns'] | 2020-10-20 10:34:42.311000+00:00 | ['Relaxation', 'Gaming', 'Culture', 'Mental Health', 'Videogames'] |
The Living Dead | Photo by Vrinda Agrawal : Story by Mark Killian
Beth slammed the bathroom door and thrust her shoulder against the worn sheet of wood. She suctioned her ear to the textured surface and listened for footsteps climbing the stairs. Tears cascaded down her cheeks as water droplets trickled out of the faucet; the one she always forgot to have fixed.
She pressed her back against the door and slid to the ground, watching a bead of moisture lose its grip on the steel spout as she made her way to the floor. The water droplet splattered against the porcelain bowl just before she reached the molded tiles. She snapped out of her hypnosis once she heard sluggish steps scaling the hallway staircase.
Beth covered her ears with her hands and squeezed so tightly, a puff of air ruffled the graying hair covering the back of her neck. Tears rained on her lap as she rocked and hummed, trying to drown out the nearing groans reverberating through the door.
A knock from outside sent chills down Beth’s spine, turning her hums into howls and her rhythmic swaying into violent thrashing. She writhed about until the back of her head collided with the metal knob beside her, leaving a speck of blood clinging to the vertical lock as her limp body slid to the floor.
***
“What’s wrong with her?” Chris asked as his mom disappeared at the top of the staircase.
“Gee, I don’t know, Chris,” answered Robyn. “Maybe it has something to do with two strangers showing up on her doorstep, insisting they’re her children?”
“We ARE her children.”
“Not in her mind, we aren’t.”
Robyn opened the screen door for Chris and followed him into the foyer.
“But I spoke to her on the phone just last week,” Chris said as they ascended the stairs. “I told her we were coming by today.”
“And I’ve been trying to tell you for months now that she has dementia, but you seem to forget that pretty easily.”
“You don’t know it’s dementia.”
“You’re right, she’s probably just trippin’ balls.”
“Is that some symptom you’re studying? I don’t know what that means?”
“What, there wasn’t a lot of acid dropping going on at divinity school?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“There probably wasn’t much laughter either.”
Chris ended the conversation with a scoff as they reached the top of the stairs.
“Christ, is she humming?” Robyn asked.
“Mom?” Chris said, tapping the door with his knuckles.
“Mom, open up,” Robyn said, followed by a firm strike with the side of her fist.
Chris cupped his hand between the door and his ear and listened for a response. Their eyes widened once they heard the crashing of bone against brass.
“MOM,” Chris yelled, jiggling the handle. “Shoot! It’s locked.”
“Shit,” Robyn muttered as she rifled through her hair for a bobby pin. “Didn’t I tell you this would happen?”
“This isn’t the time for I-told-you-so’s.”
“Only God can judge you, right?”
“Condescending remarks aren’t going to unlock this door.”
Robyn rolled her eyes and removed a pin from her bun. Her brown hair unfurled over her shoulders as she straightened the curved piece of metal and slid it into the narrow hole in the center of the knob. She fidgeted the instrument with surgical precision until the latch clicked.
“God dammit,” Robyn grumbled.
“What? it sounded like it worked.”
“I know, but the door won’t move. She must be leaning on it.”
“Here.”
Chris pushed Robyn aside and rested his shoulder against the door. He pushed off the ground with his leg until a tiny opening started to form.
“FUCK,” Chris shouted. “Call 9–1–1!”
“You said ‘fuck?’” Robyn noted.
She glimpsed through the opening while taking her phone out of her pocket. She spotted the top of her mom’s head lying in a puddle of blood on the bathroom floor.
“FUCK!”
***
“Good, she’s awake,” Dr. Bachman noted.
“It’s Alzheimer’s, isn’t it?” asked Robyn.
“I’m afraid so,” he replied.
“Happy?” Chris asked.
“Yes, Chris, I’m fucking ecstatic.”
She looked down at her mom to see how she was taking the news. Beth was wearing the same bewildered expression she wore when she answered the door.
“Mrs. Carlisle,” Dr. Bachman interrupted. “According to the brain scans and what your children have told me, it appears you have Stage 4 Alzheimer’s.”
“How many stages are there?” Chris asked.
“Seven,” Robyn answered.
“I was asking the doctor.”
“Which one?”
“You’re not a doctor yet. You’re still in school.”
“I’m in my residency, dick. That means I have an MD.”
Once Robyn stopped talking she could hear her mother sobbing.
“Will you two please step outside for a moment,” Dr. Bachman interjected.
Robyn stormed out of the room without saying another word. Chris gave his mom a kiss on the forehead and followed his sister’s lead.
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Robyn continued as soon as her brother appeared in the hallway.
“What?”
“Her lucidity.”
“How can you be so cold about this?”
“Because I know how Alzheimer’s works, Chris. Back in med school we used to call it the Zombie Disease. It could take months or even years, but one of these days, mom will be nothing more than an animated corpse.”
“And then what, we shoot her in the head?”
“No. We take her off medical support and let nature run its course.”
“If we’re not doing everything in our power to save her, we’re killing her.”
“And if we let her become a bed-wetting, pants-shitting, incoherent shell of herself, we’re killing every laugh, every smile and every wonderful moment we’ve ever shared with her. MEMORIES are life after death, Chris; not some fucking gated community in the clouds where she and your dad will reunite and live happily ever after.”
“I don’t appreciate you belittling my life’s work.”
“Yeah? Well now you know how mom feels.”
Robyn’s wall of words broke like a dam holding back a flood of tears. She turned towards the window and stared at her mother until she became blurred beyond recognition. | https://medium.com/1-1000/the-living-dead-5fd83c6964cc | ['One For One Thousand'] | 2016-09-23 18:56:34.809000+00:00 | ['Stories', 'Archive', 'Short Story', 'Fiction', 'Alzheimers'] |
How Do We Lead In Diversity? | Trump’s rise to power in 2016 signalled a backlash to diversity that all of us around the world still need to reckon with. His presidency was in part a reaction to his predecessor and the public perception that so-called ‘minorities’ have gained too much power in the United States.
Trump’s rallying cries from “build the wall” to “lock her up” emboldened the racist and misogynistic hatred that had been lurking beneath a veneer of political correctness.
The resistance against diversity could also be seen in the workplace. The contempt that some workers feel towards a diversifying labor force. Typically (though not always), the backlash comes from cis-gender straight able-bodied white men who believe they have been left behind in a changing world.
They accuse corporate diversity as upending the right order of things when in reality, diversity initiatives have served to help the marginalized. | https://medium.com/@sirabhinavjain/how-do-we-lead-in-diversity-4f03abee5099 | ['Abhinav Jain'] | 2020-11-12 10:22:50.828000+00:00 | ['Diversity', 'Trump', 'Diversity And Inclusion', 'Trump Administration', 'Diversity In Tech'] |
[Firebase] มารู้จักกับ App Distribution กัน เครื่องมือใหม่สำหรับนักพัฒนาแอปที่พลาดไม่ได้ [iOS] | Firebase Developer Group Thailand
Firebase Developer Group Thailand has 4,394 members. Let you learn and share your Firebase experiences with each other. | https://medium.com/firebasethailand/firebase-app-distribution-ios-80107e99c962 | ['Kajornsak P.'] | 2019-09-26 15:39:25.021000+00:00 | ['Firebase', 'Beta', 'Fastlane', 'App Distribution', 'Firebase App Distribution'] |
E-Residency update #4 on the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic | Employment Measures
E-residents have created around 12,000 Estonian companies, which employ about 1700 employees. These businesses may qualify for relief under the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund (the Fund) if they meet the eligibility requirements.
The Fund has approved measures to help “qualified employers” maintain jobs by the state’s support in paying salaries through temporary measures of wage reduction.
Eligibility requirements: a“qualified employer” must meet two of the three criteria:
the company’s turnover has fallen 30% (compared to same month in 2019); the company cannot provide work for at least 30% of its employees; the company has reduced employees’ salaries by at least 30%.
This measure involves compensation by the Fund to qualified employers (up to €250 million in total) to support wage reduction during the crisis. Under Estonian employment law, an employer can reduce the wage of an employee in certain circumstances and subject to procedural requirements set by the law.
Under the emergency measures, the Fund will partially compensation the salary costs of a “qualified employer” under the following conditions:
1) the compensation is used within 2 months from March to May 2020;
2) the compensation is 70% of the average 12 month gross salary but not more than €1000 per month per employee in need of the support; and
3) the employer must pay 30% gross salary to the employee (at least €150 per month) in addition. The Fund and the employer will pay all labour taxes on wages and benefits.
Only employees are entitled to the compensation, not management board members. The employer must apply for the compensation for each month separately (applications are expected to open in April), however the compensation will be paid directly to an employee. The employer must return the paid compensation if the employee is laid off within the next month.
For more information, please refer to the Fund’s website:
While some e-resident businesses may get relief under these measures, others may not qualify. For these, be aware of the strict rules and procedures around reducing wages or terminating the contracts of employees under Estonian employment law if you are considering taking action to reduce the wage costs of your business. In which case, think about other ways to save on wage costs. For example, discuss and make a mutual agreement with your employees for temporary measures to counter the financial effects of the crisis, e.g. temporarily lowering salary, changing role to take on other responsibilities, etc.
Tax relief measures
The Government has announced that tax debt late penalty fees are cancelled for two months from 1 March to 1 May (may be extended). This means that you can delay paying your taxes owing in this period and there will be no interest accruing on the delayed taxes owed. But all declarations still need to be filed on time and the taxes still need to be paid when possible.
Another tax relief measure provides businesses with the ability to reschedule tax debt repayments at lower interest rates than currently in force — if paying tax owed in instalments for example.
There is also some help for sole proprietors, i.e. “Füüsilisest Isikust Ettevõtja”, or “FIE”. Social tax advance payments don’t need to be paid for the first quarter of 2020 and can be claimed back if already paid.
For more information about COVID-19 tax relief measures or to make inquiries as to whether your business is eligible, the Estonian Tax and Customs Board has opened a special tax advice and information page on their website (in Estonian, English and Russian):
Finance Measures
So far, the Government has announced €1.55 billion in financial measures with the KredEx Foundation (KredEx) to provide relief for eligible Estonian companies. KredEx is an Estonian foundation, which was set up by the Government in 2001 to support the provision of state-backed financial solutions and services, including loans, venture capital, credit insurance and guarantees.
The emergency measures so far announced include:
KredEx loan guarantees of up to €5 million for enhancing a company’s liquidity by facilitating relaxed credit terms of existing loans, or backing new loans, with Estonian commercial banks or lending institutions (up to €1 billion in total); KredEx liquidity loans of up to €5 million for boosting a company’s liquidity (up to €500 million in total); and KredEx investment loans of up to € 5 million to take advantage of the business opportunities created by the coronavirus, and other new business opportunities (up to €50 million in total).
It’s important to note that these measures are not designed to fully replace the ability and responsibility of Estonian commercial banks or lending institutions to give relief to their business customers. It is thus important that if you foresee loan repayment difficulties for your business in the near future, you should immediately contact your Estonian commercial bank first to see if you can get relief.
Applications for the KredEx loan guarantees are processed by your Estonian commercial bank or lending institution. Applications for the KredEx loans are processed by KredEx, but applicants must be able to show that they have not been able to enhance their financing from their Estonian commercial bank or lending institution. For example, by proving that it has not provided you with relaxed credit terms or increased your overdraft.
There are eligibility conditions for Estonian companies to apply for relief under these measures, including that the company:
is registered in the Estonian business registry with all required reports submitted; is solvent as at 31 December 2019 and not in financial difficulty according to EU regulation 651/2014 Article 2(18); has no overdue debts to the tax authorities and credit institutions up to 1 January 2020; has no direct or indirect owners who are registered in low tax rate territories; is not active in non-eligible fields of activities (agriculture, forestry, financial services tobacco, gambling, real estate development, GMO, etc).
For the KredEx loan guarantee measures, there are also limits on the interest rate on the loan that can be guaranteed. For all measures, there are guarantee/loan contract fees.
For more information and to read the terms and conditions for each measure in detail, please visit the KredEx website:
Final thoughts and further resources
Earlier this week, PwC Estonia joined e-Residency in a webinar to introduce the measures discussed above and share their knowledge of crisis management more broadly. Watch it here:
At the end of the webinar, the PwC experts shared their advice to entrepreneurs on what to do right now given the current economic situation. Their advice was as follows:
Analyse the cash flow situation of your company for at least the next 6–18 months. Study your fixed costs and other outflows. Scenario-plan for various reductions in revenues/inflows over this period or longer, e.g. what happens if your business falls by 30%, 50%, 70%? Once you have performed this analysis, consider what counter-measures to put into place to protect the business. For example, look at your contract terms with suppliers, service providers, subcontractors and see whether it is possible and practical to terminate or amend them. Look at the options to re-finance or re-structure your loans and leases. Consider any potential employment measures to cut wage costs. Diversify / pivot your business to find new clients, projects, or activities.
For more information, we highly recommend that you visit the PwC Estonia COVID-19 website for advice on how to manage your business through the crisis. Other helpful resources can be found on the London Business School website, and at e-Residency Marketplace service provider Gate to Baltics’ website.
The e-Residency team also strongly recommends that if you anticipate that your business will experience financial difficulty as a result of the crisis, that you speak to your service provider for counselling and to mutually find a solution.
We also recommend that you use any downtime caused by the crisis productively, e.g. upskill, take online courses, write project and fundraising proposals, and take time for things you never have time to do, like revamping your website or writing.
And we would love to hear about your experiences. Please comment below the effects COVID-19 has had on you personally and in your business — what are the pain points, where do you need support, what are the opportunities, have you made changes to your business strategy or pivoted to take advantage of new opportunities, what information would be helpful from us to you, etc? | https://medium.com/e-residency-blog/e-residency-update-4-on-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-3a1f832f42c5 | ['Hannah Brown'] | 2020-04-06 07:50:28.067000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Estonia', 'E Residency', 'Startup', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
XR2020… missed?. 2020 a year that has probably changed… | 2020 a year that has probably changed the life of many. starting with a fear of a WW3, unexpected death of stars, royalty leaving the palace, elections, and a pandemic.
A pandemic that has forever changed the game for everyone. Schools became online, work was halted, people were furloughed or fired, some businesses we loved had to close down, weddings and celebrations of close people had to be missed, travel ceased, and people passed away.
However, within the darkness and turmoil that 2020 brought with the pandemic, one thing became apparent: Our universal need for connection!
It’s not all bad though!
2020 might sound a bit too grim, but a lot has happened!
SindyXR grew! we found that we are more than ever needed and demanded by businesses that had to stick to calls and zoom, by missed interactions with colleagues, missed jokes, work opportunities, collaboration chances, and the loss of creativity over structured meetings of traditional channels.
SindyXR is able to create a glimpse of hope for businesses who don’t want to risk the health of their employees but want them to still have the culture from the work office.
The chance to meet in VR, seeing the documents and tools you’ve worked on for so long reflecting in your virtual office in a meeting with your colleague’s avatars sounds like a futuristic technology but it is here right now with SindyXR!!
For next year, at SindyXR we are working and aspiring to provide you with:
Virtual offices will grow into skyscrapers combining the water cooler moments and the best of meeting rooms.
Virtual Health clinics where you can see your doctor without moving out of your place.
Clear visualization of your data and an easier more productive work environment
So what are your aspirations for the upcoming year?!
Share your thoughts with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook below
Stay safe & happy holidays!
Sincerely,
Sindy | https://medium.com/@controls-52936/2020-missed-a633217bc57 | [] | 2020-12-24 13:13:19.964000+00:00 | ['2020', 'Oculus', 'Reflection', 'VR', 'Xr'] |
Moving Beyond Command And Control | Moving Beyond Command And Control
Political language. . .is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind George Orwell
2020 on reflection, was a great year for hierarchy.
In the early stages of the pandemic the ability shown by organisations to mobilise emergency health care, communicate messages, shift people to remote work, was a testament to the power of decisive command systems.
Following that we saw a new era of community innovation begin, reminding us of the power of social connection. People began supporting and caring for one another locally, with community led groups popping up to address immediate needs in ways many organisations simply couldn’t. ‘Let communities adopt a common sense approach’ was the defining narrative.
That seems a long time ago.
How have we have moved so quickly from celebrating the power and ingenuity of communities to blaming those same communities for recklessness and not following rules?
Some of the very same people (I’m talking social entrepreneurs and activists) who rightly attack the disempowering effects of command and control in organisations have begun to support, and even applaud, the politicians and the media in what has essentially become a behaviour of victim blaming.
An element of hierarchical control is necessary in an emergency. It’s what gets things done and keeps us safe. There are people who are naturally good at creating systems, protocols and rules rather than building relationships based on trust. These people are necessary for a functioning society, as without them we wouldn’t enjoy the health, safety, food, construction and consumer standards that we have.
However, what we have begun to see is people , not just politicians, who like rule making a little bit too much.
And the natural reaction of the rule maker when people start breaking the rules is not to redesign them, or seek to understand why, but to issue yet more rules.
We know from the basics of design thinking that if the rules don’t match up with people’s experience and desires they create another way. Humans are endlessly resourceful and can always find a loophole.
Why do people break the rules?
Firstly, there are those who do not know what the rules are or who haven’t paid attention. These are the kind of people who get caught doing 35mph in a 30 zone. Importantly, when guidance changes over time and in different areas they are likely to get more confused and break the rules without even knowing.
Then there are those that don’t think the rules are important. This group are unlikely to experience a negative impact for breaking the rules. They aren’t necessarily selfish, it’s just if you don’t have personal experience of something, you minimise its importance. If I was 20 and still thought I’d live forever, I’d probably have been partying in Ibiza over the summer too.
The third group, and I’d suggest these are a tiny minority, are the active rule breakers. The kind of people who won’t wear a mask to a make a demonstrable social point. Have a tiny bit of sympathy though, they are merely trying to exert some personal control in a world where they feel they have none.
The vast majority of us are in the first camp. We might have broken the occasional rule but it’s because we are confused, we forgot or we’ve interpreted them to suit our personal circumstances.
Design thinking is all about understanding how people actually behave rather than how they say they do. It’s this that all the Government(s) in the UK seem to have been completely blindsided by.
And this is the weak point of command and control systems — they can never be user focussed and understand life at street level. At no point since March has there been any input from the public. At no point has there been a democratic conversation about what COVID means for our communities and what a proportionate local response should be.
I think one of the big challenges of 2021/22 will be renewing faith in grassroots innovation after a prolonged period of control and risk management. Some of us will resist loosening our grip.
As Simon Penny said on Twitter the necessary task for 2021 is to take forward the belief in the power of communities to look out for each other and get stuff done. Only by delegating resources and decision making to them will we kickstart the economy again and solve problems at a local level.
We need to thank the people who put the rules in place that kept us safe and healthy. But as soon as the pandemic is over we need them to step back. Rules tend to stick around for a long time after they have ceased being useful. Control systems are never easy to dismantle and their proponents never give up power easily.
Thwarting other people’s control is bad for us and society — as ultimately, it limits our own control.
Communities are decisive, creative, aware, caring and trusting. They’ll make mistakes but they’ll get along OK in the end.
Communities are self motivated, often reckless and need a high degree of control. Left to their own devices they can become a danger to themselves.
In 2021 we all need to get off the fence and state which one we truly believe in, and make that world a reality. | https://medium.com/@paulitaylor/moving-beyond-command-and-control-cdbef96f9704 | ['Paul Taylor'] | 2021-01-12 09:51:11.318000+00:00 | ['Innovation', 'Change Management', 'Leadership', 'Business'] |
The Overt and Covert Power of the Biggest Silicon Valley VCs | Power comes in many flavors. For example, relational power differs from structural power. Relational power exists when one player can influence others’ moves in the game. Structural power, by contrast, is the ability to influence the rules of the game itself. Relational power is about individual decisions; structural power is about the agenda, the rules, the exceptions, and the context in which decisions are made.
Relational power helps to obtain goals in stochastic situations; structural power affects who has what goals and what situations are likely to arise in the first place.
In Silicon Valley, the wealth and renown of the biggest VCs obviously give them relational power. They can attract the best graduates and dazzle promising founders.
The more interesting question is how the biggest VCs can influence the outcome before the race has even been announced. What kind of structural power accrues to the biggest Silicon Valley VCs?
Too Big to Fail?
CBInsights’ list of the eight VC firms with the highest-rated partners approximates the industry’s best and biggest. Seven are located in Silicon Valley, so we’ll consider this subset.
All VCs together invested $136.5 billion in US-based companies last year. The seven top VCs in Silicon Valley manage $112 billion, with Sequoia alone managing $38 billion. Losing any of those firms could jeopardize the system that has nurtured the unparalleled US tech sector over the last four decades.
GDP is another telling indicator. Silicon Valley’s $535-billion output accounts for nearly a fifth of California’s $3-trillion economy. Were it a country, California’s GDP would be the world’s fifth largest. Germany is number four, so if one industry accounted for a fifth of Germany’s economy, what would Germany, the EU, and the world do to prop it up?
That’s structural power: before any discussion about regulation or taxation even begins, certain topics are untouchable, certain outcomes are unthinkable, and everybody involved knows it.
Owning the Food Chain
Omnivores, like bears, pigs, and humans, have an advantage: we can find food anywhere on the food chain. From microscopic algae up to big game, it’s all energy to us.
Similarly, the biggest VCs can exploit opportunities at all levels of the startup food chain, each with its own benefits in terms of structural power.
Sowing seeds…
Recently, market-leading VCs have been showering cash upon seed-stage companies. They have the resources to comb the field of startups, detect the most promising, and to disperse cash widely. It’s the carpet-bombing approach to investment. Hit-or-miss funding might seem like the opposite of a strategy, but there is method in their madness:
Spreading cash among many highly promising early stage companies gives leading VCs an edge in follow-on rounds, crowding out the competition and co-determining the timing and participants of later rounds. VCs benefit from the fine-grained information they obtain from board seats, and carpet bombing yields the big VCs information about entire strata of startups that new incoming investors can only — at best — obtain with difficulty later.
The distribution of board seats is stark. The seven top Silicon Valley VCs have 105 board seats on average. By contrast, the seven most active VCs in Silicon Valley founded in the last year, which are naturally much smaller firms, have only three seats between them. Board seats provide information; bigger, older firms have more board seats; ergo, the incumbents own the information. Investing is path-dependent. Each decision locks in trajectories and affects future decisions. Therefore, participating early allows investors to influence events for years to come. Each valuation depends on the previous valuation. Each dilution depends on the previous cap table. An early term sheet can affect expectations for several rounds to come.
Pruning weak limbs…
A startling question recently appeared on Reddit. A VC was asking whether to participate in a follow-on round of a languishing startup. Surprisingly, maybe half of the responses suggest reinvesting and losing money … on purpose.
The question is unintelligible without reference to the norms of VC investing. Failing to reinvest in a follow-on round is a faux pas, potentially branding the VC as a fair-weather friend. Losing money on a dud can still be cheaper than losing access to future deals.
The biggest VCs, however, are less sensitive to reputational costs. If Mom&Pop VC make some decisions perceived as selfish, founders might stop taking their calls. By contrast, Peter Thiel could eat pickle and chocolate pizza naked on Instagram live without losing access.
In mid-stage follow-on rounds, most VCs do what they must; the biggest VCs do what they want.
Harvesting the fruit.
Having more capital lets the bigger VCs participate in later rounds, which yields a few advantages:
As a startup progresses through funding stages, chances of failure decrease and chances of a successful exit increase. A 5x return on a billion-dollar investment is 500 times larger than a 10x return on a million-dollar investment. Big wins achieved rapidly in later stages score a higher IRR than the same gains spread over many years.
But that’s not structural power. No, the biggest VCs can make unicorns and decacorns by shepherding strong teams through the hurdles of scaling. Making unicorns can change the game.
For example, venture capital has pushed SpaceX from a near-unicorn ten years ago — already an expensive investment — to a valuation of $46 billion, soon to become $100 billion. Such growth has fuelled the impression that space is set to become a trillion-dollar industry.
By taking SpaceX from unicorn to decacorn, big, early investors like Founders Fund have generated not only returns, but an entire sector attracting remarkable buzz and money. This new sector is ripe for further carpet bombing, and strong inflows of capital promise continued growth.
The success of big firms’ investments becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Creating decacorns lets the biggest VCs do more than harvest returns from a growing industry. It allows them to mould expectations about which industry is likely to grow next. They’re not just making plays in the market; they’re shaping the market in which everyone else is playing. | https://medium.com/@scale-up-vc/the-overt-and-covert-power-of-the-biggest-silicon-valley-vcs-f9d65c41bab0 | ['Scale-Up Vc Blog'] | 2020-12-15 18:54:00.485000+00:00 | ['Unicorns', 'Power', 'Investing', 'Silicon Valley', 'Venture Capital'] |
5 Reasons To Plan Your Finances In Your 20s | Several surveys and research studies conclude that young adults are better with their money when compared to Boomers and GenX.
But, are they after all?
Ironically, it is the Millennial and GenZ population that keep hitting the snooze button on financial goal planning like no others.
When we have a whole life ahead of us, it sure is a far shot. Why hurry or worry about the future, right?
Wrong!
When it comes to making way for healthy financial habits, the sooner you start, the better it is!
Well, well! That’s pretty old school, cliché advice. How do we put all those ideas into action?
Worry not, we’ve got you covered.
To spur you into action, you need a purpose; a strong one at that.
When you find your WHY, you won’t hit the snooze button anymore.
To help you discover your WHY, we explore 5 compelling reasons for planning your finances early on.
Brace yourself for some jaw-dropping insights and real-world use cases on how effective planning can create wonders.
We’ll also let you in on some secrets to unlock financial freedom, if you will.
Without much ado, let’s dive right in to find out.
Reason #1: You can achieve ‘Big Goals’ with extreme ease
Small amounts today could turn big even before you realize it.
As you sow, so you reap.
Saving or investing small amounts “smartly” on a monthly basis is sure to reap its fruits in the long-run.
Starting early helps you get a much better grip on your big financial goals.
Remember the key lesson from the rabbit-tortoise parable?
It is small steps taken consistently that help you win.
Note that ‘Big” here either indicates your dream goal or high ticket-size goal.
By big financial goals, we mean, buying a house, saving for retirement, saving for a child’s future, saving for higher education, and the likes.
Let’s understand how a simple financial plan can make a sea of difference.
Note that in all the examples mentioned, Inflation is accounted for in all calculations.
Brace yourself for some mind-boggling calculations. Don’t worry, we did the math for you!
Meet two colleagues who earn the same money and have the same big goals. They both aspire to buy a house by 2023.
Let’s follow their journey towards their goal.
Meet Ramesh!
He prefers the old school way and does the planning all by himself.
He has around 10 Lakhs in savings in 2020.
He typically invests that in an FD or the likes.
By 2023, he then takes a home loan of ₹50 Lakhs to buy a house worth ₹62 lakhs.
He ends up paying an EMI of around ₹50,000 for 15 Years.
This amounts to a total of around ₹ 1.04 Cr including the loan interest.
Now meet Suresh!
He too wishes to buy a house.
But, he is smart and prudent. Naturally, he uses MoneyPlanned to plan his finances.
He uses the Planning Wizard on the MoneyPlanned App.
He then finds out that by investing ₹ 20,000 per month till 2023, he can save up to ₹21 lakhs for a down payment while continuing the FD.
The loan amount is reduced to ₹ 41 Lakhs.
Thereby, he ends up paying an EMI of just ₹40,000 for the same 15 Years.
If he invests the remaining ₹10,000 every month in a SIP, it would grow to ₹50 Lakhs!
The total cost of the house is reduced to ₹96 Lakhs including the interest rate.
The effective expenditure is only ₹46 Lakhs.
That’s the difference a simple yet effective plan can make.
It is the little changes that one makes that make such a huge difference.
MoneyPlanned is here to guide you through the entire process so you do not have any regrets about your money.
That’s the power of starting early. That’s the power of effective planning.
Reason #2: You can build a better lifestyle and future
Popular wisdom tells us that aspiring for an elevated lifestyle while we are still young is the last thing a financially smart person does.
If we had to, we’d say that is a load of gibberish.
Financial smartness is not about penny-pinching, sacrificing and compromising. True financial smartness lies in starting early.
Achieving your goals and living an elevated lifestyle can very well go hand in hand with smart choices.
Smart choices coupled with consistency can achieve incredible results over time.
Let’s understand this with a case study of two friends.
Meet Ramya and Saumya.
Ramya starts investing when she is 25.
She starts investing ₹5,000 per month is a SIP as of now.
Every subsequent year, she tops it up by ₹500.
By the time she is 55 years old, Ramya would have hit the jackpot by earning an awesome ₹1.3 Crores.
Sadly for Saumya, realization dawns a decade later upon her and she begins her SIP when she is 35.
By the time she is 55 years old, she would have earned only ₹35 Lakhs.
That’s the massive difference starting early can create.
It’s a 3.7 X less than the wealth Saumya amassed.
Starting her investments in her 20s gave Ramya a humongous edge over Saumya. She can hence
You have the power to decide what you want to do with your money.
Your future depends on the choices you make today.
Reason #3: You can do more fun things with your money
Remember your bucket list from college?
Wasn’t it full of exciting endeavors and adventurous activities?
Of course, you bet!
Sadly, once the daily grind of life sets it, it tends to make us compromise on our dreams.
But, does it really have to? We think not!
Financial planning is worth our while when it makes our life more joyful and fun.
Smart planning frees up more money for you to fulfill your dreams.
With more money in your pocket, what once seemed far-fetched becomes attainable.
Let’s meet with Raghu.
Raghu earns ₹1 Lakh per month.
He has always dreamt of owning a cool car to go on trips with his friends.
Let’s take a look at how his dream goal would pan out if he were to buy it immediately with no planning vs started a year in advance. | https://medium.com/moneyplanned/5-reasons-to-plan-your-finances-in-your-20s-cc7c5457e6d3 | ['Nikhila P'] | 2021-01-03 07:44:32.868000+00:00 | ['Investing', 'Financial Planning', 'Financial Goals', 'Personal Finance', 'Money Management'] |
Why Do Machine Learning Projects Fail? | 1. Establish a Baseline at The outset
I hate how machine learning projects start in most companies. Tell me if you’ve ever heard something like this: “We will create a state-of-the-art model that will function with greater than 95 percent accuracy.” What about this: “Let’s build a time series model which will give an RMSE that’s close to zero.” Such an expectation from a model is absurd because the world we live in is indeterministic. For example, think about trying to create a model to predict whether or not it will rain tomorrow or if a customer would like a product. The answer to these questions may depend on a lot of features we don’t have access to. This strategy also hurts the business because a model that is unable to meet such lofty expectations usually gets binned. To avoid this kind of failure, you need to create a baseline at the start of a project.
Establish a Baseline by looking at business metrics or current model performance. Source: Pixabay
So what is a baseline? It’s a simple metric that helps us to understand a business’s current performance on a particular task. If the models beat or at least match that metric, we are in the realm of profit. If the task is currently done manually, beating the metric means we can automate it.
And you can get the baseline results before you even start creating models. For example, let’s imagine that we’ll be using RMSE as an evaluation metric for our time series model and the result came out to be X. Is X a good RMSE? Right now, it’s just a number. To figure that out, we need a baseline RMSE to see if we are doing better or worse than the previous model or some other heuristic.
The baseline could come from a model that is currently employed on the same task. You could also use a simple heuristic as a baseline. For instance, in a time series model, a good baseline to aim to defeat is last day prediction, i.e., just predicting the number on the previous day and calculating a baseline RMSE. If your model is not able to beat even this naive criteria, then we know for sure your model is not adding any value.
Or how about an image classification task? You could take 1,000 labeled samples, have humans classify them, and then human accuracy can be your baseline. If a human is not able to get a 70 percent prediction accuracy since the task is highly complex (perhaps there are numerous classes in which to classify) or the task is pretty subjective (as in predicting emotion based on a person’s face), you can always automate the process once your models reach a similar level of performance as a human.
Try to be aware of the performance you’re going to get even before you create your models. Setting some pie-in-the-sky, out-of-this-world expectations is only going to disappoint you and your client and stop your project from going to production. | https://medium.com/swlh/why-do-machine-learning-projects-fail-9fefb287a66d | ['Rahul Agarwal'] | 2020-09-07 18:06:44.741000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Startup'] |
Machine Learning Sports Betting on the NBA Season (Before the Bubble) | The NBA is the most rapidly changing American sport with the transition to prioritizing 3-point shooting and playing at a much faster pace than before. For this reason, the data from seasons further past start to hurt the model’s performance. The key insight I discovered in order to increase its accuracy was to use a rolling average of the previous 3 games for each statistical category and only train the model on the previous 2 seasons.
Performance
Lets get right to the good stuff. This is how the model performed:
Low point: -$1479 | High point: $1776 | End profit: $1412
After losing $1400 in the first few weeks, the model rebounded immediately to its highest point of $1776 only a few weeks later, and then starts to fluctuate at a more reasonable pace. I’m happy with the results, having profited $1400, but the model is more volatile than I’d prefer. There are a few tweaks we can make in the future that might help minimize this risk.
Betting Assumptions
Firstly, I found my odds data from this site. While most matchups pass the eye test for the better team being favored, I haven’t vetted the odds against other Vegas data.
Secondly, the model bets on every single game instead of identifying potentially favorable bets. I foresee this as a change that could increase its profitability the most because we’re sometimes risking $100 to make ~$2 for heavy favorites. For example:
The prediction column is labeled True for a predicted home win
And these are some of the dumb bets that we lost. For reference, the first row would have been a $3 profit, but we lost $100.
If the predictions and homeWin columns are different, its a wrong pick
But we did recoup those losses with upsets. Here are the model’s biggest upset picks! I’d like to thank the Memphis Grizzlies for the $1100.
Here’s how each team performed for us:
View the original interactive version here
The Data
Let’s start from the beginning. Our machine learning model can only be as good as the dataset available to us, one of the reasons why I love to use sports data so much. This domain has some of the best data keeping, dating back further than most industries.
Approach to the Problem
Our goal is to predict NBA games and place informed bets on them. There’s 2 facets to the data that we need: (1) historical statistical data for the games and (2) Vegas odds data.
For the first component, basketball-reference is the authoritative resource, alongside the official NBA stats page. I used the sportsreference API to take every stat from every box score for as many past seasons as I like and put that data into a pandas dataframe. There are over 70 potential statistical features to utilize for prediction.
I found the odds data at sportsbookreviewsonline. I’m not certain exactly how accurate these odds data are, but they pass every sanity check I’ve made where the clearly better team is always favored. Here’s another simple check — the below table shows the top 10 positive correlations to a home win:
The home and away odds are on opposite sides of the correlation spectrum and line up with the proper team winning so our data pass another eye test.
Feature Selection
The next step is to decide which statistics — aka features — we’ll include in our prediction model. One point of concern is that there is a high level of multicollinearity among the features, meaning they are very interconnected and are not stand alone independent variables. This means that we won’t have much explanatory power in our model to inform us of which feature is the most important for winning, but we’ll still be able to make powerful predictions. Below is the heatmap for the correlations among each feature.
All the darker blue and white spots represent highly correlated features. The way we’re going to mitigate the multicollinearity is twofold: (1) Use Principal Component Analysis, an unsupervised learning technique, to select our features for us, and (2) create a pipeline of several types of models for which we can compare and contrast performance based on changes made upstream. These two techniques will be explained explicitly later in the project.
Data Transformation
We have a very important step to take before finalizing our features. Since our model will be making predictions, we need to transform the data to match what we would have access to at the time of prediction. Since we are working with historical data, we could wrongly use data from Jan 2 2018 to help inform our model on a prediction about Jan 1 2018. This would lead to more accuracy. However, when we implement our model into the real world it can only use data available at the time to make a bet on a game.
Match Features vs External Features
This paper by Rory P. Bunker and Fadi Thabtah in 2019 was my biggest help in framing the solution. They’re focusing on soccer, but this same concept applies:
External features are known prior to the upcoming match to be played. For example, we know the distance that both teams have traveled and we know both teams’ recent form leading into the upcoming match. Match-related features however, are not known until the match has been played. Thus, we only know an average of these features for a certain number of past matches for these teams. For example, we would know the average passes made per match by both teams prior to the match, but do not know the actual passes made in the upcoming match until after it has been played. This means that only past average statistics for these features can be used to predict an upcoming match. Therefore, match-related features should undergo a separate averaging process before being re-merged with the external features.
So our match-related features are the box score statistics, but I also included a couple external features that were exempted from the transformation: the total win-loss record for each team at that time, and the Vegas odds. I considered using location, but I used the stats as home/away splits so I think home court advantage is well represented already.
Applying the Transformation
Now let’s put this idea into practice. Currently, each row of data represents a box score of a completed game with all the home and away features, as well as the result.
There are more than 70 columns, this is just a snippet.
As discussed, we don’t have access to that information when predicting, so we’ll transform each statistical feature to become the rolling average of the previous X games for each team. The first X games of each season are dropped since there isn’t enough information. Another note: the rolling average is from the previous X home or away games for that team. This accounts for teams’ road vs away performance but could lose some performance where a team is playing their first home game after many road games and vice versa.
Since we need to decide on what number to use for the previous X matches, we’ll need to write a function that transforms our data so that we can change the value of X and see how it performs downstream when we test the model’s performance. This concept is crucial to every aspect of a machine learning project and is referred to as a pipeline. When all decisions and assumptions that are made are not hard-coded, but are more like knobs that can be turned, we can twist several of them until our peak model performance is reached.
This particular function to transform this dataset was perhaps the most technically challenging task up to that date for me. But now, when I revisit the code, it seems so obvious and simple. That about sums up the entire experience of learning to code. Here it is:
This function takes 2 arguments: (1) a pandas dataframe that in this case represents all the box scores from one NBA season and (2) the num_games to use for the rolling average. It iterates through home and away columns separately, then for each stat finds the corresponding team’s last num_games performance, averages them, and replaces the current value with that average. It also drops any games from the beginnings of seasons that don’t have enough data. Therefore, when game day arrives in real life, the data the model uses to make our prediction on that game is identical to that which it was trained on. However, because we’re dropping the first few games for each team when we don’t yet have enough information, we currently have to wait until a few weeks into a season to start making picks, another potential weakness of the model. Here’s a snippet of what a row looks like afterward:
Scaling the Features
Now that our features are transformed, I’m going to use a scalar from scikit-learn, one of the most versatile and popular data science python libraries. Scaling is a statistics method that transforms all values in a column to be relative to one another, reducing the effect of outliers. I think our odds data is the only feature here that might be prone to having outliers, and I’ve identified a few, but we’ll scale them all anyway, because there’s not much downside.
Dimensionality Reduction
Now it’s time to address the multicollinearity of our features, the fact that each stat is very interdependent on one another. For example, points scored, 3 pointers made, and 3 point accuracy are far from independent of each other. A team with a high point total will probably have more 3 pointers made and higher accuracy. Therefore, we have a lot of redundant information. It probably doesn’t matter much in this case since we have plenty of memory and computing power to handle this dataset, but imagine if for example we were working with a billion rows of Twitter user data — we’d need to be as practical as possible with our memory.
Thankfully, there’s an unsupervised learning algorithm called Principal Component Analysis (PCA) that will easily reduce dimensionality for us. We can run the algorithm and plot the explained variance of our features versus the amount of features used. The explained variance is essentially the amount of potential prediction power gained from the data.
As seen above, at around 30 features we start to have some redundancy in our features, but I kept 40 just to be safe. In a simple line of code we can apply this transformation:
Now that our data is in the exact shape and manner we need for predicting games, let’s get to it! We’ve created a pipeline so that we can easily create a variety of models with a couple lines of code and compare their predictive accuracy.
Defining Accuracy
Now we have to think about what it means for our model to perform well. If the model bets on heavy favorites all the time because they are most likely to win, we are essentially competing 1v1 against Vegas oddsmakers, and that’s never worked for anyone. However, we do have access to the odds before tip-off, so they are included as one of the features to help mitigate this. It’s not a perfect solution though, because odds aren’t the objective reflection of probability to win. Vegas uses odds to try to split the betting population in half, and make money off the rake. In other words, they’re like a poker table at a casino — they provide the environment and financial backing to play, but make their money off the service fee for winning a bet. If our model favors only picking games correctly, it could fall victim to losing big on upsets and never recouping those losses with our own upset picks.
Anyways, I could run circles in my head all day (and have) about the best way to define what an accurate model would be, but I decided to create a baseline first and iterate from there. We still will focus on true/false for a correct prediction. With the inclusion of odds and our thoughtful transformation of the statistical data we should at least have a good place to start making picks.
Creating and Comparing Models
When I got this far into a machine learning project for the first time, I didn’t anticipate that all the hard work had already been done. These models have already been coded out by teams of geniuses, and all we have to do is feed it the proper data. Obviously that is an oversimplification, but the sentiment remains true. As this project becomes more nuanced, I’ll start to use more advanced ways of tweaking these models’ settings, called hyperparameters, but again these are already perfectly functional for our baseline.
Here are the results of the accuracy of each model:
We had decent performance! 66% accuracy in picking games seems like something we could use profitably. Naive Bayes is definitely the leanest, most simple model, so it’s encouraging how well it performed, and makes it easy to pick it as the baseline to iterate from. There are millions of words printed about the pros and cons of each model, their best use cases, and so on, so I’ll leave that for more technical publications.
Money Earned
Let’s calculate the money we (hopefully) won! Remember, the model was only trained on previous seasons, and only used data it would have had access to if I had really implemented this model at the beginning of the season.
After losing $1400 in the first few weeks, the model rebounded immediately to its highest point of $1776 only a few weeks later, and then starts to fluctuate at a more reasonable pace. I’m happy with the results, having profited $1400, but the model is more volatile than I’d prefer.
I think this is a great starting point to iterate from, as we have several areas we already know where to improve, but the model’s performance is definitely acceptable. My goal is to implement these improvements, test many different variations, and have a betting model ready for tip-off of the 2020–21 season!
Moving Forward
These are the top priorities: | https://medium.com/swlh/machine-learning-sports-betting-on-the-nba-season-before-the-bubble-bd6509be7e35 | ['Wade Johnson'] | 2020-09-30 17:26:55.735000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'NBA', 'Sports Betting', 'Sports'] |
Bones & World-Class Copywriting: The Perfect Mix | I found myself in Rome in 2010. In the Roman Catacombs to be exact. It was an experience of a lifetime
I remember one part vividly. There was a group of skulls and bones. Child size. Next to them was a sign. It read…
We were once like you are. And you will soon be like we are
At first I didn’t quite understand it. Then it hit me. Fuck. I’m going to die one day. This is going to be me at some point in my future. Hopefully in 80 years, but who knows…
It was the first time I’d contemplated my death. I was 20. It was freeing…
If you tell me stories about mortality. If you tell me stories about Memento Mori. If you tell me stories about living life to the fullest — I’m yours
It’s in my DNA. Those topics make every cell in my body fire. It’s what I’m hooked to
They may not be your topics of choice however for stories to tell. Therefore, I’m not for you…
There are stories, themes and pillars that your ideal readers, listeners, audience and potential clients resonate with
Know these stories. Know how to communicate them magically. And you’ll have them hooked
Stories. They’ve stood the test of time. Dismiss them in your copywriting at our own peril
Journaling Prompt: what fictional stories do my ideal clients resonate with? What movies and books did they grow up with that they have an attachment to? What experiences are playing out in their own daily lives that I know about and can speak to? What stories are they telling themselves about themselves and about life I can speak to?
Nick Maier
@nickmaier__ | https://medium.com/@nick-maier/bones-world-class-copywriting-the-perfect-mix-fb05811656b5 | ['Nick Maier'] | 2020-12-02 20:05:43.960000+00:00 | ['Words', 'Copywriting Services', 'Copywriting', 'Marketing Strategies', 'Copywriting Tips'] |
Supporting Calculated Risks for Women Engineers and Technologists | Image property of NBC NY
Everyday we wake up to multiple priorities, challenges and responsibilities. As a mother and a remote worker, my life is currently the same juggling act that many of you are probably attempting. But each morning when I wake up, I make a point not to simply leave my dreams on my pillow. My career and my life have shown me that the key to supporting and retaining women engineers and technologists is teaching them to dream big and take intelligent risks while staying grounded with the realities of life.
Finding my path
I was born in the western part of India, in the state of Gujarat, to an engineer dad and microbiologist mom. Growing up, I always looked to my mom as a role model for breaking through with a career of her own while balancing home life with work. She taught me the value of independence and organization, and she made me a lifelong learner with those little newspaper clips she would post at my study table, highlighting important messages. Even now, she is still leaving me those inspiring notes, in the form of links on WhatsApp.
Growing up in India, I had my first real tastes of responsibility taking, and eventually leading, Himalayan camping and hiking trips. On a trek to the Bhrigu peak, I found I had a cool head under pressure when some of our party got left behind. I took charge, kept everyone calm and reunited our group on that snow-covered mountain.
These trips were a risk my family allowed me to take. So often we protect ourselves and our children (especially our daughters) from risk, but my family knew I could handle it, and having my leadership skills tested gave me tremendous confidence. I rely on that confidence and leadership today — I remain calm in the “war room” during critical situations, remaining collected and in control thanks to experiences like these.
The only real mistake? Not trying
My life so far has taught me that on the path to following our dreams, the occasional wrong turn is inevitable. The only real mistake you can make is to get off the path entirely. For example, while I was always good at math and logic, I didn’t arrive at computer engineering right away. Yes, I took summer classes to learn languages like BASIC (don’t laugh, it was hot and happening back then!), but when the time came to choose between engineering and something new, I chose management and computer application training. It took coming to the U.S. to realize that computer engineering was my true calling, and I worked hard to catch up on what I missed during undergrad in order to pursue it.
I took a risk in 2002 when I moved from Ohio to California to be with my husband, just as the internet bubble had burst. I had a job I loved with Qwest Communications, and I asked if I could work remotely from California for this midwestern company. It was unprecedented to have a junior engineer work remotely, but I asked anyway, and received tremendous support from my leaders. They trusted my potential and placed a bet on me, and I learned another valuable lesson — always ask, do not assume. After all, the worst that can happen is a simple no.
Now, I find myself in a work environment which supports intelligent risks and powerful dreams and has enabled my husband and me to start the family we have always wanted. In work and in my life, I often think of our CTO Suresh Kumar’s simple principle for navigating risk. He always encourages us to know how big the “blast radius” is for our big bets. When there is clarity of data and purpose, the blast radius can be well understood, making it easier to take that risk. I have applied this principle more than once this year in making some really big and bold decisions with Walmart’s experience tier architecture. I hope that by sharing some of my experiences and my path with you has made it easier for you to weigh such decisions in your own life and career.
Handling life’s variables
Engineers know that when you write code, you start small and then extend your function. Who I am today is a result of many, many extensions. Of course, now we are in the era of multi-variable testing, changing multiple things at once and making sure you have instrumented to cleanly read results of both variables. But, luckily, life isn’t always just like coding, and when I have the luxury of taking things one variable at a time, I do, especially when it comes to my family and my career. | https://medium.com/@aanan/supporting-calculated-risks-for-women-engineers-and-technologists-bd6f36b924a4 | ['Aanan Contractor'] | 2020-12-17 00:18:09.354000+00:00 | ['STEM', 'Leadership', 'Women In Tech'] |
Machine Learning in Astronomy | Machine learning in Astronomy — sure it sounds like an oxymoron, but is that really the case? Machine learning is one of the newest ‘sciences’, while astronomy — one of the oldest. In fact, Astronomy developed naturally as people realized that studying the stars is not only fascinating, but it can also help them in their everyday life. For example, investigating the star cycles helped creating calendars (such as the Maya and the Proto-Bulgarian calendar). Moreover, it played a crucial role in navigation and orientation.
A particularly important early development was the use of mathematical, geometrical and other scientific techniques to analyze the observed data. It started with the Babylonians, who laid the foundations for the astronomical traditions that would be later maintained in many other civilizations. Since then, data analysis has played a central role in astronomy.
So, after millennia of refining techniques for data analysis, you would think that no dataset could present a problem to astronomers anymore, right?
Well… that’s not entirely true. The main problem that astronomers face now is… as strange as it may sound… the advances in technology.
Wait, what?! How can better technology be a problem? It most certainly can. Because what I mean by better technology is a bigger field of view (FOV) of the telescopes and higher resolution of the detectors. Those factors combined indicate that today’s telescopes gather a great deal more data than previous generation tech. And that suggests astronomers must deal with volumes of data they’ve never seen before.
How was the Galaxy Zoo Project born?
In 2007, Kevin Schawinski found himself in that kind of situation.
As an astrophysicist at Oxford University, one of his tasks was to classify 900,000 images of galaxies gathered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey for a period of 7 years. He had to look at every single image and note whether the galaxy was elliptical or spiral and if it was spinning. The task seems like a pretty trivial one. However, the huge amount of data made it almost impossible. Why? Because, according to estimations, one person had to work 24/7 for 3–5 years in order to complete it! Talking about huge workload! So, after working for a week, Schawinski and his colleague Chris Lintott decided there had to be a better way to do this.
That is how Galaxy Zoo — a citizen science project — was born. If you’re hearing it for the first time, citizen science means that the public participates in professional scientific research. Basically, the idea of Schawinski and Lintott was to distribute the images online and recruit volunteers to help out and label the galaxies. And that is possible because the task of identifying the galaxy as elliptic or spiral is pretty straightforward.
Initially, they hoped for 20,000–30,000 people to contribute.
However, much to their surprise, more than 150,000 people volunteered for the project and the images were classified in about 2 years. Galaxy Zoo was a success and more projects followed, such as Galaxy Zoo Supernovae and Galaxy Zoo Hubble. In fact, there are several active projects to this day.
Using thousands of volunteers to analyze data may seem like a success but it also shows how much trouble we are in right now. 150,000 people in the space of 2 years managed to just classify (and not even perform complex analysis on) data gathered from just 1 telescope! And now we are building a hundred, even a thousand times more powerful telescopes. That said, in a couple of years’ time volunteers won’t be enough to analyze the huge amounts of data we receive.
To quantify this, the rule of thumb in astronomy is that the information we collect is doubling every year. As an example, The Hubble Telescope operating since 1990 gathers around 20GB of data per week. And the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), scheduled for early 2020, is expected to gather more the 30 terabytes of data every night.
But that is nothing compared to the most ambitious project in astronomy — the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). SKA is an intergovernmental radio telescope to be built in Australia and South Africa with projected completion around 2024. With its 2000 radio dishes and 2 million low-frequency antennas, it is expected to produce more than 1 exabyte per day. That’s more than the entire internet for a whole year, produced in just one day!
Wow, can you imagine that!?
With that in mind, it is clear that this monstrous amount of data won’t be analyzed by online volunteers. Therefore, researchers are now recruiting a different kind of assistants — machines.
Why is everyone talking about Machine Learning?
Big data, machines, new knowledge… you know where we’re going, right?
Machine learning.
Well, it turns out that machine learning in astronomy is a thing, too. Why?
First of all, machine learning can process data much faster than other techniques. But it can also analyze that data for us without our instructions on how to do it. This is extremely important, as machine learning can grasp things we don’t even know how to do yet and recognize unexpected patterns. For instance, it may distinguish different types of galaxies before we even know they exist.
This brings us to the idea that machine learning is also less biased than us humans, and thus, more reliable in its analysis. For example, we may think there are 3 types of galaxies out there, but to a machine, they may well look like 5 distinct ones. And that will definitely improve our modest understanding of the universe.
No matter how intriguing these issues are, the real strength of machine learning is not restricted to just solving classification issues. In fact, it has much broader applications that can extend to problems we have deemed unsolvable before.
What is gravitational lensing?
In 2017, a research group from Stanford University demonstrated the effectiveness of machine learning algorithms by using a neural network to study images of strong gravitational lensing.
Gravitational lensing is an effect where the strong gravitational field around massive objects (e.g. a cluster of galaxies) can bend light and produce distorted images. It is one of the major predictions of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. That’s all well and good, but you might be wondering, why is it useful to study this effect?
Well, the thing you need to understand is that regular matter is not the only source of gravity. Scientists are proposing that there is “an invisible matter”, also known as dark matter, that constitutes most of the universe. However, we are unable to observe it directly (hence, the name) and gravitational lensing is one way to “sense” its influence and quantify it.
Previously, this type of analysis was a tedious process that involved comparing actual images of lenses with a large number of computer simulations of mathematical lensing models. This could take weeks to months for a single lens. Now that’s what I would call an inefficient method.
But with the help of neural networks, the researchers were able to do the same analysis in just a few seconds (and, in principle, on a cell phone’s microchip), which they demonstrated using real images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. That’s certainly impressive!
Overall, the ability to sift through large amounts of data and perform complex analyses very quickly and in a fully automated fashion could transform astrophysics in a way that is much needed for future sky surveys. And those will look deeper into the universe-and produce more data than ever before.
What are the current uses of machine learning?
Now that we know how powerful machine learning can be, it’s inevitable to ask ourselves: Has machine learning in Astronomy been deployed for something useful already?
The answer is… kind of. The truth is that the application of machine learning in astronomy is very much a novel technique. Although astronomers have long used computational techniques, such as simulations, to aid them in research, ML is a different kind of beast.
Still, there are some examples of the use of ML in real life.
Let’s start with the easiest one. Images obtained from telescopes often contain “noise”. What we consider as noise are any random fluctuations not related to the observations. For example, wind and the structure of the atmosphere can affect the image produced by a telescope on the ground as the air gets in the way. That is the reason we send some telescopes to space — to eliminate the influence of Earth’s atmosphere. But how can you clear the noise produced by these factors? Via machine learning algorithm called a Generative Adversarial Network or GAN.
GANs consist of two elements — a neural network that tries to generate objects and another one (a “discriminator”) that tries to guess whether the object is real or fake-generated. This is an extremely common and successful technique of removing noise, already dominating the self-driving car industry. In astronomy, it’s very important to have as clear of an image as possible. That’s why this technique is getting widely adopted.
Another example of AI comes from NASA.
However, this time it has non-space applications. I am talking about wildfire and flood detection. NASA has trained machines to recognize the smoke from wildfires using satellite images. The goal? To deploy hundreds of small satellites, all equipped with machine-learning algorithms embedded within sensors. With such a capability, the sensors could identify wildfires and send the data back to Earth in real-time, providing firefighters and others with up-to-date information that could dramatically improve firefighting efforts.
Is there anything else?
Yes — NASA’s research on the important application of machine learning in probe landings. One technique for space exploration is to send probes to land on asteroids, gather material and ship it back to Earth. Currently, in order to choose a suitable landing spot, the probe must take pictures of the asteroid from every angle, send them back to Earth, then scientists analyze the images manually and give the probe instructions on what to do.
This elaborate process is not only complex but also rather limiting for a number of reasons. First of all, it is really demanding for the people working on the project. Second of all, you should keep in mind that these probes may be a huge distance away from home. Therefore, the signal carrying the commands may need to travel for minutes or even hours to reach it, which makes it impossible to fine-tune. That is why NASA is trying to cut this “informational umbilical cord” and enable the probe to recognize the 3D structure of the asteroid and choose a landing site on its own. And the way to achieve it is by using neural networks.
What obstacles and limitations lie ahead for machine learning in Astronomy?
If machine learning is so powerful why has it taken so long for it to be applied?
Well, one of the reasons is that in order to train a machine learning algorithm you need a lot of labeled and processed data. Until recently, there just wasn’t enough data on some of the exotic astronomical events for a computer to study.
It should also be mentioned that neural networks are a type of black box — we don’t have a deep understanding of how they work and make sense of things. Therefore, scientists are understandably nervous about using tools without fully understanding how they work.
While we at 365 Data Science are very excited about all ML developments, we should note that it comes with certain limitations.
Many take for granted that neural networks have much higher accuracy and little to no bias. Though that may be true in general, it is extremely important for researchers to understand that the input (or training data) they feed to the algorithm can affect the output in a negative way. AI is learning from the training set. Therefore, any biases, intentionally or unintentionally incorporated in the initial data, may persist in the algorithm.
For instance, if we think there are only 3 types of galaxies, a supervised learning algorithm would end up believing there are only 3 types of galaxies.
Thus, even though the computer itself doesn’t add additional bias, it can still end up reflecting our own. That is to say, we may teach the computer to think in a biased way. It also follows that ML might not be able to identify some revolutionary new model.
Those factors are not game-changing. Nevertheless, scientists using this tool need to take these into account.
So, what comes next for machine learning?
The data we generate increasingly shapes the world we live in. So, it is essential that we introduce data processing techniques (such as machine learning) in every aspect of science. The more researchers start to use machine learning, the more demand there will be for graduates with experience in it. Machine learning is a hot topic even today but, in the future, it is only going to grow. And we’re yet to see what milestones we’ll achieve using AI and ML and how they will transform our lives. | https://medium.com/365datascience/machine-learning-in-astronomy-dfe48f20f786 | ['Data Science'] | 2020-01-31 08:16:14.980000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Science', 'Astronomy', 'Data Science', 'Data'] |
Teaching Ethics and Moral Philosophy in Prison, Part 1 | Image courtesy of Utah Department of Corrections
I recently began teaching social ethics and moral philosophy at Utah State Prison through Salt Lake Community College’s Prison Education Program. This is a program in which qualifying inmates can take courses toward a General Studies Associate’s Degree, which puts them on good footing to earn a degree from SLCC once they are released.
I’ve been assigned a class from the men’s general population. I have about 20 guys in the class. Most are white, 3 are Latino, 1 is Samoan, and one is black. The majority have never taken a college course before.
It’s a challenging experience in the sense that they literally challenge everything I say. This also makes it an intellectually rich experience (from my viewpoint, of course, though it seems from the feedback that I’ve received that they feel the same), although it’s incredibly exhausting since I get to the prison in the evening after teaching all day at a university. They all seem hungry for this stuff and enjoy arguing with me and each other. The only heated arguments I’ve had to moderate are between the Christians and the atheists (the few Buddhists or pagans haven’t jumped in much as of yet).
I haven’t asked any of them why they are there and for how long, and none of them have volunteered any of this information. I have a human curiosity of course, but have figured it is not my place to inquire, and would serve no real pedagogical purpose anyway. I said on the first day that they would be free to share any personal experience or perspective, and there has been some of that.
Most of them are affable and curious and engaging. If it weren’t for their all white-clothing and the look and feel of the class room being obviously inside a prison, it would feel like an average night class for working adults.
The prison structure itself is depressing and I never look forward each week to navigating all the security checkpoints and making my way into the bowels of the gray, stark, metal, and concrete complex framed by barbed wire, guard towers, rooms with bars and handcuffs, sliding electronic metal doors, and guards. Just the look and feel of the prison itself tells you that that this place is designed to keep inmates from leaving and that they will suffer while they are at it. The aesthetic communicates that any personal improvement and rehabilitation are accidental at best.
As mentioned, I’ve only been doing this for a few weeks, but perhaps the main thing that stands out is their willingness to consider other perspectives. Not just any perspective (see Christians vs. Atheists) but various ways at looking at moral dilemmas. They are good at mulling things over, turning them over in their minds, playing with ideas in the most intellectual sense of that verb. This is no doubt at least in part due to the long periods of meditation and thought that forced confinement generates in extreme disproportion.
The only time I felt uneasy was when one of them asked me what I thought of prisons generally. In my mind’s eye (and somewhat hyperbolically) I can see all of them leaning forward intently, preparing to weigh what I would say next as acceptable or not. I said that I was still educating myself about prisons and prison reform, but it seemed to me that prisons, like the death penalty, were instruments of revenge and punishment, and nothing else. To my relief, they appeared satisfied with this response. | https://medium.com/@JacobTBaker/teaching-ethics-and-moral-philosophy-in-prison-part-1-6c002176236b | ['Jacob Baker'] | 2019-02-04 22:38:02.051000+00:00 | ['Moral Philosophy', 'Prison Education', 'Ethics', 'Prison', 'Prison Reform'] |
I’m fragile. | I’m fragile.
I get emotional easily.
I can’t cry though,
My tears seem to have dried out.
But I still get very emotional.
Something inside me crumbles every time I see your picture.
Sometimes it’s a happy feeling,
Like I’m glad you exist and I get to notice you.
But sometimes,
You can even hear the shattering of my heart as it breaks because no matter how intense the feeling might get,
No matter how many details I know about you,
How many minutes of your voice I listen to,
You don’t know me.
You can’t say you love my voice,
Or the color of my eyes,
Or even my smile,
Because you haven’t seen it yet.
You haven’t met me yet.
But I see you,
And even though I can’t cry,
My soul does it for me.
At first it’s a proud tear of how far you’ve come.
But then I get nostalgic and I think,
“How is it possible to miss someone I’ve never met in person?”
It feels like I have, though,
But you haven’t.
You don’t know me and I’m not as an importar part of your life as you are of mine.
And that brings me pain.
Because I want to be one of the reasons you smile,
I want to be able to hug you and make you laugh,
To give at least a portion of happiness like you give to my life.
So I’ll keep hoping,
That one day, sure enough,
Our paths will cross,
Our eyes will lock,
And my heart will shatter no more. | https://medium.com/@a00826892/im-fragile-ceab82c5eb83 | [] | 2020-12-23 21:58:06.834000+00:00 | ['I Miss You', 'Idols', 'Heartbreak', 'Heart', 'Poetry'] |
Why Expansion of Consciousness triggers the Sh*t out of us | Source: Depositphotos
“Man, I feel like sh*t again. Does this ever stop?” When we go through our expansion of consciousness, we sometimes feel like being caught up in the neverending story. In line with the intense energetic frequency shifts we experience on the planet we go through deep waves of exhaustion, frustration, fear and nothing seems to make sense anymore. Why?
Shifting frequency is fastly done on the energetic level of higher consciousness. This is what often is referred to as shifting into another dimension. What we tend to forget ist that all of our existence: the mental, the emotional and the physical body need to come along, too. And that takes time. Every time we step out of our comfort zone, we cause this process to be set into motion. We can either choose actively to take that step, or prolong and avoid it until the law of attraction does us that favour and delivers us the necessary trigger and situation that kicks us out.
The step into the uncomfortable, into the fear zone triggers a cognitive dissonance followed by an (unwanted) emotion. This is the necessary basis for an energetic frequency shift. It basically shows us where we are still blocking ourselves from unconditional love. Each time we go through such a trigger, there are always two processes running in parallel:
1) Releasing of old Frequency Patterns that do not fit that new Level
The step out of our comfort zone naturally causes an energetic friction between different frequencies within us. Old fear frequencies we still hold in our bodies are surfacing to be let go of. They show up in form of emotions we feel. When we allow ourselves to feel them without being afraid of the pain, without going into the drama or letting our head create a story around it, we shift it quickly. Treating emotions as energy without any interpretation keeps us in our power and in the moment. We feel the old pain and then let it go. We go deep, but feel lighter afterwards.
“Treating emotions as energy without any interpretation keeps us in our power and in the moment. We feel the old pain and then let it go. We go deep, but feel ligher afterwards.”
Depending on which body is cleansing the sensations feel different. The mental (home of the ego/masculine) and emotional body (home of the inner child/feminine) are not as dense as the physical body (embodiment of the energetic frequency band we are currently in/spirit). Releases from the mental body just come in form of “thought garbage” — thoughts that fly by without being able to really grasp them. That is very often experienced in Reiki sessions, as it is the easiest and quickest level to cleanse. The emotional body releases in forms of feelings. They come suddenly and can be quite explosive, and they often feel like the complete overwhelm. The physical body releases from the cellular memory and that takes a lot more time due to its higher density. The releases feel more like pulling out chewing gum. The emotions and thought patterns that come up for release feel subtler and yet go much deeper. It is a deep aching, almost like recalling a past life memory that becomes very real in that moment. In addition to that, old chronic disease flares up, also a final purging of old patterns. This is no fun, and yet it is necessary and important to allow it to be there and to not try to suppress or fight it.
2) Integrating new Information of the new Frequency Band (Dimension)
The second process is that our bodies are integrating new information and are forming new pathways to operate on. We are rewriting the script by taking in the new data. Our bodies are upgrading and learning to maintain the higher frequency band we intend to fully shift into. Also here, the integration of information of the different bodies happens in different speeds depending on the density.
“The whole energetic strucure needs to change to be able to handle the new frequency permanently. That really means to rebuild everything.”
The whole energetic structure needs to change to be able to handle the new frequency permanently. That really means rebuilding everything. Also here, the physical body needs longest to restructure its whole geometry and integrate the DNA upgrades (data / Light codes) we are receiving when we are outside of the comfort zone. The mental body experiences sudden insights and aha moments, where all of a sudden everything is crystal clear and makes total sense. The emotional body experiences unconditional love for the first time through the heart and it can be completely overwhelming and emotional in a beautiful way, feeling connected with all that is energetically. The physical body is integrating new DNA information and changes in behavior, form and structure. Shape shifting is a common thing to observe. As the body is now able to take in more and more light, the form of the eyes changes, weight changes, cravings change, the skin color changes, hair growth intensifies etc. Along with that come tons of symptoms: Blurry eyes, spine pain, especially in the neck area, flu symptoms, especially a sore throat, ringing ears, heart palpitations, joint pain, nerves firing, migraines etc. The whole system is adapting to be able to handle the new frequency and that is far from comfortable. (Of course… because we are outside of the comfort zone…)
The Chaos in between
When we go through these releases and upgrades, we experience a lot of chaos. We are in the middle of two frequency bands and feel that nothing makes sense anymore. We don’t understand what is going on, we feel hopeless, useless and crappy. Although these phases are uncomfortable, they are a necessary part of the process and cannot be avoided. We are recalibrating, reforming, restructuring. The old structures are dissolved, so that the new structure can form. Until we are able to fully hold the new frequency because we have restructured our whole system to handle it, we are experiencing these intense periods of chaos and overwhelm. And that is the feeling like “Sh*t” part that is necessary.
“Although these phases are uncomfortable, they are a necessary part of the process and cannot be avoided. We are recalibrating, reforming, restructuring.”
To make it a bit more tangible, let’s look into Cymatics. Cymatics is the visualization of different sound frequencies (measured in hz). When you put sand on a plate that vibrates to the different sound frequencies coming out of a loudspeaker, geometric patterns form and change. Between two frequency bands, the sand corns are reorganizing and go into chaos. The higher the frequency, the more complex the geometry gets. Looking at this we can understand much better, what is going on within our bodies when we shift our own frequency upwards. Just imagine how much longer that restructuring takes, when you don’t take sand but clay instead (to kind of compare it to our physical body). Our geometric patterns change, yet in between there is chaos. As long as we are not able to fully hold the new frequency, we fall back into chaos. Until we have completely restructured and built our new geometry.
This video shows this experiment beautifully.
So please be patient with your bodies / System when going through the shifts. There is a lot going on within that we cannot see, but surely feel and experience. It is all normal and necessary in order to go through our personal human evolution. Understanding how energy works and connecting with and empowering our inner child plays a vital role in our process. Patience is key, and we really need to become our own compassionate space holders, appreciating what our body does and goes through, in order for us to shift our experience.
The texts I share are always based in my own experience and observations. By no means I am claiming this to be the ultimate truth. I encourage everyone to find their own truth and to be open to it changing as new information integrates. As this is universal wisdom of us ALL, I do not claim any copyright. Feel free to utilize and share, as long as you keep the text complete as it is so it keeps its energetic signature. Thanks Vera | https://medium.com/@veraingeborg/why-expansion-of-consciousness-triggers-the-sh-t-out-of-us-714f2bcb2e76 | ['Vera Ingeborg'] | 2020-12-20 22:40:01.677000+00:00 | ['Emotional Triggers', 'Alchemy', 'Awakening', 'Consciousness', 'Shift'] |
Christine Locher | Bio
Photo by Paul Clarke https://paulclarke.com/photography/
I want to leave this place better than I found it, and use the time I have to make a positive difference. This impulse has been with me as long as I can remember, along with insatiable curiosity. The travel itch got me to live in 6 countries on 4 continents with longer trips in China and in India. Home is the UK, at least for now.
My academic background includes Communication, Intercultural Communication and Psychology with further studies abroad in Ecuador and Japan. A post-grad in peace and conflict research, and a postgrad certificate in systems thinking and a professional certificate in solution-focused business practice. My first career was in journalism (online, radio, newspaper columnist) and communication. I am a trained coach and facilitator, a licensed psychotherapist in Germany (HP Psych, trained in Client Centered work and Gestalt) and a Hatha Yoga and Inner Yoga (bodywork) teacher (trained in India and Europe).
Mind, body, spirit, from a variety of angles, always broadening and deepening my practice. Sometimes that is formal and based on hundreds/thousands of years of tradition like Mussar, and sometimes it is wild, wonderful and very eclectic. I get something out of all these experiences and I like sharing what I learn.
I love the business environment for its vibrancy, and for the chances it gave me as such an unlikely candidate starting out and starting over a few times. It proved the way out of the very narrow world I grew up in, into a more open, welcoming, diverse and international environment where there was (seemingly) space for everyone, including me.
There are, of course, also plenty of drawbacks to that world, so I want to bring body, soul and depth back to it. There is so much skill and energy in that space, and it could radically transform the world for the better if we could make this work in a way that works for everyone, not just for those with pre-existing privilege, and in a way that keeps our collective future on this planet in mind. I like this planet. It’s my home.
I like to find and connect dots, to go deep, and then I go out and do something with it in practice that helps move things in the right direction. “Too academic for real life”, “not fit for university — people like you are what vocational training was invented for”, “your next development step is out the front door” and “why are you not a professor, you’d be perfect for that” is what feedback sounds like when you cross boundaries back and forth and pitch your work tent in the liminal space. I like it there.
Here is what that looks like in practice right now in my own work: I have a portfolio. As a learning consultant, I help big organizations with their digital learning offering. I also run my own coaching and leadership development business where I work with individuals looking to regain some depth, and to find ways to then make a practical difference with it. A lot of them then start new businesses. This led to my work with start-ups where I support in making their aspirations real, in what they do and how they do it; and I invest in selected projects and organizations. I also write, speak at conferences and events, serve on a non-profit board and run communities of practice.
My sense-making involves writing things down. Partly because that’s how things come together for me, these ideas mix and ferment and then I distill it and share the “spirit” of it with a bigger audience. (My family has a hop farm and a distillery, some of that is still in my blood somewhere). Partly because it’s fun to play with words. An overview is here: https://christinelocher.me/writing/ This stretches from the serious (academic chapters/papers in various stages) to the practical (books and articles aimed at a general audience), to the whimsical (more creative formats). Some of it is also here on Medium.
When I am not doing all of the above, I train to be a craft beer expert, I knit, I enjoy making and experiencing art and I push the limits of what sorts of food you can make with a hot plate and a tiny oven. I try to be off-screen as much as I can and travel at every opportunity, near and far, on the outside and on the inside.
You can find me at:
https://christinelocher.me/
https://liordotart.wordpress.com/
https://twitter.com/ChristineLocher
or at info at christinelocher dot me | https://medium.com/living-in-systems/christine-locher-34a8fc54c8f | ['Christine Locher'] | 2020-12-06 15:28:20.684000+00:00 | ['Values', 'Biography', 'Change', 'About', 'Coaching'] |
Give Prison Labor the PETA Treatment | First, Stop Digging
The U.S. is stuck in a hole we haven’t stopped digging.
That America must come to terms with its past and atone for its sins against the African-American community is gradually sinking in across the nation, across barriers of age, race, and politics.
Slavery compromised American values. The Constitution made promises to the African-American community that it did not keep. And the sins of the father must be visited upon the son.
That isn’t a threat; it’s a warning, a serious scientific caution about the terrible power cause and effect: Be careful what you do today, actions have far-reaching, long-term consequences that will only be understood in the fullness of time. The innocent, those who come after you, might suffer the brunt of it.
And so it has proved.
Slavery gave rise to segregation and Jim Crow; which gave rise to red-lining and a perversion of the American criminal justice system which has resulted in a generation of young African-American men lost.
Wealth disparities between African-American families and their white counterparts are as insurmountable as they’ve ever been: The average African-American family has a net worth of $11,000; the average white family, $140,000.
We’re in a hole.
The despicable institution of human slavery dug the hole, Jim Crow and segregation made it deeper. Red-lining- the process by which African-American families were long denied access to mortgage loans and quality housing- and the “school-to-prison pipeline” dug it still deeper.
Our biggest problem isn’t the hole we’re standing in: We are still digging ourselves in deeper and deeper.
There is no question that there is plenty of room for reform, both in policing and in the American criminal justice system. That members of both political parties are currently, and ostentatiously, working on proposing solutions to these problems is heartening.
There is also no question that racism in America- reinforced through constant exposure to racist stereotypes in our culture, movies, television, books, art, and music- cries out for a mighty wave of anti-racism to sweep all before it.
But whatever the individual motivations of the police officer who killed George Floyd, whatever his personal beliefs, he is but a cog in a much larger and more sophisticated machine.
That machine is primarily running on something far less nebulous than racism: Money.
Prison Labor and For-Profit Prisons
The U.S. currently incarcerates more of its citizens per capita than any other nation on Earth. Either Americans are inherently evil, or something is amiss with our criminal justice system.
Something is amiss with our criminal justice system.
The “War on Drugs” did not curb drug abuse in the U.S. It did create a perverse incentive in the legal system to focus on drug crime. A police department and city government can seize assets in a drug bust: Money, real estate, property. Police departments awash in extra cash have used the excess to militarize their arsenals. Prosecuting violent crimes doesn’t pay as well.
There is another perverse incentive in our legal system as well: For-profit prisons and the prison labor system, which are now billion-dollar industries.
This is a terrible idea in a free-market economy because this is not a free-market idea.
It is modern-day slavery.
It is exploitative and the proof is in the pudding; the subsequent explosion in the U.S. prison population. The “Three Strikes” law passed in 1994 made it possible to imprison young, non-violent drug offenders for life.
The U.S. must stop incentivizing the imprisonment of its healthy young people. It has been a recipe for disaster. The U.S. didn’t end slavery: We outsourced it to our prison systems.* (*and to other countries.)
We must stop digging, immediately. And we can’t wait for politicians to do it for us. As a wise man once observed: “Cash rules everything around me.”
It is time to bring the power of the almighty dollar to bear on the U.S. for-profit prison and prison-labor systems. If we stop buying it, our fellow Americans behind bars will cost more to keep than they will to release.
With this strategy, we can use the free market for good. And the best news is, we already know how to do it.
PETA, those zany characters from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has shown us the way.
For years, PETA lobbied and finally succeeding in getting “not tested on animals” branding onto the products we know and use today. PETA keeps its members updated on which companies still test on animals, which companies have mended their ways, and which companies are “cruelty-free”.
We need cruelty-free labels for products not produced using forced labor.
There are many high-profile companies which have eliminated animal testing in the last few years; the “cruelty free” label has become highly coveted in today’s market. The campaign has done a great deal to stop animal testing.
Many of PETAs campaigns have been very effective. PETA’s “Fur is Dead” campaign is over- it was so successful, fur is now indeed dead. No one is buying fur anymore.
Wasting Earth’s limited resources raising animals for fur in a world where people are starving to death is morally questionable. Armed with this improved knowledge, consumers made better choices.
So too it would be with products clearly marked with “prison labor”.
America is in a hole of our own making. First, we have to stop digging. To do that, we must stop incarcerating so many promising young Black men in America. To do that, we have to stop making it so profitable to put them in jail and keep them there forever.
To do that, we must all stop buying products built on the backs of economically-disadvantaged people persecuted under an unfair and racially-biased system of exploitation and perpetual suffering.
No company wants that on their label.
Prison labor has been marketed to companies as the “best kept secret” in business: Let’s spill it.
(contributing writer, Brooke Bell) | https://medium.com/discourse/give-prison-labor-the-peta-treatment-fe80df6d6643 | ['Dr. Munr Kazmir'] | 2020-06-19 21:57:20.082000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Racism', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Criminal Justice Reform', 'Prison Reform'] |
How to setup Distributed MinIO Cluster on Kubernetes | Distributed MinIO Kubernetes Architecture
Distributed MinIO provides protection against multiple node/drive failures and bit rot using erasure code. As the minimum disks required for distributed MinIO is 4 (same as minimum disks required for erasure coding), erasure code automatically kicks in as you launch distributed MinIO. With the highest level of redundancy, you may lose up to half (N/2) of the total drives and still be able to recover the data.
A distributed MinIO setup with m servers and n disks will have your data safe as long as m/2 servers or m*n/2 or more disks are online.
Note: MinIO creates erasure-coding sets of 4 to 16 drives per set. The number of drives you provide in total must be a multiple of one of those numbers.
MinIO Kubernetes Architecture Diagram
The architecture of MinIO in Distributed Mode on Kubernetes consists of the StatefulSet deployment kind. The following lists the service types and persistent volumes used.
MinIO Services
Services are used to expose the app to other apps or users within the cluster or outside.
1. HeadLess Service for MinIO StatefulSet
2. LoadBalancer for exposing MinIO to external world.
Persistent Volumes
1. Dynamic | https://medium.com/@fazpeerbaksh/how-to-setup-distributed-minio-cluster-on-kubernetes-5227202a0048 | ['Faraz Peerbaksh'] | 2020-12-22 17:15:01.125000+00:00 | ['Kubernetes', 'Minio', 'Aws Eks', 'Azure', 'Gcp'] |
Muscle up your cybersecurity using Public Cloud | In early 2019, if you searched for the keyword « Clusif CSV » in bing.com, you gained access to a list of the names of some 2200 IT Security experts (and not the lesser of them).
An ordinary data leak ? Well, yes and no : the funny thing about this leak is that the targeted entity was the CLUSIF, the french Information Security Professionals Club, whose goal is to unite professionals (both vendors and client-side) in the cybersecurity space to exchange ideas, best practices and experiences. I have no doubt what the topic of the next gathering may have been…
Nevertheless, let’s not poke too much fun at this mishap. Cybersecurity in the digital, ultra-connected, open & mobile world is not an easy task.
In this context, is the public cloud today an aggravating factor, or, quite the opposite, an ally to better secure your Information Systems and your Data ?
The reflex of CIOs is still, most of the time, to think that security is stronger “on premises” — when their data & infrastructure is in their own, well known Datacenters. They tend to favor public clouds only for non-sensitive data & applications.
A page is nevertheless being turned before our eyes : a recent McAfee study shows that 63% of the IT professionals now consider the Public Cloud as secure as as their own infrastructures.
At Timspirit, we think that the 37% who argue the opposite are wrong ! Here’s why.
Because Cybersecurity requires huge investments
Cybersecurity and Data compliance have become so important and complex that it is difficult, even for large organizations, to stay up to date and invest in the massive know-how, systems, tools, knowledge required.
To highlight this point, look at Google investment in this area :
After Heartbleed (2014), Google set up a ZeroDay vulnerability discovery team. Google Project Zero, goes beyond covering Google’s own services & products. It contributes to identify major security vulnerabilities and to correct them before they become public knowledge
Google has given away no less than $3 million in 2016 in its Bug Bounty program, that aims at securing its services
All vendors are investing heavily in research, academia, open source project contributions and to promote the adoption of security standards (such as the generalization of the https protocol)
Within these large Cloud Services Providers (Microsoft, Google, AWS), between 600 and 800 experts & professionals are working daily to guarantee Datacenter & Infrastructure security. Who, even within the largest Fortune 500 companies, can claim to invest as much?
Think Compliance. Again, it is difficult to achieve certifications for the many, country-dependent certifications that may be required by regulatory authorities. Here’s a quick list of AWS certifications.
Again, how much would it cost to achieve and maintain certification of your own infrastructures up to the same standards?
Theses means are not enough, of course, to actually guarantee that no security breach will occur in the public clouds. But they offer a strong base layer that is hard to replicate in house — and it would be foolish not to leverage it.
Because the public cloud helps clarify your security model
The standard security model that has been proposed by a large majority of cloud Providers is a shared responsibility model : the lower levels are taken care of by the provider, the higher levels being the client’s responsibility. Depending on the service model, the threshold gets allocated differently. The higher the outsourced level of the service, the higher the supplier responsibility. Nice, isn’t it ? | https://medium.com/timspirit/muscle-up-your-cybersecurity-using-public-cloud-60263be68870 | ['Antoine Lagier'] | 2019-04-11 08:56:37.931000+00:00 | ['Cloud Computing', 'Public Cloud', 'Cybersecurity', 'Security'] |
Blogoloquy: model Types correctly and write less code, using akka-streams | A small note: I had published this article, a couple of years back, on Blogspot. Now that I decided to move to Medium, I thought of bringing it into Medium and give it fresh life, as it were. If you have read this already, you may want to skip it.
One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code.
— Ken Thompson
Keep your codebase smaller, wherever possible: Generations of greats in the world of computer science and programming have been reminding us about this little yet undeniable truth. A smaller codebase lends itself to simplicity, elegance, and readability — properties that the stakeholders love to have at their disposal. Usually, such a codebase is amenable to easier maintainability, and extensibility. Who doesn’t want to own such a codebase?
If we have to write programs that are simple to understand, we have to model the problem using appropriate and descriptive terms. It is my considered view that a well-modeled (i.e., its crux is understood) problem, leads to compact and resilient code. It is much easier to reason about. The verbosity of the language and accidental complexities of the technologies involved may bring in necessary planks and poles, but to an alert pair of eyes, the theme remains easily discernible. A beautiful codebase is a smaller codebase.
The case at hand
Allow me to take you through a greatly abridged version of a recent assignment I have been associated with. Shorn of all detailed functionality and quirks, what happens is this:
A player begins a session, chooses a game (quiz) — from several available — to play
The player answers questions one at a time
The Server, at the end of the game (all questions attempted), calculates and declares the total she has scored
The server updates / informs other important functional units, of a player’s accomplishments. Any number of players can play games simultaneously. The server has to keep up with this load. Those layers of HTTP, Websockets, Configuration, Database, Timers, Queues, and what have you: let’s ignore all of them here.
Focus on the interaction
On a closer look, what does the server do, when a player contacts it? Assume that the player has been duly authenticated already. Then, her interaction has two distinct parts:
Interaction 1
(START A ROUND)
Interaction 2
(PLAY A ROUND)
Let us try and describe the interactions in a manner that is terse, yet conveys the right meaning.
Modeling the interaction is the key
For every piece of data that reaches it, the Server keeps on transforming it through one or more steps (viz., help from other components or services may be summoned; inquire with a DB, for example) till it emits the resultant, final piece of data that is sent to the client. If we can identify each step, and identify what it transforms and to what, we can easily model how the whole server works! An aggregation of these steps is what leads to what models the Server.
An obvious first question is how do we identify these pieces? In the world of OO and Functional Programming, where I manage to reside (and so far, have not been evicted), it is quite natural to identify these pieces by their Types! Every step takes in a Type and gives rise to the same or different Type. Given this tenet, how can we represent the way the Server responds to the player?
The Type-borne behaviour
The diagram below elucidates the scheme of things. The rightmost box shows the transformations that are happening inside the Server.
In terms of Types, one way to describe the flow ‘Start A Round’ (above) is:
Let’s elaborate: stay with me
The logic of confirming the correctness of sessionID passed by the player (viz. is it existing and valid, or not), is encased in the transformer named sessionExistenceChecker. Because the server stipulates that every message reaching its shores, must have a valid sessionID, every message has to pass through sessionExistenceChecker. The important observation is this: sessionExistenceChecker understands SessionCarrier only. Therefore, in order to be recognized by the checker, every message must also be a SessionCarrier. In OO terms, every message entering sessionExistenceChecker must be subtype (IS-A) of SessionCarrier.
The other transformer is named guessNumberPreparator. Its job is to choose a number for the player and to associate that with a Round Identifier. The key understanding is that it can transform only what the preceding transformer — sessionExistenceChecker — produces. Thus, it has but got to be capable of consuming either of IncorrectSessionIDProvided and StartARound.
Summarising:
The key understanding, again, is that these are not values but Types! The actual (runtime) objects moving in and out of the checker may carry anything, but they must conform to these Types.
That’s it. We have the blueprint of the Server’s implementation of Interaction[1], available. Translating this into code — when implemented using Akka Streams — we get this:
val serverSays =
Source.single(StartARound(“A123”)) // A123 is a session id
.via(sessionExistenceChecker)
.via(guessNumberPreparator)
Now to the aforementioned Interaction[2]: when Player makes a guess, and the server gives her points for guessing correctly.
Recall that the Server ends the game after 3 rounds. The way error is handled is the same as that in the previous flow (StartARound). Also, the transformer SessionExistenceChecker is reused here. I am not detailing the flow of types and transformers for this flow, for space’s sake. The code segment that implements this flow is:
val serverSays =
Source
.single(GuessSubmittedByPlayer(
sessionID,roundID, guessedNumber)
)
)
.via(sessionExistenceChecker)
.via(roundCorrectnessChecker)
.via(guessedNumberVerifier)
.via(pointsAssigner)
.via(scoreBoardUpdater)
.via(currentScorePreparator)
.via(gameTerminationDecider)
.via(nextGuessGenerator)
That’s what our Server does, to implement Interaction[2]. That’s all there is to it, really!
An Akka-streams based implementation brings in many other benefits, However, the aim of this blog is not to explore and discuss, many and very useful aspects of Akka Streams. A number of blogs already exist which do the job very, very well (Colin Breck’s are here, my personal favourite), not to mention Akka Stream’s own site and numerous discussions on StackOverFlow. Therefore, I will rather bring your attention to other aspects of this approach of modeling:
Type is self-documenting: The constraints are obvious. If I want to know what do I need to gather before I can ask sessionExistenceChecker to flag me off OK, I have to look no further than the type it expects. Moreover, it is quite easy — in many cases straightforward — to translate this model into code.
The constraints are obvious. If I want to know what do I need to gather before I can ask sessionExistenceChecker to flag me off OK, I have to look no further than the type it expects. Moreover, it is quite easy — in many cases straightforward — to translate this model into code. Compiler helps to reduce defect : If we can model the pathway of processing of any message as a series of transformations, then the translation of the same in code becomes decidedly easier. if I am unmindful and pass a message which is not session-id-checkable, the compiler will block my progress with a grim message. A defect will be forestalled much before the code is readied for testing. That’s a substantial gain. Type-Driven Development, did you say?
: If we can model the pathway of processing of any message as a series of transformations, then the translation of the same in code becomes decidedly easier. if I am unmindful and pass a message which is not session-id-checkable, the compiler will block my progress with a grim message. A defect will be forestalled much before the code is readied for testing. That’s a substantial gain. Type-Driven Development, did you say? Code is small: If the model is clear, the code is small and crisp. The code does what the model depicts; nothing more, nothing less. No code exists, that has no reason to exist. Brevity matters.
Let me know what you think of such an approach.
All accompanying code resides here, on github.
(I work as a Principal at Swanspeed Consulting) | https://medium.com/@baatchitweet/blogoloquy-model-types-correctly-and-write-less-code-using-akka-streams-b9a8e11412f3 | ['Nirmalya Sengupta'] | 2020-12-23 11:58:30.335000+00:00 | ['Akka Streams', 'Type Driven Development', 'Code', 'Scala'] |
Applying a Racial Equity and Inclusion Lens to Collective Impact | Racial equity and inclusion are integral to collective impact’s core principles. Partnerships must make a commitment to applying a racial equity and inclusion lens throughout their work, in order to achieve equitable change for all people they seek to serve.
For far too long, systems’ leaders have taken a universal look at problems and have applied universal solutions without considering the unique needs of different groups of people — particularly people of color. In doing this, we miss critical opportunities to make a real difference in people’s lives and build more effective systems. In recent interviews with Steve Patrick (Aspen Institute), Michael McAfee (PolicyLink) and Ted Smith (City of Louisville), each agreed that aligning systems is a key strategy for creating enduring change. However, they cautioned that if structural racism and inequity are already woven into the fabric of our systems, then aligning systems only further perpetuates racism and inequity. Therefore, at the core of our collective impact work must be a commitment to racial equity and inclusion that is more deeply embedded in our solutions than racism is embedded in our problems. We believe that applying a racial equity lens is not an “add-on” to the work that can be applied “as needed.” It must be a driving factor in our practice, our process, our policy, and among our people.
A commitment to furthering racial equity should be central to our work. Racial equity is the outcome, and until we have figured out how to embed it in our work, we have to call race out explicitly in each of the collective impact principles below: a cross-sector table, a shared result, and feedback loops.
Equitable and Inclusive Cross-sector Table(s)
A cross-sector table made up of many partners is a critical element of collective impact. Doers and decision-makers from the public, private, nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors agree to hold themselves jointly accountable for achieving the population change they seek. When the composition of these tables does not reflect the diversity of the people they are aiming to impact, problematic assumptions inevitably become embedded in decisions about what problems to prioritize and how to best address them.
Having an inclusive cross-sector table is not about adding a few people of color to the mix so that the diversity box is checked. It is about making a genuine and consistent effort to include and engage leaders who are reflective of and rooted in the communities you aim to serve. Creating an equitable and inclusive table requires intentional effort to reach outside the typical social and professional circles from which partners are found.
Shared Result
The shared result is the enduring population change that a cross-sector table of leaders in a collective impact initiative agrees to achieve, and is measured against an indicator over 10+ years. To truly achieve a shared result, an initiative must focus their efforts across multiple outcome areas (e.g. education, health, housing, employment) and deliver on, or scale, a collection of strategies rather than a single program or intervention. The shared result is the driving force of collective impact, but requires patience and discipline to stay the course in an equitable and inclusive way. Two approaches are critical to success:
Disaggregating Data to Design Equitable Strategies
Since a disproportionate number of low-income people are people of color, there has been a lot of debate about whether or not race should be explicitly stated in shared results aimed at improving the lives of low-income people. Whether or not race is explicitly stated in the result, stopping at “all” when it comes to data and strategy design will jeopardize your partnership’s ability to develop targeted interventions that maximize your resources. Take our Integration Initiative site partners in San Francisco:
In San Francisco, their shared result is that over 1,500 former public housing households thrive in racially, economically, and socially inclusive communities.
To ensure they achieve this shared result equitably, San Francisco is disaggregating their data by race and ethnicity. This approach allows them to design strategies that raise the bar for all low-income families while also eliminating disparities among racial/ethnic groups.
Theo Miller, one of the co-directors for the initiative, said, “I can solve problems for low-income people in San Francisco and at the end of the day, still have no black people left.”
His statement is powerful in that it speaks directly to structural racism embedded in our institutions, and why our attempts to be race-neutral rarely have race-neutral outcomes. In order to achieve equity for all low-income families in San Francisco, they need to disaggregate the data to understand the unique conditions and progress for African-Americans, Asian-Americans, European Americans, Hispanic-Americans, etc. Disaggregating the data allows us to understand the magnitude of the problem for each group, and thereby develop more targeted and effective interventions.
Commitment to Behavior Change
Each member of the cross-sector table must also commit to working differently in order to truly achieve a shared result. Even as we are attacking big, seemingly intractable problems like structural racism and poverty, change begins with checking our personal biases, understanding how we contribute to racial inequities and exclusion, and holding our cross-sector table partners accountable to doing the same. It requires members of collective impact initiatives to create space to stay in open dialogue, to learn, understand and grow. As each individual builds his or her muscle for greater awareness and changed behavior, the cross-sector table of partners becomes stronger collectively and better able to influence systems and their leaders. The domino effect will ultimately bolster our ability to dismantle structural racism and lay a new, equitable and inclusive foundation upon which our systems can exist.
The key for the changed behavior in a collaborative arrangement is trust and relationship building, which we’ve written about in a number of previous blogs. A cross-sector table of partners must engage with one another to reinforce shared identity, develop connective tissue, and build strong relationships that imbue trust and support as they embark upon the collective impact journey of risk, reward, failures and successes.
Feedback Loops that Signal Progress Toward Your Shared Result
The feedback loop is a process that decision makers use to evaluate progress toward their shared result. Using data to learn “what works, what doesn’t work, and why” is critical to ensuring that we have the right strategies in place and we are executing them with fidelity. Simply put, data is information, and may be used at multiple levels and in multiple ways.
To begin, we must first understand the population condition and determine ways to monitor it. As we see trends emerge in the data, we need to conduct a root cause analysis to understand why. Take the cross-sector table of partners in San Francisco’s Integration Initiative who want over 1,500 former public housing households to thrive in racially, economically, and socially inclusive communities. To understand the current condition for low-income families and track progress toward the shared result, they conducted a root cause analysis on indicators around median household income, neighborhood diversity, life expectancy, (minority-owned) firms with paid employees, and percent of the population with a B.A. or higher.
It is crucial to understand the “why?” behind what the data is telling you. Why do those strategies work — or not — to move the needle on outcomes? For these households to thrive, we know that multiple parts of the system need to change: conditions for the families, communities, and region. To change these conditions, root cause analysis can help us take a serious look at the impact of structural inequities and systemic racism that impedes systems change. Feedback loops should not start and end with population data. Rather, feedback loops should be a part of the way members of a cross-sector table hold one another accountable and move the work forward. Understanding the landscape at a population level informs the strategies, activities, and policies that we choose to intervene on behalf of people and systems. Feedback loops should also monitor the performance of strategies to ensure that we are delivering quality services, products, information, etc.
The only way to truly understand the story behind the data is to engage with community members about their lived experiences. Too often, partnerships see services not utilized and make assumptions about why, or worse, blame the community for not “caring to make improvements” because they are not grounded in the cultural and historical context of the people they aim to serve. If racial equity and inclusion are built into the foundation of feedback loops, then our journey to the shared result and commitment to behavior change — although challenging — will be authentic and ultimately successful.
Racial equity and inclusion are integral to each of collective impact’s core principles. If a collective impact partnership is not applying a racial equity and inclusion lens throughout its work, then it is in grave danger of doing different things, but doing them in the same old way.
Angela Glover Blackwell says, “equity is the superior growth model.”
Focusing on communities who have traditionally been left behind in the quest for economic stability and opportunity is beneficial for all, and required for real and enduring change. | https://medium.com/race-us-movement-toward-closing-the-gaps/applying-a-racial-equity-and-inclusion-lens-to-collective-impact-5620d91f6644 | ['Janay Queen'] | 2017-07-12 14:15:02.322000+00:00 | ['Collective Impact', 'Philanthropy', 'Inclusion', 'Racial Equity', 'Data Science'] |
KIRA Network Token Metrics | As the public round of the KEX token distribution is soon to be announced, we will clarify the token economics and distribution schedule as the first step preceding the announcement in order to provide maximum transparency and to ensure that all token activities are predictable to all token holders.
Token Design
The native token of the KIRA Network is called KEX. The role of the native token is to act like a reserve currency in terms of which staking and transaction fee payments in other assets is valued. KEX can be used as the most optimal transaction fee payment mechanism, which is essential to prevent transaction spam. Holding KEX is one of the requirements to become part of the validator and governance set, and to take part in decision making processes, such as defining the inflation rate of KEX and interest rates for staking any of the tokens whitelisted by the governance system.
Depending on your future decision as a governance member, KEX can have both inflationary as well as disinflationary issuance mechanism. By steering all levers of the KIRA economy, you can optimize yield of all stakeholders and become part of KIRA Network’s success.
Token Metrics
KEX Allocations
ERC20 Placeholder
Before KIRA Network is launched, an ERC20 KEX token on Ethereum network will be issued to provide early access to the market. The initial supply of the ERC20 token will be 300,000,000 KEX. The ERC20 KEX is NOT a native KIRA Network token and will be swapped for the native KEX after the release of our mainnet. The 300M KEX tokens issued on the Ethereum network will be equal in their number to the initial token supply on the KIRA Network.
Token Distribution Terms
So far, KIRA Network has raised $3.6M in two prior rounds. The terms were as follows:
All seed and private round participants will receive ~2.5% of their token allocations in the form of ERC20 KEX after finalization of all stages of the public round distribution. The remaining allocations will be released over a period of 18 months starting at mainnet launch and are subject to the following terms:
Seed:
Amount: $300,000
Valuation: $0.025 / KEX plus value added
Distribution: starts on month 3 after mainnet, ends on month 18
Private:
Amount: $3,300,000
Valuation: $0.05 / KEX plus value added
Distribution: starts on month 1 after mainnet, ends on month 18
During all private rounds, early supporters were nominated for token grants under the condition to contribute to the development of the network — which will be further assessed before each token distribution event. Tokens allocated to the early supporters account for ~24.67% of the total initial KEX token supply. Full release schedule is further provided in the form of the distribution table.
Public:
Amount: $100,000 for Community Challenge Participants
Valuation: $0.075 / KEX for Community Challenge Participants
Amount $300,00 for Liquidity Auction
Valuation: ~0.000649 ETH / KEX discovered in Liquidity Auction
Distribution: 100% as ERC20, no vesting
KEX (ERC20) Contract Address: token.kira.network
Public round announcement
Public round summary
Tokens allocated to the public round are unvested and account for 1.78% of the total initial token supply. After finalization of the public round distributions, tokens will be simultaneously unfrozen at the date announced, including a minimum of 7 days prior notice to provide equal chances to all participants.
Public will also receive 5% of the total initial token supply that will be distributed through various liquidity and PR incentivisation events over a period not shorter than 14 months. Every month 1M tokens will be unlocked for the purpose of distributions to the community.
Token Allocation
Developers & Team (15%)
Vested over 24 months with distribution starting 16 months after mainnet
The long term commitment of the team is key for reaching a level of network maturity at which decentralization and government decisions can take over. The developers will contribute to the open source codebase of the KIRA Network and steer the early direction of the product. After full scope delivery, the on-chain contracting module will enable network governance to incentivise development without relying on any single entity contributing to further development effort.
Advisors (7%)
Vested over 36 months with distribution starting 18 months after mainnet
In comparison to industry standards KIRA Network decided to vest advisors over a considerable period of time. This ensures that advisors are fully aligned with the long term vision of the project.
Foundation (20%)
Vested perpetually and diluted over time
The foundation tokens will only be used for the purpose of delegations. Foundation will not hold or earn staking rewards. This implies that only 80% of the total initial KEX token supply will be ever liquid and available on the market.
Reserve & Liquidity (26.6%)
Vested over 16 months, unlocked at the rate of 4M KEX per month
The reserve and liquidity tokens will be used for the purpose of two sided market support to ensure long term sustainability of the market as well as bounties and other essential incentivisation programs in case where community token allocations would not be sufficient.
Token Distribution Model
Conclusion
After finalization of the public round, a total of 12,483,333 KEX tokens with an initial market cap of $936,250 (based on lowest public round price of $0,075) was released in the fully liquid form on the market, on November 27, 2020 at 3 PM UTC.
Until the mainnet launch, every one month 4M KEX of Reserve tokens and 1M KEX of Community tokens will be unlocked from the contract to support and incentivise liquidity. After the mainnet launch the above vesting schedules will be applicable to previously mentioned allocations. The mainnet launch will take place after audits and one month of the uninterrupted testnet operations. The full distribution table is available here
Telegram Channel: https://tg.kira.network
Announcements: https://ann.kira.network
Twitter: https://twitter.kira.network
GitHub: https://github.kira.network
Blog: https://medium.kira.network | https://medium.com/kira-core/kira-network-token-metrics-dc3484047c7c | ['Yuri Papadin'] | 2020-12-12 08:55:31.450000+00:00 | ['Defi', 'Interchain', 'Cryptocurrency News', 'Blockchain Startup', 'Blockchain Development'] |
Hiring a human | Last year I was given a huge opportunity by my manager. He offered me the chance to evolve from my Technical Writing role to that of a Technical Content Manager. The new role came with the promise of a small but growing team to lead. The plan was this; we’d start off with hiring one full-time Technical Writer, then an intern in Web Development (our help centers are online), and eventually we’d expand from there. As someone who’s flown solo most her career, I jumped at this opportunity. I had years of experience as a Technical Writer, and I had already been doing the role of Technical Content Manager without the title. I couldn’t wait to mentor a new Technical Writer. Bring it on.
As per company policy, we opened the hiring for the full time Technical Writing position internally first. Within one week we had three applicants.
Now something that’s worth mentioning here is that GSoft is a medium-sized company at roughly two-hundred-and-sixty individuals. What this means is that people know each other. I mean, even if I didn’t work directly with the applicants (which I did), I would have almost certainly had crossed them in the hallway at least once or had a chat in lunchroom.
This made it all feel, needless to say, a bit awkward.
I still remember speaking to my manager about it. Our conversation went something like this;
Me: “Hey, so I’m a bit worried”
Manager: “Why?”
Me: “Well X, Y, and Z applied to the position.”
Manager: “Yes, I saw. Do you think they could be good candidates?”
Me: “Yes, I think so. They’ve all expressed interest in Technical Writing and I think any of them could be good with enough mentorship.”
Manager: “So what’s on your mind?”
Me: “I’m worried about my bias. I know all the candidates pretty well. I don’t want that to impact how I evaluate them.”
Manager: “Do you think that’s a good enough reason not to consider them, and to consider an external candidate instead?”
Me: “No, of course not.”
Manager: “So let’s figure this out.”
Fast forward to the end of a brainstorm session that lasted almost an entire workday, and we had finally developed a plan.
Step 1: The Worksample
The worksample is a classic evaluation of skill, and it is where many candidatures begin and end. I’ve heard it from other hiring managers; all you need is a solid worksample followed by an interview to see if they’d be a good fit for the team. But I’m stubborn, and my need to ensure I was hiring without bias far outweighed my desire for a simple process. So thus, the worksample was just the beginning.
A bit of an unpopular opinion I hold as a Technical Writer turned Technical Content manager is that anyone can write, but not everyone can write technical documentation. Not only do you need to understand some pretty complex subjects, but you need to write about them in a way the audience can understand. Brevity, simplicity, empathy, and being devoid of personality are what champions your writing style in this field. It’s these factors that make it a challenging career for many writers.
A simple [writing] style is the result of very hard work. — William Zinsser
So my worksample did not focus on grammar or syntax. My candidates all had experience in writing in some form, so that sort of test wouldn’t tell me what I needed to know. My worksample focused on technical writing itself.
What I did was took real, messy, overly-technical, barely understandable release notes written by developers in the company, and told the candidates to reformulate them into release notes you’d publish externally for a real version release. There was no use pretending the candidates were not already familiar with our product, so this was a great way to see if they could use their understanding to decipher the notes and translate them into a list our customers could understand.
In consideration for their time, all candidates were given forty-eight hours to complete the worksample at home, then send it back to me via email.
Step 2: The Meeting with SMEs
GSoft runs an innovation lab that we call the GLab. This is a space where teams can develop new products. The lab functions like a Research and Development department, so it has its own office space behind closed doors. The products being developed aren’t necessarily a secret, but the rest of the company still has little exposure to them until they are released. This offered us a unique opportunity to have our candidates test out their skills on another important part of being a Technical Writer; interviewing SMEs (Subject Matter Experts).
We met with each candidate and explained to them that they would be meeting with a Project Manager and Developer from the GLab team. This meeting would last half an hour. Fifteen of those minutes would be spent by the Project Manager and Developer explaining a single feature from the product they are developing, and fifteen would be allotted to the candidate to ask questions. At the end of it, the candidate would be given another half-hour to write a short instructional document explaining the feature. On our side, we instructed the Project Manager to never give enough details, while Developer was instructed to give too many.
It was a play, yes, but one in which art would very much imitate life, as they say. The whole process would remain bias-free since none of the candidates had ever seen the GLab team’s product before (my manager gets full credit for thinking of that part).
So in each meeting, when it was the candidate’s turn to ask questions, I evaluated three key points.
Customer empathy
Did they have the customer in mind? For this meeting, we were waiting to see if the candidates would ask about the security of the feature. It’s something customers deeply care about, and would want more information on.
Information filtering
The candidates all knew they were writing a short instructional document after the meeting was completed. So I was evaluating to see if they stayed on point. Technical Writers often deal with deadlines, so you need to get the information you need, and get out. If a candidate began a tangent about a separate topic, or asked about a feature that wasn’t being discussed in the meeting, it was sign they might not have the mindset needed for the role.
A curious mind
Asking the wrong questions can be detrimental to getting the job done. Think of it this way, if you gather the wrong information, you’ll need to return to the SME and waste more time getting the info you missed. However, asking no questions is worse. We wanted our candidates to ask questions, be curious. If they asked no questions and tried to end the meeting after the Project Manager and Developer were done their fifteen-minute presentation, it was a bad sign.
Final Step: The In-Person Review
This step was the most difficult. I don’t say that lightly.
Imagine this, the candidates — these people with whom I have a professional working relationship with already — had now given me hours of their time and effort. To reiterate, they had written an in-home worksample, met with SMEs on a product they’ve never seen before, and wrote a short instructional document on said product.
And now my job was to meet with them one-by-one to review and possibly criticize their work, live and to their faces.
How the heck did we come up with that one, you ask? Good question! That conversation went something like this;
Manager: “So what’s one of your main concerns about hiring internally?”
Me: “I know all the candidates, they are used to working with me, will they be OK being led by me?”
Manager: “How do you mean?”
Me: “Well one of the most important aspects of this job is being able to receive constructive criticism gracefully. You get it all the time. You need to be able to realize it isn’t personal, and use it to fuel better work.”
Manager: “OK so let’s figure out a way you can criticize them to their face — it will be maniacal!”
OK, so that last part didn’t happen. But it sure did feel like that when he first suggested the plan for an in-person review. I ultimately realized that as a Technical Content Manager I’d be offering the future Technical Writer a lot of constructive criticism. And if I wasn’t able to sit in front of these candidates and do so professionally and respectfully, it would as much reflect on my ability to do my role as their ability to receive the criticism would reflect on them for their role.
So on we went. The first review was the hardest. Not because of the candidate. Believe me, they were professional. As I reviewed their work and suggested improvements, they nodded their head, showed interest, and gave no indication they viewed any of this as a personal attack. However the process of a face-to-face review felt foreign to me, and was exhausting all the same.
Once the review was finished, I thanked the candidate sincerely for their time, took notes, discussed the results with my manager, put my laptop on my desk, went to our office’s “quiet zone”, lay down, and took a nap at work for the first time in my life.
The next two reviews were easier for me. Maybe it was the nap, or maybe it’s how the brain magically post-processes information in just the right way, but I felt more confident and got into the flow of it — without the nerves.
Ultimately, seeing how the candidates reacted to me giving them feedback and constructive criticism on their work was a valuable piece of the puzzle. This new role would shift our working dynamic, so this was a crucial step in hiring without bias.
In case you are wondering how I avoided the bias of my own perception on the situation, I had invited my manager to sit-in on all the reviews to observe our interactions. I would then measure my observations against his to ensure that we both had perceived things the same way. | https://medium.com/gsoft-tech/hiring-a-human-73c6ed5e0e66 | ['Alexandra Gifuni'] | 2019-10-29 15:53:01.707000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Recruiting', 'Communication', 'Hiring', 'Management'] |
The patriarchal Mexican board | March 11th, 2020
Hope you are having a great week and welcome back to our brief thoughts on ESG. This week I’d like to share with you an article Damian and I co-authored on gender equality in Mexican boards.
What do Mexican corporate giants Grupo Alfa, Grupo Mexico, Televisa, Alpek, Grupo Elektra, Grupo Carso, Coca Cola Femsa, ASUR, Gruma, Cuervo, Peñoles and Megacable have in common? Well, as of 2019 none of them had women in their board, and they are a full third of the of 35 top companies in the Mexican Bolsa’s IPC index surveyed by Miranda ESG/IR. This puts Mexico behind other countries.
In the US all 500 companies in the S&P 500 have had since July 2019 at least one woman board member. Overall, about 9% of board seats in Mexico of the top listed companies in 2019 were taken up by women in 2019, versus 27% in the USA.
Some of the names on the men-only boards are not especially surprising. Grupo Mexico, Grupo Carso, Grupo Alfa and Peñoles are traditional mining and industrial companies, run by patriarchs for generations now. But it’s surprising to see media company Televisa and consumer goods players such as Coca Cola Femsa and Gruma in the same list. Whatever the controlling families’ personal views on gender balance, it would seem a fairly obvious public relations blunder in 2020 to exclude a little over half the world’s population from the company’s ultimate decision-making body.
And kudos to Santander Mexico (45%) and Wal-Mart de Mexico (35%) for having over a third of their board female. Indeed, Santander Mexico went a step further this year and brought Laura Diez Barroso in as chairman of the board. A number of studies have shown that board representation of women needs to move to about 30% for a strong positive impact to be felt.
There are at least four reasons why Mexican companies should have more women in the boardroom.
First, it’s the right moral and ethical to do, irrespective of the consequences. Mexico’s own code of ethics for large businesses recognizes this.
Second, it’s more likely than not to improve decision-making at the board level by bringing another viewpoint, and one that may have useful insights into women employees and customers by sharing a common gender experience with them. By some measures, women account for 70%-80% of consumer purchasing, and so you would think it is important to understand them. An often-quoted study of about 20,000 companies around the world by the Peterson Institute of International Economics showed that “an increase in the share of women from zero to 30 percent (in top management) would be associated with a 15 percent rise in profitability”. A recent, excellent report by Bank of America (“Womomentum”), March 2020, shows that companies with a high proportion of women in leaderships positions have higher valuations, and better profitability.
Third, more and more institutional money is linked to ESG factors, of which gender balance in the board is a fairly easy one to measure. If you want to attract such money, it makes sense to avoid appearing to be misogynistic in a way that is impossible to hide. (As board representation is public, it’s the first thing a Norwegian ESG fund is likely to look at.) Goldman Sachs no longer will take US and European companies public that do not have a women board member.
Fourth, mandatory female representation may soon become law in Mexico. Quotas for female board members is already in the law in Norway, Denmark, Finland, and even California, among many other places. There are at least two initiatives in Mexico’s Congress (one from PRI, one from Movimiento Ciudadano) which are pushing for a similar rule in Mexico, according to press reports.
As none of this is especially new, and most large Mexican listed companies are fairly sophisticated, why do they not push harder for female representation? The standard argument from the companies is that experienced women board members are hard to find. Given that qualified board members often need to be former top executives of companies, and not many women make the executive suite (only 8% of CEOs, 10% of Executive Committees, and 16% of VPs in Mexico are women, according to McKinsey), there is obviously some merit to that argument.
That said, raising female board representation may help break the vicious cycle, by having board members pushing harder for women’s promotions, and acting as role models. And as if each of the top 35 IPC had two women board members, and there was no overlap, we are only talking about 70 women board members in a country of nearly 130 million. (As it there is plenty of overlap; both Blanca Treviño of Softec (Walmex, Bolsa) and Laura Diez Barroso (GAP, Santander) are on at least two boards of IPC companies.
Of course, composing the perfect board is more than about obtaining some semblance of gender balance. Clearly qualifications of each board member are key, as is their complementarity with each other. That aside, the number of board members, how many other boards do board members sit on, age balance, tenure limitations, independent/family balance should play a role too in composing the perfect board. Here the data is harder to come by, as not all companies provide ages, tenure, and their definitions of independent and non-independent directors are somewhat subjective.
A board of more than 20 people is probably too big. The average in Mexico is 13, which is about right. However, companies with boards that are likely too big include Femsa (20), Arca Continental (20), Grupo Televisa (20), Grupo Bimbo (18). With respect to multiple board representation, Claudio X. Gonzalez L. (age: 85), notwithstanding his brilliance and superb business track record, is on 5 boards of the top 35 list (Grupo Carso, Bolsa, Kimberly-Clark de Mexico, Alfa, Grupo Mexico). Also on five boards are Ricardo Touche, Fernando Ruiz, and Armando Garza Sada. With respect to women, apart from Laura Diez Barroso, Blanca Treviño is on the board of two companies (Wal-Mex and BMV).
The average age of a Mexican board is 65 which strikes us as too high, and average tenure is 12.5 years, which seems too long. Overall Mexican boards need to be younger and turn over their people more frequently and more genuinely independently. At America Movil, Mexico’s second largest company after Wal-Mex, one board member is 90 (David Ibarra). At the other extreme the only female board member Vanessa Hajj is 22, presumably only just graduated, and is the daughter of the CEO and grand-daughter of the Honorary Chairman, Carlos Slim Helu. About half of the board members are classified as independent; this is probably a little misleading as many independent board members are part of the friend group of the controlling shareholders..
But, does the board actually matter in Mexico? Clearly in a family-controlled entity, the family and not the board per se is the ultimate decision maker. But in theory the family should express its control through taking decisions in the board itself, and not over the Sunday dinner table. As families grow and control groups widen, and as more companies are founded by private equity firms, the importance of the board versus the family is growing. And whether family controlled or not, the board projects the company’s values to the outside world.
So, the board does matter, or at least should do, and whether owners like it or not, some gender balance may well soon become a regulatory and ESG requirement. Our counsel is to be ahead of the curve.
Hope this was of use. If you’d like more detail on the boards of these companies, reach out as we have an xls with more granularity. And as usual, if there is anything we can help you with, please reach out. Also, don’t forget to recommend any ESG subject matter that you would like us to research and put in a forthcoming weekly
Regards,
Marimar
Partner, Miranda ESG | https://medium.com/@marimartorreblanca/the-patriarchal-mexican-board-b412d828229f | ['Marimar Torreblanca'] | 2020-11-27 16:49:40.808000+00:00 | ['Consulting', 'Women In Business', 'Esg', 'Equality', 'Finance'] |
Top 10 Door Bells Manufacturers in India | Corona Switch is one of the leading brand of Door Bells Manufacturers in India . Our Company has completed 32 years of success till the date of establishment. In our products we also offer Manufacturing of Door Bells in India on large scale as well.
Our Door Bells are so reliable and long lasting. The items which we are assembling is comprised of so flexible quality that the electrical associations should be possible easily with no dread of stuns and flow. Products which we provide are accredited with ISI mark by Bureau of Indian standards which stands as a testimony to our strict and vigilant quality committed to customer satisfaction besides prompt after sales service. For more details Consult the nearest corona distributor, dealer for the latest product information or to find the right combination of switches & accessories for a specific job to suit your decor.
Varieties of Door Bells-:
1- Door Bells Manufacturers
2- Door Bells Piano / Nice
3- Door Bells
Address- CORONA SWITCH GEARS PVT. LTD.
NO. 8/54, Ram Street, 60 Feet Rd, Vishwas Nagar, Shahdara, Delhi,
Visit-Us https://www.coronaswitch.com/door-bells.html | https://medium.com/@doorbells86/top-10-door-bells-manufacturers-in-india-9f273a589028 | ['Door Bells'] | 2021-04-06 05:10:08.852000+00:00 | ['Coronaswitch', 'Corona', 'Doorbell', 'Manufacturers'] |
I Miss George Washington | Two hundred and twenty-one years ago, our country lost the man widely regarded as “first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
In 1799 — the year of his passing — very few Americans would have disputed Washington’s greatness. To everyone living at that time, George Washington was “the father of his country,” and thus, when Washington breathed his last, most Americans mourned as they would the death of their own father.
Times have changed.
Statues of George Washington today are as likely to be vandalized or destroyed as they are to inspire a moment of reflection or nod of gratitude.
Many Americans today loathe and despise their own country’s origins, heaping scorn on the men we know as “the Founding Fathers.”
Students in our schools — particularly in high school and higher education — are more likely to learn of and focus on the sins and shortcomings of America’s past, rather than hear of the many positive contributions of our Founders, especially Washington.
Yet on this 221st anniversary of his death, I can’t stop thinking of how much I wish we could bring Washington out of his tomb, revive his body, and benefit from his wisdom.
We Need our Dad
Consider the fact that our nation is perhaps more divided in 2020 than it has been at any time since the American Civil War.
Not only are we increasingly polarized on questions of justice, fairness, equality, and equity, we can’t even agree on our definitions.
Heck, we can’t even agree on elections — even after they happen! A substantial number of Americans (including the President himself) believe the recent presidential election was rigged and that our democratic system has been compromised.
We also can’t even agree on whether we can consider our nation “good.” There are many people today, who though they may not question the results of the just-passed presidential election, nevertheless believe that the United States itself is fundamentally flawed, our heritage is irredeemable, and our Constitution should be replaced.
We need national leaders who strive to unite the nation, and not divide it. We need leaders who guard both their hearts and their tongue.
We need leaders who understand human limitations, nuance, and complex thought. And we need leaders who seek out and listen to wise counsel.
We need leaders who do not crave or lust for power, and who put the country above themselves. We need men and women who are honest, humble, and strong. We need leaders who are wise, deliberate, and sacrificial.
We need leaders like George Washington.
Photo by Priscilla Gyamfi on Unsplash
The Greatness of George Washington
It was Washington who, against all odds, led the often ill-equipped, insufficiently trained, and outnumbered American Continental Army to victory in the American Revolution.
It was Washington who resisted calls to be a king or dictator, thus ensuring there would not be an American monarchy. And it was Washington who quashed a few would-be uprisings from within the Continental Army — including the Newburgh conspiracy, thus saving the newly independent United States from a military-led junta and from catastrophe.
It was Washington who presided over the Constitutional Convention, giving those deliberations legitimacy and their product (the proposed Constitution of the United States) the support it needed for ratification.
It was Washington who then served as the nation’s first President of the United States under the new Constitution, stabilizing the new nation and its economy, fleshing out the executive branch, establishing precedents that sustain us to this day, and clearly establishing American neutrality and determination over our own affairs.
And it was Washington who voluntarily walked away from power a second time, refusing to consider a third term as President, thus confirming the tradition of peaceful transfer of power.
We wouldn’t even have a country today without George Washington.
There’s a reason why respectable historians almost universally agree that Washington was truly the “indispensable man” in American history — certainly at America’s inception.
Without George Washington, there would be no United States of America.
There certainly would not be a free and prosperous United States of America — one that respects (at least until now) democratic processes, freedom of speech and thought, the rule of law, separation of powers, and economic opportunity.
The Sins of the Fathers
It is of course at this point that we hear all about Washington’s sins and failures.
Yes, the men we call “the Founding Fathers” were sinners.
Like every other human being who has ever lived, our Founders made mistakes as well as poor choices. They did things they shouldn’t have done and failed to do things they should have done. They were imperfect and flawed.
And the same thing can be said for you and me.
While not everyone reading this shares my Christian faith, it doesn’t take a religious person or a Bible scholar to confirm the validity of what the Apostle Paul told the church in Rome 2000 years ago, specifically that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
It’s easy to pick out certain sins and shortcomings in historical figures while ignoring our own. I wonder what future generations will say of us.
Obviously, some sins are more grievous, hurtful, and consequential than others. And perhaps the biggest sin of the American founding era was slavery.
But neither slavery nor the racism that underlined it was unique to the United States. You will find examples of and degrees of racism, exploitation, and oppression — yes, even slavery! — in just about every culture or people group throughout most of recorded history.
The men we know as the Founders were born into and raised within a white supremacist society that accepted slavery as part of the natural order of things.
To what extent do knowledge, awareness, time, and cultural influence factor into a person’s culpability?
Is it fair to judge 18th century men by “woke” 21st century standards?
Don’t get me wrong. Slavery is unquestionably the most tragic blight on our nation’s history. And it’s the most tragic sin marring the legacy of George Washington.
But while we can (and should) learn from the sins of the past so that we can hopefully better resist temptation in the future, when it comes to understanding the Founders themselves…it’s far more interesting and constructive to judge them to their own conscience.
And this is when we see a remarkable (though sometimes three-steps-forward-two-steps-back) journey for Washington.
George Washington became a slave owner at age eleven. He continued in that status until his death. Early in life, and leading up to the Revolutionary War, he showed little qualms about slavery.
An Imperfect God by Henry Wiencek
Washington’s views on slavery began to change, however, during and especially after the American Revolution. Henry Wiencek explains that Washington’s “actions and private statements suggest a long evolution in his stance on slavery, based on experience and a possible awakening of conscience.” Wiencek is a journalist and historian whose work includes the award-winning An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America (2004).
In the years following the war, according to Wiencek, “slavery’s injustice weighed very heavily on Washington’s conscience” and the general referred to his ownership of slaves as a “regret.”
In 1778, Washington wrote that he wanted to “get quit” of owning slaves. In 1786, he declared that there “is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for this abolition of [slavery].” And in 1794, he described himself as “principled against selling negroes, as you would do cattle in the market.” In 1799, the year of his death, he wrote: “I am principled against this kind of traffic in the human species.”
And of course, in his will, George Washington famously ordered the freeing (and, in some cases, compensating) of his slaves. Sadly, there were legal and family complications, but the publicizing of Washington’s will placed him squarely on the side of those who (in the words of Abraham Lincoln) wanted to put slavery “on the course of ultimate extinction.”
There are many today who of course cannot forgive Washington for his participation in slavery and consider his final act against slavery to be “too little, too late.”
While I understand this view, I would argue that it is yet another example of how our society needs more mercy, grace, and forgiveness.
I would also point out that many of the enslaved persons freed by Washington seemed to forgive him — some coming back later to honor him (and Martha).
It’s also moving to read Bishop Richard Allen’s tribute to George Washington. Allen was the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. And when Washington died in 1799, Allen (like many other pastors) took the opportunity to eulogize the nation’s father from his pulpit.
After acknowledging Washington’s hero status for the nation overall, Allen specifically addressed his African American congregation with these words:
We, my friends, have particular cause to bemoan our loss. To us he has been the sympathising friend and tender father. He has watched over us, and viewed our degraded and afflicted state with compassion and pity– his heart was not insensible to our sufferings. He whose wisdom the nations revered thought we had a right to liberty. Unbiased by the popular opinion of the state in which is the memorable Mount Vernon–he dared to do his duty, and wipe off the only stain with which man could ever reproach him.
Allen is often praised for his clever use of Washington’s death (and the publicizing of Washington’s will) to call for the abolition of slavery as America neared the 19th century. As he should be.
What should also not be ignored is that Allen doesn’t challenge Washington’s hero status. And neither did future civil rights heroes like Frederick Douglass, Hiram Revels, Booker T. Washington, or Martin Luther King, Jr.
And neither should we.
“Let us Raise a Standard”
We should all take some time to learn from George Washington today.
George Washington was human. And therefore, like all his contemporaries and all those living today (including you and me), he was imperfect. He was flawed. He made mistakes. He sinned.
But George Washington did much to conquer his fears, shortcomings, and limitations. Through discipline, grit, wisdom, and determination, Washington made something of his life — and positioned himself on one of the greatest stages of human history. And we are better for it.
Washington’s sacrifices and his steady hand of leadership made possible the United States of America we live in and benefit from today.
Now more than ever, we need his wisdom. And we need men and women today to be inspired by his courage, his patriotism, and his character.
At the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Washington wrote a letter to the various states urging their ratification of the document — a document that would, if accepted, replace the Articles of Confederation.
In his letter, Washington used a soldier’s analogy when he said: “Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair.” In 18th century warfare, battle flags — or “standards” — were used on the battlefield to rally troops and properly position them for battle.
Washington believed the American people of his day (and posterity as well) should raise the Constitution of the United States (and the principles that made it possible and all that it represented) as such a standard.
Were he with us today, I believe he would encourage us once again to rally around those principles, our Constitution, and indeed our nation itself rather than political parties (“factions” he called them), personal interests, extreme tribalism, cults of personality, or petty grievances.
If you value the United States of America, now is the time more than ever to rally to that standard. That standard, to steal a phrase from our Pledge of Allegiance, is the “flag of the United States of America” and “the republic for which it stands.”
Let’s raise that standard. Let’s rally to it. And let’s stand by it.
And in doing so, we will honor the man who made it all possible. | https://medium.com/@briantubbs/i-miss-george-washington-a04149aa281f | ['Brian Tubbs'] | 2020-12-14 05:41:42.213000+00:00 | ['George Washington', 'Politics', 'Slavery', 'American History', 'Heroes'] |
10 Tips To Incorporate Community Suggestions Into Your Product Roadmap | If you manage a brand’s digital community, you’ve probably seen lots of customer feedback and suggestions. A user community allows your business to have access to customer insights and act on feedback.
But sometimes, you might be overwhelmed by all of your customers’ feedback, and it’s important to manage the flow of ideas and funnel them to your product team efficiently and effectively. Here are 10 tips to improve how you listen to customers and work with product teams, and that will come in handy if you manage communications in your digital community.
Set up processes with the product team
1. Understand what the team wants
If you send a lot of feedback to the product team, they might end up with an overwhelming backlog of ideas that are impossible to work with. Understanding what constitutes good feedback and collaborating to organize their backlog according to different scopes of work can help you drive better results for your customers.
2. Make it easy to access the suggestions
Your product team probably doesn’t have the time to view your community forums, so it’s your job as the community moderator or manager to make your members’ voices heard by collecting feedback. To do this, consider integrating your forums with a work management solution to label and send your customers’ feedback to the relevant teams.
3. Understand what it takes to get an idea implemented
Not every idea can be implemented, but it can help you understand the decision-making process. The issue can be around prioritizing customer input among dozens of other requests. Understanding your product team’s constraints while prioritizing different suggestions can help you be more transparent with your customers. At the same time, your product team can push back to verify how many users this requested feature might apply to, how often it’ll be used, and whether or not it impacts customer retention.
4. Advocate for the customers
As community managers often represent what customers want, it’s important to advocate for them. This means asking questions, regularly syncing with the product team with updates, and educating internal teams on how the community should be used as a resource to understand what customers want.
Look at how your community platform works
5. Make ideas searchable and categorize when possible
It’s usually a good idea to have a separate forum or even multiple forums for product feedback and suggestions. Having multiple forums might be helpful if you represent a product with many functionalities or verticals. Ensuring that suggestions can be found using the in-platform search engine can help you drive more interest for different posts. If possible, use tagging to help you categorize different suggestions and make it easier for your customers to find ideas relevant to their organization.
6. Reduce the number of similar ideas
Duplicated ideas clutter your forums, making it hard to understand the real interest for different suggestions. For example, there might be three or four similar ideas, and the combined vote count can show a huge amount of interest compared to if we look at them separately. Where possible, merge these ideas into one, or point users to the original idea to vote there. Always be on the lookout for duplicates and condense them.
Be open with your community members
7. Establish rules for submitting suggestions
Establishing basic house rules for submitting new ideas can help your customers understand the entire process better. Guidelines will let them know they’ll get more out of their idea if they first search for a similar one and upvote it instead of creating a new post, for example. You may also use different statuses, like “Planned” or “Not Planned,” to provide your customers visibility into scheduled updates and the conditions of taking on a suggestion and implementing it into the product.
8. Encourage collaboration
Your customers can not only submit ideas but also provide feedback on each other’s ideas and evaluate them. This can come in very handy — the customers can learn from each other and share some workarounds, and the product team will be able to not only review suggestions but also use cases supporting those suggestions. Encouraging collaboration can benefit everyone.
9. Ask the right questions
It’s great for a company and especially the product team to understand what your customers want, but ideally, you also need to understand why they want it. So, we’re back to the importance of understanding what your product team wants, but it doesn’t stop there. The next step is asking your customers questions, such as “What challenge are you trying to solve with this?” and “How are you planning to use this?” The more detailed the feedback is, the easier it is for the product team to understand the use case and act on it.
10. Be as transparent as possible
Managing expectations is one of the most difficult jobs when it comes to product feedback and ideas. Some customers assume that submitting an idea is all it takes for it to be implemented into the product. Unfortunately, it doesn’t usually work like that. This is why it’s important to be transparent with your customers by explaining how your processes with the product team work, what it takes for the team to review suggestions, and the threshold for an idea to receive a “Planned” status, for example. It isn’t always possible to share the decision-making process there, but sharing some basic information that you’ve agreed on with your product team is definitely a good way to start.
Customer feedback is a great source of insight for a business, and that’s why it’s important to establish working processes when inviting your customers to participate in the decision-making process of the product. Understanding the needs of your product team as well as your customers, setting up the right level of expectation, and looking at how your community platform works can help you incorporate client feedback into your product. | https://medium.com/wrikecxblog/10-tips-to-incorporate-community-suggestions-into-your-product-roadmap-e2bb6fd84c3d | ['Lisa Bogdanova'] | 2021-04-01 10:34:27.098000+00:00 | ['Community Feedback', 'Product Management', 'Community', 'Feedback', 'Product Feedback'] |
On Democracy: How to Improve Democracy in the United States | Photo by Fred Moon by Unsplash
Democracy is fragile, as we’ve seen throughout history. Since ancient Greece developed a form of democracy to self-govern, democracy has provided a pathway for citizens to actively engage in the political arena and elect their governors. It has provided an engine for the masses to hold their government accountable and approve/disapprove legislation in their community. The internal institutions that protect democracy, or guardrails, are the judicial system, the press, and political parties. Established norms are also viewed as a safeguard for democracy. According to Freedom House, democracy’s popularity is on the decline worldwide.
The United States, over the past decade, had seen a wave of populism that rose to new heights when Donald Trump was elected in 2016. A country that took pride in its freedoms and the constitution; selected an autocrat who would eventually challenge the guardrails and destroy established norms. Most Americans watched in disgust at the president’s behavior while others began to fall to the manipulation and deceit. Donald Trump had effectively done what so many other politicians seeking power have done, capitalize on populist movements, and seize power. Fortunately for the United States, the Judicial system is resisting the Trump administration coup attempt from President-elect Joe Biden.
If the United States continues the banner of ‘leader of the free world,’ Then the next question is, where should we go from here?
The United States should focus on these four areas, removing barriers to voting, improving racial relations, the economy, and restricting extremism on social media.
During the pandemic, many states in the United States reduced barriers to voting. The result is an astounding 150 million voters in the general 2020 elections. Another driving factor to consider toward this historic turnout is the polarization of the Trumps’ administration. Accessibility is an essential factor in this equation; ensuring enough ballot drop-off boxes in every county is critical. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott issued a proclamation that each county in Texas can only have one dropbox. This was intended to restrict accessibility in Harris county, a large population, and racially diverse. Ensuring that every state and county has access for individuals with disabilities so that they can vote as well. Voter ID laws are racist and intend to suppress the minority vote, and such voter ID laws must be removed.
Improving racial relations in the United States should be a priority for any incoming administration. It is not a task that can be summarized in one paragraph or essay. Still, some steps moving forward are actually listening to the community suppressed and implementing policies that reflect their experience and not policies drafted from a person of privilege. These calls have ranged from ending the private prison complex, defund the police, ending gerrymandering politics, and reducing barriers to the political arena. Racism is still alive in the United States. The United States president has said that millions of ‘illegals’ have voted in the election. However, he specifically targeted battleground states that went for Joe Biden. More insidiously, he only challenged the counties with large populations and are racially diverse. A red state was never challenged by the president. This is, in fact, inherently racist.
The congress of the US must work together to reduce the gap in income inequality. Democracy does not function properly from a top-down approach, but instead, it thrives from the middle-out method. Fiscal policies need to prioritize the average American rather than the top 1%. Weak economies are prime for the disintegration of social cohesion, abusive politicians gaining power, and social unrest. When most citizens do not feel the system is working in their favor and that another segment of society is playing by a different set of rules, then there’s an increased risk of social unrest.
Previously, states were threatened when they could no longer enforce power within their own boundaries or foreign invaders. Paramilitary groups across the globe continue to be a threat to the modern state. However, the state has a new challenge it must contend with. Social media is a platform used to connect people from around the globe. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, have grown into a tool to organize and share extremist ideological thoughts in the United States, especially amongst white supremacy groups. We’ve seen misinformation spread, including about the integrity of our general election, the vaccine for COVID-19, and many Black Lives Matter. The government must hold these social media giants accountable when hate speech, violent protest, and misinformation spread quickly on these platforms.
This is not an exhaustive list of ideas on improving democracy. Still, these are some areas that the United States can focus on. Democracy is a complex government system that is made up of rules, legislation, and established norms. To this day, it is the best conduit of ensuring that people have a way to address their grievances to the government, elect their officials, and choose the direction of their country. For democracy to thrive and function properly, then the people must have faith in the system itself for the process to retain its legitimacy. | https://medium.com/politically-speaking/on-democracy-how-to-improve-democracy-in-the-united-states-b09d811028d | ['Marcus Cervantes'] | 2020-12-27 17:34:13.591000+00:00 | ['Trump', 'Politics', 'Democracy', 'Biden', 'Politics And Protest'] |
Staying Strong with Simple Habits — Daily Quote | This time of year, the temperature swings from 30 to 70 degrees and back in a few hours. Rain turns to snow, ice coats every surface, then melts, creating the perfect conditions to weaken our defenses, leaving us susceptible to viruses. I am not concerned about contracting Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The habits my grandmother advocated are still the best practices for remaining healthy today.
Grandma insisted we scrub our hands, face, and under our fingernails, with plenty of soapy warm water whenever we came inside from the big, nasty world. We washed our hands after using the bathroom, before, during, and after we prepared food, served, or ate any meal. Hand washing was vital before applying makeup or contact lenses.
I use a glove or my sleeve when touching public door handles, elevator buttons, and shopping carts. Grandma’s voice reminds me, “You don’t know where that’s been.” I also brush, floss, and gargle to help mitigate any germs that might slip past my defense systems. She advocated avoiding anyone who looked sick, getting enough sleep, staying home the moment we felt ill, and eating lots of chicken soup and forcing liquids.
While these steps aren’t new, I monitor the latest recommendations and sanitize frequently used surfaces, including my phone. The odds are in my favor, and I refuse to worry about circumstances outside of my control. Instead, I live my life and write.
How are you protecting yourself?
_________________________________________
Keep on writing.
Jo Hawk The Writer | https://medium.com/@johawkthewriter/staying-strong-with-simple-habits-daily-quote-ca577b368d71 | ['Jo Hawk'] | 2020-03-11 05:01:01.058000+00:00 | ['Strength', 'Habits', 'Writing', 'Quotes', 'Wellness'] |
Imposer Syndrome or Projection? Reviewing Rachel | Rachel’s motif is the looking glass theory, how one views themselves based on the characteristics external factors assign. This motif is arguably the most transparent; the protagonist is repeatedly viewing himself in the mirror (literally viewing how others see him), basks in the affirmation from his plug, and even uses his book draft as an experiment to authentically witness how cis non-cross dressers view him. There is a strange juxtaposition where he seems both comfortable and unsure of his identity. At home, with the help of the soundtrack, he lounges comfortably. His home is his own private sanctuary where he can be himself. However, when it comes to articulating his experience, he can never completely articulate it. There is this underlying anxiety- his lack of concentration towards his book and the use of weed as an escape are obvious signs. It is almost as if the protagonist isn’t pushing to decide what he is, let alone articulate it. The repeated cozy elements of the home (lounging on the couch, ambiance music, wine, and –one you simply can’t forget-weed) let us know that this is his safe space. He isn’t looking to find himself, he just wants to BE. | https://medium.com/@drew.davis/imposer-syndrome-or-projection-reviewing-rachel-b14f01beb194 | ['Drew Davis'] | 2019-09-04 01:35:28.952000+00:00 | ['Art', 'TV Shows', 'Film', 'Furman University'] |
Terraform vs CloudFormation — Part 1 | I have been using CloudFormation for a while for projects and also cover it as a part of my AWS workshops. In the past couple of years clients have been asking me to cover Terraform as part of AWS workshop !.
This has prompted me to learn and understand Terraform . I have started comparing these toolsets from a practitioners perspective and I thought of putting my experiences in the form of blog posts.
This is the first part of the series where I am going to compare Terraform (TF) and CloudFormation (CF or CFT or CFN).
What is Terraform ?
Terraform (TF) is a tool for building , changing , and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently
is a tool for , , and safely and efficiently Terraform can manage existing and popular service providers as well as custom in-house solutions
What is CloudFormation?
AWS CloudFormation (CF) is a service that helps you model and set up Amazon Web Services resources so that you can spend less time managing those resources and more time focusing on your applications that run in AWS
High Level Comparison
Let us look at high level comparison points as shown in the following tables. | https://medium.com/@amod-kadam/terraform-vs-cloudformation-part-1-75d54a999da5 | ['Amod Kadam'] | 2020-12-13 13:16:33.032000+00:00 | ['Compare Tf And Cf', 'Cloudformation', 'Terraform', 'Terraform Vs Cf'] |
The Department of Education is a Protection Racket | New Title IX Rules Shift Burden to Survivors
How did the Department of Education become a protection racket for college campus abusers? Let’s break it down from the beginning. On May 6, the Department of Education delivered new rules for the interpretation of Title IX, the federal civil rights law from 1972. The original text reads:
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
While this may seem like a straightforward statement, the rules around the interpretation of this law have been written and rewritten over the decades. In particular, the ability of college students to report their peers for sexual harassment or violence became a political football when the Obama administration delivered the “Dear Colleague” guidance for this topic. Conservatives claimed that the guidance letter made it difficult for someone accused to get a fair hearing. Upon Donald Trump’s appointment of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, the Department Of Education (DOE) began taking comments on changing the rules. They delivered the 2033 page document in the middle of a pandemic and gave schools until August 14, 2020, to implement the changes. It is hard to imagine how colleges will make the necessary changes in time while simultaneously figuring out how to reopen and configure classes while managing student safety amidst COVID-19.
The new Title IX rules increase the burden for claimants to report and then defend accusations of sexual harassment and violence. This is a step backward. Survivors of sexual harassment and violence require a supportive system in which to have violators investigated. Instead, the onus is put squarely on the claimant’s back. The rules change the definition of sexual harassment, allow schools to apply a stricter standard of evidence, require cross-examination of both the accuser and the accused, and no longer allow complaints of events that happened outside of the “educational program.” All of these items put together add up to a situation where the greater burden is placed upon the complainant making it less likely that complaints will be reported at all.
The Power of And vs. Or
Within the new rules, the definition of sexual harassment is altered to the accused’s advantage. To be considered harassment, behavior now must be “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim’s access to an educational opportunity or benefit.” This definition comes from a 1999 Supreme Court case Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education. The Supreme Court developed this definition to help identify when schools are liable for their “deliberate indifference” of sexual harassment. They changed the word “or” to “and”. This definition ensures that a claimant has to endure severe and objectively offensive harassment regularly to prove that it is in act pervasive. This is cruel. There is not a clear definition of “objectively offensive” so the school’s Title IX coordinator makes that decision. Let us look at an example. A male and female student both attend a lab as part of a science class. The male uses the close proximity of the lab to rub up against and touch the female’s rear end and torso near her breasts as he slides by to reach equipment. The female must not only tell him to stop, but she must also put up with this behavior repeatedly for it to be considered “pervasive”. Additionally, the Title IX officer has the power to decide whether the behavior is “objectively offensive” and “severe”. We cannot say for sure that all Title IX coordinators would agree that this situation warrants a claim. But for the student involved, the unpleasantness of the situation is likely to make her avoid the lab, thus affecting her education. Why should any student have to endure pervasive harassment before being able to make a complaint?
The Beast of Burden of Proof
The new rules also allow schools to institute a higher burden of proof when filing a claim. Prior to the new rules, the standard for complaints was a “preponderance of evidence” which in legal terms means that the evidence shows that there is a greater than 50% chance that the event happened. Now schools can either use that standard or choose to use a stricter one, “clear and convincing evidence”. This term means that there is a much greater than 50% chance that the event occurred. The clear and convincing standard is a higher burden of proof and is generally reserved for civil offenses that have special elements to establish. Common cases where the clear and convincing standard would be appropriate include: claims involving fraud, claims involving wills and inheritances, cases involving important family decisions such as withdrawing life support from a relative. Somehow, a school’s decision as to whether to listen to a student’s complaint about another student’s behavior does not seem to fall into a special elements category. By allowing schools to use a higher burden of proof, the DOE is making it harder for complainants to have their case heard at all.
The Automatic Opt-Out
The final choice that the new rules provide is for schools that are ruled by religious institutions. In the past, religious schools have had the option to be exempted from providing Title IX protections by writing a letter explaining the need for the exemption. Now the exemption is automatic. Additionally, the DOE will no longer provide a list of schools that are exempt from Title IX as they did previously. And most importantly, these schools do not have to notify students who apply for admission of their Title IX exemption. The result of this lack of notification could lead to students assuming that the school honors their civil rights and end up being expelled later for taking birth control, having premarital sex, or being gay. Fortunately, the group Campus Pride publishes a list of schools that are known for being hostile to LBGTQ+ students. In several cases in which students who attended religious institutions and filed a complaint of sexual harassment or violence, the school used the behavior listed in the complaint, like premarital sex, as an excuse for expelling the complainant rather than addressing the complaint. In religious institutions, allowing mediation (discussed later in this article) can lead to pressure on the complainant to forgive or pray for the perpetrator.
Schools should want to know if they have students who are terrorizing other students regardless of where the attack takes place.
Perry Mason at Your Service
Probably the biggest change to the rules is the process for adjudicating claims. The rules require complainants to participate in cross-examination of their claim. Both the complainant and the accused are allowed to have a representative cross-examine the other party. They each get to choose their representative. So, a complainant may be cross-examined by a parent, a fraternity brother, or a lawyer. This requirement is very likely to make many complainants reluctant to report sexual harassment or violence. This addition to the process is unnecessary and punitive. It requires the complainant to relive the event which is frequently traumatic in nature. The school’s duty is to investigate the claim and make a decision as a result of the information gathered. There is no reason for a school to require a complainant to submit to cross-examination. Cross-examination belongs in the criminal court, not in an educational institution where no one is properly trained.
Schools are also allowed to offer facilitation for other means of the informal settlement of complaints like restorative justice or mediation. Both parties must agree to this and there is typically no official disciplinary action as a result. While this might seem like a good alternative, it ignores the power dynamic between survivors and the accused. While a complainant may desire a mediation for reasons of confidentiality, mediation and restorative justice practices typically put the complainant and respondent in the same room to discuss the issue. In situations where sexual assault has occurred, having to sit down and negotiate with the alleged assailant is retraumatizing and should not be offered as part of a complaint process.
The Room Where It Happens
The new rules require that all complaints must be based on events that happened during the “educational program or activities”. The harassment or violence must occur on campus or at a school approved program like an athletic team or a fraternity house or that is registered with the school. Given that a recent study at Texas A&M University shows that off-campus sexual assaults happen at 2 times the rate as on-campus assaults, and only 18% of students live on campus, the new rule leaves out the majority of cases. If harassers and abusers know that they are out of reach of the school because of the location, they are free to act with impunity. Schools should want to know if they have students who are terrorizing other students regardless of where the attack takes place. Just because a violation happens off-campus does not mean that it does not affect the victim in the classroom. If a student is harassed or attacked off-campus and then has to attend class or live in the dormitory with their attacker, that affects their educational experience. Finally, study abroad programs are not included at all. This is primarily because of the difficulty of enforcing international agreements between countries. The law was written in 1972, long before study abroad programs exploded in university settings.
Taken as a whole, the effect of new rules of Title IX intimidates claimants and bolster protections for those accused of harassment and violence. Those who have experienced severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive sexual harassment or assault should not have to consent to cross-examination to file a complaint. The purpose of the Title IX complaint process is to secure the right of students to fair access to education. Universities are not court systems nor should they try to become one. Title IX coordinators are fully capable of investigating claims and making rulings without the intimidation tactic of cross-examination. Secretary Devos admits that the new rules were written to protect those accused and reduce claims. She also notes that colleges benefit since they will save over $19 million according to the DOE’S cost analysis. It is a cold and calculated mind that prioritizes the savings for schools over the safety of students to be educated free of harassment and violence. | https://amslynch84.medium.com/the-department-of-education-is-a-protection-racket-598e2c342dde | ['Anna Lynch'] | 2020-06-18 14:03:55.219000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Womens Rights', 'Sexual Harassment', 'Sexual Abuse', 'Title Ix'] |
It’s Okay to Cringe Bro | It’s Okay to Cringe Bro
Why it might be time to embrace the cringe we feel inside of us.
Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash
Watching cringe videos is a pastime that I never expected myself to have. But, it just feels good to watch someone else mess up. In fact, I’m going to go as far as to say that it’s therapeutic. Whenever I have to think of a painful memory from my past, I am slightly comforted by the fact that there is an online archive full of minty videos to cringe to. Even better, if the cringe is too much for me, I can always watch someone else react to a video.
I can still remember one of my earliest cringe moments. And, we all have them, so I don’t feel particularly embarrassed by it anymore. I was in kindergarten and my best friend Matt had betrayed me on the playground. I can’t remember what he did now, but I do remember running up to my teacher — absolutely flustered. “Mom, Matt just did this stupid crazy thing.” I said.
It took milliseconds for me to realize what I had just done. Thankfully, there was no one else in the room. But as soon as I could see my teacher’s grin, I knew I had messed up. I apologized and she laughed it off. The amount of self-awareness I experienced at that moment reached astronomical levels.
I’m reminded of the saying that I read somewhere on the internet that “If you’re cringing at something from the past, that means you’ve grown as a person.” And although that’s a really nice way of tucking the cringe to bed underneath a weighted blanket, it doesn’t scratch the itch entirely for me.
Cringing Reminds You of Absurdity
In an article titled The Unexpected Benefits of Cringing, Melissa Dahl explores the value behind this problematic sensation. After all, if I’m seeking out cringe videos late at night, there must be some reason behind it besides the misfiring of neurons in my sleep-deprived brain. Dahl points out that cringing at something forces ourselves to take the perspective of someone besides ourselves. It makes sure that we can clearly see what we’re doing from an outside perspective.
By cringing, we’re kind of shedding dead skin. We realize, holy shit, that’s not how I or this person should be acting. That’s definitely something valuable for society as a whole if not for ourselves at the very least.
I’ve come to think of cringe as a necessary reminder of the sheer absurdity of being human. If you can learn to appreciate this feeling — if you can learn to laugh at it, and at yourself — you’ll find more joy in your life. I hope I never stop cringing at myself. So far, so good. (M. Dahl)
I sort of agree with Dahl to an extent. It’s important to cringe here and there. It reminds me that I make a much bigger deal over things than I actually have to. It lets me know that I’m not the only one on this planet, and it acknowledges that everything I do has a direct effect on others. It’s a gentle reminder that you aren’t really shit.
Specifically, this talk about cringe also reminds me of Tom Robbins’s Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates. In it, Maestra (the protagonist’s grandmother) gives him a stern talk about the absurdity of self-importance and the value of being able to take everything a bit less seriously.
And that’s why when you’ve exhibited the slightest tendency toward self-importance, I’ve reminded you that you and me — you and I: excuse me — may be every bit as important as the President or the pope or the biggest prime-time icon in Hollywood, but none of us is much more than a pimple on the ass-end of creation, so let’s not get carried away with ourselves. Preventive medicine, boy. It’s preventive medicine.
When people take themselves too seriously, we tend to get some unsavory outcomes. Especially today, with the ability to record anything, no one wants to mess up. And no one certainly wants to be labeled as cringe. But, there is an opportunity to take back the cringe and reassign its purpose. That’s why it’s so important to step back and realize the absurd amount of thought you place into each action sometimes. Cringing can be a valuable tool to do so.
Cringing Makes You More Comfortable With the Uncomfortable
Every inspirational person out there, from David Goggins to Warren Buffett, always has some sort of small piece of advice related to discomfort. They always say something along the lines of “You have to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.” And cringe-worthy situations are just that. They are very uncomfortable.
So, by exposing ourselves to more cringe, are we becoming better people? I mean, when I’m watching cringe videos, I’m sort of experiencing a high. In a way, I feel like it’s kind of like watching a scary movie. But as with any scary movie, if you know when the jump scares occur, it takes a bit of the edge off. And after watching enough of them, you kind of know what to look out for. The ghosts and demons don’t seem as scary.
I thinking cringing in and of itself is a healthy activity. Cringing is the realization that something embarrassing or awkward has occurred. It allows us to reflect and consider what was so terrible and why it should NEVER happen again. It’s also a nifty tool for picking out certain people that we probably shouldn’t hang out with anymore.
I remember hanging out with this one guy in high school who liked to drive really loud hondas, smoke cigarettes, and just basically participate in a bunch of degenerate behavior. After meeting a ton of his mutuals at different parties, I realized that I was reflecting on a lot of these gatherings and cringing. These kids were always edgy dirtbags with a general attitude that the world owed them everything. It was cringe and I was over it.
By being able to go through an experience like that, I was able to navigate through social groups a bit better in college. I could pick out the authentic people over the ones who claimed to have everything figured out. It was nice. And I don’t think I could’ve come to understand really good social interactions without having gone through both first-hand and second-hand cringe.
Cringing is an emotional experience primarily. It’s visceral. Sometimes it makes me want to disappear entirely. But, it’s also useful. It can show us that we’ve improved. And it can also show us that we still have a long way to go in becoming our ideal selves. Either way, it’s okay to cringe bro. Just let it out. | https://medium.com/casimirmura/its-okay-to-cringe-bro-6ebb52d79e23 | ['Casimir Mura'] | 2020-10-17 02:41:23.440000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Culture', 'Self Improvement', 'Psychology', 'Social Media'] |
Integrating Prettier + ESLint + Airbnb Style Guide + EditorConfig no VSCode | In this guide, we will be explaining how to set up libraries and extensions, in which will be useful to systematize and organize the codes in your projects.
We will be using the Visual Studio as IDE, and Yarn to install dependencies.
Tools
ESLint
ESLint is a program that identifies possible errors. The extensions in ESLint are configurable. It allows you to customize between a variety of internal options, matching with your company’s style guide. It reports while you are typing in your editor, and opens up a window with a detailed list of the problematic patterns.
Prettier
Most of the time we don’t write the best codes, but with Prettier you no longer will have to worry about it. After a long development session, all you need to do is to save the file and, **puf**, code is formatted.
EditorConfig
EditorConfig helps maintain consistent coding styles for multiple developers working on the same project across various editors and IDEs. The EditorConfig project consists of a file format for defining coding styles and a collection of text editor plugins that enable editors to read the file format and adhere to defined styles. EditorConfig files are easily readable, and they work nicely with version control systems.
Configuration in VSCode
In VSCode, download the following extensions: ESLint, Prettier e EditorConfig. 2. Install the libraries **ESLint** and **Prettier** in your project. To do that, in your root directory, run:
yarn add eslint prettier -D
3. Install the configuration of Airbnb.
If you are using the **npm 5+**, you can run this shortcut to install the configuration and all its dependencies:
npx install-peerdeps — dev eslint-config-airbnb
4. Install eslint-config-prettier (deactivate the format to ESLint) and eslint-plugin-prettier (Allows ESLint to report on format errors while typing)
yarn add eslint-config-prettier eslint-plugin-prettier -D
5. Open a new file **.eslintrc.json** on your project’s root directory:
6. The next step is to make sure the Prettier formatting happens when you save a file. Insert **“editor.formatOnSave”: true** on User Settings on VScode.
To open the User Settings, use the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + P then search for: “_Preferences: Open Settings (JSON)_”
7. Open a new file **.editorconfig** In your project’s root directory:
**Congratulations, you made it!**
Following the steps above, your VScode is ready to early identify errors, and with the formatters, will help on maintaining consistency on all coding fonts. With all this extensions working together, it will be possible to create a clean and sustainable code. Your boss and coworkers will thank you.
References
Integrating Prettier + ESLint + Airbnb Style Guide in VSCode. (2018). Found on: <https://blog.echobind.com/integrating-prettier-eslint-airbnb-style-guide-in-vscode-47f07b5d7d6a>. | https://medium.com/matheus-barbosa/integrating-prettier-eslint-airbnb-style-guide-editorconfig-no-vscode-ff950263adbf | ['Matheus B Oliveira'] | 2020-04-28 16:29:29.842000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Prettier', 'Editorconfig', 'Eslint', 'Airbnb'] |
Google Dialogflow and Chatbots: The Royal AI Couple | Google Dialogflow and Chatbots are like the royal union of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The AI-relationship is redefining natural language processing norms by delivering enhanced human-like conversations, customer experience, and satisfaction.
You see, when a bot falls in love with a conversation processing genius, the yields for businesses are limitless.
Getting to know Dialogflow and how it works helps us understand its brilliance.
Dialogflow is a cross-platform human language processing platform that makes a conversational user interface on apps, telephony, and digital channels advanced and efficient.
Its ability to process multiple inputs — text or audio — makes it possible to respond to users through text or speech.
A business can use Dialogflow to create messaging bots on platforms like WhatsApp Business, Website, Facebook Messenger, Google Assistant, Alexa Voice Services (AVS), Slack, and several other messaging integrations.
There are two types of Dialogflow with different fit purposes — Dialogflow CX and Dialogflow ES. ES is the standard for conversational AI, used by more than a million developers, big enterprises & Fortune 500 companies; while CX is a new update from Google with the following differentiating features;
It has a visual flow builder.
It lets you define rules for how your bot behaves.
For large teams working on big projects, it allows multiple designers to work at the same time.
If you are looking to build a world-class intent-Based Conversational chatbot with an automated set of basic Chatbase analytics, Dialogflow ES is what your business needs.
With 20+ languages, your business can engage with more audiences by building multilingual agents with global reach.
Here’s a customer success story
What are Chatbots?
A Chatbot is an AI-human that saves your business the stress of providing quick answers to queries every hour of the day while ensuring that your brand develops an affinity with your customers.
If you have tried to reach a business at periods beyond working hours through social media platforms, webchat, WhatsApp messenger, then you have probably interacted with a chatbot.
Businesses use chatbots to provide answers to frequently asked questions and ensure that they stay in touch with customers.
The idea of having a Chatbot is always exciting; however, it is crucial to ensure that the AI-driven application is laced with the right Natural Language Processing agent and hooked to the proper database for efficient functionality.
A great Chatbot helps streamline B2C interaction and enhance efficiency in resolving customer requests, improving customer experience, and minimizing operational costs.
Why do businesses need chatbots?
In a world driven by the need to interact with customers across any platform, timely response, and excellent customer service, it isn’t farfetched to realize the necessity of Chatbots.
In various industries, Chatbots create desirable Customer experiences for contact centers, increasing the efficiency of dealing with requests, reducing call traffic to your agents, and providing almost instant query solutions through self-service.
Chatbot integrates on popular messenger applications with billions of people; reaching customers is like walking on the beach on a warm summer day.
A customer with a service or product issue can, without stress, interact with your business and get recommendations for possible fixes within seconds. That’s an incredible level of efficiency.
Customer engagement and service delivery are faster, simpler, with better experiences for users.
In the e-commerce sector, Chatbots simplify shopping and payment processes by providing quick information, search results, payment options, and tips that enhance customers’ shopping experiences.
Chatbots can suggest useful products or services to customers based on their interaction with a business. This could be finding the right clothing, deals, or workout tips.
With tailored recommendations, brands are likely to increase engagement and revenue through suggestive selling.
In 2020, having 24/7 customer support is no longer considered a stand out feature of a company; it’s more of an essential requirement for customer satisfaction. This is where Chatbots make an excellent case for any business to have.
Enhancing Chatbots with Google Dialogflow
So, you have decided to build your business a Chatbot. First, you need to define the problem that you want to solve with your bot. This could be to take restaurant orders, schedule appointments, offer advisory services, book trips, respond to queries, provide product information, or several other applications.
Connect your Chatbot to a rich source of information for a broad range of responses.
For instance, you would be better off hooking up your chatbot to your website’s FAQs or articles section. This way, your chatbot can easily pull information in response to customer queries.
Linking your Chabot to an information arsenal about your product or service is an excellent step towards delivering a desirable customer experience. However, more crucial is ensuring that you have a brilliant natural language processor as the bedrock.
When a user sends a query to your agent (Chatbot), Dialogflow recognizes the intent and extracts prebuilt entities such as time, date, and numbers.
You can train your agent to identify more than the predefined entities such as email addresses or website links.
The intent is the expectant result of a user when a query is made. As a natural human language, it is presented in non-uniform expression depending on individuals.
For example, the intent of a user could be to determine the working hours of a business. This can be in different expressions;
“What time do you open”?
“What time does your store open”?
“Are you open on the weekends”?
“Can I come around on Saturday”?
Dialogflow processes these queries, groups them into similar intent to provide the best-fit response through your chatbot interface.
Dialogflow Knowledge Connectors allows you to bulk-add user expressions data to your agent, including FAQs and knowledge-based articles for enhanced accurate answers.
Knowledge Connectors use some of the same technologies used by Google Search and the Google Assistant to extract the right answers from the data source provided.
Dialogflow intelligently matches a user’s expression to an intent to provide accurate and straightforward responses.
More so, you can expand your conversational interface to recognize voice interactions and generate a voice response. The integrated analytics dashboard gives you insight into everyday interactions so that you can optimize your chatbot to better identify and respond to user intents.
Google Dialogflow and Chatbots: What’s next?
Google Dialogflow and Chatbots have come to stay and will only improve to enhance businesses' contact centers.
Most businesses decide to build a Chatbot without ticking the necessary boxes to ensure that the process runs seamlessly to provide the best customer engagement and experience.
Google Dialogflow is fully integrated and functional with Call Center Studio’s call center software, offering a smooth and desired customer experience to users.
If you still have questions and need clarification on delivering brilliant customer engagement with Google Dialogflow and Chatbots, book a quick call with Charlie. | https://medium.com/@callcenterstudio/google-dialogflow-and-chatbots-the-royal-ai-couple-2792de36ed2c | ['Call Center Studio'] | 2020-12-16 19:57:24.152000+00:00 | ['Naturallanguageprocessing', 'Chatbots', 'Google Dialogflow', 'Dialogflow', 'Call Center Software'] |
Decentralized Betting And Predictions Markets Predict Trump’s Fate | The US elections may have been significantly affected by the Covid19 crisis, but it hasn’t stopped betting platforms and voters from casting their votes where it matters. While centralized betting sites are available, a more interesting play is how decentralized offerings are taking gambling on the US elections to the next level. Which has led decentralized betting and predictions markets to predict Trump’s fate, and it isn’t looking good.
How Do You Bet On The US Elections With Cryptocurrencies?
It’s illegal to bet on political elections in all 50 states in the US — it’s enforced and regulated heavily by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The one centralized option available, PredictIt, is an academic-focused, non-profit setup that is meant to help generate data, with extremely low limits of $850 worth of shares on each contract.
But the ban hasn’t stopped many from finding creative ways to put a price to the elections, and cryptocurrencies along with blockchain technology are one of the easiest ways. Whether you enjoy gambling or not, you might be interested to know that there are many more ways that you can put your money on the elections. Check out this compiled list of the most common ways to do so.
1. Betting Using Crypto-based Derivatives
Crypto Derivatives are a type of security that is powered by a contractual relationship between the issuer of the security and the buyer. The Trump 2020 futures contract traded on FTX is a great example: the contract will payout 1 USD if Donald Trump wins the 2020 US presidential elections, and 0 USD if it does not.
As of 30th October, the price of the contract is hovering between 0.375 and 0.400 USD, indicating that the markets believe Trump to be less likely to win.
You can also purchase the opposite type of futures contract on FTX, “Biden 2020”, although the liquidity for Trump futures is certainly much higher.
Interestingly enough, after the first presidential debate, the price of Trump Futures dropped by over 8.11% in value — a sentiment that means bettors could be dismayed by Trump’s performance. A telling sign as decentralized betting and predictions markets predict Trump’s fate.
2. Betting On Blockchain-based Predictions Marketplaces (AUGUR)
Augur (REP) is an old but well-known decentralized predictions market that operates directly on the blockchain. They offer a global, no-limit opportunity for users to bet on the outcome of real-world events, such as sports, economics, and of course the US presidential election. Any user can create a prediction market on Augur, with smart contracts and incentivized, crowd-sourced reporters that enforce the payouts — a huge improvement compared to centralized alternatives such as shady betting websites.
Augur themselves issued the “YTRUMP”, or “YES Trump” tokens, which stand to receive payouts should Trump win. Conversely, NTRUMP or “NO Trump” tokens would payout if Biden wins. YTRUMP tokens are worth around $0.4 at present, placing them in a similar range to the FTX tokens.
The interesting part about Augur is that because it’s a peer-to-peer protocol with issuance created by users, accessing it to bet on the US elections is surprisingly easy — you simply need a blockchain wallet to hold the tokens, and their price will match the payouts through arbitrage after results are confirmed by incentivized reporters.
In fact, Augur users bet over $111,000 across all available election-related markets on the platform after the first Presidential election debate. The downside of betting through Augur is that its global nature means that the results are significantly skewered by non-american participants.
3. Betting Using Blockchain-based Information Markets (POLYMARKET)
Similarly to Augur, Polymarket is a blockchain-based predictions market that is run entirely on the blockchain. It received strong VC funding in lieu of the ICO that funded the AUGUR project, and has attracted over $1 million in trading volume. The platform correctly predicted events such as Microsoft’s failed acquisition of TikTok, the VP nomination of Kamala Harris, and declining unemployment rates in the U.S. Its hottest markets right now are unsurprisingly related to the future of COVID-19 and the US elections.
Compared to Augur and FTX, it has a more familiar betting interface for non-cryptocurrency users, and plans to offer accessibility through wallets that can be funded with fiat and other user-centric options.
4. Other Decentralized Betting And Prediction Markets
In addition to the above options, plenty more decentralized gambling and predictions dApps exist on various blockchains, such as PredIQt (for the EOS blockchain) and Omen.eth, which is uniquely operated by a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization, a term used to describe an organization that runs on the blockchain through votes).
Why Decentralized Betting And Predictions Markets Over Centralized Ones?
With the ban on political betting in the US, decentralized alternatives are certainly a viable opportunity to circumvent the ban. However, even legal centralized predictions markets can be much worse off than the decentralized options; they are heavily regulated in a similar way to traditional gambling, charge high fees, and are largely inaccessible to the average consumer. That being said, centralized platforms do have more liquidity and activity, allowing them to have more accurate or fairer odds for betting.
As decentralized betting and predictions markets predict Trump’s fate (that he will not win the election) only time will tell when the final outcome is announced. Find out more about decentralized applications and protocols at Oobit.com. Oobit is a financial service that makes buying and selling digital currency easy, simple and lets you use crypto with the same ease as traditional money. We connect and introduce what would be an endless maze of information surrounding blockchains, and build tools that enhance the crypto user experience. | https://medium.com/@oobit/decentralized-betting-and-predictions-markets-predict-trumps-fate-ed4a6a6ee9aa | [] | 2020-11-02 08:25:35.350000+00:00 | ['Predictions', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Trump', 'Bitcoin', 'Covid 19'] |
Why I Don’t Ask for People’s Pronouns or Announce Mine | I prefer not to be asked for my “preferred pronouns.” In a world as diverse as ours, not everyone’s preferences can be catered to all the time. This leaves us with the question: should we ask everyone, no one, or only those who look “different” for their pronouns?
It won’t be othering, they say, because we’ll ask everyone.
But they won’t. Not only will they never get everyone else to ask all of us for our pronouns, but the wokest among us will, in most situations, only ask the queers, the gender non-conformers, the people who look like they might “have” pronouns. To the extent that their mission works, that this catches on, it will only do so among some well-meaning leftists who will learn to hesitate when they see someone like me, and then ask, essentially, “Are you a them yet?”
No no, I have to constantly tell people now, I’m not a them. People used to just assume I’m a vegetarian. Friends I’ve known for years will still sometimes, while inviting me to a BBQ, falter and say, “Oh sorry! I know you don’t eat meat, but, uh, we’ll have potato chips…”
It’s true that I don’t eat much meat and that I do eat a lot of vegetables. I treat meat like I treat cocaine. I don’t buy it, but, if someone else prepares it for me and it’s good shit, I might have some, depending on what I have to accomplish the next day.
Mostly, I just listen to my body and what it wants. This doesn’t make me a vegetarian (much less sober), but I understand that if you see a shorthair lesbian order a veggie burger, your brain is likely to make the short leap.
But now, colleagues and strangers alike not only assume vegetarianism but also default to the pronoun “they” for me. Having forgotten to ask, a host announcing me at a comedy show will often refer to me as “she” and then “correct” himself, sometimes clumsily apologizing to the audience and to me as I take the stage. Or she’ll confidently announce of me that “They are so funny; you’re going to love them!” Either way, the audience now thinks I’m a Them (sometimes after realizing a duo act or improv troupe isn’t about to take the stage). And as a comedian, and yes especially one who visibly doesn’t align with standard gender expectations, my first goal is to get people to see that I am one of Us.
Well-intentioned people who’re trying to follow the rules, now righteously assume I am Other and trip over themselves to apologize if they accidentally include me in the woman category simply because their brain recognizes that I’m an egg-maker. I have short hair, a strong jawline, and don’t wear dresses or makeup. This doesn’t make me a Them. Maybe it’s just that women can seem like a whole different gender when we’re not trying to attract men.
My gender expression is androgyny. The most affirming thing for me is when I cause people to wonder.
“What is that?” — My girlfriend’s father, upon seeing this picture of me, unwittingly gendering me correctly.
We can all clock people’s congenital genitals accurately the vast majority of the time. But I get mis-sexed fairly regularly, whether because people are only seeing me in their peripheral vision, as I’m walking past them toward a stall while they’re doing their makeup, or they’re already greeting me as I walk into their store before their brain has had time to take the whole picture in. Sometimes, particularly with men who are middle-aged or older, they claim to really not be sure even after extended interactions. I love this. I love confusing people. I joke that, if I’m using the same restroom as you, and you don’t give me at least a double take, that’s misgendering me.
Thus, I am much more affirmed, personally, when someone asks me about my genitals. I can get dysphoric when people aren’t a little confused.
When I was coming of age into a more feminist consciousness (i.e. in college), we learned to roll our eyes at people whose first question to a pregnant woman* or to someone holding a baby was, “Is it a boy or a girl?”
Even now, all forward-thinking people mock “gender reveal parties” as the ignorant hootenannies of Team Red. Not only would it be more accurate to call these gatherings “gamete reveals,” but also we find it to be backwards that parents and other interested parties think sex is the most important thing to discuss about a new life (although at least people are finding both sexes to be cause for celebrations these days, in several countries anyway).
And yet it seems the same people who find this behavior atrocious want to have a gender reveal party every time they meet someone new or read an email.
Right-thinking people see it as obnoxious how some parents go out of their way to make female infants look different from what we perceive as the male-looking default by putting pink (in this era) dresses on their doughy little bodies, purple bows on their bald heads, or by piercing their ears**.
Meanwhile, now, at a mixer or in a new class or job orientation, one often finds oneself passing around markers and name badges that include a section for “preferred pronouns” to be circled or written in. Or worse yet, everyone is instructed to go around in a circle answering 2–3 questions about themselves: perhaps name, pronouns and one fun fact!
To my mind, it would be better to ask for a person’s name and where they born or our preferred creative outlet or they we were in high school and then let some people’s fun fact be their pronouns, if they feel so inclined to share. The always-ask-for-pronouns idea means we are now supposedly morally obligated to, upon meeting each new person, so as not to single anyone out, ask, “Are you a boy or a girl or an other?”
We are learning to center gender in people’s minds, making it constantly salient, to the tune of ending all our emails with a reminder of our own identity, though to many of us it not only feels like an uncomfortable mixture of virtue-signaling and loyalty oath-making, but also, where does that leave those who are still working through our gender identities and don’t want to publicly commit right now to being a he or a she or a they or a xie or a turtle emoji***?
“I’m cisgender, I identify with the sex assigned to me at birth. But I also include pronouns in my email signature for one simple reason: It normalises discussions about gender. Which, as a queer man, I can assure you is a conversation that benefits everyone,” writes Jamie Wareham in his December 30th, 2019 Forbes article “Should You Put Pronouns In Email Signatures And Social Media Bios?”
“With only seconds,” he continues, “to make the impression in your email to get a response — or a follow on your socials — showing your pronouns could be the difference between the click that you need.”
Ah, so it can only help business. You might get an extra follow or gig if you’re seen as being part of the tribe. To my mind, focusing on gender has become all too common in our society, one of many hyper-polarizing subjects, which, as a queer dude chick person, I can assure you doesn’t always benefit everyone. Further, no one queer person has the ability to speak for all of us, as if any view could be representative of everyone under an umbrella of 12+ letters (LGGBTQQIAAPP and sometimes more). As is true of conservatives, liberals, men, women, people of various ethnicities or nationalities, members of religions, the nonreligious, and people of various shapes, sizes, ages and abilities, we are not a monolith. Whether you’re speaking about us or for us as if we are, you’re trafficking in stereotypes.
I do not purport to speak for “the queer community.” Many people are thrilled to be able to announce their pronouns to the world via bios, signatures and name badges, and they’re hoping you ask. Often the people who want to be asked are the ones who don’t look as pronouny. Since they pass as cis-normative, having special pronouns is helpful to them. Thus, ironically, we tend not to ask the people who wish we would.
Ideally, the hosts of my comedy shows would use no pronouns for me. I tried that out for a while each time a host asked before a show for my pronouns. I quickly abandoned that as it seemed destined to result in a 95% failure rate, the host either defaulting to “they/them” or saying “she” and then apologizing, repeatedly, sometimes with fear in his eyes as he handed me the mic. Thus, when I’m addressing multiple people, such as at shows, my pronouns are she/her/hers, and I’ll fill the audience in on the fuzzy details of my gender, or I won’t, depending on what I feel like talking to them about or don’t.
And I’m not alone. Many trans people prefer not to be asked for their pronouns. If you’d been taking exogenous hormones and perhaps hormone blockers for years and potentially paid ten of thousands of dollars for surgeries, you’d probably feel a lot more affirmed by people assuming your newer pronouns than by asking about them. If the gender someone’s going for isn’t obvious, I think it’s okay to make a guess and let them correct you if they want to, you know, like an adult. Some of us are much more interested in knowing how you see us than in telling you how we wish you saw us.
I realize that my love of androgyny might leave you to think “they” would be an ideal pronoun for me. But I’m holding out on that one, partially because of my grammatical conservatism. It is challenging to effectively recount or follow a recounting of an experience involving multiple of my many trans and non-binary friends and acquaintances, especially the stories involving sex. I live in Austin, where I record a podcast about sexuality, gender, kinks and fetishes — Gender Fluids — with a poly and omnivorously sexual trans chick. The stories can become difficult to follow. “Wait, so did they, Alex, suck their, the couples’, dicks? Or did they, the couple, suck their, Falcon’s, dick?… They, Kayden, sucked their own dick?! How flexible is- Oh a detachable dick.” Some stories necessitate that we stick solely to proper names.
But it’s not really the hilarious confusion that steers me away from theying myself. We live in such a divided, polarized culture, and I live in the in between. I talk to audiences all over the political spectrum, some homogeneously conservative or thoroughly liberal, some quite mixed. I relate to everyone. I don’t identify as much of any one thing, but I identify with almost everything. I want people to see themselves in me in return. This seems to be the most successful way to effect an evolution of hearts and minds. So my pronouns are a secret, or they haven’t been invented yet, or they don’t — and maybe can’t — exist in English. My pronouns are whatever yours are.
The only pronouns I actively reject are “they/them” because, as much as I’d like to preserve ambiguity around my sex and gender, it’s more important to me to preserve ambiguity around my politics. It’s part of my attempt to follow the advice of Ruth Bader Ginsburg: “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”
I don’t want people to be told I’m one of Them, I want people to realize I’m one of them.
*At the time, circa 2005, we didn’t have pregnant men or pregnant non-binary folx yet.
**Just once I’d like to see a baby boy with pierced ears, or even just one pierced ear. (Also, if piercing an infant’s ears is a parent’s right, and circumcising a male child is too, then is it legally permissible to give one’s baby boy a Prince Albert?)
***See Gender Wiki’s entry on Emojiself Pronouns. | https://medium.com/@ainorman/why-i-dont-ask-for-people-s-pronouns-or-announce-mine-4e14c6c750e5 | ['Arielle Isaac Norman'] | 2020-10-22 19:55:28.805000+00:00 | ['Gender Identity', 'Nonbinary', 'Androgynous', 'Pronouns', 'Gender'] |
FAILED: DON8 App | Hello there, I’m starting a series called “FAILED”. I will add my fail projects to this series and describe what we did, why we failed etc.
DON8 Application
Project Info
The first project is DON8. App’s name is DON8 which means “donate”. It is a non-profit platform based on food and drinks purchases. Basically, It provides donating to people in need automatically from foods and drinks purchased.
So how people donate? Actually, there are discounted products in-app. Restaurants add their discounted products and DON8 shows their location and restaurant information on the home page. So the app promotes its discounted products. But half or specified percentage of discount is not valid for users to use that on charities.
So people eat with less money, restaurants are promoted.
Why Failed?
Let’s talk about why we failed. Isn’t that a great project?
Dead Teamwork
We were 4. But just 2 of us worked. I worked on the prototype development of the application and built the application. Another one is worked on presentations, texts, and other stuff. I also helped with them.
But the other 2 of us were passive. So are they faulty? No, I was faulty. As a project manager and developer of the project, I should have chosen team members correctly, distribute tasks to members right.
Presentation was BOOOOOOORIIING
Video Pitch
We made the intro pitch in like 2 hours. So we hadn’t so much time. But definitely, it was enough for a hackathon.
We presented “What is DON8?”, “How does it work?”, and pages titles. There was a lot of text. My talk was slow. 0 images.
I used acceleration for presenting a functional application at the last min. I realized we’re not accelerating. We’re compressing all that unnecessary information to the last minute. And that compressed memories are bombing people’s minds. I should have deleted that unnecessary stuff to decrease duration but not compressing all stuff.
Manipulating Votes
We manipulated votes. How we did that? Were we cheaters? Well, we sent the devpost link to our friends to request likes right after we finished the project. But likes aren’t important. The important thing is the votes. So other projects saw we have so many likes.
So they did the same thing. But they did that 5 hours before the winners announced. They got 56 votes and 53 likes :D IN 5 HOURS!!!!
And last and painful fact: Idea was terrible
Nobody wouldn’t download the app for a 1$ discount and restaurants wouldn’t want to give a discount for promoting their place.
Also, if we really started the project and try to turn it into a real project, we should have had money to advertise the application. Because no user means no restaurants, also no restaurants mean no user.
Project Link: https://devpost.com/software/don8-donation-made-great
Thank you for your read. Please leave a comment on what you think. Did I have recognized an incorrect thing? Or did I miss a mistake? | https://medium.com/@akcware/failed-don8-app-952abd922a74 | ['Aşkın Kadir Çekim'] | 2020-12-26 23:01:55.911000+00:00 | ['Hackathons', 'Startup'] |
40 Incredible Panoramas of Buildings and Cityscapes | Whether it’s the imposing geometric forms of a grand and impressive building or the quaint idiosyncrasies of a rustic cottage, a gifted photographer can give even the uninitiated an appreciation of architecture. And this is especially true when these human interventions are set against a natural environment that provides color and texture, bringing the building to life in a new context.
The Epson International Pano Awards, now in its 11th year, is celebrating these achievements with a category devoted to excellence in panoramic photographs of built environments. From the dazzling ceiling of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris to the night lights of New York City to an old windmill in Toledo, Spain, each of these stunning panoramas finds a way to bring out the symmetry and beauty of an architect’s design, the spectacular contours of a cityscape, or the striking contrast of a man-made object and its natural environment.
“Night Palace,” by Juan Lopez Ruiz | https://medium.com/p/40-incredible-panoramas-of-buildings-and-cityscapes-3201565b9657 | ['Jack Shepherd'] | 2020-12-08 13:30:21.384000+00:00 | ['Cities', 'Architecture', 'World', 'Culture', 'Photography'] |
Applications of Deep Learning for real-time Object Detection | The global computer vision market was valued at $27.3 Billion in 2019 with a CAGR of 19% from 2020 to 2027 [1]. Object detection is one of the core computer vision tasks that has a broad range of industrial applications such as -
Cancer detection in radiology-based images [Healthcare]
Detection of manufacturing defects, factory floor surveillance [Manufacturing]
Detection of seat belts, parking in restricted areas [Public Safety]
Stock level analysis and inventory management [Retail]
What is object detection?
There are four types of visual recognition tasks in computer vision. First, image classification, which is the assignment of labels to images, for example, labelling cows in a picture of farm as cows. Second, object detection, which is to not only label the cow but also to locate the cow using a bounding box. Third, semantic segmentation, which predicts the labels for each pixel of an image without differentiation between objects with the same label. Fourth, instance segmentation, which involves labelling as well as segmentation.
Different types of computer vision tasks
What is Deep Learning?
Deep learning is a subset of machine learning, that can process data from a very wide variety of sources. Compared to traditional machine learning, it requires lesser data preprocessing by humans and can often produce more accurate predictions from the data. In deep learning, interconnected layers of software-based calculators known as neurons, form a neural network. There are layers of such neurons, hence the word “deep” neural network. The network ingests data and processes them through each layer of the neural network, which each layer learning increasingly complex features of the data.
Once a deep neural network has learned how to make determinations from input data correctly, it can then use what it has learned to make determinations about new data. For example, once it learns what an object looks like, it can recognize the object in a new image. In other words, a deep neural network that has learned how to recognize cows, can quick detect cows in new images.
How a “Neural network” a.k.a “AI model” works: The network processes signals by sending them through a network of nodes analogous to neurons. Signal passes from one to another along links. “Learning” improves the outcome by adjusting the weights that amplify or damp the signals each link carries. Nodes are typically arranged in a series of layers, in other words, a “deep” neural network. Image from Waldropp Mitchell, PNAS, 2019, 116(4)
Technical detail: How does deep learning for object detection work?
Sequence of tasks involved in object detection
Use of a deep neural network for object detection
Recent trends in applications of deep learning for object detection
Overall, the accuracy and performance of state-of-the-art deep learning models reported in 2019 are significantly higher than those of the previous years. Higher accuracy has a profound impact on application of the technology in medical imaging as well as surveillance systems. Improvement in performance means results can be inferred much faster on modern edge-based computing systems, paving the way for applications such as real-time drone based video analytics.
Specifically, the new improvements to deep learning models came by way of the following advancements:
Face Detection Mean Average Precision went above 90%
Face detection is a computer vision problem to detect human faces in images, which is the first step to applications such as face verification, face alignment and facial recognition. Face detection is different from generic object detection in two ways. First, the range of scale of objects is larger in face detection and blurring is more common in face detection. Second, face detection has a single target and depends strongly on the structural characteristics of the face.
WIDER FACE is currently the most commonly used benchmark for evaluating face detection algorithms. The high variance of face scales and large number of faces per image make WIDER FACE the hardest benchmark for face detection, with three evaluation metrics (easy, medium and hard).
In 2019, PyramidBox++ [2], VIM-FD [3], ISRN [4], Retinaface [5], AlnnoFace [6] and RefineFace [7] all reported mAP scores of greater than 90% for the easy, medium and hard metrics. This is a significant improvment over the previous years.
2. Recent trends in pedestrian detection
CityPersons is a new and challenging benchmark for pedestrian detection. The dataset is split into different subsets according to the height and visibility level of the objects, and thus it’s able to evaluate the detectors in a more comprehensive manner. In 2019, the APD model reported a 30% improvement in the object detection performance over 2018 [8]. | https://medium.com/unitx-ai-magazine/recent-trends-in-the-application-of-deep-learning-for-object-detection-aabed8e705bc | ['Kiran Narayanan'] | 2020-08-04 11:39:14.904000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI', 'Deep Learning', 'Digital Transformation'] |
Waking up naked😛👅 in the morning. | sandwiched between naked men..
Recently one of my friend, a regular sex partner, asked me if I wanted to enjoy sex with some Georgian men. I obviously said yes. They were his classmates in London and were on a casual visit to Canada.
So on Friday evening, my friend pickup me up and we went to their suite in 5 star hotel. Four of us (me, my friend and 2 Georgian men) started with drinks and smoke. Then casual kisses and then they started to undress me.
They surrounded me on sofa and started kissing and licking different parts of my body. One by one, they too got naked and I started rubbing their dicks. In sometime, we all were naked and all three of them were licking me and pleasing me at navel, boobs, lips, etc. Then I started sucking them one by one.
Then penetrations started. Initially one in mouth and another in ass or pussy, but eventually in all my holes together. They kept changing their positions, this way they lasted long and enjoyed in all my holes. They all came inside me, different holes though.
Then we all again drank a lot. Another round we had in bedroom. We all slept naked.
In morning, I grabbed each one’s dicks and rubbed them to get up. Double penetration and blowjob again with their morning woods. Another round in shower, with all three of them.
Then my friend left. So now it was me with two stranger foreigners, who has fucked me four times in last 12 hours. They did not allowed me to wear bra or panties, neither did they were any shirt and wore only shorts without underpants.
For the next two days, we had multiple rounds of sex. Penetrative, oral, threesome, masturbating. I don’t even remember how many times I had orgasms or how many times I gave them orgasm.
Kitchen, bedroom, hall, washroom, everywhere. Multiple times. Even sometimes when one guy was done, another would come. And at times, both of them together. And we drank throughout the day. Both days.
Finally on Sunday afternoon, we checked out of hotel and they departed to the airport. | https://medium.com/@evepeacock/waking-up-naked-in-the-morning-5d02b44f3b80 | [] | 2021-12-21 10:21:08.158000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Hotel', 'Sex', 'Erotica', 'Traveling'] |
Solving Sudoku Fast | The famous Japanese puzzle has been around since the 19th century. However it wasn’t until the late 90’s that computer program was written to generate puzzles quickly, and even later in 2006 that a fast technique was developed to solve arbitrary sized Sudoku puzzles. The technique reduces Sudoku to a different problem, and utilizes an efficient data-structure to search for a solution. Let’s take a look!
Solving Sudoku
If we are to solve Sudoku using a bruteforce method, our algorithm would have to try each available number across all empty cells. Such an algorithm would have a runtime complexity of O(N^(N²)), where n is size of the Sudoku puzzle. For a 9x9 Sudoku puzzle (N = 9), the algorithm would perform 2*10⁷⁷ operations to find a solution. That would not be practical. In practice the runtime would vary according to the difficulty of the puzzle itself and the number of options for each empty cell. For example, a 17-clue puzzle with diagonal symmetry is one of the hardest to solve due to the large number of candidates and branches.
Reduction to Exact Cover
Let us consider the following problem: Given a binary matrix of N rows and M columns, find a subset of the rows where each column sums to 1. So a valid solution will have a single 1 in each column. This is known as the exact cover problem, which is NP-complete. That means any problem in NP can be reduced to the exact cover problem, which is what makes NP-complete problems so interesting. Graph-coloring, 2D Knapsack, Tiling, and Sudoku are all reducible to an exact cover problem.
Let us represent Sudoku in terms of an exact cover problem. We will transform the 4 constraints of a Sudoku puzzle into a binary matrix such that a solution to the exact cover matrix will have a one to one mapping to a solution to the Sudoku puzzle. The constraints for any Sudoku puzzle are:
For each row, a number can appear only once.
For each column, a number can appear only once.
For each region (small square), a number can appear only once.
Each cell can only have one number.
In our binary matrix, each column will represent a constraint for a Sudoku cell and each row will represent a possible assignment for a Sudoku cell to a candidate number. For 9x9 Sudoku, the binary matrix will have 4 x 9² columns and 9³ rows. The goal will be to find a subset of the rows such that each column has a single 1, satisfying all the constraints accross all columns, which will map to a solution to the Sudoku puzzle.
The first few rows and columns of binary matrix for a 4x4 Sudoku. Source: https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~jchu/publicportal/sudoku/4x4.dlx.64x64.xls
Algorithm X
To solve the exact cover problem, we will follow Donald Knuth’s trial and error approach named Algorithm X. The method goes over the columns of the binary matrix while recursively trying to select the rows that cover them.
AlgorithmX():
If Matrix has no Columns
Terminate with the current solution
Assign C to the first column in Matrix
For each Row R in where Matrix[R][C] = 1
AddRowToSolution(R) and CoverRow(R)
Recursively call AlgorithmX() on the modified Matrix
RemoveRowFromSolution(R) and UncoverRow(R) CoverRow(R):
For each Column C where Matrix[R][C] = 1
For each Row L where Matrix[L][C] = 1
For each Node N in L
Cover(N)
Remove C from Matrix UncoverRow(R):
For each Column C where Matrix[R][C] = 1
For each Row L where Matrix[L][C] = 1
For each Node N in L
Uncover(N)
Un-remove C from Matrix
If implemented naively Algorithm X would waste a large percentage of execution time in CoverRow and UncoverRow. Here is where the bottleneck is: searching for 1’s before selecting a row, then removing the rows and columns that are no longer relevant in the current branch of the search tree. This is what Knuth observed in his paper while describing an efficient way to store the matrix.
Dancing Links
What makes an algorithmic technique awesome? Perhaps when it cuts down the time complexity of solving an interesting problem by a significant factor. Or when it does so through a simple, intuitive, neat little trick. Or maybe because it is backed by a computer science and algorithms rock star. If so, then Dancing Links are awesome!
A dancing links representation for a sparse binary matrix. Source: https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~jchu/publicportal/sudoku/sudoku.paper.html
The first step of improving on the naive version is to realize that, practically, the matrix would be very sparse. From our reduction step, let’s analyze the number of 1’s in each row and each column. Since each row represents an assignment of a candidate number to a cell, there should be exactly 9 1’s in each column for a 9x9 Sudoku puzzle. Similarly, there will only be 4 1’s in each row, one for each of the 4 constraints. This motivates a different representation that takes advantage of this level of sparsity.
Instead of storing the matrix as a traditional 2-dimensional array, we will use a toroidal doubly-linked list. Each cell in the matrix will be a node in the linked list. Each node will have references to its upper, lower, right and left neighbors. This allows us to Cover and Uncover rows efficiently since only 1’s are stored. Searching for 1’s in any row or column becomes an O(1) operation instead of O(N).
Now removing (covering) a node from its position would look like this:
Cover(node):
Assign node.left.right to node.right
Assign node.right.left to node.left
While returning (uncovering) a node to its original position would look like this:
Uncover(node):
Assign node.left.right to node
Assign node.right.left to node
The term Dancing Links was chosen because the crux of the algorithm resembles a dance of the nodes as they interchange links.
This is how links interchange after removing (covering) a node. Source: https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~jchu/publicportal/sudoku/sudoku.paper.html
Implementation
We tested this approach by solving 16x16 Sudoku puzzles, which backtracking solvers and naive implementations would tremble against. However, our implementation finds a solution for a given puzzle in under 300 milliseconds on average.
Even Faster
The exact cover problem appears in many forms, such as graph coloring and scheduling. As the size of the input grows, the dimensions of the reduced binary matrix will cause the running time to exponentially increase. To take this a step further, one can consider parallelizing the recursive procedure by generating the subproblems upto a certain tree depth d and distributing them on parallel processors. As d increases and the number or processors increases, a major lift in speed would be gained.
Resources | https://medium.com/optima-blog/solving-sudoku-fast-702912c13307 | ['Muhammad Atef'] | 2016-02-15 20:13:45.714000+00:00 | ['Sudoku', 'Algorithms', 'Programming'] |
Building Career Success as a Philosophy Major | People like to see how you challenge yourself and work to destigmatize philosophy in the broader community.
Do UN-MAJOR things!
This seems like such a no-brainer, but do things outside of your major frequently.
When I transferred to Cal in fall of 2017, I desperately wanted to know how I could make the most of my time without overworking myself or missing out on unique opportunities. I felt pressured to quickly eliminate activities I thought were either too fun or had no clear benefit to my academic success. I became overly self-policing to the point where I wasn’t even attending events if I knew I had no expressed commitment to the host organization.
I grew out of that mindset by learning that “because I want to” is enough of an explanation for me to try something new, regardless of whether it can teach me a societally valuable skill or further advance my studies. So, I joined spaces I long thought I had no business in being and was introduced to professions I either knew nothing about or had initially treated as unrealistic career paths. Gaining exposure and making connections to people boosted my confidence so much so that I started taking career opportunities in design and consulting seriously.
Guess what? People were happy to give me chances because they liked that I was different. People like to see how you challenge yourself and work to destigmatize philosophy in the broader community.
2. Take advantage of career counseling services.
It should go without saying that seeing your major adviser should be your first pit stop, but there are often unanticipated shortcomings of every major department that your college’s career center can help you compensate for. For instance, philosophy students already know how difficult it is to fill up an entire summer because of the terrible shortage of programs available. There are a few summer philosophy programs as is that are competitive and short-lasting (typically less than two-weeks long) with a small stipend. Your department will likely have summer teaching assistant positions for lower-division courses, but you certainly don’t want to feel like that’s your only option to finding a paid position. After all, while we want to build an impressive resume, we also need to pay our bills, and career counselors are there to help you find the goldilocks in things based on your criteria.
The best time to set an appointment with a career counselor is over a break when most students are away from school. This is the time when you can establish a relationship with a counselor you like and receive a library of informational resources related to your goals, including career interest assessments (here’s one!), resume guides, and planners. When school begins to ramp up again, counselors aren’t inclined to fit new students into their busy schedule and will turn you away until a new opening emerges. However, with a pre-established relationship, you can bypass availability issues because your counselor knows you and is invested in your progress.
3. Attend career events when you least need a job.
You’ll get more out of workshops and career fairs when the pressure’s off. I highly recommend still coming prepared with multiple copies of your resume, business cards, and an elevator pitch. You can talk about your background and interests more openly without hurting your chances when you’re merely browsing.
Depending on the size of the occasion, you might be competing for attention from a professional among a group of 10+ students, and other times, it might only be between you and another individual. You learn how to navigate a room once you practice speaking to people in different uncomfortable situations. I particularly like this rundown of how to navigate a career fair, which includes great starter questions to ask employers and follow up strategies.
4. Get to know graduate students.
Don’t be shy and ask your fellow graduate students out for coffee. They often make themselves more available to undergraduates than professors, and their experiences applying for jobs are fresher to recall. They’re wonderful resources to turn to for questions about graduate programs as well, and you can learn a lot about yourself and your preferences through their stories.
5. Network off-campus and maintain professional connections.
You will stand out at off-campus events where it’s rare to find undergraduates mingling with experienced workers. There are pockets of communities on Facebook and LinkedIn solely focused on creating connections and spreading news about current trends in a particular industry. Finding those groups and watching your connections’ online activities can help you discover free networking events, luncheons, and mixers near you. Much of this requires adopting an entrepreneurial attitude and inviting people out to get to know you and how they can address your needs.
Maintaining connections is absolutely crucial to making the most of your networking experiences because it takes time, energy, and money to do things off the clock as a student. It will pay off even when the process is slow-going or certain connections seem like dead ends. It’s true when they say you never know who can open new doors for you, and so, treat seriously every person who takes you up on that coffee date or half-hour phone call.
(P.S. Join this network provided by the American Philosophical Association (APA) to stay in touch with philosophers beyond academia.) | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/building-career-success-as-a-philosophy-major-f2c7598ec9a0 | [] | 2020-01-14 03:50:52.227000+00:00 | ['Students', 'Life Lessons', 'Career Development', 'Academia', 'Philosophy'] |
The woman who brought Space Invaders to the UK and is championing women’s sport | She was the first woman in the UK to hold a gaming licence, secured a £27.5 million grant to move Birmingham Children’s Hospital across the city and helped haute couture milliner, Philip Treacy, grow into a global brand. Today, Cambridge alumna Dr Pat Marsh still wears many hats, among them the role of Executive Director of the Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club.
Dr Pat Marsh
I’m often out of the house at 5:20am during term time. The Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club (CUWBC) are waiting for me outside and then it’s up to Ely for the morning training session. Luckily I’ve always been an early riser.
You will find me in the launch alongside the coaches encouraging the crews. I support the girls off the river too. They know they can always come round, have a cup of tea, a piece of cake and a chat. The girls are training hard for the Boat Races on 7 April.
The 2018 Boat Races were a huge success for Cambridge, with all our crews, both the men and women, securing victory over Oxford. This was the first time since 1993 that Cambridge rowing had achieved a clean sweep. Twenty-five years ago a photograph was taken outside the Hawks’ Club (a Cambridge University sporting club) to commemorate this achievement, and last year the Club asked me to recreate this famous photo.
The six winning crews of the Boat Races 1993
The trophies had to be chauffeured from London to Cambridge, accompanied by security guards wearing white gloves! Gathering senior members of the University and 54 student athletes together was easier said than done.
I’m hugely proud of what the photo represents. A lot has changed since the last clean sweep 25 years ago, for sport in general and especially for women in sport. Today the women race on the Tideway — the same stretch of water on the Thames as the men. Up until 2014 the women’s races were held at Henley.
The six winning crews of the Boat Races 2018
In 2013 I played an instrumental role in the University’s review of sport. At the time, sport was, in governance terms, quite isolated and had no strategy for its future development. The review proposed major changes which placed sport firmly within the University’s governance structure where it can, and does, now have a voice. Sport is now represented on the Council and the General Board by the Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, Professor Graham Virgo, who is pictured in the front row of the Clean Sweep photograph.
I have always said it was rowing that saved my sanity. I firmly believe that sport is essential for students’ happiness, health and wellbeing.
On the river I was just Pat, number three, with a job to do, a rhythm to keep and a crew not to let down. I first took hold of an oar in 1997. I’d come to Cambridge in my fifties to study for an MPhil in Archaeology at Magdalene College. Prior to that I’d been sitting on a number of high profile executive boards and committees.
I grew up in Tipton, a working class town in the Midlands. All my family lived locally so we were always in and out of each other’s houses. People always think that, if you are hard-up, things are difficult but everyone was the same, so we didn’t know any different.
My sister reminded me recently that we had to sleep with our coats on the bed to keep warm. We had a flat roof and each year someone put up a new tarpaulin to keep the rain out. But it wasn’t completely watertight so there were always buckets around.
Although we were poor we were also proud, with polished shoes. My father joined the Grenadier Guards at the age of 15 and fought with the Desert Rats in North Africa.
Since reading Malory Towers I’d always dreamed of going to boarding school. But then I heard of such a thing as university, after watching the The Student Prince and The Wild and the Willing at the local Odeon, and thought that sounded even better.
I was the only girl from my school to go to Grammar School and the only girl to go on to university. In those days girls went to secretarial or teacher training college so this was unusual. I got a place at Hull University to study geography, which was my best subject at school.
University in the 1960s was magical. One time at the Old Hill Plaza George Harrison held my hand — what more could a girl want in life?
After university, my career started with slot machines. I’d set up a business to service these machines in cafes. We started being asked about a new game called Space Invaders, so went to a trade show in Japan and ended up forming a joint Japanese company, which was the first to bring Space Invaders to the UK.
We had to file down the slots, which were just big enough for Yen, so that 10 pence pieces could fit in. Everyone wanted one and we found ourselves airlifting these arcade games to businesses all over the UK.
It was a crazy time. We had two Japanese colleagues living with us, one dealing with imports and exports, the other with technical issues. Because of this my children picked up Japanese.
Later we decided to just import the electronic components and build the machines in the UK at Ace Coin Equipment Ltd in South Wales. This meant we needed to design a circuit board for the new range of machines, which led to my first association with Cambridge. One of our directors, Keith Arnold, knew of two young men, Hermann Hauser and Chris Curry in Cambridge who were paid £20,000 to design the new board. With this money they founded Acorn Computers.
Haute couture hats have been my most recent business venture. I served as Executive Chairman of, and was a major shareholder in, Philip Treacy Ltd. Philip’s couture hats have been worn by royals and celebrities and are widely regarded as works of art. I have some hanging on my wall at home.
I sometimes feel like someone who wears lots of metaphorical hats. A year or so ago I did a course at Cambridge Judge Business School. We were asked what we would like to be doing in five years’ time. I wrote down: Magdalene College, sport and archaeology — my three loves. And here I am, organising alumni reunions, cheering on the girls on the river and supporting archaeological research. I love all my hats, real and metaphorical.
Patrick Ryan, Assistant CUWBC Coach and Pat Marsh in the launch following ‘Blondie’
This profile is part of our This Cambridge Life series, which opens a window on to the people that make Cambridge University unique. Cooks, gardeners, students, archivists, professors, alumni: all have a story to share.
Pat is the Executive Director and a former Chairman of Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club, a Trustee of the Hawks’ Charitable Trust, and Director of the Executive Committee of the Ospreys. She is the Alumni Secretary and a Fellow Commoner of Magdalene College. She sits on the Management Board of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and is a member of the Alumni Council at Cambridge Judge Business School. | https://medium.com/this-cambridge-life/the-woman-who-brought-space-invaders-to-the-uk-and-is-championing-womens-sport-7f1aa8ffedb8 | ['University Of Cambridge'] | 2019-04-01 15:20:22.994000+00:00 | ['Space Invaders', 'Womens Sports', 'Boat Race', 'Cambridge University', 'Rowing'] |
Empowering the Special need children with the power of empathy? | But what does it really mean?
Empathy as we all know is the ability to see things from the others point of view and respecting it. And often this famous line is quoted , “Put yourself under the shoes of others”. In order to build peace and harmony in society this rare skill is needed to be practiced by the majority.
But what does it really mean to practice empathy with special needs children? and why developing the right understanding of this amazing tool is essential in order to develop special needs children?. Like any other human we all feel comfortable and influenced by those who genuinely understand and respect us which is relevant for those children.
In life sometimes we try to help others and end up hurting themselves. This often happens due to lack of understanding the others’ needs and what’s best for them.Same metaphor applies to empowering these great childrens.
What often parents , children and counselors does is they implant inferiority complexes among those children rather than empowering them under the name of empathy.
The goal/ motive/objective of practicing empathy with them is to empower them and to teach them to learn with those difficulties Not considering themselves inferior to others fellow humans and building that attitude which enable them to live life to the fullest rather than living under the victim mentality that they cannot do anything in life which at the end turns in to rage and self hatred. | https://medium.com/@hamzaaliliaquat/empowering-the-special-need-children-with-the-power-of-empathy-33ad97cb6afb | ['Hamza Ali Liaquat'] | 2020-04-26 16:19:10.724000+00:00 | ['Special Needs', 'Special Education', 'Empathy', 'Parents', 'Empowering'] |
The art of acceptance! | “Understanding is the first step to acceptance and only with acceptance can there be recovery” — J.K. Rowling.
All of us come across several instances in our life when we feel disturbed, hurt by something or a person or any situation. In this situation, we all try to introspect and try to come up with a root cause. It often happens with everyone of us when we know the reason behind the problem but we are unable to accept it. We want someone else to tell us the same reason and which we find it really difficult to accept it.
A simple word with a very deep meaning. It means to accept a thing, a person, a situation or be it anything. But have you ever asked yourself, why it becomes so hard for us to accept some things. Yes, the root cause of all our problems is this mere word, feeling of acceptance.
In today’s scenario, nothing is right or wrong because everyone of us have set our rights and wrongs. There maybe a situation where something is right according to a person and wrong in regards to some other person’s perspective or his view point. We often hurt ourselves by thinking too much, as we assume that other person has hurt us in a way that we think is not right.
Let me help you with the art of acceptance. Whenever you face a problem, situation or any kind of circumstance where your inner soul is unable to accept; try to follow the below steps:
Ask yourself why? Your inner soul can never be wrong and it’ll always tell you the right answer. It is just that you do not want to accept it.
Write the reason or say it loud. Listen to the answer and say it loud enough that your conscious mind can hear it or write it on some piece of paper and read it loudly.
Say to yourself, “Whatever happens, happens for a reason”. There’s no point thinking too much and making it a reason for your sadness.
The art of self-acceptance is as difficult as losing a sprint race. Deep down, everyone of us hate the feeling of loosing. We all want to win and be a hero in our own eyes, our loved ones, relatives and friends. We choose not to accept somethings because we have a fight on-going between our ego’s or the solution and the problem; and we don’t want to loose the fight in any case.
But sometimes, we have no options left. We have to accept the situation in the way it is. Just try accepting it once, you’ll feel the sense of satisfaction, happiness. A happy soul is the one who accepts the situation and moves on. Even though it is difficult, but not impossible. | https://medium.com/@pulkitarora_41443/the-art-of-acceptance-4cb0dfdbad71 | ['Pulkit Arora'] | 2019-11-15 10:55:50.244000+00:00 | ['Acceptance', 'Life', 'Life Lessons', 'Experience', 'Love'] |
Bitcoin Briefly Hits $9K, Investors Remain Bullish | Bitcoin (BTC) failed to plant a flag above $9,000 early on Tuesday, even as on-chain data suggests spiking investor interest in the top cryptocurrency by market value.
Prices rose to a high of $9,112 at 05:05 UTC, extending a recovery from Monday’s low of $8,528. At press time, the cryptocurrency had dropped back to near $8,850 on major exchanges, representing a 1.9% decline on the day, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index.
While the cryptocurrency found dip demand on Monday, the seven-day average of the number of unique addresses active on the network, as sender or receiver, rose to 932,274 — the highest level since June 29, 2019, according to the data provided by blockchain intelligence firm Glassnode.
The non-price metric has risen by nearly 40% from lows observed in March and likely represents an influx of bitcoin investors, according to analysts.
“There is more media [attention] around the halving, which is causing more account openings; we’re seeing that on the retail side too,” Chris Thomas, head of digital assets at Swissquote Bank, told CoinDesk.
Bitcoin is set to undergo its third mining reward halving next Tuesday, following which the rewards per block mined will drop to 6.25 BTC from the current 12.5 BTC. The impending supply cut has been hailed as a long-term bullish development by many analysts.
The hype surrounding the halving, coupled with the drop below $4,000 seen in mid-March, may have enticed existing investors to add more coins to their wallets and new investors to dip a toe in the cryptocurrency space. This is evidenced by the fact that unique active addresses began rising in the second half of March.
“We have observed a significant increase in ‘new money’ entering the ecosystem. Several exchanges and retail platforms are reporting a surge in Bitcoin deposits, new signups, and credit card purchases since the low that took place on March 13,” said Matthew Dibb, co-founder of Stack, a provider of cryptocurrency trackers and index funds.
While the ecosystem looks to be expanding, each unique active address does not necessarily represent a single investor or user. A single person or an exchange can hold multiple addresses. Large investors, popularly known as whales, could buy, say, 10,000 bitcoins and hold them in many addresses.
Looking ahead, observers expect the number of active addresses to continue rising post-halving. “We’ll see higher account openings at the end of May if we go through $10,000,” said Thomas.
If history is a guide, though, the cryptocurrency has potential to see a price pullback post-halving. It fell nearly 30% in the four weeks following its second halving on June 9, 2016.
Meanwhile, Dibb expects active addresses to reach levels seen during the height of the previous bull market in December 2017 on the back of continued retail demand and adoption by new entrants. The seven-day average of active addresses clocked a record high of 1,190,302 on Dec. 18, 2017, the day the cryptocurrency clocked a lifetime high of $20,000.
As far as the cryptocurrency’s price is concerned, volatility is expected to rise as we head into the halving.
“The push above $9,000 seen this morning is positive and could be the first indication that we have now started the run into the halving. Parts of Asia (Japan and China) were off today, but when they return tomorrow we will be just a week away from the halving so we can expect to see an increase in volatility,” said Marcus Swanepoel, CEO of the cryptocurrency platform Luno, earlier on Tuesday.
Credit : https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-briefly-hits-9k-investors-remain-bullish
For more information please contact :
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/Hashbx.io/
Twitter : https://twitter.com/HashbxGlobal
Reddit : https://www.reddit.com/user/HashBXGlobal/
Telegram : https://goo.gl/KDdVi
Email : [email protected] | https://medium.com/@hashbxglobal/bitcoin-briefly-hits-9k-investors-remain-bullish-d22535002e6b | ['Hashbx Global'] | 2020-05-06 14:10:15.036000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency News', 'Bitcoin Mining', 'Bitcoin News', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency Investment'] |
Hey, You can’t do it. | Yes you heard me right, you cant do it.
To every person who asks themselves whether or not they need to do it, Am saying don't do it. JUST DONT. When your “Hesitation” superiors your “Interest” we can simply call that you are just not interested.
Interest is the key to your success, Its considered as the opening door to your dreams. “You cant have a MILLION DOLLAR DREAM with a minimum wage work ethics”
If you are reading this still, then that means you are probably interested in my page, isn't? It also means that you have an urge to do something, but you find something is always pulling you back. If so, you are not alone because i was like that to. My activities don't match with my dreams.
NO 1 ENEMY OF STUDENTS — PROCRASTINATION
Do you procrastinate a lot??? Don't worry literally everyone do that. It was at this time when I understood I was a procrastination queen. My college have arranged a course called “RPA” which means Robotic Process Automation and the fun fact here is, I loved RPA a lot, literally it makes human works a lot more easier and let people concentrate on their important duties. I will explain you guys what is RPA later in this blog.
Day 1 of my RPA class was a lot anticipated session, I updated my laptop, bought new headphones, installed the programs needed and cleared storage (Just incase) in short the preparation went really well. I listened to each and every word my teacher told us, Frankly speaking it was not that easy to go along with my teach, All theories together trying to go inside my lil brain was such a work. Then eagerly I applied all of that what I have learned into practice, Woah! you wont believe me but the happiness you get from the finishing product is on another level, It was my drug and I live for that. Not only RPA but anything that you are working on, putting all of you Blood, Sweat and Tears for weeks and weeks and finally you could see that your hard work turned out well. How do you feel at that moment? Have you ever got such experience? If no, Let me explain It was like the taste of “Spicy chicken” that you ate at your cousins marriage, waiting with raw stomach from morning. Yeah!.
However, I started procrastinating for no reason and put aside my tasks to be done at last moment. That literally sucks, It was like I cant deny it or I cant accept it. This resulted in not even goin near my laptop until it was the last 1 hour for submission.
Me and procrastination schedule
But I cant let this eat my dreams, It was the last week of our RPA course, yes I know am late but “Better be late than never” I scheduled my days with simple tasks that I would love to do, for example I wanted to exercise in mornings and for that I scheduled “ Wake up and see sunrise” Yes first I need to practice waking up, and only if I get practiced to that, I can start working out. This literally and practically worked. Just keep in mind “ Don’t let others control you, Because you have your own brain that controls you” and make sure your brain is under your custody (It funny, but fact)
F irst step is the hardest
Have courage
In every game that I have played ‘level 1’ is the easiest, but in our case its a No-No you know?. The first step is the real hurdle, And that first step can be anything respective to your model of interest. For you guys am just saying “JUST DAMN DO IT”, Do you think ‘opportunity’ is a milk man who knocks at your door daily? [I apologize if this is rude, but that’s how hard I went to get myself escape my fear]. I mean what is stopping you from doing what you love? Is it your fear? Is it because you think what other people might think? Is it because you are afraid of losing? Then don’t do it, You are not WORTH to hold that dream of yours. | https://medium.com/@lemracenna/hey-you-cant-do-it-65650b1a112d | ['Anne Carmel'] | 2020-12-28 08:33:49.060000+00:00 | ['Inspiration', 'Dreams', 'Procrastination', 'Students', 'Knowledge'] |
Accelerating TSNE with GPUs: From hours to seconds | Applications of TSNE
TSNE contrasts with traditional supervised methods like Linear Regression and Decision Trees, as it requires no labels. TSNE tries to discern structure in the data by moving points that are similar together and dis-similar points away from each other.
Figure 2. TSNE used in a fashion use case.
In Figure 2 above, TSNE is being applied to a fashion dataset that consists of 60,000 images of articles of clothing. This is useful for finding a natural grouping that will put “similar” garments close together. TSNE is able to reduce the complex space of fashion images to a smaller space, which is easier to work with. The vectors of pixels for each image are used as input and TSNE maps them to 2 dimensions, or 2 values for each image. In Figure 5, the 2-dimensional output from TSNE is plotted and color-coded according to the clothing category of the original input (e.g. boots are blue). TSNE is unaware of these categories, but finds a grouping that is able to put more similar items closer together.
Here is another example using the MNIST digits dataset. Given handwritten digits, the task is to classify each digit as 0, 1, 2 etc. After applying TSNE on all 60,000 images of digits, we find that without any labels, TSNE manages to separate the data. You can see in Figure 3 how there are clear clusters color-coded by digit type (0 to 9).
Figure 3. TSNE plot of the MNIST digits dataset
TSNE is also used to visualize Convolutional Neural Nets to help practitioners discern whether complex classifiers are actually “learning.” Below shows TSNE applied to AlexNet, where the output of the CNN of images before the actual classifier (4096 dimensions) is reduced to 2 dimensions, then visualized with the actual input image. Notice in Figure 4, similar images tend to be close, which implies how AlexNet “sees” them as being similar.
Figure 4. Source: CS231n Convolutional Neural Networks for Visual Recognition
TSNE vs. Principal Component Analysis (PCA)
TSNE is a nonlinear dimensionality reduction algorithm, whilst Principal Component Analysis is linear. This mean’s PCA’s components often have some meaning, while TSNE’s are no longer ordered by importance, or at all interpretable outside of the neighborhoods they create. On the CPU, it’s often recommended to reduce dimensions using PCA to 50 before feeding into TSNE for performance improvements. This is not the case for GPUs.
RAPIDS cuML Speed-Up over Scikit-Learn
Many data scientists start with the popular TSNE implementation from scikit-learn. Scikit-learn’s TSNE (single threaded) provides a familiar, easy to use interface, but can run into scalability issues. For instance, a 60,000 example dataset could take 1 hour to converge in scikit-learn on CPU. The cuML TSNE implementation running on an NVIDIA V100 GPU can finish in 3 seconds on that same dataset.
Table 1. cuML’s TSNE time running on an NVIDIA DGX-1 with using 1 V100 GPU.
Notice the log scale in Table 1.
Table 2. The timings in seconds between cuML and Scikit-Learn (DGX 1)
So cuML’s TSNE runs 1,000x faster, and it also attains similar trustworthiness scores.
Table 3. The full graph showcasing speedup of cuML over scikit-learn running on NVIDIA DGX 1.
On a dataset with 204,800 samples and 80 features, cuML takes 5.4 seconds while Scikit-learn takes almost 3 hours. This is a massive 2,000x speedup. We also tested TSNE on an NVIDIA DGX-1 machine using only one V100 GPU (DGX1: 32gb GV100 GPU, Intel Xeon E5–2698 v4 CPU@ 2.20GHz w/20 cores & 40 threads). The data transfer times were also included in this benchmark. Figure 5 shows a dataset containing 100 samples and 80 columns. Notice how cuML can be faster even on small datasets. Furthermore, RAPIDS TSNE is also around 200x faster than multicore TSNE.
Figure 5. cuML TSNE on the small Breast Cancer Data (1 second)
Using the PCA trick described above does give scikit-learn’s TSNE a slight boost in end-to-end performance, however, RAPIDS cuML TSNE is still demonstrating more than 1,000x speedup on tall datasets with 204,800 samples and 50 columns. This enables TSNE to be trained on datasets without first having to reduce the dimensions using PCA.
How TSNE Works
cuML’s TSNE is based largely on CannyLab’s original Barnes Hut implementation. Currently, two algorithms are supported: Barnes Hut TSNE and Exact TSNE. Barnes Hut runs much faster than the Exact version, but is very slightly less accurate (at most 3% error). For large datasets (samples >= 2,000), the Barnes Hut algorithm is recommended for superior speed.
TSNE has 2 key objectives:
Close points should remain close. Far points should remain distant.
Given some data points in a high dimensional setting (say 3D or 1,000 D), the goal is to embed the points in a lower space (eg. 2 dimensions), such that the local neighborhood structure of the input data is preserved as much as possible in its embedded form.
More concretely, points in the original high-dimensional space are first converted to probability densities that look like a bell curve, or normal distribution, like the red line in Figure 6 below. Points that are close increase each other’s probabilities, and so dense areas tend to have higher values. Likewise, outliers and dissimilar points have small values.
Figure 6. Source: study.com
Now here’s where the “T-Distributed” part in TSNE’s name comes in. The points in the lower space are also modeled using a bell curve, though one which is stretched out like the blue line in Figure 6.
People have tried using a non-stretched version, but this causes a problem known as the “Crowding Problem”, where the embedded points clump together.
Figure 7. Left showcases the crowding problem. TSNE solves this by using the T-Distribution.
Now, imagine springs connecting every point in the low dimensional space to every other point. Imagine the following scenario:
Points which are close originally will tug on each other. (Attraction) Points which are dis-similar originally will push on each other. (Repulsion)
Essentially our spring’s function has been reversed. One would expect that far away points will cause the spring to pull them together, but in TSNE it’s the opposite.
Now let the springs in the low dimensional space be free. This is the optimization phase for TSNE. We terminate the evolving system when all the springs stop moving. We remove the springs, and the ending positions of each point becomes the final embedding.
TSNE Optimizations
There are four optimizations used to improve the performance of TSNE on GPUs:
calculating higher dimensional probabilities with less GPU memory, approximating higher dimensional probabilities, reducing arithmetic operations, and broadcasting along rows.
Optimization 1 — Calculating Higher Dimensional Probabilities with less GPU Memory
Remember the goal to calculate the probabilities of each point by considering every other point’s influence? When the influence of point A to point B is not the same as point B on A, they are not symmetric. To make them equal, both contributions are summed up and divided between them. This is called symmetrizing the probabilities.
Originally, the symmetrization step was inefficient due to the use of unnecessary intermediate memory buffers. In the RAPIDS implementation, memory usage was reduced by 30% and is now highly parallelized. In total running times, symmetrization now takes 1%, or less of total elapsed times, as compared to 25% previously.
Table 4. Timings of each kernel on the GPU. Symmetrization takes 1% of total time.
To implement this optimization, we first converted the distances between points into a COO (Coordinate Format) Sparse Matrix using fast cuML primitives. Sparse matrix formats are good at representing graphs of connected nodes and edges. This is especially true in the case of k-nearest neighbors graphs, which have a fixed number of connected edges, since only the closest neighbors of each point needs to be considered. Sparse formats only require the connected vertices to be stored, providing a significant speedup and lower storage overhead for algorithms like TSNE. The COO format is represented by 3 very simple arrays — the data values (COO_Vals), the column indices (COO_Cols), and the individual row indices (COO_Rows).
As an example, let’s say there’s a given point (0, 7) with value 10. It’s transpose (or reverse) is (7, 0), also with value 10. Here’s how to store this in the final COO sparse matrix:
To get its transpose or reverse, simply flip the col and row pointers like this:
Notice how the example above also includes an array named “RowPointer”. The COO layout does not include information about where each row starts or ends. Including this information allows us to parallelize lookups and quickly sum the transposed values in the symmetrization step. This RowPointer idea comes from the CSR (Compressed Sparse Row) Sparse Matrix layout. In the CSR layout, entries are indexed by which rows they are in. For example, all elements with row index 1 are placed together, in sorted order, at the start of the RowPointer index. The CSR layout is excellent for algorithms where data is accessed in a row-wise fashion.
Combining these two layouts allows us to use the COO format for efficient parallel computations over each element in the graph, while the CSR format is used to perform the transpose of the elements. Since the RowPointer contains the number of elements present in each row, the contributions of each pair of points can be summed in parallel using atomicAdd.
Figure 8. Diagram showcasing our Symmetrization Kernel in action.
Figure 8 shows the whole process. Given the point (0, 7) with value 10, index the Row Pointer to get the row index for the point, and store it. Then, flip to (7, 0), access the Row Pointer, and store this as well in parallel with the first.
Optimization 2 — Approximating Higher Dimensional Probabilities
It has been noted by van der Maaten, the author of TSNE that instead of computing full distances between all points, one can compute the top nearest neighbors and calculate the high dimensional probabilities from them. cuML followed CannyLabs’ approach of using Facebook’s FAISS library to compute the top-k neighbors on the GPU. This reduces the probability computation from having to store N² elements to storing only N*k elements (N is the number of data samples and k is the number of neighbors.)
Optimization 3 — Reduce Arithmetic Operations
In many TSNE implementations, the attractive force computation (the spring tugging) is split to first be computed on point A and then on point B. TSNE can be made significantly faster if one computes the interaction, not separately, but at the same time. This reduces the number of multiplications and addresses from originally 9 to around 4, and makes this computation 50% faster.
Optimization 4 — Broadcast along rows
Figure 9. Calculate common values and distribute it across each row!
Another fundamental optimization is noticing distances between point A in dimension 1 and dimension 2 are repeated across rows. This means instead of separately computing values for each dimension, compute it once, then broadcast and re-use the computation for the other dimension. This once again reduces arithmetic operations, and further speeds TSNE up. This is a general technique used by many CUDA algorithms, including many in cuML.
Improving TSNE’s Numerical Stability
cuML has fixed some rare issues with numerical stability in CannyLab’s original implementation, including some infinite loops and out of bounds memory accesses. It is also known that TSNE is very sensitive to its hyperparameters. In cuML, an adaptive learning scheme is provided where parameters are adjusted based on the user’s input data.
Sometimes if the learning rate is too large, embedded points can become outliers. In cuML, a MAX_BOUND is specified which carefully pushes the outlier back and resets all momentum variables. This also helps improve TSNE’s precision and trustworthiness.
How Do We Run TSNE in RAPIDS?
Let’s compare scikit-learn’s API to RAPIDS cuML’s API. This example uses the scikit-learn’s digits dataset.
scikit-learn API:
Now compare it with cuML:
Since cuML is a near drop-in replacement for scikit-learn, the “sklearn.manifold” package can be replaced with “cuml.manifold” and everything else will just work.
Here’s a Jupyter Notebook showing a demo of cuML TSNE on Fashion MNIST.
For more TSNE examples and a deeper dive into the mathematical optimizations on TSNE, check out a more extended Jupyter Notebook here.
cuML TSNE on Boston Housing Data
Conclusion
TSNE has been very successful at enabling the visualization of very large and complex datasets. It is able to discern structure in datasets without labels. Unfortunately, its biggest drawback has been its slow execution time.
With the new RAPIDS TSNE implementation, speedups up to 2,000x can be achieved while also using 30% less GPU memory. See what you think and provide feedback. Try out the free cuML TSNE for yourself on a Google Colab instance here. | https://medium.com/rapids-ai/tsne-with-gpus-hours-to-seconds-9d9c17c941db | ['Daniel Han-Chen'] | 2019-11-28 04:48:47.899000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Computer Science', 'Data Visualization', 'Algorithms'] |
Why Do Bisexuals Love Frogs? | According to the internet, frogs are bisexual or nonbinary culture. But why?
Much like many queer people — in particular bisexual, transgender, and/or nonbinary individuals — frogs find themselves occupying a liminal space, moving between territories and identities that are often, wrongly, conceived of as mutually exclusive. Frogs represent an embodied juxtaposition of land and water, equally at home in both spheres, and moving freely between them. Frogs reject the false binary imposed by the dominant culture — male or female; water or land — instead claiming a uniquely amphibious nature.
More generally, frogs occupy a unique position in modern meme culture. Well known figures such as Pepe, Dat Boi, and Kermit provide fodder for countless memes and remixes. Of course, other animals are equally dominant in meme culture — for instance, the lolcats and doges of days past — but cats and dogs are common and well-loved pets, at least in most Western cultures. Frogs are much rarer in everyday life, and the broader culture regards them with at best ambivalence.
Frogs and toads are sometimes said to be slimy, grotesque, carrying warts and disease. Yet frogs are also uniquely delicate, profoundly sensitive to pollution and other ecological disturbances. Frogs serve as an early warning of environmental catastrophe, a canary in the watershed. Fragility and ugliness wrapped up in one little package — few things cut so effectively across gendered stereotypes, or convey such a universal relatability.
Frogs, of course, are known for their metamorphosis. Though butterflies provide a more accessible and aesthetic metaphor for the process of gender transition, frogs add yet another layer: as made famous in the film Jurassic Park, they are fluid in their sex and gender. Alex Jones’ famous rant about “turning the frogs gay” is based, however tenuously, in actual science: in their hormonal sensitivity, bathed in humanity’s pollution, frogs become physically androgynous and ambiguous.
Frogs have long served as symbols of the LGBT community, dating back at least as far as Lobel’s Frog and Toad are Friends in 1970. The word amphibian itself comes from Greek amphibia, “having two modes of existence; of doubtful nature.” What could better symbolize the ambiguous or dual existence of queer people? Is it any surprise, then, that those with an ambiguous relationship to sex and gender — whether their own, or of those they love — should find in frogs an avatar of the self? | https://medium.com/@bethjmartyn/why-do-bisexuals-love-frogs-28d42c5c190a | ['Elizabeth Martyn'] | 2021-02-04 00:48:35.311000+00:00 | ['Meme', 'Bisexual', 'Frog', 'Bi', 'Nonbinary'] |
Why I’m Jealous of Prostitutes | Why I’m Jealous of Prostitutes
The unexpected love triangle
Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash
It was an unspoken tension between us. I would never be exactly what he wanted. My skin would never feel like a strangers. I could never be the unknown prostitute, with her new scent and different body. There was an excitement for my boyfriend there, which can’t be created after years of being together.
Over the years we had become old friends. We knew every inch of each other. The smell of his hair, his deodorant, the softness of his favourite stripy boxers were permanently stored in my memory. I still wish I could have kept a frisson of excitement for him. Preserved it forever. Wrapped it up in the goosebumps he deserved, and kept it for everytime we touched. But I couldn’t. I knew him too well.
He knew all of my lingerie
And he knew me. All my underwear had a familiar, less then exciting feel. There were no surprises. He taught me how to have sex, so I couldn’t shock him. He was my first. He gave me tips from porn films. I’d listen eagerly, desperately wanting to be the best. He was all I knew. And it would be that way forever.
Until forever evaporated into a broken promise. Forever drifted away as we grew up. Our time together became fictional. The memory was now the highlights of our journey together.
At the time, I did all I could. I was determined to become the woman he desired. Black stockings and garters looked good on me. New underwear every month freshened things up. I discovered magazines had essential tips for adventurous sex. I planned to surprise him.
But I was fighting a losing battle
Every woman looked sexier than me. They made wild noises on the porn shows we watched together. I ignored any stabs of jealousy. After all, we were friends, as well as lovers. I wanted to share his passions. We discussed sex clubs and brothels together in his bedroom in hushed excited tones, so his parents didn’t hear.
Except, I wasn’t excited. There was a sadness in my heart. I wanted to be the woman he discussed in hushed tones. I wanted to be his prostitute. But, how would I ever compete with their illicit skins and lustful moans? There was a nervous thrill surrounding prostitutes which I could never create.
The truth was, my prince charming wanted a prostitute
And who was I to stop him? We would be together forever. So, we had to try things. We had to be free and open to explore the world. Our relationship couldn’t hold us back. It must amplify life, not squash it. If he wanted to explore all sexual avenues, who was I to get in his way?
A human must be free. And his freedom was prostitution. So, I waited outside the brothel. We were on holiday. It was a balmy, gentle night. It was easy to wait in the early morning light. I got us both a drink in the bar. I sat on a metal chair and waited happily. He would need a drink after his adventure. I was determined to be relaxed about it.
I closed my eyes
Images danced in my mind. Soft skin on his, sultry sweet perfume, lips brushing against his neck, heavy breathing. I took a sip of my drink. I had to ignore my thoughts. I would try and relax. I closed my eyes again. Immediately I heard a helpless moan, increased breathing, his grunts of pleasure. My imagination was running wild.
I drank quickly. I drank his vodka too. It didn’t seem like he would be arriving anytime soon. He shouldn’t rush. It was a nice evening. I wanted desperately to be the carefree girlfriend I knew I could be. I closed my eyes again but the torment was still there. I saw nails digging into his back. Bodies hot against each other. Moans moulding into one.
I stood up abruptly.
I couldn’t cope with the images my mind was creating
It would be refreshing to go for a walk. I had finished both drinks now. I needed something to do. I would walk straight down the main street. It would be safe and well lit. I would keep walking until I got to the beach. I would take my heels off and feel the sand beneath my feet. I would look at the sea and feel the ocean spray on my face. I would feel better. I was sure of it.
I walked fast. It felt good to have a plan.
“Tilly?”
I looked up. There he was. He had rushed to catch up with me. I stared at him. Was I disappointed he had interrupted my plan? I didn’t know. Had he slept with a prostitute? I didn’t care. All I knew is I wanted to sleep. I wanted to crawl into a warm bed and sleep for hours. I was exhausted. We would talk in the morning. | https://matildaswinney.medium.com/why-im-jealous-of-prostitutes-8f703a5dc32a | ['Matilda Swinney'] | 2020-01-08 18:18:06.879000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'This Happened To Me', 'Sexuality', 'Love', 'Sex'] |
Are You Old Enough To Remember PASCAL? | In the mid and late 1970s, Pascal programming language was developed to teach programming to young and upcoming computer scientists. Today, the programming language has been replaced by more complex programming languages, including C, C++, Java, and Python. Despite its unpopularity, the language is still used in some institutions to introduce people to programming. Pascal is a structured and procedural language that requires considerable attention to details, sequence, and structure. However, the language is less prevalent in the software development department compared to C, C++, Python, and Java. As noted earlier, the language was primarily developed to teach students and make efficient programs that could run on computers available at that time.
PLATFORMS
Like any other programming language, Pascal is made up of data and actions that specify what the data should do. The language consists of descriptions of the actions that need to be performed. Data is also described within the language’s syntax. The data is manipulated by the actions to generate a sequence or output. Every programming language needs a compiler to interpret these declarations, also known as instructions, to meaningful output. In the early 1980s, Pascal was developed for the DOS operating system. It utilized a simple compiler with the language itself adopting ALGOL 60 syntax. Pascal was capable of defining complex datatypes and dynamic structures. Unlike its successor, the C and C++ programming languages, Pascal could represent any nested declaration. Also, many statements could be made inside a substructure or function.
Pascal’s success was made possible by the architecture of the mini and microcomputers of the 1970s. These computers comprised simple 16, 32, or 64-bit architectures and ran on DOS. However, as computers evolved and adopted the UNIX-based operating system, Pascal lost its superiority. Simultaneously, the C and C++ programming languages were released, replacing Pascal in every aspect of the computing paradigm. Regardless, Apple computers improved Pascal’s initial design and developed Object Pascal. The new language depicted the onset of object-oriented programming for Apple computers. Object Pascal was further refined into Delphi to be adopted by the Windows operating platform.
As earlier noted, compilers are necessary to convert coded instructions into results. Early Pascal compilers were written in the language itself and ported into early mainframe computers. The compiler was capable of recompiling itself when it was ported into another platform or new features added to the programming language. Successful Pascal compilers included new add-ons that increased the compiler’s effectiveness to interpret complex data types and structures. These early compilers later evolved to the Pascal P-system, comprising Pascal P1, P2, P3, and P4 (“UCSD P-System”). Pascal-P1 was the first to be created, and its subsequent compilers refined the code and interpreter that came with it. These compilers increased their efficiency and included new features for full Pascal compatibility.
BENEFITS AND DOWNSIDES
Undoubtedly, each programming language has its advantages and drawbacks that give it an edge over the others. Pascal is a clean language that is easily readable compared to the C programming language. Its maintainability makes the language a more powerful one similar to its modern predecessors like C and C++. Unlike other languages, Pascal does not utilize a makefile. In essence, a makefile is a predefined set of instructions that can be executed. While most other programming languages contain a makefile, Pascal’s compiler assumes the files that need to be recompiled for certain programs. Simultaneously, Pascal compilers are swift and fast, regardless of the size of the program being compiled. The quickness allows the program to run smoothly unless errors are present in the code.
When compared with other languages, Pascal’s programs utilize less memory and compile fast. With its utilization of Free Pascal, a modern compiler, Pascal code can be compiled at high speed, making it one of the fastest programming languages currently available. Unlike C, Pascal does not have a unique identifier across the entire program. Instead, each unit in Pascal is given its namespace. Additionally, Free Pascal is compatible with most Integrated Development Environments (IDEs). The language’s compatibility with these IDE platforms allows for a better programming experience. The user can employ any IDE and write, compile, and debug any Pascal code with ease. While the language was designed to teach people how to program, Pascal is also a significant tool for programming experts who want to explore more.
Current programmers explore object-oriented programming tools. Pascal, through Object Pascal and Turbo Pascal, allows such programmers to utilize the vast array of object libraries and tools available. Moreover, its integration with database programs makes it a more viable option in commercial software development. Further, the Pascal code compiled in one Linux distribution can run on any other distribution. The Linux distribution independence makes it easier for Pascal programmers to create software compatible with all other platforms within the Linux family. Lastly, unlike other Pascal compilers, Free Pascal is compatible with most other platforms and Pascal source code, including the Delphi source code.
Despite the advantages Pascal has in the programming world, several drawbacks limit its usability, efficiency, and effectiveness as a compiler and software development tool. Pascal is an old programming language, and its integration with modern programming environments presents a challenge. Moreover, it is difficult to adjust programs written in Pascal to work in current IDEs. Graphics produced by Pascal look very simple and similar to those seen more than a decade ago. Existing programming languages are capable of generating complex graphics and user interfaces. Ultimately, these drawbacks undermine the ability of Pascal to compete among other languages in the market. C, C++, Java, PHP, Python, and other modern languages pack extensive libraries and programming tools that overshadow Pascal’s capabilities.
EXAMPLES OF CODE
Code Comparison with Python. Both Pascal and Python do not share a similar coding structure, as will be shown below. The first step to learning programming is creating a simple program that displays certain words set in the program code. The program is often a test of seeing whether the programming environment is ready. A program displaying the words “Hello World” is usually the first code for any programmer. In pascal, the “Hello World” code will follow a specific structure that will also be explained in detail. The same case will apply to Python`s “Hello World” code.
Hello World in Pascal program HelloWorld; uses crt; (* Here the main program block starts *) begin writeln(‘Hello, World!’); readkey; end.
When the code is compiled, “Hello, World” would be the output. The first line in the program denotes the name of the program to be executed. The uses crt; command in the second line represents a pre-processor. The command informs the compiler to access the crt unit that will form part of the program. The block of code enclosed between the begin and end statements is the main program. Pascal follows this syntax in every program. Unlike other programming languages, the end statement is accompanied by a full stop rather than a semi or full colon. Execution of the program starts at the begin statement.
Comments are denoted by (*…*), and the compiler ignores them. Comments are usually put to add more clarity to the user. They have no other function in the program. The writeln(); statement tells the compiler to output the information present within the braces. The function is among many other functions within Pascal that serve a specific function. The readkey; is part of the crt unit and requires the user to press any key to end the program. The last statement denotes the end of the program.
Hello World in Python # This program prints Hello, world! print(‘Hello, world!’)
Python is a straightforward programming language that is easy to learn and code. Moreover, its across-platform programming language and can run in several environments, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. Before writing the Hello World program, one must ensure that all Python prerequisites are installed into the computer. These prerequisites include a preferred programming environment to run python and Python 3. The ‘#’ statement is a comment telling the reader what the program is all about. The print() function is inbuilt and defines what the code will output. In python, users can also create and define their functions deepening on what programs they are writing. Characters inside the parenthesis are referred to as strings, and the system will display all the strings between the parenthesis.
IF STATEMENT
If statements are used to express two Boolean expressions. For instance, if one condition is true, then the other is false. In Pascal, the if statement can have an additional else condition that executes another condition.
If condition then statement 1 else statement 2;
If the condition is true in the above structure, then statement 1 is executed, and statement 2 skipped. Otherwise, statement 1 is skipped, and statement 2 executed:
if color = black then writeln(‘You have selected a black shirt) else writeln(‘Please choose a shirt with a different color’);
In the above example, the first statement will be executed if the condition is true. If it is false, the else statement will instead be executed. The if-else statement can also incorporate other if-else statements within the program code to test various conditions.
LOOP
In certain situations, one can be required to create a program that executes a block of code several times. More often, statements are executed sequentially, with the first statement being executed before the next follows (“Pascal — Loops.”). With such complexities, Pascal also provides control structures that aid in executing complex programs. Pascal loop contracts include the while-do loop, for-do loop, repeat-until loop, and nested loop. All these loops perform the same function, except for the sequence of executions within the loop. For instance, the while-do loop first performs a check on the condition and executes the statements multiple times as long as it is true. The for-do loop allows the programmer to write a repetitive code that executes a specific number of times. The repeat-until loop is similar to a while-do loop, except the condition is tested last. Examples of loops include:
1) While-do loop while number>2 do begin sum := sum + number; number := number + 1; end; 2) For-do loop for i:= 1 to 7 do writeln(i); 3) Repeat-until loop repeat sum := sum + number; number := number + 1; until number = 0;
TRENDS
Since C, C++, Java, and other programming languages became more popular, Pascal has relatively little attention from programmers. As such, there have not been many trends within the programming language. Most of the software developing companies seek applicants who are conversant with modern programming languages. Unlike C and C++ programming languages, Pascal has become less popular due to the changing programming environment and the availability of more powerful languages.
During the 1970s, Pascal became a revolutionized programming language that received much attention from programmers. The language was designed to teach students to program. As a procedural language, Pascal shares similar acronyms with differences seen in the syntax and statement constructs. Regardless, Pascal has been a gateway to greater and more powerful programming languages and is still used today to teach programming. Despite its simplicity, the programming language is not compatible with the modern programming environment. Ultimately, learning Pascal can help one get a foothold on basic programming. | https://medium.com/@seattlewebsitedevelopers/are-you-old-enough-to-remember-pascal-89fa2d9503b7 | ['Website Developer'] | 2020-12-25 17:08:16.580000+00:00 | ['Pascal Code', 'Pascal Programming', 'History Of Programming', 'Pascal', 'Programming Languages'] |
How to Systematically Fool an Image Recognition Neural Network | How to Systematically Fool an Image Recognition Neural Network
and why it matters… a lot
Convolutional neural networks — CNNs — form the basis for image recognition, which is undoubtedly one of the most important applications of deep learning. Unfortunately, much of research in deep learning is done in the ‘perfect-world’ constraints of datasets in pursuit of a few percentage points in accuracy. Thus, we’ve developed architectures that work tremendously well in theoretical tests but not necessarily so in the real world.
Adversarial examples or inputs (think adversary: enemy) are indistinguishable from regular images to the human eye, but can completely fool a variety of image recognition architectures. There are clearly many unsettling and dangerous implications of adversarial inputs being deployed, especially as AI is given more power to make decisions for itself.
Thus, it is important to understand and solve methods of systematically producing adversarial inputs — ethical hacking, applied to deep learning.
One simple approach towards systematic generation of adversarial inputs is known as the ‘fast gradient signed method’, introduced by Goodfellow et al.
Consider:
an input vector x (this is where the input information is — the image — but think of it as a one-dimensional list)
an adversarial input x-hat (same shape as x, but with altered values)
a perbutation vector η (‘eta’, is added to the input vector to produce the adversarial input vector)
In order to perform element-by-element multiplication and summing (e.g. [1,2,3] × [1,2,3] = 1+4+9 = 14 ), we multiply the transpose of the first vector by the second vector. This will be referred to as the ‘weighted sum’.
We have two goals here we must both achieve to generate an adversarial input:
We want to maximize the difference between the weighted sum of the original input vector and the weighted sum of the perturbed (altered) adversarial input. This will shift the activations and throw the model’s decision making process off.
We want to make each individual value of the adversarial vector η as small as possible such that the overall image appears unaltered to a human eye.
The solution introduced by Goodfellow et al. is two-pronged — and quite clever for a few reasons.
η is set to sign(w), where the sign function returns -1 for negative values, and 1 for positive values (0 for 0). If the weight is negative, it is multiplied by negative one to produce a positive sum; if the weight is positive, it is multiplied by positive one with no change.
For example, if the weight vector was [3,-5,7] , η would be [1,-1,1] . The weighted sum is 3+5+7=15 . Note that performing this operation essentially flips the negatives into positives and leaves the positives alone ( abs() function). This means that every number is as large as it can be, and the highest possible weighted sum if weights are within the interval [-1, 1] .
Consider some ‘images’ below. Although they represented two-dimensionally, think of them just as one-dimensional vectors.
Created by author.
The end sum is 10, which is a large departure from the original output, -7. Surely, this will screw up the network’s predictions.
This achieves the goal of making large changes, but it isn’t very discreet at all. After all, our image has noticeably changed a lot when we perturb it:
Created by author.
Remember that our earlier representation of the final sum as w(x) + w(η) where w() is the weighted sum and η is the perbutation vector is really an expansion of w(x+η). We want to change each pixel’s value slightly. While the total effect must be maximized, each element of η must be small enough as to be unnoticeable.
In the actual production of an adversarial input, pixel number j is defined as the j th value of x plus the j th value of η. The notation first introduced takes a bit of a shortcut to demonstrate the purpose of η, which is to heavily increase the collective sum, not necessarily individual pixel values.
Each element of η is fairly large: +1 or -1, which makes a big impact on properly scaled data. To solve this, we will multiply each element of η by a signed ϵ, where ϵ is the smallest numerical unit that sensors detect (or smaller). That number would be 256 for 8-bit colors, and hence ϵ = 1/255.
Since ϵ is ‘undetectable’ (or just barely so), it should make no difference visually to the image. However, each change is built — following the sign function — such that the change in weighted sum is maximized.
Hence, we add -ϵ or +ϵ to each element of the input vector, which is a small enough change such that it is undetectable but constructed with the sign function such that the change is maximized.
Many small components can add up to be quite large, especially if they are constructed in a smart way.
Let’s consider the effect of this on our previous example with ϵ=0.2. We are able to make a difference of 3 units (the sum of -4).
Created by author
This is quite substantial, especially considering the small change the perbutation vector has on the original input vector.
Created by author
If the weight vector has n dimensions and the average absolute value of an element is m, then the activation value will grow by ϵnm. In high-dimensional images (say 256 by 256 by 3), the value of n is 196608. m and ϵ can be very small, yet there will still be a substantial affect on the output.
This method is very fast, since it only changes inputs by +ϵ or -ϵ: but it does so in a way so effective it completely fools the neural network. | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-systematically-fool-an-image-recognition-neural-network-7b2ac157375d | ['Andre Ye'] | 2020-09-23 19:26:07.288000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'AI', 'Data Science', 'Deep Learning'] |
#NaNoWriMo: Mr. Black Cat and Harry write a Magic Book together | A big black cat was walking through the wall. He wore a black suit, black shirt, black tie and black shoes. He also had a black ribbon tie on his head. The black cat walked over to the table in the kitchen.
“Good morning Harry!” said the black cat.
“Good morning Mr. Black Cat,” said Harry in a happy voice.
“Did you sleep well?” said Mr. Black Cat.
“Yes,” replied Harry, “I had a very good sleep again. Thank you very much.”
“Your welcome Harry,” said Mr. Black Cat. “By the way, I have been thinking about something. Why don’t we write your book?”
“Yes,” agreed Harry. The cat and Harry went over to the table. Mr. Black Cat sat on the table. Harry sat in the chair.
“This is going to be so much fun. Especially when we fill it with magic spells,” said Harry.
“Yes,” agreed Mr. Black Cat. “What about we name it, The Harry Potter Magic Spell Book.”
“I like it,” said Harry. Hurry up and write it Mr. Black Cat. After a while they were done.
“Wow! We did a very good job,” said Mr. Black Cat.
“Thanks Mr. Black Cat,” said Harry.
“Thank you Harry, I had the most fun in a long time. We will meet each other tomorrow again,” said Mr. Black Cat.
“Good bye Mr. Black Cat,” said Harry in a happy voice.
“Goodbye Harry,” said Mr. Black Cat.
The black cat walked back through the wall. Harry went over to his bed and jumped on. Then he took a nap. | https://medium.com/merzazine/nanowrimo-mr-black-cat-and-harry-write-a-magic-book-together-b7ee99a80ee9 | ['Vlad Alex', 'Merzmensch'] | 2020-11-08 16:41:40.728000+00:00 | ['Merznlp', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Gpt 3', 'NaNoWriMo', 'Art'] |
Is my engineering team strong? Using the VFQ(H) framework to assess agile team performance | I’m grateful to Emergn for educating me on the Value Flow Quality framework. I’ve found it incredibly useful as a means to structure conversations with teams and individuals about performance. I’ve just made one modification, which is to add the fourth quality Health. As you’ll see from their website, there is a wealth of material on this, but here I will focus on it as a way to review agile development teams and in a separate post you’ll see the same framework used for Product Owners.
Evaluating a technical team is fundamentally challenging. Lines of code? Number of tickets? Increase in points velocity? None of these really tell you that much about a team. I have not found any magic number that can quantify the quality of a team, but I’ve found a conversation centered around VFQH scores teaches me a lot. The principle is to sit down with the full squad, and discuss each of these items. At the end, you’ll pick up a lot about how well the team is working and what they can further do to improve.
Specifically I have them individually put a numerical score of 0 (don’t agree) to 10 (totally agree) to the statements below. Somehow the act of giving a score is much easier (at least for engineers!) than speaking what they think. Putting it all together gives you a sense of the overall strength of the team, and where to direct your energies for improvement.
Value
We know our customers and what they value
We know how we contribute financially to the business
Our team is delivering value to customers and to the business
We appropriately balance value delivery with technical debt
Here we are exploring the main thing the team is there for: the creation of enduring value for someone else. For bonus points ask them to list what was delivered to customers. Sadly, this can sometimes take some time to establish. Teams focus on technical tasks and tickets. Or they’re dependent on another team deploying the software, or driving customers to it.
A good team thinks in terms of customer impact and will be able to rapidly identify what they did. They will also have good answers to what more they could have done. A poor team will not be in touch with this. If you have the latter, you need a strong PO that will not only identify value, but help embed a philosophy of value delivery into each team member.
How technical debt is prioritized is an important topic in its own right. See how they assess this. Ultimately paying down debt is a down payment on future productivity. Can they express what this productivity gain is expected to be, for whom, and how it will be leveraged for future customer value? Are we seeing the benefits this year from last year’s debt work?
Flow
We know what to work on next
Tickets move rapidly through the pipeline
Meetings are efficient
We resolve issues quickly, we’re good at taking decisions
Here we explore the basic operational efficiency of the team. Do they know how to get work done?
A good team writes clear tickets that are well sliced into chunks that can get done in a few days. They know how to run effective meetings, and how to identify and resolve issues quickly. It’s surprising how many people struggle with these things. If this is a tough one, you probably want to bring in a scrum master or coach to teach techniques on basic blocking and tackling.
Quality
Our software is stable in production
We can rapidly detect, diagnose and resolve production problems
The software features we deliver are fit for purpose, and our customers are satisfied with them
These questions tap into important development practices. What is their philosophy around testing and test coverage? When problems happen how long do they take to detect, diagnose and resolve? These are three separate metrics worth assessing that speak to monitoring, logging and expertise. Do they monitor customer satisfaction?
A good team has a strong understanding of processes that drive the development of quality software, and how to ensure high uptime in production. If they lack this, you need to bring in a consulting architect to develop best practices in this area.
Health
We work as a team, not as individuals
We can speak freely about our concerns with no fear of reprisal
We communicate key information regularly to each other
We can resolve disagreements amicably
We communicate regularly with our customers and stakeholders and are respected by them
We are individually happy at work
It doesn’t matter how clever your engineers are, if they don’t have a good team dynamic not much will get done. This is a critical thing to track (and to ensure the team themselves are tracking). This can be the most delicate part of the discussion in teams that have problems so make sure you have a skilled facilitator managing the conversation. An open and frank conversation on the above topics nonetheless will pay off richly in team trust and productivity. | https://medium.com/swlh/is-my-engineering-team-strong-using-the-vfq-h-framework-to-assess-agile-team-performance-8dce1268961b | ['Patrick Mclean'] | 2020-06-20 20:25:27.608000+00:00 | ['Engineering Mangement', 'Team Health Check', 'Agile Teams'] |
OY + YO = home | October 2020 — New York City
After seven months of living in rural New England, I’ve now landed in the most inevitable place possible for a guy priced out of Manhattan—and who also became alienated by the amoral “luxury” now dominating a once scrappy and creative island. Inevitably, I’m now living in the borough where OY meets YO. It’s my happy place. If you don’t know where I mean, keep reading…
But hey, why not return to Manhattan? Great question. The 2008 financial meltdown taught New York developers and our ostensibly “liberal" government absolutely nothing. Was there soul searching and bold new low cost cooperatives for middle class people? Did the wealthy oligarchs depart for Florida and middle-income people move in? Do pigs have jet packs?
For the past twelve years we’ve charged ahead, after Wall Street destroyed our economy, with the same fervency to steal wealth upwards. Bush, Obama, Trump, no difference in direction. We’re more and more a city of a few white people clutching onto their wealth while masses of disenfranchised people afford less and less, especially during Covid.
When you have a glut of $2 million one-bedroom apartments, you know something is wrong. (The link goes to a real estate listing that shows 123 Manhattan apartments selling from $2M to $4.5M. For a one bedroom. Think about that.)
For me, Hudson Yards is what sent me teetering in 2019. It’s a housing project for extremely wealthy people, subsidized by the government via lax zoning and tax breaks, since in America, socialism is reserved for the rich. Everyone else gets warlordism, I mean, capitalism. Don’t believe me? Try getting lower cost internet for your home. Try getting a home.
Hudson Yards is a symbol of a greater trend, and a physical manifestation of it. It’s aggression cloaked in sub zero banality. If this is what Manhattan prioritizes: ultra-expensive, architecturally-vapid towers stuffed with impossibly expensive housing, surrounding a mall of high-end chain stores, fenced off by a wall lording over 10th Avenue, and the invisible wall of wealth you have to scale to live or eat or shop there, then that’s it. Game over, dude. There’s no future for Manhattan except as a playground for the 1%. Add as many decimals as you need.
For the record, this is also happening in Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. There’s a giant rusting toilet bowl that is Barclay’s Center, a venue named after a bank that rigged interest rates for years which ended in long prison terms for the firm’s entire c-suite. Oh wait. They’re living large in Marylebone.
Thankfully, Brooklyn is vast enough to absorb the Atlantic Yards mega project that is moving as slowly as Jeff Bezos’ charitable donations, but Hudson Yards has dented Manhattan irreparably. It’s nearly 30 acres of glass towers built on a giant pedestal — metaphors abound — that I would say reminds me of Dubai, except Dubai is far more bold, and also, far more expected from a fossil-fuel autocracy. Hudson Yards’ stalagmites of glass rectangles are artfully tapered, world-class middle fingers to the rest of us. Maybe the Trump-supporting developer, Stephen Ross, has a wicked sense of humor. Certainly he has the adjective.
Manhattan’s older neighborhoods are still gorgeous gems of 19th Century pre-car living, I lived in the West Village for nearly 20 years, but they’ve become as precious and darling as a museum funded by rich people. What happened to the hole in the wall Italian restaurant on Hudson Street with Chicken Milanese on peppery arugula for under $10 and served plonk in plastic? The Czech café on Perry Street with writers and illustrators and loungers who chatted with you instead of staring at phones? The antique shop on Bleecker run by a woman who looked just like David Bowie’s sister, down to the blonde hair and ballet figure? First they were replaced by anti-fashion Ralph Lauren and Brooks Brothers boutiques, then they were replaced by… the vacuum of space. Storefronts shuttered. Years before Covid. Where will those owners of $2 million plus one-bedroom shop for hundred dollar t-shirts? (Cf. Jeff Bezos.)
Hudson Yards pitched me off balance as a guy who loved downtown living after having spent an incredible day as a teenager in Soho in the mid 80s. Seeing my uncle’s girlfriend’s loft, meeting her skateboarding son with floppy dyed hair, gawking at fresh art by Keith Haring on city walls — that experience forever inspired me.
Manhattan became a lifelong lover I once had deep feelings for and now no longer recognized. What happened? It used to be so good, Manhattan. Now I don’t know, you’ve changed.
I could have done the off-balance shimmy for years longer, housing was expensive everywhere so why move? Covid pushed me. Hard. Fell right off the edge. And by fell I mean I fled — for friends in New England. They gave me seven blissful months of fresh air with wonderful company and outdoor meals and organic farming and camaraderie and safety and understanding when I was frightened. I am forever grateful.
During these long months of temporary staycation, I searched for a new longterm home, first by my friend’s farm outside Concord MA.
Then the Pioneer Valley around Northampton.
I visited a co-housing project in Moretown, VT. I moved in with friends in Charlotte, VT.
I Airbnb’ed in apartments by truck routes in the Hudson River Valley:
Hudson
Tarrytown
Beacon
I considered Rhinebeck and Hastings and New Paltz and a few other places, but everywhere I went, I knew no one. Most are great towns, housing is more affordable than Stephen Ross would have you believe, but what about winter?
I pushed south, down to the mouth of the Hudson and then east, over the Atlantic inlet that forms the East River. I headed to the city for Rosh Hashanah, for dating, for family and for old friends.
So now you know, if you don’t know. (Cf. Biggie Smalls.) Oy, I’m in Brooklyn, Yo. Where Jewish and Black culture sparkle and reflect against each other and everyone else from all over the world so beautifully — as expressed by Deborah Kass’s 2015 sculpture.
Brooklyn feels like home. Only took me twenty years of saying I’d move here to finally make it so, as Star Trek’s Captain Picard says. Patrick Stewart also lives in Brooklyn. | https://medium.com/thacher-report/oy-yo-home-7751e077b5d9 | ['Zachary Thacher'] | 2020-10-09 18:37:33.671000+00:00 | ['Nomad', 'Brooklyn', 'New York', 'Covid 19', 'Memoir'] |
Covid 19 And Lockdown | Covid 19 and Impact of Lockdown on Low Income Group Public
Once again in India, the corona epidemic crisis has started deepening. This epidemic has changed in front of us this time. This time its form is more fierce than before. The figure of those who die from Karona seems to be higher than the last time. Many such people who had survived the previous infection are also being caught by it. Everyday on the news channel, we see and read in newspapers about the increasing cases of corona and the increasing number of deaths. All this is scary and startling, but a question also arises as to how this epidemic spread again.
The truth is that no one else is responsible for spreading it again. The memory of the common man is very weak. After the last phase of the corona epidemic, the situation started coming under control and the work of the people started again. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but as soon as things became normal people forgot that this deadly epidemic still exists among us. People stopped wearing masks. The markets started getting crowded again, people started gathering at tea shops to drink tea and gossip without friends of social distance. Guests began to gather without masks at weddings, processions, birthday parties.
People understand that it is the responsibility of the government to deal with disasters and crises. Government employees, doctors, health works, sanitation workers, police are all busy fighting to save us from this disease. But don’t we have any responsibility to save our own lives? Will the government pressurize us to wear masks only if we do not wear them otherwise? If you are going to ask for social distancing, is it a brave act not to follow it?
Due to our negligence, once again lock down is being put in place in the country. Lockdown means bad impact on the economy of the country. It has the worst effect on middle class and low earning families.
It is certain that it will take time to control this epidemic, how much no one can tell. It is better that we make a habit of living with ways to prevent corona. | https://medium.com/@alokmathur21/covid-19-and-lockdown-24f6a1a5a7f2 | ['Alok Mathur'] | 2021-04-13 15:33:40.328000+00:00 | ['Public Health', 'Covid 19 Crisis', 'Impact', 'Lockdown', 'Second'] |
Students: Don’t Travel to “Find Yourself” | Did I “find myself” in South East Asia? To a certain extent, perhaps. I finally got over my crippling fear of flying because I experienced plenty of dangerous driving, providing me the perspective needed to stop fearing planes. I also learned that I can be quite good at haggling—the ethics of which I now struggle with.
But these weren’t the most powerful thing about this trip; the most powerful thing was that I discovered other places, people, and things for what they were.
On the way from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep, our bus broke down in the middle of the highway. Stranded with no Wi-Fi in scorching heat, a generous farmstead on the side of the road came to our rescue. The family sheltered the 50-something-odd travellers in their home, a quaint yet magnificent structure on stilts. We hid in the open-air “basement,” which was used as a garment factory of sorts (perhaps the family business).
But these weren’t the most powerful thing about this trip; the most powerful thing was that I discovered other places, people, and things for what they were.
The family matriarch — a grand, wise-looking elderly lady in long, colourful robes and wielding a walking stick — came down to greet us confused foreigners. She gave a welcome speech that the bus staff translated. Later, a group of middle-school-aged children came by to visit us, wide-eyed with curiosity. From my experience, Cambodian children are the opposite of shy; a bike ride through rural areas often elicited welcome screams of “hello!” and “how are you!” Kids would literally dash out to wave at you and my friend almost ran over one once as a result. I reckon they were excited to show off their English (and many Cambodians I met spoke impeccable English). | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/dont-travel-to-find-yourself-d2231c6f88ba | ['Li Charmaine Anne'] | 2020-05-19 20:46:25.329000+00:00 | ['Study Abroad', 'Travel', 'Self', 'Millennials', 'Students'] |
Error Handling with Express-React | I was recently working on error handling between the API and frontend of a single page shopping list app I’ve been designing and would like to share some simple strategies I used in the process.
The app’s backend is built with Node.js/Express connected to MongoDB via Mongoose, an ORM (object relation mapping) package for MongoDB. The front end is built with React.js whose local state is managed by Redux. The API calls are made via actions managed by thunk.
The following outlines how I set up validation for the User model to be used when a new user is created. Mongoose ships with some basic validation and sanitation for fields. Required is the most useful. The second argument of the required property is a custom message (I chose ‘An email is required’).
Mongoose purposely only offers basic validation out of the box, because it’s quite easy to set up custom validations and there are plenty of third party packages to supplement. Below I use a package called validator to check that the email is properly constructed. A custom validation is created by calling the validate and passing the value to the validation. The return value should be a boolean. In the case below the validation calls validator.isEmail(value). If it doesn’t pass, the method throws an error message.
One note about Mongoose schemas — assigning the ‘unique’ property to a particular field doesn’t cause an error to be thrown if you try to create a new instance with an identical field. The ‘unique’ validation is used for indexing fields.
// User schema with validation fields const UserSchema = new Schema({
email: {
type: String,
required: [true, 'An email is required'],
unique: true,
trim: true,
lowercase: true,
validate(value) {
if (!validator.isEmail(value)) {
throw new Error('Not a proper email format');
}
},
}, password: {
type: String,
required: [true, 'A password is required'],
}, name: {
type: String,
trim: true,
required: [true, 'A name is required'],
},
I set up some of the simpler validation on the client side — checking that data was not left blank and that email addresses were in an acceptable format. Once the data is validated and sent to the backend, where validation is set up in Mongoose schemas and is executed as middleware. As a challenge, I rechecked the validation that I set up in the client in the backend, in addition to the server side validations. I also wanted to see if I could have the API send back specific error messages to the client, depending on what went wrong.
The actual validation happens in the router’s handler. In my setup, it’s a three step process:
Check that the submitted email doesn’t yet exist in the database, that it is unique. Check that the password and password confirmation are the same.
These first two validations occur in the actual route handler and if either fails, the router sends back a status 400 with an error object to the frontend.
return res.status(400).send({ error: ‘Account already exists with this email’ });
As an aside, in the client I am using Axios to make the requests. Because the errors are sent back with a 400 status code, they can be accessed in the catch block using e.response.data.error
3. Create and save the new user. The schema validations happen as pre middleware just prior to saving. The error object looks like this:
{
name: ValidatorError: A name is required
{
properties: {
validator: [Function (anonymous)],
message: 'A name is required',
type: 'required',
path: 'name',
value: ''
},
kind: 'required',
path: 'name',
value: '',
reason: undefined,
[Symbol(mongoose:validatorError)]: true
},
In order to combine multiple validation errors (if they should occur), I set up an array of my field names (userFields). I call save() on the new user within a try-catch block. If there are no problems, the new user is sent back to the client. If there are errors, the catch block iterates through the error object, checking if the fields appear using bracket notation. If they do, I push the message into the foundErrors array. Finally I join the messages before sending them to the client.
const userFields = ['name', 'email', 'password'];
const user = new User(req.body); try {
await user.save();
const token = await user.generateAuthToken();
res.status(200).send({ user, token });
} catch (e) {
const foundErrors = [];
userFields.forEach((field) => {
if (e.errors[field]) {
foundErrors.push(e.errors[field].message);
}
});
res.status(400).send({ error: foundErrors.join('. ') });
}
I’m sure there are other approaches, but this setup worked well for me and, as an added bonus, working out the code gave me some insight into Mongoose validation and error handling. This solution works nicely, and sends very specific information that can be directly used for notifications in the client. | https://rixong.medium.com/error-handling-with-express-react-99e197868817 | ['Rick Glascock'] | 2020-12-20 23:12:06.242000+00:00 | ['Expressjs', 'Mongoose'] |
Try Me Out Again | Sometimes I feel
I’m too much to handle
Awash with emotions
that drown me blind
Overload asks
for the system shutdown
Calling for a timeout
for the thinking and feeling
Sometimes I’m better off
to not think or feel
If I can just be
I’ll find some peace
I will lay me down
in the hope of being free
I will rise tomorrow
and try me out again. | https://medium.com/a-cornered-gurl/try-me-out-again-1b61a32a9c94 | ['Afiyah The Poet'] | 2020-12-18 11:07:11.188000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Life', 'Emotions', '365 Days Of Poetry', 'A Cornered Gurl'] |
Apple TV+ originals: ‘Palmer’, starring Justin Timberlake, gets a trailer and release date | It’s those who are earlier than the others, those who put in more effort, who can enjoy the feeling of success | https://medium.com/@devin06249847/apple-tv-originals-palmer-starring-justin-timberlake-gets-a-trailer-and-release-date-94b244ba095c | [] | 2020-12-24 06:37:17.151000+00:00 | ['Chargers', 'Security Cameras', 'Services', 'Entertainment'] |
Implementation of User permission with PHP & Mysql Bitwise operators. | Another way to implement user permission in your application and also a good use of bitwise operator. This can be done with PHP as well as Mysql. Here I am showing how we can implement it with Mysql. Below is a sample tables with some sample data: Table 1 : Permission table to store permission name along with it bit like 1,2,4,8..etc (multiple of 2)
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `permission` ( `bit` int(11) NOT NULL, `name` varchar(50) NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (`bit`) ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
Insert some sample data into the table.
INSERT INTO `permission` (`bit`, `name`) VALUES (1, 'User-Add'), (2, 'User-Edit'), (4, 'User-Delete'), (8, 'User-View'), (16, 'Blog-Add'), (32, 'Blog-Edit'), (64, 'Blog-Delete'), (128, 'Blog-View');
Table 2: User table to store user id,name and role. Role will be calculated as sum of permissions.
Example : If user ‘Ketan’ having permission of ‘User-Add’ (bit=1) and ‘Blog-Delete’ (bit-64) so role will be 65 (1+64). If user ‘Mehata’ having permission of ‘Blog-View’ (bit=128) and ‘User-Delete’ (bit-4) so role will be 132 (128+4).
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `user` ( `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, `name` varchar(50) NOT NULL, `role` int(11) NOT NULL, `created_date` datetime NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY (`id`) ) ENGINE=InnoDB Â DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1; INSERT INTO `user` (`id`, `name`, `role`, `created_date`) VALUES (NULL, 'Ketan', '65', '2013-01-09 00:00:00'), (NULL, 'Mehata', '132', '2013-01-09 00:00:00');
Loading permission of user : After login if we want to load user permission than we can query below to get the permissions:
SELECT permission.bit,permission.name FROM user LEFT JOIN permission ON user.role & permission.bit WHERE user.id = 1
Here user.role “&” permission.bit is a Bitwise operator which will give output as -
User-Add - 1 Blog-Delete - 64
If we want to check weather a particular user have user-edit permission or not-
SELECT * FROM `user` WHERE role & (select bit from permission where name='user-edit')
Output = No rows.
Hope this will help someone!!!!
Cheerss..!! | https://medium.com/@suresh-kamrushi/implementation-of-user-permission-with-php-mysql-bitwise-operators-4bc93d0cc7b2 | ['Suresh Kamrushi'] | 2020-11-25 06:05:25.556000+00:00 | ['MySQL', 'Bitwise Operator', 'PHP'] |
How We Got Our Morals | Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a God. Aristotle <Politics>
Peter Kropotkin: Capitalism Effaces Natural Tendencies
Chomsky’s views on the innate goodness of human beings are influenced in part from the writings of one of the most important theoreticians of anarchism, Peter Kropotkin. At the turn of the 20th century, Kropotkin published ‘Mutual aid: A factor of evolution’, a collection of essays where he rejected the tenets of social Darwinism that natural selection and survival of the fittest are the dominant human inclinations driving social interactions. Instead, he held that animals, including humans, are naturally predisposed to co-operate with each other.
Kropotkin argued that the vast majority of species display altruistic characteristics; they live in groups and tend to support each other. He recounted observations of different animals sharing resources with their group: ants regurgitating food for other hungry ants; white-tailed eagles signaling with their cries to their companions a potential prey; house sparrows sharing their food; rats feeding their invalids. But cooperation is not limited to the sharing of food, it extends to all aspects of life: parrots setting up sentries to signal the rest of the group in case of danger, wolves hunting in packs, birds emigrating in bands, ants constructing elaborate passages and dwellings for their community. Moreover, from the play of animals with their congeners, Kropotkin inferred that social life is not necessarily practiced only to serve a survival purpose, but also for its own sake, for the love of socializing.
Kropotkin reasoned that for life in societies to be possible, a number of social feelings needed to be in place, with the most important being an innate sense of justice. These feelings, being partly conscious and reasoned in humans, may well be the foundation on which moral values are built. Some human institutions can nurture and develop social feelings, but others can have quite the opposite effect and instead develop instincts of self-assertion. Kropotkin gave examples of both. In primitive tribes or ancient city-states in Greece individuals could identify their existence and get meaning from it only through the participation in the tribe or the polis respectively. These societies are contrasted with the capitalist state at the turn of the 20th century which absorbs all social functions and necessarily favors ‘the development of an unbridled, narrow minded individualism. As the obligations towards the State grew in numbers the citizens were evidently relieved from their obligations towards each other’.
What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? William Golding <Lord of the Flies>
My Take
Google Maps has diminished my ability to navigate and remember routes, affecting the grid and place cells in my hippocampus. Flooding of information and of other sensory input from my digital surroundings have shortened my attention span, restructuring my limbic reward pathways that release and respond to dopamine. They have also changed my knowledge and perspective of the world, triggering new wiring patterns in my cerebral cortex. Technology, among other social structures, constantly mold who I am, rewiring the connections in my brain, reinforcing some patterns and atrophying others. But even though our brains are astonishingly plastic to external influences, there is a limit to their adaptability.
In dystopian novels where the government implements some kind of social engineering to control behavior, the protagonists are emotionally distressed for their life runs counter to their nature.We are ambivalent: selfish and altruistic, violent and caring, rational and sentimental. Sure, society plays a role in that it can strengthen certain natural tendencies at the expense of their opposite parts, but the diminished sentiments are always there, lurking at the fringes of our consciousness.
I believe there is something in us, innate and hardwired to an extent, that is transcendental, in that it aims for something outside of our self. It strives for the collective good. But these feelings come in pairs. We are also selfish and self-serving. The contradicting parts come in different ratios for different people. Conditioning by our surroundings also changes the ratios. There is some truth that we are products of our environment but in directions that satisfy our natural inclinations. And the environment has not been created in a vacuum; in part, it is a reflection of who we are. | https://medium.com/metamorphosis-appearances-and-reality/how-we-got-our-morals-414fed9fa077 | ['Ilias Rentzeperis'] | 2020-07-24 19:28:11.259000+00:00 | ['Psychology', 'History', 'Philosophy', 'Science', 'Neuroscience'] |
We’re Hiring a Junior Developer | TutorCruncher is hiring a junior developer. We are a SaaS Startup which has quickly become the market leader in its niche. We offer specialised business management software, working with clients all over the world to provide an outstanding service which continues to meet and adapt to the needs of the tutoring industry.
TutorCruncher gets involved with open source projects — just take a look at our GitHub profile!
We are looking for someone to support us in delivering these projects in a small, dynamic team. The great thing about working in a small company is that you can quite quickly take on responsibilities and have a direct impact on the daily activities of TutorCruncher’s 250+ clients.
Main duties and responsibilities
Supporting existing feature development projects
Bug-fixing
Improvements to tutorcruncher.com
Any other projects that we and you think are worthwhile
Desired skills and qualifications
Python (using Django)
HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
Git (and GitHub)
A relevant university degree is good, but not mandatory
Other attributes
Enjoys working to a high standard
Is eager to get stuck in
Has a sense of humour
All credit to XKCD for the above comic
How to apply
If this sounds like your cup of tea, then send a CV and a short cover letter to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you! | https://medium.com/tutorcruncher/were-hiring-a-junior-developer-5f84a22383d4 | ['Sam Jenkins'] | 2018-05-29 15:26:01.653000+00:00 | ['CRM', 'Startup', 'Hiring', 'Small Business'] |
Suicide Is an Answer, But Not the Right One | I was scared. I could feel the effects of the pills. I couldn’t control my legs. I knew I was slipping. I no longer wanted to die, but it was too late. I wanted to be upstairs in bed with Flora and Zoey, not fading fast in a beanbag on the kitchen floor.
My whole body went numb.
Help me. I’m scared. I don’t want to go!
The last thing I remember is wiping away the tears. Then everything went black.
Every time I remember those last moments, I start to cry. As I write this on May 29, 2019, at 10:57 a.m., five years from the day, my shoulders are heaving with sobs I can’t stop.
No one tells you that before you die, you realize you wish it weren’t over. If I had jumped from a tall building, I bet I would have spent my last seconds wishing I was in the arms of the people I love. The people who weren’t as lucky as I can’t look back with regret. They are gone.
I think of how close I was to missing out on the joy and pain of the past five years. These have been the best years of my life, and I almost missed them.
What got me to the point that I thought killing myself was the only way to stop my pain?
The darkness of life
When you suffer from a mental illness, the constant battle can become too much. I don’t think of myself as a strong person, and I could not take the bombardment of negative emotion.
I tried to kill myself four times. The first three were nothing more than cries for help. I was never in danger of dying from my injuries. But I attempted. I messed myself up to the extent that I still carry the scars. I can trace the pain of those first three attempts with my finger. My arms are a roadmap through the worst parts of my life.
But five years ago it was different. I had come halfway across the world to the Philippines to change my life. I thought I could leave everything behind and start fresh.
But it was the same. I was still depressed all the time. I was asleep more than I was awake. When I was awake, I was anxious and close to panic.
I couldn’t focus. The voices were so loud that they drowned out everything else. I couldn’t get the medication I needed. When I needed help most, nothing was available.
If I had tried harder and asked more people, maybe someone would have helped me. But I had given up.
Flora and I always fought. She couldn’t understand why I was always in bed. She couldn’t understand what was happening. She was angry. She lashed out. She didn’t know I was dying inside.
Nobody could understand. Not Flora, not the doctors. If I had tried harder and asked more people, maybe someone would have helped me. But I had given up. I gave in to the voices and the suicidal self-talk.
I no longer wanted anyone to help. I was tired. I wanted it all to end.
At first I didn’t know how I was going to do it. I was scared. I didn’t know if I had the courage to actually take my own life.
I spent a few days planning my exit. I searched Google for the least painful ways to kill yourself. I read blogs about suicide, brushing past the trigger warnings like they were nothing. If I was trying to convince myself suicide was the only way out, I was doing a very good job.
I never did anything halfway.
May 29, 2014
I woke that morning feeling good; so good I forgot about my plans for a time. I sat on the porch and smoked, drinking my coffee and closing my eyes against the bright sunlight.
Flora came downstairs, raging about my smoking habit. Maybe I made the mistake of letting the smoke float into the house. But it was just the beginning. When she got started, she didn’t quit for hours.
I let her yell until I couldn’t stand it, then went upstairs and put a pillow over my head. The plan to kill myself would go forward.
Nobody loved me. Nobody wanted me. I couldn’t be a good father to Zoey. I knew my death would be hard for her, but in the long run it would be better than having a crazy father.
Thinking about Zoey almost changed my mind, but I had already passed the point of no return.
I went through the day in a dreamlike state. I would look at something and think it was the last time I’d ever see it. I sent notes to family overseas to check in and hopefully cushion the blow of my death.
I was sad, but also relieved it would soon be over.
Later that night, after more fighting with Flora, I kissed Zoey and put her to bed. I was crying, but I didn’t let Flora see because I didn’t want her to know I was feeling anything more than anger.
I didn’t want her to help because I wanted to punish her.
If Flora knew what I was thinking, she would have tried to help me. Even though she was angry, she loved me. She had learned to love me despite my illness and the hell I put her through. She was angry, but she also couldn’t imagine life without me.
I went downstairs and wrote a 14-page suicide note. It took me until 1 a.m., but I finished. When I had written all I wanted to say, I knew it was time.
May 30, 2014
I set up everything so I only had to press a button for my note to be published on all my social media accounts.
I was ready.
I went outside and had one last cigarette, savoring the smoke filling my lungs. I was scared, but I’d made up my mind, and there was no turning back.
I grabbed every pill bottle I could find and emptied them on the table. These were pain pills and medication left over from unsuccessful drug trials. I don’t know why I kept them, but they were about to come in handy. Some of the pills were time-release, so I crushed them into powder.
I got a big jug of water, took one last look around the house, and swallowed everything. I gagged repeatedly but kept it all down.
I was numb.
I sat in my beanbag and pressed the button that would publish my suicide note. I closed my computer and turned off my phone.
About 15 minutes later, my stomach got very upset. I knew I’d have an accident if I didn’t do something, and the thought of them finding me covered with shit horrified me.
I somehow got to my feet and started up the stairs to the bathroom. I was very dizzy and weak, but I made it to the toilet and did my business. The way down was much harder, but I sat down and took one step at a time.
I made it back to my beanbag, willing myself not to throw up.
I couldn’t move my legs. Fear crept up from the pit of my stomach and froze me in place.
I started to cry. All I wanted was to be safe, tucked in next to Flora and Zoey. I wanted to take it back. The reasons I had for killing myself no longer made sense.
I wanted to live!
But it was too late. I was dying.
Knowing I was dying made me cry even more. I wiped away the tears and knew no more.
Afterthoughts
I woke the next morning, and Flora managed to get the right kind of help. An ambulance took me to emergency. They put a tube in my nose and pumped charcoal into my stomach. I still have a scar on my nose from the tape holding the tube in place.
I survived.
In the hospital, I was allowed to realize what a wonderful life I had. So many people loved me, and they only needed to hear me asking for help. I wanted to punish everybody because I thought they didn’t care, but I was the one pushing them away.
If you read this whole experience, I hope you understand everything can get better if you just ask for help.
I know your mind is telling you no one loves you, but they do.
Your mind is lying when it tells you the only thing you can do is end your life.
Take it from someone who lived to tell: You will regret it if you try to kill yourself. Why would you take the last resort when all you have to do is ask someone, anyone, to help you?
True courage is asking for help. It doesn’t take courage to kill yourself. It takes courage to live.
Ask someone. Ask me if you have no one.
Ask for help.
We are waiting. | https://humanparts.medium.com/suicide-is-an-answer-but-not-the-right-one-f0062530aa1a | ['Jason Weiland'] | 2019-07-11 18:07:54.306000+00:00 | ['Mental Health Awareness', 'Suicide', 'Death', 'Mental Health', 'Mind'] |
The Raw Vulnerability of Shame | The Raw Vulnerability of Shame
Photo by Gage Walker on Unsplash
I often don’t notice shame until I start feeling like shit. Which is an interesting way to describe how I’m feeling because I’ve been there many times. It’s an old and familiar place within me.
Hello, heaviness. Hello, darkness. Hello, old friend.
When I’m in this shitty place, my mind is so busy looking for what’s wrong.
? What’s wrong with my business.
? What’s wrong with how I ate today.
? What’s wrong with how my jeans fit.
? What’s wrong with my bank account.
? What’s wrong with that new pimple on my cheek (damn, is it the new moisturizer I just bought? Should I stop using it? But I love how it feels on my skin! ;( Crap!).
Something is wrong. I’m wrong. Life is wrong. It’s all wrong.
No wonder I’m feeling weighed down.
But it doesn’t stop there.
The “wrongs” are accompanied by the “shoulds” and the “shouldn’ts”.
I shouldn’t be questioning my food choices. I shouldn’t be judging my body. My business should be growing faster. My skin should be clearer.
This conversation in my mind is automatic. Until I’m awakened while starting my yoga practice.
I didn’t want to unroll my mat this morning and sit my ass on my meditation cushion. But I’ve learned the hard way. The days I don’t want to be still are the days I need it the most. When I’m feeling bad, this is at least one thing I can do that will offer me some relief.
After just a few short minutes, in a whisper, I hear “you’re feeling shame”.
I search for where I can feel this shame in my body. But I can’t locate it specifically.
That’s okay. I know what to do with shame.
I witness it. I bring it to the light. I write about it. I share it.
I don’t need to hold this darkness inside of me where it will grow. The moment I’m willing to be with it is the moment I feel tender relief. It no longer has a hold on me.
I get to be free.
If you’re wanting to release yourself from the heaviness of shame, consider these steps:
A daily practice of awareness and stillness (especially when you don’t want to).
A practice that creates safety in your body (yoga, time outside, rest).
A heavy dose of compassion toward yourself. Let go of the rigidity of perfectionism.
Take yourself lightly. When I get serious with myself, I know that shame may be lurking in a dark corner.
Being with your shame and darkness is a tremendous opportunity for healing. Witnessing your shame takes vulnerability. It’s raw. And so worth it.
You don’t need to hide and carry the belief that you’re not worthy of love and belonging. Tread lightly and gently. And let the light shine in. | https://medium.com/@tarawhitney/the-raw-vulnerability-of-shame-c94e676073ed | ['Tara Whitney'] | 2021-05-29 22:39:40.277000+00:00 | ['Healing', 'Shame', 'Acceptance', 'Transformation'] |
Taylor Swift’s “Evermore” Is a Lovely Collection of Grown-up Fairytales | Image from Republic Records
So, here it is. In yet another completely unprecedented move, Taylor Swift has once again descended upon us to save 2020, in the form of Evermore, her ninth studio album, and what can only best be described as a reprise and second act to last July’s Folklore — which itself has since been heralded by many a publication as one of the few pure good things to come out of this year.
And yet, somehow, Miss Swift has done it again: just five months later — her shortest time period ever between albums — Swift has continued into the woods of Folklore, delving even deeper into the sonic experimentations, the narratives and perspectives, and all the wonderful things that made the album an instant classic.
And indeed, if Folklore was a beginning, an opening into Swift’s journey into the mythical, mystical woods of intricate narratives and mellow folksy tunes, Evermore is as much a sequel and second act, as it is a lovingly crafted response to its predecessor. Just like one of the many Swiftian narratives that populate both works, Folklore and Evermore come together like a pair of cozied-up lovers, in turns complimenting and taking from each other, like two parts in a duet.
Although it follows the very same thread as its predecessor, Evermore feels more hued, more prismatic and fleshed-out; Swift’s instrumentals and story-telling devices brimming with more confidence. When Folklore was released, it felt like an experimentation of Swift’s best sensibilities funneled in an entirely new direction — and with frankly stunning results; and with Evermore, Swift fully delves into this particular pool, alongside the help of a creative dream team in Jack Antonoff, Bon Iver, and the National’s Aaron Dessner, who hand her the tools to perfect this particular sonic and lyrical aesthetic to such a fine-tuned way in such a short period of time, it feels almost like fate.
There are newer nuances in this album, too: new nooks and crannies and gray areas lie in Evermore’s emotional arcs — gone are the clean cut, black-and-white victim-versus-villain binary we’d grown used to in many of her past narratives. In one of her cruelest rhymes to date, Swift sings, “I know my love should be celebrated / but you tolerate it.” It’s more reminiscent of the kind of line we’d expect from someone like Lorde, and yet it also feels right at home from an artist whose reputation in the cultural zeitgeist had (sometimes unfairly) rested primarily on a catalogue of romance-and-breakup songs (of course, Swift has written several other tracks on other subjects as well).
In essence, Evermore’s lyrics are even more off-kilter, more freewheeling than those of its elder sibling, which tended to gravitate to more sombre colors, more straightforward narratives. And most of these lyrics aren’t clean cut and concise, like we’d grown used to from most of Swift’s discography (as well as her signature ability to deliver a razor-sharp line with sparkling wit), but neither are human emotions, and more than anything, Evermore feels like an ode, an affirmation and celebration to the messiness of it all.
One of the album’s experimental standouts, “No Body, No Crime”, is dark and witchy and sexy, the perfect canvas for featuring artist HAIM’s touch. Does it make sense that possibly Swift’s sexiest, sultriest song isn’t about romance at all, but a delicious little tale of murder and infidelity, told entirely by women? Perhaps not, but few things have made sense this year, and this, at least, is a satisfying, satisfying feeling.
And yet, for all of Swift’s maturity and growth, Evermore still contains certain callbacks to some of Swift’s previous work: “Gold Rush” has hints of Red’s rhythmic rose-tinted nostalgia, and a handful of other tracks — “Cowboy Like Me”, “Dorothea” — contain undeniable echoes of her country roots. There’s also a certain beguiling earnestness in some of Swift’s simplest lyrics, as is in “Happiness”: “There’ll be happiness after you / but there was happiness because of you.” It’s what made songs like “The Moment I Knew” and “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince” laced with a certain kind of distinguishable magic. After over fourteen years in the business, Swift’s voice has matured into a light lyrical soprano, and on Evermore, it sounds more ethereal than ever, blanketed by landscapes of muted guitars and pianos.
For all its muted folksiness, there’s a certain kind of thrill in witnessing Swift throw caution to the wind and harness the full extent of her capabilities with no regard for commercial effect. The pandemic has, after all, upended many standards of normalcy, and Swift seems to have taken the best out of this as a musician, delving ever further inward into the metaphorical woods she so often speaks of.
For skeptics, Swift’s two projects this year may seem like an attempt to reinvent her image, as she’s done so in the past few years, but for fans and longtime listeners, it feels like triumphant, jubilant proof of the skill and prowess that we’ve known of the musician all along. Say what you will about Taylor Swift, she no longer gives a fuck. She’s too busy frolicking in her mythical forest, swimming in her mystical lakes. And frankly, it’s a place I’d be willing to be quarantined in, for evermore. | https://medium.com/@audreyrawnie/taylor-swifts-evermore-is-a-lovely-collection-of-grown-up-fairytales-51e6f8027bdd | ['Audrey Rawnie'] | 2020-12-14 07:30:32.406000+00:00 | ['Evermore', 'Album Review', 'Taylor Swift', 'Music', 'Music Review'] |
Development Update, Website Restructure Underway & Community News | The NavCoin community developers continue to work on roadmapped features, while the NavCoin website is set for a refresh, including addition of content to help support existing projects.
NavCoin Application Development Update
There’s been lots of development progress across the board this week by NavCore and the wider NavCoin community.
The NavCoin Core Docker image has been added to the NavCoin repositories to help make it easier for anyone to build on NavCoin. Sakdeniz has continued to make progress on the NavCoinVue project, which can be viewed on the NavCommunity site.
http://navcoin-vue.navcommunity.net
Alex and Paul have begun working to port the Go implementation of Bitcoin for use with NavCoin. This is the first stage of implementing the Lightning Network for NavCoin. For that reason this project has been moved from Upcoming to In Progress on the project roadmap.
https://navcoin.org/project-roadmap
Encrypt S developers have spent some time this week planning the NavPi Kowhai user interface. Most of the backend API’s are nearing completion and this project is nearly ready to move to its second phase. The test coverage has been increased on the back end, and the docker workflow has been refined.
The TeDiCross bot has been re-enabled to bridge NavCoin’s Telegram and Discord communities. Posts on Discord’s general channel are now relayed to Telegram and vice versa. A new translation plugin has been implemented on the NavCoin website. That allows community members to keeping translations up to date more easily. We’re starting with Español, and will be re-enabling more language translations over the coming weeks.
Behind the scenes the NavCoin Core developers have been working with @mntyfrsh to upgrade the NavPay backend infrastructure so it can scale efficiently as more users come onboard. Aligning and scaling existing infrastructure is a top priority of the team and this is the first step in the process.
Website Refresh in Progress
NavCoin content creators are focussing on restructuring the navcoin.org website to provide more standalone resources on projects and technologies, as well as refreshing existing content.
The goal is to create a better user experience for new visitors and add extra detail for those who want to know more about NavCoin.
Community Contributions
iFaq has made a stellar effort this week contributing multiple articles to the NavCoin Knowledge Base. So far the Knowledge Base has been serving the community well as a technical support resource. If you can’t find what you need there, head over to the support channels on Discord where the Nav community can help you.
Kirk Dunkley, more commonly known on Twitter as @sigma_six_ has released a limited edition NavCoin sculpture in his coin sculpture series. The series was created to engage with the cryptocurrency community in a meaningful way, and introduce the art collectors in this space to his online gallery. Browse his online store to purchase your NAV sculpture.
http://www.sigmasixdesign.com/bitcoingallery-store#!/The-Simplifier-NAV/p/102127036
One of NavCoin’s community members, Sakdeniz has created a video explaining NavCoin and spotlighting it’s features.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz62CXljDVk&feature=youtu.be
Thanks again to the NavCoin community and their efforts in raising awareness of the NavCoin project and its goals. You will continue to be updated about projects and events in the NavCoin community. Don’t forget NavCoin is open source and community developed. You can follow along on GitHub and more importantly get involved by making your own contributions.
Xero Presentation
Encrypt S software engineer, Craig MacGregor gave a presentation at Xero’s Auckland office yesterday. His talk was geared towards introducing people to the basics of Bitcoin and blockchain technology. It covered blockchain’s distributed rather than centralized architecture, how transaction data is shared across the network and the emergent benefits that come from this approach. He also covered the fundamentals of Bitcoin’s supply, demand and the blockchain tech company landscape.
Thanks again to the NavCoin community and their efforts to raise awareness of the NavCoin project and its goals. We will continue to keep you updated on each project’s progress as milestones are achieved. Don’t forget it’s all open source so you can follow along on the NavCoin GitHub and even get involved.
Talk Soon,
NavCore Team | https://medium.com/nav-coin/development-update-website-restructure-underway-community-news-4d0a6c37058a | [] | 2018-03-21 02:40:21.636000+00:00 | ['Fintech', 'Bitcoin', 'News', 'Blockchain', 'Navcoin'] |
Google smart displays get sticky notes for family members | Need to remind the family to take out the garbage, pick up a prescription at the drugstore, or perform some other household duty? Just leave a digital sticky note on your Google smart display.
First announced back at CES in January, the Family Notes feature is rolling out to Google smart displays starting today, along with an update to the Family Bell feature, interactive stories, and “find my family” functionality.
Family NotesFirst up, you’ll soon be able to ask Google Assistant to leave a sticky note on your Google Nest Hub, Google Nest Hub Max, or another Google Assistant-enabled display.
[ Further reading: The best smart speakers and digital assistants ]Just ask, “Hey Google, leave a family note that says pick up the dry cleaning,” and Google Assistant will leave a digital sticky note in the top-right corner of the screen that reads, “Pick up the dry cleaning,” along with a timestamp and the name of the person who left the note.
Mentioned in this article Google Nest Hub Max Read TechHive's review$229.00MSRP $229.00See iton Google If you tap the virtual sticky, the note will fill the screen, and you’ll also be able to scroll through other family notes that have been tacked onto the display. When you’re done with the note, you can tap the trash can icon to delete it.
Besides bugging your loved ones to take out the garbage or unload the dishwasher, Family Notes could make for an easy, unobtrusive way to let your housemates know that you’ve popped out to the store, or to leave an encouraging note (“Great job on the pop quiz today!”).
New Family Bell featuresGoogle rolled out the Family Bell feature for Google smart speakers and displays back in August, and I’ve been using it ever since to keep my daughter on track when it comes to her class schedule (“Time for morning meeting!”), snack time, Zoom time with Grandma (at 2 p.m. sharp every weekday), and afterschool activities (“Minecraft modding starts soon”).
Now, Google says it’s adding new sound effects and “suggested” bells to the feature, making it easier to quickly set up bells for (say) setting the table or taking a break.
Even better, you’ll soon be able to pause all your bells for a day, such as on a holiday or a vacation day. That’s a welcome feature, given that you currently need to disable each and every bell if you want to silence them for a day, and then you must re-enable all of them once you’re back on schedule.
One feature that’s still missing from Family Bells is the ability to have them sound on multiple Google speakers or displays at once. For now, individual Family Bells can only sound from a single Google device, which means your kids might miss they bell if they’re in another room (it’s happened with my daughter more than once). Google is “looking into” the feature, a rep said.
”Hey Google, find my family”Wondering where your older brother went? Now you can ask Google Assistant on a smart display, speaker, or Android or iOS phones to pinpoint the location of a family member. Just ask “Hey Google, where’s Mom?” to track down a loved one.
Google Google Assistant’s new “find my family” feature integrates with Google Maps and Life360, a third-party family-tracking app.
Google says the new “find my family” feature integrates with Google Maps and Life360, the third-party family-tracking service that’s (apparently) the bane of teenagers everywhere.
You’ll need to be at least 13 years old to ask Google Assistant for location data, according to Google.
Interactive stories and Family tabA couple more family-oriented features are coming to Google smart displays, including new interactive stories that you can launch by saying “Hey Google, tell me a story.” The animated stories, from such studios as Noggin and Capstone, let you flip pages by swiping them, while captions let your kids follow along with the action.
Finally, an upcoming Family tab will act as a one-stop resource on Google displays for all of Google Assistant’s family-friendly features. The Family tab will arrive later this year, Google says.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@benjami70424197/google-smart-displays-get-sticky-notes-for-family-members-c134aeab4c32 | [] | 2020-11-21 01:15:01.625000+00:00 | ['Audio', 'Consumer', 'Security Cameras', 'Home Theater'] |
Himalaya Gentle Baby Shampoo price | Important information
Legal Disclaimer:
Himalaya’s Gentle Baby Shampoo formulation is a mild, “no tears” shampoo. It softens, nourishes and improves your baby’s hair lustre, leaving it soft and fresh. Key ingredients: Chickpea , a natural source of protein, effectively nourishes hair, making it healthy and shiny. Hibiscus contains natural oil that acts as a conditioning agent and softens the hair. It helps promote baby’s hair growth. Khus Grass , with its antibacterial and antifungal properties, cools baby’s scalp.
Product information
Size:100 ml | Design:Baby Shampoo
M.R.P.:
₹ 160.00
Price:
₹ 158.00 Fulfilled
You Save:
₹ 2.00 (1%)
Inclusive of all taxes
Size:
200ml
Design: Baby Shampoo
Softens, nourishes, and improves hair luster
Hibiscus, A well-known hair conditioner, Hibiscus helps moisturize baby’s hair.
Khus Grass A revered herb for its cooling, antibacterial and antifungal properties.
Product description
Size: 200ml | Design: Baby Shampoo
Natural Care for Your Baby’s Hair
Himalaya Herbals baby care shampoo is enriched with natural sources of protein that leave your baby’s hair soft and nourished. This gentle baby shampoo is formulated to cleanse and strengthen your little one’s hair without any teary-eyed blues. It is so gentle that your tot is definitely going to love it. Himalaya shampoo is in essence a natural shampoo containing no harsh chemicals. It boasts anti-inflammatory and soothing properties to protect and care for your baby’s tender scalp. All in all, it is an essential baby care product that helps you get rid of dirt and other harmful infectious particles from your child’s scalp, without damaging it.
Gentle Baby Shampoo for Healthy Baby Tresses
The mild and soft Himalaya herbal shampoo moisturises and nourishes your baby’s hair improving its texture. Its core ingredients include chickpea, hibiscus and khus khus. The protein-rich chickpea leaves the hair strong and shiny, while hibiscus acts as a natural conditioner to make it soft and smooth. Khus-khus soothes the baby’s scalp, with its antibacterial and antifungal properties. These natural ingredients make Himalaya baby care shampoo perfectly safe for daily use. It cleanses, disinfects and leaves behind a mild scent and lustre with its ideal pH balance. Easy to use, just apply this Himalaya 200ml Gentle Baby Shampoo, lather and rinse well to get those shiny baby locks instantly.
Brand: Himalaya
Age: Newborn and up
Contains: Chickpea, Hibiscus and Khus khus for smooth silky hair
Antibacterial and antifungal properties
Hypoallergenic
Paediatrician recommended
Content: 200 ml
Product information
Size:200ml | Design:Baby Shampoo
Price:
₹ 225.00 Fulfilled
Inclusive of all taxes
Material free
Paraben Free
Gentle no-tears formula does not cause irritation to baby’s eyes; protein-rich formula ensures strong & healthy hair. Composition : Marine Plant Extracts, Wheat Protein
Shampoo infused with the power of herbs
Chickpea: Has antidandruff property; strengthens baby’s delicate hair and prevents hair loss
Paddy: Nourishes and softens hair
Hibiscus: Natural conditioner; softens the hair
Khus Grass: Keeps scalp cool and dry
Free from Parabens, SLS/SLES & Synthetic Colors; mild on your baby’s scalp
PACKER: The Himalaya Drug Company,Tumkur Road, Makali, Bangalore — 562162; IMPORTER: The Himalaya Drug Company,Tumkur Road, Makali, Bangalore — 562162
Product description
Size: 400ml | Design: Baby Shampoo
Himalaya Gentle Baby Shampoo is a mild, “no tears” shampoo that gently cleanses hair making it soft, shiny, and easy to manage. It softens, nourishes and improves your baby’s hair lustre, leaving it soft and fresh. This gentle baby shampoo is formulated to cleanse and strengthen your little one’s hair without any teary-eyed blues. It is so gentle that your tot is definitely going to love it. Himalaya shampoo is in essence a natural shampoo containing no harsh chemicals. It boasts anti-inflammatory and soothing properties to protect and care for your baby’s tender scalp. All in all, it is an essential baby care product that helps you get rid of dirt and other harmful infectious particles from your child’s scalp, without damaging it. The mild and soft Himalaya herbal shampoo moisturises and nourishes your baby’s hair improving its texture. Its core ingredients include chickpea, hibiscus and khus khus. The protein-rich chickpea leaves the hair strong and shiny, while hibiscus acts as a natural conditioner to make it soft and smooth. Khus-khus soothes the baby’s scalp, with its antibacterial and antifungal properties. These natural ingredients make Himalaya baby care shampoo perfectly safe for daily use. It cleanses, disinfects and leaves behind a mild scent and lustre with its ideal pH balance. Easy to use, just apply this Himalaya Gentle Baby Shampoo, lather and rinse well to get those shiny baby locks instantly.
Product information
Size:400ml | Design:Baby Shampoo
From the manufacturer | https://medium.com/@samaresh708/himalaya-gentle-baby-shampoo-price-6228e5dec5a9 | ['Sr Love Smart Deal'] | 2021-05-22 11:50:11.188000+00:00 | ['Himalayas', 'Baby', 'Blogging', 'Baby Shampoo', 'Blogger'] |
BREAKING NEWS — Thanksgiving story is a myth! | From “Pieces of April,” best Thanksgiving movie of all time
BREAKING NEWS — Thanksgiving story is a myth!
No Tofurky or deep-fried Turducken in 1621, historians reveal.
Jeffrey Denny
Ah, Thanksgiving again.
Time out from our terribly busy lives and careers mostly answering emails to gather for family, friends, football and recalling old resentments, topped off with the traditional turkey and stuffing our gaping pie holes.
We gather around the table eyes aglow and mouths watering over the bounteous feast that beckons and we didn’t purchase or slave to prepare or plan to help clean up after due to football napping/coma and long refreshing walks in the crisp autumn air to get away from family.
We bow our heads in grace out of respect for a religious and wealthy great great aunt who can’t hear much anymore but she can see plenty well and is keeping track for estate-planning purposes.
We snark about a cousin who brought a delicious kale dish not aware of the oxymoron but meant well and will get to take it home.
We put down our phones for a long … torturous … 20 minutes.
We drink too much gravy. Wine and booze too. We catch up on our lives, compete for worst Thanksgiving travel story, and studiously avoid ruining another Thanksgiving by even mentioning Trump.
We don’t even say “trump card” anymore even while playing cards and have the king of spades that looks like Trump acts.
Thanksgiving is even more fun if college kids are home on break.
We enjoy hearing about their studies and collegiate experiences. We watch with loving bemusement as they scarf down their microwave-roasted vegan Tofurky stuffed with raw paleo grains made special for them, as we also avoid triggering their higher morals and sensibilities we didn’t teach them.
For example, we appreciate their retelling of the classic Thanksgiving story.
We always believed, as History.com says, “The holiday feast dates back to November 1621, when the newly arrived Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians gathered at Plymouth for an autumn harvest celebration.”
Wrong, your collegians will lecture. That’s a complete white patriarchal phallocratic cisgender macro-aggressive myth, the classic false history written by murderous thieving victors.
The adorable college kids were taught and passionately embrace the indisputable Howard Zinn people’s history of white privilege. Even if — sometimes especially if — the kids themselves are white privileged, with family names, bloodlines, trust funds and Ivy legacy status running straight back to the Mayflower, British royalty and colonization.
The adults will nod approvingly — perhaps snap our fingers to show we’re awesome and “woke” — when the college kids slowly explain, with delightfully innocent condescension and high dudgeon, that the very first caravan hoard of immigrants crossing our border was, like literally, straight white European religious fundamentalists and money-grubbing capitalists.
The white mobs, the kids continue unasked, slaughtered the innocent multicultural people, stole their land, and renamed it “America” after an Italian cartographer. All, ironically, in the name of the European white “God.”
Gosh, the adults will respond politely to the youthful political droning, we did not know that, wow, snap, who’da thunk it, how horrible, thanks for letting us know.
We express such appreciation with twinkling condescension in a way the kids in their high dudgeon won’t notice.
For me, the Thanksgiving holiday kicked off on Nov. 19 with a Thanksmisgiving talk show on NPR focused on myth-busting the traditional holiday story.
The guests included two specialists from the National Museum of the American Indian. They talked about the actual relationship between the Indians and English settlers 1600s versus how the story is taught in schools. Good stuff, much of which I did not know but appreciate learning.
The third guest was a professor of anthropology at a major respected university who was not in the Thanksgiving holiday spirit.
I’ll call him Professor Charles Dreary, PhD, because he was relentlessly and depressingly negative about Thanksgiving, especially how kids are being fooled by the holiday myth almost to the point of child abuse requiring removal from homes and public schools, re-education and post-cult recovery therapy.
Instead of being fed the hoary lie about how the Indians and Pilgrims sat down together to peace and harmony to feast in thanks and celebration of nature’s bounty, Professor Dreary said kids need to be taught the gruesome truth starting in first grade when they’re six, prone to nightmares and could be scarred for life by child therapists.
At least children need to hear both sides of the story so they can decide the issue for themselves, the professor insisted, unlike how they can’t choose their shoes while late for school.
Instead of drawing turkeys by outlining their hands, kids should be finger-painting hater Pilgrims stabbing, mass musket-shooting and otherwise genocide-ing innocent Indians and stealing their pumpkin pie and fertile farmland they need to grow crops and avoid starving. (I’m paraphrasing the professor here.)
Since I was listening to the NPR talk show professor while driving, I had to pull over so I could use both hands to smack my forehead.
Yes, yes, my fellow liberals, don’t twist or soil your knickers, I get what Professor Dreary was saying, and have all due respect for his research, knowledge and difficult climb through today’s underpaid and competitive academia to get on NPR.
The true Thanksgiving story does involve crimes against humanity. And not the naughty-fun card game that when played with family on Thanksgiving gives great-great-auntie the fantods requiring the nearest fainting divan, smelling salts and, worst case, EMT, last rites and initial squabbling over her estate.
But look at all our holidays, whoever we are and whatever we celebrate: Aren’t most that we love, and look forward to gathering around, based at least somewhat on myths?
Do we have to be so smartly dreary? Can’t we redefine, re-own and re-appropriate holidays to pull out and celebrate the best possible meaning therein?
President Lincoln did.
The president who ended America’s greatest crime against humanity didn’t worry about being historically or politically incorrect about the first Thanksgiving.
Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863 during the worst days of the Civil War. He looked past the bitter realities of the real history of Thanksgiving in hopes to redress the bitter realities of his time, to beseech the riven nation to harken our better angels and let what unites us overcome what divides us.
Like literally we might consider today.
Lincoln closed his Thanksgiving proclamation with this fervent wish:
For the “the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.”
Amen. Let’s eat.
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer | https://jeffreydenny77.medium.com/breaking-news-thanksgiving-story-a-myth-f89ac55012ec | ['Jeffrey Denny'] | 2018-11-24 21:23:24.698000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Family', 'Thanksgiving', 'Love', 'Holidays'] |
KingK suggests using NordVPN protection | Are you into video games? And do you like old video games that remind you of all the careless joy from childhood? Then KingK is the YouTube channel just for you! As the channel description goes, “I make comprehensive retrospectives on video games. There isn’t a whole lot else to say, enjoy!” You’ll find Donkey Kong, Zelda, PacMan and more old games in the playlist. If you have a keen eye, you will also notice that KingK is offering a discount for a premium cybersecurity service NordVPN. Read on to see what’s his deal.
How to get KingK NordVPN discount?
Even though the channel is dedicated to retro-gaming, KingK is very up-to-date when he suggests using a VPN for privacy protection. VPNs have grown in popularity because more and more people are becoming aware of online dangers and want to protect themselves. With KingK exclusive coupon code you can buy NordVPN 68% OFF, and that will cost you only $3.71/month for a two-year plan.
Click here to get a 68% KingK NordVPN discount
You can download the software from Google Play by clicking here or follow this link to get it for your iOS from Apple Store.
What does NordVPN offer?
NordVPN is a leading Virtual Private Network service provider that has been around for nearly a decade and has a 14 million userbase. NordVPN users enjoy a safer and more open Internet because it provides additional encryption, secure servers, and the ability to bypass geographical restrictions — all very useful if you want to enhance your browsing experience. Furthermore, it will detect and protect against malware and phishing.
VPNs are strongly recommended for travels and public Wi-Fi safety. Networks like an airport, or Starbucks, or hotels tend to have weak security measurements and are frequently exploited by cybercriminals. Needless to say, losing all your money while travelling, or having your banking credentials leak while you’re sipping coffee would cause unnecessary financial losses, that can be prevented with a VPN protection.
NordVPN 2-year deal discount
Don’t know KingK chan?
I like following KingK and retro games hold a dear place in my heart, since I started from Zelda and KingK series, making a jump to diablo one later on and sticking with RPGs ever since. However, maybe you’re not that much into old stuff, and that’s understandable — the video games have improved tremendously.
I’d like to recommend a few more channels to follow for a gamer. AngryJoeShow is probably one of the most renowned video game reviewers, so check his channel here. Then there’s SayNoToRage YouTube chan that is dedicated to keeping games like League of Legends toxic-free and try to achieve a more friendly atmosphere in such competitive games.
Don’t miss out on this opportunity to get NordVPN on a discount! | https://medium.com/@pierre-cuovansun/kingk-offers-a-nordvpn-discount-c2b75941b6b0 | ['Pierre Cuovansun'] | 2020-10-05 11:09:23.565000+00:00 | ['Discount', 'Privacy', 'Games', 'VPN', 'Deal'] |
#158: I Am Who You Want Me To Be. | Am I Swiss or actually from Liechtenstein? The answer is simple and straight forward.
«I am who you want me to be.»
What difference does it make anyway?
When given the choice between the familiar and anything new, we tend to go with the familiar. It gives us that cozy and warm feeling of knowing what to expect. Not that we really knew, but we can tell ourselves that we believe to know.
Familiarity is a story well told.
Why not change that narrative?
«There’s a common belief among anthropologists that you must immerse yourself in an unfamiliar world in order to truly understand your own.» By Annie Braddock in The Nanny Diaries
What if you were in someone else’s shoes?
What if you were a grain of sand?
What if your assistant actually owned the company?
What if I just imagined…
I like the idea of not knowing. It opens up a world of possibility. Interestingly, imagination isn’t limitless. What holds us back is our experience. There is ample evidence that we struggle to imagine anything we have never experienced.
The formula is simple. In order expand your imagination, you just have to experience something new. Oh, so that is what it takes!
There is nothing wrong with pretending to be someone else, to come from another country, to have another profession, thus trying to experience what it would be like.
When asked whether I am Swiss or Liechtensteiner, I normally reply that I am Swiss when it serves me well. On all other occasions, I feel and behave like and therefore am a proper Liechtensteiner… whatever that means to someone else? | https://medium.com/@romanegg/158-i-am-who-you-want-me-to-be-74f2d291340a | ['Roman Eggenberger'] | 2021-06-08 20:50:11.963000+00:00 | ['Imagination', 'Storytelling', 'Lookseebefly', 'Identity', 'Experience'] |
K-Nearest Neighbor | Introduction
K-nearest neighbors (KNN) is a type of supervised learning algorithm used for both regression and classification. KNN tries to predict the correct class for the test data by calculating the distance between the test data and all the training points. Then select the K number of points which is closet to the test data. The KNN algorithm calculates the probability of the test data belonging to the classes of ‘K’ training data and class holds the highest probability will be selected. In the case of regression, the value is the mean of the ‘K’ selected training points.
Let see the below example to make it a better understanding
Suppose, we have an image of a creature that looks similar to cat and dog, but we want to know either it is a cat or dog. So for this identification, we can use the KNN algorithm, as it works on a similarity measure. Our KNN model will find the similar features of the new data set to the cats and dogs images and based on the most similar features it will put it in either cat or dog category.
Why do we need a K-NN Algorithm?
Suppose there are two categories, i.e., Category A and Category B, and we have a new data point x1, so this data point will lie in which of these categories. To solve this type of problem, we need a K-NN algorithm. With the help of K-NN, we can easily identify the category or class of a particular dataset. Consider the below diagram:
How does K-NN work?
The K-NN working can be explained on the basis of the below algorithm:
Step-1: Select the number K of the neighbors
Step-2: Calculate the Euclidean distance of K number of neighbors
Step-3: Take the K nearest neighbors as per the calculated Euclidean distance.
Step-4: Among these k neighbors, count the number of the data points in each category.
Step-5: Assign the new data points to that category for which the number of the neighbor is maximum.
Step-6: Our model is ready.
Suppose we have a new data point and we need to put it in the required category. Consider the below image:
Firstly, we will choose the number of neighbors, so we will choose the k=5.
Next, we will calculate the Euclidean distance between the data points. The Euclidean distance is the distance between two points, which we have already studied in geometry. It can be calculated as:
By calculating the Euclidean distance we got the nearest neighbors, as three nearest neighbors in category A and two nearest neighbors in category B. Consider the below image:
As we can see the 3 nearest neighbors are from category A, hence this new data point must belong to category A.
How to choose a K value?
Kvalue indicates the count of the nearest neighbors. We have to compute distances between test points and trained labels points. Updating distance metrics with every iteration is computationally expensive, and that’s why KNN is a lazy learning algorithm.
As you can verify from the above image, if we proceed with K=3, then we predict that test input belongs to class B, and if we continue with K=7, then we predict that test input belongs to class A.
That’s how you can imagine that the K value has a powerful effect on KNN performance.
Then how to select the optimal K value?
There are no pre-defined statistical methods to find the most favorable value of K.
Initialize a random K value and start computing.
Choosing a small value of K leads to unstable decision boundaries.
The substantial K value is better for classification as it leads to smoothening the decision boundaries.
Derive a plot between error rate and K denoting values in a defined range. Then choose the K value as having a minimum error rate.
Now you will get the idea of choosing the optimal K value by implementing the model.
Calculating distance:
The first step is to calculate the distance between the new point and each training point. There are various methods for calculating this distance, of which the most commonly known methods are — Euclidian, Manhattan (for continuous) and Hamming distance (for categorical).
Euclidean Distance: Euclidean distance is calculated as the square root of the sum of the squared differences between a new point (x) and an existing point (y).
Manhattan Distance: This is the distance between real vectors using the sum of their absolute difference.
Hamming Distance: It is used for categorical variables. If the value (x) and the value (y) are the same, the distance D will be equal to 0 . Otherwise D=1.
Ways to perform K-NN
KNeighborsClassifier(n_neighbors=5, *, weights=’uniform’, algorithm=’auto’, leaf_size=30, p=2, metric=’minkowski’, metric_params=None, n_jobs=None, **kwargs)
algorithm : {‘auto’, ‘ball_tree’, ‘kd_tree’, ‘brute’}, default=’auto’
Brute Force
Lets consider for simple case with two dimension plot. If we look mathematically, the simple intuition is to calculate the euclidean distance from point of interest ( of whose class we need to determine) to all the points in training set. Then we take class with majority points. This is called brute force method.
k-Dimensional Tree (kd tree)
k-d tree is a hierarchical binary tree. When this algorithm is used for k-NN classficaition, it rearranges the whole dataset in a binary tree structure, so that when test data is provided, it would give out the result by traversing through the tree, which takes less time than brute search.
For a better understanding of how this can look like in a computer science topic, you can find below an HTML-code. A tree helps to structure a website and websites can normally be depicted using a tree.
<html>
<head>
<meta charset=utf-8" />
<title>Ball Tree vs. KD Tree</title>
<nav>
<a href="/r/">R</a>
<a href="/js/">JavaScript</a>
<a href="/python/">Python</a>
</nav>
</head>
<body>
<h1>What is a tree?</h1>
<ul>
<li>List item one</li>
<li>List item two</li>
</ul>
<h2>How does a tree look like?</h2>
</body>
</html>
Ball Tree
Similar to k-d trees, Ball trees are also hierarchical data structure. These are very efficient specially in case of higher dimensions.
Two clusters are created initially
All the data points must belong to atleast one of the clusters.
One point cannot be in both clusters.
Distance of the point is calculated from the centroid of the each cluster. The point closer to the centroid goes into that particular cluster.
Each cluster is then divided into sub clusters again, and then the points are classified into each cluster on the basis of distance from centroid.
This is how the clusters are kept to be divided till a certain depth.
The final resulting Ball Tree as follows,
Comparison and Summary
Brute Force may be the most accurate method due to the consideration of all data points. Hence, no data point is assigned to a false cluster. For small data sets, Brute Force is justifiable, however, for increasing data the KD or Ball Tree is better alternatives due to their speed and efficiency.
KNN model implementation
Let’s start the application by importing all the required packages. Then read the telecommunication data file using read_csv() function.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.ticker import NullFormatter
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.ticker as ticker
%matplotlib inline df = pd.read_csv('Telecustomers.csv')
df.head()
Dataset
As you can see, there are 12 columns, namely as region, tenure, age, marital, address, income, ed, employ, retire, gender, reside, and custcat. We have a target column, ‘custcat’ categorizes the customers into four groups:
1- Basic Service
2- E-Service
3- Plus Service
4- Total Service
X = df.drop(['custcat'], axis = 1)
y = df['custcat']
from sklearn import preprocessing
X = preprocessing.StandardScaler().fit(X).transform(X.astype(float)) from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split( X, y, test_size=0.2, random_state=4) from sklearn.neighbors import KNeighborsClassifier
from sklearn import metrics
#Train Model and Predict
k = 4
neigh = KNeighborsClassifier(n_neighbors = k).fit(X_train,y_train)
Pred_y = neigh.predict(X_test)
print("Accuracy of model at K=4 is",metrics.accuracy_score(y_test, Pred_y))
We collect all independent data features into the X data-frame and target field into a y data-frame. Then we manipulate the data and normalize it.
After splitting the data, we take 0.8% data for training and remaining for testing purposes.
We import the classifier model from the sklearn library and fit the model by initializing K=4. So we have achieved an accuracy of 0.32 here.
Now it’s time to improve the model and find out the optimal k value.
error_rate = []
for i in range(1,40):
knn = KNeighborsClassifier(n_neighbors=i)
knn.fit(X_train,y_train)
pred_i = knn.predict(X_test)
error_rate.append(np.mean(pred_i != y_test)) plt.figure(figsize=(10,6))
plt.plot(range(1,40),error_rate,color='blue', linestyle='dashed',
marker='o',markerfacecolor='red', markersize=10)
plt.title('Error Rate vs. K Value')
plt.xlabel('K')
plt.ylabel('Error Rate')
print("Minimum error:-",min(error_rate),"at K =",error_rate.index(min(error_rate)))
From the plot, you can see that the smallest error we got is 0.59 at K=37. Further on, we visualize the plot between accuracy and K value.
acc = []
# Will take some time
from sklearn import metrics
for i in range(1,40):
neigh = KNeighborsClassifier(n_neighbors = i).fit(X_train,y_train)
yhat = neigh.predict(X_test)
acc.append(metrics.accuracy_score(y_test, yhat))
plt.figure(figsize=(10,6))
plt.plot(range(1,40),acc,color = 'blue',linestyle='dashed',
marker='o',markerfacecolor='red', markersize=10)
plt.title('accuracy vs. K Value')
plt.xlabel('K')
plt.ylabel('Accuracy')
print("Maximum accuracy:-",max(acc),"at K =",acc.index(max(acc)))
Now you see the improved results. We got the accuracy of 0.41 at K=37. As we already derived the error plot and got the minimum error at k=37, so we will get better efficiency at that K value.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! | https://medium.com/swlh/k-nearest-neighbor-ca2593d7a3c4 | ['Antony Christopher'] | 2021-02-03 15:26:36.334000+00:00 | ['Knn Algorithm', 'Data Science', 'Supervised Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'Classification'] |
The Best New App for Entrepreneurs to Record Podcasts | Author: Jason Parks / Source: Entrepreneur
It was a goal of mine to get a digital marketing podcast published on the iTunes and Android store. The issue was that I didn’t want to have to go through the hassle of creating an XML feed to host the podcast on my site.
Like many entrepreneurs and business owners, the XML feed deterred me from my ambition of creating my own podcast. I know I could have figured this out or asked one of the developers at our marketing agency to help. At the end of the day though, the XML feed was a hurdle and because of this, I didn’t pursue my podcasting ambition.
I know that there are a lot of entrepreneurs like me who have yet to record a podcast due to the hoops that you’d have to jump through with this XML feed. That’s about to change!
You are my Anchor.
I was recently introduced to Anchor, an app that allows you to broadcast your voice, music and conversations, all for free. Gary Vaynerchuk, one of the most popular marketers in the world right now, had Anchor’s CEO on one of his podcasts. When I heard that Anchor allows you to get your podcasts pushed to Apple and Google, I immediately downloaded the app.
According to The Verge, the app can now publish recordings to podcast platforms, sending them to both Apple and Google’s collection of shows for even more people to find. While podcasting has always been open to anyone, Anchor is trying to remove the last few hoops that people had to jump through, like setup, hosting and distributing an RSS feed so that listeners can subscribe to the podcast. “Unfamiliar with RSS?” Anchor wrote in a blog post. “Cool, let’s keep it that way.”
BOOM. I finally had a place to record my podcasts and easily distribute them to Apple and Google. And 99.6 percent of new smartphones run Android or iOS. If you want to easily get your podcast distributed, Anchor is your go-to…
Click here to read more | https://medium.com/oneqube/the-best-new-app-for-entrepreneurs-to-record-podcasts-73d39136e55b | [] | 2018-03-01 17:05:05.428000+00:00 | ['Podcast', 'Digital Marketing', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
Woman gets run over after angrily chucking rock at SUV’s windshield | Woman gets run over after angrily chucking rock at SUV’s windshield
Why you don’t fight with someone who is driving a motor vehicle — even if you are in the right
Yesterday, one woman learned why the person behind the wheel of a motor vehicle is always right.
Surveillance footage from a street in Jiangsu’s Lianyungang city shows a pair of women arguing with the driver of an SUV on the side of a road. As the two women walk away, the vehicle pulls up and blocks their path, nudging one of the women.
That woman responds by swiftly picking up a stone from the side of the street and chucking it at the SUV’s windshield, causing the driver to accelerate forward and crush the woman.
In heart-pounding video from the scene, passersby are then seen rushing over as quickly as they can and attempting to lift the vehicle to free the woman.
Eventually, they were successful in doing so and the woman was rushed to the hospital. Thanks to her timely rescue, she is not in life-threatening condition. | https://medium.com/shanghaiist/woman-gets-run-over-after-angrily-chucking-rock-at-suvs-windshield-196dc400422d | [] | 2018-05-25 15:34:05.845000+00:00 | ['China'] |
The Hamster Trials Diary Entry # 7 | The Hamster Trials Diary Entry # 7
Coco-Chan has gone full on Mission Impossible Hamster on us. Somehow she wedges herself in between the top of their cage and the hamster wheel, hangs upside down like Tom Cruise and gnaws the hell out of the top of her cage.
I guess nothing sharpens hamster teeth like the lid to a hamster cage, in her world. At night she sounds like an industrial sewing machine that runs all night long. But, I guess even hamsters need hobbies, so if it makes her happy I’m not going to judge. | https://medium.com/short-shots-city/the-hamster-trials-diary-entry-7-39bc9f24dcae | ['Steve B Howard'] | 2020-12-21 01:34:39.798000+00:00 | ['Short Shots City', 'Pets', 'Humor', 'Short Form', 'Short Read'] |
Management: We’re all baboons | When someone becomes a new manager — i.e. first promoted into a role where they have supervisory capacity over others — what are some of the biggest problems they face?
Two jump out right away. (1) is that management is not intuitive to most people, meaning the skills that got you there (execution) are not the same skills you need when there (often softer skills). (2) is that we do a horrible job training most new managers, ranging from research about manager development (rooted in 1911) to the gap between first time as a new manager (30) and first average training (42), meaning a newborn would be in fifth-sixth grade before their dad was given any training on their job. That seems effective.
We got another elephant — er, other animal — in the room that we should discuss.
The new manager hierarchy problem
New article on Harvard Business Review about the roles and context of a new manager. Pay attention here:
Stanford academic Bob Sutton, author of Good Boss, Bad Boss and the forthcoming The Asshole Survival Guide, says the challenges that new managers face have a lot to do with where they place their own attention: “Your attention will naturally shift up — be directed up the hierarchy.’’ This even happens in nature: The average baboon looks up at the alpha male every 30 seconds or so to see what he is doing. We do the same thing when we’ve been promoted, constantly looking up to make sure our boss is seeing and approving of us, which means we’re paying less attention to the people we’re now leading.
I just fell down because of the force of that truth.
How this becomes a problem
There are a lot of ways. Let me give you a few.
“The key stakeholders and decision-makers” problem: We’ve turned many offices into places where only the opinion of 10–14 people even remotely matters. The rest of us are just running in circles waiting for one of them to weigh in. This is a real issue, and definitely cuts into reduced employee engagement scores globally.
The new manager now looks like a brown-noser to his team: He only cares about the opinion of him from above, not from below.
“Sense of urgency:” The guy above the new manager is probably even more “super busy/slammed,” so he will lack priority and context around the work too. (All meetings/calls, no level setting.) That means he’ll bellow something is urgent a few times per week. This is called “sense of urgency” management. It’s a trick. But if the new manager constantly says “how high!” when his boss says “jump,” well, good luck to the direct reports of the new manager. They’re screwed.
Technology: Many a new manager, overwhelmed and trying to please their own boss, will hide behind a technology platform — from email to some HR software — and not really talk to their direct reports. (Ironically, their boss will try to do this with them too.) This doesn’t solve people issues, but for some reason we’ve come to believe it does because tech is our God and helps us scale.
A note on work and baboons
Work has been equated to “chimp rape” and I’ve often thought that Counting Crows lyric — “All monkeys do what they see” — is a great description of white-collar work. So, I mean…
Can we make a new manager more effective?
Yep. My man Art Petty has some good stuff on this, as do others. By the way, The Muse dominates this whole category on Google Search, including common new manager mistakes — and they have some decent advice too.
Some stuff I’d add:
Make sure execs care about what front-line managers are doing well/badly
Train around context and situation, not cookie-cutter/out-of-the-box
Incentives for managers who have more face-to-face discussions with reports
Tie managerial bonuses to how their direct reports evaluate them (not just their boss)
Have resources/learning libraries that are almost bullet point in nature, so super-busy new managers can peruse quickly
Create managerial peer programs so that this isn’t just “a HR thing”
Did I mention someone has to care about whether a new manager is effective?
I somehow got through this entire thing and didn’t mention micromanaging, which might be the №1 problem of most new bosses. So there you go if you want some research/context on that.
What else would you add on how to make a new manager more effective? | https://medium.com/@tedbauer2003/management-were-all-baboons-d45b7c9f2ba3 | ['Ted Bauer'] | 2020-12-23 10:57:51.379000+00:00 | ['Onboarding', 'Work', 'Future Of Work', 'Management And Leadership', 'Training'] |
Daily Horoscope: Moon in Aries | December 23, 2020
Moon in Aries, Wednesday, December 23, increases emotional volatility and reactivity as the moon joins aggressive Mars in assertive Aries, squaring powerful and controlling Pluto in Capricorn. Repressed feelings will be hard to keep down now, and Mercury conjunct the sun in the cardinal earth sign of Capricorn in a supportive trine to Uranus in Taurus, but square to Chiron in Aries, indicates that everyone is entitled to their own opinion today, whether it is popular or not. Mercury and the sun trine to Uranus may also pressure you to spend beyond your budget for appearance’s sake, or out of a sense of obligation, but the square aspect to Chiron indicates doing so could be detrimental if you run out of funds for your basic material needs. A square aspect between Jupiter conjunct Saturn in Aquarius and Uranus in Taurus speaks of your inability to predict the future consequences of the impulsive actions you may take now, and also highlights the current instability over financial support from the government. Aim for impulse control and a long range view of the future, but use the Aries moon transit for strength and power if you need to assert or defend yourself.
Dunnea Rae
Aloha Astro | https://medium.com/@alohaastro/daily-horoscope-moon-in-aries-6ce7d64eaf16 | ['Dunnea Rae'] | 2020-12-23 17:26:58.518000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Spirituality', 'Culture', 'Astrology', 'Horoscopes'] |
Leofoo Village Theme Park | Leofoo Village Theme Park
I am gonna introduce Leofoo Village Theme Park, one of the theme parks in Hsinchu, Taiwan. This park is famous for its zoo and its incredible theme- designs.
If you are a big fan of roller coasters, drop towers or other exciting stuff, you can visit Leofoo Village for its 笑傲飛鷹, 大怒神, 老油井. I bet you will be bringing a lot of fun and exciting experience from those facilities.
Okay, here comes the most important part of this article, the zoo. What you can see in Leofoo Village? Well, pretty much, but the most special animal you can see here is the white tiger. I would say I am not a big fan of watching animals who are stuck in a tiny place, but the truth is these animals are not able to survive once we send them back to the wild. It's good news that white tigers here are still healthy and strong.
cute but poor white tiger
There is an area for those cute animals, you can bring your children here feeding the animals and even touch them. This is a place full of family love, couple love and sisterhood.
A hahaha
Monkeys are booming and under protection here in Taiwan. It is very easy to observe their group. You will find who is the king and their relationships within a group of monkeys.
Quite clear who is the king right
Welcome to this park to enjoy more and have more experience with animals, special performs and exciting facilities. The ticket information is here : http://www1.leofoo.com.tw/village/en/TicketPrice.aspx
Normally you have to pay full price, but don't forget you can purchase a discounted ticket from KKday or Klook. Here is one more thing to keep in mind that you can download its APP for more information and win a VIP-service including the priority of playing any facility. | https://medium.com/@wedodo/leofoo-village-theme-park-c039a8fb1324 | ['Connect Business With Technique'] | 2019-10-27 13:49:03.968000+00:00 | ['Taiwan', 'Zoo', 'Hsinchu', 'Travel'] |
Gutty Resignation | There comes a point in everyone’s career when a new opportunity appears.
An opportunity for excitement, an opportunity for adventure.
Something new, something different, something fresh to dust off the bones and clean out the air.
It entices you with numbers, a number higher than what you’re worth but its special because it also has heart.
It has something more to it, more then material, more then just the mundane.
So you investigate and make the final decision to commit. You get your affairs in order and prepare to take the leap of faith.
Your mind is there, your heart is there and you’re ready to take the jump.
But something holds you back.
Is it fear, is it anxiety, is it doubt or insecurity?
Somethings holding you back and you realise that it’s your gut.
Your gut feels nervous and curdles and puts you in a posionous trance.
Dear friend are you here to help me or are you here to stop me from growing?
The decision is withdrawn and the leap of faith is postponed.
A life of safety and comfort is chosen.
A life of adventure and excitement will have to wait. | https://medium.com/@Aaronteng2210/gutty-resignation-c81b33bea2a3 | ['Aaron Teng'] | 2019-04-12 18:32:12.894000+00:00 | ['Career Change', 'Mind', 'Gut', 'Life', 'Heart'] |
Announcement! Participation of citizens from China, Singapore, South Korea, Canada and the U.S.A in Taylor’s token sale | Announcement! Participation of citizens from China, Singapore, South Korea, Canada and the U.S.A in Taylor’s token sale
Based on clear legislative actions regarding token sales, Taylor has no choice but to restrict the participation of citizens and residents from China, Singapore, South Korea, Canada and the U.S.A. We would like to highlight that this decision is a necessary measure to comply with laws regarding token sales in these countries.
We at Taylor share the belief that anyone, regardless of citizenship or residency should have the right to use their financial assets as they please. However, some rules have been made clear, and we have no option but to follow them. Thus, we must make the following disclaimer public, extracted from Taylor’s Terms of Sale.
PERSONS EXCLUDED FROM TOKEN SALE ANY PERSON OR ENTITY, INCLUDING ANYONE ACTING ON ITS BEHALF, BEING BASED, DOMICILED, LOCATED OR INCORPORATED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, CANADA, THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA, THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE, AND THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (“RESTRICTED AREAS”), SHALL NOT USE THE TAYLOR WEBSITE OR TAYLOR TOKENS AND SHALL LEAVE THE WEBSITE IMMEDIATELY. TAYLOR SHALL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR FRAUDULENT, DECEPTIVE OR OTHERWISE MALICIOUS USE OF ANY TOOLS WHATSOEVER BY PERSONS OR ENTITIES BASED, DOMICILED, LOCATED OR INCORPORATED IN THE RESTRICTED AREAS TO USE THE WEBSITE OR THE TAYLOR TOKENS UNDER THE SEMBLANCE OF PROVENANCE FROM ANY OTHER JURISDICTION OUTSIDE THE RESTRICTED AREAS.
We would like to apologize for any inconvenience to citizens from the imposed token sale restricted countries. We sincerely thank you for your interest and support. We will set our utmost effort in the future to further facilitate the inclusion of everyone, everywhere in our service.
Follow us and get in touch
Find more detailed information about the Taylor service, and to sign up for our newsletter visit https://smarttaylor.io.
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or on your favorite social media platform to stay up to date with our latest news and announcements, as well as, our blog here on medium.
Feel free to post your questions, suggestions, and comments on our Telegram channel. We look forward to hearing from you! | https://medium.com/smarttaylor/announcement-78f70f6aa66a | [] | 2018-02-14 18:42:17.200000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Taylor App'] |
Against All Odds | Trevor Thomas was the real thing.
He just graduated from law school, was about to join the Navy and become a JAG officer…and soon to be stationed in Greece.
He lived his life in the fast Lane.
He raced Porsche's for fun.
He was a runner.
He was into rock climbing and parachuting.
He also liked mountain bikes.
Then his whole life changed.
He was having vision problems and so he went to the first of many eye doctors.
He was diagnosed with atypical central serous chorioretinopathy.
His disease is extremely rare and so it’s not studied enough.
He would be blind for the rest of his life.
He doesn’t know how he’ll get a job.
He’s afraid to leave his house — especially at night.
He then heard a speech that would change his life forever.
The speaker’s name was Erik Weihenmayer.
Erik went blind when he was 13.
He became a middle school teacher and wrestling coach.
He also skied and paraglided for fun.
Then he started to climb mountains.
In 2001 Erik, who is blind, climbed Mount Everest.
In 2005, Trevor Thomas heard Weihenmayer speak for two hours in Charlotte North Carolina.
Erik decided if Weihenmayer could climb Mount Everest, he could do something too.
He decided to walk the Appalachian Trail.
The trail is 2,175 miles long and stretches all the way from Georgia to Maine.
On the trail, most everybody abandons their real name for a trail name. His eyes gave him his new name.
Trevor became Zero/Zero.
50,000 hikers have attempted to walk the entire trail. Only about 8000 have finished.
His injuries included:
=> 1 foot fracture
=> One head gash closed with superglue
=> four broken ribs
=> eight hospital visits
=> 78 — the most falls in a single day
=> 3000 — total falls while hiking trail
The last hundred miles of the trail are the most challenging because you can’t quit. There’s nowhere to go. The only way to quit is to continue.
The 100-Mile Wilderness is long and lonely and stretches between Monson Maine and the northern end of the trail at Mount Katahdin.
It was during this 100-Mile Wilderness that he fell 78 times in a single day and almost drowned during three different river crossings.
His darkest hour came when he was sitting in a shelter by himself freezing to death and he didn’t think he could finish the last 60 miles.
However, he finished what he started. He climbed 5,268 feet to the summit of Mount Katahdin.
When someone asked him “What’s next,” he said, “I want the Triple Crown.”
In 2011 he walked the Pacific Crest Trail — it’s 2650 miles from Mexico to Canada. He then said, “if I can figure that one out, then I’ll do the Continental Divide.”
Are You Living Up To Your Full Potential?
What are you dealing with in your life today and how does it compare to what Trevor Thomas is dealing with?
This guy is a genuine trailblazer.
When you look in the mirror…the person who you see is the only person preventing you from becoming a trailblazer in your life and in your work.
Don’t feel left out. Don’t get left behind. Are you up for a challenge?
Why not set a huge goal and get after it with everything you’ve got.
That’s why I created the 100 Day Challenge…to show you how to live up to your full potential.
Gary Ryan Blair is creator of the 100 Day Challenge…a radical approach to goal achievement that shows people how to achieve 10X size goals by applying the methods and best practices of growth hacking. | https://medium.com/mind-munchies/against-all-odds-1a7cec7d76a4 | ['Gary Ryan Blair'] | 2020-07-10 17:58:50.657000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Leadership', 'Personal Growth', 'Life', 'Life Lessons'] |
4 Things I Wish I Knew Before Racing a Marathon | 1. Plan your race and course well.
Now, this should go without saying — know where you are running. Use something like Strava’s route-calculator to make sure your course covers the distance.
You should know your route well before race day.
Make sure it is safe for you to run. Running a marathon puts your body through a lot of stress and your focus and reaction time will take a big hit. So finding a place to run without having to worry about cars in tight corners is essential.
You also don’t want to run somewhere where you get chased by a dog as I did.
I find running multiple loops ideal for a long-distance race. In my case, I had a 10.5 km loop which allowed me to dial in after the first 1 or 2 loops so that I’d be prepared and focused for when it started to hurt. | https://medium.com/runners-life/4-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-racing-a-marathon-7aca4f063cf9 | ['Phillip Steixner'] | 2020-11-11 14:46:41.797000+00:00 | ['Training', 'Sports', 'Health', 'Marathon', 'Running'] |
How “Q” Came To Be | He’s been a prolific guest on Alex Jones’ Infowars over the years, masterfully using the platform to blend fantasy and reality, in a way that created the narrative foundation from which Q would ultimately emerge.
In October 2015 he began to talk about Trump (for the record, he spoke about Ben Carson as a back up too):
“Alex I want to thank you and particularly your audience […] truthers, the marginalised majority […] the administration has been very afraid of me. The head of cyber command said I was the most dangerous man in America, for the very simple fact that they know that I can run PsyOps against them, which I have for 14 years.. as well as over seas where they were successful. You were there when I needed you […] I am very proud to be a so called conspirator […] No family has been more detrimental to this country than the Bush and the Clinton. Let me repeat that again, I work in intelligence, I ran psyop operations, I work very closely with the Bushes, I know Roger Ailes, I know exactly what they’re trying to cover up and what they’re doing. It is not working. Thanks to you Alex, and thanks to your listeners, and the American public, they are falling apart […] the globalists did get control, but now there is a war to expose them, and they are losing […] The work you the audience has done…is now bearing fruit. And it’s going to continue […] Geopolitically, what does this do to the criminal cabals on the inside? The truth of the matter is, this is one of the most phenomenal revolutions America has ever seen, and the one we were waiting for Alex, I thank you and I thank the audience, and I thank the alternative media […] Reality is Trump had been monitoring the MSM for some time.. many of us had known that. And in fact when we put his name up for the next presidency, he took it, and basically ran with it, and this is the true expression of the moral majority […] we are so tired of the people who committed the crime of 9/11, that once Trump gets in, my suspicion is that many of them will be arrested […] I know a lot about his character. He is a man who will do exactly what he says […] we have to look at this as very positive movement. We have the names […] they will be known very well and arrested in time, and that depends on the American public. The backlash is huge. They never expected us to come in and be able to pronounce the truth […] Russia in effect watched what we were doing. And Putin went from a tactical genius to a chessboard genius.. and he understood that our military could not effect a successful combat mission […] I suggested that Russians come in. In return for which they would come back into an alliance that would be quite strong. And that’s exactly what they’re doing. I don’t condone what Assad did, but I do know that he was there to protect the Christians. I have warned [Trump] is a target for assassination, he’s able to manipulate emotions very effectively. Plus you have the dynasties out there who are known to kill people — the Bushes and the Clintons. That’s not theory, that’s not some make believe notion […] America is not going quietly into totalitarianism without a fight […] We want them to show how stupid they are.” | https://medium.com/@daniel-ed-morrison/how-q-came-to-be-7b05e7b10ab5 | ['Hamilton Hume'] | 2021-06-21 02:08:58.221000+00:00 | ['Disinformation', 'Conspiracies', 'Psychology', 'Truth', 'Fascism'] |
Cryptocurrency Lending: The coming age for crypto landscape | Cryptocurrency Lending: The coming age for crypto landscape
Money has [from barter, metallic, paper, plastic to digital money], and will change the form, but its handling and managing would remain the same. The financial concept that birthed in olden days still hold good, with a seasoning of technology and glossy wrapping, to suit the tech-savvy millennials but nothing much has changed. If you believe it’s not true, read the post that would deliberate on the same age-old concept of Lending — the traditional way lending and the newly evolved model — Crypto Lending.
Let’s get started –
The Evolution of Lending
Evolution Of Lending
As the above diagram depicts, lending has a history of handholding money since ages. It has progressed with time as new commodities like Gold, Silver, Property, and finally, cryptos emerging as the new asset class.
So, if Gold, Silver, Property, and Cryptos serve the same purpose as assets/collaterals, why are we talking about Lending?
Because Crypto Lending works a bit differently and is inclined to change the role of participants and the system itself.
How is Crypto lending changing the system?
When Satoshi Nakamoto published his white paper for Bitcoin, he intended to create a decentralized payment system that works on a peer to peer network sharing protocol. This concept was the first step to design a trust-based system that moves away from the centralized authority and remove the middlemen targeting a trade/deal just between the two parties.
Then, Is the traditional lending flawed?
Not Really, it has its own advantages like backed up by regulatory authorities, non-volatile and risks are less compared to crypto-based lending.
What about Crypto Lending? Does it offer high risk-high returns?
Yes, absolutely! Crypto trend had influenced people in the past to mortgage their homes and pour money into the crypto world. Some made a fortune while some lost severely. In fact, as per a study, the number of cryptocurrency wallets in existence may reach up to 500 million by 2024.
Tell me more about it, Crypto Lending
Crypto Lending is a trade where you can lend out your Cryptocurrency and earn interest. The deal is facilitated by Crypto Lending Platforms that offer lending of different cryptocurrencies like Ether, Bitcoin, and Stable Coins. The same platform could also be used for borrowing or getting loan if you have provided cryptos as collateral. The concept then is termed as Crypto-backed loans.
It’s just the two parties of a trade for one[who is lending or investing] it is crypto-lending and for other [who is borrowing] it is crypto-backed loans.
Crypto Lending simplified
What all options does a lender gets?
The lender can avail three different types of options to invest his funds and earn a passive income –
· Investing in individual loans
· Investing in automated lending bots
· Invest/lend to firms that perform crypto lending
Crypto Lending Options
CryptoLenders | The Lending Options
So what’s the difference between the three options available?
Lending to an individual would be similar to trade between two people in same/different part of the world. The lending platform would have borrowers and lenders with their request, and matching happens.
Examples — CoinLoan, LendingBlock
Lending between Lender and Borrower
Lending to Automated Bots is a service offered by exchanges to optimize your crypto lending in the best possible interest rates. So say you/institution are the owner of multiple cryptos and although a simple rule is to sell an asset when it’s at a higher price and buy back when there is dip is applied, trading multiple coins could be a tough job. That’s where Automated bot or AI/ML-driven algorithm comes in the picture, that is fed with numerous parameters like history, news, market sentiments to make the best possible decision and execute it within seconds.
So you lend your multiple/single crypto to these Automated bots, and they make sure to make best decision of providing you with a passive income
Lending with Automated Bots
Example — CoinLend, poloniexautomaticlending
Lending to Crypto Lending Firms is one of the most widely used lending methods that involve trade between an individual/institution with a crypto lending platform. The Lending platform than does the matching and dispatch the loans. Here there are two categories one which holds the custody of the lender’s cryptos or borrowers collateral and others that offer 100% non-custodial lending offering decentralization in real sense.
So with custodial lending, as an investor, I am sure that the crypto lending platform will keep my cryptos safe and assure that the borrowers pay back the loan on time, eliminating the counterparty risk.
On the other hand, with non-custodial lending, the lender trusts the technology; in this case, the smart contract that it will run without any technical glitches and eliminate risks and execute positively on the settlement.
Centralized, custodial lenders include companies like Genesis Capital, Nexo, BlockFi, and Celsius are some of the examples of centralized custodial lenders, centralized OTC desks like Galaxy, OSL and Cumberland and the centralized exchanges like Bitfinex, Liquid, and BitMEX
Decentralized, non-custodial credit protocols include Compound (decentralized money market protocol), Nuo.network (decentralized lending and borrowing platform)Dharma (P2P lending protocol), MakerDAO (decentralized credit facility) and Uniswap (a decentralized exchange that enables lenders to provide liquidity).
What is interesting to know that although the centralized, custodial lenders are the most significant crypto lenders, the decentralized protocols or non-custodial platforms are emerging slowly as competitors that differ mainly on lending rates & custody management.
Nuo.network is one of the crypto lending platforms that’s offers 100% non-custodial borrowing and lending.
Cryptocurrency Lending dashboard view
Cryptocurrency Lending Signup
Below diagram shows how Nuo.network has been one of the fastest-growing debt platforms globally. With 17.1%APR [highest across industry], the loans disbursed from February 2019 — August 2019 were 18.9 million and 19.62 million reserves were created.
Lending Stats Of Cryptocurrency on Nuo.Network
Crypto Lending vs. Traditional Fiat Lending
Now that I know a lot about Crypto Lending, what are the advantages I get when compared to traditional lending?
Traditional Lending offers fixed rates, whereas, in CryptoLending, one could get the advantage of Floating rates like Nuo. The network provides rates that are algorithmic-based on available reserves on the platform. So how it works is say DAI tokens are in abundant supply, so the borrowing rates would be decreased that could attract more borrowers. With more borrowing the rates would rise again, attracting lenders. This type of model helps both participants, i.e. lenders and borrowers, to participate in the network.
The second advantage of Crypto Lending over Traditional lending is its decentralization, i.e. lending and borrowing open to all, you do not need to look for a credit score or credit history. If you have funds invest it, or you need additional sum, borrow it. Crypto Lending in its real sense offers financial freedom to one and all.
The third advantage of crypto lending is interoperability; you can take a DAI loan from a crypto lending platform convert it into Ether using UniSwap to gain leverage. Such features are not available in traditional lending.
Lastly is the security, traditional lending has been centrally guarded, and so a hack/theft would affect the whole system, this possibility is not seen with decentralized crypto lending making it the preferred way of lending in the future.
The Lending Ecosystem in Cryptos is evolving- centralized, decentralized, protocols, tokens, security, wallets and lot more. It’s interesting on how things are going to shape in the coming months… do keep a tab by following us.
Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. Nuo Network does not promote/demote any company or investments. Opinions, statements, estimates and projections in this message or other media are solely those of the individual author(s). For more details visit terms and conditions. | https://medium.com/nuo-news/crypto-lending-lending-options-and-pros-over-traditional-fiat-lending-37ea555516b8 | ['Samiksha Seth'] | 2019-09-23 13:59:19.546000+00:00 | ['Crypto Lending Platform', 'Ethereum Blockchain', 'Blockchain', 'Crypto Lending', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Will Losing in the Supreme Court be Enough to Send Trump Home? | Right off the bat, I can tell you he is not going to do the honourable thing. Gore knew there was more at stake than him becoming president — it was upholding the rule of law. And if anything, his race was tighter, to begin with. The difference between Bush’s and Gore’s vote tallies in Florida was a mere 0.01%, with Bush’s lead standing at 327 after the recount. Trump is simply screaming “fraud” because he lost.
And what worries me is that this is a tactic used at nearly every election in my country. And the people who use them are what I call “democratic dictators.” They’re elected, yes, but all hell breaks loose after that. However, what separates them from Trump is that, because of my country’s parliamentary democracy, governments change hands almost instantaneously. And that’s why, despite their hue and cry about the count being rigged, nothing happens. It’s the next dictator’s time to rule, and there’s no way he’s giving up his throne.
Trump, however, is still commander-in-chief. And this poses a few problems.
The one that comes straight to mind is declaring a state of emergency. And although this may allow Trump to hang onto power for a short while, no one can say what happens after that — simply because it hasn't happened before. But if one thing is for sure, if that happens, Americans are going to be worried at every single future election if the president they elect is even going to become president. And what even is democracy at that point.
The next option, and far less likely if not impossible, is that of a violent coup. Yes, I’m aware the military isn’t going to consider getting involved to prevent their next commander-in-chief from taking office simply to protect the outgoing one. But because I’ve lived in a country with multiple military coups, I can’t find myself ruling that one out completely.
And thirdly, commander-in-chief means he’s still going to be the most powerful man in the free world. I can’t characterise exactly what that will mean, but I firmly believe Trump is not an idiot. Couple those two factors with the fact that he’s going to want to avoid going to jail, and it doesn't take much to realise he’s going to be doing everything he can to save himself and his family. And I really mean that. I’ve seen politicians in my country turn to treason to save themselves and their families from going to prison.
And if none of this works or Trump realises he can’t get the job done himself, then he’s still got his “Trump army” to lean on.
His supporters are planning what they call a “Million MAGA March” to Washington, D.C. The agenda is to support their president. What that “support” could entail is anyone’s guess. And I say that because they’re calling this a “nice Saturday drive” — and we all remember how just how peaceful their “peaceful escort” in Texas was. | https://medium.com/the-purple-giraffe/will-losing-in-the-supreme-court-be-enough-to-send-trump-home-a609e096c0ef | ['Sikander Hayat Khan'] | 2020-11-13 22:58:30.910000+00:00 | ['World', 'Justice', 'Politics', 'Election 2020', 'Government'] |
U.S. Master Tax Guide, The nation’s top federal tax resource | By having access to the most sought-after resource on the market, you will gain a complete understanding of updated tax law, including regulations and administrative guidance. The U.S. Master Tax Guide was meticulously researched to cover today’s federal tax law and was expertly-written to help identify tax planning opportunities, ensure accuracy when filing taxes, maximize your knowledge of all of the latest tax law developments , and serve as a quick reference guide when providing tax services to your business or clients.
Files.0808053531.PDF: http://bit.ly/2DBO1Un | https://medium.com/@anyguides/u-s-master-tax-guide-the-nations-top-federal-tax-resource-b6a3702a338e | ['Amie Guide To Shares'] | 2020-12-25 04:59:46.208000+00:00 | ['Guides And Tutorials', 'Taxes'] |
Every idea needs a MEDIUM | The best ideas can change who we are. Medium is where those ideas take shape, take off, and spark powerful conversations. We’re an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Our purpose is to spread these ideas and deepen understanding of the world.
We’re creating a new model for digital publishing. One that supports nuance, complexity, and vital storytelling without giving in to the incentives of advertising. It’s an environment that’s open to everyone but promotes substance and authenticity. And it’s where deeper connections forged between readers and writers can lead to discovery and growth. Together with millions of collaborators, we’re building a trusted and vibrant ecosystem fueled by important ideas and the people who think about them.
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , … . . | https://medium.com/@regadermawans/every-idea-needs-a-medium-e5dcf4707eb6 | [] | 2020-12-19 18:32:51.404000+00:00 | ['Updates', 'The Best', 'Information Technology', 'News'] |
A Valuable Gift That Costs Nothing | The one thing everyone wants — no, craves — is approval.
All of us are always looking for approval.
Approval is the gift that keeps on giving.
Take a moment and think of the one person in your life that you admire most and you’re probably looking at someone who gives you constant approval.
The thing is to generate as much approval for others as you can while being 100% sincere. To not be sincere is to be controlling.
Find the good in everyone and tell them.
People you know and people you don’t know.
Giving approval is like that Doritos tortilla chips commercial that’s says “crunch all you want, we’ll make more”.
To feel good about doing the one thing that is guaranteed to make others feel good at no cost to you is the most valuable gift you can give.
Subscribe to these Day Starters for free here.
Share them with friends and family by forwarding this email or posting to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and other social media with my permission.
Read some sample chapters of my book Out of Bad Comes Good, The Advantages of Disadvantages here. | https://medium.com/@jdelcolliano/the-one-thing-everyone-wants-no-craves-is-approval-d1be7fa02088 | ['Jerry Del Colliano'] | 2019-04-04 12:50:24.894000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Appreciation', 'Compliments', 'Approval', 'Acceptance'] |
Graduating from Leetcode | What is LeetCode.com?
It’s a website where people–mostly software engineers–practice their coding skills. It’s pretty similar to sites like HackerRank & Topcoder which will rank your code written for a particular problem against the ones submitted by other users
People who use them
Leetcode gets primarily used for two use cases:
Solve interesting data structure problems
Prepare and practice for coding interviews 🤔
Purpose of this post
I never had a clear understanding when it comes to data structures and algorithms, so being a software engineer for the last 12 years, I thought it’s not a bad idea to at least start now. So as of Dec 2019, I became a premium member in Leetcode and committed myself to get as much value out of 150$ that I spent on the membership fees. Leetcode is like an ocean; it has closer to 2000+ questions, which keeps growing day by day.
In fact, this was my exact reaction when I open the website for the first time after looking at the number of questions and categories it had
In this post, let me explain some of the methods I developed over some time, which helped me to understand and learn about these data structures & algorithms.
Get the basics right — Don't run too fast
Most people new to Leetcode directly jump into solving the problems without getting a proper understanding of the underlying data structures like a linked list, stack, queue, tree, etc. Trust me this is a bad idea
I would recommend spending some time understanding these data structures, which are the building blocks for solving any problems.
Even if you are not able to go through all the data structures, at least get a strong understanding of the linked list and binary trees. Fortunately, there are some excellent materials created by Standford, which can help you with this:
Linked List:
Binary tree
Method to madness
Leetcode has many categories and a whole lot of questions in each of them, so it’s essential to come up with a method that could help you to understand these concepts. Learning with LeetCode is a long process, and it will take time, so one thing that I clearly understood is you have to keep the enthusiasm and eagerness to learn high if you want to go through the journey.
If you are a beginner, then use the below flowchart to learn things and gradually increase the complexity of the problems that you solve. It also helps in understanding the concepts well so you can reapply those techniques in the subsequent problems.
Sequence for solving problems
Stages are numbers in red circles, and dotted lines are entirely optional for proceeding to the next stage. When you are done with stage 3 depending upon your motivation, you will end up either doing “Monthly coding challenges” or “attending interviews” (both are fun)
Define a process
It’s essential to define a process, so when you get a problem, you know exactly how to solve it, or else it won’t be easy to organize the information that you have learned so far and use them when required. The most fundamental thing to do before writing code is first to understand the algorithms and various techniques.
I came up with a two-step process which helped me in both learning these techniques and coming up with a solution when presented with a problem.
Categorize the problem — Step 1
I would first categorize the problem into one of these buckets:
Arrays & Strings
LinkedList
Trees (BST and BT)
Graph & Trie
Search & Sort
Dynamic programming
Others
Identify the technique — Step 2
Assuming you have already categorized the problem, you can now apply various techniques that you learned on each of these categories to come up with an elegant solution. I would say try to come up with a solution first (maybe even a worst-case scenario), don’t need to be the most optimal one. Because based on my experience, if I target the best optimal solution right away, I generally get stuck, and I lose hope of solving the problem.
Tip: A simple way to reduce the time complexity is to use temporary storage in the form of Queue, Stack, List & Map part of your code
Below diagram explains the process that we talked about | https://medium.com/javarevisited/graduating-from-leetcode-b5da6a786514 | ['Hari Ohm Prasath'] | 2020-08-01 06:14:28.403000+00:00 | ['Data Structures', 'Coding', 'Algorithms', 'Problem Solving', 'Leetcode'] |
Starbucks Rendezvous — Meeting my Lover for the First Time | Starbucks Rendezvous — Meeting my Lover for the First Time
The Barista’s know my dirty secrets.
Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash
The Starbucks baristas know I’m cheating. They see me come in meeting various men. They can guess what I’m up to. It’s pretty obvious. I try to vary my locations, so I hide my trail a bit, but still.
My head does the swivel upon entering, looking for the guy I’m supposed to meet.
Where is he?
Which one?
That troll in the corner? Please no.
No one here looks like the guy in the picture.
The barista eyes me. I go to the end of the line and wait to order.
As I moved to the register, I perused the glass case longingly. I want a sweet, but I won’t let myself have one.
“Chai latte, please. Grande or whatever is the biggest one.”
I still don’t understand the sizes and I’m going to get a caffeine buzz whether or not I like this dude.
I walked to the pickup counter.
Standing but with my gaze fixed on the door.
Where is he?
“I’m running late,” my phone pinged.
“Don’t leave!! I’ll be there soon!” my potential lover texted.
I had about an hour left.
When was my husband going to start to wonder where I was? I said I’d be shopping. This guy better hurry up.
What I am shopping for is a new lover.
This looking business was dragging me down. I’m tired. Just let this be the one. I didn’t hold out much hope. Previous “dates” had left me shell-shocked. Like a war veteran, I was cautious.
Taking orders, a heavy-set younger guy wearing the green apron eyed me appreciatively.
He knew.
He had seen me here before.
With my red hair, I was memorable. The barista gave me a knowing look. That extra long side eye.
If I had any decency left, I might have blushed. But I didn’t.
I gave him a smirk in return.
“Almost there! Don’t leave!” my phone pinged again. This guy. He was going to get himself into an accident, texting and driving.
I sighed, and looked for a spot to sit down.
Spying an open seat on a banquette facing out was my goal. Best line of sight for watching the people stroll in.
“I’m by the door sitting at a table,” I texted.
I can still leave. There’s time.
The doors opened. He spotted me immediately and pulled out the chair opposite to mine.
I wasn’t prepared for the gorgeous guy who came to meet me. All the previous men were, let’s just say, underwhelming.
“Hey,” he said, grinning, as he sat his wide-shouldered frame into the seat.
“Thank you for waiting. I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” he added.
“So good to finally meet you,” I said with my eyes crinkling.
This is looking up.
And I wanted to leave…
I wasn’t even keen on meeting. He’s not my type. He’s bald and too much of a gym rat. He’ll never be into me. I’m wasting my time. Why bother?
Until, he sat down and the air crackled between us.
“You better make it up to me!” I added smiling.
“Oh, I will. Don’t you worry. We are going to have fun together.”
We will. I’m already enjoying this.
“You are lovely. I’m so glad you aren’t snatched up yet,” he said.
“Still looking. I can’t stay celibate,” I said, looking down, suddenly shy.
“That’s why we’re here,” as he leaned over the table, closing the distance between us.
He’s making me squirm in my seat. Dammit.
After our sad perfunctory conversation regarding the lack of intimacy at home, we started to relax with each other.
“Why doesn’t your wife want you?” I said.
Is she crazy? Doesn’t she see how desirable her husband is?
“I could say the same for you,” he added.
“I don’t understand my husband,” and “I certainly don’t understand his lack of libido.”
“I don’t have that problem,” my potential lover said while eyeing my V-necked blouse.
“Thank God,” I said.
“I’m so tired of not being wanted,” I sighed.
“I want you right now,” he said, as his eyes pierced mine.
Blushing, I joked, “I want your frothy head,” and added, “of your latte,” I teased.
I licked the foam off my finger.
His eyes traced my lipsticked mouth.
“Not his,” as I bent my head towards the barista behind the counter.
“Oh yeah?”
“Oh, yeahhhh.”
“You have a dirty mind; l love it!”
“The barista has been monitoring my progress with potential lovers. He’s just trying to get in on the action. But I want you.”
“I’m honored,” he said, touching my hand lightly, setting my hair alight.
That one feather-light touch was enough to know.
I didn’t need more conversation. I needed hotel times. My decision was made.
I would have a lover, finally. | https://medium.com/hello-love/starbucks-rendezvous-71d426249c5c | [] | 2020-11-13 04:01:35.043000+00:00 | ['First Date', 'Affairs', 'Lovers', 'Dating And Sex', 'Sexuality'] |
3 Semesters Through & A Year in Review | 1. Of Rest & Sabbath
Perhaps one of the most radical changes I’ve made this semester would be keeping to a weekly sabbath. In essence, this would mean setting aside a day of the week to simply REST (sounds simple enough… but not quite). This practice originates from Christianity and Judaism, but there are also secular variants like corporate sabbatical leave (extended leave for employees to recharge personally or professionally).
Going back to the idea of “resting” for a day once a week, it soon becomes apparent that keeping to such a practice is easier said than done. Being a typical “kiasu” (meaning “afraid to lose” in colloquial Singlish) Singaporean, a recurring thought I had was whether I would be “losing out” to my peers by studying/working a day less. Having a truckload of weekly tutorials/assignments/labs as a d̶r̶o̶w̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ Computing student meant that even if I wasn’t afraid of losing out, the sheer workload made such a practice tough. With good reason, a friend who heard about my peculiar practice also asked whether I was worried that others would “overtake” me academically as I rested (oh the fear of the mighty bell curve is real).
These thoughts occasionally led me to question if having a sabbath was really worth it, but for faith-based reasons, I (largely) kept to it and didn’t regret my decision. While that same friend suggested the alternative of having a smaller break daily, I knew I could still be worrying about work even during those moments of rest. There just seems to be something unique about having a full day to rest. It meant being able to choose to do what I felt recharged me, whether it meant going for long walks or however long I wanted on the piano. Saturdays thus became a day without worries that I looked forward to each week and where I took a slower pace of life amidst the hecticness around me.
why are they all frowning ded
That being said, what I allowed myself to do on my Saturdays was also something I had to consider carefully. Would packing my Saturdays full with events and social gatherings/activities or bingeing Netflix for hours on end honour my Sabbath? These activities would not usually be associated with work but neither did they give true rest. While all academic work was understandably a no-go, there were grey area activities like prep work for student exchange programmes or internship applications. I soon realised these activities could also potentially bring stress or worry (especially over their outcome) and decided that I had to be careful if I chose to do them on Saturdays. They were only to take up a set amount of time at most, and nothing more.
Moving forward, having a sabbath is something that I’ll definitely continue to do. It may be hard to put aside work for a day, but doing so has proven its worth to me and perhaps it may do the same for you also.
Before I end off my observations on rest, I’ll share an excerpt from an article by the late Clayton Christensen titled “How Will You Measure Your Life”. It speaks volumes.
I played on the Oxford University varsity basketball team… It turned out the championship game was scheduled to be played on a Sunday. I had made a personal commitment to God at age 16 that I would never play ball on Sunday. Every one of the guys on the team came to me and said, “You’ve got to play. Can’t you break the rule just this one time?” In many ways that was a small decision — involving one of several thousand Sundays in my life. In theory, surely I could have crossed over the line just that one time and then not done it again. But looking back on it, resisting the temptation whose logic was “In this extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK” has proven to be one of the most important decisions of my life. Why? My life has been one unending stream of extenuating circumstances. Had I crossed the line that one time, I would have done it over and over in the years that followed. The lesson I learned from this is that it’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. If you give in to “just this once,” based on a marginal cost analysis…you’ll regret where you end up. You’ve got to define for yourself what you stand for and draw the line in a safe place.
2. Of Plans and Ambition
Having been in university for more than a year, I had the opportunity to observe the mindsets of my peers as I interacted with them. Some knew full well what they wanted to do upon graduation (and were perhaps even clearer on the lifestyle they wanted). Some were aware of the stiff competition (both from locals and from abroad) and decided to start preparing themselves for their careers early. Others were l̶u̶r̶e̶d̶/̶m̶i̶s̶l̶e̶d̶/̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶s̶u̶c̶c̶u̶m̶b̶e̶d̶ into multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes and their equivalents. And of course, there were those who just wanted to enjoy their time in university and worry about the things ahead later on.
While I had previously written about my own experience in chasing after internships, it took me a while to acknowledge that I had done so out of fear. I had believed that by stacking these work experiences on my CV I would be able to make up for my academic weakness and stay ahead of the pack. Yet doing so had only caused me to worry each time things didn’t go as planned.
We often think that the trajectory of our lives has to follow some kind of upward linear trend. Few people would like to think that they would be worse off than they currently are five years from now. But perhaps things will not always go as planned no matter how hard we try. Perhaps we should stop to consider what is it that we are really working towards? A materialistic pursuit can only go so far.
the higher you climb the harder you can fall
Not too long ago, I came across two articles that shared some wisdom and insight and are worth a read (via the links). One gave a stark reminder on the fragility of life (the author being a 26-year old woman diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer) while the other gave practical handles on handling money (from a Christian perspective).
With that, I found myself reevaluating what my own goals were. Was it really necessary to land a job that pays a five-figure salary so as to have a fancy home/car? Will I be contented with a simpler lifestyle? Would you?
3. Of Envy
Strangely, I only knew of the difference between jealousy and envy this year. All along I assumed they were one and the same but they actually describe different situations.
Envy occurs when we lack a desired attribute enjoyed by another. Jealousy occurs when something we already possess (usually a special relationship) is threatened by a third person. Envy is a two-person situation whereas jealousy is a three-person situation. Envy is a reaction to lacking something. Jealousy is a reaction to the threat of losing something.
Just like pretty much everyone else, there were definitely moments in my life where I had wished I was more like … / could have … (which I now know describes envy). These thoughts were simply brushed aside as normal and countered with the general wisdom of not comparing myself with others. Yet when I saw for myself how envy had manifested, it hit like a truck (not that I have actually been hit by a truck n̶o̶r̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶I̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶h̶i̶t̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶).
the sash should have been labelled envy btw
Over the past few months, some friends had shared with me about their successes/achievements, many of which were things that I had also hoped for myself. While I congratulated them upon hearing the news, deep down my initial thought was usually, “God, why couldn’t that have been me?”. It’s scary to think that I struggled to be genuinely happy even for close friends if they had first achieved what I hoped to have. As I reflected further, I decided to observe how did others handle the good news of people around them even if they were still waiting for similar things themselves.
In particular, I noticed the (consistent) response of a friend as she handled the good news of another friend getting married. While she also desired for herself to be attached and eventually married, it was visibly clear (at least to me), that she was genuinely happy for her friend’s upcoming wedding. It was clear that her actions spoke louder than the congratulatory words she responded with, as said friend then organized collective wishes and a group gift for her friend. She was present at the wedding and was probably there to help out as well.
While I didn’t ask her directly how she dealt with envy, she indirectly shared that it boiled down to where her anchor and assurance was found. While she may/may not have wrestled with envy, for her it was her faith that “God knew what was best for her at each season of her life”. That gave her the option to place her trust and joy in something/someone that was unwavering.
Having observed this, my own takeaway was that perhaps we each need an anchor. This could mean anything to anybody, but I roughly knew what it meant to me. The human “heart” is deceitful above all things and perhaps my initial thought upon hearing the good news of others might still contain a tinge of envy. But having been made aware of envy, I would know better to hold fast to my own anchor and to genuinely rejoice for those around me.
Closing Thoughts:
I previously alluded to life being like a race or like balancing on a tightrope, and perhaps now I’ll also describe it as a garden. We each have a “garden” (̶y̶e̶s̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶s̶q̶u̶e̶e̶z̶y̶ ̶S̶i̶n̶g̶a̶p̶o̶r̶e̶)̶ and we all want to bear fruit. Some of us have gardens that resemble orchards or plantations while some barely have a tree growing, but there’s no need to compare with your neighbour’s garden.
literally trashy neighbours
Yet, if your neighbour’s garden has weeds or is on fire (̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶?̶)̶, let him/her know in a manner that is helpful. If we are constantly stressed, lack rest or don’t even know what fruits we are growing we won’t make good farmers. If we focused on weeding what’s in our garden and on bearing our own fruits maybe we will all be a step closer to having joy. But even then, this garden is not forever.
“Hold everything earthly with a loose hand, but grasp eternal things with a death-like grip.” Charles H. Spurgeon
S.D.G.
JG | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/3-semesters-through-a-year-in-review-aa5a99223d85 | ['Joshua Goh'] | 2020-12-28 00:15:17.239000+00:00 | ['University', 'Self Improvement', 'Reflections', 'Self-awareness'] |
Run AI-Mapping in QGIS over high-resolution satellite imagery | If you work with spatial data, chances are you’re familiar with QGIS. Today, it is the most commonly used desktop Geographical Information System in the free-and-open-source, or FOSS, part of the IT world. At Geoalert, we use it a lot, and now we are happy to announce that we’ve connected Mapflow.ai and QGIS.
Enter our Mapflow plugin for QGIS. You can install it just like any other QGIS plugin. Importantly, the plugin requires an Internet connection so it can reach out to the Mapflow API. If you’re all set, let’s test it: click on the icon and log in with your credentials (obtain your credentials at app.Mapflow.ai/account).
QGIS — Mapflow: the example of “Building Detection”
What is AI-Mapping?
This term may refer to “AI-assisted Mapping”. There is a growing number of deep learning approaches for Earth Observation data analysis and feature extraction. These can be used instead of or in combination with the traditional digitizing tools used by cartographers. GIS software vendors like ESRI or SuperMap have started implementing deep learning tools into their products.
QGIS is far from any vendor's interests but it has an open repository of useful plugins that developers can contribute to. So we decided to provide those who are used to working in QGIS with Mapflow AI-mapping capabilities. This is a big step for us towards openness and broader coverage of AI-mapping.
Satellite imagery connections — Maxar SecureWatch
We also integrated our plugin with a key source of high-resolution satellite imagery, — Maxar SecureWatch. SecureWatch provides access to imagery basemaps and various OGC services (WMS, TMS, WFS), and the plugin smoothly integrates them all together to enable the user to run Mapflow AI-Mapping over SecureWatch imagery.
Trust us — it works much smoothly than search for imagery using WFS and WMS in QGIS
We see it as a very useful concept to access hi-res satellite data and apply it to your mapping task directly — you get extracts of the imagery semantics and avoid overheads of work time and data traffic.
How to work with the Mapflow-QGIS plugin
The plugin’s made out of three tabs. The Processing ⏺ tab is the mission control center: here, you select what to detect (AI model ⏯), where to detect (an area of processing ⏯, which can be a polygon feature created in QGIS), and what imagery ⏯ to use. These three components make up a processing.
These AI-mapping models are currently available by default:
Buildings
Construction sites
Forest vegetation (optionally, with heights)
Roads
Agriculture fields — New❗
If you’d like to detect some other object types, don’t hesitate to send us your idea.
Mapflow-QGIS — Processing tab
For imagery, our default is Mapbox Satellite ⏯, but you can upload your own GeoTIFF image ⏯, or specify a URL for another tileset. See a more detailed explanation in the documentation.
Now, if you select your own image, you may want the area of interest to coincide with its extent. If so, check Use image extent ⏯ . Otherwise, Area can be any polygonal layer in your QGIS project. Just make sure it either contains a single polygon or a single polygon is selected, because otherwise, we won’t know which of the polygons in your layer to use as the Area of processing. By the way, your polygon can be in any coordinate reference system, as long as QGIS knows it.
Be aware that the bigger the area is the more demanding the processing will be to our platform. It’ll take more time and may cost you more, so clip your polygon to the actual size you need — it also helps reduce the paid streaming traffic if you use Maxar SecureWatch💡
With this said, you’re ready to start your processing. Click Start processing and give us a bit of time to handle your request. As soon as the processing has started, it’ll appear in the table below. Every few seconds it will refresh the table to update the processing status. Once it’s complete, double-click on the row in the table to download the results ⏯. First, though, you need to specify in the Settings ⏺ tab a destination folder on your computer where the results will be stored. But don’t worry: if you forget to do so, we’ll prompt you with a folder selection dialog. Also, apart from the results themselves, we’ll show you the image that we extracted the objects from. Unless of course, you used your own one.
We look forward to sharing a tutorial on how to use Maxar SecureWatch as it contains many interesting capabilities that may go unnoticed first. In short, the user can see a list of available images, select an image by ID to preview it, and submit it to the processing. For now, the UI may seem slightly overcomplicated, but we’re going to simplify it in the upcoming versions. For example, we’ll allow selecting among the available Maxar’s imagery basemaps in the evaluation mode without having to enter your own credentials.
Finally, if you still need some advice, check out the Help ⏺ tab to follow our guides or ask us directly using email or embedded chat.
Here are some useful links for those of you who got to the end of the article:
What’s next?
We’re constantly working on the plugin to add more functionality as one more way to use Mapflow.ai which is supposed to be closer to cartographic and spatial analysis work. Mapflow API is out there for anyone who’d like to integrate “AI-Mapping” into their product or workflow. We will share the best practices provided by our partners.
❗️Register to our joint webinar with Maxar about the use of this plugin to enrich and accelerate your spatial analysis workflow ❗️
Stay tuned and happy mapping! ✋ | https://medium.com/@geoalert/run-ai-mapping-in-qgis-over-high-resolution-satellite-imagery-732a0e9a754b | [] | 2021-08-18 07:39:02.660000+00:00 | ['Mapping', 'Qgis', 'Machine Learning', 'Geoalert Platform', 'Satellite Imagery'] |
Unpredictable Leadership in The Covid-19 Crisis. | Unpredictable Leadership in The Covid-19 Crisis.
A formal and Informal View of Leadership
Unpredictable Leadership during Pandemic.
In reality each situation and each activity which involves more than one person will have a leader, formally or informally. That is how we as a society or an economy are formed. There are more examples where leadership gets practiced beyond. The leadership is a time-based or an event-restricted function while in the formally and informally cases it is a full-time 24/7 engagement. In fact a way of life. So both must listen to each other when it comes to fighting something as deadly and as pervasive as Covid-19. Tactically and operationally you choose the most optimal and efficient but when it doesn’t go per plan the cost in lives is far bigger, just that the purpose is always higher and supreme. In Covid-19, the mission of a leader is to ‘save’ lives, not to lose them.
That is why some developing countries are lacking behind in order to control the spread of Pandemic. Because too many are falling to sickness and overwhelming the best-in-the-world health systems, killing many times more than what timely, correct and uncompromising decisions would have saved. Italy, France and Spain never wished to alter their lifestyles even when the pandemic had hit. The UK conceived wrongly and then got caught up in the two approaches — lock down or herd immunity — and lost precious time. It still has a very bad mix of the two in operation and thus continues to suffer badly. In each of these cases the disease has had a free run and is dictating its own terms. In aviation terms, these nations are behind the power-curve — they have lost control of their craft for which destruction is inevitable.
In case of China, South Korea and Singapore, their decisions were correctly timed, their judgments were right and they were fearless in their decisions; hence they lost far less people and far less became victims. They still lost people but mitigated the spread and the loss. When something holds you back from the right decision, or you begin to qualify your decision against common wisdom or proven experience, you are in the grey zone. You are indecisive and losing time fast, the disease overwhelms your decision-cycle reducing you to a paralysis of mind. And you fall behind the power-curve where destruction becomes inevitable.
During pandemic, organizations around the globe have demonstrated remarkable agility, changing business models literally overnight: setting up remote-work arrangements; offshoring entire business processes to less-affected geographies; initiating multi-company cooperation with employees across sectors. In each situation, the urgency for results prevailed over traditional bureaucratic responses.
It is evident by this Pandemic that “A crisis brings out the best in leaders.They set aside trivial grievances, band together for a shared purpose, and focus on helping others. But beneath the strategic choices and genuine care is fear, uncertainty, and exhaustion. Leaders must redistribute disrupted supply chains, enable a remote workforce, safeguard essential employees, and break bad news to employees, as well as maintain their own energy so that they can continue to inspire and motivate.
Some Active Leaders are listed below who were active during this time of Pandemic.
“A crisis brings out the best in leaders”.
→ PRIME MINISTER LEE HSIEN LOONG:
In Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is also winning plaudits for an aggressive testing and tracing campaign that has kept the number of infections in the country low — about 1,000 cases since the beginning of the outbreak.
→ XI JINPING’S PRESIDENT CHINA:
His strategies carried out during the outbreak in China was praised and admirable. World are not taking examples and prevention methods from Chinese leaders.
→ GERMANY’S CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL:
Germany’s Chancellor said some 70 percent of her country’s population would contract the virus — a sober warning that stood in stark contrast to pronouncements from other politicians at the time. The country now ranks fifth among territories with confirmed cases — recording more than 80,000 infections — it has a much lower fatality rate than most.
→ SYED MURAD ALI SHAH :
The Chief Minister of Sindh, Pakistan. Considering the utmost hard work of Syed Murad Ali Shah and his activeness during the current outbreak of Corona virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) appreciated him and ranked him 4th position in best leading politician, in the act of corona virus eradication.
→ South Korea’s President Moon Jae, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele:
Are also receiving praise for similar decisive and transparent action.
→ TAYYAB ERDOGAN TURKEY PRESIDENT:
Responding to the growing number of domestic corona virus cases, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan unveiled measures to safeguard the nation’s economy while advising citizens to practice social distancing.
→ In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
P.M of Israel using a state of emergency over the pandemic to authorize intelligence services to step up surveillance of the public and to close down the country’s courts and public places. | https://medium.com/illumination/unpredictable-leadership-in-the-covid-19-crisis-a0faf393dd0c | ['U.F.M Techie'] | 2020-08-10 03:41:24.205000+00:00 | ['Research', 'Leadership', 'Covid 19', 'Publishing', 'SEO'] |
GOD IS LOVE! WE HAVE A FUTURE! | Brenda and I watched TV recently about estrangement within families. Without exception, all the bitter problems stemmed from a lack of practical love.
The Bible reveals that “God is Love” (1John 4:8), and the central message of the gospel of our salvation is predicated by this (John 3:16).
We all know that love involves, among much else, very powerful emotions. We mirror our Father in having powerful emotions.
I will emphasise God’s emotions in various scriptures below, to draw attention to them:
God “feels” things intensely — we read of his anger burning (Isaiah 5:25) and in Genesis 6:6 that “The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the Earth, and his heart was deeply troubled”.
Later in Isaiah we read “the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore, he will rise up to show you compassion”. (Isaiah 30:18).
Thankfully, scripture reveals that God’s compassion can in time overcome his anger, as demonstrated in Isaiah 54:7,8 — God speaking:
“For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger
I hid my face from you for a moment,
but with everlasting kindness
I will have compassion on you,”
says the Lord your Redeemer.
This triumph of God’s compassion over his anger underpins our hope.
Living as believers reveals that while Father God does not usually extricate us from difficult physical situations, he nevertheless empathises and sustains us in love as we go through them — as he did for Jesus’ sufferings on the cross.
We are emotional beings, and so is God. That he can react emotionally makes him more accessible to us, and us to him. We know can be understood by him.
For example, Zephaniah 3:17 reads “He will take great delight in you, in his love he will no longer rebuke you, he will rejoice over you with singing”. This “rejoice” in Hebrew is the word “guwl”, which means to “spin around under a strong emotion”.
Can you picture God doing that? Spinning around in delight, and singing over you for something significant that you have done, such as choosing to become one of his followers? That heart response would be more expected of King David than God, which is why David was identified by God as “a man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22). Although it is a paraphrase rather than a direct translation, I like the way the Message Bible expresses God’s comment: “He’s a man whose heart beats to my heart”.
Indeed, David’s effusive, expansive, demonstrative responses shadow those of God, who is not a cold, white, marble figure sitting imperiously on a giant throne as some may envisage him; on the contrary, he is more like us — emotional, accessible, loving, and wanting to be loved.
It is more accurate to say that we are more like him.
Are you perceiving from this who you really are, and even why? I deal extensively with this issue in both new books “Living Beyond” and “Your Origin and Destiny”.
Returning briefly to the importance to appreciating God in nature. Entrusting ourselves to God when converting to Christ is a helpful precursor to comprehending things in their true spiritual context, including the Creation and its continuation today as a “God thing”. This explains why knowing God more closely increases our delight in nature and appreciation of his precious pinnacle of Creation — people — including ourselves.
I have noticed that conversion is frequently followed by a person’s fresh wonder at the beauties of nature, and a greater and growing love both for God and for people. I heard recently of a new Christian who kept asking her husband during a journey to stop the car so that she could wonder at the beautiful views that she had not noticed previously, despite having driven along the same road many times beforehand. | https://medium.com/@ivanrudolph46/god-is-love-we-have-a-future-a28e29c880a9 | ['Ivan Rudolph'] | 2020-11-27 13:13:35.646000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Love', 'Human Love', 'Forgiveness', 'Gods Love'] |
Artist Interview: ArrogantAnt from Dank Muzik Entertainment | Tell us about yourself and your music
My name is Anthony but I’ve always preferred Ant. Starting out I went by the alias DjHoles, but changed it to ArrogantAnt, as I deemed it more fitting toward my lyrical attitude. I’m from a town in New York called West Babylon, off of Long Island. At the age of 7, I moved to a small town in Florida, known as Palm Coast. As a kid growing up, I’ve always had an ear for punchlines and metaphors, and how well a person can control the microphone. I’ve also had a strong musical influence in my family, where my cousin would create/produce a wide range of beats, or as some call, instrumentals. He would occasionally show off his lyrical talents as well. My oldest brother was also musically inclined. Growing up, in my eyes, he was the best freestyler out. From how he could come up with clever verses to how quickly it would register in his head to how much sense he made while spitting what he was just thinking. To this day, he still has trouble writing down his flows because he’s so used to going off the top of the head. These guys have had a heavy influence on my life and the dreams I envisioned for myself. Starting out, I would always try to write a couple bars here and there just to get the pen flowing. As time went on, I would push myself further and further creatively until I was a literal lyrical monster. It’s been about 7 years that I’ve been writing my own music, and about 5 years of recording, mixing, and producing my music. I started the unofficial label, Dank Muzik Entertainment, when I started getting more serious about what I wanted to do in music. For those who don’t know, Dank is a word that means good/great/fantastic/the best/etc… At this point in my career, my ultimate goal is to revive the slowly dying culture of hip hop, and to bring back the lyrical talents that continue to fade away. I have had many minor achievements since starting this journey, from over 4,000 plays on one song to holding down the number one spot in my town for weeks on the reverbnation charts. With very high hopes and determination, one day Dank Muzik will be the largest, most influential, most successful label on the scene. Right now, I am equipped with my very talented producer, DJToxicTerror, who has had his own level of success thus far, and a couple of lyricists ranging from my oldest brother to my unofficial brother, King Osa. From the day I started up to this day, I have over 300 pages of rhymes, 3 official mixtapes released, 2 unofficial but very good mixtapes not released,and a colossal amount of more music, orginial beats or not, in the works.
Talk to us more about your latest release
My latest project that I’m working on is called “Food 4 Thought.” The amount of tracks included in this project is not yet determined, but the level of lyrical talents going into this project is tremendous. Recently, I released a track off of the upcoming project, called, “ Quiet Storm.” This is a legendary instrumental from the very talented group Mobb Deep, which many rappers have hopped on, including the newly bubbling, Young MA. On this track I’m basically putting out a warning to these new school rappers that I’m coming and I’m hungry, and no matter the circumstances, nobody’s going to stop me. Of course I’m showing off my lyrical talents in the process, giving strong punchlines and heavy metaphors while telling my story.
What inspired you to write this release?
A wide range of things have inspired me to write this release, but the biggest thing would have to be proving to people across the country that hip hop is still alive and is thriving even if it’s not mainstream..
Any plans to release a video?
Maybe sometime in the near future, but as of right now I guess you’ll have to just check out my track..
Any plans to hit the road?
Of course hitting the road is crucial in making a career and building a fan base, but thus far, I havent had any concerts pr tours. Hopefully in due time that’ll all come into play.
As an indie artist, how do you brand yourself and your music to stand out from the rest of the artists out there?
For starters, my lyrical capacity is far greater than rappers out today. My sound is a lot different than the typical “mumble rapper.” I don’t follow what everyone else is doing to try to get noticed, I try to do my own thing.
Who have you been listening to lately?
Lately, I’ll either listen to 90’s hip hop, as such artists as Jay-Z, Tupac, Biggie, Nas, etc.. Or in the newer generation I’ll listen to J.Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Ace Hood, The Game, Lil Wayne, Yo Gotti, Boosie, or Young Dolph.
Tell us about your passions
Working hard to provide money for my family, and doing everything I can to help those I care deeply about, who are going through a real rough patch in their lives.
What else is happening next in your world?
Staying dedicated to achieving all my own personal goals with the music, and hopefully opening doors that most people cant open in a lifetime.
Thanks for an awesome interview, Anthony!
Connect with ArrogantAnt from Dank Muzik Entertainment
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DankMuzik
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/xdmarrogantantx
Soundcloud: https://www.soundcloud.com/arrogantant
Reverbnation: https://www.reverbnation.com/arrogantant
Source: ArtistPR Indie Artist Interviews | https://medium.com/@artistpr/artist-interview-arrogantant-from-dank-muzik-entertainment-65108c92d4ab | [] | 2019-09-04 16:15:27.184000+00:00 | ['Hip Hop', 'Singer Songwriter', 'Rap'] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.