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Stay Ahead of Your Competitors with Trucker Tools’ New Market Report | It takes time to get into markets where rates are high. By the time you get there, the rates in that region may have gone down. Trucker Tools’ new Market Report helps you get into hot markets faster and stay one step ahead of the competition. Our new market reports don’t tell you where rates and volumes are high right now because you already know that. Instead, our Market Report tells you where the hot markets will be several days from now. The Trucker Tools Market Report is especially valuable if you’re a small carrier because it allows you to move your assets into regions before their markets heat up.
Most rate predictions are based on trucks vs. loads ratios that compare current rates with past rates. These indexes look at data from previous years to identify seasonal cycles to make predictions for the future. The problem with this approach is that it’s a backward looking system. These rate projections are just that: projections based on what has happened in the past.
To illustrate why this is a problem, let’s say, for example, there are 10 loads and five trucks available today in Reston, Va. The rates are going to be high and the market favors carriers today. Other trucking companies and owner operators in the country see the rates are high today, so they drive to Reston tonight to try to capitalize on the high rates. Tomorrow, you may have 20 trucks in Reston and only 10 loads available. Ten trucks came into the Reston market because they heard about the high rates, plus the 10 inbound trucks that were already headed into Reston anyway. It’s a constant seesaw of supply and demand. As a result, rates go down tomorrow for Reston. The truckers who came into the area to capitalize on the high rates have arrived too late.
Trucker Tools’ Market Report predicts how the market is swinging in the future based on the movement of freight and the movement of trucks that is happening right now. Instead of looking backward to make rate projections, Trucker Tools’ market index looks at what’s happening in markets today to tell you what to expect in the future.
Knowing which markets will be hot in two or three days from now gives you an enormous advantage over your competitors. Instead of arriving a day too late to take advantage of the high rates coming out of Reston, with Trucker Tools’ Market Report, you would have known three or four days ago that rates coming out of Reston would be high today. This gives you time to get your truck(s) there before the rates seesaw back down.
With Trucker Tools’ Market Report, you know several days in advance where rates will be high and where they’ll be low. The info in our report is accurate because it’s based on real-time, current data. Our market report uses real-time data from the Trucker Tools driver app, our free platform for carriers and our software platforms for brokers. With that data, we can determine where trucks will be needed in the future. We also look at inbound truck traffic vs. outbound truck traffic, load vs. truck ratios and other indexes to predict within a seven day cycle how rates are swinging up and down in a particular market.
It’s important to stay two or three days ahead of your competition and traditional market indexes. If you know that in the next two to three days that rates on loads coming out of a market are going to be hot, you can take loads that take your truck(s) into that market today. By the time your trucks get there, it will be hot because there aren’t enough trucks to move the loads that need to be moved.
Although everyone in trucking benefits from the information in our Market Report, small carriers have the most to gain. If you’re a smaller trucking company, your assets are limited and you likely only have one location from which you operate. Because of this, it’s extremely important that you know in advance where rates will be hot and where they’ll be cold. Let’s say you’re in Atlanta today and you find out that rates in California are going to be really high tomorrow. You can’t airlift your trucks and put them in California overnight. It will take your drivers three or four days to get there and by the time they get there, the market will have changed. Trucker Tools’ Market Report allows you to plan ahead and stay ahead of your competitors.
Read Trucker Tools’ Driver App: Your Swiss Army Knife to learn all about our all-in-one driver app powerhouse. To download Trucker Tools’ free app for drivers, visit https://www.truckertools.com/web/carriers/. | https://medium.com/trucker-tools/stay-ahead-of-your-competitors-with-trucker-tools-new-market-report-59a5fa55f0c1 | ['Tracy Neill'] | 2020-12-24 17:32:28.891000+00:00 | ['Transportation', 'Shipping', 'Logistics', 'Freight Shipping', 'Broker'] |
Update on the HiP World Tour! | The beginning of 2018 has been hugely exciting. The HiP juggernaut has visited countless countries across the world meeting with high level business and political leaders to talk about how they intend to rework the property market. Get up to date with HiP Property news here.
An update on the runaway success of HiP’s world tour!
You may have noticed that Kai’s video diary has been quiet of late. He and the HiP team have spent the last eight weeks on planes and in hotels, conferences, expos and meetings across the globe. And while their passports have taken a battering during their travels in South America, the States, Europe, Asia and Mexico, we’re finally able to get our followers and subscribers an update on the latest news.
The HiP world tour is just about coming to the end and it’s been a very successful and hugely beneficial two months away from the London HQ. The upshot of it all is that HiP is well underway in becoming a reality. Everywhere the team went, there were lines of people queuing up wanting to know more about the project, how the product works, the technical details and the economic benefits that accessible homeownership could have across the world.
HiP as a product has been phenomenally popular with everyone we have met — from the people rebuilding Cambodia to the business leaders and economists at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
So everything that we hoped would happen has happened. Everything is going to plan. And we couldn’t be happier!
Here’s Kai giving his account of the past two months in this video:
A quick recap on what HiP are doing
If you’re unsure about what HiP is about to do, read on.
The property market is in crisis. Houses are unaffordable for most people, and first time buyers are priced out of the market. Those with houses are, by and large, asset-rich but cash-poor. In order to turn some of that asset into cash, they need to borrow from banks and are charged interest for the money that they effectively own.
It’s a closed financial system, and one that really only benefits the lenders. And as the world and its economies change, it’s a system that is becoming more and more obsolete.
Which is why HiP decided to change things. HiP is democratising the property market in order that everyone can benefit. Those people who thought that owning their own property was out of reach can now become a homeowner. Those who already own their home can unleash their property’s equity without having to borrow, sell or lose ownership. Investors who want to put money into property can do so quickly, easily and with far less risk than the current system.
It’s a solution that fits the modern age, and truly highlights how the traditional model of lenders — who are forcing people to jump through unrealistic hoops to get their foot on the property ladder — is well and truly over.
The HiP ICO (Initial Coin Offering)
Want to get involved? You can help HiP and benefit as a result by taking part in the early bird HiP token event. This is the first stage of HiP’s fundraiser and could allow you to some huge benefits by getting in early. Go here to get in on the HiP ICO Token Generation Event where you can sign up for special discounts.
Join the blockchain property revolution! | https://medium.com/hip-property/update-on-the-hip-world-tour-cd05c681dfc7 | ['Hip Property'] | 2018-02-23 11:39:54.010000+00:00 | ['ICO', 'Blockchain', 'Homeownership', 'Property', 'Hip Property'] |
Long or Short: Which Headlines Are Better? | Long or Short: Which Headlines Are Better?
The research is divided, but you don’t have to choose
Illustration by Cynthia Marinakos.
I spent over an hour today browsing reputable sites for the answer to the question: Are long or short headlines better? In between running to the couch to comfort my seven-year-old who was freaked out by the thunderstorm bellowing through our home, here’s what I discovered:
Some tell us the ideal blog post headline length is 60 characters. Others recommend 90–99 character headlines because they increase click-through rates by 0.43%.
Then it also depends on what platform you’re writing on. For instance, 40 to 49 characters are ideal for LinkedIn headlines as these were found to receive the highest number of post views overall.
In The Anatomy of a Perfect Blog Post, Hubspot informs us that headlines between eight and 12 words are shared most often on Twitter. And headlines between 12 and 14 words are liked most often on Facebook.
Backlinko analyzed 912 million blog posts and tells us that “very long” headlines outperform short headlines — 14 to 17 words are the way to go, generating 76.7% more social shares than short headlines.
Buffer tells us that according to science, the ideal length of a headline is six words since we absorb only the first three words and the last three words of a headline.
Then there’s Google search to consider:
How many characters will appear in search results before the headline gets cut off?
A Google forum product expert tells us it’s not about the number of characters — it’s a certain width in pixels that limits what is shown of a title. This width roughly translates into something between 60 and 70 characters.
And then I was thrilled to find this, which none of the others mentioned at all: a cross-sectional study of 22 scientific journals discovered that longer titles seem to be associated with higher citation rates.
The authors conclude that editors who insist on short and concise titles need to update the guidelines for authors so there’s more flexibility in title length.
So are long or short headlines better?
It makes sense that the more descriptive a title, the more a reader will know what to expect.
But there’s such conflict between research, I’m not convinced that headline length is really that important. | https://medium.com/better-marketing/long-or-short-which-headlines-are-better-9752063361ff | ['Cynthia Marinakos'] | 2020-01-15 15:36:12.314000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Creativity', 'Writing', 'Business', 'Headline Hacks'] |
These Are 5 Ways to Check Your Progress on Medium | Medium writers always try to check their progress using their earning dashboards. It is not a good idea to check the dashboard on medium to check your progress. Medium is not all about money. On medium, every writer can write to give world knowledge and further can change the lives of the people.
Medium earnings do not tell medium writers' progress, but it depends on many factors.
1. Are readers commenting on your stories
Are readers commenting on your stories? If they are doing it, then your work is being appreciated by them. Medium is a social media platform, the interaction between you and the reader is necessary for engagement.
To create a relationship with the reader, create engagement with them. Try to write content that entertains and teach readers. They will interact with your work.
More comment you get by readers, it means your work is getting appreciated by the reader and you are doing well. Write the number of times readers are commenting on your spreadsheet this will help you track your engagement.
2. Pay attention towards readings to clap ratio | https://medium.com/illumination/these-are-5-ways-to-check-your-progress-on-medium-262c0834e852 | ['Mike Ortega'] | 2020-10-26 13:17:38.797000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Self Improvement', 'Writer', 'Success', 'Writing Tips'] |
How do I make a discord bot ping me when it responds? | Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash
This is a fantastic feature of Discord bots. You will want to read this, if you already have your bot set up. If you do not have it set up, please check out this article.
This is what you should have in your index.js if you completed the last article:
const Discord = require('discord.js');
const client = new Discord.Client(); client.on('ready', () => {
console.log(`Logged in as ${client.user.tag}!`);
}); client.on('message', msg => {
if (message.content === 'ping') {
message.channel.send('Pong!');
}
}); client.login('token');
In this article, we will make the bot reply to you. It is very simple.
You just need to change this line: message.channel.send('Pong!'); to this: message.reply('Pong!');
So your file should look like this:
const Discord = require('discord.js');
const client = new Discord.Client(); client.on('ready', () => {
console.log(`Logged in as ${client.user.tag}!`);
}); client.on('message', msg => {
if (message.content === 'ping') {
message.reply('Pong!');
}
}); client.login('token');
Now you want to test your bot. Save the file. Run it by using node index.js and then say ping in your server and the bot should reply to you.
Congrats! | https://medium.com/@dudethatserin/how-do-i-make-a-discord-bot-ping-me-when-it-responds-cdec4078a9e5 | ['Erin Skidds'] | 2020-12-19 17:41:48.745000+00:00 | ['Learning', 'JavaScript', 'Programming', 'Discord', 'Bots'] |
The Last Star | Upon the edge of space the last star dies.
We see it not, for death hath claimed all men.
His breath is light, his chest ceases to rise.
A final spark, now joins his spent brethren. | https://medium.com/poets-unlimited/the-last-star-6dfc97e8db46 | ['Mike Rosser'] | 2015-12-19 20:46:00.478000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Space', 'Cosmos'] |
ReapChain Implementation System. Building ReapChain BaaS. | BaaS (Blockchain as a Service) is a cloud computing platform that provides a development environment for blockchain-based software. ReapChain BaaS is composed of 3 parts: Reap SDK, ReapMiddleChain and ReapChain, and Reap Platform. Reap SDK connects and authenticates devices. ReapMiddleChain and ReapChain process and store data. Reap Platform operates and manages of all services by business service providers.
Since ReapChain’s services are provided in BaaS form, it is easy and convenient to integrate blockchain with IoT industry without new hardware adoption or architecture configuration.
★ ReapChain Official Community
Follow the ReapChain official community and have more news!
Homepage: https://reapchain.com/
Telegram (ENG): https://t.me/ReapchainOfficialEnglish
Telegram (KR): https://t.me/joinchat/MbaQ7RaZchMzjAam9yMS0Q
Blog: https://blog.naver.com/reapchain
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReapChain/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReapChain
Bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5260297.0
Partnership and Affiliation Inquiries: [email protected]
Investment and Sale Inquiries: [email protected]
Project Inquiries: [email protected] | https://medium.com/reapchain/reapchain-implementation-system-building-reapchain-baas-f2d4993f608a | [] | 2020-12-15 08:43:35.417000+00:00 | ['Reapchain', 'IoT', 'Internet of Things', 'Blockchain', 'Devices'] |
3 weird things about my first job after college! | Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash
It has been 3 months since I started my first job and I have a plethora of thoughts about this situation. I can’t believe that eighteen years of conventional education has come to an end. It feels so overwhelming, happy and sad at the same time.
Though I am adapting to this big change, there are some things that feel more alien to me than others,
Income
For the past 21 years of my life, I have been the most dependent daughter on earth. Not to mention, lazy, rebel and annoying daughter too. Shout out to my parents for putting up with me till date!
Having a regular income is great and all. But, it becomes frustrating when you don’t know how to manage it. No prizes for guessing that I drained every last rupee of my first month’s salary. The second month was not that bad. At the end of the third month, my account was almost left untouched. The trick here is not about spending less. But, saving more! I am still learning about saving, investing and spending. I would love to hear any tips you guys might have!
Commuting
I used to go by college bus to college for the past 4 years. Though it’s not a very luxurious bus journey, I almost always had a seat reserved for me. The one and half hour long journey to my college was the ideal sleeping time for me. I don’t understand why I used to complain so much about this wonderful commuting set up.
Because the present is way bitter. I go by local train. Getting space to stand is difficult, leave alone getting seats to sit. Don’t get me started on catching the train on time. Public transports are not easy. But, on the flip side, I think it’s a whole new experience. The other day at the train, I saw a very old couple playing Ludo in their smartphone for the entire journey. They were laughing and teasing each other the whole time. It was adorable. Every commute like this one has something interesting.
Lots of free time
This is definitely a good thing. I was very preoccupied during my college as well as school days. I had lab calculations to do, assignments to submit, exams to study and results to fear. There was always so much work to do that I didn’t bother allocating some me-time for myself. I don’t remember having a hobby at all.
Now, it has all changed, for good. 80% of the days I complete my work at the office itself. Weekends are off. So, that leaves me with plenty of time. I have started reading books again. I am trying gym, learning to drive and oh, started writing too! | https://medium.com/@aparnamoorthi90/things-i-feel-weird-since-i-started-my-first-job-c4b1113122c | [] | 2020-01-08 19:12:56.641000+00:00 | ['First Post', 'Jobs', 'Life Lessons', 'Weird', 'Girls'] |
Dear God — I MUST check my Whatsapp and Facebook before I die. | I was dumbfounded to discover smartphone separation anxiety is set to become an increasingly widespread problem. The term, which is also known as “nomophobia”, is used to describe the feeling of panic or stress some people experience when they’re unable to access or use their mobile phone.
The human touch has been replaced with touching a mobile phone screen. There must be a sensory pleasure derived from tapping on a screen all day. The obsession with cellphones in the modern world means that phones are omnipresent.
God calling — Feeling blessed
I was blamed for ignoring a friend because I did not respond to a message within a heartbeat. I offered my apology and asked that perhaps next time a call would be better, as I didn’t carry my phone with me all day. But what was I thinking? How could I, in 2020, not be carrying a phone with me 24hrs a day? And that too, just one phone. I started to doubt myself; did I not have enough friends to keep me occupied 8hrs a day texting each other complete and utter rubbish? Did I not have educated and sophisticated friends to whom I could share the fact that I was ‘feeling blessed’!
That was the turning point for me. ‘Feeling blessed’ — because someone caught the train on time; someone found a 9-pack of Andrex toilet paper in their spare room; someone could fit into a size 10 dress…they felt blessed. I had never heard such utter dross in my years. This was the new language I had to learn, the language of the modern times, where letter were missed and one has to play a game of guess to fathom the meaning. It’s similar to playing ‘Hangman’ — one has to guess the word from the limited characters. (bcz is because, bruv is brother, hru is how are you?).
20 years ago, when I was at university, mobile phones were a luxury item on expensive plans, that were out of reach for many. Public pay phones were still used, and I remember carrying a stack of 10p coins in my pockets incase I needed to make a call. People seemed to talk alot more to each other, letters were written to one another, and Christmas cards were sent and received with gratitude. Children played outside, watched the occasional cartoon, spent hours reading, exploring and the usual mischief. Making phone calls, whether national or international was expensive, and when people made calls, they were straight to the point (like a telegram). Hearing the phone ring was a rare event.
Fast forward 20 years, and the most remote village in India, where running water is scarce, where schools are non-events, where power is only provided 6 hours a day; most villagers have mobile phones. In the developed world, most people have 2–3 phones, and that too the latest Apple gimmick, priced at £1000. But, that’s a small price to pay for subscribing to a new religion. Not having the latest phone is the same as being seen as not having a 4 fingers and a thumb, or having one leg shorter than the other. When an injured party needs blood urgently, hospitals scramble around looking for donors, calling around and then seeking couriers to dispatch as soon as possible. Its a race against time. Or a kidney is needed by a child urgently, donors are rare and lives are lost. But, when Apple launch a new phone, people sleep outside the store for 2 days to be the first to purchase. Is this normal behaviour of modern day humans? Does having the new Apple phone first in the UK make you invincible or cure constipation? I believe not. The jury is still out on that phenomenon.
Many people keep sensitive information on their phones. They have apps to enable them to do online banking. They store passwords in their notes. They have credit card numbers saved in shopping apps. No one bothers to remember or write down phone numbers or email addresses anymore, so the contact information for almost everyone they have ever met is stored on their phone and only on their phone. They use their phones to access their work email, read lab results from doctors, keep track of their investments and as a calendar where they schedule meetings with clients. In short, people keep their entire lives in devices about the size and weight of the average person’s hand.
Whatapp is the new religion most people conform to. The advent of Whatapp meant everyone could message and later call cross-platform. The ‘UREKA’ moment. Free messages and free calls (literally if you can access your neighbour’s unlocked wifi password). The village in India has gone from being a conservative society, to one that has advanced faster than the West. They offer users near enough free data plans and phone prices so cheap that everyone can reach out and purchase. In such a vast country, staying connected at such low prices is a great opportunity. The Indian culture is a family orientated culture and so everyone loves to message and call each other, and of course gossip and talk ill of others — the pride of India.
We wake up and check our phones. When it buzzes or makes a sound, we immediately look at it, staring at a glass screen which informs us of the most important news from our friends, ranging from someone catching a bus on time, to someone else feeling blessed because they found a clean pair of socks. I see people on buses, trains, planes, airport lounges, and even when walking — staring into a screen or talking and taking — blether, balderdash, claptrap, guff, drivel, poppycock. I feel they are insecure. People have started to feel insecure that if they are seen walking alone, it may be perceived that they are lonely or without friends, and so talking gibberish to a friend gives on self-esteem or self-confidence.
There is a dark side; many many people use apps to behave maliciously towards the vulnerable, young, inexperienced. This has impacted people mentally, financially and emotionally. Like everything in life, there are always those who find loopholes in a good system to abuse it. Children under 16 don’t need mobile phones. How did we survive all these centuries? We talked, we commnunicated, and yet no harm came to us. If a bus was late, we didn’t call or send a letter to all our friends, relatives and neighbours to inform them. We didn’t take pictures of the fields, of ourselves (all day long selfies), or groceries (pictures of shops, cars, buildings) and send them to our friends all day long. But now, it seems to be the normal and acceptable behaviour. The mind-numbing apps, for example Tik-Tok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (and the list goes on); would we suffer a emotional pandemic if they stopped working tomorrow? Children, young adults, and even adults have and continue to waste precious hours of the day making, commenting or watching videos that 20 years ago would be cause for concern and one would question the mental state of many.
Has the population become so large that humans are struggling to find activities to occupy their time? Have we lost the human touch? We are happy to message each other for day and weeks and months, but we don’t make a call. Insecurity perhaps? Perhaps we are scared that we don’t know what to say on a call, but sending messages is without feeling and emotion. We feel safer behind that glass screen.
I see people living others lives through their posts on Facebook, and yet I question why people catalogue all their daily activities on social media? A girl sitting in a bath overlooking beautuful landscape. Is this an image to send all your friends? (Noting that she did look very good). What do you gain? Do you feel more privileged? Do you feel lonely and wait with bated breath for others to comment to make you feel you are surrounded by jealous friends (who will comment how great you look, but curse in the second breath). It’s insecurity. Sending pictures of your new handbag or car to everyone. Sending videos of a business class seat (though your company paid for the ticket), videos of fine dining (though you are expensing it to your company)…the list is endless.
Conversations to the same person about the same thing everyday. I know a person (cannot mention names!) who will talk to their parents everyday, on the same topics, get annoyed and put the phone down. And if they don’t answer, keep calling and calling, leaving messages, voice notes, and stalking until a reply is provided. Repeat 365 days a year. Do we become paranoid that if we don’t get a response within 30 seconds, that the receiver is annoyed, lazy, doesn’t love us, arrogant, rude…or died?
The first tick on Whatsapp gives relief that our message has been delivered. That must mean that the receiver has paid the bills and is still on the account. We wait for the second tick…it comes! Now we know the receiver is not on a plane, their phone is turned on, they have received the message. The tension is building up. Why are they not reading it? Why are the ticks not turning blue? Our life is hanging in the balance, our mind is full of negative thoughts, we become restless, nothing else matters. “hurry up!…look at the message!!” We keep checking and checking. Life has come to a standstill.
HURRAH!…its blue. The receiver is alive! Message read. Now, why are they taking so long to answer? What a rude and arrogant person. It only takes a second. I’m waiting!!…hello?! All part of the emotional roller-coaster of being a single parent to a mobile phone.
I long to get on a train and the same people whom I sit across (creatures of habit) will welcome me and initiate a discussion. I wonder what their voices sound like? Perhaps they are looking at me to start a discussion? I’m no better, as I didn’t make any attempts. I now only check my phone once in the morning, and once in the evening. Just what the doctor ordered. Outwith those hours, I will only respond if the phone rings, unless its a police siren ring; that means annoying friends or the office are calling.
We have to stop becoming a slave to the phone and social media. Saving money on long distance calls is excellent, and video calls has made the world a smaller place. We can see loved ones within a second. There are many many benefits also to such apps, for which I am personally grateful. I use Whatsapp calls most of the day for the international business that I do. Its a blessing in disguise. But temptation to sit all night long or all day long, watching lost souls on Tik-Tok or looking at never ending pictures on Facebook is not, I would suggest, a good use of our limited time on this Earth.
Reading, listening to music, walking, visiting friends, learning, giving back to society, cooking, travelling, are just a grain of sand on the beach of the rich forms of entertainment that can occupy and enrich our lives. Putting down the phone is important. When my days come to and end, I would like to have fond memories of people I met, countries I travelled, family….and not checking if I have enough battery left to send a final message; “Not feeling blessed.” | https://medium.com/@msduhra/dear-god-i-must-check-my-whatsapp-and-facebook-before-i-die-ee26c3d68317 | [] | 2020-12-25 12:35:31.791000+00:00 | ['People', 'Addiction', 'Facebook', 'WhatsApp', 'Communication'] |
I Published over 150 Stories on Medium — Here’s What I Learned | If you’re new to Medium; write, a lot.
As I said, I’ve managed to push out around 2–3 articles per day since September. However, I took a break these last few weeks, where I noticed something utterly heartbreaking.
I’d normally average around a few hundred views per day. Yet, I almost dwindled to a measly 5–10 views per day without publishing anything new over the last few weeks. Heartbreaking.
Daily Views/ October
Daily Views/ November
As you can see, due to my lack of writing — even with over 80 curated articles — my daily views started to dwindle.
Last week, I committed to getting back into the habit of publishing at least 1–2 articles per day, and you know what? Immediately, my daily views rebounded back to an average of 200–300 views per day.
Now, to many of you, it may not seem like much, but the point is there to prove. Your old posts will get lost in a sea of desperate writers.
To make it on Medium, you have to write consistently — at least in the beginning. Maybe, one day, when I have thousands of followers, then I’ll be able to relax — slow down. Until then, I make it a habit to write a lot. | https://medium.com/swlh/i-published-over-150-stories-on-medium-heres-what-i-learned-5920a6bbbb36 | ['Jazz Parks'] | 2020-11-27 09:47:29.781000+00:00 | ['Self', 'Life Lessons', 'Blog', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Writing'] |
Twinkly Strings 250 LEDs Multicolor review: These smart string lights deliver dazzling effects | Twinkly Strings 250 LEDs Multicolor review: These smart string lights deliver dazzling effects Jill Dec 26, 2020·6 min read
Smart Christmas tree lights generally do little more than let you turn them on and off with voice commands, but Twinkly’s string lights take the smarts to a new level. Packed with a few dozen effects plus the ability to create your own, Twinkly’s light strings can deliver some truly impressive light shows with the help of an app that maps the position of each individual LED. Besides the Twinkly mobile app, you can also control the Twinkly lights with Alexa and Google Assistant, albeit in a disappointingly limited fashion.
Twinkly’s LED Christmas lights have actually been around for a few years, but my interest was piqued when I finally saw them in action at last year’s CES, where Ledworks, owner of the Twinkly lighting brand, was showing off its new Twinkly Music dongle. I tested both the Twinkly 250-LED string light and the new music accessory for this review.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best smart bulbs, where you’ll find reviews of the competition’s offerings, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product.
Specifications and designTwinkly offers its string lights in sizes ranging from 100 LEDs all the way up to 600 LEDs. The brand also offers “Gold Edition” dimmable white LED string lights, icicle and “cluster” style string lights, curtain LED lights, and even pre-lit artificial Christmas trees. Twinkly’s LED string lights are many things, but cheap isn’t one of them; the 250-LED string I tested, for example, costs $120 at Best Buy, while the 600-LED versionRemove non-product link fetches a cool $200.
[ Further reading: The best smart plugs ] The Twinkly string has a traditional design of braided dark-green wire, with the RGB LEDs (which can display up to 16 million colors) interspersed a little more than three inches apart. The LEDs themselves feel relatively sturdy, and they’re designed with a diffused flat lens for “uniform diffusion” of the emitted colors. An in-line controller near the end of the string allows you to cycle through light modes by repeatedly pressing a button, and the string terminates in a chunky 24V power adapter.
Ben Patterson/IDG The LEDs on Twinkly strings are designed with a diffused flat lens, and they’re spaced about three inches apart.
The Twinkly lights are IP44-certified, which means they’re protected against solid objects larger than 1mm and water splashed from all directions; in other words, they should be fine outdoors, even in rain and snow. You can read more about IP codes in this story.
SetupI didn’t have much trouble getting the Twinkly string lights connected to my Wi-Fi network. The first step is to create a Twinkly account; if you wish, you can sign in with Facebook or Apple (not Google, unfortunately), or you can create an account using your email address. Next, you press the button on the Twinkly controller until its embedded status LED turns greenish blue, and then the Twinkly app will search for your lights. Once it’s found them (the process worked for me on the first time), the app lets you choose a nearby Wi-Fi network before prompting you for your password.
After you’ve draped the Twinkly lights around your tree, the outside of your home (you can group up to 10 strings, or up to 4,000 LEDs), or anywhere else you see fit, it’s time to scan the lights with the Twinkly app. If you have the lights hung on a perfectly flat surface, you can choose the 2D scanning option, during which you simply point your camera’s phone at the lights and allow the app to scan all the LEDs.
Ben Patterson/IDG With the Twinkly mobile app, you can map the position of each individual LED on your Twinkly strings.
If the lights are draped over a tree, a bookcase, or (in my case) along the bottom of the top bunk of your daughter’s bunk bed, you can opt for 3D scanning, which involves letting the app scan the LEDs from multiple angles. The process only takes about 10 seconds (or 10 seconds per scan, if you choose the 3D scanning option), and the app managed to map the LEDs with an impressive degree of accuracy.
Features and functionalityNow comes the fun part. Using the app, you can pick one of about a dozen preset animations, from “snow” and “snake” to “diagonal” and “vintage,” or you can download free animations from the Twinkly Effects Store. The animations run the gamut, from random patterns of multicolored twinkling lights and falling snow to dancing hearts or even an animated bat signal.
Ben Patterson/IDG A variety of nifty Twinkly effects are available, ranging from “Snakes” and “Fireworks” to “Candy Canes” and “Vertical Flag.”
All those colorful, coordinated stripes of color marching across your tree can be a tad garish, but they’re undeniably impressive and eye-popping. And while some of the more elaborate animations (such as the bat signal) fell apart on a single Twinkly string, they’d probably look much better on multi-string installations.
Besides the preset animations, you can also create your own Twinkly effects by tapping and swiping on a diagram of your lights in the Twinkly app. You can paint the lights with wide, thin, or sparkling brushstrokes, and you can choose from six basic colors or create your own color palette. Even better, you can create both static and animated effects.
Not only can you apply individual effects to the Twinkly lights, you can also create playlists that cycle through up to 10 effects at intervals ranging from one second to 10 minutes. You can only save one playlist at a time, however, and if you want to go back to a single effect, you’ll erase the playlist you’d created.
Ben Patterson/IDG Once you’ve mapped all the LEDs with the Twinkly app, you can apply some nifty animations to the Twinkly lights (and yes, they’d look even better on a tree).
If you want to sync your Twinkly lights with some tunes, you can do so with the aforementioned Twinkly MusicRemove non-product link, a $30 USB dongle with a built-in microphone.
Twinkly Music connects to your lights via Bluetooth and makes the lights pulse along with any sound that its microphone picks up. If you take the time to connect Twinkly Music to your Wi-Fi network, you can also control the pattern of the lights by choosing one of eight “drivers,” including “Beat Hue,” “Red Line,” “Psychedelica,” “Sparkle,” and “VU Meter”. The Twinkly Music dongle did a nice job of syncing my Spotify playlist with the lights, and the various music drivers were nifty, particularly the Beat Hue and VU Meter drivers.
The Twinkly app offers a basic timer that will turn your Twinkly lights on and off at specified times, but it can’t change the effect or brightness or your lights, nor can you set any weekly or monthly schedules. Also missing is a sunrise/sunset option.
Smart home integrationsTwinkly lights support both Alexa and Google Assistant, and you can use voice commands to turn your Twinkly string on or off, adjust the brightness, or change primary colors. You can also add the Twinkly lights to Alexa and Google Assistant routines, which means you can create more elaborate schedules that include sunset/sunrise triggers.
Unfortunately, neither Alexa nor Google Assistant can control Twinkly’s animated effects, so if you do use one of the assistants for scheduling your Twinkly lights, you’ll be limited to a relatively basic color palette. Now, if Alexa and Google Assistant could treat Twinkly’s animations as lighting scenes that you could incorporate into routines, we’d really have something.
Bottom lineTwinkly’s sturdy and colorful LED string lights make for an impressive and eye-popping holiday decoration, with animations that are sure to wow the neighbors. But the lights aren’t cheap, smart home integration is only so-so, and we wish that the timer function was more fully baked.
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/@jill93655438/twinkly-strings-250-leds-multicolor-review-these-smart-string-lights-deliver-dazzling-effects-ea6660710647 | [] | 2020-12-26 09:38:49.133000+00:00 | ['Headphones', 'Mobile Accessories', 'Home Theater', 'Gear'] |
Best TVs: Our top picks, plus plain-language explanations of the most important specs and features | You don't always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go, and see what happens | https://medium.com/@oxy48328335/best-tvs-our-top-picks-plus-plain-language-explanations-of-the-most-important-specs-and-features-b154c4479b1a | [] | 2020-12-25 00:13:39.305000+00:00 | ['Streaming', 'Services', 'Lighting', 'Cutting'] |
The Year of Hope | Like every other brumal December, Santa had managed to squeeze himself down chimneys , mouths were stuffed with fruit cakes and hands were joined for the prayer. The sky seemed tinted in shades of red, green and white. It was that time of the year when the air was brimming with smells of poinsettia, rum balls and ginger bread. Faces were covered, but with masquerade and gleeful smiles. Everyone was of one mind, because this wasn’t lockdown but countdown. Unanimous cheers to three-two-one Happy New Year! And, it was 2020.
While changing calendars we hoped for our lives to change (of course for better). Nobody knew what this year had in store. We were only learning to write 2020 and not 2019 and it was only couple of months down on the journal when our lives flipped. An insane, unsought, unlikely flip it was. Even the red nosed Rudolph didn’t warn us about it. Probably he wasn’t knowing himself. We were in a situation of crisis and exigency. With on full swoop, the world fell to its knees. No it wasn’t a zombie apocalypse, that is yet to come, but a minuscule virus, that changed everything.
Lives were lost, employment cutback took place, economies were crashed, even the strongest went helpless. Locked inside their homes, people suffered all kinds of mental and physical breakdowns. Many were deprived of necessities as basic as food and shelter. And now, after months of forlorn glances and heavy weather, 2021,seems like a shinning beacon of hope.
With the arrival of every fresh year, our brain is fired with abundant expectations and we build our own air castles with open eyes and crossed fingers. However, this time, hope is at all time high. While we get ready to enter the year of faith and longing, 2021, it is required of us to drill few things inside our system that will certainly bring a positive shift. Three of the many valuable lessons 2020 taught, definitely comprises of:- employing our energies wisely, choosing kindness and being grateful.
While the Gen Z is all about vibes it is important for everyone, irrespective of where they lie on the age and gender spectrum to outline their energies wisely and not fall prey to fanciful abberations. When the Indian yogi and author, Sadhguru says, do what is needed because you are preparing for universe and not any university, it pictures so much of truth. This year has been all about energies and how we used it adhering to the difficult times. This also brings us to another important quality of being kind to everyone and everything around including our own conscious self. Whether we accept it or not, everyone fancy for love and we can unknowingly make considerable differences in people’s life by showing a little kindness. As no act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted. And in the end, the element of being grateful for things you have, helps bring immense fulfillment and peace of mind. Remember that the things you take for granted and consider useless are a luxury for many.
So this 25th December, while hanging your Christmas stockings don’t forget to be grateful for the life you have been blessed with and being kind and extending a helping hand and becoming a Santa for others. Now as I prepare my Christmas pudding and wait for my reply letter from North Pole with bells on, let me wish you a Merry Christmas and an Amazing New Year!Also, don’t get your tinsel in a tangle as festival calories don’t really count. The more the merrier!! | https://medium.com/@anjulishuklaofficial17/the-year-of-hope-6a1725705931 | ['Anjuli Shukla'] | 2020-12-24 05:05:26.469000+00:00 | ['Greatful', 'Kindness', 'Christmas', 'New Year', 'Vibes'] |
Increase Your Chances of Getting Into Publications, With The Brave Writer Editor-In-Chief, Maria Angel-Ferrero | Maria Angel is a professor in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at The University of Montpellier in France. She is from Colombia and speaks over 4 languages. She writes more than she speaks and uses words as a means of personal growth. As any professor, she loves to share her knowledge and experience with the world. She is a mom of 2 lovely kids and a proud feminist. She runs two Medium publications, one on education: The Faculty Pub, and one on writing and writers: The Brave Writer. When she’s not writing, teaching or reviewing submissions, she is playing with her children, singing under the shower, reading or running.
The following is an interview with Maria Angel Ferrero. | https://medium.com/the-educated-woman/increase-your-chances-of-getting-into-publications-with-the-brave-writer-editor-in-chief-maria-586dbeeec21f | ['Itxy Lopez'] | 2020-12-21 14:32:27.278000+00:00 | ['Advice', 'Success', 'Writing', 'Women', 'Writing Tips'] |
TOP weight loss in 2021 with guaranteed | On the off chance that you need to get in shape, choosing the correct weight loss program is significant to your prosperity. There is an apparently limitless number of weight loss programs accessible today, so how might you choose which one is ideal for you? This is an inquiry I see a great deal from the two people searching for the correct program to follow. It’s a befuddling circumstance to be in I can envision; needing to get in shape yet not realizing which program best serves your necessities. So what do you do?
Indeed, the reason for this article is to talk about different angles and ideas encompassing weight loss programs with the expectation that it can help you select the fitting system for you. First of all!
What do you truly need from your actual body? My online wellness instructing customers hear this from me constantly. From the start it might appear to be a lovely senseless inquiry, however, it’s most certainly not. I’ve discovered that by far most individuals looking for weight loss truly aren’t actually that keen on getting thinner by any means. It’s actual! In my extensive expert experience, most individuals looking for proficient wellness training aren’t hoping to get in shape however much they’d basically prefer to have a positive outlook on themselves and stay away from the torment related to the prevalent difficulties of being overweight. Weight loss isn’t their actual longing, it basically gives them the things they are truly needing. Truth be told, I will go as far as to say that a great many people truly need to eat anything they desire to eat, would whatever they like to do and carry on with their life as they consider proper. I’m not pointing fingers here, that is the thing that I’d prefer to do as well. In any case, being human methods we have prevalent difficulties and assumptions. Now in history, we are informed that a lean, conditioned constitution is provocative, alluring and attractive. I accept that this is the explanation the vast majority look for weight loss programs, not given a genuine longing to be fit, however, an exceptional craving to be needed, to be hot, to be viewed as alluring, and to have a positive outlook on their body when encircled by individuals whose sentiments they think about significant.
It’s totally okay to look for weight loss under any circumstance; since you need to feel alluring, feel positive about your body or draw in imminent love interests. Whatever your justification looking for weight loss, you must distinguish your REAL justification for this pursuit. When you’ve precisely recognized this explanation/reasons, rousing yourself toward that objective/objectives is a considerably more charming cycle. When this occurs, the weight loss measure isn’t such a huge amount about the weight as much as it’s about you! Furthermore, that is by and large how it ought to be.
This idea is maybe the most significant of all. I have seen individuals burn through a large number of dollars on weight loss programs just to surrender that exertion only days into the program. They over-submitted themselves and couldn’t finish. Each weight loss program shares a couple of things practically speaking. Every one of these things will change from one program to another, however, the essential parts remain:
Recurrence — how regularly you should exercise
Force — how much exertion and power you should place into your program
Time — how long you should practice every exercise
Type — the kind of exercise(s) you will do during a program
This really has a typical name. We in the wellness business consider this the F.I.T.T standard. Past these fundamentals which are normally connected with the activity parts of your program there will likewise be wholesome prerequisites to any quality weight loss program that fits consummately into a similar abbreviation:
Recurrence — portrays how regularly you will eat every day
Power — how inflexible or careless your eating routine is
Time — how long you should eat thusly
Type — the sort of food and nourishment philosophy being utilized
These will be available in any very much-created weight loss program. Your prosperity is subject to what you are practically willing and ready to focus on concerning every one of these components. Let’s be honest, buying a weight loss program doesn’t ensure a positive outcome, you should follow the program to accomplish results. For example, if your program requires a severe eating routine with seven days of serious exercise every week except you’re not a restrained weight watcher and have never worked out, this theoretical program most likely isn’t the one that will serve your necessities best. Maybe you need a program that has a more formative methodology and permits you more food and exercise choices.
I’m not saying that there aren’t programs that could profit anybody and everybody, except I am saying that you are bound to be effective when you pursue a program that is aimed at individuals very much like you. Projects that endeavor to take into account everybody is regularly intended to create deals more than results. These projects will in general be requesting, have inflexible eating regimen assumptions and regularly lead to injury for those not set up to deal with the requests the program requires. Get your work done and discover a program that is planned in light of you.
At the point when I started building up my Body Fat Meltdown weight loss program for ladies many individuals disclosed to me I’d make more deals if I would just market it to everybody; men, ladies, more established, more youthful, everyone. While this is without a doubt evident I couldn’t morally do that since I realize that every one of these gatherings of individuals has their own one-of-a-kind arrangement of necessities and wants with regards to actual wellness and weight loss. In this way, I built up the Body Fat Meltdown program explicitly for recently roused ladies needing to get more fit without requiring a rec center enrollment so they could work out every day for thirty minutes or less any place and at whatever point they needed. I needed it to be ideal for the at-home exerciser or for ladies who need to exercise with insignificant hardware while voyaging. It is expected to remove all reasons for a recently propelled weight loss member, which is what it does. By giving accurate eating regimens and exercise directions the Body Fat Meltdown program guarantees a good outcome if a lady will just follow it for ninety days. This is an illustration of a program that has a focus on the crowd, a particular reason, and a significant technique for a movement that will lead this particular gathering of members toward their weight loss objectives.
Speak the truth about the sort of program your way of life will permit you to participate in. Wellness is an advancement so where you are in life presently may not be the place where you are down the line, however, you should have the option to deal with your weight loss program inside the current limits that your life gives. For example, if you are a single parent with two little kids at home, you presumably won’t adhere to a multi-day program where you need to eat Brussel fledgling and cabbage soup at every dinner while practicing an hour multiple times every day. It’s simply not economical. Each program has its sustenance and exercise necessities so it’s dependent upon you to ensure that those prerequisites will move you to improve however that additionally fit into your present living plan.
The best program on the planet is futile if you don’t do it. I know this direct. I’ve has ladies pursue my Body Fat Meltdown weight loss program and continue to shed 24 pounds in the initial thirty days. Then again I’ve had ladies join and never at any point endeavor the principal preparing program yielding an aftereffect of precisely nothing. The best weight loss program you can put resources into is one you will take an interest in, be tested by, and finish. I can name in any event 100 weight loss programs all things being equal that have delivered stunning outcomes for their members. Alternately, I can guarantee you that all of those projects additionally have individuals who bought, at that point scarcely took part, quit, and went through well-deserved cash for no outcomes at all. Eventually, the outcomes get a start and end with you. They are subject to the components we examined above and are totally controlled by your investment and fruition of the program.
Take these five factors and use them to filter out the huge wild of weight loss programs accessible to you. Discover a program where you are focused on members, one that you can reasonably take an interest in and support beginning to end. If you do these things I solidly trust you will be fruitful in your push to get in shape and look and feel incredible.
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the source of all pieces of information is https://www.pickone1.com/ | https://medium.com/@mellakhabdelhaq/top-weight-loss-in-2021-with-guaranteed-a49ceebc940b | [] | 2021-04-25 22:21:21.685000+00:00 | ['Weightloss Recipe', 'Keto Diet', 'Weight Loss Tips', 'Weight Loss', 'Weightloss Foods'] |
Confessions of a Russian Bot | Confessions of a Russian Bot
lost zat loving feeling
by Arby
Back when we had Great Victory
in Twenty Sixteen,
I was happy as Baltic clam
with pearl in-between
Seeing ze election went
exactly as planned,
I took first flight back to
Glorious Motherland
Spent one week by Black Sea
oiling my gears,
then got right back to
sowing doubt and fears
Facebook, Twitter,
nothing was off limits,
misdirection campaigns,
subliminal gimmicks
Carefully orchestrated
ze Mueller investigation,
fed ze flames, then derailed it
to ze Dems’ great frustration
Would have been child’s play
to do it again
but Tovarish Trump couldn’t
stay in own lane
What good is having
Manchurian Candidate
with a fragile ego
ze size of a Caliphate
Somewhere along line
he foolishly decided
to do without ze “tech support”
we readily provided
Comrade Cheesecake
started downhill,
writing love letters
to son of Kim Jong-il
Hell-bent on dismantling
Obama’s legacy,
no plans, no policies,
just petty jealousy
Tried to just sweep virus
under ze rug,
went right on campaigning
all cocky and smug
He literally killed 'em
at each MAGA rally,
but without our special sauce
ze votes just didn’t tally
You’ll learn that on your own
you won’t get very far —
Soon DOJ will have your
nuts floating in jar …
It’s been fun ride, but
time to cut you loose,
so long Mister President!
Da Svidaniya, Golden Goose!
— Arby (your friendly Russian Bot)
from Russia with some bitterness but mostly glee | https://medium.com/no-crime-in-rhymin/confessions-of-a-russian-bot-5c8c41a4a5da | ['Joe Váradi'] | 2020-11-23 14:03:26.686000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Friendship', 'Satire', 'Social Media', 'Russian Hacking'] |
Microservices, Data Meshes, Micro Frontends and the Timeless Principles of Decentralization | Microservices, Data Meshes, Micro Frontends and the Timeless Principles of Decentralization
Understanding decentralization will help you understand, evaluate & adapt to current technology trends.
Photo credit: Nhia Moua
“Decentralization is based on the simple notion that it is easier to macrobull***t than microbull***t. Decentralization reduces large structural asymmetries.” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
The human body is an amazing system. Optimized over a couple of million years, it seems to work pretty well. Scholar and statistician Nassim Taleb is a huge fan of nature, and as I recently reread some of his work, what stuck with me is the level of decentralization that nature built into our bodies.
We have two kidneys and if one fails, things will be fine. I tore one of the ligaments in my feet and luckily nature provided me with three so I can go on as if nothing happened.
It also occurred to me that most of the revolutions happening in technology companies, microservices, data meshes, or micro frontends really are all coming down to this one fundamental idea that nature has been applying for millions of years: Decentralization.
What is that exactly? I found this quote which I like:
“A strict definition of decentralized systems could be that each system in the structure must fulfill specified demands on interaction with other systems, but it should be possible to develop (and change) the inner structure in each system, including data storage, without dependencies to other systems, as long as the specified interaction stands. It must for instance be possible to insert systems of different origins into the structure. The main condition is that each system must interact with other systems as specified.” – Mats-Åke Hugoson, “Centralized versus Decentralized Information Systems A Historical Flashback”
Computer science as a discipline is pretty new, only a couple of decades old. So it keeps on reinventing itself, which makes it hard to follow on the current best practices. It’s not easy to understand how to adopt a new idea to one own “system” or company. In the cases of trends like microservices, data meshes, or micro frontends, however, I think we can simply look at the timeless principles which have been underlying the idea of decentralization in nature all along.
The five essential principles
There are five essential principles which can be grouped into two categories:
There are drivers of the robustness of decentralized systems over centralized ones:
Redundancy Reduced interconnectedness Diversification
There are drivers of the cost of decentralized systems over centralized ones:
Complexity Gluing things back together
As we are talking about man-made systems here, it’s up to you to choose any level of redundancy, interconnectedness, or diversification for your technology organization. It’s up to you to influence these drivers for certain subareas like data production, which then could result in a “data mesh.” And it is up to you, to decide how your data mesh, your approach to microservices, or your micro frontend approach should look like, adapted to your company’s unique relation to these five principles.
Here, a closer look at these five principles.
The first driver of robustness is redundancy
The idea is simple, if you have at least two parts in a system, they are redundant if one can fail without crashing the whole system. The ligaments in my feet are functionally mostly redundant, one snapped, but I’m still able to do sports just as before. My arms are redundant, but not really completely functionally redundant. With one, I cannot do what I can do with two, still, it is redundancy to have two.
The company Spotify implements its application in a redundant way. They embrace the concept of micro frontends, although as far as I can tell they do not call it that. But it means, that every team essentially has one small “tile” in a large window which makes up their application. So if the team owning the “Discovery Weekly” part has a system crash, you can still order & listen to your music and will barely notice. If the search crashes, you even have a mostly functionally redundant feature with the browsing function.
The company Spotify thus decided to turn up the screw on redundancy to the max they could imagine.
The second driver of robustness is minimizing interconnectedness
Your two kidneys do not share the same “incoming door”, there are two separate branches of the renal artery, which come from the central descending aorta. Thus the interconnectedness is minimized. If one renal artery is blocked, the other will simply pick up the flow.
The same idea is played out in the concept of microservices. Microservices are an architectural pattern that basically tries to break things down, decouple them, and expose some kind of interface for them, a clear contract as the only way “in & out.” It’s just like our two kidneys which of course both have their own ureter, just as each microservice has his own point of data storage. That way, both data storage or the ureter can differ considerably, depending on incoming & outcoming “stuff.” If either the data storage or the ureter fails, the whole system will still be intact because of minimized interconnectedness.
Amazons API mandate
Following the so-called “API Mandate” from founder & CEO Jeff Bezos, the company Amazon transformed it’s IT landscape to one focused on minimizing interconnectedness. In fact, the original “API Mandate” makes it pretty clear, that the only way in and out of a team's internal stuff is through an interface that must be designed such that it could even be used by someone outside the company.
This for instance led to a separation of the data storage of different teams, which in turn leads to much more robustness in case of local breakdowns. But it also led teams to adapt a redundant and fault-tolerant communication practice. Besides increasing the robustness of the system, it also increased the flexibility, without dependencies, any team is free to choose the complete technology stack, deploying different programming languages, choose whatever gets the job done best.
The third driver of robustness is diversification
Your immune system is different from your usual organs. It’s dispersed throughout your body and is composed of a variety of different proteins and cells which are meant to react to very different kinds of foreign material.
The little units in our immune system are diversified, they belong to the same subsystem of the system called the human body, all have the same mission, to keep the body healthy, but are all very different. And since our immune system has to respond to a lot of unknowns, as well as changes throughout time, diversification is the only way to keep it working.
Decentralized systems can have very different degrees of diversification, allowing for different robustness & autonomy levels. The concept of a “data mesh” as used at Netflix provides a rather large diversification level. The concept of a data mesh mostly means, that a team that produces data, really owns it in the sense that it is also responsible for serving it to potential end-users.
Netflix data architecture
But Netflix does not put a tight bound on how teams are supposed to serve their data. Instead, they allow teams to serve data in any of the standard technologies at use at Netflix. Teams can choose AWS S3, Redshift, RDS instances, or druid to provide data to the end-users. Thus this diversification provides for much better adaptability to both individual end-user needs as well as to changes in the environment like new kinds of end-users.
While these three things drive robustness and autonomy throughout companies, they also have a cost.
The first cost driver is complexity
Decentralization means with every step we decentralize, we also add complexity. Complexity because previously where there was one, there now are possibly two. The degree might differ, depending on the degree & kind of decentralization, but the trend is always the same. The micro frontends at Spotify are great, they allow for the flexibility that every team individually can work on their system. They can launch changes individually and even crash individually. But now what previously was one subsystem, the application, just became 10+ subsystems.
Spotify's complexity cost
That means the part that is not decentralized suddenly has to deal with this complexity. And of course, there are such parts, otherwise, the individual tiles would be owned by separate companies, not teams. It means for instance if a developer wants to change teams at Spotify, he has to relearn the way of building his “tile.” It means, if someone from product management wants to get a picture of the “roadmaps” of the complete app, he now has to take a look at ten different roadmaps, or someone has to synchronize them. It means if a central party wants to fix security but in the database technology used across Spotify, they have to do that 10 times, not just once. So there the mere existence of multiple decoupled teams creates complexity costs down the road.
The second cost driver is not about the individual teams, the tiles, but about the glue that holds the window together.
The second cost driver is the need to glue things back together
Mushrooms have many bodies, fruit bodies, connected by a network called “mycelium.” But for humans, nature decided to not tie our bodies together. Probably because it would’ve made walking a pretty weird exercise, being glued together with his family.
The point is, complex systems that have autonomous subparts need to be glued back together somehow. They need to be connected, otherwise well, they wouldn’t be one system. But that connectedness also comes at a cost. For mushrooms, it means, although the fruit bodies are completely independent, a new fruit body is located pretty close to the others. It shares all resources with the other “family members.” This is a significant cost for a mushroom, but probably a trade-off well worth it in terms of survival. (check out Jennings & Lyseks “Fungal Biology: Understanding Fingal Lifestyle” for details)
Gluing data costs at Netflix
The same cost driver is out there in the world. Netflix data mesh provides a large diversity, but that diversity also drives up the cost of gluing things back together. An individual data engineer or BI analyst at Netflix who wants to have access to a large variety of data will either need to individually carry that cost or the company Netflix has to shoulder it.
In this case, Netflix chose to shoulder that cost by for instance creating tools like Metacat essentially gluing back together with different data sources like AWS S3, RDS databases, or AWS redshift. If the diversity wouldn’t be there, if there were only one storage technology, there would be no need to provide a large scale solution to glue things together.
When talking about nature & technology systems, it’s easy to forget that we’re actually dealing with humans.
Decentralizing Human Systems
When I wrote the three drivers or robustness of decentralized systems, I felt like I was missing an important part: the human part.
Today we’re not just decentralizing to make systems more robust. We’re usually decentralizing human systems. Thus the aim is on the one side to use redundancy, minimal dependencies, and diversification to increase the robustness. On the other side, we’re also aiming to use autonomy & responsibility to increase the productiveness of the individual units.
That decentralization leads to more autonomy, and autonomy makes people happy and more productive was already understood by Sun Tzu, Peter Drucker, or probably today most famously by Daniel Pink, author of “Drive”.
All the techniques mentioned above, microservices et. al. are techniques changing human systems. All of them award more responsibility & autonomy to a unit. A unit doesn’t have to be a team, it can be an organizational unit, a single person, etc. Microservices put all the responsibility into a team's hand, especially the operational responsibility after the mantra “You built it, you run it.” Data meshes put the responsibility to deal with end-users of data and serve them properly into the team's hand. Micro Frontends put the responsibility of building the actual frontend components into the team's hands.
So decentralization makes sense whenever we want to do either, increase the robustness of our system, or the productivity of our teams.
Closing thoughts
These principles help me understand how these trends impact me, my system, or the company I work at. They help me understand when having micro frontends is a smart idea, and to what extent a data mesh should be glued back together. They help me see, why certain companies chose a specific application of a microservices other than another. They help me understand why certain companies go for a fully standardized infrastructure stack where others choose a well harmonized “Infrastructure as a Service” approach and let teams do whatever they want.
I hope they help you too.
Further Reading | https://medium.com/swlh/microservices-data-meshes-micro-frontends-and-the-timeless-principles-of-decentralization-2ac2516b2951 | ['Sven Balnojan'] | 2020-10-13 18:50:29.914000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Software Development', 'Startup', 'Microservices', 'Architecture'] |
6 Things to Look Before Buying Security Cameras For Surveillance | Nowadays, the use of security cameras has become so common that you can find them anywhere staring at you.
From commercial places to a home, they are everywhere. And why not?
They help you notice each and every activity that is happening in front of them.
Also, people often get afraid while doing any weird activity in front of the cameras. So why not take advantage of these capabilities?
But here’s something. With so many trending models and surveillance options being available in the market, how to determine which security cam features are right for you.
So without molding things, let’s take a peek at the features that you must consider while buying security cameras for surveillance.
-Motion sensing
The greatness of motion sensing for security cameras cannot be overstated, particularly if you require to record any irregular movement that may go on while the camera is working.
Instead of recording 24–7, which can promptly fill up a local or cloud storage drive, with motion sensing, you can pause recording until something jumps in the frame.
You can also receive alerts on your computer or smartphone if something passes when it shouldn’t.
Apart
from this, audio sensing is more effective, it can inform you or
prompt video recording when audio is detected in the area around the
security camera.
- 2-way sound
Audio is non-negotiable for today’s security footage, but wouldn’t it be pleasant if you could also chat through the camera to those in the corresponding room as your security device?
Whether you utilize it to relax a pet or talk with the kids about tasks, it’s excellent to have a 2-way chat function on your security appliance.
-Weather resistance
If you are planning to place a security camera out-of-doors, you definitely require one that is weather resistant.
The degree of weather resistance you require will differ based on your location, but make certain that it is water-resistant. Specialists at Mobile Video Guard opines to seek for an open-air security camera with an IP rating greater than 44.
This will capture images at a very high pixel count as compared to the analog cameras.
While weather-resistant cameras can be more costly, they are also more long-lasting and tough.
Installing security cameras outside your place can save you money on home insurance premiums and improve the resale value of your home. That’s the reason it is worth it to invest in a camera that will be reliable, for all the weather conditions such as rain, sunshine, wind, etc.
-Image quality
Image quality matters a lot. The most reliable surveillance cameras of today produce videos in 720p and 1080p resolution.
Obviously, the higher the resolution, the greater will be the quality, though, it also indicates you require a greater quantity of storage to record videos. If you own a DVR with massive internal storage in terabytes, purchasing a high-resolution camera may not be a wrong approach.
The cameras with in-built storage get quickly filled. To deal with this, some of the cameras have some specific features that self-erase micro SD once it fills up and stays recording.
A 1MP camera usually uses up to 38GB of data space on recording for a full day. To compare the resolution of the camera along with the storage space and backup time.
-Camera range
Camera range is one of the prominent features that you must check while purchasing. After all, an outstanding monitoring system is nothing if cannot focus on all of the expected ranges.
That’s the reason it’s wise to look for cameras that are having wide-angle lenses, zoom capacity, and 360 views to magnify the range of your system.
Apart from this, make certain that you check the distance that a device challenges to reach, particularly for outdoor use. Regularly, 70–100 ft is standard for exterior use. Anything less may require supplementary devices, particularly if you are aspiring to reach a huge open-air area.
-Night vision
Today, most of the utmost security cameras are furnished with night vision. The night vision technology developed into the cameras is the most cost-effective solution for daytime and nighttime surveillance.
The cameras automatically shift from daily operation to night vision when the light level falls below a specific point. So it is important for you to buy such cameras because it can be more beneficial and are in trend.
Keeping these things into consideration will enable you to buy a proper security camera for surveillance. Hopefully, the piece of information may help you in your future endeavors.
Suggested- | https://medium.com/@techblogcorner/6-things-to-look-before-buying-security-cameras-for-surveillance-314036d3e244 | [] | 2020-02-24 17:52:28.537000+00:00 | ['Securitycameras'] |
How to Make a To-Do List that Doesn’t Suck | Photo from Pexels
Having a handy to-do list help you stay organized and energized. A daily personal to-do list prepares you for a clear state of mind, better than a cup of coffee. When you are tempted to open your email inbox first thing in the morning or get bombarded by phone calls and meeting requests feeling distracted, a to-do list becomes critical directing you back to the priorities of your day. The satisfaction you get crossing off items one-by-one also adds to a sense of daily accomplishment for most of us.
Highly productive people embrace to-do lists as a simple recipe for success. My friend and mentor Rupinder uses a hand-written bi-weekly to-do list to organize work on multiple projects, office leadership initiatives, and important personal errands. As a senior project architect and manager of a respected firm, his workdays often are fully occupied with high-level management responsibilities. Preparing to-do lists became his way of navigating busy work life with a focused mind.
Below are some strategies to prepare an effective to-do list. | https://medium.com/2minutesgrowth/how-to-make-a-to-do-list-that-doesnt-suck-a9f7499a7c95 | ['Chen Qin'] | 2021-04-07 21:46:24.164000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Time Management', 'To Do List', 'Efficiency', 'Personal Development'] |
Mexico Facts — 71 Interesting Facts About Mexico | Interesting Facts About MexicoMexico Facts. Mexico is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered toward the north by the United States, toward the south and west by the Pacific Ocean, toward the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea and toward the east by the Gulf of Mexico. If you searching for Interesting facts about Mexico? You have come to the right place. Check out the following interesting facts about Mexico.
Interesting Facts About Mexico
1. The official name of Mexico is Estados Únidos Mexicanos (United Mexican States).
2. Mexico Government system is the Federal presidential constitutional republic.
3. Mexico City Capital and the largest city in Mexico.
4. Mexico is the world’s 13th largest country by size, covering almost 2 million square kilometers.
5. The colors of the Mexican flag are green, white and red.
6. There are 31 states in Mexico, and Chihuahua is the largest of all with a land area of 247,460 square kilometers.
7. Mexico has 68 languages that are officially recognized, but there are even more spoken by smaller communities around the country.
8. Mexico was ruled by the 9. Spanish Empire for more than 3 centuries, from the 1500s right through until 1821.
Independence Day is celebrated on September 15th and 16th. It marks the day when Mexico gained Independence from Spain in 1810.
10. Mexico is the 10th most populated country in the world. 11. Mexico is the third-largest country in
Latin America, After Brazil and Argentina,
12. Mexico is also the world’s largest Spanish speaking country. There are more people speaking Spanish as their first language than in Spain.
13. Mexico is the 4th most biodiverse country in the world. With over 200,000 different species of fauna and flora, Mexico is home to 11% of all the world’s biodiversity.
14. T he national symbol of Mexico is a golden eagle.
15. The
Chihuahua is the world’s smallest dog, originating from the Mexican state of Chihuahua.
16. According to the Happy Planet Index, Mexico is the second
happiest country in the world, after Costa Ricans.
17. Dahlia is Mexico’s national flower.
18. Football is extremely popular in Mexico. The country even hosted the World Cup in 1970 and 1986. 21. The world’s 22. The Rio Grande is the 23.
19. About 30% of Mexico’s population is Indian. In the southeast, Indian languages are spoken.
20. Prior to 1822; Mexico, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and California were all Spanish colonies.
richest man home is Mexico. Carlos Slim is currently worth a staggering $72 billion, he alone makes up 7% of Mexico’s entire GDP.
longest river in Mexico. The river is 3033.613 km in length and is 18 m deep. World’s largest beer exporter country name is Mexico. Corona is famous worldwide, but there are lots of other Mexican beer brands besides Corona. Some of the most sold beer brands are Corona, Tecate, Modelo, Bohemia, Indio, Pacifico, Victoria, and of course Sol.
25. Children in Mexico don’t receive gifts on
24. Mexico uses four time zones.
Christmas Day, They have to wait until 6th January instead, as this date marks the visit of the Three Wise Men to baby Jesus in the biblical tale.
26. Almost 34% of Mexico’s land area is covered with forest.
27. The 34th Mexican president ruled for less than 60 minutes before quitting.
28. The country imports 48% of its goods from the United States and is a part of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
29. In 2016, there were 5.6 million Mexican nationals living in the U.S. without authorization, half of the unauthorized immigrant population.
30.
Highest Mountain of Mexico name is Pico de Orizaba (5,636 meters above sea-level).
History Facts About Mexico
31. Do you know? Mexico has 34 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
32. The Aztecs sacrificed about 1% Of Their Population(around 250,000 people ) every year, at the Chichen Itza and other ancient pyramids. They did this to appease the sun god.
33. One of the seven wonders of the world is Chichen Itza This pyramid was once part of the Mayan Empire, and in 2007 it was named as one of the new seven wonders of the world. It is one of the most visited archaeological sites in Mexico with over 2.6 million tourists in 2017.
34. 8 out of the 52 U.S. states exist on the land that used to belong to Mexico.
35. The National University of Mexico was founded in 1551 by Charles V of Spain and is the oldest university in North America.
36. Modern-day Mexicans are the descendants of many ancient civilizations that include the Olmec, Toltec, Zapotec, Maya, Inca, Aztec, French, African, and Spanish.
The Great Pyramid of Cholula is the world’s largest pyramid It is one of the most interesting Mexico facts. Just because most people think of Egypt when it comes to pyramids, but in fact, the largest pyramid of them all is nowhere to be found in Egypt but in Mexico.
Prior to the 1848 Mexican-American war, San Francisco was part of Mexico.
39. The national sport in the country is called Charreira, which displays distinctive horsemanship techniques. 40. In Mexico,
Dia De Muertes, aka The Day Of The Dead, is a traditional festival widely celebrated across the country. Starting on 31st October and ending 2nd November, the event involves family and friends gathering to pray for and remember those who have died, and helping to support their spiritual journey. This public holiday date back hundreds of years where its origins came from the Aztec civilization.
Facts About Mexico City
42. Mexico City was built over the ruins of Tenochtitlan, a great Aztec city built on a lake.
43. Did you know that the Mexican capital (Mexico City) is sinking by 3 feet a year? In the last 60 years, the Mexico city has sunk more than 32 feet. The reason for this is the huge demand for water, which is being taken from the aquifer below the city.
44. Mexico City has 160 museums, the second-highest number in the world, falling short only to 46. In terms of scale and population, Mexico City surpasses London.
45. Mexico City has the largest taxi cab fleet in the world. They have over 100,000 taxis running every day.
New York City. Now Mexico City is bigger than New York City.
47. The earliest printing press in
North America was used in 1539 in Mexico City.
48. Mexico City is considered to be the most traffic-congested city in the entire world.
Amazing Facts About Mexico
49. Mexico has the world’s smallest volcano. It stands 13 meters tall and it’s accessible by stairs that allow you to walk up to the crater.
50. 52. After Brazil, Mexico is the world’s second-largest
Colour TV was invented in Mexico. In 1942, a guy named Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena created the thermoscopic adaptor for the early colour tv transmission system. The first transmission was aired in 1946.
51. A 95-mile long river flows underground beneath Mexico. The river flows through limestone caves and crevices that are below the Yucatan Peninsula.
Catholic population, making up 83% of Catholic Citizens.
53. Mexican tamale weighs around 150 pounds and is 3 feet long. 54. Mexico has the world’s 6th 55. The largest wildcat in North America is the
largest electronics industry, after China, the US, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan,
jaguar, which can be found roaming the southern jungles of Mexico.
56. Mexico is the 6th most visited country in the world. It has the 15th highest income from tourism in the world, As of 2019.
57. Millions of monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico every year from the U.S. and Canada, though logging operations are rapidly destroying their habitat.
58. Mexico is the largest silver producer in the world. In 2017 they produced 5,600 MT silver in Mexico, which gives them the title of the largest silver producer in the world.
59. It is home to a rare breed of rabbit, which usually lives near volcanoes.
60. Mexico is the hardest-working citizens in the world, with the average citizen working 43.2 hours of per week, around 2,246 hours of work a year.
62. Mexico introduced to the world many popular and loveable foods including — chocolate, avocado, tomato, vanilla, courgette (zucchini), and various beans and chilies.
63. Mexico is the origin of chocolate, chilies, and corn.
64. As a result of the rapid industrialization of Mexico’s food system, churning out processed, fatty foods, 1 in 6 Mexicans suffer from diabetes, heart disease, and other weight-related conditions.
65. Popcorn was domesticated 9,000 years ago in Mexico.
66.
Mexican foods encompass a wide variety of spices and herbs. Common foods that can be found in the country include burritos, enchiladas and tacos.
67. Mexico has the capabilities to create
nuclear weapons but has pledged to only use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
68. The Mayans were creative in their military tactics. They would throw hornet nests into the advancing enemy during battles.
69. Surprisingly, there is only one gun shop in Mexico where people can buy guns legally.
70. About 90% of Mexico’s firearms are smuggled in from the United States. 71. Historically, Mexico has stayed neutral in international conflicts, with the exception of the
Second World War.
Hopefully, you have enjoyed and loved, Above I
nteresting Facts About Mexico. If you need more country facts, keep with this blog and share with your friends. Thanks for visiting this blog. | https://medium.com/@feedspotinfo/mexico-facts-71-interesting-facts-about-mexico-aa0d120682fc | [] | 2019-12-14 16:13:26.207000+00:00 | ['Geography', 'Mexico', 'Facts', 'World', 'Lifestyle'] |
What Parents And Schools Can Do Against Cyberbullying | Bullying is not a new problem. It has been around ever since human species started to socialize. Wherever there are schools, colleges, office spaces or even playgrounds, there’s a bully who preys on the weak to satisfy his emotional insecurities. But lately, it’s taking place much more often due to the expansion of the internet. Bullying has taken a different form, but effects are still the same, if not worse. Bullies now require nothing more than an online presence to cause chaos. Online anonymity has made them ‘cyber-brave’. In the past, however, victims were able to find some relief at home or find some private space to stay away from all the chaos. But now with everything internet, technology has made it impossible for them to escape the torment. Social media has made it much less likely for the bullying to witnessed by a responsible adult or a guardian. While not all the bullying cases result in a suicide, it certainly causes trauma and depression to the victims and often leads them towards alcohol and drugs.
In many cases in the past, parents were aware of the bullying and begged the schools to intervene. All of them were promised that action would be taken. However, it’s very difficult for schools to get involved in matters that don’t take place on school grounds. Regardless, these matters are far too serious to be left alone and school and parents must partner up to address them.
Ryan Haligan Case
The Cyberbullying Story: the website operated by Ryan’s parents, John and Kelly Halligan, early concerns about Ryan’s speech, language and motor skills development led to him receiving special education services from pre-school through the fourth grade. Ryan’s academic and physical struggles made him the regular target of a particular bully at school between the fifth and seventh grade. In February 2003, a fight between Ryan and the bully not only ended the harassment at school but led to a supposed friendship.
However, after Ryan shared an embarrassing personal story, the newly found friend returned to being a bully and used the information to start a rumor that Ryan was gay. The taunting continued into the summer of 2003, although Ryan thought that he had struck a friendship with a pretty, popular girl through AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). Instead, he later learned that the girl and her friends thought it would be funny to make Ryan think the girl liked him and use it to have him share more personally embarrassing material — which was copied and pasted into AIM exchanges with her friends. On October 7, 2003, Ryan hanged himself in the family bathroom. After his son’s death, John discovered a folder filled with IM exchanges throughout that summer that made him realize “that technology was being utilized as weapons far more effective and reaching [than] the simple ones we had as kids.”
Jessica Logan (1990–2008) and Hope Witsell (1996–2009)
The Cyberbullying Story: Jessica Logan was an 18-year-old Sycamore High School senior who sent a nude photo of herself to her boyfriend, but the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that the photo was sent to hundreds of teenagers in at least seven Cincinnati-area high schools after the couple broke up. According to the University of Alabama’s cyberbullying website, the cyberbullying continued through Facebook, MySpace and text messages. Jessica hanged herself after attending the funeral of another boy who had committed suicide. A little more than one year later, 13-year-old Hope Sitwell hanged herself after a compromising picture of hers that she “sexted” to her boyfriend was shared amongst students at six different schools in an area of Ruskin, Florida, friends, and family told CNN. Hope never told her parents about the “Hope Hater Page” that was started on MySpace that led to additional cyberbullying.
What Exactly Is Cyberbullying?
Some students might not even realize that they are engaging in cyberbullying when the objective is to be funny. Following are the forms of cyberbullying:
Starting online fights based on hatred towards a minority and pilling up people towards a cheap agenda.
Posting demeaning comments on someone’s pictures and continuously harassing them to exclude them from some online group.
Impersonating someone online to leak private sensitive information.
What Parents Can Do Against Cyberbullying
If your child asks for your help, you are lucky. Majority of teenagers don’t talk to their parents about any kind of bullying they face at school. If you notice any kind of unusual behavior that can’t really be ruled out as ‘growing up’, feel free to indulge. It usually starts with the reluctance to go to school, loss of sleep and too much time spent with cell phones and electronics. These are not always the signs of bullying, but you should certainly check with them to see if anything’s wrong.
Think about the matter thoroughly before you act. You can also make things worse for your child if you take any drastic measures. Cyber-Bullying is generally caused by a bully trying to demean your child in front of his pears, trying to get him/her excluded from the group to gain a higher status. If you take an action with the school authorities, it will further exclude your child from his peers. So, think before you act.
What Schools Can Do Against Cyberbullying
School system has a lot more power than it gives itself credit for. School should focus much more on teaching their students about dignity towards diversity. Schools should thoroughly inform their students about the legal consequences of participating in cyberbullying. Educating students about the consequences of posting personal information online can subsequently decrease the chances of cyber-bullying.
It’s very crucial for students of all ages to understand what cyberbullying is how it can affect others around them. Many students might not even cyber-bullying as bullying until some consequences take place. But as above mentioned cases have shown us, cyberbullying can be far more dangerous and terrifying than regular bullying. Teachers should be much more communicative to the students and encourage them to come forward if they were bullied and witness any kind of similar behavior. There should always be a counselor on school premises.
Summary:
Parents need to overcome the generation gap and be friends with their children. Ask about their daily lives without judgment and support them through their problems. When there is indiscipline in the school, students are not always that straightforward to assign blame. They often fear prosecution for voicing their concerns and wouldn’t want to rat out their friends.
Implement Your Safe Hub in your schools for reporting purposes to protect your children/students. It is a special communication channel that protects such students with the power of anonymity.
References: [https://nobullying.com/six-unforgettable-cyber-bullying-cases/] (https://nobullying.com/six-unforgettable-cyber-bullying-cases/) | https://medium.com/your-safe-hub/what-parents-and-schools-can-do-against-cyberbullying-d3bfe3b40c29 | ['Amit Jindal'] | 2019-04-01 14:05:04.053000+00:00 | ['School Issues', 'Bullying'] |
“It’s Not Safe If You’re A Trans Person” | 39 trans people have been killed this year as far as we know.
Black trans women are being hunted like deer during hunting season. This the worst year; violence against trans people has skyrocketed. It’s no secret that this has been at least partly fueled by the Trump administration.
Laverne Cox, Emmy nominated actress and activist, was with a friend when they were targeted in a L.A. park. The man asked for the time, then asked if Laverne was a “guy or a girl.” When her friend told him to fuck off, the man started swinging. By the time Cox could grab the police’s attention, the man took off.
“It’s not safe in the world. And I don’t like to think about that a lot, but it’s the truth.” “It’s the truth and it’s not safe if you’re a trans person. Obviously, I know this well. It’s just really sad.” — Laverne Cox
Being a black, trans man, I’m constantly watching my back.
Even though I’m in a city that’s considered safe and has LGBTQ pride flags and BLM signs all over, I know I’m never going to be completely safe. I take Ginger for walks in the park, and I get nervous about putting my hood over my head even though it’s freezing outside.
I always get a bag and receipt in a store, even if I only bought a drink. I always ask if an associate needs to check my bags if I brought something in with me or if I grabbed prescriptions before I checked out. I pay special attention to my surroundings when I’m out. To some, this might seem like overkill, but it's taught to black and brown kids at a young age.
I don’t hide that I’m trans, but I don’t broadcast it either. All of my doctors, nurses, and dialysis techs all call me Brian even though my name isn’t legally changed yet.
It’s weird to navigate. My past always seems like it’s on my heels. Recently, I found out that I’ll have to wait until after I get a kidney transplant to have top surgery. My original plan was to have top surgery and then get my name and gender marker legally changed.
The waitlist for a kidney in Michigan is about 5–7 years long. The time starts on the day you begin dialysis. I have about a year and a half under my belt. That’s still an excruciating amount of time. One of my nurses suggested to also be added to the transplant list in Toledo since it’s so close.
Adobe Stock: rawpixel.com
As I continue on my transition journey, I become more and more uneasy out in public.
Testosterone has given my face a more masculine shape and my beard is starting to come in. I’m even growing a mustache and my voice is deeper. Testosterone might have even made my hair texture more curly, but I’m not sure.
I love the changes that are happening, but I also realize what position it puts me in. Being recognized as a man gives me certain privileges I’m not used to yet. However, being recognized as a black man puts me in more danger. Despite the news of another black life being stolen plastered on social media daily, I can’t shy away. So I take a deep breath, hold my head high, and take it one step at a time.
Trans people are targeted and discriminated against in almost every aspect of life from social events to the workforce. There are even bills circulating about what bathrooms we’re allowed to use and if it should be legal to deny us a job or housing simply because we’re trans.
Gatekeepers withhold proper medical care as if a lack of knowledge and empathy in the medical field aren’t enough to fight against. In some states, the hoops to jump through just to secure hormone replacement therapy are simply outrageous — especially in the southern states like Alabama.
All of these brutal, horrifying truths are the main reasons why the average life expectancy of a trans person is 35 years.
I’m 23 right now. By the time I get a kidney transplant, I might be 28–30. That leaves 5 years. Just think about that for a moment. The average life expectancy is 78 years, which is a 43-year difference.
“Over 41 percent of trans men and women are estimated to have attempted suicide — a rate that’s nearly nine times as high as the rate of cisgender Americans.” — Psychology Today
I happen to be in this 41%. When you look at everything trans people are up against, it’s easy to see why a lot of us would think suicide is the only option. Living in a world where a lot of people don’t want us to exist is like carrying a humongous log on our shoulders everywhere.
It’s not safe, but we carry on anyway — one step at a time. | https://medium.com/brian-the-man-behind-the-pen/its-not-safe-if-you-re-a-trans-person-40bcd7d436f | [] | 2020-12-02 11:02:56.465000+00:00 | ['LGBTQ', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Equality', 'Transgender', 'This Happened To Me'] |
I’ve Gone from Thin, Wiped out and Almost Dead to Lively and Enthusiastic | In my mid-20s I was stuck in bed for a half year in a row. The specialists had no clue about what wasn’t right with me.
At the point when I at long last recuperated from whatever it was, I returned to eating shoddy nourishment and burning-through a lot of liquor. I needed to have a snooze prior to going out on Saturday night. Indeed, even with a snooze I’d begin nodding off at the club while my companions moved the night away. Nothing seemed well and good.
In 2015 I had a close miss with disease. Once more, the specialists had no clue about what was happening. The tumor the size of a golf ball stopped in my guts, horrified me. I chose to pick wellbeing and energy.
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Presently, this wasn’t some longing to eat well food and boast about it on Instagram by taking brilliant separated photographs of each bowl of food I ate, motivated by Buddha, to cause individuals to feel horrible about their own lives.
What I needed regardless of anything else was to have energy once more. The sort of energy you have as a child that permits you to go around the jungle gym for quite a long time as though it’s nothing.
This is what I did to go from anorexic, wiped out, and almost dead to brimming with life and energy once more.
Go for a Stroll like You’re Living in Japan
In 2011, I turned out to be extraordinarily baffled with life. I’d had a go at everything to get my energy back and stop the ruinous contemplations gliding around my head.
The main thing I naturally did was took day by day strolls.
They didn’t help… from the start. One night, before I abandoned the startup that I adored without a doubt (everlastingly), I snatched my outdated iPod and took a walk. I began tuning in to what exactly turned into the principal portion of self improvement I’d actually devour.
The walk should most recent 30 minutes. I wound up strolling late into the night, past 12 PM. I strolled down the fundamental street. I strolled down the side of the roadway. I was shouting uproariously and reciting like the book recording advised me to. Individuals emerged from their homes half sleeping and advised me to quiet down. I was unable to hear them. I continued strolling.
These late night strolls turned into a thing. I utilized them to walk and hear self out assistance stories. It wasn’t a triumph propensity. It was an endurance instrument. Strolling drove me to new bits of knowledge. Strolls turned into an approach to get away from my world and reflect. Strolling turned into an action to tune in to another person’s shrewdness. Strolling drove me to the experiences that spared my life.
Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard stated: “Each day, I walk myself into a condition of prosperity and leave each ailment. I have strolled myself into my best contemplations, and I am aware of no idea so difficult that one can’t leave it. In any case, by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling sick. Along these lines on the off chance that one just continues strolling, all that will be okay.”
Essayist, Kaki Okumura, says Japanese individuals don’t go to the rec center and practice or do overly cool CrossFit. They simply walk. Strolling made an alternate sort of extraordinary enchantment for me.
Use strolls to think.
The three keys to this eating regimen are:
Characteristic sugar (nectar/dates) rather than refined sugar
Less salt
No oil (counting Olive Oil)
I initially attempted a veggie lover diet and acknowledged a large portion of my companions that were doing likewise were messing with themselves. They’d think they were solid, and they’d at that point proceed to eat a can of singed chips with high-fructose pureed tomatoes from Ruler of the Fries and lie to themselves some more. They actually felt debilitated, and a significant number of them stayed overweight.
I discovered that the food you put into your body makes your energy levels. An entire food plant-based eating routine permits you to reproduce your untainted energy levels.
Your taste buds change
Numerous individuals attempt and switch their eating regimen and think that its difficult to do. Things don’t taste the equivalent. I had a similar issue. I discovered that you need to permit your taste buds time to adjust. At the point when your tastebuds are energized on long stretches of sweet beverages and singed food, an unexpected change to solid food tastes dull.
Presently I’ve been off handled nourishment for such a long time, a mango tastes in a way that is better than a frozen yogurt actually could. Indeed, even carrots taste sweet.
Eateries are obliging
I was a chronic under-sleeper. Getting enough rest will change your energy levels. I took a stab at adding 30 minutes more to whatever amount of rest I was getting.
I organized rest instead of let whatever time I had left throughout decide the timeframe spent dozing.
You need more rest than you might suspect.
You might be wakeful for 16 hours, however how lively would you say you are during those hours? It’s smarter to have hours where you feel invigorated, than loads of hours wakeful where you feel drained and like a zombie.
Surrender Liquor no matter what
Liquor gets dried out you. On the off chance that there’s one thing you would prefer not to do it’s be got dried out. Liquor is an extraordinary method to spoil your body. It quietly ruins your internal parts and meddles with your psychological state. I was a drained, discouraged young man on liquor. Advertising has misled us and advised us to drink liquor to unwind.
In all actuality liquor is poison. There are vastly improved approaches to unwind and look for delight than liquor which decimates your energy levels.
Drinking Water Stops You Being Got dried out (Which Removes Your Energy)
75% of Americans are got dried out. I, as well, didn’t drink enough water.
At the point when you’re dried out you need energy and get cerebral pains. Everything I did was supplant canned beverages and liquor with water.
Water is the fluid of life. Drink a greater amount of it.
Attachment Regular Energy Breaks
In 2011, I was brimming with energy spills. I resembled a mobile, talking Titanic with an opening in my mind, spilling energy everywhere.
Outrage, dissatisfaction, disgrace, retribution, and things you can’t control in life will deny you of your valuable energy.
I began zeroing in on what I could control. I decided to pardon the individuals who violated me despite the fact that they didn’t merit it, so I could recover my psychological clearness and significant serenity once more.
It’s not worth surrendering your energy for unimportant things.
Myformer self was ghastly debilitated — both intellectually and actually. My awful wellbeing took me right to the edge of complete breakdown. Fortunately, I made it out alive to recount the story, and maybe, share a couple of things that helped me.
You don’t should be wiped out and almost dead. You can be lively when you walk, eat an entire food plant-based eating regimen, get more rest, drink more water and fitting the energy breaks of outrage, dissatisfaction, disgrace, and stuff you can’t control.
Win back your energy so you can appreciate life the manner in which it’s intended to be experienced.
Energy enables you to see the world distinctively and accomplish the objectives everyone reveals to you are outlandish. | https://medium.com/@mopags/ive-gone-from-thin-wiped-out-and-almost-dead-to-lively-and-enthusiastic-52b20eecf36f | [] | 2020-11-27 17:38:33.428000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Self', 'Improvement', 'Health', 'Food'] |
Crazy deal alert: This 50-inch 4K HDR Roku TV is less than $200 today | If you're planning a socially distanced holiday season, you're going to need a bigger TV might watch Wonder Woman 1984 and catch up on The Mandalorian. That's where today's ridiculous deal comes in: Target is selling aHisense 50-inch 4K HDR TV with Roku built-in for $180Remove non-product link, down from the $300 MSRP and one of the best prices you're going to find on a 4K set.
The biggest feature for this TV is that it's rocking HDR (high dynamic range) supporting both Dolby Vision HDR and HDR 10. HDR is a feature that creates greater variations of colors allowing for a more vivid picture. In addition to HDR, the TV also supports DTS Studio Sound for your surround sound audio set-up as well as three HDMI ports, Ethernet, and a USB 2.0 port, as well as 802.11ac Wi-Fi but no Bluetooth.
This Hisense 50R6040G comes with Roku TV onboard giving you access to all kinds of premium video services including Apple TV, Disney Plus, Netflix, Hulu, and audio services like Pandora without any extra equipment. The set also works with Google Assistant and Alexa to control your TV via voice command. It has a game mode to improve input lag coming from your console, and the TV has a thin bezel providing a larger viewable screen area.
[Today's deal: Hisense 50-inch 4K HDR TV for $180 at TargetRemove non-product link]
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/@rachel60894764/crazy-deal-alert-this-50-inch-4k-hdr-roku-tv-is-less-than-200-today-f81a4a8aea62 | [] | 2020-12-24 01:11:56.788000+00:00 | ['Headphones', 'Services'] |
“Is Covid-19 Nature’s calculated way of slowing down the recklessness of our species? | “Is Covid-19 Nature’s calculated way of slowing down the recklessness of our species? We have overpopulated the planet. We create unsustainable living conditions for future generations. Humans can rationalize, think, and process, but are we really smarter than Nature, herself?”— excerpt from linked article.
In November, I wrote an article exploring the effects Covid19 will ultimately have on the human psyche — the global collective.
I posit that humanity has been given a timeout, sent to our respective corners, to reflect, rethink, and pivot when possible.
Do you think this could be a silver lining to the global pandemic we’re currently living through?
In 2020, I’ve found joy and ambition like I’ve never had before. What positive changes have you experienced in 2020? | https://medium.com/everything-shortform/is-covid-19-natures-calculated-way-of-slowing-down-the-recklessness-of-our-species-aae582b62178 | ['Aimée Gramblin'] | 2020-12-24 01:05:44.421000+00:00 | ['Slowliving', 'Covid 19', 'Ideas', 'Psychology', 'Short Form'] |
Business A to Z: Knowledge | Recently I had a knowledgeable discussion centered around the types of power with my brother. We discussed many topics such as, while money was a form of power, it tends to be the weakest. There are many other types of power that, if used correctly, can and will help you succeed in business more than money ever can.
Legitimate power — a higher position
Coercive power — fearful persuasion
Informational power — relevant to the task
Power of Reward — motivation by rewards
Connection Power — social capital
Referent Power — the quality of connections
Expert Power — knowledge
While these seven powers can help overcome different challenges, the most important is typically referent or expert. When one has referent power, one can create and grow very personal bonds with people. Those who wield this power tend to make well-informed decisions based on support from their network.
This power may be the most significant, but to earn this, possessing expert power is critical. Expert power typically refers to knowledge. Knowledge can be acquired from various sources such as your networks, social media, school, to name a few.
To begin any career, you must have a certain level of knowledge. To become a doctor, you must pay thousands of dollars for a paper that shows employers you are proficient in a specific field. To run a business, you must know its location, industry, potential customers, and other areas.
A beautiful library photo preceded this story, one of the many places you can find knowledge. Books are filled with libraries, and while physical books are losing popularity, Kindles and other e-readers are portals to a world of words and wisdom. Do a quick Amazon search on a particular topic and see how many books pop up. There are millions of books; find one or two for guidance.
As mentioned before, your network is also a great place to find knowledge. This group consists of friends, family, professionals, and anyone with whom you have a positive relationship. You can utilize this social capital to grow and build your mental library and share your info with others in your network.
Social media is another source of knowledge. Because social media is such a broad term, focus on one or two platforms to search for experience. Then look for a few influencers in your industry and connect with them and their followers.
What better place to obtain knowledge than a school? A typical school system is structured to allow a student to study a subject of interest. This is completed by using a series of specific courses relevant to the industry that becomes more difficult as they progress in the program.
Obtaining a wealth of information allows you to have power over others positively because you have the knowledge to back up your decisions. When expert knowledge is used in a team or a business over other types of power, it allows one to build a following. This following tends to be more trusting of a leader and will likely offer their support to the leader for a long time.
So, yes. Knowledge is power, and perhaps the most influential type of power that one can wield. Knowledge is a great foundational power and blends well with other classes that allow you to create a team of loyal and intelligent followers. | https://medium.com/lets-be-leaders/business-a-to-z-knowledge-b7b9faa9e0a4 | ['Zach Goreczny'] | 2020-12-21 01:32:18.605000+00:00 | ['Power', 'Knowledge', 'Business', 'Leadership', 'Personal Development'] |
What to expect from Krakin’t in the year 2021? | Listing on exchanges will not be the priority.
There are ERC20 token exchanges that allow free listing, and you are free to list and trade KRK tokens however you like. Nevertheless, if you wish to apply for any exchange and need liquidity tokens, forms to be filled, or additional information, please ask and your e-mail will be 100% answered. Just e-mail [email protected]
Nevertheless, we will not provide Ethereum or pay for any listing expenses other than providing the liquidity tokens. Our strategy is to start isolated, work using the bottom-up approach, while carefully choosing the next moves exposing ourselves to the world.
2. We will complete the first stage of an exchange development and launch it.
Krakin’t is a project incubator, and we believe in a free-trade where anyone can list and trade their tokens, instead of imposing the strict filters, high-standards and acting as a bait for the investors… This means that we need to bend technology, as much as possible, to avoid the need to apply such strict measures. In other words, we are re-defining the concept of what it means to exchange the assets. For this reason, the paper-work and bureaucracy may slow things down, although we will have everything coded and ready for a launch before they give us a green-light.
3. Lots and lots of paperwork to be done.
We want to make sure that what we are doing is legal, and that the innovation is protected. We are a Canadian-based company, and exchanges are allowed by the law. Nevertheless, we do need a confirmation to stay safe. Furthermore, protecting the idea by patenting must be done before the launch, since any team that is 10 times our capacity can complete the project 10 times faster, and simply ruin all the fun. Patents, however, take a lot of time and people from the offices do not always speak our language… some are very hard or slow to communicate with.
4. Expanding the team
We will need individuals who are capable of doing the marketing, as well as individuals who can maintain the source-code. We will look into ways of forming the partnerships, and hopefully form them.
5. Start with the known and existing project incubators
Yes, we took a few steps forward, and then will make one step backward. Getting engaged with the project incubators will help us understand and gain the necessary experience regarding the existing project incubators (first-hand). Furthermore, it will increase our chances of having a success since we will have a developed product.
6. Develop the Krakin’t labs roadmap and enhance the exchange features
Krakin’t exchange is just the first baby-step we are making in the whole unique process we want to complete. It is one piece of a puzzle called “Krakin’t Labs”. Since the business financing will not come from the crypto-currencies and individuals believing in the project, we need to firmly establish the money-flow. This means that the exchange will be used as the well-developed and established proof for making the next business steps and decisions.
7. Figure out how to connect our exchange data with CoinGecko, CoinMarketcap, and the others…
This is going to be a bit complicated since the exchange we are developing will not be the swap and not exactly the spot-trade. The only clue we can give out at the moment is Fourier Analysis per asset, versus the candle-stick/line charts.
Fourier Graph of Speech Patterns
Candle-stick chart
Yes, those are the graphs we will be using, and we won’t be converting the line graph to Fourier! Not because we want to be different, but simply because we must use the Fourier… This is because the wave-form would look like the noise to existing price trackers, and it will be somewhat of a challenge to understand it. Traders would not have a clue how to interpret data, and therefore we must do it using the frequency analysis so that people can see what is happening.
8. We might not provide API access to exchange, but if we do, we will make the high-frequency BOT-ONLY trade, where humans are not allowed...
That is all for now, have a wonderful new year! | https://medium.com/@krakin-t/what-to-expect-from-krakint-in-the-year-2021-756be6816be7 | [] | 2020-12-27 22:29:34.484000+00:00 | ['Token', 'Ethereum', 'Roadmaps'] |
The Oil, It Just Keeps on Spilling | The Oil, It Just Keeps on Spilling
This aerial shot of Santa Barbara Harbor, taken on Feb. 14, 1969, shows it filled with crude oil from Union Oil’s huge offshore spill. (Credit: UCSB Map and Image Library)
Reprinted from Santa Barbara Independent (updated)
Americans learned just how dirty and dangerous offshore oil drilling is 50 years ago. On January 28, 1969, a massive oil spill in the Santa Barbara Channel triggered the modern environmental movement.
More than 3 million gallons of oil gushed from an offshore well starting on that fateful day. This deluge of toxic crude coated 35 miles of beaches and thousands of birds and marine animals. It helped lead to the passage of the country’s most significant environmental laws.
But it didn’t end offshore drilling. After a temporary moratorium, oil companies quickly went back to drilling and spilling along U.S. coastlines.
We didn’t learn the right lessons from the ’69 Santa Barbara spill, so we suffered through the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, the Refugio Oil Spill in 2015, and countless smaller spills, including more than 40,000 recorded by the Coast Guard in the Gulf of Mexico.
Meanwhile, the Taylor Energy oil spill has steadily been spewing up to 30,000 gallons of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico since Hurricane Ivan destroyed its platform in 2004. It has quietly become the biggest spill in U.S. history with no end in sight.
Now, the Trump administration wants to ignore all those lessons and drastically expand offshore oil drilling in every major U.S. ocean, while rolling back offshore drilling safety rules. The consequences of such wildly reckless moves are unthinkable. The drilling expansion would contaminate coastal communities, kill untold marine animals and doom us to climate chaos.
So we returned to where it all began, Santa Barbara’s beautiful and vulnerable coastline, to remember the ’69 spill and chart a new course into a smarter, more sustainable future — a future without dirty and dangerous offshore drilling.
About 100 activists gathered Jan. 28 outside the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management office in Camarillo to protest the Trump administration’s offshore expansion plan. Watch news coverage of the event here and here.
It’s time to end fossil fuel leasing in our public waters and phase out all offshore drilling in the U.S., starting immediately.
The best moments of my life have been spent surfing, sailing and diving in the Santa Barbara Channel. Its beauty and biodiversity still inspire and astonish me — even as I’m always vaguely unsettled by the offshore drilling platforms on the horizon. I know a lot of people feel the same way.
For 50 years, we’ve watched the costs of offshore drilling continue to mount. As the Independent reported last week, Santa Barbara is struggling to prepare for sea-level rise of more than five feet by the end of the century, potentially costing billions of dollars.
The legislation that resulted from the ’69 Santa Barbara oil spill — including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act and the California Environmental Quality Act — isn’t enough to contain the inherent risks and damage from offshore drilling.
Nothing can ever make offshore drilling safe, and that’s especially true in the treacherous, remote Arctic waters where the Trump administration plans to offer the first new offshore drilling leases later this year. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. It’s only a matter of when and how widespread the damage will be.
Our oceans and atmosphere are now warming faster than climate change forecasts warned a decade ago. Hurricanes, wildfires and other extreme weather events are pummeling the country. Carbon dioxide emissions continue to climb even as we exceed the carbon budgets needed to prevent climate catastrophe.
Ending the most dangerous, most expensive and most damaging form of our oil addiction — offshore oil drilling — should be a no-brainer. So on the 50th anniversary of the Santa Barbara oil spill, let’s finally listen to that wake-up call and work to end offshore drilling in the United States.
Blake Kopcho is the oceans campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity based on Oakland.
Published in Santa Barbara Independent on Jan. 25, time references updated. | https://medium.com/center-for-biological-diversity/the-oil-it-just-keeps-on-spilling-d5ae1fa60bfb | ['Blake Kopcho'] | 2019-02-12 19:43:01.115000+00:00 | ['Oceans', 'Trump', 'Oil', 'California', 'Opinion'] |
How Brunch Liberals Won Back the White House by Sacrificing Everything Else | If Biden Won, How Did Liberals Lose?
Biden won the White House, but Democratic leaders made deliberate choices in election year 2020 that lead to heavy down-ballot losses and all but guaranteeing that the party will lose power in 2022 and 2024.
The Silencing of Progressives
Back in March, during the chaotic early days of the 2020 Democratic Primary, when anything seemed possible, the sudden overnight surrender & coalescing of the Buttegieg and Klobuchar campaigns behind Joe Biden, signaled the end of the Sanders campaign, which would concede weeks later.
The Democratic establishment at this time made the choice that the 1/3 of the party that had been galvanized under the Sanders platform of populism would be left out of the Big Tent. The Biden campaign actively shut out progressives, silencing their policy demands in favor of an outreach program to suburban Republicans.
The welcoming of Republicans from John Kasich, to Lincoln Project chodes, Cindy McCain and Ana Navarro into key leadership positions inside the Biden/Harris campaign signaled the corporate, centrist direction of the Biden campaign. The choice of the utterly unqualified Ana Navarro to lead Democratic Latino outreach over Chuck Rocha (or literally anyone else remotely capable) proved to be nearly catastrophic to the campaign, as Biden 2020, and down-ballot Democratic candidates lost the Latino vote by double-digit margins compared to Hillary 2016.
The Lincoln Project
One of the weirdest plot twists of election year 2020 was Democratic leaders and their liberal supporters glomming on to a grifting agency called the Lincoln Project, made up of Republican operatives, who called themselves “Never Trumpers” and convinced party leaders that they would be able to rally other Republican voters against Trump. Liberals ended up donating $69M to this Trojan Horse operation, in the hopes that they would deliver suburban Republican votes to Biden. In the end, Trump outperformed his 2016 numbers among registered Republicans, while Republicans retained control of the Senate and made gains in House and State Legislatures across the country. All they got for that $69M price tag was Democratic Party leaders conceding influence inside the party to a group of newly minted Republican multi-millionaires. The Lincoln Party was one of the most profitable grifts in American political history, so if you’re a Democratic voter, you may want to stop sharing their content.
Failure to Take Control of Senate
Democrats were projected to win back the Senate, but ended up falling short. There are still 2 run-off elections scheduled for January 5, 2021, and while the path is narrow, Dems do have a shot at the Senate majority if they win both runoffs seats. I predict a split, with Warnock (D) defeating Loeffler (R), and Perdue (R) beating Ossoff (D). I will update this paragraph if Dems pull off the unlikely double victory. However, without a Senate majority, the outlook for passing legislation does not look good for the Biden/Harris administration.
Hemorrhage in House Races
House Republicans outperformed polls and are projected to win back 7–12 seats with eight races still in play and leaning Republican. This was again projected to be a hold +5–7 for Democrats. What we’ve learned so far is that polling data in 2020 was even further off than in 2016. At this rate, by 2024, I predict we’ll be relying on betting markets entirely.
Disaster in State Legislature Elections
The biggest electoral disaster for Democrats was felt in State Legislature races. While these results were missed by headlines, they are critical to mid-term odds, as State Legislatures decide which party leads redistricting in 2021. Democrats, after spending $500 million on down-ballot State Legislature races, were unable to flip a single state legislative chamber (source as of 11/9/2020). Republicans on the other hand were able to obtain 2 new State Legislature trifectas in New Hampshire and Montana.
Loss of Minority Voters
Despite losing the White House, it must be mentioned that Trump, despite a historically chaotic year full of abject failure, outperformed his 2016 results across every demographic except white men (source). Trump won the highest GOP total share of non-white voters for a Republican presidential candidate since 1960 (source). It should be noted that these demographic numbers are mostly based on exit polling data, and should change over time as we get cleaner data that includes demographic information from voters who submitted absentee ballots.
The loss of working class Hispanic voters should be especially troubling to party leaders, as it signals that the message of “we’re not Trump” led to the loss of another formerly loyal segment of the voter base (along with white working class which the party lost in 2016).
This year, Biden lost a catastrophic share of the Hispanic vote from Clinton in 2016. Look no further for evidence of the 2020 Democratic Party’s disconnect with Latino voters than Zapata County, TX, which Trump won 52-to-47 over Joe Biden. Trump lost Zapata County, a 90% Latino working-class border town, in 2016 by a 32-to-65 margin.
The Outlook for 2022 and 2024
As mid-term odds overwhelmingly favor the losing party, Democrats who lack a clear policy vision, have little reason for a positive outlook in 2022. Without a Senate majority, McConnell and the Republican Senate will go into full austerity mode, blocking any and all spending measures at a time when the working class so desperately needs assistance. The one potential positive I can think of for Biden/Harris is their timing, and they are inheriting a country at the peak of a health & economic crisis, which means even without doing anything substantial, conditions in the country will improve over the next four years.
Biden’s pick of Kamala Harris, an experienced, but unpopular figure in national politics was short-sighted and unstrategic. (I did a deep dive on Kamala here, so I won’t get into her in depth in this article.) While Kamala checks off diversity boxes, she did not appeal to minority voters and failed to win over a single demographic segment of the electorate during her primary bid. In my opinion, her selection has set the party up for failure in 2024. Kamala’s broad national appeal is a known quantity. She is deeply unpopular with every segment except the donor class, and finished 5th in polls in her home state during primaries before dropping out. | https://medium.com/@sungsays/how-brunch-liberals-won-back-the-white-house-by-sacrificing-everything-else-3422ad016952 | ['Sung Kim'] | 2020-11-11 22:59:21.710000+00:00 | ['Democratic Party', 'Biden', 'Trump', 'Kamala Harris', 'Election 2020'] |
how to loss weight from body | in In Fitness And In Health | https://medium.com/@messagepk/how-to-loss-weight-from-body-fcdea4c2dd91 | [] | 2020-12-19 07:44:49.890000+00:00 | ['Food', 'Fitness Tips', 'Exercise', 'Fitness', 'Running'] |
Keep your sanity through big changes | Keep your sanity through big changes
I finally wrote it, THE LAST PRINCIPLE
I‘ve now completed the series. It’s been a deliberately slow process because it takes time to know what works and what’s true. A decade later, I think I’ve got it down.
Principle 10: Make peace with changes to your relationships
Let me know what you think.
Does this resonate? What in this series has been the most helpful to you?
Rebecca | https://medium.com/not-another-diet/keep-your-sanity-through-big-changes-c2682cf9ce70 | ['Rebecca Thomas'] | 2020-10-13 13:50:04.383000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Health', 'Food', 'Relationships', 'Weight Loss'] |
World’s most feverish region in the shadow of Dirty War | Given the rapidly changing situation, the clear reaction of Iran’s enemies is to demonstrate the enmity of humanity in the next 50 days before the change of US administration.
Unexpected developments in the tense region, meetings between US, Israeli and Saudi leaders, the suspected assassination of Iran’s most prominent nuclear scientist in the suburbs of Tehran, blamed on Israel by the Iranian president and other central leaders has been assigned.
The most powerful but least visible player in the US administration may be trying to appease some of Iran’s antigovernmental groups, but a wide-ranging dispute with Tehran stands in the way of its long-term agenda. The Trump administration is rushing to leave Afghanistan and Iraq immediately. According to experts, the Trump administration is trying its best to keep its promises to the American people in any case before the new administration comes.
The possibility of a confrontation between US diplomats and Israel, the largest US ally in the Middle East, with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and long-range missiles cannot be ruled out. That is why, in the current context of the United States silence has prevented the United States from assaulting Iran itself, as the United States has killed the Iranian general ‘Qassim Soleimani” in the past. American silence encourages anti-Iranian forces to show that they want to spread as much hatred as possible to complicate the reconciliation process with Iran. This is easier said than done with a full-scale war with Iran.
Inflation and the COVID-19-stricken Iranian economy and Iranian cities are preventing Iran from going to war. Recent events have had a profound effect on Iran’s presidential election. As far as Israel is concerned, Israel can throw anyone into battle to achieve its goals. This can be gauged from the speech of the Israeli Prime Minister in 2018 that “remember this name” pointing deceased nuclear scientist Fakhrizadeh.
Ahead of the recent US presidential election, holy rites were offered in favor of Donald Trump in Israeli places of worship. According to some experts, the visit of Israeli Prime Minister and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to a new Saudi city before the US presidential swearing-in and the assassination of an Iranian scientist a few days later could be two sides of the same coin. They can obstruct the work of the upcoming President.
For Biden’s team, Netanyahu is likely a problem to be solved rather than an ally, and this killing suggests in that likely fractious relationship with the new US President that Israel can do useful and aggressive things for the White House. It does not hinder Biden being the good cop, when the bad cop has just shown it can kill one of Iran’s most precious human resources in the secure suburbs of Tehran.
With the joint efforts of the current US administration and the Israeli Prime Minister, ending the nuclear deal with Iran is giving the Iranian economy a difficult time. While Biden’s election victory has signaled the resumption of the nuclear deal, anti-Iranian elements are pushing Iran into a dirty war to thwart that signal. That could force the US president to change the terms of the agreement. If the current agreement is implemented in light of its points, the narrow Iranian economy could find great support in the face of an epidemic and inflation. | https://medium.com/@ammar-islam253/worlds-most-feverish-region-in-the-shadow-of-dirty-war-52cce9bb966d | ['Ammar Ul Islam'] | 2020-12-12 20:33:23.208000+00:00 | ['Dirty Wars', 'Current Affairs', 'Iran', 'Us Presidential Election', 'Iranian Nuclear Scientist'] |
Best Hair salon in Mira-Road | At Elements, the hairstylists are experts in their craft. They don’t just cut your hair, they also give you a makeover with colors, styles, and styling tips. All of the stylists are very knowledgeable about their craft and love to talk about it during your session.
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A salon that offers the best hair smoothing services in town! With our expertly trained staff, we provide the best hair smoothing services for men and women. Plus, with the latest cutting-edge technology, our salon is always up-to-date with the latest trends!
We offer various services like Hair Smoothening, Hair Cut, Bridal Makeup, Hair Highlights, Facial and Hair keratin Treatment. Our Keratin Treatment price is Very Affordable. Also we use branded products only.
Our team of well-trained professionals has been creating beautiful, natural looking hair for decades. Our salon is the perfect place to spoil yourself and your friends with a relaxing, luxurious day of pampering. We offer a wide range of services from blowouts, to manicures, to haircuts, and more. | https://medium.com/@smoothhair29/best-hair-salon-in-mira-road-17ce389508cd | ['Smooth Hair'] | 2021-11-20 09:11:46.782000+00:00 | ['Salon', 'Parlor', 'Fashion', 'Makeup'] |
CVE Program Terminology Updated: “CVE Record,” “Top-Level Root,” & More | The CVE Program recently made some changes to program terminology that are of interest to the CVE community. The changes, which will be rolled out across the CVE website and on CVE’s social media platforms in the coming months, were made to optimize CVE content on the website for users and to ensure clear and concise communications with the community.
All terms and definitions discussed below can be found on the CVE Program Terminology page on the CVE website.
A summary of the most significant new terminology and updated definitions is below:
New Terminology
Authorized Data Publisher (ADP) — “An organization authorized within the CVE Program to enrich a CVE Record previously published by a CNA with additional, related information (e.g., risk scores, affected product lists, and versions [i.e., references, translations]) within a defined Scope.”
This new term introduces a new type of CVE partner. The two other partner types are individual CNAs and Root CNAs.
CVE Record — “The descriptive data about a Vulnerability associated with a CVE ID, provided by a CNA, and enriched by ADPs. This data is provided in multiple human and machine-readable formats.”
This new term replaces “CVE Entry.” The new term better describes the multiple components that are included in a published CVE Record (see CNA Rules, Section 8.1); clarifies the three states of a CVE Record (Reserved, Published, Rejected); and significantly reduces the confusion for the public between CVE ID and the former CVE Entry term.
Published — “When a CNA populates the data associated with a CVE ID as a CVE Record, the state of the CVE Record is Published. The associated data must contain an identification number (CVE ID), a prose description, and at least one public reference.”
This new term replaces “Populated” as the state of a CVE Record. The other two states of a CVE Record, Reserved and Rejected, remain the same.
Top-Level Root CNA (TLR-CNA) — “A Root CNA that does not report to another Root CNA, and is thus responsible to the CVE Board.”
This is a new CNA role; currently, MITRE and CISA are the only TLR-CNAs. Read the CVE Program’s news release about CISA becoming a TLR-CNA for additional information about TLR-CNAs.
Updated Definitions
CNA of Last Resort (CNA-LR) — “An organization authorized within the CVE Program to assign CVE IDs and to create and publish CVE Records for vulnerabilities not covered by the Scope of another CNA. A CNA-LR may assume responsibility for assigning a CVE ID and publishing the associated CVE Record based on policies defined by the CVE Program.”
This is a new CNA role that was first introduced in CNA Rules, Version 3.0. Each Top-Level Root CNA and Root CNA is, or has, its own CNA-LR.
Reserved but Public (RBP) — “A CVE ID in the “Reserved” state that is referenced in one or more public resources, but for which the details have not be published in a CVE Record.”
Root CNA — “An organization authorized within the CVE Program that is responsible, within a specific Scope, for the recruitment, training, and governance of one or more entities that are a CVE CNA, CNA-LR, an ADP, or another Root CNA.”
Scope — “The set of hardware, software, or services for which an organization in the CVE Program has a distinct responsibility.”
Secretariat — “An organization authorized within the CVE Program that hosts and maintains the CVE Program’s infrastructure, and provides administrative and logistical support for the CVE Board, CVE Working Groups, and other structures of the CVE Program.”
This CVE Program role was first introduced in CNA Rules, Version 3.0.
Vulnerability — “A flaw in a software, firmware, hardware, or service component resulting from a weakness that can be exploited, causing a negative impact to the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of an impacted component or components.”
More Definitions
This article discusses only the most significant terminology and definitions changes. For a complete list of the terms and definitions currently in use by the CVE Program, visit the Terminology page on the CVE website.
If you have any questions about this article, please comment here or use the CVE Request Web Form and select “Other” from the dropdown menu to contact the CVE Program. We look forward to hearing from you! | https://medium.com/@cve_program/cve-program-terminology-updated-cve-record-top-level-root-more-173f8e9547f5 | ['Cve Program'] | 2020-12-11 22:11:39.417000+00:00 | ['Vulnerability Management', 'Cybersecurity', 'Information Security', 'Cve', 'Vulnerability'] |
How the Israeli-Palestine conflict played out on social media last year | The Israeli Prime Minister’s son, Yair Netenyaho, tweeted in April that there’s no such thing as Palestine since there’s no letter “P” in Arabic.
The now-deleted tweet backfired as many commentators pointed out that the Arabic word for Palestine is “Filistine.”
Others noted the words Jewish and Jerusalem start with the letter “J,” yet there’s no letter in the Hebrew alphabet that has a “J” sound.
In August, the hashtag #BoycottIsrael was trending in the United States for a few hours after Israel banned following the Israeli government’s decision to deny entry to Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar over their support to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
There was some speculation that Israel’s decision was affected by US President Donald Trump’s tweet asking Tlaib and Omar to be barred.
Following this, the hashtag #MyPalestinianSitty, which translates into “my Palestinian grandmother,” gained traction after Israel’s ban meant that Tlaib would also be prevented from visiting her 90-year-old grandmother who lives in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
As CNN explained, “Tlaib and her congressional colleague, Rep. Ilhan Omar, had planned to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories… but the Israeli government banned them over their support for boycotting and divesting from the nation.”
After requesting an exception, “Israel decided to grant Tlaib entry, but under a set of restrictions that the lawmaker later said amounted to an attempt to silence her.” | https://medium.com/damian-radcliffe/how-the-israeli-palestine-conflict-played-out-on-social-media-last-year-8bbad8ebb620 | ['Damian Radcliffe'] | 2020-06-10 15:50:29.682000+00:00 | ['Israel', 'Social Network', 'Middle East', 'Palestine', 'Social Media'] |
Adorable Japanese Cat Thinks He’s A Dog but is Really Marley K | THE SALSA DIARIES #4
Adorable Japanese Cat Thinks He’s A Dog but is Really Marley K
Photo by Madalyn Cox on Unsplash
“You’re cat looks depressed.” A rather blanket statement from the one-eyed Janet, former sex-fiend to the under-privilege and reality star of ‘I’ve Lost An Eyeball At Work’. She hadn’t been the same since the summer of 2010. Back then she was an optimistic woman who had two eyes and a savior complex.
“What do you mean Janet?” I asked back. I hated people who claimed to have an affinity with animals. The horse whisperers are plain weird. I was never into sleeping with pets even if I did occasionally like to stroke a python. Janet had that new-age glow of one who knows.
“You can tell by the way she sits staring into space…almost as if she had a longing…” Yeah. A longing to be long gone from this conversation. I blame Marley K. I met her for lunch a year ago and she seriously spooked my cat.
It was to be one of the longest, most depressing lunches I had ever attended in my life. Another lover of animals, Marley had stared deep into Velvet’s eyes and then slowly crushed her spirit. Her endless chatter of impending doom had done a number on my adopted cat.
It began with the eggs. One long diatribe on the over-easy nature of life and how the egg represented the sad state of America. Once proudly sheathed in eggshell, only to be cracked and split apart as the yoke wobbled inside the white system of oppression. And then it got fried. Unable to break free of it’s crusty and aged patriarchal lining as it slowly cooked from the inside. A white rage that destroyed everything in its path.
You can imagine how the desert went.
Marley held Velvet aloft and forwarned her of the white man's oppression that would decimate the feline population. No cat was safe while whitey was busy erecting the purrfect system of inequality.
“Yes my dear, all white people are racist to cats,” she cooed to Velvet before she looked at me with that ‘I’ve had an inspiring thought’ moment. Little did I know, this anti-cat statement would form the basis of her entire thesis on race and systemic injustice.
Back at the Chateaux, Janet was in the process of trying to cheer Velvet up. Since Velvet had transitioned, the only activity she longed to do was lick her own balls. Unfortunately, they were long gone along with her need to hump every neighborhood pussy in sight. She truly was depressed. And angry. I was about to warn Janet not to get too close as Velvet seared with rage against white people, especially ‘Karens’.
It was too late of course.
Janet was about to suffer another workplace incident that involved an animal and loss of an eye. | https://medium.com/@reubensalsa/adorable-japanese-cat-thinks-hes-a-dog-but-is-really-marley-k-2a222ea60a65 | ['Reuben Salsa'] | 2020-12-16 21:03:29.783000+00:00 | ['Salsa', 'The Bad Influence', 'Satire', 'Humor', 'Absurd'] |
Biweekly Market Report (2020/11/17~2020/11/30) | -
BTC/USDT (Binance)
16,000 (11/17) → 19,544 (11/25) → 16,181 (11/27) → 18,000 (11/30) is a summary of the price movements of Bitcoin futures (Binance) for the past two weeks.
All price data were collected on 11/30 00:00
Since mid-November, BTC has been rushing for a breakthrough. Not only has the news of whales and institutional funds entering the market continued to come to light, but retail investors have also placed significant orders in spot, leveraged spot, and contracts. The crypto marketing is once again thriving. The transaction volume has grown substantially, and even the lending interest rate and funding rate marked growth. However, BTC failed to challenge 20k on 11/25, hitting a peak of 19,484. Following that failure, the overall market momentum pulled back in an instant, and a two-day decline reached a maximum of 17%. After being unable to break below the support of 16,000, the market showed a rapid recovery from 11/27–11/30 and immediately rose back to a high of 18,000. If BTC can manage to break through the previous wave of highs in one fell swoop, the 20k point will no longer be a challenge.
Figure 1: BTC/USD (Binance) Recent trends (hourly line). Source: AIcoin.
ETH/USDT (Binance)
460 (11/17) → 624 (11/24) → 480 (11/26) → 560 (11/30) is a summary of the price movements of Ethereum futures (Binance) for the past two weeks.
All price data were collected on 11/30 00:00
In the past two weeks, ETH and BTC have been in a similar trend, both of which have experienced strong growth, followed by a sharp correction and gradual rebound. What’s different is that ETH has a more obvious rise in the 11/21–11/24 period than BTC, though it still fell by as much as 20% between 11/25–11/27. Finally ETH marked 480 as support before coming back to a water level around 550.
Figure 2: ETH/USDT (Binance) Recent trends (hourly line). Source: AIcoin.
Binance mainstream crypto trend analysis
From Table 1 below, we can see that most mainstream crypto prices have risen in the past two weeks, especially XRP with a 120% increase. From Figure 3 below, it can be seen that XRP once rose to 150% on 11/24. The possible reason for the recent rise of XRP is that Ripple recently issued a Q3 report, which included the news of XRP’s repurchasing plan. Coupled with the recent bull market, the effect has pushed XRP price up even more.
The cumulative rate of return (in USDT) for these cryptocurrencies in the last two weeks is as follows:
Table 1: Cumulative rate of return for each cryptocurrency based on USDT
Figure 3: Cumulative rate of return for each cryptocurrency based on USDT
Market Outlook
With crypto prices rising, volatility has also risen. The holding risk of positions naturally also increased. Given this large wave, there will typically be a sizable period of consolidation. And when holding a larger position and encountering a consolidation, investors usually experience a greater chance of loss. Investors should check whether the positions on hand still meet their risk tolerance. If not, adjustments need to be made ASAP. | https://medium.com/bincentive-en/biweekly-market-report-2020-11-17-2020-11-30-486b16ff1040 | [] | 2020-11-17 00:00:00 | ['Xrp', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Eth', 'Market Review', 'Btc'] |
Your Thoughts: Not Always Yours | Nobody owns their thoughts and ideas. Brain acts as a radio transmitter, where it receive thoughts and vibes in form of invisible frequency from the great Universe. Every single flash of thought is a reflection of your tuned frequency in the brain. Just like radio waves, thoughts and vibes has their own waves which flows across the Universe. It starts from the point of origin, the spot where individual is, and travel persistently in the Universe. When individual think about great vision with higher tuned and set frequency, waves of thoughts travels endlessly in the surrounding environment. Consistent thinking with voluntary efforts to stick on those frequency can have fruitful reaction from the Universe. If any other individual or group of individuals, set their own frequency which match pure content of original waves, they can blend their minds in one another. If group of ambitious people, match their waves and blend their minds, can create a separate World and communication system, through which their brains can communicate with or without intention of individuals. Brain communication system works without technical failures, once the connection establish. Blending of brain into one another is just like mixing individual bodies into one soul. Then one supereme soul form and direct each of them to take action in certain manner, to realise their single combined goal. Under brain communication system, every single thought wave from each single brains connected, can travel and reach to other connected receiver brain. These thought waves are powerful and magnetic in nature, which can travel and move without any hurdles and no material things of the World can stop it. Thought waves with higher frequency moves and spread in each part of the Universe, and other brains receive and interpret original content of thought. If some other brains also tuned for the similar content and vision, their brains starts to receive similar magnetic thought waves from across the Universe. | https://medium.com/@rohan-vankar6496/your-thoughts-not-always-yours-4478fcdac821 | ['Rohan Vankar'] | 2020-10-16 12:42:16.548000+00:00 | ['Universe', 'Decision Making', 'Physics', 'Thoughts', 'Thinking'] |
Road Bike Training Informational | The cycling network is continually advancing, with veteran riders hanging up their haggles and new cyclists simply beginning their prep for the ride. We can now effectively visualize the total reach at renowned cycling camps and functions. And I think encouraging the essentials is similarly as significant as helping competitors exploit the most recent advances in sports science.
For many of us, our relationship with our bikes can develop and change for the duration of our lives, and this goes for certain individuals when they follow a set of objectives and train to accomplish them.
Going from an individual who rides a bicycle to a competitor in preparing shouldn’t be scary progress. Cycling preparation shouldn’t be muddled to be powerful, but rather with the demonstrated data and cycling tips mentioned here, one can begin preparing and setting themselves up for rides longer than three hours.
Preparing to Train For Cycling As a Beginner
Before hopping into exercises or expanding the measure of time you’re spending on a bike, there are a few assignments and buys to mark off your rundown real quick, and these include:
Take your bicycle to the shop: Get a check-up and replace worn parts (possibly brake cushions, tires, chain, and so forth) so your bicycle is prepared to help you where you intend to ride.
Get a bicycle fit: Training stresses the body, and upgrading the manner in which you sit on the bicycle causes you to ride serenely and decreases the possibility of injury or hazard. A decent bicycle fit can take out or forestall deadness in the hands, touchiness in the neck and shoulders, and agony in the lower back and knees.
Rigging up: You don’t need to pack up like a professional, however, cushioned cycling shorts are basic (Baggies work as well if you’re not into skin-tight. Cycling seats don’t have a ton of cushioning since they are intended to work with cushioned shorts. For other clothing, evade cotton, stay with dampness-wicking textures, and use layers so you can change for climate conditions.
Wear a protective cap: You’re not the hulk. Don’t even start flexing.
Anything made of carbon fiber: Carbon fiber is Light, Solid, and Costly
Aluminum will do just fine for you. Ride your bicycle more than you did a week ago. In the event that you haven’t been riding a bike routinely, start by riding three to multiple times per hour each time. Try not to stress over going hard. Try not to go from zero to full fletched energy on week one. Try not to begin with power; start with volume and include force later.
As you get in the zone, or in your own flow, try and Include longer end of the weekly rides. You can include preparing volume by gradually making each ride longer. A basic approach to add volume is to add time to the end of the weekly rides. Discover how long your longest ride should be. Also, this is additionally advantageous in light of the fact that at this stage a more extended individual ride makes a huge improvement. All of this will assist in the upgrade that makes your body adjust and develop further.
Final Verdict on Road Bike Training
Interface with the cycling network. Riding with more experienced cyclists is the most ideal approach to get the hang of cycling aptitudes. Likewise, with whatever else, there is an expectation to absorb information before you begin with cycling. Everybody began someplace, and most are glad to help abbreviate the expectation to absorb information for less experienced riders.
The key is to discover a gathering you’re alright with, and the best spot to begin is your neighborhood bicycle shop or cycling club. Many compose free week after week bunch rides at different aptitude, speed, and experience levels. Some additionally sort out gathering instructional meetings, similar to a gathering at a barbeque. But this time, it isn’t the meat sweats.
For More Information Visit Us:- https://bikecyclingreviews.com/road-bike-training-informational-blog/ | https://medium.com/@bikecyclingreviews567/road-bike-training-informational-5a942202f310 | ['Bikecycling Reviews'] | 2021-07-06 05:43:07.289000+00:00 | ['Cycling'] |
What Happened to The Man Who Refused to Salute Hitler? | What Happened to The Man Who Refused to Salute Hitler?
Picture Source: Wikipedia
This is perhaps one of the most impressive photos in history. In it, you can see a group of Nazi enthusiasts raising their arms and performing the Roman salute. However, if we look at the circle of the photograph, in the upper right part, we can see a man with his arms crossed, maintaining a challenging pose, which contrasts with the rest.
Who was this person who, by not performing the seig heil before Hitler, was risking his life? For what reason, knowing the risks that the gesture entailed,
did he refuse to do it? The snapshot was taken on June 1936 in an act carried out by the Nazi Party for the baptism of a new German Navy ship at the Blohm+Voss shipyards in Hamburg.
All workers and family members were doing the official greeting, either for political convictions or for fear of the vigilantes that were in the surroundings, except August, who had more than enough reasons to not give the Nazi dictator that satisfaction.
The Love Story
August Landmesser was a worker at the company Blohm+Voss who in 1931, had joined the Nazi party just to get a license with which to work in the shipping company. However, in 1933 something happened in his life that changed everything. That year he met a woman named Irma Eckler and he had fell in love with her, even though she was Jewish. August didn’t care and, defying the race laws of Nuremberg, they became a couple, having a daughter in 1935, named Ingrid. As a result, he was expelled from the Nazi Party. Hence the anger and the gesture of defiance that appears in the photo of the following year.
Fleeing Germany
In 1937, seeing the anti-Semitic and radical turn of his country under Hitler’s leadership, he decided to flee to Denmark with his family but they were detained at the border. He was prosecuted and charged for the crimes of “dishonoring the race ”and“ racial infamy ”and, in 1938, he was informed that he was going to be acquitted if he broke off his relationship with Irma. August did not accept and was sentenced to spend three years in a concentration camp while his wife, who was pregnant, was also arrested and taken to another field where their daughter Irene was born. There, they separated Irma from her daughters and finally ended her life in an extermination field.
When August was released he did not know where his wife or daughters were, and immediately he was enlisted and brought to the front where he probably died since they never found his remains. This story of defiance and death could have ended anonymously, like many others in that time of death and pain, but this time it was not so. In 1996 this story of human dignity by refusing to salute the Nazi came to light thanks to the work of August’s daughter Irene. | https://historyofyesterday.com/what-happened-to-the-man-who-refused-to-salute-hitler-1aa06b78f4cb | ['Jayden Yugie'] | 2020-12-21 09:03:16.371000+00:00 | ['Germany', 'Politics', 'History', 'War', 'Nazis'] |
The Daily Practice | Following a process to make progress every day, one tiny step at a time. | https://medium.com/the-daily-practice/my-writing-process-a6f661f2f393 | ['Zane Dickens'] | 2021-01-14 06:56:08.988000+00:00 | ['Writing Life', 'Writing Tips', 'Creative Process', 'Writing', 'Practice In Public'] |
7 Ways to Develop Prosperity Consciousness | Barbora Polednová of Unsplash
First of all, understand that prosperity is an effect in the same way that poverty or scarcity is. If you think about cause and effect, then the cause is your mindset. The sum of your thoughts, beliefs, meanings, intentions, decisions, memories, values, become your habits of thinking and behaving — your personality.
Your personality is your mindset in action. Your personality then creates your personal reality. In order to change your personal reality, you have to change your personality — you have to undergo personality development in order to change the beliefs that hinder you to experience the reality you desire.
Coming back to prosperity, it is also a state of mind — the continuous thoughts and emotions giving you the experience and reality of prosperity. These thoughts and associated emotions determine your responses and subsequent consequences that you recognize as prosperity.
It is the cycle of thoughts, emotions, responses of speech and actions, and consequences that create the results in your life.
Awareness
Another word for consciousness is awareness and in terms of prosperity it means to what extent you are aware of prosperity. That means that you must be able to recognize prosperity. Right?
It is here where the problem and solution lies. Most people run their brains on autopilot, meaning that they are mostly unaware of themselves. They are unaware of the 65000 thoughts they have every day. This is evident of the same daily routine people follow day in and day out.
The body has in fact taken over the conscious mind. You see, your body is the expression of your subconscious mind. When the body and mind is in sync, the body takes over. For example, you don’t consciously think how to drive your car, get dressed, cook a meal (unless it is a new recipe), take a shower, etc.
The body knows how to do that. It does not need the conscious mind. This is where most people operate. They have basically abdicated their conscious mind to their subconscious mind.
The danger with this premise is that the body-mind (subconscious mind), also called the ego mind, is jealous of its territory. It likes things the way they are. Its job is to keep you safe is powerful enough to create the circumstances to make sure things stay the same.
That is if you should get the ridiculous idea to do something beyond the boundaries it has set for you, like making loads of money if you haven’t done so before.
Self-Image
The main driver of the subconscious mind is your self-image that operates like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you have a self-image of not good enough, not worthy, inadequate, inferior, then that is how you will see and experience a life of lack, fear and feeling separate from success, money and Source or God.
If you have a self-image of worthy and good enough, then you will experience a life of success, prosperity and flow.
This affects all aspects of your life, including business, money, relationships and health.
The key then is to upgrade your self-image and thereby free yourself from the past. Here is how.
Personality Development
You have to teach your body-mind a new experience of prosperity. You have to condition it to become used to the new experience of love and abundance. In doing this, you rewire your brain by continuously firing new brain cells until they become dominant.
These comprise of a variety of practices of personality development where you design and implement a New You.
In the process you become the person who you need to be to live a reality of prosperity flowing into your business and life.
Here are 7 Ways to Cultivate Prosperity Consciousness:
1 Guided Meditation
Do a guided meditation and visualization of what you and your life will look like when you have manifested the prosperity you desire, daily.
2 Addicted to Feel Good
Become acutely aware of how you feel and continuously practice to raise your vibration, looking for anything that makes you feel good.
3 Attitude of Gratitude
Develop an attitude of gratitude where you keep a journal and continuously count your blessings of what you have. Also, express gratitude for what you desire to manifest as if it is already here.
4 Way-of-Being
Contemplate who you need to BE: what beliefs, intentions and habits you need to practice and integrate. Deliberately and consciously practice them daily to integrate them into your neurology until it becomes your dominant way-of-being.
5 Clarity
Take time everyday and continue to get clarity on your vision and your why, feeling it and giving thanks for having it.
6 Visual Images
Make a vision board and or Pinterest board filled with images of what prosperity will look like in your life and business. Imagine yourself in these places, doing the activities and interacting with whom you would love to and most importantly, feel the feelings that make it real to your subconscious mind.
7 Daily Rituals
Have daily rituals where you frequently and deliberately tune into the higher vibration of prosperity, seeing and feeling yourself living that reality.
To learn more, get the free, guided meditation Own Your Greatness and 3 Radical Consciousness Shifts to Prosperity & Success on my website: https://dinamarais.com
Book a free discovery call with me. | https://medium.com/@dinamarais/7-ways-to-develop-prosperity-consciousness-6ff95edda1cb | ['Dina Marais'] | 2019-04-11 08:10:43.600000+00:00 | ['Business Development', 'Money Mindset', 'Prosperity Consciousness', 'Self Improvement', 'Prosperity'] |
Sleep Training Truths: What Science Can (And Can't) Tell Us About Crying It Out | Credit: Scott Bakal for NPR
Welcome to parenthood! For many of us, parenthood is like being air-dropped into a foreign land, where protohumans rule and communication is performed through cryptic screams and colorful fluids. And to top it off, in this new world, sleep is like gold: precious and rare. (Oh, so precious.)
Click here to download .
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Throughout human history, children were typically raised in large, extended families filled with aunts, uncles, grannies, grandpas and siblings. Adding another baby to the mix didn't really make a big dent.
Nowadays, though, many moms and dads are going about it alone. As a result, taking care of a newborn can be relentless. There are too few arms for rocking, too few chests for sleeping and too few hours in the day to stream The Great British Bake Off. At some point, many parents need the baby to sleep — alone and quietly — for a few hours.
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And so, out of self-preservation, many of us turn to the common, albeit controversial, practice of sleep training, in hopes of coaxing the baby to sleep by herself. Some parents swear by it. They say it's the only way they and their babies got any sleep. Others parents say letting a baby cry is harmful.
What does the science say? Here we try to separate fiction from fact and offer a few reassuring tips for wary parents. Let's start with the basics.
For More Details visit : https://bit.ly/3tA0gt9 | https://medium.com/@was02525/sleep-training-truths-what-science-can-and-cant-tell-us-about-crying-it-out-b944653d491d | ['Waseem Ahmed'] | 2021-09-11 17:19:56.779000+00:00 | ['Baby Easy Sleep', 'Baby Sleep Training', 'Best Sleeping Tips', 'Baby Sleep'] |
Intimacy Avoidance and Childhood Trauma | Renowned psychiatrist and psychological trauma expert Dr. Judith Herman was once posed a question on how to heal from psychological trauma. Her response, “the healing is relational — just as the damage is relational, the healing is relational. You can’t really heal by yourself.” Her point is this: we must engage socially if we are to combat our trauma. Exposure to childhood trauma is profound in our society. National data suggests 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 5 boys will survive child sexual abuse, and additional data reports 3.6 million referrals were made to child protective agencies across the United States. Clearly, childhood trauma is not a rare occurrence. And remember — these data are only reported incidents. Our knowledge of the prevalence of trauma is limited.
My job as a therapist allows me to see the devastating impact that psychological trauma creates — on both an individual and societal level. Exposure to psychological trauma is a factor in a number of psychological disorders, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), substance use disorders, mood and anxiety disorders, personality disorders and psychotic disorders. More profoundly, however, is the impact that childhood trauma takes on survivor’s ability to navigate intimate relationships.
Avoidance as Survival
In my work as a therapist to trauma survivors, it’s become clear that individuals engage in a myriad of behaviors, both– adaptive and maladaptive — with one central purpose: to feel safe. Clients would not be engaging in potentially harmful behaviors if they felt they didn’t need to. An example of a maladaptive behavior focused on safety is intimacy avoidance.
Intimacy avoidance is manifested in a number of ways. These are a couple ways my clients have posed this to me:
· I was going on a date but I cancelled because I was so anxious
· I can’t even go on dating apps because I’m so nervous to put myself out there
· I don’t really find the necessity of a boyfriend. I’m fine by myself.
In these examples, we can see the fear that relationships bring — and in the last one, this person has chosen isolation rather than companionship. Understanding avoidance can be pretty simple — as all humans use this defense in a number of ways. Think of the age old example of a child touching a hot stove and getting burned. Once the child is hurt, the child learns that stoves can cause harm. Consequently, the child does not touch a hot stove again. The same principle is true for trauma survivors in relationships. When a child learns their primary relationships are untrustworthy and unsafe, the child quickly feels that all relationships are unsafe. Thus, much like a hot stove, the abused child does not touch relationships again. If the survivor does engage in relationships, they may be incredibly weary and anxious — always looking for signs of danger.
It’s understandable that intimacy avoidance yields safety. Adult survivors of child abuse may routinely avoid intimacy with others. It’s very possible that in the abusive environment, the child’s only defense mechanism was isolation. If one can relationally withdraw, one can be protected. Intimacy avoidance is adaptive in the traumatizing environment — and may be necessary. However, outside of the traumatizing environment, this avoidance invariably yields pain. Intimacy avoidance may provide immediate relief from pain, but this relief comes at a price — disconnection and loneliness.
Another prominent psychiatrist, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, uses the comparison to a sensitive smoke detector. We’ve all lived in apartments where the smoke detector will sound the alarm even if we slightly burn toast. The smoke detectors scream and yell despite the minimal amount of danger we are in. The traumatized mind works similarly. In relationships, the survivor’s internal smoke detector is blaring, manifested by anxiety and our body’s flight, flight and freeze response. The old, archaic part of the brain, the limbic system, tells the survivor one thing: you are not safe and you need to run. Thus, survivors of child abuse then have a unique relationship challenge: engage in social and intimate relationships— which creates fear — or continuously feel disengaged, lonely and abandoned. Survivors are stuck between the biological and psychological need of attachment and the intolerable panic they feel in relationships. This is where therapy from a trained psychologist, counselor or clinical social worker can be helpful.
So… What do we do now?
Relationships are a source of difficulty for everyone — even more for survivors of abuse. Through exposures and well trained therapists, survivors can not only manage their relationship anxieties, but actually use their experiences to become a great partner. Once mastery of trauma occurs, survivor’s narratives can become an enormous source of power and strength — for themselves or others. Mastery of trauma occurs in social relationships — it cannot occur in isolation. The beginning step is to reach out to someone — a trusted person who will listen. This could be a friend, family member or a therapist. You don’t need to disclose everything all at once. You get to control how much this person knows and the extent of every detail. Build trust and vulnerability with people at your own pace. Maybe start off small — it’s not necessary to open the conversation with your trauma.
The world can be a safe place. Relationships can be transformative. The vulnerability you bring to relationships will be the genesis of your healing — and allow you to believe that there are safe people in this world.
Bret Nielson is a Licensed Social Worker in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of social work programs at the University of Pennsylvania and Utah State University. Bret helps individuals with problematic sexual behavior and childhood trauma.
bretjnielson.com | https://bret-nielson.medium.com/intimacy-avoidance-and-childhood-trauma-485651ea7106 | ['Bret Nielson'] | 2020-12-12 16:02:18.454000+00:00 | ['Intimacy', 'PTSD', 'Trauma', 'Mental Health'] |
The Direct-to-Consumer aesthetic: how minimalism obscures our identities | The Instagram ads you are mysteriously compelled to click on are slowly molding your style preferences. You know the ad with the perfect looking french bulldog wearing the sleek pink harness for purchase. The dog is walking toward their monochromatic-outfitted-owner standing against a bold orange studio backdrop. You can’t forget about the expected Sans Serif typeface with a pre-destined personality.
I’m in a candy store filled with digital brands like Warby Parker, AllBirds, Outdoor Voices, Everlane, Casper, Wild One, Glossier, By Humankind, and BarkBox products, to name a few. Or am I? I’m beginning to lose my taste. Is the flavor losing its punch or is it me?
Would I dare to purchase that random plant pot misplaced at the local garden store rather than from The Sill, the epitome of DTC brands? This distinct style of these brands is rapidly finding its way into all sorts of areas in this digital consumer era. The designs are becoming predictable. Equally as predictable: the backstory, the mission.
Photo from Wild One.
DTC Aesthetic: Addressing the Elephant in the Room
Now more than ever, consumers want a story and cause to rally behind. The idea of “putting your money where one’s mouth is” is the fruition of new generations leveraging their collective online presence. During the heated 2016 Presidential Election, we witnessed brands come under the limelight for their endorsements, specifically from upper leadership, and laid out bare for criticism, resistance, and bad press. Vogue? Couture? Flagship Only? Who cares. Tell me about your social, environmental, and political impact. Only radical transparency, please.
The first time I walked into Warby Parker to purchase a pair of glasses I was embraced warmly by their seemingly sensible product, story, and mission. This could be a case for successful branding and marketing efforts. What we’re seeing more is the DTC brand aesthetic infiltrating media and other industries beyond lifestyle products. This minimal and distinct Sans-Serif, hand-drawn illustrations, suave color schemes, and brand woke-ness is a formula reaching all corners of the internet. No doubt, these once small digital brands are shaking up larger, older brands to compete in this new social media enriched era.
Minimalism is embraced in the DTC world. I’m thinking of the minimal effort placed on the consumer to get what they want. Who are these new products really serving though? There’s always the forefront of inclusivity, sustainable practices, and ally-ship with many brands through social media features, collaborations, and representations. It’s all becoming formulated to serve the ideal consumer who fits this ideal streamlined lifestyle. The personality of the product is dismantled into a distinct profile and leaves little for the imagination.
How Minimalism Obscures Culture and Stories
This reminded me of a recent Scratching the Surface podcast featuring Kyle Chayka and host Jarret Fuller. In this episode, Jarrett and Kyle discuss how minimalism often obscures complex systems. Kyle described an example where magazines sold were sorted by their level of minimalism. The copies that were more minimal in design were sold at a higher price point than those with a less minimal composition. Industries hold certain aesthetics as more valuable and more worthy than others. This might be rooted in our Western cultural values and the oppression of other cultures.
Photo source from Vox by Bon Appétit.
One avenue of influence from strict minimalistic aesthetic guidelines is found in the food entertainment industry. More specifically, the growing popularity of the Bon Appétit YouTube Channel has created a cult following of what would appear to be a wholesome fandom. “Burnt the bread? No problem, it happens. We’ll work it through together.” Every test kitchen editor oozes the New York cadence and carries a home-cook’s approach to cooking.
This past summer, Bon Appétit dismantled their iconic staff due to pay discrepancy between their white staffers and those who are Black or of color. From their editorial side, a conversation started to spark around how often BIPOC create recipes rooted deeply in their culture that must be decontextualized and trimmed away to mold into the minimal and accessible-yet-exclusive framework that many mainstream food media abide by.
Effective inclusive practices in the digital age are not a watered-down more chewable version of a piece of content. Instead, it contains a long-term embodiment of culturally diverse stories and content that go beyond becoming culture props.
A Case for Successful Branding But Loosen Up A Little
I want to remind us of the magical experience of connecting with an object or service where a story is continued over time. Also where the design and aesthetic possibilities aren’t so formulated. It doesn’t have to be a one and done story.
Photo from Adobe blog post featuring COLLINS redesign of Twitch.
In an interview with Adobe, Brian Collins, chief creative officer of COLLINS, shared insights around their design decisions and approach for the recent rebranding of the global digital platform Twitch. COLLINS embraced the radical idea of “mess is more.” Collins discusses the reasoning behind this decision, “One look at the history of Twitch told us that to reduce this winning formula it to a bland, minimalist design language would be ridiculous. For Twitch, less is not more. Mess is more.”
“A good brand delivers a product or service consistently. A great brand is about meeting — and then exceeding — the expectations of the present, while building equity for the future.”
Design is THE things right now. These trendy DTC brands have typically put human needs to the forefront of their products and identity. This might explain why a desk lamp from an online DTC brand is far better than the one off the Staples shelf. It’s now a matter of keeping these brands accountable and preventing one’s identity to be swept away by aggressive online aesthetics. | https://uxdesign.cc/the-rapid-wildfire-of-the-direct-to-consumer-aesthetic-a-formula-lacking-flavor-4b3bc75f5b07 | ['Yuna Shin'] | 2020-12-02 00:04:10.657000+00:00 | ['UI', 'Design', 'Ts', 'Marketing', 'Visual Design'] |
React Native vs. Flutter | One fact I learned very quickly in my development journey is this: unlike those brightly colored popcorn shirts from the 90’s, software frameworks are not one size fits all. There are tons of different technologies to choose from, all with their own sets of pros and cons, as well as communities of people who will defend their obvious superiority over competing technologies ruthlessly on any internet platform they can find. This, coupled with the fact that new libraries and frameworks pop up, rise and then inevitably fall in popularity what feels like every other week, can make the task of choosing the right one for your next project feel pretty overwhelming. In this blog I’ll go over some of the differences between two of the biggest fish in the mobile development pond: React Native and Flutter, and hopefully it can be of use to someone struggling to choose between the two.
Let’s start with some basic introductions.
What is React Native?
React Native is an open source mobile framework designed by Facebook in 2015. It’s been around for a few years and in that time has gained a loyal following of developers who have used it to create many successful apps we know and love today, such as Facebook, Instagram and Skype. It can be used for both mobile and web applications, and is built on top of ReactJS and JavaScript, allowing developers to use the power of React to create user interfaces with elements that look native to Android, iOS and UWP.
What is Flutter?
Flutter is an open source software development toolkit that can be used for both mobile and web applications. It was created by Google in 2018, and although it hit the scene much later than React Native, it has quickly made a name for itself as it significantly decreases the time needed to build an app compared to native development. Flutter uses an object-oriented programming language called Dart. Some popular apps made with Flutter are eBay, Alibaba and Google Ads.
Now that we have a basic idea of what these two different technologies are, let’s get into some of the major differences.
Architecture
When choosing a cross-platform mobile app development framework, it’s imperative to take its technical architecture into consideration. React Native architecture relies heavily on JavaScript bridge, or JS runtime environment architecture. The JavaScript code is compiled into native code at runtime. React Native uses Flux architecture from Facebook, and JavaScript bridge to communicate with the native modules, and this can sometimes result in poorer performance. Since React Native uses JavaScript, one of the most popular web development languages, it makes the tool easier to master and incorporate in projects for those already familiar with JavaScript and React.
Here’s an example of what a simple Hello World would look like in React Native.
React Native is easy to learn for developers experienced with React or Javascript
On the other hand, Flutter uses Dart, a language created by Google. While Dart is rarely used outside of Flutter, it shares similarities with both JavaScript and Java in syntax, making it easy to pick up for anyone familiar with those languages. Dart has many frameworks packed inside like Cupertino or Material Design, so it’s bigger in size and often does not require the bridge to communicate with the native modules. Dart uses the Skia C++ engine, which has all the protocols, compositions and channels needed to develop mobile apps. Simply put, Flutter has everything required for app development in the Flutter engine itself, unlike React Native.
Here’s what some simple code in Dart looks like.
Google’s Dart does not have separation of template, style, and data files. It is a relatively new coding language but is known to have well-written documentation so the learning curve is not too steep, especially for experienced Java and C++ developers.
Speed and productivity
One key characteristic of React Native that comes with both pros and cons is that it uses native UI components. A resulting disadvantage is that you run the risk of your application’s interface breaking when a new version of the operating system is released. Extra maintenance may be needed in the long run when working with React Native. On the plus side, any native updates will be applied automatically in React Native applications, unlike with Flutter, where you need to implement them manually. React relies on third party libraries, which could slow down the development process, but could also be a plus if you need to build customized user interfaces.
Flutter is known for its quick time-to-market speed. With its own rich library of components packed right in, you can utilize and apply these components across different platforms and operating systems, saving hours of development time. It was also specifically designed to generate user interfaces quickly based on Material Design rules, which helps speed up work as well.
Community
A strong sense of community is essential to help developers learn from one another and solve commonly found issues and bugs. In terms of community, React Native has the upper hand solely by the fact that it’s older, and has had more years to accrue an extensive, active community. Flutter has the disadvantage of being newer, yet with its rapid growth in popularity, its likely the Flutter community will reach the level of interaction and engagement of React’s online community very soon.
So who’s the winner?
There’s no objective answer to the question of which technology is better. Both Flutter and React Native are incredible tools that can help you build a cross-platform application quicker and easier than with other native frameworks. Both come with their own set of pros and cons, and while React Native has the advantage of being around for longer, some experts in the tech world have predicted that Flutter will surpass React Native’s prominence with time. As I’m no industry expert, nor am I Raven Baxter, I’ll refrain from attempting to predict the future and instead wait and see what the future brings. | https://levelup.gitconnected.com/react-native-vs-flutter-703bff679882 | ['Amber Khan'] | 2021-01-17 02:18:57+00:00 | ['Flutter', 'App Development', 'React Native', 'Mobile App Development', 'Development'] |
Automation in summary generation | In this article we will explain how our summarization algorithm works, to create a summary of the text or an audio file.
Automatic summarization is the process of shortening a set of data computationally, to create a subset that represents the most important or relevant information within the original content. In addition to text, images and videos can also be summarised.
NLP (Natural Language Processing) Module is an application to use in the summarization algorithm, and here is the method of how to implement it with Spacy.
These are the following ideas that are helpful to create a summarization algorithm:
Text Preprocessing (remove stopwords, punctuation).
Frequency table of words/Word Frequency Distribution — how many times each word appears in the document
Score each sentence depending on the words it contains and the frequency table
Build summary by joining every sentence above a certain score limit
Let’s start,
1) Import spacy package.
2) Import Text processing package, (STOP_WORDS, punctuation)
3) get the list of the stop words from the spacy.
4) Store the information of the original text in a variable.
5) load the English module of spacy to work on English language data. and create an NLP object.
6) Splitting each word of sentences of the paragraph to create tokens.
7) Iterate through the list and check if the corresponding word is not present in the stop words list and if not, increase its frequency by 1. and create the list variable according to the frequency of the word.
8) At this point having generated the frequencies of each word in the given data, normalize the frequencies by extracting the maximum of all frequencies which was generated in the earlier step and divide frequency of each word by the maximum frequency.
9) Now there is a need to generate scores of each sentence in the data to generate an optimal summary of the given data. For that first tokenize each sentence in the data.
10) Now, having generated a list of sentences and also a list of
words. So, generate a score for each sentence by adding the
weighted frequencies of the word that occurs in a particular
sentence. As it is not interested in a summary, it has to score
only those sentences with less than 30 words.
11) In the earlier step, the output is generated as a dictionary of sentences with their scores. Now, select the top N sentences by passing our sentence scores dictionary along with its values and the required N sentences to the n-largest function in the NLTK library and it turns into a list with sentences according to their sentence scores.
12) Further, convert the sentences to strings and then Finally Join them to generate the finalized summary.
13) Final Output | https://medium.com/@gadhiaamish/automation-in-summary-generation-8b6c51e6388f | ['Amish Gadhia'] | 2020-12-15 14:26:23.643000+00:00 | ['Naturallanguageprocessing', 'Python', 'Summarization', 'Python Programming'] |
Dodgers can’t finish late rally, but rotation will soon get a lift | (Photo by Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)
by Rowan Kavner
A day after 41-year-old Albert Pujols homered in his first at-bat back at Busch Stadium since 2019, another veteran stole the show in St. Louis.
The Dodgers had no answer Wednesday for 40-year-old Adam Wainwright, who came two outs shy of throwing his Major League-leading fourth complete game of the year in a 5–4 Dodger loss.
“I just thought Wainwright had our number tonight,” said manager Dave Roberts.
The Dodgers struck in the first and the ninth inning. What occurred in between was mostly futile.
Wainwright, who hadn’t allowed more than four hits in any of his previous three games, surrendered hits to three of the first four batters of the night. The Dodgers turned those two singles and a double into one run, with Mookie Betts getting thrown out at the plate on a relay.
The Dodgers would regret not adding on when they could.
The first inning gave more problems to Dodger pitcher Mitch White, who allowed three runs in the opening frame for the second straight start before once again settling in. He surrendered a career-high four earned runs in five innings, with half the damage coming on a two-out, two-run home run in the first inning from Yadier Molina, another veteran making his mark on the series.
White said he felt a little out of rhythm in the first inning.
“Probably should stop hanging so many sliders, would be a good start,” White said. “There were some positives in there. I need to be better about getting going from the start.”
An early 4–1 deficit seemed nearly conclusive, given Wainwright’s groove. At one point, the Cardinals right-hander retired 22 of 23 Dodger batters.
When Trea Turner led off the ninth inning with a single, it was the Dodgers’ only hit after the first inning other than a Max Muncy solo homer in the sixth.
“He’s very elite at changing speeds, that’s what’s made him so good,” Muncy said. “He kept us off balance the entire night.”
Groundout after groundout kept Wainwright’s pitch count down. The Dodgers got him in four three-ball counts, but they didn’t record a walk for the sixth time this season.
Turner’s ninth-inning single gave him a Dodger-best 15-game hitting streak. It also started a rally.
Corey Seager’s second run-scoring hit of the game put the tying run on base and ended Wainwright’s night with one out in the ninth inning. But Giovanny Gallegos finished off Wainwright’s win from there, getting a sacrifice fly from Will Smith and a strikeout from Chris Taylor.
All seven of the Dodgers’ hits came from their top four hitters in the lineup.
“Pitchers come out and give us their best,” Muncy said. “We really haven’t been giving our best back at them. It’s just one of those things where we have the talent, and we’re just not putting it together.”
The Dodgers are now batting .209 over their last 22 games, despite a pitching staff that has carried them to a 16–6 record in that time. Neither Muncy nor Roberts had an answer for the offensive inconsistencies.
With the Giants winning, the Dodgers fell two games back in the division race.
“I know the preparation, the urgency every night from beginning of the season hasn’t changed,” Roberts said. “I just don’t have an answer, but clearly the last 30 days we just haven’t been ourselves. The pitching and defense has really allowed us to win a lot of ballgames. There’s going to come a time where the offense has to pick up some slack, too.”
Gonsolin, Kershaw near return
Tony Gonsolin is expected to be activated Thursday and pitch the bulk of the game, while Clayton Kershaw could return to the rotation Monday against Arizona.
“We’ve done a great job of preventing runs, but when you get Tony and Clayton back, guys that were projected to be big parts of our pitching staff this year, it’s going to be a huge lift,” Roberts said.
Neither Gonsolin (shoulder inflammation) nor Kershaw (sore elbow) have pitched since July. Gonsolin’s last Major League outing was July 30, while Kershaw’s was July 3.
Kershaw allowed two runs on four hits and struck out three batters in three innings Tuesday in a rehab start with Triple-A Oklahoma City. Roberts said while Kershaw’s command wasn’t where he wanted it to be, he got built up to 49 pitches and came out of it feeling good. The Dodgers expect Kershaw to be able to go four innings or 60 pitches his next time out.
“It’s ample time to get him right,” Roberts said. “We’ve just got to be smart. The main thing is to keep him healthy through October.”
If Kershaw is able to return early next week, he should be able to get at least four starts in before the end of the season.
“Realizing the team that we have and the opportunity that we have, from being around a little bit, you understand you don’t really get this opportunity very much,” Kershaw told reporters Wednesday. “I just want to be a part of it. I want to be a part of it however I can be and hopefully contribute. So, this is a good first step Monday to get going. We’ve got a good chance at something, so that’s exciting.” | https://dodgers.mlblogs.com/dodgers-cant-finish-late-rally-but-rotation-will-soon-get-a-lift-469716330582 | ['Rowan Kavner'] | 2021-09-09 04:33:48.874000+00:00 | ['Updates', 'Cardinals', 'Dodgers', 'Postgame', 'MLB'] |
I Dialed And Immediately Cut The Call Due to This Marketing Insight | I Dialed And Immediately Cut The Call Due to This Marketing Insight Thomas Lekhanya ·Nov 16, 2020
Yesterday, I called a number and recognized something odd when I looked at my phone screen…
I immediately dropped the call…
Can you guess what I saw and why I did that?
I did it because I recognized the psychological loophole I’d almost fallen for yet millions of people fall for ever week…
This same loophole is actually used by scammers too…
Ever clicked on a promising link which sent you to one of those websites that chameleon themselves to look like a reputable, wellknown brand?
Besides the slightly different design, everything looks legit, and the URL might even look so too until you see there’s an extra letter…
It’s pretty clever actually…
They’re essentially performing a “credibility transplant” so that, instead of using our critically thinking they persuade us through our cognitive biases (such as “familiarity bias” through recognizing the brand you know….and “authority bias” through the brand’s power and time in business). These basically get us thinking “meh, seems legit”.
Now, of course these powers could be used for good…
Say Elon Musk bought shares in a Namibian battery company, it would make sense for that company to somehow transfer some of that…*clears throat* musk of credibility.
(c’mon, I had to!)
So why did I drop my call?
Because I thought I’d dialed through my native Huawei Android keyboard when in fact it was the Truecaller app.
“They getsing more of me data! Ahhhh!!!”
I know, shock horror!
Halloween’s past and I didn’t like being tricked like that.
But they did treat me to a useful marketing insight.
Until next time
Thomas Lekhanya | https://medium.com/@tomlekhanya/i-dialed-and-immediately-cut-the-call-due-to-this-marketing-insight-dd1141a5137f | ['Thomas Lekhanya'] | 2020-11-16 09:28:53.173000+00:00 | ['Advertising', 'Elon Musk', 'Halloween', 'Bait And Switch', 'Scam'] |
Amazing Grapes Juice Benefit for Health | Hello, friends welcome to our post. In this post, we are going to tell you about the amazing grapes juice benefit for health. In this post, we have completely discussed on properties of grapes, analysis of grapes elements, uses, and the benefit of grape juice, etc. So let’s start…
GRAPES JUICE
INTRODUCTION TO GRAPES:
Grapes are grown more than any other fruit. Grapes with a very tasty taste make your mouth water. It is available in the market from January to March.
Grapes vines grew and are planted on the canopy. There are three types of grapes: green, black, and purple. There are many varieties of grapes in different shapes.
Very good grapes are produced in France and Italy as well as California.
PROPERTIES OF GRAPES:
According to Maharshi Charak, grapes are sweet and cool for our bodies. It is an antidote for thirst, inflammation, fever, shortness of breath, leprosy, tuberculosis, jaundice, intoxication, flatulence, and antiemetics and reduces the acidity of the stomach and blood.
The great Ayurvedacharya Sushruta has endorsed the prevailing view that “ grapes have the virtue of sustaining youth and reversing old age”. They state that grapes are nutritious and prevent aging. It soothes stomach inflammation. Its consumption improves digestion and eliminates the problem of gas.
It relieves urinary problems, inflammation of the kidneys, and stones. It is beneficial in arthritis, irregular and difficult menstruation, and bleeding.
ANALYSIS OF GRAPES JUICE ELEMENTS:
WATER: 85.5%
FAT: 7.1%
PROTEIN: 0.8%
CARBOHYDRATE: 10.2%
CALCIUM: 0.03%
IRON: 0.04 Milligram/ 100 gram
PHOSPHORUS: 0.02%
VITAMIN ‘C’: 10 Milligram/ 100 gram
It also has Vitamin A and B2.
Raw grapes contain some relatively acidic elements; But as it matures, the amount of sugar in it increases. Most sugars are in the form of leukocytes. Comparing the weight of sugars with the weight of fruits, grapes have the highest sugar content. Some varieties of grapes contain as much as 50% sugar. Because leukocytes are pre-digested sugars, they are easily absorbed by the body.
Although the iron content of grapes is low, it is useful in vitiligo. According to researchers, vitiligo can be cured by taking grapes juice in the proportion of 300 ml per day. The growth of vitiligo can be prevented with grapes.
Ingredients like malic acid, citric acid, and tartaric acid in grapes purify the blood as well as stimulate and speed up the functioning of the intestines and kidneys. This opinion is supported by the well-known Ayurveda expert Vagbhat.
USE OF GRAPE JUICE:
Grapes can be eaten whole but drinking its juice is more beneficial for our health. It is only beneficial if it is taken in sufficient quantities. You can easily make grapes juice by using a juice making machine or by using a mixer.
GRAPES JUICE BENEFIT FOR HEALTH:
Eating grapes every day relieves constipation, relieves hemorrhoids. It also cures cholera and stomach inflammation.
If the body is weak, does not gain weight, the skin is dry, the eyes are dark and irritated, then there is a definite benefit from consuming grapes.
Drinking grape juice for a few days removes the false heat in the body and purifies and cools the blood.
The well-known Dr. J. H. callong recounts an incident in which a group of soldiers. Who had been suffering from diarrhea for a long time. Their diarrhea was eradicated when the soldiers drank grape juice.
So these are the grapes juice benefit which we get from grapes.
Cancer prevention with Green Grapes:
FOR MORE INFORMATION CLICK: GRAPES | https://medium.com/@vinsgorasia2001/amazing-grapes-juice-benefit-for-health-41cecda60cf9 | ['Vinay Gorasia'] | 2020-12-23 16:21:59.825000+00:00 | ['Grapes', 'Healthy Lifestyle', 'Juice'] |
Animales en su boca | Mom working on writing, Spanish and growing. Impromptu family dance parties make me happy. | https://medium.com/@impromptudancing/animales-en-su-boca-347c823c2356 | ['Impromptu Dancing'] | 2020-10-27 22:05:24.228000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Self Improvement', 'Parenting', 'Español', 'Life'] |
The Importance Of Baby Sleep All living creatures need sleep. | The Importance Of Baby Sleep
All living creatures need sleep. Sleeping gives people and all living creatures the time for the body to recuperate and regenerate. Lion’s needs 16 to 18 hours of sleep, while primates, ten to twelve hours of sleep. Humans need on average six to eight hours sleep to rejuvenate. Human babies need a full eight hours of sleep and naps in between.
The body uses sleep as a way to regenerate cells and refresh the brain and overall aids in the development of our body, mind, and health. During our sleep, the human body can regenerate hair follicles, fingernails, toenails and even the outer covering of the skin. This happens because of the automatic pilot that is built into our bodies. People tend to think that the body only needs to recharge spent energy on the day’s work but in truth the body works the regeneration cycle much faster when the brain does not control much action.
Babies therefore need their sleeping time to develop muscles, limbs, and skeletal structure. In order to achieve a good night’s sleep for your baby, it is important that your baby have comfortable and inviting bedding. The secret to a good bed is one that feels just right. Beds that are to big may make your little one feel insecure. Your baby’s bed should be cozy and offer security for them to get a good night sleep. Selecting the proper bedding should also be a concern. The bedding should be easy to touch and feel cozy. Bedding that is to stiff or even to fluffy decreases your baby’s comfort level and therefore reduces his/her sleep time. We would want our babies to enjoy their beds and consider it a place of security.
Try to make your baby’s sleeping experience a pleasant one. Bedding should be inviting to the eye. There are so many wonderful patterns and fabrics on the market today that choosing the right bedding should not be to difficult. Remember that your baby needs enough rest to stimulate his/her growth and development and when this is achieved, your baby can reach his full potential.
Discover the Scientifically Proven Solution That Gets Your Baby to Sleep like Clockwork | https://medium.com/@yaddalasudha00/the-importance-of-baby-sleep-all-living-creatures-need-sleep-6adbfb5b2c50 | ['Yaddala Sudha'] | 2021-08-25 03:55:29.908000+00:00 | ['Baby Sleep', 'Baby Sleep Training', 'Baby Care', 'Baby Sleep Routine', 'Baby'] |
Plant Power! | I am starting to miss all the green leaves on trees, the green mini-palm trees on my deck, and greengrass. So I’m dedicating this WOW to the importance of year-round, indoor green plants.
Why you need INDOOR plants in your life, stat.
Better Memory
Working in the presence of plants can increase memory & attention up to 20 percent.
Fewer Colds & Flus
Research shows indoor plants can help purify the air of toxic chemicals & maintain humidity levels that prevent germs from spreading.
Less Pain/Fatigue
One study found that patients who had plants in their rooms had lower blood pressure and reported less pain, anxiety, and fatigue than patients who didn’t.
Fewer Cravings
Seeing greenery is linked to less intense and frequent cravings. [More craving busters here]
“Plants are pretty and all but I do NOT have a green thumb… I’m busy and fear I’ll forget to water them. What are some low maintenance options?” -Dawn
Your best bets…
ZZ and Snake Plants … Water every 2–3 weeks
Other plants that do great indoors, with little care, and low-moderate light…
Philodendron and Pothos Plant … Water every 1–2 weeks
No sunlight in your home/office to grow a plant? No problem!
Even just the color GREEN is associated with happiness so…
Buy a faux green plant.
Make your screen saver green.
Get a green mousepad like this. | https://medium.com/nutrition-wow-words-of-wisdom/plant-power-419092b661a1 | ['Dawn Jackson Blatner'] | 2019-12-10 15:22:00.301000+00:00 | ['Gardening', 'Plants', 'Green', 'Wellness', 'Health'] |
Dr. ThurmThurm’s The Mandalorian Chapter 15 Review | Chapter 15 of The Mandalorian is a surprisingly effective episode that shows just how far Mando is willing to go to save Grogu. With some nice action set pieces, and strong performances this week’s episode has stuck with me more than I thought it would.
I didn’t think I was going to like this episode. We knew Bill Burr’s character was returning and I thought it might be another forced comedic relief appearance similar to chapter 12 this season. Thankfully I was wrong as this week delivered a some surprisingly good performances from both him and Pedro Pascal. The setup is simple. Mando and friends which of course now includes Boba Fett, are on a mission to find Moff Gideon’s location, and must infiltrate an imperial base to do so. What’s makes it fun is the unique challenges Mando faces separated from his armor, and under imperial disguise. The long chase sequence in the first half of the episode is surprisingly intense with some great choreography. Without his armor the threat feels real especially when his pursuers are so relentless. It also helps build some chemistry between Mando and Mayfeld which really makes the second half of the episode work. And finally ending that sequence with the empire coming in to save the day is a very interesting moment in Star Wars history.
The second half of the episode on the other hand gave us a great scene forcing Mando to take off helmet to get the job done. The scene reminded me a bit of the basement shootout in Inglorious Bastards. You can feel the tension rising until it ultimately boils over. It also serves as a sort of redemption for the character Mayfeld which is something I didn’t know I wanted. Great dialogue, and performances really elevate this above what it could have been. Then they cap it the episode off with a great monologue from Mando mirroring words from Moff Gideon last season. It’s very effective and got me really hyped for next week. I also want to give a shoutout to Boba Fett’s new paint job. Excuse my language but it’s fucking glorious. That’s what Boba Fett should look like. The darker shade of green and red armor over the black robe looks phenomenal, and I can’t wait to see them show it off more next week. We also got to see him use those awesome pulse bombs from Attack of the Clones which might have been the biggest hype moment of the whole episode.
There are better episodes of The Mandalorian, but I found this one to be surprisingly entertaining and effective. It serves to move us along to the next thing in the series while also giving us some of the best character moments of the season. Great performances, writing, and set pieces elevate this above the average Mandalorian side story. Next week is better off because of the quality of this episode and I’m so hyped to see Mando and company go rescue the kid. This week’s episode gets a good, but almost great recommendation from me.
Check back next week for my review of Chapter 16 of the Mandalorian. For more content follow me on Twitter @DrThurmThurm and @drthurmthurm on TikTok. | https://medium.com/@drthurmthurm/dr-thurmthurms-the-mandalorian-chapter-15-review-4a5bd3154464 | ['Dr. Thurmthurm'] | 2020-12-15 19:58:05.341000+00:00 | ['Star Wars', 'Disney Plus', 'The Mandalorian'] |
Diners, Drive-ins, And Dives: Witchcraft Edition | [GUY closes the door of his candy-apple red ’67 Camaro]
GUY: Now, we got room for all kinds of funky joints here on Triple D, but man, we’re taking it to a whole ‘nother level today. See, we’re here in Salem, Massachusetts — right down the street is the Salem Witch Museum. And from what I’ve been told, there’s a particular Wiccan joint that serves up all sorts of wacky stuff, and believe it or not — children! So I gotta check this place out! This (pointing to sign) is Wiccan Pissah!
[Cut Scene: Owner (MARIAH) and chef (LEAH) preparing and delivering meals to various apathetic customers. One of them remarks, “I love the food because it reminds me of the inevitability of death.”]
GUY (voiceover): The ladies who run this joint are Leah Proctor and Mariah Hale. And they know their stuff — they’ve been practicing Wiccans for twenty years now.
GUY: How’d you meet?
MARIAH: During her initiation — at the beach.
LEAH: She branded me.
GUY (unbelieving): Come on!
[MARIAH hikes up LEAH’s Wiccan robes to briefly reveal the mark of the devil on her left butt-cheek]
GUY: Whoa! Alright. So this is real-deal occult worship you’re doing here?
MARIAH: Yep, entirely authentic.
GUY (voiceover): Leah and Mariah are walking the walk when it comes to their menu, too. They’ve fused classic medieval Wiccan recipes with modern techniques and ingredients.
GUY: So what are we making today?
LEAH: Our best-seller. It’s a burger called The Child Sacrifice.
[Cue record needle scratch; GUY looks dramatically to camera.]
GUY (to LEAH): What?!? Children meat? Like Children-Children meat?
[LEAH bites her lip sheepishly and shrugs. Then, she produces a stainless steel mixing bowl containing exotic ground meat.]
GUY (voiceover): Oh man, your boy loves some Picante flavors — but cannibalism? Is that a stop on the way to flavor town?
GUY: Alright, I get it — secret ingredient. So, whatever this is, what are we combining it with?
LEAH: One pound of (air-quotes) ‘baby’ meat, five pounds veal, ten pounds chuck.
GUY (oddly unconcerned at the prospect of eating human flesh): Seasoning?
LEAH: Kosher salt, black pepper, garlic powder, valerian, and sage.
GUY: We form up the patties now?
LEAH: We marinate it first — water, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, rue, eye of newt, and some sriracha.
GUY: How long’s that gonna sit?
LEAH: Overnight — preferably with a full moon.
GUY: Ok, they’re done marinating, now we shape these into patties?
LEAH: Yep, 8 ounces per patty.
GUY: That’s a lot of meat.
LEAH: It’s still a ‘baby’ burger though…
GUY (aside to camera): She knows how to play up a name, huh?
GUY: Alright, patties are cooking. What are we topping these ‘babies’ with?
LEAH: Blood aioli.
GUY: Let’s see it.
LEAH (adding ingredients to a stockpot): Mayo, kosher salt, black pepper, cilantro, lime juice, cayenne pepper, three ancho chiles, and goat blood.
GUY: That’s a lot of goat blood…
LEAH (ignoring GUY): Combine.
GUY: Ok, hitting it with the immersion blender.
[LEAH finishes, GUY dips his pinky into the mixture and paints the tip of his tongue with the aioli. GUY gives LEAH a ‘you gotta be kidding’ look. Without saying a word, he picks up the stockpot, puts it under his arm, and takes a few steps towards the exit.]
GUY (still walking): It’s no good; I’m just gonna take this with me —
GUY (now back in frame and eating the blood aioli with a soup spoon): I’ve had some great aiolis on Triple D, but that is outstanding. I was a little worried when you added so much goat blood, because that can really overpower the chilies and the cilantro. But, well done, I could eat that off a witch’s hat.
LEAH: Thank you! Alright, burgers are done.
GUY: Ok, time to plate?
LEAH: Yep. We use a brioche bun, add our blood aioli, some frisée, and hand-cut fries.
[GUY takes an imposing stance over the plate. His elbows swing out as if he’s about to cluck like a chicken. He loosens his neck and assumes the ‘hunch’ position. Then, GUY lifts the burger to his face and shoves in three bites. Seconds later, still chewing, an impressed look comes over his face.]
GUY (loudly): Shut the front door!
GUY: This is crazy good! A nice, tender bun, it’s soft, it’s moist. The meat is unctuous; it’s got good chew. Where have these been all my life?
LEAH: Thank you!
GUY: You get the fat from the chuck, the veal comes through, and whatever that ‘baby’ meat is, it really gives you something —
LEAH (smiling): Soulful?
GUY (giving LEAH a smirk): I’ll just let you do the show, ok?
GUY: Seriously though, what makes it for me is that blood aioli — it’s got heat, some freshness from the cilantro, the earthiness of the goat blood — a home run — well done!
LEAH (fist-bumping with Guy): Thanks!
GUY (voiceover): But I’m not the only one singing the praises of The Child Sacrifice.
[Cut to GUY sitting at a two-top with Stevie Nicks.]
GUY: Look who I ran into here — Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Stevie Nicks! So tell me, what is it about this place?
STEVIE: I love that it reminds me of sadness and children and the longing of a life not lived. Also, the onion rings are fantastic.
GUY (voiceover): And those are the sorts of ‘Rumors’ that the ladies of Wiccan Pissah love to hear! | https://medium.com/slackjaw/diners-drive-ins-and-dives-witchcraft-edition-ba6d6022f4ce | ['Jl Matthews'] | 2020-12-19 14:47:34.148000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Television', 'Culture', 'Food', 'Satire'] |
[Linux] 시간 변경 명령어 | 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/zoaeo/%EB%A6%AC%EB%88%85%EC%8A%A4-%EC%8B%9C%EA%B0%84-%EB%B3%80%EA%B2%BD-%EB%AA%85%EB%A0%B9%EC%96%B4-f6471ba14c54 | [] | 2020-12-21 00:30:33.001000+00:00 | ['Ntp', 'Programming', 'Linux', 'Ti̇me'] |
Regarding Persia | celebrating WILPF
In my view Persia intends to keep having nuclear power (a done deal), which will feed into the same grid that powers the rest of Mesopotamia, on up through Turkey etc. as HVDC expands.
Tehran also has ambitions to be a source of nuclear fuel, exotic medical isotopes and so on. I support this ambition and encourage continued cooperation with the global medical business community on achieving these goals, circumventing sanctions to whatever extent feasible. Lots of Iranians here in Oregon, welcome to stay.
Iran does not want nuke weapons, says it doesn’t (has a Fatwah against them) and agrees to be closely inspected (certified clean) to prove it’s not working on them, because this way it has moral high ground against the loser nuke heads and their great satan bullying ways. Having a nuke would put a target on its back and justify that Israeli strike. In the meantime, it’s fun just razzing Israel for being another loser nukehead, a disgrace to whatever religion it pretends to espouse.
So much easier to not put your entire foreign policy on a hypocritical basis, where you say one thing, but secretly do something else. That’s what the infidels do. Iranians have less cognitive dissonance. They’re strong in science and nuclear power is not, never was, the right of the US to arbitrate (as it is, the Eisenhower administration gave Iran its first baby nuke plant, more like the one we have at Reed College down the street).
What Iranians fantasize about is the day when the nuke stockpiles are fully criminalized (that day is here according to many) and they’ll be joining the international teams of inspectors authorized to break down the doors of any corporations that harbor Dr. Evil types (psychopaths, bad physicists…) and try to keep WMDs for their private use. The world will be supportive of this hunting down of those Dr. Evil types. Great way to be a hero. You can get a PhD in it. | https://medium.com/@kirbyurner/regarding-persia-14e398bad26b | [] | 2020-11-26 19:04:55.920000+00:00 | ['Iran', 'Persia', 'United Nations', 'Nuclear Weapons'] |
Strategies for building accessible websites | For years I was a full stack developer and loved what I did. Around 2014 I decided that I wanted to focus more of my development time on the front-end. My first real experience of developing accessible websites started in 2016. I worked on a project where our goal was to achieve WCAG 2.0 AA compliance. The experience was fun, and it gave me a greater appreciation of the challenges that users with visual and motor skills impairments face when using websites.
In this article you’ll find some process and development strategies that should help to provide you with a better understanding of what you need to do to develop an accessible compliant, screen reader user friendly website.
Developing accessibility is easy, but…
It’s easy to get started with accessible development. Use semantic HTML, ARIA attributes, etc. I recommend that you do those things right from the beginning of your project. And if that’s all the budget that you have for accessibility, then that’s still better than doing nothing at all!
However if you need to create an application that is fully compliant to an accessibility standard such as WCAG, and you are planning to go above and beyond compliance by ensuring usability, then there is much more to consider.
Usability issues of compliant websites
Your application could meet a compliance checklist, but still be difficult for screenreader users to use. We often found this to be the case with our more complex components.
The October 2017 WebAIM Screen Reader User Survey distilled the most common usability issues faced by screen reader users into the following list:
CAPTCHA — images presenting text used to verify that you are a human user Screens or parts of screens that change unexpectedly Links or buttons that do not make sense The presence of inaccessible Flash content Lack of keyboard accessibility Complex or difficult forms Images with missing or improper descriptions (alt text) Missing or improper headings Too many links or navigation items Complex data tables Inaccessible or missing search functionality Lack of “skip to main content” or “skip navigation” links
Of this list, automated tests can discover some of the issues, such as those under points 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8. My point is that many of the top reported issues are usability related, are not things that an automated tool can uncover, and require manual testing to uncover and improve upon.
Recommendations
Identify a subject matter expert 🤓
Identify someone in your company or on your team who will be the accessibility subject matter expert. I like to call this person the “accessibility architect” 😃. This person can help to maintain and evolve your company or project’s accessibility guidelines, train team members, support accessibility related design questions, etc.
The accessibility user experience should be looked at from a holistic perspective, so that the end user experience is consistent and predictable. Everyone else working on accessibility needs to become familiarized with it as it relates to them, but the subject matter expert should have that mile high view of the bigger picture so that they can provide insights into difficult design problems.
Include screen reader users in your testing processes if possible
The company that I worked at had a screen reader user who supported our team from time to time. Where possible, they were able to provide useful insights based on their own user experience.
These are the users that are actually using accessibility tools on a day-to-day basis. They will use the tools differently from how your QA team and developers use the tools.
Standardize on testing tools
Your team should standardize on the test tools that will be used. This includes screen readers, as well as QA and developer test automation tools.
Standardizing on tools is important because each tool may present different findings. Screen readers behave differently from one another, and unfortunately the budget to make them all usable is likely going to be greater than the budget you can get.
On my last accessibility project, we used the Voiceover, ChromeVox, and NVDA screen readers, since they were all free 😃. Sometimes one screen reader provided a good user experience, while another would provide a confusing user experience. In these scenarios, you might need to trial and error development approaches until a usable solution is found for all screen readers.
Objectively measure your accessibility compliance
Use a defined accessibility standard for your project to track to, such as WCAG 2.1 AA. If your team wishes to define their own standard, have the team explicitly define their compliance criteria.
Without having objective measurements, the components that your team completes will subjectively be accessible. If you have a testing team it will be difficult for them to define their accessibility test cases and validate that the components pass accessibility. There is a good chance that your application won’t be fully accessible.
If your team decides to create its own list of accessibility requirements, have the team create a well-defined checklist of requirements. Ensure that each checklist item links to a well defined definition of that item, such as a corresponding WCAG definition for the item. This will help your team to understand the scope and best practices of the item.
In the WCAG standard, some things are not objectively defined such as font sizes (the ability to zoom text by up to 200% is defined though). Regardless, design should ensure that they avoid tiny, difficult to read fonts as the baseline font and size at 100% zoom. Ensure that these items are included in your compliance checklist, otherwise it will become costly to change font sizes and colours once you’re farther into development as page layouts will be impacted.
Include accessibility in your definition of done
Factor accessibility into your project’s definition of done, since accessibility is something that impacts design, development, and QA. This will help to ensure that there is commitment, review processes, and workflows at each step of the development process.
QA, design, developer feedback loops
Ensure that the team communicates often and reviews one another’s work during development to avoid wasted cycles. Lots of open communication and feedback is super valuable for many other reasons as well!
Testing tools
There are numerous continually evolving accessibility test tools, suitable for manual and automated testing. Even though there is a plethora of tools, we found that none of them were able to fully test our web pages for WCAG 2.0 AA compliance. However, these tools have a ton of value during design, development, and QA.
Manual testing tools include screen readers, standalone applications, and browser extensions.
Automated tools can and should be integrated into your build processes.
Summary
Building an accessible, screen reader friendly application or website requires the commitment of everyone on your team. The effort is significantly less if you build it in from the start. Otherwise just like unit testing, it can easily become technical debt that never gets addressed.
Let me know if you’re interested in any follow up accessibility articles, and feel free to contact me if you have any questions about my experience or if you need some advice for your project!
Resources | https://medium.com/@shanplourde/strategies-for-building-accessible-websites-f0d256decae6 | ['Shan Plourde'] | 2019-02-07 17:08:11.658000+00:00 | ['Accessibility', 'Usabiilty', 'WCAG', 'Process'] |
Ten Fatal Flaws of the Bible | 8. Broken promises:
John 14:13–14 “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”
Matthew 16:28 “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” If true, some people are now 2000 years old.
John 16:23–24 “And on that day, you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you. Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.”
Matthew 18:19–20 “Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.” If true, why is there still cancer and malaria?
Luke 12:6–7: “Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.” Yet every year 600,000,000 birds are killed by colliding with window glass and another two billion are killed by cats. Those figures are just in the United States.
There are many people who are always claiming that God has healed them…but never has an amputee ever grown a new arm or a new leg. Explanations such as natural remissions which occur quite frequently, or the placebo effect are seldom ever considered. It seems the most miracles he is credited of performing by his faithful followers are finding lost car keys, giving goosebumps and healing headaches.
9. Is unabashed child abuse:
Religious Trauma Syndrome is a real psychological and serious problem with millions of children and even adults.
Untold thousands of children suffer nightmares and/or depression believing that their dead alcoholic father or best friend whose loving parents taught them another religion is burning in hell.
Parents do not own their children. They have a duty to help their children grow and to think and make good decisions by using critical thinking skills. Sadly, many parents and Christian organizations promote instruction and indoctrination that is absolutely the same as brain washing…the same way they would build a robot; to program it to think and act only in the way the “builder” decides.
Many innocent children are punished for asking questions and are told that to doubt is a serious sin. Many thousands are kicked out of the house and some have all support denied for the sole reason that their logical working brain sought answers and explanations to things that were not clear or did not seem to make logical sense to them.
To believe the Bible literally, is the same as concluding most of human history, science discoveries, biology, physics, geology, astrophysics and others are all frauds. Such blind faith stunts their intellectual and social growth and prevents the necessary skill of critical thinking to develop. That is why many cult members and followers of crazy conspiracy theories are those who were indoctrinated to accept things on blind faith. In essence, they were taught that obtaining and weighing evidence was not important. Many were taught that that was downright dangerous…that it could destroy their faith. It is no coincidence that the majority of climate deniers, flat-earthers, and QAnon followers also espouse strong religious views. Sadly, they lack the skill to think critically.
For a deeper understanding of this neglected problem, please explore the many resources at Recovering from Religion and Journey Free. Qualified therapists can be found at the Secular Therapist Project.
10. Absurdities beyond any logical basis:
In order to cure and remove leprosy, Leviticus 14:49–53 says “to cleanse the house then, he shall take two birds, cedar wood, a scarlet string, and hyssop, and he shall slaughter the one bird in an earthenware vessel over running water. Then he shall take the cedar wood, the hyssop, and the scarlet string, with the live bird, and dip them in the blood of the slaughtered bird as well as in the running water, and sprinkle the house seven times. So he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird and with the running water, along with the live bird, the cedar wood, the hyssop, and the scarlet string. However, he shall let the live bird go free outside the city into the open field. So he shall make atonement for the house, and it will be clean.”
Numbers 22:21–30 is about a talking donkey. Surely, an all-powerful God could very easily make a donkey or snake to talk (remember Mr. Ed)? That is not the issue. The absurdity is the two-way discussion that the donkey had with his master, Balaam. Read it and decide for yourself if it has the least bit of plausibility. Balaam speaks to the donkey exactly as he would another person…shows no surprise or shock that he is talking to an animal.
Only the most ignorant man could write, in Leviticus 12:1–5 and say that the mother is unclean for seven days and must be segregated for 33 days whenever she has a baby boy or is unclean for 14 days and must be segregated for 66 days whenever her baby is a girl. And millions of people say that every word of the Bible is inspired by an all-knowing and perfect God.
Believing anything without evidence, is not only foolish but it is dangerous. Thousands of Gods and religions have once existed, most of which have now completely vanished, and all were based on blind faith, wishful thinking, superstitious or childhood indoctrination…yet most had fervent believers willing to die (and many did) for their non-existing God. It’s one thing to think that a God may have started the universe, but it’s another thing to ignore the many flaws of the Bible and still claim that it contains no errors and was inspired by a “good” and “perfect” all-knowing God.
The evidence is in and it is overwhelming! To suggest that faith without evidence (blind faith) somehow supersedes or is more credible than scientific facts or obvious and logical realities, that has been proven over and over again is not reasonable. It is pure and simple, utter nonsense for adults to continue in such thinking and to refuse to use the wonderful brain that evolution has developed. | https://medium.com/excommunications/ten-fatal-flaws-of-the-bible-24ef7a305f3f | ['Tim Zeak'] | 2020-12-13 02:19:09.285000+00:00 | ['Critical Thinking', 'Bible', 'Atheism', 'Christianity', 'Skepticism'] |
Who Is He? | As the director of a hospital entered the patient’s room, he got grouchy. The cause of his anger was the man who was standing near the window. This man had been brought to the hospital two months ago because of a severe car accident. At first, he was unconscious. After a month of treatment, he had returned to consciousness. However, he had lost his memory. He had forgotten not only where he lived but also his name. He was fine now, but he did not understand himself. One day, he spent the whole day standing looking out the window.
“How is he?” the director asked another doctor who was standing next to him.
“He is getting better, but he still doesn’t know who he is.”
“Is he still staying here?”
“Yes, but we don’t know anything about him.”
“Who pays his medical expenses for him? We need more space. Kick him out!” the director exclaimed with annoyance.
“We cannot force him out,” the doctor yelled.
“Then give him a job. A janitor would be enough, right?”
“But he is a patient.”
“Food is earned, not given!”
Then the director left the room and shut the door.
“Clean up the bathroom?”
The patient was so confused as he stood in front of the bathroom. The doctor nodded.
“I have to apologize to you. You are a patient. You don’t need to do it, but it is a fact that you cannot pay your hospital costs. We need to have you work here in the hospital.”
“No problem. It’s good for me. I was bored every day.”
He started cleaning the bathroom.
The man worked day after day. When someone greeted him, he always replied with a smile, “I’m OK. I enjoy working.” On the top floor next to the new building, the doctor watched him from a meeting room while he was mopping. His assistant doctor brought two cups of coffee and watched him, too.
“He must be a good worker, right?”
“I think so, too.” The doctor took a cup of coffee.
“I was surprised to hear that he isn’t receiving any wages.”
“What do you mean?”
“Indeed, but there’s nothing we can do about it. The patient cannot pay his hospital bills at the moment. He has to stay here until he can pay for everything,” his assistant replied sadly.
The doctor got frustrated and argued about the patient’s unfair situation in the hospital when the director approached them.
“Director,” the doctor called to him. “Do you have some time? I want to ask you a question.”
He stopped and stared at the doctor. “Briefly.”
“I believe that you should give him wages because he works so hard every day.”
“Do you mean that guy, our new janitor?”
“He is our patient.”
“I don’t need to pay him wages because I have permitted him to stay here until he pays his debts.”
“But…” The doctor wanted to oppose his opinion. However, as if interrupting the conversation, the director said “I will listen to your opinion later. I’m busy now, and I have a meeting.” The director left.
In the meeting room, a news program was being broadcast on TV. A news anchor announced, “Next topic…”
The vice-director watched it and was surprised by what he saw on the screen.
“I think I know this person. Ah! Now I’ve got it.”
He was running down the corridor, carrying a newspaper. He entered the director’s room. The director was doing paperwork at his desk when the vice-director came in all of a sudden.
“Director! It’s a terrible thing,” the vice-director exclaimed.
“What happened?” Annoyed, he stopped writing.
The vice-director put the paper on his desk and said “Please read this. It is about the patient.” He was a little excited.
“Oh, you found out about him, did you? It’s good news. That means we don’t need to pay him an extra fee.” The director looked happy.
“I know, but you must know who he is.”
“What do you mean?”
He pointed out the picture of the man in the newspaper.
“This man is a rich person. He is the son of a politician. He must be that patient.”
“What!?” The director took the newspaper and read it.
“It is about a rich person. He is similar to the patient in age, appearance, and when he disappeared.”
The director fell silent and stood up as soon as he heard this.
The director ordered the patient to meet him in one of the private rooms in the hospital. He stood there confused inside the private room. It was bigger than his room. Behind him, the director spoke to him politely as if he was a gentleman.
“We have to apologize to you. We made mistakes. Please use this room.”
“But I don’t have any money.”
“Don’t worry. It’s OK. You can use everything here.”
“You must be mistaken. I don’t understand this. Anyway, l will start work.”
The director interrupted him. “You don’t need to.”
“Seriously? I can’t believe it.”
“I can’t believe it either.”
Meanwhile, the doctor and his assistant were watching them through a surveillance camera at the nursing station.
“Wow, he was the son of someone important. Appearances can be deceiving.”
His assistant was shocked.
“To tell you the truth, he is not the son of anyone important.”
“What?” The doctor’s assistant was surprised.
“They have received an old newspaper. Information always updates.”
The doctor showed him his smartphone. An article said that the politician’s son had been found. This incident had happened a few years ago. He had wanted to fool the director and the vice-director for what they did to his patient.
“He needs a rest. It’s good for him.”
The assistant doctor asked him curiously, “By the way, who is he?”
The doctor said with a smile, “I don’t know. But the patient is special to someone.” | https://medium.com/@masaakimitsuyasu/who-is-he-9955d62a551b | ['Masaaki Mitsuyasu'] | 2020-12-21 04:00:51.767000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Short Fiction', 'Novel', 'Short Read', 'Short'] |
What are the reasons for Elon Musk’s success? | Elon Musk is now a world-renowned character. His controversial views would have been widely rejected by society if he had been an ordinary person. But fortunately he is now the richest man in the world. So then everything Elon Musk says adds value. Let us consider some factors that may have contributed to his success.
1. Overwork
According to Elon Musk, he worked 20 hours a day. Any rich person works so hard in a time of prosperity. But Elon Musk is still such a hard worker. He visits a Tesla Giga factory he recently built and then the next day he attends an interview. There, Musk reveals that he spent the night in a long seat in the meeting room of the factory he was building. Although he worked for several companies at the same time, Elon Musk is still not one to spend most of the week in a mansion.
2. Discovering new things
While everyone was thinking about the online marketplace, Elon Musk sold the PayPal company he started in 1999 to eBay and turned his attention to another business.
Elon Musk invested in rocket technology and started thinking about it in 2001. He has been thinking about Tesla cars and investing in them since 2003. Ten or fifteen years ago, Elon Musk came up with technological ideas that would take the world in a different direction. The next generation of transportation systems he is currently talking about, such as hyper loops, and his urban transportation systems are likely to change the world in the next ten years.
3. Selecting several routes and maintaining them
Big billionaires have several businesses along the way anyway. The same goes for Elon. But Elon’s not only handshake, he’s good at executing work. No matter how successful the Tesla electric car is, the Elon will not stop there. He also looks at the work that people are sending to Mars via SpaceX. We also look at his new giga factory methods that are new to the world. Elon Musk is also constantly looking for work that he has started for a while and is slowly moving. Elon Musk has always been adept at finding ways to generate revenue that combines innovation with the revenue streams in the world so far.
4. Focus on production processes
Many people start a business and invest but focus on the sales opportunities rather than the technical side. Sales and marketing are important. But Musk is more of an activist with a better vision of everything technically than that. He started making rockets out of stainless steel to reduce costs during the SpaceX process. He also developed and developed a rocket-launching system called the Drone Ship so that rockets could be reused. When it comes to Tesla cars, there was a big setback in the process of making Tesla cars. To that end, he set up robust new machinery with robotics and automation to speed up the production process. He also set up a charging network across the United States to charge Tesla cars.
5. Find solutions to setbacks
In the rocket program called Space X, not only are the rockets being tested very successful now, but they are also beautifully landed. But at one point, the SpaceX rocket crashed one after another. Even Tesla cars had different problems at one time. According to car analysts, the Tesla car still has some shortcomings. But Elon Musk was able to slowly and permanently solve all of them. Elon Musk once had to borrow money from the US government because of his business setbacks. But that did not deter him.
6. The ability to monetize inventions
In Sri Lanka, there are a lot of people who keep a new invention and try to find a sponsor for it. Musk’s style is different. He tries to sell most of his new inventions. After he built the rockets, he did not wait for those rockets to go to the moon someday, but began to provide money to NASA and the US Army through his rockets. He is also trying to provide a Starlink satellite system that will go rocket and provide internet to the world. When it was too late to build his car, he created a concept called Giga Factory as a new space for it and he is now planning to make money as a technology that can build that Giga Factory for anyone who wants it. Elon Musk was able to sell batteries and accessories developed by Tesla directly to other companies. Another reason for Musk’s success is that he does not stop at just inventing new things, but trying to create a market with all those new things.
7. Be a practical scholar
Many world-famous billionaires and bureaucrats read good books. Elon Musk was a good reader when he was little. Elon Musk has a successful understanding of the subject to the point where he can make a good presentation in every field he has touched on later. He also has a fresh idea about education. According to him, teaching about tools and methods and then teaching about the engine is not successful. Elon Musk is of the opinion that children should be taught about the engine first and then the tools needed to make it work only when it is needed. Musk, who has a lot of controversial opinions like that, sometimes does not hesitate to present his ideas, even if they are unfavourable.
Studying billionaires is a good thing for our lives. Most billionaires are good learners. Although their number of degrees and certificates may be less, it can be seen from their interviews that they have gained a great deal of knowledge from reading and studying. Also, many people who have good money have worked hard for it at some point in their lives. So we strive to find the value of Elon Musk and to add to our lives the factors that led to his success. | https://medium.com/@yasamithr/what-are-the-reasons-for-elon-musks-success-65c6f0d7b744 | ['Rajiv Yasamith'] | 2021-06-17 19:32:18.956000+00:00 | ['Spacex', 'Elon Musk Motivation', 'Success', 'Elon Musk', 'America'] |
Converting a pure view model to a reactive one | Writing a pure view model makes it very easy to test and understand. But writing a pure view model reactively makes for better code.
Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash
In my last article, we converted an impure view model into a pure one. At the end of the article, we saw that the mutability of one of the properties in the view model property is not ideal. In this article, I will fix this issue by converting this pure view model into a reactive one.
Let’s take a look at the view model again.
The name property in the view model is mutable, and it needs to be since this needs to be updated when we update the view model with the NameService.Response . However the issue with name being mutable is that anyone that has access to our view model can change its value. Here is an example of a mistake someone might do.
We can easily fix this by marking the set as private by declaring it like so private(set) var name = "" . But we are still leaving room internally to make mistakes like so.
The reason there is still room for mistake in this setup is because name is only the storage of the result of the transformation of NameService.Response to name.
When you write FRP code, you never want to store any state. What you want is name to be the actual transformation. Below is an example of how you could write this in a functional way.
name is now the transformation of NameService.Response to name, NOT the storage of the resulted transformation.
Where reactive programming comes to play is with events. For that, we would need to take a signal of the type Service.Response in the initializer and have name be a signal that is the mapping/transformation of the Service.Response signal into the name signal. Let's look at the example below.
In this example again we can see again that name is not the storage of the resulted transformation, but the actual transformation of the response. The only difference in this example is that it is reactive.
Thank you for reading
If you liked this article please follow me and show your support with a clap. If you want to read my other articles, below is a list.
My articles:
1. The missing piece of MVVM
2. What are Pure Functions?
3. Pure functions? What about Pure view models?
Get in touch: | https://medium.com/@terrickmansur/converting-a-pure-view-model-to-a-reactive-one-8603f1763624 | ['Terrick Mansur'] | 2020-11-23 23:14:54.274000+00:00 | ['Reactive Programming', 'Functional Programming', 'Swiftui', 'Software Development', 'iOS'] |
2020 vision: What to do when everything is life-or-death. | This essay will appear in my new edition of Game Theory in the Age of Chaos, which you can get on Kickstarter or by doing election tasks on shark.vote.
This week: My wife and I miraculously get a week off together not long after our 25th anniversary. We hastily plan a vacation down to Oregon. There’s one worry, though: Parts of our home state of Washington are on fire, as is much of California. Oregon could start to burn too.
Let’s take the gamble, we say, and drive straight into the apocalypse.
The sky has turned orange, and the blood moon is high at 3 p.m. Walking the dog is a challenge; running with the dog is unthinkable. A million acres of land near us are currently burning. This is what the skyline of downtown Portland—a city previously slandered by Trump and FOX News as “on fire” during the protests—looked like on Tuesday.
There are a dozen skyscrapers in this photo.
A few days later, we find ourselves in a Masonic-temple-turned-rustic-hotel with many refugees from the blazes that have left half a million people on evacuation alert. Their children, their dogs, they’re all here too. We might be the only people on vacation here. The evacuees are keeping their spirits up. A pastor tells us of her congregation hall being prepared to become a refugee shelter. But first, she and her family need to take care of themselves. Once they are safe in this hotel, they can tend to hundreds of others.
Daytime in Gates, Oregon. (Photo by Bradley Parks of the OPB.)
They have made their choice, a very different one than we did. But all of us are doing something that everyone in America has had to do for most of the year: gamble with our safety, in some cases our very lives. Sometimes we’re taking a flier on a shred of normalcy: a vacation, a haircut, a movie. At other times it’s the hardest choices we’ve faced in years: send a child to school or sacrifice your job, vote in public in a pandemic or bet on a kneecapped postal system, protest fascism when militias and government shocktroops bring AR-15s to the fray. This is not normal, but it is the new normal.
How do we carry on when a single decision could be fatal? It’s so tempting to abrogate the decisions entirely: bunker down, never do anything, just wait it out. After all, we’re “in the middle of a pandemic,” which must mean there’s an imminent end to the pandemic? Right?
Sadly, there’s no guarantee of that. This disease could be with us, in this form or many other possible mutations, forever. It’s true about everything else too. Even if the good guys win, the fascists are here for good, and at least 40 million people will out themselves as fans of the end of democracy. Cops killing brown-skinned people has not slowed down because we’ve given the problem attention. The forest fires, the hurricanes, the bomb cyclones, the fire tornados, the 100 degree heat in Siberia—it’s all here to stay. Just because 2020 is horrible doesn’t mean 2021 won’t be worse.
In all that, we have to make choices. We are all Vizzini in Ted Cruz’s favorite movie, The Princess Bride, which is being reenacted live for Wisconsin Democrats today.
Vizzini knew two things: never get involved in a land war in Asia, and never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line. Well, he thought he knew the latter. But (spoiler alert) Westley poisoned both glasses, so drinking from either was fatal, unless like Westley you had spent years building up an immunity to iocaine powder. They were both bad choices. Vizzini should have chosen not to play against a superior opponent, or if he had to play, change the rules. When Vizzini distracted Westley with a “What in the world can that be!” he should not have switched the glasses. He should have poured out his glass. He did not, and now he’s dead.
When you have nothing but bad choices, how should you decide? Game theory has some answers. They’re not great answers, but they are answers nonetheless.
There’s a concept called voluntariness in game theory. It means that if you have other options than compliance with a direction, you are not coerced to that direction—that is, you have a choice, and are responsible for your actions. If a situation is involuntary, you have no choice, and are absolved of responsibility for your actions. But if you have choices, even if all of them are bad, you must maximize your choices.
The canonical example here is (trigger warning: high) abusive relationships. A person in a physically abusive relationship may not be able to leave that relationship without risking their life. Plus, leaving could mean the loss of other elements of their life: children, income, housing, insurance, everything. It may appear that no exit strategy exists, even if one does. It is crucial for a support system to exist outside this relationship so that the abused person sees they have choices, bad as they are. The existence of battered women’s shelters, for example, helps turn an involuntary situation into one with a potential exit. All choices have bad results, but choices can be made.
Because talking about the canonical example is exceedingly stressful, I’m going to talk instead about blackjack. (I’ll get back to the horrible stuff later, I promise.) Unlike in other gambling games like poker and craps, in blackjack you play against another player, but one with different rules and advantages. This player is called the dealer, but more accurately they are the “house”—the entity that runs the game and sets the conditions of play.
In brief, the rules: After putting in a bet, each player gets two cards, then the dealer gets one card faceup. The cards have values equal to their points—2s to 10s are worth face value, face cards are 10, and aces are either 1 or 11. The goal is to get as close to 21 without going over (busting). Once the dealer’s card is exposed, each player may either stand on what they are showing or hit—that is, take one or more additional cards. But if they bust, they lose their bets. If any players don’t bust, the dealer flips over another card. If the dealer has less than 17 (or in some cases, a 17 with an ace), they must hit until their hand totals more than that. If the player exceeds the dealer or gets a 21 regardless, they win. If they tie, they get their bet back. Otherwise, they lose their bet. (There’s more, but let’s leave it at that.)
Or you could just memorize this chart.
If the dealer’s showing a 5 and you’ve got an 18, you have good choices. According to Mike Shackleford—the “Wizard of Odds”—the dealer has a 42% chance to bust on a 5. You’re not assured of a win, but you’ve got a great chance.
Now, let’s flip that around. Say the dealer has an ace and you have a 15. The dealer’s ace is very bad for you. But you’re already in the hand. You have no good choices. You will probably regret standing on a 15 against a dealer’s ace. You will also probably regret taking another card.
This is why two other concepts exist in blackjack: surrender and insurance. If the dealer has an ace, you can surrender, meaning you give up and get back half your stake. Or you can take insurance, meaning you take half your bet and put it on the dealer to have a 10-value card, getting 2:1 if you’re right. You now have choices, and some feel better than others.
But here’s what Mike Shackleford tells you about that:
“Never take insurance. Period. No exceptions.”
You should never take insurance. Let me repeat that so its clear: You should never take insurance. Plus, Shackleford says, the only time you should ever surrender is when you have a 16 and the dealer has a card with a value of 10. In all other cases, the odds do not work out for you. The house wouldn’t offer these options to you if you won more than you lost. They may feel like the right thing to do, but the data says that they are terrible ideas.
Just because a choice exists doesn’t mean you should ever take it. There are situations that look voluntary, but in fact are not. You need to know when you’re in one of those. Vizzini didn’t, and he’s dead.
The data is really the only thing that matters. Let’s get back to the horrible stuff. I’m not going to tell you what to do in these circumstances. But I am going to spell out your choices like they matter. And then I’m going to show why the situation is much worse than it should be.
I’ll start with the virus. Trump says we’re “rounding the corner” on COVID. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is smart about these things, says we are not. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer’s asked him, “When it comes to discrepancies like this, who should the American people trust: you or the president?”
Here’s what Fauci said.
“I say look at the data; the data speak for themselves. You don’t have to listen to any individual. And the data tells us that we’re still getting up to 40,000 new infections a day and 1,000 deaths. That is what you look at. Look at the science, the evidence, and the data and you can make a pretty easy conclusion.”
The conclusion is indeed easy. But is the decision made from that conclusion?
The most wrenching decision you might have now is whether to send your kids to school or continue to homeschool them. So first, let’s look at who is telling you that you must send the kids back to school: Betsy DeVos, Brian Kemp, Donald Trump. And then who is telling you to be careful: every immunologist on the planet. When making your choice, you would be smart to consider the valuations of grizzled veterans of pandemics over those who are in their rookie season.
But this assumes you have a choice. You may have a job that you will lose if you stay home. You may have a district where your child will not advance if they do not receive in-person instruction. You may be actively harming your child’s education by homeschooling them and trying to do your job at the same time. These situations take away your choices.
And yet, you still have a choice. You can say, “Nothing matters to me more than keeping my household from contracting COVID-19.” If that happens, some of you might die. There’s no class your child could take that would be worth losing a parent over. But you know what you are doing, because you are looking at the data. You are looking at the many school districts that are closing immediately after reopening due to outbreaks. You are looking at the job market giving back its recent gains and weighing whether you could get a new job if you lose this one. You are considering that COVID is a super-effective spreader but not the most effective killer. You are looking at the dysfunction in Congress and thinking you’re not getting a new stimulus check. These observations will sway you one way or another. You are making rational choices even while the world seems entirely irrational.
Maybe kids in school isn’t the challenge you’re facing. The wildfires are very bad. They are making the air unbreathable, and have killed 28 people and destroyed entire towns. Should you stay inside? Look at the data. What data you look at matters, though. Which of these two maps (New York Times on the left, ESRI Disaster Response on the right) tells you whether you should drive into the hot zone?
Fire looks different to different people.
The maps we looked at when we set out looked more like the ones on the left. But you probably guessed that.
Maybe you’re deciding whether to go out and protest against yet another person of color being needlessly shot by police defending a racist system. Protesting is a choice, right? Well, not to some people. To some people, it’s a demand. For some people, failing to stand up now, when Black people are being choked to death and shot in the back, is tantamount to suicide. Maybe not now, but eventually, it’ll come back around.
But there’s a pandemic, and a lot of the people who don’t want you to protest are exactly the types of people who refuse to wear masks in public. Some of them carry AR-15s; when they use them on you, they get hailed as heroes by the QAnon parasites. The troops being sent to “reinforce” the cops aren’t the same kind of law enforcement officers; they’re unbadged and untrained and possibly ordered to start trouble even when none is underway. The President of the United States has called you—you, a peaceful antifascist protester—a terrorist. This ramps up the degree of danger through the roof.
One more thing: the bad guys are draining your support. By continuing protesting under these circumstances, you may steer allies away from your cause. It’s not clear if this is actually helping the president, but it is clear that people aren’t viewing the protests as favorably now as they did in June. You are falling victim to the law of diminishing returns. Maybe now is time to hang it up.
Yet: If not now, when? The iron is hot, but may cool if the protests stop. And if you’re Black, you’re making life or death decisions everyday that the rest of us can’t comprehend. Just jogging in the wrong neighborhood could be fatal. So the effort now could give you far lower risk later.
You can make this choice by looking at the data. Police chiefs in Los Angeles, Albuquerque, Rochester, Nashville, Dallas, Milwaukee, Seattle, and at least ten more cities have resigned since the protests started. Cities like L.A., New York, Austin, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. have cut their police budgets. You can decide whether that’s enough, or whether you need to do more, despite the escalating risk.
As the next weeks roll on, you’ll have another hard choice to make. What method of voting do you trust? Do you even have a choice?
The safest thing, from a COVID perspective, is to vote by mail. But Trump’s toady, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, has hamstrung the Postal Service, slowing down the mail, removing boxes and sorting machines, and generally throwing a spanner in the works. Will the broken post office get your ballot in, or let it die with the live chicks in the dead letter office? Or you could go vote in public—masked, of course—but you might have to stand in a long line with a lot of people for a long time. Scary, huh? Trump has called into question the validity of mail-in ballots and even encouraged his supporters to vote twice. Let’s escalate your blood pressure even further: The President has sworn to send in armed poll watchers — not necessarily even federal officials — to “make sure the votes are counted” (that is, to intimidate people they don’t want to vote). This could be a harrowing election day where people’s lives are literally on the line.
You might not even like your choices. Trump is a monster, but you may think Biden isn’t much better. (I think you’re dead wrong, but this is about you.) But people are telling you that one candidate pledges to stand up to tyrants, and another will end democracy in favor of white supremacy. Your vote is about life or death on a very real scale. So is this the time to vote third party or, even worse, stay home? With all the dangers, is this time to stand up?
Let’s be clear as daylight: The data says you must vote. If you are even a little concerned about the rights you will have left if the GOP retains the White House and Senate, you need to get your vote counted. No matter what dirty tricks await you, your only chance of affecting the nightmare we’re in is to vote. Those of us voting by mail (my only option) must vote for Biden/Harris in such large numbers that Trump has lost before Election Day. Then, any attempt to invalidate the election in the days that follow will be seen as what it is: a fascist attempt to overthrow the American system of government.
Every decision you make can—and must—be evaluated this way. Should you go to a motorcycle rally, knowing that a study called Sturgis a super-spreader event. If you’re a small business owner, should you open your office or keep paying every month for a space no one uses? Movie theaters may reopen, but Christopher Nolan’s Tenet will be the same movie on Netflix that it will be in theaters, so do you want to risk it? Is rage-tweeting at the president, as I do practically every day, a good idea that will stop him from winning, or a bad idea if he wins and goes full dictator? You gotta make these calls yourself.
But with all of this, there’s one big problem. You can only make decisions by looking at the data if you have the data. What we have learned the last few days should rattle your confidence to the core.
This week, Bob Woodward’s book Rage revealed that President Trump knew that COVID-19 was going to be a mega-lethal pandemic in February. All that time he was downplaying its severity, saying it was a hoax, saying it would just magically disappear, saying it could be cured by hydroxychloroquine and oleandrin and bleach, saying masks were unnecessary, and holding massive superspreader events where he bashed the scientists, he knew. He willingly withheld information from the American public so they could not make informed decisions. He made sure that the CDC couldn’t tell you how dangerous this was by having data sent to Alex Azar’s goons at HHS. He muzzled scientists who told him he needed to do more. He held—and continues to hold—rallies where masks are discouraged. He decided that you could not choose for yourself. By encouraging people to spread the virus he knew would kill them, he made the voluntary into an involuntary choice.
There’s a simple term for this: mass murder.
With almost 200,000 dead so far and likely another 200,000 by year’s end, President Trump will intentionally cause more American deaths than any American in history. His intent was criminal, valuing his own reelection above American lives. By robbing you of the data you need to make your choices, he has taken the mantle of this pandemic entirely on himself and his accomplices. If you made a bad decision, you can blame him. Society can blame him. The justice system can blame him.
But only if you make the right choice.
This is the 62nd installment of a series on politics and game theory. It has covered impeachment of Trump, Russian collusion, white supremacy, abortion, guns, nuclear war, debt, the NFL, sexual harassment, the Mueller probe, taxes, Trump’s first year, the Clinton Foundation, immigration, parades, the Democrats, hope, family separation, trade wars, Trump’s endgame, the New York Times op-ed, Justice Kavanaugh, Speaker Pelosi, lame ducks, the GOP legacy, the stock market, the Democratic field, shutdowns, third party candidates, the Virginia scandals, in-party impeachment, Trump’s mafia code, college admissions, William Barr, Brexit, Iran, the Mueller Report, Joe Biden, Oregon’s standoff, the environment, Jeffrey Epstein, Trump’s lies, Pelosi’s strategy, Trump’s conviction, political outsiders, Rudy Giuliani, the Berlin wall, protest art, political timing, religion, engagement, Bernie Sanders, progressive unity, the Democratic nominee, the pandemic, unemployment, rioting, the Klan, the Confederacy, the GOP 2020 strategy, and Biden’s strategy. | https://mikeselinker.medium.com/2020-vision-what-to-do-when-everything-is-life-or-death-1087998a2fa7 | ['Mike Selinker'] | 2020-09-29 22:29:17.914000+00:00 | ['Game Theory', 'Covid 19', 'Gambling', 'Elections', 'Wildfires'] |
Feeling alone in a crowded room, perhaps at this very moment? | Photo Credit: Maria Ponomariova
Feeling Alone? The Other Public Health Crisis By: Jen Moss
Feeling alone in a crowded room, perhaps at this very moment? Or have you ever experienced feelings of loneliness even while among people you love and admire? If you answered yes to either of these questions understand that you are not alone. On the “Unlocking Us” podcast, Dr. Brene Brown interviewed former U.S. surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy. In this inspiring conversation Dr. Murthy broke down three common types of loneliness we all may experience:
1. Intimate/emotional
An intimate/emotional connection is the need to have a trusted partner or confidant to share your private thoughts or feelings with.
2. Relational/social
A relational/social connection is the need for quality friendships and social support.
3. Collective
A collective connection is a need for a social network, group, or community that shares your values, community intentions, and goals.
Connecting in a COVID-19 World
Loneliness by definition is the experienced state of discomfort that results when an individual perceives a gap between their desired social connection and the actual experiences of it. The Covid-19 pandemic has heightened these feelings of loneliness through physical and social isolation. While we are encouraged to stay physically distant, it’s crucial that we strive to maintain, or increase, social contacts and connections with others at this time.
Modern-day lifestyles among industrialized communities are greatly impacting and diminishing the quantity and quality of our social relationships. Independence is regularly rewarded within the current cultural climate. When we feel that we cannot carry it all alone we may feel shame and sadness that can lead to depression.
The Power of Connection
Loneliness is a public health crisis that affects approximately 60% of Americans. (2) Prolonged loneliness is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, depression, anxiety, premature death, sleep disturbances, dementia, impaired wound healing, and more. The effects of loneliness on the mortality rate are profound. What current studies have found is that the mortality impact of prolonged loneliness is similar to the mortality impact seen with smoking approximately 15 cigarettes a day. (1)
We must challenge the stigmas surrounding loneliness. It is important to recognize that loneliness is a natural human experience because we are fundamentally social creatures. We have survived and evolved throughout history primarily due to our connection with other human beings. Connecting with others is a foundational part of the human experience.
Connection within yourself is the most important relationship to develop. It is important to regularly check-in and connect with yourself to identify your feelings, needs, and values. Doing this allows you to ground yourself in the now, and be an active participant in the connected world around you. Make the mindful decision to empathetically connect with yourself first and then with other people. Recognizing your worth, knowing yourself, and grounding yourself in the present will help you identify and build upon those intimate, relational, and collective relationships as the opportunities arise.
Through connection and empathy, we have the opportunity right now, to use this moment, this pandemic, to re-center our lives around the connections we have with each other. This crisis presents an opportunity that allows us to develop and nurture our social bonds through connection and empathy. Remember that every time you choose to genuinely connect with yourself or with someone else you are empowering your health and theirs.
References:
Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review. PLoS Medicine, 7(7). doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316
Murthy, V. H. (2020). Together: The healing power of human connection in a sometimes lonely world. New York,, NY: Harper Wave, an imprint of HarperCollins. | https://medium.com/@selfawarenesswithjenmoss/feeling-alone-in-a-crowded-room-perhaps-at-this-very-moment-68d40d851668 | ['Jen Moss'] | 2020-12-16 18:25:28.070000+00:00 | ['Lonliness', 'Mental Health Awareness', 'Grief', 'Public Health Crisis', 'Mental Health'] |
From Ellen to Mama Ru: The pro-corporate mainstreaming of LGBTQ culture | From Ellen to Mama Ru: The pro-corporate mainstreaming of LGBTQ culture
Ellen Degeneres’ alleged cruel treatment of her employees has sparked months of speculative murmurs about the media mogul’s true character. Since the juicer details are likely to remain buried in The Ellen Show’s HR office, the incident better serves as an occasion for reflection on the success of Ellen’s brand as America’s kind lesbian entertainer. I argue that even the good Ellen, untarnished by accusations of ill treatment, has a dark side: she embodies the false progressive branding of the LGBTQ image in the new age of queer visibility. She highlights a broader pattern, which this essay examines, in which mainstream gay culture’s business friendly orientation echoes and promotes the Democratic Party’s pro-corporate economic agenda.
The past two decades have been widely celebrated for bearing witness to a sea change in attitudes towards LGBTQ people among Americans. There are now more openly queer and transgender public figures, public opinion has flipped in favor of gay marriage, and LGBTQ people have more representation in electoral politics than in prior decades. These changes owe much to the gay activism of the 1960s and 70s as well as the trauma and ensuing solidarity of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 80s, but the reasons for the swift change in attitudes remain obscure. In her book, The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle (2015), Fresno State emeritus professor in literature Lillian Faderman describes the shift as “something miraculous” that happened during the Obama presidency, perhaps only explained by a mass “coming out” event that quashed the stigma around queer identities. Fear and hatred of gay and especially transgender people has not been wholly eradicated, but now even mainstream conservative politicians seldom bother exploiting homophobia in their culture wars with liberals. The legalization of gay marriage in 2015, following an international trend in Europe and Latin American, seemed to settle the debate.
But a better grasp of popular culture through the lens of Ellen and others like her who have mainstreamed gay identity permits us to observe the ways in which America’s embrace of LGBTQ identities has contributed to the construction and maintenance of an increasingly unequal economic and political order, particularly in the wake of globalization, deindustrialization, and the fallout of the 2008 economic crisis. While the convergence of the gay or LGBTQ “movements” and the growth of economic disparities began as a coincidence, a rosy view of the former has increasingly obscured the horrors of the latter.
A typical example of this trend was recently dropped into our laps by the New York Times. In a September 2020 interview, feminist icon Gloria Steinem was asked to explain Trump’s election and the eminent possibility of forfeiting the progressive achievements of past decades. She reasoned that “The most dangerous time is after a victory — eight years of Obama and moving forward…means that 40 percent of the country feels deprived of their position in an old hierarchy, and they’re in full backlash…gay marriage [has] journeyed from being the concern of an insurgent movement to being a majority view.” To Steinem, gay marriage serves as irrefutable evidence of overarching social progress, despite the fact that, for instance, the Obama administration oversaw a “recovery” to the 2008 crisis which saw a widespread replacement of middle-class jobs with precarious work. Black wealth, already paltry in comparison to white wealth, was also disproportionately lost in the aftermath. Steinem’s portrayal of the Obama years suggests that the triumph of marriage equality offset these casualties, and thus that any dissatisfaction with this legacy must stem from deep homophobic rage among the ranks of the “old hierarchy.”
But the triumph of marriage equality has not only become a red herring for the instability of the increasingly financialized American economy and the harmful growth of monopoly power. Since the 1990s, gay narratives in popular culture have become mainstream by reflecting the core values of neoliberal economics — especially those of personal freedom, self-acceptance, tolerance, and individual success. LGBTQ political discourses have come to mirror this pattern by emphasizing a basic civil rights agenda oriented around an exclusively legal notion of equality, mainly the right to marry and anti-discrimination protections.
In addition to legal rights, the second pillar in political and cultural discourses surrounding gayness is the concept of representation. An emphasis on gay and recently, transgender visibility has upheld a triumphant Steinem-style view of the past decades which obscures the way in which prominent gay people serve as symbols and enablers of corporate power. The focus on representation is key to diversity discourses common in universities, the mainstream media, the political realm, and corporate settings. LGBTQ people are only the most recent addition to a laundry list of vulnerable groups of which liberals are determined to better the plight by making them more visible.
I won’t argue that representation is inherently harmful to LGBTQ people. Still, the shallowness of visibility could be critiqued, as could a facile faith in the benefits of exposure — akin to believing that watching Jake Gyllenhall and Heath Ledger roll around in a tent is a cure chronic homophobia. There are certainly mixed views among LGBTQ people about the ways in which we have joined the mainstream, with particular concern that representatives of gay interests have come to harbor a myopic desire to imitate the deeply flawed social institution of marriage. I argue that the focus on representation, so central to political and culture discourses regarding gayness, obscures deeper issues of inequality and the concentration of economic power.
Going mainstream: Ellen and Ru
It is worth reviewing how rapidly gay identity went from being an economic liability to a valuable commodity in the entertainment industry. In the 1990s, gay culture went public far beyond its early urban hubs in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and gay narratives, particularly male, began to filter into the mainstream in movies like Philadelphia (1993) and television shows like Will and Grace (1998–2006). Although prominent figures from Barney Frank to Harvey Fierstein had been openly gay in the 80s, Ellen’s 1997 pioneering of the “I’m gay” magazine cover genre — later imitated by Lance Bass (2006) and Caitlyn Jenner (2017) — proved that queerness had become edgy. More celebrities went public in the 2000s and gay storylines went mainstream. Previously, one had to tap into the murky reservoir of low-budget gay film to see a same sex kiss. Now, on television there was Queer as Folk (2000–2005) and The L-Word (2004–2009), and the big-budget film Brokeback Mountain (2005) offered an authentic gay love story. More recent academy award nominated films Moonlight (2016) and Call Me By Your Name (2017) have offered complex gay storylines, outstanding acting, and even good directing.
Obviously, this new prominence has been buoyed by studio producers who have realized the market appeal for gay narratives. This is of no concern for proponents of representation, who celebrate the minority’s proximity to power even in morally ambiguous circumstances. Being gay and successful has been widely considered virtuous in liberal circles and inherently good for LGBTQ equality, a model of which Ellen is a paradigm, if not the defining example. Because of her pioneering role on television and her famous “be kind” message, she was even awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.
Ellen’s emphasis on equality has studiously ignored the criticism, or indeed any mention whatsoever, of concentrated economic and political power. Her relationship with her guests underscores this orientation. In a 2018 interview she had only praise for Bill Gates, the longtime billionaire tech mogul who has constructed a benevolent public persona based on philanthropy while engaging in monopolistic business practices which perpetuate inequalities. She lauded his personal financial sacrifices for the sake of fighting infant mortality in Africa and improving the unequal American education system, adding “I’m glad you’re a billionaire.”
She also has a record of cozying up to America’s great political dynasties. In a 2017 interview with George W. Bush, whose presidency oversaw tax cuts for the wealthy and massive giveaways to American weapons manufacturers for destructive and wasteful foreign wars, she gushed that she loved his entire family and applauded him for his civility towards the mainstream media. In a September 2015 interview, in an open field of candidates months before the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries had begun, Ellen interviewed Hillary Clinton, a frequent guest on the show, and made a heartfelt proclamation. “I want someone who is qualified, and I feel like…if I look at all the other candidates, someone who is for rights across the board…the only person I can look at, is you.” Ellen frames these relationships with wealthy and well-connected guests as part of her message of tolerance, equality, and “rights”.
We might expect an extraordinarily wealthy individual such as Ellen to adopt “moderate” political views out of sheer self-preservation, but she fits a larger pattern of queer icons who tacitly endorse corporate domination in American life. Another example is the cultural phenomenon of RuPaul’s Drag Race, the reality TV show 12 seasons running in which drag queens compete against one another for a cash prize and a spot in the show’s Hall of Fame. It is a recent example of the mainstreaming of LGBTQ culture — the show’s contestants are mostly gay males and a small number of trans women, but its fan base has expanded far beyond its original queer audience. The show’s founder and guiding spirit is the veteran drag queen RuPaul, who exercises a Tyra Banks-like authority over the competition and indeed the entire subculture of drag (“A drag queen? I am the queen of drag!” he upbraided Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show). The contestants of the show call him Mama Ru in deference.
In a way that is reminiscent of Ellen’s identity-adjacent branding, RuPaul has built Drag Race up into a moral Jenga tower of principles: Life is a performance; Be your authentic self; Gay people get to choose their family; and so forth. But this dazzling framework is weighed down by a profound contradiction between its message of unconditional self-love and its chief objective of funneling competitors into the entertainment industry. Judges on the show relentlessly push the narrative that strong performers are also emotionally mature. Hysterical outbursts from queens on the verge of elimination, such as Roxxxy Andrews (season 5) and Blair St. Clair (season 10), show how contestants internalize the notion that failure to perform stems from personal deficiency or psychological distress. The most successful unseasoned queens — take for instance Tatiana, Adore Delano, Pearl, and Kameron Michaels — follow the triumphal narrative arc in which success in performance comes by accruing confidence and self-expression. By deeming winners morally virtuous, Drag Race grafts self-acceptance onto entertainment value.
RuPaul embodies the central contradiction of the show by proudly preaching the axiom, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”, despite being unapologetic in his own pursuit of profit. (Recent revelations have shown how he leases thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands, of acres on his Wyoming ranch to fracking and oil-drilling operations). Of course, it is patently absurd for a competition reality show to make such strong moral claims, in a genre which thrives on confrontation, humiliation, and emotional drama. Contestants take part because they are cognizant of the economic opportunity before them — in season 10, Kameron Michaels and Miz Kracker disclosed that their respective budgets surpassed a mortgage down payment for one and college tuition for the other. The show’s financial logic ensures the cooperation of the competitors in the presentation of its conflicting moral message.
It bears reflection that gay identity, which used to be subversive and deviant before its mainstreaming in the 90s and 2000s, has come to be represented by the bland “be kind” and “be yourself” slogans that Ellen and RuPaul promulgate. Lady Gaga is a third personality who has fertilized this cultural terrain with her steady refrains of self-acceptance and individualism. She has been an outspoken marriage rights advocate, is given credit for “queering mainstream pop,” and is idolized in the LGBTQ community. Her brand, a crazy quilt of fantasy and high fashion but light on concrete gay themes, is a telling example of the mainstream spirit of LGBTQ identity.
For celebrities, joining the queer club has become so common as to be almost blasé. Still, baring one’s non-heterosexual orientation is regarded as a noble political act, which many of the rich and famous describe as a love for “just people” rather than genders. Seen in this light, the line of argument that criticizes gay narratives for their superficiality, such as the charge that Call Me By Your Name lacks real sexual and emotional intimacy, may be less a matter of homophobia than a by-product of Hollywood’s insistent peddling of anodyne moralism as gay or queer love. It is easy to sell this sanitized version of gayness as a vessel for a moralistic message on the freedom to love, as the embodiment of liberal progress.
A movement for rights
What explains this strong moralistic and pro-corporate streak in representations of gay culture today? It may in part arise from a historical convergence of entities representing the lesbian and gay “movement” on the one hand, and Democratic Party politics on the other. In an August 2020 interview with Jacobin, historian John D’Emilio noted how gay activism in the 1970s pivoted away from its early broad anti-capitalist orientation. Early activists were “replaced by other groups that remain militant but are single-issue, identity-based organizations. What I mean is you have organizations out there fighting in the streets, challenging the police, and causing disruption, but all they want is equal rights for gays.” A great many advocacy groups were formed in the 70s and 80s mainly on the cities of the East Coast, such as PFLAG (originally short for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), and they usually came to participate actively in the political process as legal advocates.
In the 1990s and 2000s, these gay and lesbian activists found a home in the Democratic Party in its culture wars against the Republicans. Advocacy groups presented lesbians and gays (and later, bisexual and transgender people as the acronym expanded; queer would be the latest stable addition) as a strategic voting bloc to the Democratic coalition. In doing so, advocates embraced the politics of multiculturalism that the party has used to frame its politics in the last half-century, which paints the party as the protector of vulnerable minority groups against right-wing hostility but largely abandons its former working-class identity. One of the most iconic and well-funded of these groups, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), hosted a forum for Democratic presidential candidates in 2007 in conjunction with Logo TV (incidentally the cable television channel which aired the first 8 seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race), and have since continued to collaborate with the party. The group’s direct political ties remain strong today — in 2015, the current head of the HRC, Alphonso David, was appointed as chief council and legal advisor to the Democratic governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo.
Today, these groups occupy a strange nexus between political advocacy, non-profit work, and business. For instance, the head of Lambda Legal, one of the oldest and largest LGBTQ advocacy groups, is John Stafstrom Jr., a prominent Connecticut lawyer specializing in business law with close links to local politics. A close look at GLAD’s board of directors is also instructive. The 17 board members listed on the website include the senior director of Akamai Technologies Inc., the VP of employee relations at financial services firm State Street Corporation, a financial advisor with Morgan Stanley, a former executive VP and COO of Liberty Mutual Investments, an advisor to the Boston Federal Reserve, and several specialists in finance, tax, and commercial law. Perhaps an unsurprising profile for a legal advocacy group, but nonetheless one which suggests how financial interests, for instance, silently exert influence on LGBTQ activism today. Even more suggestive, the head of GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, not to be confused with GLAD) is the Coca-Cola Company vice president of national retail sales Pamela Stewart.
These advocacy groups collectively moved to frame the LGBTQ movement as a struggle for legal rights centered on the marriage equality issue. The push for marriage rights entailed support for the politics of privatization pushed by Clinton and Obama-era Democratic politicians by portraying marriage as a legal and cultural solution to poverty and inequality. Popular political discourse in gay culture (and perhaps even more visibly today, in the politics of transgender rights) has followed the trend of using liberal, universal rights language and has long been couched in legal terms such as equal rights and equal access.
From the perspective of the Democratic Party, an LGBTQ political constituency has proved simple to integrate into its post-Reagan class-blind message of diversity and inclusion. Supporting the struggle for gay rights — first for civil unions and later for marriage — was an easy way for politicians to signal their support for social freedoms. Perhaps as importantly, the representatives of the LGBTQ rights movement offered an economic profile that fit in well with the new Democratic coalition. By embracing the myth that gays and lesbians are disproportionately white, wealthy, highly educated, and urban, advocates depicted a group that would both offer loyalty as a “minority” constituency as well as follow the trend of the post-70s era of an increasingly wealthy and educated Democratic voter profile.
No other identity group fits so conveniently into the party’s neoliberal ideology of diversity and progress. Black Americans face a similar dynamic as a minority group taking refuge from white supremacy in the Democratic big tent, but the rosy image of this constituency relationship has been marred by the continued economic neglect of black communities (aided by the destruction of black wealth after the 2008 economic crisis). In contrast, the LGBTQ struggle for equality can boast a recent concrete victory in marriage equality, and offers a message of progress that is still fresh and believable. “In virtually no other country have LGBT groups and leftist parties forged such a durable or fruitful alliance,” wrote an opinion piece in the LA Review of Books in 2019. That year fittingly saw the first gay Democratic candidate for president, Pete Buttigieg, portray himself as barrier-breaking because of his identity while running on an entirely conventional political platform which earned him the praises of corporate donors.
One could characterize the broader cultural and political trend that this essay describes as pinkwashing, although that term overemphasizes an element of clear intent. While there have been instances of the deliberate manipulation and cooptation of LGBTQ identities to justify a corporate agenda, a more subtle business-friendly attitude cloaked in equal rights discourse has become a typical feature of popular gay culture. It may surface in somewhat gratuitous manifestations of the Democratic Party’s public relations machine, as with Ellen’s confidence with the Clintons or Nancy Pelosi’s appearance on RuPaul’s Drag Race (“you betta werk!” she tweeted afterward unconvincingly). Other times, it functions by simple omission; the 2019 Netflix miniseries, Tales of the City, embodies such selective blindness in its depiction of San Francisco as a queer mecca. The show wholly erases the negative impact of the tech boom which has rendered the city prohibitively expensive for the likes of the millennials who act in the show and instead reoriented the character of the city’s queer scene towards a wealthy Silicon Valley clientele. In show, though, queer love is impervious to corporate power.
Nancy werks her Twitter following after an appearance on RuPaul’s Drag Race
Once more, representation is not detrimental on its face, and LGBTQ people have enjoyed many legal and cultural milestones over the past decades. It is difficult for most of us to criticize the monumental gains of this period as part of a larger political and economic project which has exacerbated inequalities for the past 40 years. But gay narratives and cultural icons have played an important role in legitimizing our highly unequal and corporate-friendly economic and political system. Their role should be acknowledged instead of the indiscriminate feting of all LGBTQ voices and stories as beacons of progress. | https://medium.com/@aliaydinkara/from-ellen-to-mama-ru-the-pro-corporate-mainstreaming-of-lgbtq-culture-ae5532725042 | ['Ali Karamustafa'] | 2020-11-25 15:06:05.595000+00:00 | ['LGBTQ', 'Corporate Culture', 'Ellen DeGeneres', 'Neoliberalism', 'Rupauls Drag Race'] |
what is the keto diet and how to start a keto diet | what is the keto diet and how to start a keto diet Hopegurru Dec 31, 2021·9 min read
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1. What is the Keto Diet?
The keto diet is an all-or-nothing, high fat, low carb diet that is promoted by many celebrities.
The keto diet is claimed to help lose weight without having to exercise and without losing muscle mass. It can also be used as a means of weight loss and maintenance.
The low carbohydrate (ketogenic) diet involves limiting carbohydrates (sugars) to less than 50 grams per day. This is achieved by eating a very low-carbohydrate diet and typically consuming no more than 20 grams of net carbohydrates per meal, or in other words, zero net carbs from sugars, starches, or any other sources of carbohydrate.
Injecting large amounts of carbohydrates into the body can lead to the dumping of glucose into the bloodstream via glycogen storage and/or gluconeogenesis.
The mechanism behind this type of weight reduction is believed to be through the suppression of appetite via secretion of the gastric inhibitory polypeptide into the stomach, resulting in increased food intake and decreased food expenditure.
These results have been supported by research with both human volunteers as well as animal models. The “ketogenic” aspect comes from ketosis, which is the metabolic state when blood sugar levels are extremely low due to a lack of glucose intake, resulting in elevated levels of ketones.
2. What Foods are Allowed?
There are many diets for weight loss. You may be thinking: “A diet? It must be something short of the death sentence!” But the truth is, some diets simply don’t work to lose weight.
A keto diet has become a favorite of many celebrities, including Halle Berry and Kim Kardashian. They have found success in losing weight by following this diet, which is called Keto or the ketogenic diet.
The keto diet allows you to eat fat while minimizing carbohydrates. It may seem difficult at first. But if you stick with it and follow the rules, you will find that it works for you.
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3. The Benefits of the Keto Diet
The keto diet is a popular weight-loss plan that eliminates the need for carbohydrates. Its proponents claim that it helps overweight people lose weight by lowering their body’s insulin levels and providing a source of fat-burning protein.
In an article titled “The Ketogenic Diet: A Step-by-step Guide to Giving Up Sugar,” authors J. Kavoussi and Salahudeen explain how eliminating carbohydrates from our diets leads to an increase in the amount of free fatty acids generated by our bodies. These free fatty acids are then burned for energy in the presence of ketone bodies, which are present in very low concentrations in the bloodstream; this process is called ketosis. Ketones have also been shown to suppress hunger and induce feelings of fullness.
The only downside to going on a keto diet is that you have less control over portion sizes: If you’re not used to eating large meals, you may be tempted to eat more than you intended, especially if you are trying to lose weight fast.
4. Is the Ketogenic Diet Safe?
It is no secret that the ketogenic diet is a very popular diet among celebrities. Many have been successful in losing weight or, at the very least, maintaining their weight loss with this high-fat and low-carb diet. Although there are some health consequences associated with this diet, it is a safe and beneficial way to lose weight without all of the unhealthy side effects associated with other diets such as low-fat diets.
Ketogenic diets are high in fat and low in carbohydrates, so they are able to burn fat more effectively than other diets.
The keto diet is a very effective way to lose weight when you’re trying to achieve your ideal body composition.
Keto also helps you achieve your goal of feeling full sooner because it reduces your appetite.
The only downside to this diet is that it can cause minor side effects like constipation, nausea, and headaches. However, these side effects are completely manageable when you follow a few simple guidelines while following the keto diet.
Ketosis Diet: Which Is Better?
One thing many people tend to forget about is that every time you eat something containing carbs or sugar, you’re adding calories which will ultimately lead to weight gain because your body will keep those extra calories as fats.
The process of burning off those extra calories through exercise or through simply eating something healthy (like vegetables) will help keep your calorie intake within a certain range so that you don’t go over your daily calorie expenditure limit (which is usually around 1,500 calories per day).
You also need to consider how many carbohydrates are in each meal; typically five hours after eating carbs will cause blood sugar spikes which can lead to anxiety and generally lead to cravings for more carbs and sugar.
So if you’ve been on Atkins or some other type of low carb diet for a while now (or even just recently switched), chances are that the carb content of your food has steadily increased over time until it’s at about the same level as what’s typically found in a normal American family’s meal plan which can be described as three meals per day for one person plus snacks throughout the day (it could be seven days per week during the summer months). So if you started out eating just three meals per day then by the time Monday rolls around (which happens all too often), you’ll have already eaten all but two meals (and maybe three if they were restaurant meals). That’s not good! Since our bodies require
5. How to Start a Keto Diet Plan
The keto diet is a low-carb, high-fat diet based on the concept that we can use the fat stored in our bodies to help regulate blood sugar. The idea behind this is that when your body is running on ketones, it will burn fats for fuel instead of carbohydrates, so you feel less hungry and eat fewer calories.
While this sounds great in theory, there are some things you should know before you dive headfirst into the world of keto. Here are a few things to keep in mind before you start your journey on the road to weight loss:
You must be very careful with your carbohydrate intake during ketosis. You can’t eat any carbs at all while in this state, as they become stored fat. The good news here is that many of us have been able to maintain our weight even without eating massive amounts of carbs during this time. However, if you have been using sugar substitutes like Splenda or aspartame (aka “Nutrasweet”) then make sure you have removed any traces of these products from your diet before starting the keto diet! Even if you don’t plan to go back onto sugar or aspartame immediately after leaving ketosis, it is still best not to consume these products for a few days following leaving ketosis until your body has had enough time to break them down for energy.
Some people think the idea of going into ketosis via fasting is not much different than what many people do during an intensive weight loss program such as a low-carbohydrate diet or even a standard low-fat diet. In both cases, individuals are essentially fasting (or “ketogenic”) — albeit toward the end of their fasts they will usually eat a substantial amount of food (often including carbohydrates).
In my opinion, it’s not necessary to be too strict with restricting carb intake while fasting; so long as it doesn’t interfere with your sleep schedule and bodily functions (as well as avoiding alcohol consumption), I believe most people can survive without restricting carb intake while fasting for many days at least prior to beginning their “ketogenic” phase which will begin once they begin consuming carbs again after enduring their fast period which may last anywhere between 2–6 days depending on how hard they push themselves in preparation for starting their fast period again after having completed an intense workout and hopefully finished an intense workout within 24 hours prior to beginning their fast period again).
6. Precautions and Tips for a Healthy Keto Diet
Being on a keto diet can be very challenging. The keto diet is high in fat and low in carbohydrates, which means that it requires a higher caloric intake than usual. While the diet can be effective, there are some risks to take on a keto diet.
That may not sound like much of a problem, but there are some key precautions to keep in mind if you’re starting your own keto diet.
Overeating and weight gain
If you’re looking to drastically lower your weight, you may want to consider making gradual adjustments when going on the Keto Diet. As a general rule of thumb, if you have been on a low-carbohydrate diet for more than two weeks, it’s best to start off slowly by reducing the number of carbohydrates that you eat. It is also recommended not to go overboard and overdo it by eating too many carbohydrates at once when starting out on the keto diet.
While there is no exact science behind this advice, the general idea behind having fewer carbohydrates in your system at one time will give your body time to adjust itself before any negative effects are noticed. This will allow you to maintain a healthy weight long after going off the Keto Diet plan!
Staying Healthy while Going On A Keto Diet
If you’re new to the Keto Diet or if you don’t know how long it takes for your body to adjust itself when following this type of diet plan, then staying healthy and avoiding any potential complications maybe even more important than losing weight! It is essential that those who are going onto the Ketogenic Diet understand how long their bodies take to adapt themselves after going off of this type of dietary plan and how long it takes them before they reach their ideal weight set point! The more time that goes by without any fluctuations being made in your body weight number, then sooner or later (depending on how rapidly your metabolism responds), then food cravings will kick back into gear and you will begin craving foods again once again!
When it comes down to it though, everyone has different metabolisms so what works for one person may not work for another…the best way I can think of describing this phenomenon is that as far as how long my metabolism takes before adjusting itself back down from one day being way too high (usually after 2 days) vs another day being way too low (usually after 3 days). I have found that my typical day usually averages
7. Conclusion
This post is a brief summary of the keto diet and the benefits it can provide. The keto diet has already been around for quite some time and is becoming more popular as more people become aware of its health benefits.
This diet is known to be low in carbohydrates with an emphasis on healthy fats. This review article also provides an overview of the benefits of keto, including weight loss, improved mental clarity, and lowered cholesterol levels.
The keto diet focuses on fat intake and is not recommended for those that are severely obese or have diabetes. It does not include any grains or sugar or starchy vegetables or foods such as potatoes or pasta. While many people can maintain a healthy weight through this diet program, there are risks associated with it, including:
1) Overweight While going on a low-carbohydrate diet may help you lose weight rapidly, this is not always the case. While having less fat may lead to weight loss, there are still many other factors that play a role in whether your weight will remain stable after going on this type of diet program. For example:
2) High cholesterol Levels of cholesterol can be affected by changes in your body’s metabolism and fat intake as well as by your blood pressure. High blood pressure and high cholesterol levels do not usually go hand in hand but they do interact with one another to affect your blood pressure levels. Therefore if you have high blood pressure but low cholesterol levels then it would be difficult for you to lose weight which would require lowering your blood pressure first before lowering your cholesterol levels (not a recommended way). However, if you have gone through a phase where you’ve lost weight very fast without much effort then losing some more weight would not require any specific changes in your lifestyle at all; such as reducing carbs or increasing protein consumption.
3) Cardiovascular disease As stated above, high blood pressure often goes hand in hand with decreasing your chances of maintaining a stable body weight which leads to cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, there are some people who have gone through periods where they maintained their stable body weight without managing their CVD symptoms despite having high blood pressure due to their heavy calorie consumption. Therefore CVD symptoms may need to be controlled before someone can go on this type of program.
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For more diet plan | https://medium.com/@hopegurru/what-is-the-keto-diet-and-how-to-start-a-keto-diet-c7cdef588a3e | [] | 2021-12-31 18:14:33.388000+00:00 | ['Ketogenic Diet', 'Ketogenic', 'Keto', 'Ketosis', 'Keto Diet'] |
The analysis of Forex market (17th May) | U.S. construction permits and jobless claims both came in better than expected in April，The us dollar index continues to rise, reaching the highest level of 97.88. There is some pressure in the upper line of 98. The previous high pressure is 98.33, and the lower line is 97.50.
GBP/USD
Before announcing her plans to step down, British prime minister Theresa may will make a last-ditch attempt to complete her mission and push her brexit deal through parliament in early June. Under the deal may struck with the conservatives on Thursday, she will have to agree to a timetable for her departure once the vote is over. The pound hit a nearly three-month low against the dollar amid lingering concerns.
The pound against the dollar continued to decline, has broken through the 1.2800 mark, support below the previous low of 1.2772 line. The upper short-term pressure is at 1.2800, and the upper pressure is around 1.2850.
USD/JPY
There was an even bigger rally yesterday, with prices around the 110 round number, support below 109.70 and pressure above 110.50. Daily K line KDJ index gold fork up, MACD index short can reduce, 2 moving averages running below the 0 axis, there are signs of gold fork.
XAU/USD
The price of gold was under pressure at the 1300 mark, which was withdrawn yesterday. It is currently trading around 1285.50, with short-term support below the 1280 line and below the 1270 line. Short-term pressure above the 1293 line and above the 1298 line. Daily K line KDJ index dead fork running downward, MACD index long quantity can continue to reduce, 2 moving average line around the 0 axis.
USO/USD
Oil prices in New York continued to rise yesterday as tensions in the Middle East rose and the saudi-led coalition launched air strikes against the houthis in retaliation for recent attacks on their oil infrastructure. Adding to traders’ fears of a sharp decline in crude oil inventories in the second half of the year, the U.S.
Short term support is at line 62 below today, with pressure above line 64. If New York closes above line 64, look at line 66.
Special note: The above information is for reference only, not as basis for investors operating in the markets, at your own risks. | https://medium.com/@cptmarketsofficial/the-analysis-of-forex-market-17th-may-491e92bd12ea | ['Cpt Markets'] | 2019-05-17 07:31:06.751000+00:00 | ['Trade', 'Cpt Markets', 'Economics', 'Money', 'Forex'] |
Tim Draper: Why We should Use Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies | Tim Draper: Why We should Use Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies
Crypto Heidi interviewed Tim Draper at Global Disruptive Innovation Summit on Oct 1, 2018, held in Silicon Valley.
Timothy Cook Draper (born June 11, 1958) is an American venture capital investor, writer and the founder of Draper Associates and Draper University. In July 2014, Draper received wide coverage for his purchase at a US Marshals Service auction of seized bitcoins from the Silk Road marketplace website. He also spent in excess of $5 million to push a ballot initiative to divide California into three smaller states, which has met the signature threshold but was removed from the ballot by a decision in the Supreme Court of California.
Tim Draper has also built an incubators and networks of venture capitalists called the Draper Venture Network with teams in China called Draper Dragon, in Japan called Draper Nexus, in Europe which trade for a spree. And then many other groups around the globe that helps the group to be a better venture capitalist network.
With a strong background in both finance, education, and politics, what is draper’s view on cryptocurrency? He replied with great confidence:
”The great thing about cryptocurrency is that it is not tied to a government. (Currently)Governments control you(people) by controlling your currency. Governments have to switch from control to service. Governments have to start thinking in terms of how do I attract citizens to my government, as opposed to you live here, you work for me. I think that is going to be a change that’s slowly starting to happen around the world.”
He mentioned that Japan government is a great example of good use of cryptocurrency.
“Bitcoin as a national currency in Japan has attracted entrepreneurs, businesses, money to Japan.” While other countries should follow its path.
“And I think other countries need to do this, too. They need to recognize that the world is now open, and as a government, you have to serve your people, instead of the other way around.
Heidi also asked Draper for 3 recommendations for people who are thinking about getting have their own startup.
1. Look around at all the technologies that are out there, and see how you can use one of those technologies to, and apply that to the industry that you’re in. And see if you can create a technological edge in your business.
2. Make sure you surround yourself with really good people who you have a lot of faith in, who can do the things that you can’t do for your business, or who do the things you don’t want to do for your business.
3. Take the first step, just do it. Just get out there take a step to try it see what happens.
4. Apply to Draper University.
Draper believes that the market will be bullish in the long term because
“I believe that no one will want to hold on to a currency that’s tied to a government when there’s a currency that’s just as good that is decentralized and not tied to a government. So, most people will move to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.”
But there will be a time required for cryptocurrency mass adoption. Let’s look forward to this big change in the future.
#GDIS #GDIS2018 #TimDraper Global Disruptive Innovation Summit (GDIS) is hosted by Silicon Valley Business Institute (SVBI). SVBI is founded in Silicon Valley since 2015, with wealth of innovation & entrepreneurship resources, having deep relationships with leading companies, incubators and business schools, more important, it provides enterprises a global platform and promotes global business innovation and revolutions.
Connect with Tim Draper:
LinkedIn . Facebook . Instagram . Twitter | https://medium.com/boosto/tim-draper-why-we-should-use-bitcoin-and-other-cryptocurrencies-5ecaa44a143b | [] | 2018-10-23 20:43:34.405000+00:00 | ['Investment', 'Startup', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin'] |
Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Car Collection Sure Is Impressive | When you’re a world-famous NASCAR star and the son of a world-famous NASCAR star, you certainly shouldn’t be hurting for money. Not only do you likely sleep on piles of cash like Scrooge McDuck, you have access to all kinds of cars the rest of us only dream of even touching, let alone driving.
At least that’s what you’d expect, and fortunately Dale Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t disappoint in this respect. While we’ve covered a lot of celebrity car collections, from movie stars to rappers and more, we have to say that Jr. has one of the most impressive ones out there. We’re not surprised but we sure are entertained to bring you a selection of some of the more interesting vehicles in his collection.
1948 Chevy TK Pickup
image credit: Vimeo
Earnhardt said in an interview once that the cars he likes to collect are “drivers” or in other words he doesn’t like the trailer queens. It makes sense since the man obviously likes to really drive, but you might be surprised to see his beat-up 1948 Chevy pickup. It has a healthy patina, many scratches, and other imperfections. However, the mechanicals are all modern, so this isn’t just some wheezing hunk of scrap.
1972 Chevy Camaro
image credit: YouTube
When you’re a professional racecar driver, you can be pretty picky about how a car performs, so it’s no surprise Dale Earnhardt Jr. is into custom builds. For this 1972 Camaro he wanted something which borrowed from the design of the 1970s Trans Am road race cars and the result is pretty cool. Among the many modifications is an LS2 and a 6-speed transmission. We’ve heard it’s only driven once a week, to and from church, at speeds under 35 mph (that’s a joke, in case you’re a fact checker or don’t understand the concept of sarcasm).
1965 Chevrolet Impala
image credit: Vimeo
While the supply of Chevy Impalas has been high, making it a popular car to snatch up and customize in a number of ways, but this is one car in the Earnhardt garage which has been kept fairly original, although it has a few upgrades like disc brakes. He said it was purchased brand new by a family member and has stayed in the family since, so that’s probably why he hasn’t lowered it and air brushed stampeding wild horses down the sides.
1976 Chevrolet Laguna
image credit: Vimeo
At least back in the day, Jr. said his Chevy Laguna is the car he drives the most. Does that surprise you? For many, Lagunas are kind of the forgotten classic in the Chevy lineup. He says the real charm of the car is its connection to NASCAR, and when you think about it that makes sense. Of course, this Chevy has been customized some with a trimmed rear bumper, unique front/rear spoilers,
Chevrolet Silverado
photo credit: Chevrolet
Earnhardt is unsurprisingly a real Chevy man, but he admitted on the Joe Rogan experience that he didn’t like his 2004 Silverado because it looked “kind of basic.” Hey, not everyone wants their trucks to be simple and he’s of that mindset. However, Jr. revealed he had just purchased a 2019 Silverado that he actually loves because of how it looks. We don’t know what color or trim he has, but it’s probably safe to say it’s a High Country, but that’s just an educated guess.
Racecar Graveyard
image credit: YouTube
One of the most interesting aspects of Jr.’s car collection is his famous racecar graveyard. The man has collected all kinds of stock cars which were wrecked, both by him and other drivers, the empty husks laid to rest in the woods at Dirty Mo Acres. It’s quite the display of racecars surrounded by nature, plants growing through those which have been sitting the longest. However, not just anyone can just go check out the collection since it’s on private property and you can bet there’s tight security, but all the cars are chronicled on the Dale Jr. website. If you have some time to burn, there are plenty of great pictures and a story for each and every car in the graveyard, including some incredibly famous cars like Montoya’s 42 car which spewed sparks at the Daytona 500 back in 2012. | https://medium.com/motorious/dale-earnhardt-jr-s-car-collection-sure-is-impressive-fe019f9aba7a | ['Sam Maven'] | 2020-12-08 18:00:03.957000+00:00 | ['American', 'Features', 'Trucks', 'Celebrity', 'Muscle'] |
Improve Your End to End Tests with Cypress Intercept | Stubbing Responses
A stub is a canned answer to a request. Stubs are useful in building test state within an end-to-end test by simulating data which may or may not directly affect the test. In this instance, the books endpoint returns a JSON object of data. Each individual book within the JSON object is listed within the books table.
What if this request takes a long time to load? Or, what if the table displays an error statement until the request has finished?
When writing end-to-end tests, it is critical to curate your testing environment in order to reduce flake. I have experienced the above at Pendo.io, specifically a table which returns an error statement until a request has fulfilled. We determined that we had two options to solve the problem:
Wait for the request to finish Stub the data
We chose to stub the data as the table data does not directly impact our test. We can do the same with the books endpoint as the table data does not matter to the overall user journey. What matters is that a user is able to add a book to their profile. As long as there is at least one table entry, our user journey will be able to proceed.
If a stub is a canned response to a request, then our test requires a response object to be built ahead of running our test. We can do so by copying a good response object and trimming it down to a more manageable state. In this instance, we are taking the response to the books endpoint and removing all but one entry.
A book fixture.
We can stub the table data by providing a fixture to the intercepted request. This will replace the response body with whatever data is found within the fixture file.
Our test featuring a stubbed response for the books endpoint.
Our table will now be populated by a single entry titled Designing Evolvable Web APIs with ASP.NET. We can assert against this prior to taking our next action. | https://javascript.plainenglish.io/improve-your-end-to-end-tests-with-cypress-intercept-2c68156d9495 | ['Jonathan Thompson'] | 2021-03-08 17:27:37.135000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Programming', 'Cypress', 'Testing', 'Tdd'] |
How I’m Using Medium Strategies To Grow On Instagram | How hashtags affect growth on Instagram
According to agorapulse’s research on hashtag usage, after posting over 140 posts across 4 different Instagram accounts, it was discovered that posts with hashtags resulted in a 70.14% increase in Likes compared to those without hashtags.
Hashtags are important but they need to be done right too.
When most people tag their work on Instagram, they use popular hashtags. Popular hashtags push their work into a large pool of similar people using those same hashtags.
The problem here is that people do not have the time to go through all the content in a certain hashtag. They leave that work for algorithms to recommend some of the content to them via their explore page.
But you know who has the time to scroll through all the content in a given hashtag?… Exactly. BOTS!!!
Bots are fast and efficient in getting through all the content in a hashtag and taking the necessary action depending on what they were programmed to do.
This is why when you tag your work with those popular hashtags, you may get a lot of bot activity on your account in form of likes, emoji or cheesy comments, or follows(with a scheduled unfollow).
When you get your bot likes, the Instagram algorithm pushes it out more within that hashtag and since little to no human beings are actively looking through all the content in that hashtag, your work falls into the hands of more bots.
Something different then happens at this stage.
When those bots see your work, they are programmed to detect bot activity on your account and if they see that there is a lot of bot activity compared to real human activity on your account, they stay away from your work entirely so your content just flops after a few bot interactions many of which unfollow you with 2 weeks of following you if they did.
The reason for this is simple. Imagine you have a bot that is doing all the work for you and seven other people also have bots doing the interaction work for them. The last thing you want is to have those seven other people following your account because, in the future, those bots won’t come back to interact with your content unless they are programmed to do so. This means that you would have fake followers. People who program this automation software (bots) make sure that they find a way of minimizing bot-bot interactions.
This causes you not to grow however much you try to make great content on Instagram.
This is what I found out when I started researching how Tanushree was getting amazing success(10,000+ followers)with actual human beings and I was stuck with less than 100 (40 followers to be exact. 50% of whom were bots).
Her tags had popular tags in them but she had another unique approach to how she varied the hashtags.
To explain it simply, let us go back to first grade English.
When we were studying English in the first grade, or even French and Latin in later grades, we were often given a photo and told to describe what we saw. In fact, nursery school English was even more accurate. They asked us to name the things we saw in the photo.
let’s take this charcoal sketch below I did a while back.
Charcoal Sketch of Reem by Author
When most people are posting this, they will use the popular hashtags that this sketch describes. For example the name of the model, the nature of work things like #art, #instagramartist,#pencilsketch, and all that stuff.
Those hashtags although relevant to this sketch do not do your work any justice when you only use them in your work. They come with a lot of bot activity we talked about earlier because they are popular so many people program their bots to interact with content in those hashtags.
When we apply the nursery English approach and we advance it to our level of English comprehension, we can find some other less popular hashtags. These could include things like #moodypotrait, #coolgirl, #calmgirl, #thinker, and so on as far as your mind can think.
This is what my friend Tanushree was doing. At first, my research pointed to this but my logic hated the idea. Why would I limit the popular hashtags and try the less popular ones for a greater return?
The answer is because that is where people are more than bots. I will explain this later but first…let me first show you how medium helped me understand this.
On medium, tags are limited to 5 (at least as am writing this article). When tagging your work here, you have to make sure you are tagging it with relevant topics that are in your story. This is made more evident in publications.
There are so many times that I have published work in publications with large followings and they did poorly. This is not that they are not good. No. It is just mainly two reasons in my opinion.
My work was not good enough for the publication and its readers. There were a lot of other writers who submitted to the same publication I did and we got published around the same time.
When my work is not good enough for publication, it does not mean that it is bad work. It only means that it does not meet the readers’ interests as other people’s work does.
Being published in publications with 100,000+ followers and I can't get more than 100 people clicking to read my work may mean that the way I have presented it is not as good as the way other people have presented their work.
Since people’s time is limited, they begin with what interests them most and move on to others if they still have the interests. Couple that with the fact that most publications will publish a lot of content from different writers in one day, you find that readers have a lot to pick from and this depends on the interest they have.
When you publish in highly targeted and very niched publications, chances are that you will get more exposure because those publications may not have as many submissions and the audiences also like the content you are giving them if it is within the niche.
How does this relate to Instagram hashtags?
Look at those hashtags as “Instagram publications”. They introduce your work to lots of people following those tags. I think of it this way…
Hashtags are to Instagram what Publications are to medium
Unlike medium publications, you do not have to apply or submit to those tags and wait for someone to approve your work. You just have to include your hashtag and you will have automatically published your work within those hashtags/Instagram publications…
I also want to make it clear that there is a difference between tags and hashtags on Instagram. Here I am only talking about hashtags in this article.
…When you do this, there are thousands to millions of people doing the same on their posts as well.
If 1000 people submit to a given hashtag in an hour, people visiting those tags will interact with the latest submissions and maybe those submissions that are most interesting(those with the most engagement).
Interest on its own without engagement is highly subjective and when someone is presented with so many options, it even becomes harder instead of becoming more like a game of chance that you get your work in front of them.
Bots on the other hand can just go through all that content in a few minutes.
When you submit to less popular and highly niched down hashtags as well, this is like submitting to a highly targeted or less popular publication on medium.
If you don’t know what an advantage this is, here is an article that will help you understand.
Anyway, this would mean that in the case of Instagram, you make sure that you tag your work with relevant hashtags that are less popular along with a few popular hashtags.
You should also keep your hashtags around seven.
According to research by Piqora now known as Olapic, A study they did of 150,000 posts from brands on Instagram found that 7 hashtags, per photo post, generates by far the most like engagement on Instagram — up to 23% more likes.
Harsh tags beyond 9 were considered spam.
I’d suggest that you can balance your hashtags using the 80–20 rule with 80% of your hashtags being niched down/fewer followers with about ~100,000- 300,000 followers and 20% be your popular hashtags.~1M+ | https://medium.com/james-ssekamatte/how-im-using-medium-strategies-to-grow-on-instagram-b1009141363c | ['James Ssekamatte'] | 2020-12-23 16:42:54.353000+00:00 | ['Instagram', 'Content Marketing', 'Social Media', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Content Strategy'] |
I Read the News Today, Oh Boy | Was a tad bit surprised to see
A spike in the word “misnomer”,
But what else can we expect from
A man with a dead lobster comb-over?
I guess it could mean a mistake,
Or a common misconception,
It’s easy, really, when you can
Make up your own definitions | https://medium.com/@josufalvidfggjjck/i-read-the-news-today-oh-boy-5a00989ce0f7 | [] | 2020-12-14 09:01:28.243000+00:00 | ['Resistance Poetry', 'Donald Trump', 'Fake News', 'Humor', 'Politics'] |
Marvel vs DC movies: Is DC really that far behind ? | Blockbuster superhero movies are increasingly dominating the movie release calendar each year. While Marvel is clearly leading the way with an ever growing fan base, how far behind is DC ?
While box office is the most talked about measure of success, profits earned and ratings from critics will also have an influence on the long-term legacy of these movies. Let’s take a look at how the two studios compare.
Marvel has delivered at scale
The studio has benefited from having a clear vision of how they wanted to evolve their cinematic universe, while DC seemed to be just reacting to what Marvel was throwing at them. Since 2000, Marvel movies have generated over 3 times more revenue from ticket sales worldwide.
Movies released since 2000
However, if we look at box-office per movie, DC is not too far behind (around $500M per movie compared to $687M for Marvel).
Low movie ratings not a hindrance to commercial success
While Marvel has clearly been a big hit with the movie critics, movies panned by critics across both studios have succeeded as well.
Rotten tomatoes classifies ratings > 60% as ‘Fresh’ & rest as ‘Rotten’
DC’s “Suicide Squad” ($746M box-office and 27% rotten rating) and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” ($873M box-office and 28% rotten rating) demonstrate the strength of the studio’s fan base.
The interactive tool here gives a deep-dive into all Marvel & DC movies released since 2000 (Desktop & tablet friendly as of now). Demo below:
DC is starting to find it’s feet
In the last couple of years, DC has tweaked it’s strategy and focused on single characters rather than trying to put together an ensemble like Marvel. And it is starting to work, with both “Aquaman” (2018) and “Joker” (2019) entering the $1B club that Marvel clearly dominated.
Big returns on a low budget is the new breed of blockbuster
While most Marvel & DC productions have budgets over $150M owing to the extensive VFX action sequences, Deadpool changed the game by creating a new sub-genre that got an overwhelming response. An R-rated film with a $58M budget produced amazing returns($783M in worldwide box-office) for 20th Century Fox (since acquired by Disney and part of MCU).
Joker did something similar for DC in 2019. With a production budget of $55M, Joker passed Deadpool as the highest grossing R-rated film of all time. These successes have now opened up the path for more variety in the genre that can be highly profitable if executed well. | https://medium.com/data-stories-au/marvel-vs-dc-movies-is-dc-really-that-far-behind-45932acdf6c9 | ['Saurabh Dhiman'] | 2020-06-15 14:01:25.279000+00:00 | ['Visualization', 'Dc', 'D3js', 'Marvel'] |
Will Trump Try to Postpone the Election? | Photo by Tiffany Tertipes on Unsplash
Donald Trump sent out a tweet yesterday suggesting that the November election be postponed because of the possibility of fraud with vote by mail. This created instant hysteria as well as a lot of articles reassuring the public that Trump cannot legally postpone the election.
If he cannot legally change the date of the election, then why did he hint that he would? There’s a lot of moving parts here, so let’s break it down.
The Timing
Economic numbers that indicated that the economy is in free fall were released on Thursday morning. In Trump’s mind, this makes him look bad because he has based the success of his administration on the success of the economy.
So he pulled a classic Trump tactic and tweeted the most outrageous thing that he could think of to distract attention from the ugly numbers. He does this all the time. Tries to divert attention from events that in his mind either make him look bad or take attention away from him.
Which brings us to the second event on that same day that he didn’t like. It was the day of John Lewis’ funeral. Trump hated John Lewis because Lewis called him an illegitimate president and refused to attend Trump’s inauguration. Trump hated even more that the eyes of the entire nation were on Lewis’ funeral. Trump always has to be the center of attention. Always. No exceptions.
Three former presidents, Clinton, Bush and Obama, attended the funeral and a fourth (Jimmy Carter) sent a message that was read during the funeral because he was physically unable to attend. Trump was not invited. Trump is emotionally immature. In his mind, this was like a birthday party where everyone in the class was invited except him.
So he acted out and sent an outrageous tweet to draw attention away from the funeral and the fact that he wasn’t invited and pull attention back to himself.
The Legality
Yes, Trump has no legal authority to postpone the election but he doesn’t care about that. For a few reasons.
1.) He wasn’t paying attention in civics class nor has he paid any attention since then so he has no idea how government works. He thinks that he is in charge of everything. Congress, the Supreme Court, everything. In his mind President = King. So legalities are meaningless to him. He is king so he can do whatever he wants.
2.) Prior to his election to the presidency, Trump ran his own private company. He made the rules and if something was illegal, he sued. Until he became president, the rules and even the law did not apply to him. He did whatever he wanted with no consequences. So if it looks like he may lose the election, his thinking is to just postpone it until the economy gets better, the virus disappears, Biden dies, whatever it takes for him to win re-election. Legalities be damned (see above).
3.) You better believe that Bill Barr has promised Trump that he will find a way to postpone or cancel the election. And I’m certain that Barr has been devoting inordinate amounts of time trying to figure out how to, legally or illegally, constitutionally or unconstitutionally, postpone or cancel the election. He may already have a plan and is just waiting to launch it as an October “surprise.” And Trump couldn’t wait to tell everyone. He reminds me of the character of Eric Trump on SNL who is always blurting out the truth that his brother Don Jr. is trying to hide.
The Effects
Even if Trump and Barr are unable to postpone the election, Trump has now cast so much doubt on the possibility of a clean election, that the public may lose faith in the process. People may be so discouraged that they won’t bother to vote and the Blue Tsunami that the Democrats are counting on will be just a trickle. Trump wins.
Or the election will be so close that Trump will sue and the recounts will go on for weeks. No one will trust the result and even if he loses, Trump wins.
Or somehow a miracle occurs and Biden wins in a landslide. Except again, Trump will sue citing the possibility of fraudulent ballots or interference by China or the Clintons. The recounts will go on for weeks and even if he loses, Trump wins.
Don’t be reassured by all the so-called authorities that Trump cannot legally postpone the election. That may be true, but he can damage the process so much that the election will be all but meaningless. Our future is in the hands of an ignorant old man who is sliding into dementia.
We are at a turning point in history. Our democracy is teetering on the brink of failure. | https://carenawhite.medium.com/will-trump-try-to-postpone-the-election-2c71d413a576 | ['Caren White'] | 2020-07-31 17:06:02.804000+00:00 | ['Barr', 'Politics', 'Election 2020', 'Trump', 'Vote By Mail'] |
Bitcoin ETF 란 | in Both Sides of the Table | https://medium.com/icooxygen/bitcoin-etf-%EB%9E%80-%EB%AC%B4%EC%97%87%EC%9D%B8%EA%B0%80-29267145df91 | ['Ico Oxygen'] | 2018-08-09 23:54:27.132000+00:00 | ['비트코인', 'Bitcoin', 'Etf', 'Exchange', 'SEC'] |
Bottom navigation which state is saved when clicks in item in the list and switches between bottom tabs. | Steps to achieve this sort of UI follows like this and good state management, we need following classes:
app_navigator.dart which helps us to build screens and navigate between them without losing state. bottom_navigation.dart module which designs actual UI on bottom navigation. main_screen.dart file which consists app_navigator.dart and bottom_navigation in them. Other dart files to show UI such as: home_screen, discover_screen, notification_screen and profile_screen.
Let’s do the job
Building AppNavigator module
Quick reminder, AppNavigator is just simple dart file which helps us to create navigation when user do some action and navigates to it.
I am creating app_navigator file. You can name what ever you want.
class AppNavigator extends StatelessWidget{
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Container();
}
}
Nothing fancy here. Let’s add two main methods:
_buildRootWidget()
_buildDetailWidget()
buildRootWidget will build main widgets in main_screen. In case of buildDetailWidget gonna build detailWidgets from rootWidget. I know it is confusing let’s see them in action. But before adding this methods let’s add some helper properties for AppNavigator such as:navigatorKey and tabItem. NavigatorKey is type of GlobalKey<NavigatorState> for saving state. TabItem will be our own class.
class AppNavigator extends StatelessWidget{
AppNavigator({this.navigatorKey, this.tabItem});
final GlobalKey<NavigatorState> navigatorKey;
final TabItem tabItem;
Widget _buildRootWidget(BuildContext context) {
if (tabItem == TabItem.home) {
return new HomeScreen();
} else if (tabItem == TabItem.discovery) {
return new DiscoverScreen();
} else if (tabItem == TabItem.notifications) {
return new NotificationScreen();
} else {
return new ProfileScreen();
}
}
Widget _buildDetailWidget(BuildContext context, dynamic item) {
return Container();
}
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Container();
}
}
As you can see here I have already added HomeScreen, DiscoverScreen, NotificationScreen, and ProfileScreen. These are all simple screens which extends from StatelessWidget or StatefulWidget based on your needs.
TabItem is our own class which is enum
enum TabItem { home, discovery, notifications, profile }
Last thing for AppNavigator is routeBuilders. It is method which build for us screens which we call it as a route. It will build for Flutter rootWidget or detailWidget based context. Simple method for routeBuilder in AppNavigator will look like this. Before implementing routeBuilders you have to define your routes for whole application. For my case it has tabItem which we call it as AppNavigatorRoutes.root and detail of the root which is AppNavigatorRoutes.detail. Route builders method will manage these two navigations based on context.
Map<String, WidgetBuilder> _routeBuilders(BuildContext context,
{dynamic item}) {
return {
AppNavigatorRoutes.root: (context) => _buildRootWidget(context),
AppNavigatorRoutes.detail: (context) => _buildDetailWidget(context, item)
};
}
Finally we can build our Navigator widget for AppNavigator widget. You have to return Navigator widget in build method of AppNavigator and define settings for whole routes of the application.
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
final routeBuilders = _routeBuilders(context);
return Navigator(
key: navigatorKey,
initialRoute: AppNavigatorRoutes.root,
onGenerateRoute: (routeSettings) {
return CupertinoPageRoute(
builder: (context) => routeBuilders[routeSettings.name](context),
);
},
);
}
As you can see here we build Navigator widget for AppNavigator class and it has properties such as key for saving state, initialRoute for showing first screen, onGenerateRoute it is triggered when some action happened in rootWidget.
Overall AppNavigator module will look like this.
class AppNavigatorRoutes {
static const String root = '/';
static const String detail = '/detail';
}
class AppNavigator extends StatelessWidget{
AppNavigator({this.navigatorKey, this.tabItem});
final GlobalKey<NavigatorState> navigatorKey;
final TabItem tabItem;
Map<String, WidgetBuilder> _routeBuilders(BuildContext context,
{dynamic item}) {
return {
AppNavigatorRoutes.root: (context) => _buildRootWidget(context),
AppNavigatorRoutes.detail: (context) => _buildDetailWidget(context, item)
};
}
Widget _buildRootWidget(BuildContext context) {
if (tabItem == TabItem.home) {
return new HomeScreen();
} else if (tabItem == TabItem.discovery) {
return new DiscoverScreen();
} else if (tabItem == TabItem.notifications) {
return new NotificationScreen();
} else {
return new ProfileScreen();
}
}
Widget _buildDetailWidget(BuildContext context, dynamic item) {
return Container();
}
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
final routeBuilders = _routeBuilders(context);
return Navigator(
key: navigatorKey,
initialRoute: AppNavigatorRoutes.root,
onGenerateRoute: (routeSettings) {
return CupertinoPageRoute(
builder: (context) => routeBuilders[routeSettings.name](context),
);
},
);
}
}
Building BottomNavigation for UI mainly
Nothing fancy, just create BottomNavigation which extends from StatelessWidget.
class BottomNavigation extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Container();
}
}
It has two main properties such as: “currentTab” from name you can understand that it holds current Tab of the app and onSelectedTab method which will be used in main_screen.
BottomNavigation({this.currentTab, this.onSelectTab});
final TabItem currentTab;
final ValueChanged<TabItem> onSelectTab;
We will be adding 4 helper methods inside BottomNavigation. Main purpose of those methods is simply to build tabs with icons.
Widget _homeTab() =>
Padding(
padding: const EdgeInsets.fromLTRB(10, 0, 10, 0),
child: IconButton(
icon: Icon(Icons.home),
color: _colorTabMatching(item: TabItem.home),
onPressed: () {
onSelectTab(
TabItem.values[0],
);
}),
);
Widget _discoverTab() =>
IconButton(
icon: Icon(Icons.fiber_new),
color: _colorTabMatching(item: TabItem.discovery),
onPressed: () {
onSelectTab(
TabItem.values[1],
);
}
);
Widget _notificationsTab() => IconButton(
icon: Icon(Icons.notifications),
color: _colorTabMatching(item: TabItem.notifications),
onPressed: () {
onSelectTab(
TabItem.values[2],
);
});
Widget _profileSettingsTab() => IconButton(
icon: Icon(Icons.person),
color: _colorTabMatching(item: TabItem.profile),
onPressed: () {
onSelectTab(
TabItem.values[2],
);
});
Color _colorTabMatching({TabItem item}) {
return currentTab == item
? Colors.blue
: Colors.blue.withOpacity(0.25);
}
_colorTabMathing method for changing color from active to inactive of current tab in BottomNavigation.
Finally we can add all those above methods in a build method of BottomNavigation widget.
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return BottomAppBar(
shape: CircularNotchedRectangle(),
child: Container(
height: 56,
child: Row(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceBetween,
children: <Widget>[
_homeTab(),
_discoverTab(),
SizedBox(width: 50), // The dummy child
_notificationsTab(),
_profileSettingsTab()
],
),
));
}
Simple BottomAppBar from flutter. You can ask why we need SizedBox() widget in the center of BottomAppBar? It is because of FloatingActionButton. If we don’t put SizedBox then FloatingActionButton will overlap with notificationsTab.
Overall code for BottomNavigation will look like this:
enum TabItem { home, discovery, notifications, profile }
class BottomNavigation extends StatelessWidget{
BottomNavigation({this.currentTab, this.onSelectTab});
final TabItem currentTab;
final ValueChanged<TabItem> onSelectTab;
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return BottomAppBar(
shape: CircularNotchedRectangle(),
child: Container(
height: 56,
child: Row(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceBetween,
children: <Widget>[
_homeTab(),
_discoverTab(),
SizedBox(width: 50), // The dummy child
_notificationsTab(),
_profileSettingsTab()
],
),
));
}
Widget _homeTab() =>
Padding(
padding: const EdgeInsets.fromLTRB(10, 0, 10, 0),
child: IconButton(
icon: Icon(Icons.home),
color: _colorTabMatching(item: TabItem.home),
onPressed: () {
onSelectTab(
TabItem.values[0],
);
}),
);
Widget _discoverTab() =>
IconButton(
icon: Icon(Icons.fiber_new),
color: _colorTabMatching(item: TabItem.discovery),
onPressed: () {
onSelectTab(
TabItem.values[1],
);
}
);
Widget _notificationsTab() => IconButton(
icon: Icon(Icons.notifications),
color: _colorTabMatching(item: TabItem.notifications),
onPressed: () {
onSelectTab(
TabItem.values[2],
);
});
Widget _profileSettingsTab() => IconButton(
icon: Icon(Icons.person),
color: _colorTabMatching(item: TabItem.profile),
onPressed: () {
onSelectTab(
TabItem.values[2],
);
});
Color _colorTabMatching({TabItem item}) {
return currentTab == item
? Colors.blue
: Colors.blue.withOpacity(0.25);
}
}
Building main_screen with the help of bottom_navigation and app_navigator modules.
main_screen.dart file will called from main.dart file when app launches first. It will be simple StatefulWidget. Which look like this.
class MainScreen extends StatefulWidget{
@override
State<StatefulWidget> createState() {
return _MainScreenState();
}
}
class _MainScreenState extends State<MainScreen>{
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold();
}
}
MainScreen’s job is to save state for each tab. Based on your needs you can also add other methods and properties. I always try to avoid add tab related methods inside MainScreen. Let’s add our properties.
TabItem _currentTab = TabItem.home;
Map<TabItem, GlobalKey<NavigatorState>> _navigatorKeys = {
TabItem.home: GlobalKey<NavigatorState>(),
TabItem.discovery: GlobalKey<NavigatorState>(),
TabItem.notifications: GlobalKey<NavigatorState>(),
TabItem.profile: GlobalKey<NavigatorState>(),
};
From name you can infer that _currentTab is item which defines current screen for bottomNavigation. _navigatorKeys saves state for each Navigators based on tabItems in hashMap. You can read more about GlobalKey here. Basically it helps us to save state when we switch between tabs or open detail screen from one of the tab screen.
We have to define in main_screen.dart file our _selectTab method which we will pass it to the BottomNavigation class. From the name of method you can understand that it will help us to change _currentTab item state and _navigatorKeys properties.
void _selectTab(TabItem tabItem) {
if (tabItem == _currentTab) {
// pop to first route
_navigatorKeys[tabItem].currentState.popUntil((route) => route.isFirst);
} else {
setState(() => _currentTab = tabItem);
}
}
Next method in main_screen will be _buildOffstageNavigator. The idea behind this method is that it will help us to create AppNavigator widget and manages tabItem widget visibility in main_screen.
Widget _buildOffstageNavigator(TabItem tabItem) {
return Offstage(
offstage: _currentTab != tabItem,
child: AppNavigator(
navigatorKey: _navigatorKeys[tabItem],
tabItem: tabItem));
}
Based on documentation Offstage, it helps to work with visibility of tab widgets in main screen.
/// [Offstage] can be used to measure the dimensions of a widget without
/// bringing it on screen (yet). To hide a widget from view while it is not
/// needed, prefer removing the widget from the tree entirely rather than
/// keeping it alive in an [Offstage] subtree.
Last method in main_screen will be to implement build method of widget class. Basically we create Scaffold Element and add to its body stack of widgets using our _buildOffstageNavigator method. For bottomNavigationBar we add our own implementation of BottomNavigation. Lastly we center our Floating action button.
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
body: Stack(children: <Widget>[
_buildOffstageNavigator(TabItem.home),
_buildOffstageNavigator(TabItem.discovery),
_buildOffstageNavigator(TabItem.notifications),
_buildOffstageNavigator(TabItem.profile),
]),
bottomNavigationBar: BottomNavigation(
currentTab: _currentTab,
onSelectTab: _selectTab,
),
);
}
I would like to add Floating action button in center using property called:FloatingActionButtonLocation
floatingActionButtonLocation:
FloatingActionButtonLocation.centerDocked,
Adding FloatingActionButton is simple. Just add FloatingActionButton widget to property of Scaffold called floatingActionButton.
floatingActionButton:FloatingActionButton(
backgroundColor: Colors.transparent,
elevation: 0,
onPressed: () {
},
child: Container(
height: 100,
width: 100,
decoration: BoxDecoration(
shape: BoxShape.circle,
color: Colors.blue,
),
child: Icon(
Icons.dashboard,
color: Colors.white,
size: 35,
),
),
)
So overall code for main_screen will look like this.
class MainScreen extends StatefulWidget{
@override
State<StatefulWidget> createState() {
return _MainScreenState();
}
}
class _MainScreenState extends State<MainScreen>{
TabItem _currentTab = TabItem.home;
Map<TabItem, GlobalKey<NavigatorState>> _navigatorKeys = {
TabItem.home: GlobalKey<NavigatorState>(),
TabItem.discovery: GlobalKey<NavigatorState>(),
TabItem.notifications: GlobalKey<NavigatorState>(),
TabItem.profile: GlobalKey<NavigatorState>(),
};
void _selectTab(TabItem tabItem) {
if (tabItem == _currentTab) {
// pop to first route
_navigatorKeys[tabItem].currentState.popUntil((route) => route.isFirst);
} else {
setState(() => _currentTab = tabItem);
}
}
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
body: Stack(children: <Widget>[
_buildOffstageNavigator(TabItem.home),
_buildOffstageNavigator(TabItem.discovery),
_buildOffstageNavigator(TabItem.notifications),
_buildOffstageNavigator(TabItem.profile),
]),
bottomNavigationBar: BottomNavigation(
currentTab: _currentTab,
onSelectTab: _selectTab,
),
floatingActionButtonLocation:
FloatingActionButtonLocation.centerDocked,
floatingActionButton:FloatingActionButton(
backgroundColor: Colors.transparent,
elevation: 0,
onPressed: () {
},
child: Container(
height: 100,
width: 100,
decoration: BoxDecoration(
shape: BoxShape.circle,
color: Colors.blue,
),
child: Icon(
Icons.dashboard,
color: Colors.white,
size: 35,
),
),
));
}
Widget _buildOffstageNavigator(TabItem tabItem) {
return Offstage(
offstage: _currentTab != tabItem,
child: AppNavigator(
navigatorKey: _navigatorKeys[tabItem],
tabItem: tabItem));
}
}
Overall project folder will look like this. I added empty screens such as:home_screen, discover_screen, notification_screen, profile_screen.
When we run the project it should look like this.
Let’s add some list widget to home and discover screens and switch between them to so if state of each screen
From video you can see that state is saved when user switches between tabs. That was our goal. Let’s add detail screen for list item click or screen for floatingactionbutton click.
I added two empty widgets: dashboard_screen, home_screen_detail. I am navigating to them using Page route. I used here MaterialPageRoute, you can use whatever makes more sense to your project.
This is my home_screen class.
class HomeScreen extends StatefulWidget {
@override
State<StatefulWidget> createState() {
return _HomeScreenState();
}
}
class _HomeScreenState extends State<HomeScreen> {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Container(
child: ListView.builder(
itemCount: 20,
itemBuilder: (context, index) {
return SizedBox(
height: 70,
child: InkWell(
onTap: () {
Navigator.push(
context,
MaterialPageRoute(
builder: (context) => new HomeScreenDetail(),
),
);
},
child: Center(
child: Text(
"Home screen item:$index",
style: TextStyle(fontSize: 16),
),
),
),
);
},
));
}
}
Final output to our project will be as following:
I know my tutorial is a bit long but it has all things there. I wasn’t able to find out there bottom navigation with saving state with floatingactionbutton. Hope it will be helpful. You can find whole project code on my github account. | https://medium.com/flutter-community/bottom-navigation-which-state-is-saved-when-clicks-in-item-in-the-list-and-switches-between-bottom-bcf8ba3bc4a | ['Sardor Islomov'] | 2020-11-07 16:21:35.524000+00:00 | ['Statemanagment', 'Flutter', 'Android', 'Bottomnavigation', 'Floatingactionbutton'] |
Mom’s Guide to A Healthier and Longer Life [Infographic] | Motherhood is one of life’s most sublime joys. But along with this bliss is the stress of taking care of your children.
Their needs are never-ending, and your to-do list keeps getting longer and longer — from diaper duties to grocery shopping and preparing their everyday meals to help them with their homework. You may be a super mom, but your body isn’t invincible.
Just like anybody else on the planet, you can get sick or over-fatigued. That’s why you need to take care of yourself well.
What happens to your children in case you get a serious illness? Thankfully, there are simple ways you can adopt a healthier lifestyle and live a longer life.
This infographic provides quick tips that you can incorporate into your life — from preparing healthy snacks to making sure you’re protected with life insurance.
As a super mom, you need to be sure you’re doing all it takes to stay fit and healthy and that you’re prepared for life’s unprecedented circumstances.
Infographic by: BPI-Philam Life Assurance Corporation | https://medium.com/@nina-pineda/moms-guide-to-a-healthier-and-longer-life-infographic-34e7ab083fb0 | ['Nina Pineda'] | 2020-10-19 11:26:00.185000+00:00 | ['Infographics', 'Healthy Life Style', 'Moms Guide'] |
Best UI/UX tools to design mobile applications | A mobile application’s UI can either make or break the application and designing it isn’t a walk in the park. UI design is everything that you want to care about when it comes to attracting users.
In order to do this successfully, a fair share of the best mobile UX design tools is a must-have. In order to rise up user engagement, conversion rates, and consequently revenues delivering a great user experience is a need. It’s always a difficult task to create the best UI and best mobile app tools that you want to look out for:
1. Figma
Figma, the free mobile UI kit was thoughtfully crafted and documented by Figma designer, Joey Banks. The tailor-made components of this tool are used to build interfaces for chat applications, social networks, calendars, and more. It is a web app; you can run it in a browser and therefore on pretty much any operating system.
Image Source
That’s one aspect completely in contrast with Sketch, which has been a Mac-only app. Contrary to my presumptions, Figma runs perfectly smooth and even trumps Sketch’s responsiveness in a number of areas. And at f1studioz we lean more towards Figma.
2. Sketch
Sketch has been the market leader when it comes to UI designing. However, since 2018, it has got two contenders- Figma and Adobe XD.
Image Source
Initially, Sketch has been perceived as an expensive choice but it has been the application of choice by many UI designers. The value proposition that Sketch could bring to the designs made is conspicuous.
3. Adobe Experience Design (XD)
Adobe Photoshop had been a go-to tool for many designers but it has never been the one for UI designing. When it has realized the need for an Interface tool, Adobe has come up with Adobe XD. Building up all the components needed, gradually XD has become a direct competitor of Sketch.
Image Source
This is a flexible tool and supports usage across devices unlike Sketch as it exclusively supports Mac. This tool greatly supports wireframing, prototyping, and much more.
4. Axure RP
Axure RP is an easy-to-use and unpopular tool when it comes to UX designing. If you are a beginner in UI designing this can help you create assuring prototypes. With a range of drag and drop widgets, the Axure RP tool’s learning curve is not too steep. Supporting web and mobile prototypes, axure makes it easier to create responsive prototypes across devices.
5. Fluid UI
Fluid UI is a tool where you get to turn your idea into a prototype in minutes with the easy-to-use drag and drop editor. This is a real-time collaborative tool that helps in letting your team know about your ideas at the earliest. The drag and drop editors create prototypes quickly.
6. Protopie
ProtoPie, a cross-platform design tool helps designers in prototyping without a code created.
Importing designs from other design tools such as Figma, Sketch, and adding functionality to designs has been made easy.
It is a great tool for designers, with zero coding knowledge, to add functionality and check the functionality of the design at the earliest.
With that being said now you have a greater idea of the tools that make the best stories, prototypes, and wireframing. Now go ahead and learn more about these tools so that you could make mouth-dropping designs. You can also find designers favoring Figma over Sketch as this tool could be used across devices. Now tell us your favorite go-to design tool when it comes to mobile development. | https://blog.f1studioz.com/best-ui-ux-tools-to-design-mobile-applications-a365288d9a43 | ['Susmitha Sakhamuri'] | 2021-03-10 10:40:02.583000+00:00 | ['Adobe Xd', 'Figma', 'Protopie', 'Mobile Ux Design', 'Sketch'] |
When The Conservative Stopped Being Conservative | When The Conservative Stopped Being Conservative
People are losing hope of the current system, and that’s when Trump become popular.
When people are left behind, they become unhappy. If things keep unchanged, they’ll become hopeless and may take extreme actions.
This probably is the reason why Trump is popular.
Current mechanism fail to distribute resources equally. More and more people feel upset and hopeless, and they may loss faith in classic politician and their regular policies. They may consider someone different with unusual opinions, like Trump. People got left behind may consider extreme solution to reverse the situation.
This is the time when the conservative being conservative. conservative.
[Photo credit: Lending Memo] | https://medium.com/yenting-lin-and-his-dots/when-the-conservative-stopped-being-conservative-d5b9cffce26f | ['Yenting Lin'] | 2016-04-05 07:59:20.419000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Donald Trump', 'Ideas'] |
How to be alone on Christmas. | Cathedral Quarter, Belfast, December 2019
I’m lucky that, this year, I will be around the small bubble of people I’ve been living with while I daydrink and watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I’m cognizant of the fact that this is not true for a signifcant number of people and, as I’ve been talking with various friends about their single-living holiday plans, I’ve also been reminiscing about the one time I was without family on Christmas.
I had never spent a Christmas without family and, if I’m being honest, I didn’t think in late December of last year that I would have any problem with that. Prior to that day, I had envisioned myself wrapped up in my studio apartment, overlooking a cold, icy and empty Belfast street, sipping my favorite cuppa — an Irish breakfast tea. Perhaps I’d stream a movie or two, call some folks back in the States, eat a self-made charcuterie curated at my local Tesco’s. I’m fancy. I know.
There are a great many aspects of growing older that make holidays…a chore. I had been so used to the theatrical endeavor of traveling home for the holidays. I had moved away from home for college and had continued living my post-grad life there as well, so I was used to sojourning home for what always ended up being quite the holiday adventure (what I’m alluding to here is that it’s no coindence that the Christmas Vacation Griswold family has always reminded me of my own and held a special place in my heart).
Traveling home for the holidays always included a schedule of pre-roadtrip tasks: the packing, the apartment cleaning, the shoving a cat into a crate and then that crate into a car, the stop off at a Valvoline so that I could have a mechanic tell me that “No, there is nothing wrong with your tires” (a tradition I started after I blew a tire on the interstate a few Christmases back).
Once I arrived, I would be greeted at the door by the family dog (my biggest fan because I am and always have been a huge advocate for long walks) and my siblings who are nine years younger than me and might as well be surrogate children. The first two days are magical. I can sleep in. I can venture to old haunts (a favorite local coffeeshop). I can catch up with friends who are also back engaging in the same travel ritual as I am. Around day three or so, though, I begin to remember why I enjoyed leaving in the first place.
Privacy goes out the window. You want to nap? Someone is going to ask why and for how long. There is the constant stream of conservative media on the family television, bookended only by nearly identical Hallmark Christmas movies. There is far too much drinking that occurs at the tail end, usually spurred on by two things: the introduction of politics into family discussion and the clear reality that you won’t be able to take the beer with you, so you might as well drink it there.
All logic (and lived experience) had conditioned me to think that December 25, 2019 would be a great many things it usually wasn’t: quiet, calm, and devoid of passive aggressive politics or weird questions about my love life. Last Christmas was all of those things. But it was also a little lonely. I caught myself missing the warmth that occurs in a dimly lit space where a group of people who love each other decide to be quiet together. For all of the boisterous conversation, the third degree questioning about my career, or the unending Hallmark marathon, holidays are also the time when I’m fully and physically surrounded by familial love. It’s the only time, barring weddings and funerals, when I feel it. Weddings are far too stressful to me, typically, and funerals far too sad. Both of those occassions usually require uncomfortable shoes to be worn. Christmas, as a time for gathering, never had the accompanying stress and commotion of nuptials or the melancholy of a death. And I was always free to wear elastic pants without judgment. | https://medium.com/@alexishtarver/how-to-be-alone-on-christmas-8e4f97de91ac | ['Alexis Tarver'] | 2020-12-25 18:17:34.469000+00:00 | ['Northern Ireland', 'Holidays', 'Christmas', 'Loneliness', 'Belfast'] |
Retinal Inspired Neural Network Structure | If you’ve ever trained a GAN(Generative Adversarial Network) or an image classification neural network, you know just how data hungry it can be. Especially when you want to work with higher resolution images. The other day, I tried running a GAN on a couple hundred images. Just on a resolution of 256x256 and the compute time was close to an hour. And I’ve got a fairly decent graphics card: a GeForce RTX 2070 Super.
So that got me thinking: How in the world do animals process so much visual information on the go? Think about your own eyes for a minute.
Photo by Paul Skorupskas on Unsplash
We focus on a point in center, while everything else is out of focus. If you could look at the back of your eyeball under a microscope, you’d see around 130 million rods(think light/dark) and 7 million cones(think color). But the bulk of those rods and cones are smack dab in the center of your eye.
Photo by salvatore ventura on Unsplash
Having all of those sensors in the center allows you to see high definition at the focal point, while still being able to see if there is anything of interest is in the periphery.
So I wondered if a model based on nature could help reduce the high GPU requirements in any way. And it turns out, yes it can, and in a much more significant way than I could have imagined.
The Problem
To start, let’s consider a typical GAN and, say we were to feed it 10,000 images at 4,096 x 4,096 resolution. If you pull out your handy calculator, you’ll see that is shy of 17 million points of data in gray scale per image, and 3 times that if in RGB. Compare that to the 256x256 images I was processing earlier, which total around 65kb per picture. So we’re talking about an increase of 256 times the size for the larger images.
But that doesn’t take into consideration that training a neural network requires performing operations on humongous matrices. The time it takes to calculate the product of two matrices grows exponentially at just a measly* n³!!! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_multiplication_algorithm)
*dash of sarcasm
That turns our 256 times increase in data into nearly 17 million times the processing time! See the problem? So any way to reduce the amount of data needing to be processed will yield dividends.
Plus, it’s not like every part of an image is important for determining what you are looking at. With a quick glance at a dog, you know you’re looking at your furry companion and not a hungry crocodile.
Photo by Roberto Nickson on Unsplash
But you didn’t have to focus on the wall, floor, fur, etc. It was all there, but just not as clear.
So how could we turn a simple glance into digital code? I developed a method to do just this.
The RNN-i Structure
Meet the Retinal Inspired Neural Network Input method, or RNN-i, for short.
First, we want to choose a focal area size. For this example, we’ll use 4x4. That will be at the center of our focus. We will pass all of those data points into our first row of “glance” data. Since it is 4x4, that will be 16 data points in our first row.
Second, we will want to take an area of 8x8(two times the width and height), centered on the same focal point. But we will process each 2x2 part to take the mean average. The mean average is just (x1+x2+x3+x4)/4. That turns those four pixels into one averaged pixel. Then we continue doing this with each 2x2 subsection in the 8x8 section. This gives us, again, 16 points of data, which we now enter into our second row.
Third, we continue with this process, but with 16x16 as our area and 4x4 subsections to be averaged.
RNN-i Grid
Fourth, we can keep doing this as many times as we like, until our entire image is “in view”. Each time we double the width and height, we only add one row of 16 pieces of data.
You might be asking now, “Wouldn’t that be confusing since each row of data is starting with a new top left corner?” Maybe for us. But the cool thing about neural networks is that they can adapt to whatever way you feed the data, as long as you stay consistent. The order doesn’t matter if you just make sure you always send it in the same order every time.
The Result
So just how much data can this method save? Taking our 4,096 x 4,096 pixel image example earlier, instead of entering close to 17 million data points, we will be entering only 176 points of data per “look” with this method.
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
Game-changer.
Now, with so few data points, you would expect to lose a lot of accuracy. But I tested this method out on the MNIST fashion set here. And, in this experiment, the accuracy lost was only from 88.3% accuracy for whole images down to 81.4% accuracy with a single glance at center, using this approach.
Here is a link to the GitHub paper and code: https://github.com/therealjjj77/RNNi
How can we increase accuracy?
With just one look, we are already doing a fantastic job of categorizing the images. But suppose we have a self driving car and 80% survival is just not the kind of odds we want to leave in the hands of AI. Then we will need a more comprehensive solution.
RNN-Brn
So you’re driving on the road and, out of the corner of your eye, you see a truck plowing toward you. Within a few short instances, your eyes dart to see the massive object coming your way and determine how you can avoid it or if you have time to stop before entering its path.
Photo by Ernesto Leon on Unsplash
In this case, you needed multiple looks to understand the object and make some determination about it. A certain part of your brain (think neural network), that has been trained to identify peripheral threats, gave you a “heads up” that you should look that direction and see what’s going on.
Likewise, an RNN-i will need a processing neural network layered to analyze the output, certainty of classification, and decide below what threshold requires a second or third look at the object. And, lastly, where the new focal center should be relative to the first.
Utilizing a second look at the object may greatly increase accuracy, but only requires an additional 176 points of data. We’re still not even scratching the surface of what a whole 4,096 x 4,096 image view would cost in time and data!
So that is where a Retinal Inspired Neural Network Bidirectional Relay Node (or RNN-Brn for short) comes in. This will allow us to, if necessary, loop back through our trained RNN-i and see if a second look in another part of the image improves the certainty of classification.
I might come back to continue this at a later date with a follow-up article, depending on the how interested people are in this topic. Leave a comment if you have any questions or thoughts you’d like to share. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/retinal-inspired-neural-network-structure-79a3fed50cc2 | ['Jeremiah Johnson'] | 2020-12-07 15:14:32.932000+00:00 | ['Neural Networks', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Image Classification', 'Generative Adversarial', 'AI'] |
Heroku CI and GitHub Checks Integration | How does it work?
GitHub Webhooks: As per GitHub Docs, “Webhooks allow you to build or set up integrations, such as GitHub Appsor OAuth Apps, which subscribe to certain events on GitHub.com. When one of those events is triggered, an HTTP POST payload is sent to the webhook’s configured URL. Webhooks can be used to update an external issue tracker, trigger CI builds, update a backup mirror, or even deploy to your production server. You’re only limited by your imagination.”
Heroku CI: When a test or build gets triggered for a new git commit, it broadcasts the webhook events for Status. The event gets triggered for different stages like in_progress, success, failure, cancel, etc. GitHub catches those events and updates the pull request page build flag. For our scenario, we intercept status in our integration app.
DEBUG probot: Webhook received
event: {
"event": "status",
"id": "da6ec6b8-2250-11eb-8843-f0563e0c2987",
"installation": 12779415,
"repository": "<Github-owner>/<Repo-name>"
}
Status (webhook event): When the status of a Git commit changes, the type of activity is specified in the action property of the payload object.
Probot Integration App: We created a Probot intermediate app that basically intercepts the GitHub webhook events and then executes specific logic as per our requirement. You can catch status events with the following code snippet:
app.on('status', async (context) => {
console.log('Status event update');
}
The “context,” in this case, is an object with details related to issues, pull request, repository, actions, etc. You will also find a related CI URL with context.payload.target_url . You can get the state of CI build / test using context.payload.state .
Once you have the CI target URL, you can get logs directly from it or you can create a test log URL from it that will return a simple text log in response. For example, in Heroku CI, you will get a target URL from the context which will be in the format of
https://dashboard.heroku.com/pipelines/<pipeline-id>/tests/<test-run-number>
The URL will look something like this, with your specifics:
And to get a plain text log, you can convert this URL to a different URL format which will be something like https://api.heroku.com/pipelines/<pipeline-id>/test-runs/<test-run-id>. Here’s an example:
If your Probot app receives a Status event with state in_progress , it will create a GitHub Checks run using Checks API with the status “In Progress.” You can do that with the following code:
Next, if your Probot app receives a Status event with the state failure , success or canceled , it will update the GitHub Checks run using the Checks API with the status “Received.” You will fetch all the checks run for a specific commit and then update the checks run (which has the status “In progress”) with the latest status.
And we are all set.
If you want to improve your user experience, there are a couple of additional things that can be tweaked in our integration implementation:
Add the annotations object as part of the output in check run params to help to show errors and lint details for each commit file. (See this article for more details: https://developer.github.com/changes/2019-09-06-more-check-annotations-shown-in-files-changed-tab/)
Display a processed log for better presentation in Checks Tab.
Conclusion
In order to keep all information related to pull requests and commits in one place, it’s good to use various GitHub apps properly. That way, you don’t have to worry whether external collaborators have access to all of your tooling or not, and you don’t have to make your CI tool accessible to everyone. If you’re not using GitHub Actions, but you are using Heroku CI or another CI tool, then this integration with GitHub Checks will prove very useful.
To see the complete code for the integration, visit this git repository: SubratThakur/Heroku-Github-Checks-Integration.
References: | https://engineering.salesforce.com/heroku-ci-and-github-checks-integration-a407d4c772a5 | ['Subrat Thakur'] | 2020-12-16 16:11:23.635000+00:00 | ['DevOps', 'Heroku', 'Open Source', 'Github', 'Technology'] |
Intro to Scraping Basketball Reference data | A short tutorial on how to scrape data from https://www.basketball-reference.com/ (or any other sports-reference.com site) with python
Photo by Edgar Chaparro on Unsplash
Sports-Reference.com is precisely where sports fandom and data science converge. It’s a massive, structured warehouse of clean sports data. Thus, it’s often the starting blocks for academic data science projects.
From a sports-reference site, like basketball-reference.com, it’s easy to grab one table. You don’t need to do it programmatically, you can copy and paste or even “export to CSV”. For example, you can get last season’s NBA standings from this page: https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2020_standings.html
But, that’s not much data. What if you want to aggregate data from multiple pages to draw meaningful conclusions about teams’ standings over 5, 10, or 50 years? (Or in my case, does tanking help a team reach the finals?) Well, you can do that with python and three libraries.
To show this, I will outline two examples: | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/intro-to-scraping-basketball-reference-data-8adcaa79664a | ['Michael Odonnell'] | 2020-12-15 16:39:25.211000+00:00 | ['Web Scraping', 'Sports Statistics', 'Python', 'NBA', 'Data Science'] |
People Can’t Be Trusted. That’s Why The Blockchain Will Change The World | Cat cynicism (or is it realism?)
True story. A small company in the UK was just scraping along. No matter what it did it, month after month, it either made a loss or just turned in a small profit. So eventually the board decided to hire a new CEO, a dynamic individual who had a shining reputation in sales management and seemed capable of motivating staff. And that’s what he did — focussing most on the sales force, but moving through every department convincing everyone they could be more productive.
His first-quarter figures were good — not as good as he had hoped, but good anyway. He figured the staff deserved a reward, so he decided the company should buy every one of them a bottle of champagne. He asked his PA to do the honors, so she ordered them and had them delivered to each department head. She was surprised when, one after another, the department heads sent her several bottles back, saying she had ordered too many. She had used the payroll system to determine how many staff were in each department.
That was how she discovered the company had phantom employees. The head of HR had been subverting the payroll system. When staff left the company, he never removed them from the payroll. He just diverted their monthly pay to an account he had set up, which was awash with ill-gotten gains.
People can’t be trusted.
According to the FBI, around 75 percent of employees steal from their employer. And, by the way, that may be an underestimate. Research by psychologists David DeSteno, Claremont McKenna and Piercarlo Valdesolo concluded that 90 percent of people (most of whom identify as honest) will act dishonestly if they believe they won’t get caught. They will also rationalize their behavior even though they would condemn such behavior in others.
What a sorry lot we are. When it comes to people, in the majority of situations trust is a matter of circumstance. If you live in a small village where everyone knows everyone, being trustworthy is probably a necessity whether you are so inclined or not — in big cities, not so much.
Human trust does not scale well
Trust is an economic issue and a factor in many businesses. When you buy a car, you cannot know if it will match the glowing story told by the showroom sales guy. You trust that such narratives are not too wide of the truth. If the showroom acquires a bad reputation, trust vanishes.
In the financial sector trust is a much bigger deal. You trust a bank with your money; you trust a broker to buy you stocks; you trust the insurance company to pay your claim. The modern economy, and the financial sector that drives it, owes its existence to the pioneers of the seventeenth century, who found ways to embed trust into financial markets. They did it by limiting participants and expelling anyone who broke their word from the market.
Your word was your bond. It was similar to the village situation, where trust becomes a necessity. It works but it does not scale well.
That’s why brands exist — to create trust among the masses. The brand is the reputation, and it takes considerable negative publicity to damage a well-established brand. Consider the Wells Fargo scandal and ask yourself how much damage it is doing. Sure resignations and hefty fines stomp on the stock value, but how many Wells Fargo customers have jumped ship?
Blockchain, the technology of trust
Human beings steal, tell lies, finagle and cheat. Blockchains don’t. It doesn’t matter whether it’s small businesses, large businesses, manufacturers, retailers, banks, governments or the Federal Reserve, organizations run by human beings cannot be trusted 100 percent. You can easily discover thousands of examples of egregious behavior.
In contrast, blockchains can be trusted.
A well-designed blockchain implements a system of trust that is inextricably bound to the blockchain and is inviolable. You do not have to trust the business owners or the miners, you only have to trust the technology — and the technology is (or should be) transparent, open to you or anyone else to examine.
The blockchain is the trust.
Algebraix and the design of trust
It may help to understand the difference between a typical commercial operation and a blockchain-based business if I explain some of the design considerations Permission.io (the company I work for) has had to navigate through in designing its platform. Permission.io, formerly Algebraix, is building a platform where users can be paid to view sponsored content (including advertising as well as music, video samples, etc.)
A good deal of the design work is no different to any other mobile-based software development. Where it differs is in consideration of the user’s data ownership and privacy. After considerable debate, the design principles we eventually chose were these:
All user data will be encrypted using a private key
All data will reside on a user device
Users will have individual permission control over the use of every item of data they choose to store
Algebraix will never see user data in the clear, except when aggregated and fully anonymized
Advertisers will only ever access anonymized data for targeting purposes
The Permission.io blockchain and various associated data stores will record all activity so that every action or transaction can be audited
All code will be audited by a third party
What can be open source will be open source.
The point is this: Trust isn’t something that the operators need to provide if it is embedded in the systems they run.
Robin Bloor Ph D. is the Technology Evangelist for Permission.io, author of The “Common Sense” of Crypto Currency, cofounder of The Bloor Group and webmaster of TheDataRightsofMan.com. | https://medium.com/permissionio/people-cant-be-trusted-that-s-why-the-blockchain-will-change-the-world-bd6ade14f7a5 | ['Robin Bloor'] | 2020-05-31 15:15:30.175000+00:00 | ['Advertising', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'ICO', 'Bitcoin'] |
Meet the Prehistoric Animal That Still Lives Among Us | Written by Conservation Associate Lariah Maynard
When visiting the Dalton Discovery Center here at the Conservancy, you may see a strange creature with an armored shell and long tail buried in the sands of the touch tank. What you are seeing is the Limulus polyphemus; more commonly known as the American horseshoe crab.
A horseshoe crab ambassador in the Conservancy’s touch tank aquarium
But don’t let the name fool you! They aren’t actually crustaceans, but rather merostomes; a separate class that is more closely related to scorpions than it is to crabs. There are four species of horseshoe crab. One is the American Horseshoe crab, typically found along the eastern coast of North and Central America.
A comparison of the currently living American Horseshoe crab and a similar species from the Late Jurassic period.
From Kin, A., Błażejowski, B. 2014. The horseshoe crab of the genus Limulus: Living fossil or stabilomorph?
Horseshoe crabs are often referred to as “living fossils”. They get this title because their distinct three-piece shell has remained virtually unchanged for over 200 million years. Fossil forms of them have even been found as far back as the late Paleozoic era, 450 million years ago!
So why have they been able to live practically unchanged for so long? A big part has to do with their feeding behavior. Horseshoe crabs are generalist feeders. This means that they are able to eat a variety of different foods depending on what is available to them. Typically, they go along the bottom eating things like clams and worms, but they are able to eat a variety of prey items. At the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, you may see staff feeding them bits of fish. Their feeding behavior isn’t the only thing that has allowed the structure of the horseshoe crab’s body to remain unchanged for so long.
Horseshoe crabs are also environmental generalists. They usually live in the intertidal zone, not too far from shore. However, they are also able to live in much deeper waters. The ability of the horseshoe crab to live in an extensive geographic range with waters shallow and deep, cool and warm is what makes them an evolutionary success story.
Horseshoe crabs play an important role as a food source for many animals. Migratory birds, such as the red knot, stop along Florida’s beaches gobbling up the small blue horseshoe crab eggs they find along the shore. Adult loggerhead sea turtles use their strong beaks to crush the horseshoe crab shell and eat the meat inside. They are also a key multiple-use recourse for us. Historically they were used as fertilizer and by commercial fisheries as bait, but now they have a much more important role. Biomedical companies now use horseshoe crabs; more specifically, it’s their blue blood that’s used. Horseshoe crab blood contains the clotting agent Limulus Amebocyte Lysate, LAL for short. LAL can detect the minutest amounts of bacterial toxins, making it invaluable to the pharmaceutical industry.
A volunteer presents the underside of a horseshoe crab to guests. Showing off its ten legs, mouth, and book gills. Staff and volunteers at the Conservancy are trained to properly handle the animals at our touch tank.
At the Conservancy we have four horseshoe crab ambassadors that allow guests to get hands-on experience and a closer look at the anatomy of these prehistoric animals. Do not be too surprised if you don’t see them right away; they spend most of their time buried in the sand. A member of our staff can help you find one.
We can all take actions that will help ensure that the horseshoe crab continues to survive for thousands of more years, allowing it to continue benefiting the many species that rely on it. Start by cleaning up and restoring the sandy beaches that horseshoe crabs use for spawning. Studies have shown that female horseshoe crabs may avoid nesting on eroded beaches that lack natural nurseries, such as mangroves. In Florida, horseshoe crab spawning often occurs near Indian River, Seashore Key, and the around the Florida panhandle. Most adult horseshoe crab deaths occur due to beach stranding. If you happen to find a live horseshoe crab or accidentally catch one, release it back to the ocean. Haven’t seen a horseshoe crab yet? Visiting the Conservancy of Southwest Florida will allow you to get a closer look at one and support environmental conservation efforts! | https://medium.com/environmental-education/meet-the-prehistoric-animal-that-still-lives-among-us-bd36ba5258fc | ['Conservancy Of Swfl'] | 2019-05-31 14:33:33.614000+00:00 | ['Environment'] |
7 Types of People You Should Never Trust | You may have heard the admonition to trust no one but that is not practical for daily living. If you want to be trusted, you must be able to give out trust, and for you to build long-lasting relationships you must trust and be trusted.
However, there is a need to be careful about how and who you trust. On who to trust, heed to this anonymous coach; “Never trust a person that lets you down more than two times. Once was a warning, twice is a lesson and anything more than that is simply taking advantage”.
In this post today, I will share with you seven types of people you should never trust.
Image by Success Secret TV
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№ 1: Fickle-minded people.
Did you ever play on a seesaw well? Let me explain how it works, when you sit on a seesaw with someone on the opposite side, each of you takes turns pushing off the ground. When you go up into the air, the other person touches the ground and when that person goes up, you go down. A seesaw person is also called This that.
A fickle minded person is like a seesaw, a this that person without a balance point. These types of individuals are always indecisive and given to any suggestion, so you are not even sure if they will support you or not.
Today they will say yes to you but the next day they could change their minds and say no. You can’t expect anything from them because they may disappear even when they have made commitments to you.
№ 2: People who tell you other people’s secrets.
Do you have that friend who is always telling you about other people’s private matters? If yes, then your secrets are probably being shared too and just the way they tell you not to pass the information to anyone else, that is how they tell someone else not to give your information to others.
Regardless of the person that they speak with, they hold no loyalty to close friends or anyone else that they come in contact with. They don’t have regard for other people’s confidentiality as long as they can get something as small as the attention of others from spilling.
When someone keeps sharing other people’s secrets with you, it is a pointer that they will tell other people your secrets as well. Hence, you must minimise your chitchat with such people and be careful of things you do around them.
Also Read: 10 Advice from Warren Buffet for Young People Who Want to Be Rich
№ 3: People who are too sweet to you
Of course certain people are naturally pleasing to those around them. However, many people who act nice are not lovely, they want something from you.
One significant difference between the real charm in individuals and those who want something from you is that real charmers open up to you about themselves and imperfections and also their whereabouts. In contrast, the fake ones act like they are flawless without opening up a bit about themselves.
Also, when a formally mean person suddenly starts acting cute, you should be careful and when someone is unfriendly to others yet shows a special kind of liken to you, you are also allowed to be suspicious.
№ 4: People with competitive traits
Being around a competitor can be very annoying because all they care about is getting there before anyone else. These people can go to unnecessary lengths just to prove themselves.
It’s unwise to tell your physical or mental weaknesses to someone who shows signs of competitive behaviour because they do not mind using the information you have entrusted with them as a weapon against you, just so they can win.
If a competitive individual is your friend, their method of sabotaging your winnings is quite different. They will not come straight up and say; “Hey! I don’t want you to win, hand me that prize”.
Instead, they will use sneaky tactics such as breaking, shocking and perhaps false news to you just when you want to carry a task that is critical to your winning. For instance, they may whisper into your ears that your partner is cheating on you just before a major presentation.
Although, there are chances that having a competitor as a friend can make you step up your game; their competitive approach can breed grievances and cause a rift.
№ 5: People with narcissistic traits
These set of people always think that the world revolves around them.
According to psychologist Dj Heier; he said and I quote:
“A narcissistic cannot trust himself with his addictions or issues going on in his head. He does not even trust anyone and never sees anyone equal to him; hence, he is not a trustworthy person”
Narcissists are fair-weather individuals who will take advantage of you to satisfy their desires but they are never there to offer assistance when you are in need. Even if they help you, the whole world will hear about it.
For narcissists, nothing is more important to them than their ego and unhealthy self-esteem, NOT EVEN YOUR TRUST.
Also Read: 9 Great Books You Should Read Before You Turn 30.
№ 6: People who lack empathy
Just like competitors, people who lack empathy do not care about you.
The apathy will never let them put themselves in other people’s shoes.
Instead, they avoid any scenario that might cause them to be thoughtful and focus on how to victimise others.
Moreover, those who lack empathy do not trust you. Forget the charade they put up, since they do not attempt to understand what you think and how you feel, they don’t feel safe with you. Hence, it would help if you were careful around them.
№ 7: The Social Climber
These people are always desperate for public attention. They are the ones who will borrow of the people’s accessories to look good in the face of outsiders. Since their main goal is always to look blameless, they are usually chameleons that take on any shape or size to impress others around them.
These individuals are deceitful.
In most cases they are friends with you only because of what you have.
They will try to use your accomplishments and connections for their selfish benefits. If you introduce these set of people into your circle, they’ll use any means even tarnishing your image to get closer to your other friends who they perceive to be more influential or accomplished than you.
When you observe a person who previously did not regard you suddenly being so persistent about being a friend after a significant success, be sure to take cover.
Getting into a friendship with a social climber is like carrying a bomb in your backpack without your knowledge.
Some people bring brightness to our lives while others darken our path, making it difficult for us to journey through life. In the same way, some people would do unimaginable things to help us and others wouldn’t try, even if our lives depended on it.
Be sensitive enough to know those who ease your journey so that you can stick to them, as well as those who make things hard for you, so that you can tread carefully.
Thank you very much for reading.
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I Love You | https://medium.com/@supermindtv/7-types-of-people-you-should-never-trust-c03555d5aba2 | ['Super Mind Tv'] | 2020-12-26 00:59:35.906000+00:00 | ['Trust', 'People', 'Narcissism', 'Competition', 'Secrets'] |
How to Not Work on Fridays | If you are working on Fridays in summer, you are a tool. That is the truth. But if you ARE working on Fridays in summer, and wondering how to change your life, well, we have the answer for you. Perhaps you spotted Flint Beamon, extolling the virtues of “not really working on Fridays” in the Styles section troll-a-thon today. It went like this: “Scanning the [Thompson Hotel] scene closely was Flint Beamon, 36, a director of events and lifestyle brands for a public relations company [N.B.: That firm is called PR Consulting] that gives its employees Fridays off in summer. He was there to network. ‘People here are usually in the upper echelons in their industries,’ said Mr. Beamon, who is a regular. ‘I’ve struck business deals by the pool.’” So the real money, if we can tell you the secret, is Facebook spam-scam survey pyramid schemes. THE MORE YOU KNOW.
But seriously, young people. You know how you don’t work on Fridays? JUST LEAVE. Close your laptop. Tell your boss you have “a thing.” Unless you’re paid by the hour, nobody should work on Fridays in summer, it’s NOT AMERICAN. Stop cracking the whip on yourself for your boss, you’re being a fool. JUST GO WALKABOUT. You’re only young once, and winter is coming. | https://medium.com/the-awl/how-to-not-work-on-fridays-a990451ed9b0 | ['Choire Sicha'] | 2016-05-13 16:39:44.496000+00:00 | ['Handy Advice', 'Summer', 'New York City'] |
Trans Monster Girls | Like many before me, I have an affinity with transgender as monster metaphor. I feel the Strykerean rage, the chimeric assemblage of alien flesh and techno-science, constituted — in part — through phármakon* in all three senses: remedy, poison, and sacrifice. The monster is formed in the sacrafice of a life (pharmakós). The forgotten dredges of the living (pharmakoi), as a cis body cast off a cliff. Through poisons, institutional, alchemical, pharmacological, social, and political, the new body is wrought, subjectively more whole, a composite of soma and techne. Our alterity through this transformation is alienating and monstrous to some: to the villagers in the vale bellow who hear our howls echo from the mountain and recoil in fear, brandishing their pitchforks. Little do they know that they are created through the same schismatic processes. If monstrousness is a lack of naturalness in our creation, then we are all monsters. Transness is a mirror par excellence in which the other sees their own generative forces — if they’re brave.
Of course, there is an obvious disadvantage to this metaphorical association. Namely, it gives those who would do us harm an easy stone to cast. Thus we once more become the pharmakoi (the slave who is sacrificed for the purity of the polis). People are unable to read us as variations of what they are, techno assemblages of various dispotifs and other material forces, i.e. unnatural as all things human.
And yet, cis bodies are cloaked in an illusion, a narrative web of the natural. After all, the vagina is cast through a panoply of second-wave feminist goddess motifs as an eternal essence of Gia, Earth Mother, or Crone. Compared to this, what is a medically formed neo-vagina? A fuck hole? And yet, despite efforts to the contrary, the cis vagina, indeed, all human genitals and bodies are shaped by both seen and unseen human forces. Chemicals alter our biomolecular structure, altered by the very air we breathe and water we drink. We are byproducts of human ecosystemic technological fuckery — unseen forces which change and alter us. This is an extreme example, of course, but it illustrates how even the most nature focused of us, the organic eater, local shopper, all natural products consumer, is transformed through the constructed human environment. Obviously, there are more immediate examples: birth control, medication, hygiene products, surgery, pubic waxing, tattoos, Prince Alberts, cock rings, anal beads, dildos, to speak only of genitals. Are our bodies not similar? So much for the natural purity of the cis body. There is no natural biosphere, you can’t even carbon date past the onset of the nuclear age: you are a nuclear, lead ladened, bag of chemicals. It’s human to be unnatural: welcome to the Anthropocene, bitch!
And yet, the world isn’t ready for this queer revelation, to read the self in the other. We trans people are still banished to the mountain; the villagers aren’t ready to look in the mirror. And so I turn to the self, to my own kind. In her, the pharmakoi turned monster, I can find my own beauty. In her body, I feel my own embodiment resonating. Her arms are comforting and healing — other to other, but the same. We are both (un)becoming, aware of our fluctuation, our metallurgy, our (un)nature. I feel her in the constant transmutation of my mind, in the roiling sea of affective change, she prickles across softening flesh, a cyborg-monster queen bitch, just like me.
*phármakon is the root of our modern pharmacy. But, there is a further sense to the word. The sacrifice of a slave or criminal as a remedy or scapegoat to cure the city/society. | https://astrasubdomina.medium.com/trans-monster-girls-5ff44ee0178c | [] | 2018-11-30 14:01:09.347000+00:00 | ['Somatechnics', 'Transgender', 'LGBTQ', 'Monster', 'Queer'] |
RESURGE | Weight Loss Tip From 48 Year Old Mom Who Lost 60 Pounds in 5 Months
Losing weight can take a lot of time, discipline and sometimes a lot of sweat.
There are however a lot of simpler ways to see your pounds and inches drop on the scale and in your waist without having to do HITT workouts three times a week, counting calories, or restricting yourself to a water-only diet.
So, if you don’t want to feel like your world’s falling apart just to lose weight, here are 12 little tricks that you should incorporate daily into your routine that will help you lose weight.
If you’re consistent enough, it can even lead you to losing up to 20 pounds in a matter of 2 weeks, just like it did for my 48 year old friend, Margaret. She safely lost 60 pounds in 5 months and shared her top 12 weight loss tips.
And the best part of all this is — there is no gym or diet required.
Click here to see the 2-minute “after-dinner ritual” that helped me melt away 22 pounds in just 16 days.
Let’s get started.
1. Always start a meal with a glass of water
2. Make a few simple swaps at every meal
3. Have a piece of dark chocolate for dessert
4. Be diligent with portion control
5. Move more
6. Don’t drink your calories
7. Don’t starve yourself
8. Snack on high-protein, high-fiber foods
9. Steer clear of simple carbohydrates
10. Eat a light, early dinner
11. Get longer, more consistent sleep
12. Keep a journa
GET RESURGE DEEP SLEEP AND HGH SUPPORT FORMULA NOW
One last thing… you should try this 2-minute “after-dinner ritual” that burns up to 2 pounds of belly fat per day…
“All this by a 2-minute “after-dinner ritual?” I asked.
I met an old friend for lunch last month and I was super impressed with how good she looked.
She said, “It’s not so much about the “after-dinner ritual”, but more about how it gives you a regenerative form of deep sleep that is responsible for everything we need to dramatically increase our fat burning metabolism and improve our health and appearance.”
Even though I was skeptical, I’ve been struggling with my weight over the last few years, so I gave it a shot and watched the same video she did.
Well, it’s only a couple weeks later and you know what they say about how “you can’t transform your body overnight”…
They’re right — it actually took me 16 days to lose 22 pounds.
Now it’s my girlfriends asking ME what I’M doing differently 💅
Imagine your body being beach ready before Memorial Day.
Imagine enjoying the foods you love: pasta, wine, or even a dessert — completely guilt-free.
And imagine feeling good and living your life without obsessing about every single calorie you eat…
All while knowing your health is being protected by one of the most powerful natural healing rituals ever discovered.
Click here to see the 2-minute “after-dinner ritual” that helped me melt away 22 pounds in just 16 days. | https://medium.com/@weightlosswithmenow/resurge-c9154bd95467 | [] | 2020-11-16 15:47:44.151000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss', 'Weightloss Foods', 'Weightloss Recipe', 'Weight Loss Tips'] |
Xiaomi Redmi 9 Power officially unveiled | Xiaomi today unveiled a new phone, called the Redmi 9 Power. However, it is not entirely a new phone — it is a rebranded Redmi Note 9 4G, which was released in China last month, with the Redmi 9 Power having an additional 2MP camera.
The Redmi 9 Power uses the Snapdragon 662 chipset and runs on Android 10 with MIUI 12. The phone has 4GB of RAM and two storage options: 64GB (UFS 2.1) and 128GB (UFS 2.2). There’s also a microSD card slot to expand storage up to 512GB.
The phone has a 6.53 “FullHD + LCD screen, with a cutout for an 8MP selfie camera. On the back is a system with four cameras, which make up a 48MP main, 8MP ultra-wide, 2MP macro, and 2MP depth sensor.
There is an option for AI Face Unlock, a fingerprint sensor on the side of the frame, and everything is powered by a 6000mAh battery, which charges at a speed of 18W via the USB-C port. Interestingly, a 22.5W charger arrives in the package.
The Redmi 9 Power arrives in Blazing Blue, Electric Green, Fiery Red, and Might Black variants, priced at around $ 150 for the 64GB variant. | https://medium.com/@jazzyk83/xiaomi-redmi-9-power-officially-unveiled-9b17d2c20c02 | [] | 2020-12-17 16:35:48.762000+00:00 | ['Mobile', 'Xiaomi', 'Technology', 'Smartphones', 'Android'] |
The Dreamforce ’15 Dreamfest | This year’s, Dreamforce is going to rock, with a KILLER Dreamfest.
The moment that we have all been waiting for happens on Thursday evening when attendees ascend upon Pier 70 in the Dogpatch to experience an all-star musical lineup including Foo Fighters, The Killers, and Gary Clark Jr.!
Location: Pier 70
Rooted deep in history, set among the old shipyards of San Francisco, unique in raw beauty, the buildings of Pier 70 evoke images of a bygone era and stir the imagination. Rustic exteriors, massive steel beams inside, these buildings are now being re-purposed for one-of-a-kind events, like the Dreamforce Dreamfest.
And make sure to come hungry! We’ll have delicious food and beverages available at every stage.
Big Time Bands
We are excited to welcome Foo Fighters, The Killers, and Gary Clark Jr. to the Dreamfest!
While most are familiar with the Foo Fighters and The Killers, but what do you know about Gary Clark Jr.? Get this: he is a guitar prodigy, a Grammy winner, and will be releasing his 4th album, The Story of Sonny Boy Slim, just days before his Dreamforce performance, on September 11th. Get psyched to experience his musical performance, influenced by blues, jazz, soul, country, as well as hip-hop. You don’t want to miss Clark’s musical trademarks: distorted guitar sound and smooth vocal style — compared to guitar icons like Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. His playing is a powerful and inspired mix of blues roots with contemporary soul and hip-hop, and when he’s rolling at his best, Gary Clark, Jr. shows us what the blues sounds like in the 21st Century. Don’t miss one of the best performers I have ever seen.
Schedule
6:45PM Shuttle service begins to Pier 70
7:00PM Doors Open
7:30PM Gary Clark Jr. — West Stage
8:30PM The Killers — East Stage
9:45PM Foo Fighters — Center Stage
11PM Dreamfest concludes; shuttle service provided to all conference hotels and Moscone. UCSF Benefit Afterparty with will.i.am & MC Hammer begins!
Throughout the entire night, you can go inside the warehouse for a thoroughly enthusiastic dance party!
Key Tips for the Dreamforce Dreamfest
Hear more about the Dreamfest from Stacey Kashubeck, Director, Strategic Events
TOP TIP! If you have a favorite band, go there first. But don’t worry, we will be showing every performance on viewing screens throughout the venue.
TIP 1: Bring your conference badge — this is your ticket to the event! Full conference credentials (card, holder and all) are required for entry.
TIP 2: Bring your ID. California Law requires that bartenders check your ID if you are fortunate to look under 30.
TIP 3: DON’T bring your laptop, backpack or selfie stick! Attendees are strongly encouraged to return to their hotels to drop off valuables prior to boarding the Dreamfest Shuttles. We are expecting a large turnout and will not have coat check services available at Pier 70.
TIP 4: Dress warmly, bring layers and wear comfortable shoes. The Dreamfest takes place outdoors on the water at Pier 70. Be sure to bring layers as the fog can roll in, making for a cool San Francisco evening!
TIP 5: Transportation options are available.
Shuttles will be provided from Moscone and all Dreamforce contracted hotels to Pier 70, departing at 6:45pm.
Public transportation is another easy way to get to Pier 70. Take the Muni T-Line to the 23rd Street Station where you will be directed to the Dreamfest entrance.
Ubers and taxis are required to drop all guests off at 23rd and Illinois Streets. Guests will be directed to the Dreamfest entrance 1 block away.
Parking and bike valets are not available in the neighborhood. Street closures will be in effect to accommodate event transportation plans.
TIP 6: Have an Expo+ Pass and want to attend Dreamfest? Please visit The Concert for Kids website to see how you can purchase a ticket while supporting a great cause. Limited availability. | https://medium.com/dreamforce-15/the-dreamforce-15-dreamfest-a93675efd421 | [] | 2015-09-14 20:48:01.232000+00:00 | ['Music', 'Salesforce', 'Dreamforce'] |
What is Deep Learning | What is Deep Learning?
In this article, I will be talking about What is Deep Learning which is a hot buzz nowadays and has firmly put down its roots in a vast multitude of industries that are investing in fields like Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Analytics. For example, Google is using deep learning in its voice and image recognition algorithms whereas Netflix and Amazon are using it to understand the behavior of their customer. In fact, you won’t believe it, but researchers at MIT are trying to predict the future using deep learning. Now, imagine how much potential deep learning has in revolutionizing the world and how the companies will look for certified professionals in Deep Learning. Before talking about deep learning, one must understand its relationship with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. The easiest way to understand this relationship is by going through the diagram below:
fig: What is Deep Learning — AI Technologies Timeline
Here, in the image, you can see that Machine Learning is a subset of AI. This implies the fact that we can build intelligent machines that can learn based on the provided data set on its own. Further, you will notice that Deep Learning is a subset of Machine Learning where similar Machine Learning Algorithms are used to train Deep Neural Networks so as to achieve better accuracy in those cases where the former was not performing up to the mark. Following are the topics that I am going to discuss in this deep learning tutorial:
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Drawbacks of ML
What is Deep Learning?
Deep Learning Application
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Artificial Intelligence
fig: What is Deep Learning — Artificial Intelligence
The term AI was coined in 1956 by John McCarthy, who is also referred as the Father of Artificial Intelligence. The idea behind AI is fairly simple yet fascinating, which is to make intelligent machines that can take decisions on its own. You may think it as science fantasy, but with respect to recent developments in technology and computing power, the very idea seems to come closer to reality day by day.
Machine Learning: A Step Towards Artificial Intelligence
Now, that you are familiar with AI, let us talk briefly about Machine Learning and understand what it means when we say that we’re programming machines to learn. Let us begin with a very famous definition of Machine Learning:
“A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to some task T and some performance measure P, if its performance on T, as measured by P, improves with experience E.” — Tom Mitchell, Carnegie Mellon University
So, if you want your program to predict, traffic patterns at a busy intersection (task T), you can run it through a machine learning algorithm with data about past traffic patterns (experience E). Now, the accuracy of the prediction (performance measure P) will depend on the fact that whether the program has successfully learned from the data set or not (experience E).
Basically, Machine Learning is referred to as a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that provides computers with the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed by exposing them to a vast amount of data. The core principle behind Machine Learning is to learn from data sets and try to minimize errors or maximize the likelihood of their predictions being true.
Drawbacks of the Machine Learning
Traditional ML algorithms are not useful while working with high dimensional data, that is where we have a large number of inputs and outputs. For example, in the case of handwriting recognition, we have a large amount of input where we will have different types of inputs associated with a different types of handwriting.
The second major challenge is to tell the computer what are the features it should look for that will play an important role in predicting the outcome as well as to achieve better accuracy while doing so. This very process is referred to as feature extraction. Feeding raw data to the algorithm rarely ever works and this is the reason why feature extraction is a critical part of the traditional machine learning workflow. Therefore, without feature extraction, the challenge for the programmer increases as the effectiveness of the algorithm very much depends on how insightful the programmer is. Hence, it is very difficult to apply these Machine Learning models or algorithms to complex problems like object recognition, handwriting recognition, NLP (Natural Language Processing), etc.
Deep Learning
Recognize the face of their parents and different objects as well.
Discriminate different voices and can even recognize a particular person based on his/her voice.
Draw inference from facial gestures of other persons and many more.
Actually, our brain has sub-consciously trained itself to do such things over the years. Now, the question comes, how deep learning mimics the functionality of a brain? Well, deep learning uses the concept of artificial neurons that functions in a similar manner as the biological neurons present in our brain. Therefore, we can say that Deep Learning is a subfield of machine learning concerned with algorithms inspired by the structure and function of the brain called artificial neural networks.
Now, let us take an example to understand it. Suppose we want to make a system that can recognize faces of different people in an image. If we solve this as a typical machine learning problem, we will define facial features such as eyes, nose, ears etc. and then, the system will identify which features are more important for which person on its own.
Now, deep learning takes this one step ahead. Deep learning automatically finds out the features which are important for classification because of deep neural networks, whereas in case of Machine Learning we had to manually define these features.
At the lowest level, network fixates on patterns of local contrast as important.
The following layer is then able to use those patterns of local contrast to fixate on things that resemble eyes, noses, and mouths
Finally, the top layer is able to apply those facial features to face templates.
A deep neural network is capable of composing more and more complex features in each of its successive layers.
Have you ever wondered how Facebook automatically labels or tags all the person present in an image uploaded by you? Well, Facebook uses Deep Learning in a similar fashion as stated in the above example. Now, you would have realized the capability of Deep Learning and how it can outperform Machine Learning in those cases where we have very little idea about all the features that can affect the outcome. Therefore, Deep network can overcome the drawback of Machine Learning by drawing inferences from data set consisting of input data without proper labeling.
Applications of Deep Learning
Moving ahead in this what is deep learning blog, let us look at some of the real-life applications of Deep Learning to understand its true powers.
Speech Recognition
All of you would have heard about Siri, which is Apple’s voice-controlled intelligent assistant. Like other big giants, Apple has also started investing in Deep Learning to make its services better than ever.
In the area of speech recognition and voice controlled intelligent assistant like Siri, one can develop more accurate acoustic model using a deep neural network and is currently one of the most active fields for deep learning implementation. In simple words, you can build such system that can learn new features or adapt itself according to you and therefore, provide better assistance by predicting all possibilities beforehand.
Automatic Machine Translation
We all know that Google can instantly translate between 100 different human language, that too very quickly as if by magic. The technology behind Google Translate is called Machine Translation and has been savior for people who can’t communicate with each other because of the difference in the speaking language. Now, you would be thinking that this feature has been there for a long time, so, what’s new in this? Let me tell you that over the past two years, with the help of deep learning, Google has totally reformed the approach to machine translation in its Google Translate. In fact, deep learning researchers who know almost nothing about language translation are putting forward relatively simple machine learning solutions that are beating the best expert-built language translation systems in the world. Text translation can be performed without any pre-processing of the sequence, allowing the algorithm to learn the dependencies between words and their mapping to a new language. Stacked networks of large recurrent neural networks are used to perform this translation.
Instant Visual Translation
As you know, deep learning is used to identify images that have letters and where the letters are on the scene. Once identified, they can be turned into text, translated and the image recreated with the translated text. This is often called instant visual translation.
Now, imagine a situation where you have visited any other country whose native language is not known to you. Well, no need to worry, using various apps like Google Translate you can go ahead and perform instant visual translations to read signs or shop boards written in another language. This has been possible only because of Deep Learning.
Note: You can go ahead and download Google Translate App and check out the amazing instant visual translation using the above image.
Behavior: Automated Self Driven Cars
Google is trying to take their self-driving car initiative, known as WAYMO, to a whole new level of perfection using Deep Learning. Therefore, rather than using old hand-coded algorithms, they can now program system that can learn by themselves using data provided by different sensors. Deep learning is now the best approach to most perception tasks, as well as to many low-level control tasks. Hence, now even people who do not know to drive or are disabled, can go ahead and take the ride without depending on anyone else.
Here, I have only mentioned few famous real-life use cases where Deep Learning is being used extensively and showing promising results. There are many other applications of deep learning along with many fields which is yet to be explored.
So, this is all about deep learning in a nutshell. I am sure that by now, you would have realized the difference between Machine Learning and Deep Learning as well as how Deep Learning can be very useful for various real-life applications. If you wish to check out more articles on the market’s most trending technologies like Python, DevOps, Ethical Hacking, then you can refer to Edureka’s official site.
Do look out for other articles in this series which will explain the various other aspects of Data Science. | https://medium.com/edureka/what-is-deep-learning-a71030766ce0 | ['Sahiti Kappagantula'] | 2020-10-28 14:19:26.570000+00:00 | ['Ml Algorithm', 'Machine Learning', 'Deep Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Wonder. Fled. Vixen. | Wonder. Fled. Vixen.
You wonder how, You’d ask me now
Photo by Mallory Johndrow on Unsplash
You wonder how
You’d ask me now
If given chance my dear
Why I’d decided not to hear
Or feel or see you even
So let me tell you then
Brief is the story about that time
Plain and simple, not sublime
When I had decided definitely
(And I had done so, firmly)
Not to hear
Not to see
Not to feel — nor expect to feel
Everyone or anyone but, well, me
And that’s all, indeed
Decided.
Abandoned.
Fled.
Deceased.
So it had happened
That is when it came to be
I had utterly made myself free
That is when I became ME
(lana)
Finally
I stood alone/free and bare
Finally
I shed it, left it, without a care
My fearful skin without a spare
So now I’m — brave!
A snake! -You’d say?
I shake.
But hey
I’m Eve(n),
Vixen
(Or so they say) | https://medium.com/poetry-palace/wonder-fled-vixen-d4b46cafe311 | ['Milana Bojinovic'] | 2020-07-28 13:03:26.194000+00:00 | ['Free', 'Poem', 'Bravery', 'Life'] |
That was wonderful.It | That was wonderful.It was clear and brief article about visualization options in Python.Thank you so much. | https://medium.com/@alex-d-38708/that-was-wonderful-it-374697353377 | ['Alex Duncan'] | 2020-12-26 18:13:35.466000+00:00 | ['Matplotlib', 'Visualization', 'Python'] |
Best Fashion and Celebrity Photographer In Delhi | “There is one thing, the photograph must contain the humanity of the moment” With this pioneer thought, Anas Shamsi, a 24-year-old Fashion and Celebrity photographer with an eye for detail, has paved the way for many untold stories through his remarkable shots and photography Skills and peculiarities at profession. It all started back in 2015, When he wanted to pursue modelling as his career but the presence of subtle and often, no opportunities Couldn’t break his optimism so yet, what moved him to be a photographer was his innate urge to create a platform for the seekers Who would like to get shoot to be able to present themselves as a model, or present themselves as whoever they want to be. He is now an Enthusiastic, Self-motivated, inspirational and Passionate professional photographer with a great successful experience of Full five years. Anas shamsi believes there is no rule for a good photograph as long as one does it with heart, intuition and spontaneity.
He has worked with several NGOs, Colleges, Doctors, renowned models and celebrities. He has also worked professionally with a law firm and different schools. He is too an eminent member of YOU CAN foundation. Anas Has marked his achievements both at personal and professional level. He also believes a photographer puts life into the moments captured, so that they can always be renewed and revived for a lifetime. He has an exceptional way with people he clicks, and bonds with them to give an amazing and extravagant experience. A model, wedding couple, solo, his camera has captured it all. What fuels his determination into photography is the appreciation he receives. He looks forward to more outdoor shoots, as it offers people to choose among various beautiful locations. What makes him unstoppable is his conviction to make better of the moments.
Even in this pandemic of Covid 19, He organized live sessions with celebrities such as Sumit Gulati, Raj Sharma, Himanshu Bhaluchandani, and many more who along
with Anas speaking about their experiences, challenges and struggles, with a perspective to motivate and bear the torch for youngsters looking for directions. Because Anas is a firm believer that what cannot be imparted through sometimes education can be well learnt and understood, through life experiences. | https://medium.com/@info-pahra/best-fashion-and-celebrity-photographer-i-1a71df8f1379 | ['Digital Pahra'] | 2020-12-18 10:17:54.482000+00:00 | ['Fashion', 'Celebrity', 'Photography', 'Bollywood', 'Motivation'] |
The Dreamer | There’s nothing more tedious than listening to other people’s dreams, so I’ll spare you the details. But six months ago I got the distinct impression that mine were trying to tell me something specific. I was spending my sleeping hours solving problems of one sort or another, sometimes successfully and sometimes with a lingering sense of frustration.
But by the time I had risen from my slumbers, used the bathroom, checked my phone, all of the detail had been lost.
So my first experiment was designed to keep hold of the narrative a little longer, using two specific techniques. First a nicotine patch applied just before bed, to add colour and depth to the scenery. This was accompanied by a voice-activated recorder, which I could mumble into before I even opened my eyes.
Even after weeding out the hours and hours of snoring captured on tape, the resulting snatches of night-time adventures were a chaotic mess. How to make sense of the clown on the other side of the school fence and the realisation that I was similarly attired? Or the post-apocalyptic cathedral where the arches started to fall into the nave?
I don’t know why I persevered, but over time there was a change. | https://medium.com/grab-a-slice/the-dreamer-28d44e7fb194 | ['Mark Kelly'] | 2020-12-19 15:16:52.361000+00:00 | ['Philosophy', 'Fantasy', 'Fiction', 'Dreams', 'Dreamers'] |
I Was a Welfare Queen | When I gave birth to my son, I worked as a nanny so that I could keep him with me and didn’t have to pay for daycare. I was living in a low-rent apartment and cutting corners on everything imaginable. I’d wash our clothes in the basement coin-operated laundry and hang them to dry above the radiators in our tiny, third floor apartment. I was barely getting by and yes, I was on public assistance. Food stamps, but not public housing or cash welfare. I was employed and trying to dig my way out of what could be permanent poverty.
I was squeaking by. I was paying rent (barely) and I did not live lavishly by any means, but I figured when my tiny guy got to be two years old or so I would figure out preschool for him and college for me, and we would launch our journey together. There would be light at the end of that tunnel for us.
It was like something out of a Rom-Com, but there we were.
My son was still a tiny baby when fate stepped in and another young mother, one I had actually met in birthing class, invited me over to spend a day with her big, Italian family. I accepted. (Hey, a Sunday of free spaghetti, maybe some leftovers to take home, and some other people to hold the baby? Where to I sign up?) Almost immediately, as if I had a fairy godmother, one of the handsome single sons in the family was keenly interested in both me and my newborn son. It was like something out of a Rom-Com, but there we were. He soon asked his mother to babysit so we could go on a date. It was like nothing I could have ever imagined. You can’t make this stuff up. I thought it was true destiny.
So we started a life.
We truly enjoyed each other, the stars had aligned, I had found someone who seemed not to care that I had a newborn, and my plans started to shift from the idea of having a life with just me and my son to a life that could include a third person. I reluctantly, carefully, began to include this guy in our life plans. That is not to say that things didn’t move fast, because they did. We were young, and he was eager and didn’t hesitate to tell me he loved me and wanted to buy a house for us and to start a life. So we started a life. We became a family.
But I still had those food stamps.
We were not married. We were not “official.” My income status had not changed and my education had not changed and I was not on his insurance or a true part of his family. None of that was really different.
When we moved in together and I changed my address, I simply chose not to renew my food stamp application. To me, the matter was closed. We were a couple now. A family. He had a good job, a good income. I would continue to work part-time as a nanny, but my poverty status had shifted dramatically.
Hadn’t it?
Within another year and a half, we were pregnant. Because, remember, I had no insurance. I still had an under-the-table job as a nanny. I was still part of the uninsured population, and not his wife, just his girlfriend. We did not pay for day care, I just kept my son with me while I worked. I was a member of the invisible economy that pays no taxes on income, but also does not share in its benefits.
Since I had no medical insurance, I was not on prescription birth control. He used no other birth control method and neither did I. For my part, I knew that pregnancy was a risk. He seemed surprised when I turned up pregnant. Not angry, just surprised.
Now, we had a birth to pay for.
“You can go back on Medicaid, right?” He said.
I would have to, or the costs of prenatal care would be astronomical. I went to the welfare office and signed up again. This time, my pregnancy was an act of recklessness. Careless disregard. This time, signing up for welfare was unnecessary. He was a teacher in the public schools. It could have been different. It should have been different.
Along with the Medicaid forms, they sent me home with the paperwork for WIC (Women, Infants and Children), the nutrition support program for women who cannot afford to properly feed their newborns, and the forms for TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), cash money to help pay rent and food stamps. I was to fill those out with the amounts of money I received from my employer, my rent or mortgage amounts, and sources of other income and assets. If I was below the income thresholds, I would qualify for some or all of those benefits.
There were myriad ways that I justified it.
He was pleased that I could get all of this money. Relieved.
I couldn’t argue against it. I only brought in $120 a week taking care of a 4 year old in our home a few hours a day. I didn’t feel like a huge financial contributor to the house. His rationale was that this would be a huge help to our overall budget. I was hurt, but he was right. Adding $300 a month to the groceries meant that we would eat steak, not Ramen, fresh vegetables, not canned. It meant that we could by actual cheese, not processed. There were myriad ways that I justified it. I kept going back to the singular moment when I bought cocktail shrimp with my food stamps to take to a New Years party because, frankly, prior to that I had been so thrifty that I had a pantry filled to the brim with oatmeal and canned goods. I looked like a doomsday prepper.
He had convinced me that it was justifiable to be in this relationship, have full access to his income, and yet fill out this paperwork as though I was all on my own. He massaged my thinking into believing that there was no reason not to agree that this was for everyone’s benefit. We would all be better off, and it was totally justified. Lots of people do it. There’s nothing wrong with it. We’ll be more comfortable.
I filled out the paperwork, stating that my “rent” was the equivalent of the mortgage payment. That my income was exactly what I earned. The numbers were, I suppose, mathematically truthful, except that I did not pay that mortgage payment — he did. I faithfully took the new baby for her blood tests to show that I was feeding her properly. I bought the items on the WIC list. The whole milk. The oatmeal. The cheese, the whole grain cereal, the vegetables. But I would have bought those anyway. I had been meticulous about feeding my son when I was a single mom, and I would have been meticulous about feeding my daughter.
We started a tradition of having steak and baked potatoes every Thursday night while we watched ER at 10PM after the kids were in bed. I’m not sure that is the sign of a family that needs food stamps. He bought season tickets to the professional football team that year, and the year after. I’m not sure we needed welfare money. Our kids went to parochial school, which cost not a lot of tuition, but it sure wasn’t free. I don’t think we were entitled to a food subsidy.
Just because we spent our excess on theatre tickets instead of a Mercedes doesn’t make us less culpable, it only made us less visible.
I know he knew it wasn’t okay because he didn’t admit to anyone that we were getting this money. I get it that there’s stigma, but there’s also a sense of right and wrong. There’s knowing that you asked your girlfriend to be what Reagan labeled a Welfare Queen. Admittedly, I wasn’t opening multiple accounts, or having third, fourth, fifth kids to get more money, and I wasn’t driving a fancy car, wearing furs and jewels, but is the depth of the deception worse if the intent is the same? I don’t think so. Just because we spent our excess on theatre tickets instead of a Mercedes doesn’t make us less culpable, it only made us less visible.
What’s the point of talking about all of this now? The money’s spent, the marriage is dissolved. For me, it is just reckoning. I know and understand that there are many mothers like me, many in far more manipulative situations. They are unmarried, yet tethered. The fathers of their children are gainfully employed, but willing to let them fill out paperwork that hides their ability to support, their obligation to buy groceries, their duty to provide financial backing. There are holes in our financial system that make it very, very attractive to families of all shapes and sizes that are open wide so we walk through.
WE walk through.
If I had been more assertive, felt like I had a greater stake or share, maybe I would have felt like I could say no, but it was enticing, easy to be convinced, that we were not doing something terrible, something so wrong. It was easier for 27 year old me to see that since I was not a breadwinner that I should accept the handouts of the government without question. Twenty years later I would have seen the moral deficiency and stood up for myself. That’s why I write this now. I lacked the financial freedom to say no then. I do not lack it now.
I was indeed taking advantage of the public welfare system. But I want to shed some light on the thousands of women who are painted so poorly. Some of them are doing it because they want to. Some of them are doing it because they don’t have much choice, because if they say no, their partner will point out that they are an ungrateful contributor to an unbalanced household.
And they will believe him.
If you are working to deal with emotional, physical, or financial abuse, reach out to the National Domestic Abuse Hotline or call 1800.799. SAFE. | https://byrslf.co/i-was-a-welfare-queen-2df32946370f | ['Susan Kelley'] | 2021-05-10 22:29:18.923000+00:00 | ['Beyourself'] |
The Odd Uneven Time (Late Edition) | The Odd Uneven Time (Late Edition)
(A very late) Aug. 2019 Newsletter, Gender from the Trenches
Apologies to all! It has come to my attention that this newsletter, originally written on Aug. 18th, did not get emailed.
Hello, lovely GftT community! It’s the middle of August already, and I’m only one week away from going back to my day job — the one that pays the bills — for the public school system. I can’t promise that a GftT newsletter will continue to arrive monthly, but I’ll try to send one as often as I can.
Time marches on… it seems like I just woke up on the first day of summer break with nothing before me but time and a clean slate, and yet, here we are at the tail end! I don’t know about where you live, but here in south, August is miserable. My mom recently told me something she heard, and it is absolutely true:
“If you want to know what summer in N.C. is like, take a hot shower, get out of the shower, and then put all your clothes on, without drying off.”
Yep. That’s what it feels like.
In the south, summer heat turns heavy. Oppressive. With an added top layer of humidity, the atmosphere becomes more tropical rainforest. Mosquitoes who nagged a bit all summer now descend on our yards like birds flying south for winter.
The whole month is like one last heave of summer’s breath before nature’s green parches and expires. It’s almost an ending, and yet, a beginning — new seasons, new school years, new activities — they’re all coming… but we’re not quite there yet.
Syliva Plath described it best:
“August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.”
But, there’s still comfort in the odd uneven time; there’s always comfort in the familiar. Every morning a cacophony of crickets and cicadas awaken with their summer song, and they return to serenade at dusk. The sound is instant nostalgia.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
As we prepare to enter fall, I hope you’ll take some time to look back over some of the pieces shared on GftT since July. We’ve gained more writers, and have published some poetry celebrating being trans, as well an essay on the toll it takes on a trans person when they’re called “brave,” from Branwen Rhiannon Drew.
Starting off the month of July was our first non-binary writer (woohoo!) Zanne Nilsson, on discovering their identity in a century-old comic strip called “Krazy Kat.” Mid-July, Ryan Theodosia revealed an instance of cisgender privilege on full display in the NYT — from the perspective of a non-binary person, as well as thoughts on navigating non-binary existence in a binary world. Laura-Ann Marie Charlot wondered, what defines a “real woman,” Mx. Drew-Marie Lewis (They/She) explained “finding my truth,” as an identity evolution, and Kira Wertz uses her powerful voice to speak from the heart on dating experiences, hating the player and the game.
From an ally’s perspective, I wrote about what I’d learned from another trans woman, Louise Carole Sumrell (she/her), regarding what’s really behind homophobia and transphobia. And I was super-thrilled to find this website of CC images which uses real trans people as subjects, doing we we all do — living their lives. (See image below):
Zackary Drucker for The Gender Spectrum Collection
As I mentioned last month, we’re living in a time of dire need for trans visibility, and especially, for authentic voices from the trans community — not just the glorified Hollywood movie stars. From the unique perspectives of both trans adults, and parents raising trans kids, Gender From The Trenches (GftT) aims to inform, enlighten, and inspire. Through authentic storytelling, GftT is committed to amplifying transgender voices to help connect, foster empathy, and spark meaningful dialogue.
We’re seeking more writers who’d like to publish their stories here at GftT. Of course, we’re open to anything! Have an idea? Send it! Specifically, we’d still love to hear about and share your personal experiences regarding victories and celebrations — whether big or small, as well as stories that dive deep into obstacles and low points. We’re still seeking more stories about the road to coming out (or not coming out) as transgender; your small moment stories, or your bigger than life ones, that reflect on what it is to be a trans (or genderqueer, or two spirit, etc…) person, and especially, a trans person of color.
Will your voice be added to the conversation?
If interested, contact Martie Sirois at: [email protected] (double-check your spelling on that!)
Also, we have a fledgling Facebook and Twitter presence — be sure to link up and follow us if you’re there — and share, share, share!
Til next time, be well, and live authentically!
In solidarity,
Martie Sirois, Gender from the Trenches | https://medium.com/gender-from-the-trenches/the-odd-uneven-time-late-edition-9175ec6ffb37 | ['Martie Sirois'] | 2020-04-24 22:11:06.300000+00:00 | ['Letters', 'Call For Submissions', 'Writer', 'Transgender', 'LGBTQ'] |
What I Learned From Failed Side Hustles | Since 2010 I have been involved with a number of side hustles. Nearly a decade at time of writing this post, that is depressing. My goal was to start working for myself. I hoped that one or more of these side hustles would take off and bring in an income that I could live on. Allowing me to focus on running the hustle full time and turn it into a fully fledged business. So, what skills have I learned from these failed side hustles?
On the first few of the failed side hustles I worked alongside friends or people I knew. Most of the early projects started by an acquaintance coming to me saying “I have this idea, do you think you can build it?”. I always jumped at the chance as I struggled in the past coming up with potential business ideas.
Working on these side projects gave me the bug of starting my own side project/business. I have become better at coming up with potential ideas. Always delving right in and start building the product. Unfortunately many of these ideas have also fallen from the way side, ending up in the graveyard with the earlier “joint ventures”.
I decided to write this blog to look back at the projects and review what I had learned over the years, skill set wise. You can always view these so called “failures” in a negative way. Taking inspiration from Tony Robbins, instead of viewing them as losses, I have started to think “what have I learned from this”. Getting all the information down whilst drafting this blog has been somewhat therapeutic.
“Failed” Projects I Have Worked On
In this section I will run through what sorts of software related projects I have worked on. Giving an overview of what I learned from each one.
Sketchbook Guru
Someone I knew from University had this idea. His idea was a website which basically ended up being “LinkedIn for start-ups”. Before LinkedIn was a thing (we really missed the boat on this one). The main idea of the site was to bring together people to launch a business idea, ranging from designers and developers all the way up to people who wanted to invest into new businesses.
What I Learned
Linux/Ubuntu and how to setup things like MySQL databases, Postfix email management, etc.
Installation and configuration of WordPress and PHP.
PHP/WordPress front-end development.
PHP scripting to process results and email the users.
Web design. Although our attempts were pretty shocking compared to today’s standards.
Football Survivor/Fixture Survivor
My University contact also came up with another website idea. Again, we missed a trick with this one and couldn’t get it to market. Someone had had the same idea as us. Not sure if their site is still running or not. This website idea was basically gambling against your mates on the football results. The last man/men standing would take the share of the winnings.
What I Learned
PHP and an earlier version of the CodeIgniter framework.
Bootstrap, HTML and CSS.
jQuery and Javascript.
How to build a custom admin area to run the product.
I also built a custom CMS, integrated into the main product, which only admins could see and use.
More web design — My skills improved massively working on this side hustle.
Marketing/sales/copy-writing. I included marketing pages within the website to help promote the product. Even though no one actually signed up. EVER!
Away Day Bible
The Away Day Bible started out as an Android and iPhone app. Designed for travelling football fans to be able to find places to eat, drink, places to stay and included transport information. Users could submit reviews to let fans know if a pub or chip shop was worth visiting or not.
Three of us contributed to Away Day Bible for over 3 years. Unfortunately we could not find a way to transition this into a paying side hustle and decided to part ways.
However, like a Phoenix out of the flames. The grounds guide and all the information we spent an age collating is still available for people to use. the website is called Football Social Club. This site is now a paid subscription service. If you would like to know more about the grounds guide you can here.
What I Learned
How to build a custom API using Apigility.
I also built a version of the API using CodeIgniter for the Football Social Club version of the grounds guide.
I built a custom admin area to manage the data that was displayed by the API. This admin area also enabled us to manage the “business”.
I built both an Android app and iPhone app from scratch (written in the native programming languages for each phone). Which used the API I had built to display data to the users.
We used third party products such as Google’s API’s to show maps. Along with other API’s such as analytics packages.. This was a massive learning curve along with the app development.
More WordPress experience for the marketing website. Also exposure to things like setting up SSL’s and integrating WooCommerce. Allowing people to purchase merchandise direct from our website.
How to interact with payment providers. We used Stripe to process payments as a friend recommended them.
For version 2 of the mobile apps I started building an MVP using NativeScript. However, we never manged to get this to market. Although I did mange to get exposure to NativeScript by getting around 80% of the functionality from the original apps into version 2.
Automated Accumulator
A friend of my wife and I got both of us into ‘Matched Betting’. I won’t go into detail about what matched betting is. Or delve to far into the goal of the product. Basically I designed and built a SaaS product which would allow a user to setup a number of bets to be placed on football matches. Selecting which outcome the user would like to bet on.
The software would then automatically place the bets for you. The clever bit of the software was that it made decisions whether to place another bet on a fixture. Which was dependant on the outcome of the last fixture our system had bet on.
Blowing my own trumpet here, it was very clever. I even managed to get my first customer who signed up for monthly subscription. I was over the moon. However, I decided to shutdown the project as there was very few potential customers. In addition, the whole system relied on a third party API which was flaky at best.
I couldn’t bring myself to let customers lose money because of a third party API. It wasn’t reliable and if the third party decided to revoke my products access to their API. The whole project would have had to be shutdown. In, conclusion it wasn’t a stable business model. However, I learned so much in a very short space of time.
What I Learned
I built the main SaaS website using Microsoft’s .Net Core framework.
Learnt how to build ‘WebJobs’ using .Net Core.
It was my first real product that was hosted on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.
Taught myself how to use VSTS/Azure DevOps to automate my build, test and deployment pipelines.
Gave myself exposure to Azure SQL databases.
Again used WordPress as my marketing site. I got a lot better at building a marketing site and writing sales copy.
I got over the fear of actually messaging and picking up the phone to call a potential customer. That’s how I managed to land my one and only client bt dropping them a phone call.
The Takeaways From Failed Side Hustles
I have learned so much from all these failed ventures. From picking up new programming languages and frameworks. Which comes more naturally as I have worked as a software developer for a long time. Through to writing marketing and sales content and speaking to potential clients. Which has been a steep learning curve and something that is still difficult for me.
Would I Still Jump In Without Looking?
In short. No. I wouldn’t dive right into projects like these again. Over the years I have read a few books like The 4-Hour Work Week and Will It Fly. These books discuss testing and validating your side hustle/business ideas. This is key to what side hustles I would work on in the future and something I have been more focused on recently. I still have the desire and work ethic to find a successful side hustle. However, my time is getting ever more precious and I need to spend it wisely.
One thing I will say. If you are a programmer or from a tech background and want to play around with new programming languages or frameworks. Coming up with a side hustle idea is a great way to learn them FAST.
A word of caution though. Expect to earn ZERO money from it. Actually expect it to take money our of your pocket for things like hosting, etc. If it’s purely a play thing then great. There is no such thing as “If you build it, they will come”. You will be waiting a long time.
What’s In The Pipeline
There a few things I have worked on recently that I am trying to see if I can find paying customers for. However, they are more a “scratch my own itch”. Which I am trying to find users to if they would like to test what I have built. In addition to gaining feedback before writing another line of code.
If you are interested in trialling one of these products please contact me
I am also doing a lot of market research to find a side hustle. It seems I used to struggle to come up with potential ideas. Now I have some many I want to look into. Market research can be as overwhelming and time consuming as actually building a product.
At least with product research and a potential customer list. Your chances of succeeding are increased.
Good luck in finding your side hustle.
Find Out More
If you would like to find out more about what I learned you may find the following blogs useful.
Quickly Deploy An API — Using Apigility
Building a Custom CMS — Using Codeigniter
Alternatively you can view what products I have worked on that have become small side hustles here. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/what-i-learned-from-failed-side-hustles-4ad383100eb1 | ['Phillip Hughes'] | 2020-06-09 06:23:20.440000+00:00 | ['Failure', 'Software Development', 'Learning', 'Side Hustle', 'Lean Startup'] |
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