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How to Stop the Trump Steal in 2024: Fixing Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act | How to Stop the Trump Steal in 2024: Fixing Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act
There has been a lot of discussion of the threat of the potential for a Trump “steal” of the 2024 Presidential Election. In particular Rick Hasen and Greg Sargent have done great work. In the recent telling however, it feels like the the biggest failing in our system that creates the threat of a Trump steal has been pushed to the background. That is Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act, which purports to permit a majority of both houses of Congress to reject the certified electoral votes from States. In fact that would be unconstitutional in my view. The 12th Amendment simply does not permit this. But that’s a different article. Because whatever anyone thinks, there is no definitive ruling declaring that Congress can not do this.
In the meantime the threat of Section 15 of the ECA is just sitting there waiting for Trump to abuse in 2024. I present here an attempt to provide a simple amendment to Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act that at the least will remove any lawful fig leaf to a Republican steal of the 2024 election on January 6, 2025.
The Electoral Count Act
I assume most readers are familiar with the origins of the Electoral Count Act — the 1876 Presidential Election produced a disputed election where various Southern states had conflicting electoral votes presented to Congress and a stalemate occurred as to which votes to count. Eventually a commission was named, a political bargain was struck ending Reconstruction and Rutherford B. Hayes became President. Weirdly the Electoral Count Act isn’t passed until 1887, 11 years later. In any event, it did become law though for the next 113 years, it really wasn’t an issue. Then Bush v Gore happened and the Rehnquist Court in Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board raised the safe harbor provision of Section 5 of the Electoral Count Act to a foundational Constitutional principle:
We granted certiorari on two of the questions presented by petitioner: whether the decision of the Florida Supreme Court, by effectively changing the State’s elector appointment procedures after election day, violated the Due Process Clause or 3 U. S. C. §5, and whether the decision of that court changed the manner in which the State’s electors are to be selected, in violation of the legislature’s power to designate the manner for selection under Art. II, §1, cl. 2 of the United States Constitution. 531 U. S. ____ (2000). . . . In addition, 3 U. S. C. §5 provides in pertinent part: “If any State shall have provided, by laws enacted prior to the day fixed for the appointment of the electors, for its final determination of any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of all or any of the electors of such State, by judicial or other methods or procedures, and such determination shall have been made at least six days before the time fixed for the meeting of the electors, such determination made pursuant to such law so existing on said day, and made at least six days prior to said time of meeting of the electors, shall be conclusive, and shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes as provided in the Constitution, and as hereinafter regulated, so far as the ascertainment of the electors appointed by such State is concerned.” The parties before us agree that whatever else may be the effect of this section, it creates a “safe harbor” for a State insofar as congressional consideration of its electoral votes is concerned. If the state legislature has provided for final determination of contests or controversies by a law made prior to election day, that determination shall be conclusive if made at least six days prior to said time of meeting of the electors. The Florida Supreme Court cited 3 U. S. C. §§1–10 in a footnote of its opinion, App. to Pet. for Cert. 32a, n. 55, but did not discuss §5. Since §5 contains a principle of federal law that would assure finality of the State’s determination if made pursuant to a state law in effect before the election, a legislative wish to take advantage of the “safe harbor” would counsel against any construction of the Election Code that Congress might deem to be a change in the law. . . . we are unclear as to the extent to which the Florida Supreme Court saw the Florida Constitution as circumscribing the legislature’s authority under Art. II, §1, cl. 2. We are also unclear as to the consideration the Florida Supreme Court accorded to 3 U. S. C. §5. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida is therefore vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
The Palm Beach County Canvassing Board opinion is the genesis of the “independent state legislature” doctrine that has been used off and on by Republican justices to achieve the results they prefer in election cases. In the runup to the 2020 election. Judge Kavanaugh wrote a noted footnote on it and Justice Alito segregated certain Pennsylvania mail in ballots based on it. Luckily neither of these decisions had a dispositive effect in any state and Trump’s clown car of lawyers never gave the Supreme Court any foothold to decisively intervene in his favor.
But I like revisiting Bush v Gore cases for a point that I now think is paramount regarding the real threat in 2024 — it is Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act. Let me illustrate with a hypothetical — suppose instead of Bush it was Gore who prevailed in Bush v Gore and Florida certified its electoral votes to Gore instead of Bush. What COULD have happened on January 6, 2021?
Well according to Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act:
the President of the Senate, who shall thereupon announce the state of the vote, which announcement shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons, if any, elected President and Vice President of the United States, and, together with a list of the votes, be entered on the Journals of the two Houses. Upon such reading of any such certificate or paper, the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any. Every objection shall be made in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received. When all objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner, submit such objections to the House of Representatives for its decision; and no electoral vote or votes from any State which shall have been regularly given by electors whose appointment has been lawfully certified to according to section 6 of this title from which but one return has been received shall be rejected, but the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified. . . .
(Emphasis supplied.) On January 6, 2001, While Al Gore was the Vice President, Republicans held the House and would hold the Senate (it was 50–50!!) once Cheney became VP. Can you imagine the chaos! Al Gore would have declared himself the next President of the United States in the most contentious situation that could ever be devised. Of course, Al Gore conceded the election after the Supreme Court decided in December 2000 so none of this became an issue. What would George W. Bush have done? Imo not concede the election. And of course we know Trump will NEVER concede the Election. So imagine January 6, 2025, Biden (or Harris!) wins a close election, Trump doing what he did then, fortunately without control of the government. Republicans control the House and Senate. Kamala Harris remains the VP. How does this go then?
Well Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act says explicitly “the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified. . . .” As I say, this provision violates the 12th Amendment imo, but no court has said so and won’t say so before January 6, 2025. Thus it must be amended. So how do we amend it?
Proposal for Amending Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act
In an interview with Isaac Chotiner, Professor Hasen says:
[F]ixing the 1887 Electoral Count Act. That’s this arcane federal law that explains how Congress is supposed to count the Electoral College votes from each state. One of the provisions in there says you only need an objection from one senator and one representative in order to go into separate trial sessions to negotiate over whether or not Electoral College votes should be accepted or rejected. There should be a much higher threshold, and there should be a substantive standard for rejecting those votes.
My proposal is about the substance though a higher threshold is certainly a good idea too. What would I change? The provision I objected to above:
but the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified. . . .
would be amended to read:
but the two Houses concurrently may reject any vote or votes which are not conclusive as provided by Section 5 of this Act or which have been lawfully certified according to section 6 of this title.
Section 5 is the famous safe harbor provision we heard so much about during Bush v Gore. Didn’t hear about it much last year. Section 6 is the provision that requires a Governor to submit its certified electoral votes. If my proposed language were law, it would have made all the objections made by Republicans on January 6, 2025 out of order.
Well who would rule them out of order? Well the President of the Senate. Al Gore ruled the objections to the Florida electoral votes for Bush in 2000 out of order because they did not comply with Section 15. The President of the Senate would have the same role in January 2025.
But you might object, what if the States do not certify Biden even though he won? What if a Republican Governor doesn’t send in the certification as required by Section 6? Well laws in and of themselves aren’t solutions to lawlessness. Biden’s lawyers will have to win those battles at the state level. But it does no good to win those battles at the state level if a Republican Congress can just do whatever it wants on January 6, 2025.
As Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act reads now, it would be lawful for a Republican Congress to throw out any electoral votes it wants by a majority vote in each house. I can not imagine a bigger threat to our democracy than that. | https://medium.com/@armando.dkos/how-to-stop-the-trump-steal-in-2024-fixing-section-15-of-the-electoral-count-act-3edadba80573 | ['Armando Dkos'] | 2021-08-08 21:23:53.359000+00:00 | ['Electoral Count Act', 'Coup', 'Trump', 'Republicans'] |
The Effect of Time on Decision Making | This is a long post for me, with a quick summary at the bottom for those of us who are time poor!
For a while now I have been fascinated with why people make certain decisions. There are loads of great papers out there, some of which I actually understand!
What has really caught my attention is the effect of time constraints on decision making.
Time Constraints in Games
We see this a lot in games, sometimes obvious other times, not so obvious. It is also used in varying degrees.
For example. In The Walking Dead, it is used to great effect during certain conversations. You will get asked to make a decision and are then given a few choices. Whilst you decide there is a progress meter counting down that will force neutral and probably unwanted response if you don’t choose. Within the context of the game, this forces you to often go with gut instinct over long considered decisions. This gives the feeling of drama and in some cases real dread, often the choices are all seemingly negative — you are left to choose which is least bad.
In Mario, there is always a timer ticking away at the top of the screen. For the most part, this does not really mean much as it has ample time to complete a map — or so it seems. However, after deciding to collect everything on a level, you often find time running out and suddenly it all feels more desperate as you sprint to the finish line!
These are obvious examples of time pressure on decision making, you can see a timer and know it will run out at a certain point. Games offer many other types of time constraints, from how you react whilst being shot at to how you are going to get from one side of a map to the other as you are being chased. These kinds of pressures force fast thinking, reflex action and definitely don’t encourage considered or creative solutions. However, these kinds of moments often feel more “real” and emotional, they have more meaning in that split second.
Some people use this to get “gut reaction” decisions in the context of workshops and the like. A popular “game” is 3–12–3 or variations of it. A problem is set and groups of people are set the challenge of solving it. There are then three phases of the brainstorming process, all tightly timed. The first lasts 3 minutes and is used to come up with some ideas. Keeping the initial time tight forces participants to not over think the problem. Next, they have 12 minutes to develop a more concrete idea from the ones pooled in the first phase. Finally, the groups have 3 minutes to present their idea to the other groups. Rules differ, with individuals and pairs and groups doing various things, but the key principle is always the same. The initial idea generation phase has a short time limit. But why would this produce better ideas?
Decision Field Theory — How We Decide
As I say, there is a lot of research on how we make decisions. The most predominant that I found was a piece called Decision Field Theory published by Jerome R. Busemeyer and James T. Townsend in 1993 [1]. In this paper, they discuss how people make decisions, based on available information and time etc. Basically, given a set of choices, your mind filters through all of the information available. Over time the probability of each choice “winning” changes until either time runs out or there is only one choice left in mind. The key thing for me considering time pressure on decision making is that changing the amount of time given for a decision to be made, can dramatically change the outcome.
Consider the graph below. The last vertical line (no time pressure) shows a decision that has been given its natural length of time to complete, in this case about 2 seconds. Here Choice A is the obvious winner. However, if the time is cut in half, you can see that at 1 second Choice C would win.
Decision Field Theory
This, of course, does not tell us if choice A was better or worse than Choice C. The difference is that Choice A is a more considered choice. In fact, it may well be wrong, as the information you had when Choice C was winning may have been more accurate than the information you had at Choice A. You may have talked yourself out of Choice C based on some kind of personal bias you were not aware of. All sorts of things change the validity of each choice. Going back to our brainstorming game, in reality, the shorter time is given for idea generation probably doesn’t yield better ideas. What it does is give you a chance to generate more ideas without any of your natural bias’ kicking in, rather than ideas that are definitely better! After that, you have time to be a little more considered and creative.
Construal Level Theory — Abstract vs Concrete Perception in Decision Making
So time is a factor in what decisions you make. Another interesting part of decision making to consider is how we perceive things. In 1998 Yaacov Trope and Nira Liberman published a paper called Temporal Construal Theory, which eventually became part of Construal Level Theory of Psychological Distance (CLT) (2010) [2]. This theory proposed that people thought about things differently based on the psychological distance between them and the thing. This could be physical distance, temporal (time), social etc. The further the experience is away from the object, the more abstract/high the level of construal or perception is. The closer the object is to the experience the more concrete/low level the construal is. This is the difference between considering WHY a thing needs to be done and HOW it is going to be done.
In his paper, Not to be Misconstrued, Nicolas Matthews gives a nice example of this. Consider locking a door. If the event of locking the door is in the future, you may think of it in terms of securing the house. This would be WHY you lock the door. When you are actually stood at the door with a key, you are more likely to think of HOW you lock the door as you are in the moment. Put the key in the door, turn the key, check the door. The closer to the event you are, the more concrete and real it becomes. You no longer have the luxury to think about why you need to do something; you have to think about how you will do it.
When given a task with unlimited (or at least ample) time, you have the luxury of considering the abstract thoughts of why. You can eliminate choices and come up with new ones and iterate old ones. The closer you are to the point the decision has to be made, the more focused you become on how you are going to achieve the given task.
A little example. You have a wall in front of you and are asked to go over it. To your side, you have rope, a ladder, and a hook. Given no time limit, there are a few ways you could do this. You could run and jump at the wall and try to climb over. You could create a grappling hook and use that to climb over. Finally, you could just put the ladder against it and climb up that. Given those choices, and based on factors such as your own abilities, bias’, height of the wall etc, you may decide to use the ladder. Someone else may create a grappling hook, even though it is not the most practical, it may be more fun. As you are further away in time from the task, you can think of the abstract solutions.
Now imagine that you are being chased towards the wall by a pack of dogs. Rather than taking two minutes to make a choice, you have to make it before you get to the wall in 30 seconds. Suddenly you have no time for abstracts, this is the here and now. At this point, jumping the wall seems like the best and most practical solution for getting over it quickly.
If the dogs were to go in a different direction before you get to the wall, other ideas would begin to become better options for you.
Summary
Time is an important factor in decision making, one we can’t forget about when designing any kind of system. With gamification as in games, we have the ability to use it to our advantage by imposing time constraints on systems that would otherwise not have them.
By giving shorter time limits to achieve tasks, we limit the number of options that can be considered by people, but by doing so may promote the most practical options to rise to the top. Forcing people into the here and now will make those decisions feel more concrete and real, giving them more immediate meaning.
Giving longer time periods allows people to craft more thoughtful ideas and come to more creative decisions, but can also lead to people dismissing good ideas based on personal bias or other external factors.
Use time to your advantage based on the outcomes you desire. If you want to encourage lots of good practical ideas, reduce the time given. If you want to promote creative and more abstract thoughts, give them longer!
Image courtesy of Danilin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Further Reading / References
[1] J. R. Busemeyer and J. T. Townsend, “Decision field theory: a dynamic-cognitive approach to decision making in an uncertain environment.,” Psychol. Rev., vol. 100, no. 3, pp. 432–459, 1993.
[2] Y. Trope and N. Liberman, “Construal-level theory of psychological distance.,” Psychol. Rev., vol. 117, no. 2, pp. 440–63, 2010. | https://medium.com/gamifieduk/the-effect-of-time-on-decision-making-f04e6e0e00d4 | ['Andrzej Marczewski'] | 2017-08-21 13:27:21.683000+00:00 | ['Social Sciences', 'Milan Kundera', 'Decision Field Theory', 'Psychology', 'Construals'] |
MRI Market Size Worth $8.18 Billion By 2027 | The global magnetic resonance imaging market size is expected to reach USD 8.18 billion by 2027, registering a revenue-based CAGR of 5.9% during the forecast period, according to Grand View Research, Inc. Rising prevalence of chronic diseases coupled with increasing demand for early diagnostic techniques is projected to drive the growth. In addition, growing adoption of less invasive diagnostic procedures is contributing to the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) market growth. Moreover, increasing number of clinical trials to understand the effectiveness and efficiency of MRI machines in various clinical applications is expected to boost the growth.
End-users, such as research institutes and universities are frequently studying the efficiency of MRI devices with high field strength such as 7T, 10T, and 10.5T. Growing number of research studies will help unlock the potential usage and advantages of high field MRI machines for various preclinical as well as clinical applications. Currently, 7T MRI machines are only effective in brain and knee imaging, largely due to the absence of advance coil required for these high field machines. Therefore, the development of advance coils to expand the application of 7T MRI machines is expected to propel the growth during the forecast period.
Key market players are adopting various strategies, such as mergers and acquisitions, collaborations, and partnerships to gain competitive edge. For instance, Aurora Imaging Technology entered into a distribution agreement with Sumec Group Corporation. Under this distribution agreement, the latter will distribute MRI portfolio of Aurora Imaging Technology in China. This in turn is helping both the companies in geographical expansion.
Click the link below:
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/magnetic-resonance-imaging-market
Further key findings from the report suggest: | https://medium.com/@marketnewsreports/mri-market-d528e984ab48 | ['Gaurav Shah'] | 2020-12-18 06:41:30.300000+00:00 | ['Medical Imaging', 'Brain', 'Covid 19', 'Breast', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Roundtable #25: Good TRON v Bad TRON (TRX), EOSBlack Scam?, Fastwin & Sylo | Q and Ev talk Good TRON v Bad TRON before catching up with co-founders of Sylo to talk about their mobile application.
Don’t miss this week’s episode of The Roundtable with co-hosts Zach Quezada and Evan Schindler holding casual crypto conversations on the latest news and the hottest topics.
Q and Ev chat about the latest happenings in the crypto and blockchain space before catching up with the co-founders of Sylo to talk about their mobile application.
2:39 — Comments from Last Week
5:16 — Good Tron v. Bad Tron
15:15 — EOSblack
18:42 — FastWin
24:39 — Interview with Sylo Founders
Originally published on blog.icoalert.com
https://blog.icoalert.com/roundtable-sylo | https://medium.com/ico-alert/roundtable-25-good-tron-v-bad-tron-trx-eosblack-scam-fastwin-sylo-99dddc3757a1 | ['Ico Alert'] | 2018-11-29 18:21:30.197000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Crypto', 'Medium', 'Podcast'] |
Artists fear a Backlash If they speak Out Against Streaming Royalties | As we move forward into the year 2021, has anything really changed in the music industry artists are still hungry for success, but does success ever happen for them, or more to the point do the BIG companies allow them to have success, or will they always keep you in the shadows never to be seen again!
Only just recently British lawmakers have stated that artists are hesitant to participate in the ongoing investigation into streaming royalties for artists, musicians, bands.
“Because they ALL fear action may be taken against them” if they do so.
The House of Commons’ Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (DCMS Committee) has just announced recently the high-profile probe into streaming royalties only just last month.
This comprehensive analysis aims to identify streaming’s impact for all relevant stakeholders, which will include labels, artists & bands as well as its long-term effects concerning “the sustainability of the wider music industry.” for years to come!
So really what we are saying here on another “Government report” that just sits in the office gathering dust for another 10 years while the BIG streaming platforms carry on with their stranglehold over the industry for decades to come, while indie acts receiving “pence” for their efforts as usual (just enough money to buy a can of Coke!).
This has been highlighted very recently with, singer-songwriter Nadine Shah, Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien, and Elbow frontman Guy Garvey spoke before the DCMS Committee to address the contemporary music landscape of today.
Of a particular note was Shah’s statement that she doesn’t “make enough money from streaming” to cover her rent, despite having north of 100,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.
In response to the abundance of information that the investigation has turned up so far, the DCMS Committee also announced only last week that it had extended the window for artists, bands, and others to submit written testimonials regarding royalties.
From the original deadline of Monday, November 16th, members of the music industry now have until Friday, December 11th, to express their opinions and suggestions to the committee.
The probe’s upcoming testimony, for its part, is slated to take place (Today) Tuesday, December 8th, with Maria Forte Music Services’ namesake owner, Ferocious Talent owner Kwame Kwaten, and José Luis Sevillano, director general at Spain’s AIE, set to participate via live stream for the UK Government to share their views and thoughts. | https://medium.com/the-entertainment-engine/artists-bands-and-musicians-fear-a-backlash-if-they-speak-out-against-streaming-royalties-a0b5fbcba2ca | ['Peter Moore'] | 2020-12-08 16:01:19.798000+00:00 | ['Spotify', 'Artist', 'Law', 'Music Royalties', 'Streaming'] |
It Will Take Years for People of Color to Recover From the Covid-19 Fallout | It Will Take Years for People of Color to Recover From the Covid-19 Fallout
The pandemic lays bare structural inequities that need fixing across all aspect of American society
A healthcare worker gives a Covid-19 test to a patient in the Covid-19 Unit at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas on July 2, 2020. Photo: Mark Felix/Getty Images
Kimora “Kimmie” Lynum was “the type of kid that would brighten your day,” her cousin, Dejeon Cain, told a local news outlet in Florida. “She loved her mom, dad, grandma, uncles, and aunties.” Kimmie, who was nine years old, died last month of Covid-19, following a sudden spiking fever. Her family did not know she had the disease until it was too late, Cain said.
Kimmie is one of an alarming number of people of color whose lives have been upended or cut short by the coronavirus. Black people are nearly three times more likely than whites to contract Covid-19 and more than twice as likely to die from the disease, according to a report published last week from the National Urban League.
Beyond those raw statistics, people of color are suffering grossly disproportionate health and economic consequences from the Covid-19 pandemic — impacts that could take years to recover from. But for recovery to happen, the pandemic must serve as a wake-up call to the deep social and racial inequities that have left Black people, in particular, more vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic and less able to bounce back from this or any health or economic crisis.
Nobody thinks it’ll be easy.
“For generations, communities of color have faced vast disparities in education, in job opportunities, in income, in inherited family wealth, and in health care,” said Michelle Williams, dean of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “The Covid-19 crisis has laid bare these issues.”
With widespread Black Lives Matter protests playing out in the background, Williams and other public health experts are now contemplating the piled-on problems of the pandemic amid a time of great hope, and greater-than-ever need, for positive social upheaval. It’s all tied together, they say.
“Sadly, the ill effects of this pandemic will be felt for many years after we’ve pushed back the virus,” Williams said. “Delays and deferral in medically managing noncommunicable disorders like hypertension and diabetes — conditions already disproportionally high in black communities — will only worsen.”
What Covid-19 has laid bare
In the United States, white men outlive Black men by about 4.5 years, on average, and white women outlive Black women by around 2.7 years. These disparities are rooted in well-known, systemic social stressors and inequities that leave Black Americans with higher rates of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and other chronic conditions.
“Being Black in America also means enduring psychological stresses linked to premature biological aging,” Williams said. “All of these health issues conspire to make viruses like Covid-19 that much more severe.”
Being Black is a risk factor for poor health not because of underlying biology, but due to a host of disadvantages and disparities that start at birth. Black babies are 2.5 times more likely than white babies to die before their first birthday.
Born into sickness
Across the country, the heaviest industrial polluters are concentrated in areas with high minority populations. Air pollution causes asthma, heart attacks, and strokes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and leads to some 100,000 premature deaths a year in America. The health effects begin at birth and pile up with time, says Afif El-Hasan, a pediatrician in California who focuses on asthma.
“People who’ve been living long term in areas of high pollution have reduced natural defenses in their bodies, and it makes it easier for Covid or any other infection to be invasive,” El-Hasan explained.
Up to 40 million Americans face evictions in coming months, according to an analysis by the Aspen Institute; about 80% of them are Black or Latino.
Recent research found anyone who spends a lifetime in a heavily polluted region of America is more likely to die from Covid-19 than people who’ve lived in clean air. There are short-term risks, too. Spikes in pollution this spring, when the EPA relaxed regulations, were shown to directly contribute to a rise in new Covid-19 infections and deaths.
People don’t choose to live in bad air. Many Black people live where they do largely because of decades and centuries of policies by governments and businesses that forced them into social and geographic boxes that remain difficult to get out of.
Denied homeownership and wealth
The ripple effects of the pandemic extend far behind public health. About 36% of renters didn’t make rent on time in July, according to a survey by the platform Apartment List. Up to 40 million Americans face evictions in coming months, according to an analysis by the Aspen Institute; about 80% of them are Black or Latino. A surge in foreclosures would follow, the institute predicts, particularly among individual “mom and pop” property owners, who are the landlords of about 47% of all U.S. home rentals and in many cases don’t have the resources to pay their mortgages without the rental income.
Today, about 71% of white Americans own a home, which has long been considered the #1 way to build wealth. The figure is 41% for Blacks and 45% for Hispanics. Lenders are 80% more likely to deny mortgages for Black applicants even today, according to a recent Zillow analysis. Mortgage denial rates are highest in neighborhoods that are predominantly Black, and in those areas, Black people are still denied disproportionately compared to whites.
The resulting financial disadvantage, which carries from generation to generation and extends back to slavery, Jim Crow laws, and redlining that denied Black people mortgages starting in the 1930s, is profound. Typical household wealth, measured by the median (with half of households above and half below) is $17,150 for Black people, $171,000 for white people — 10 times as much.
The wealth gap is inextricably linked to other systemic inequities, such as pollution exposure, lack of health care and, ultimately, a glaring health gap. Put simply: “The greater one’s income, the lower one’s likelihood of disease and premature death,” according to a report from the Urban Institute and the Center on Society and Health.
Struggling for work
Jason Hargrove, a Black bus driver in Detroit, expressed his anger in a Facebook post earlier this year after a woman on his bus coughed several times without covering her mouth. Two weeks later he died of Covid-19.
Black people make up 13.4% of the U.S. population, but almost 30% of bus drivers are Black, as are nearly 20% of all food service workers, janitors, cashiers, and stockers, writes Rashawn Ray, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and a fellow at the Brookings Institution. Blacks and other people of color represent a disproportionate chunk of these “essential” and “frontline” workforces unable to work from home and tend to kids, making them exposed to the virus more than others, other research shows.
“During a highly contagious pandemic like Covid-19, Black workers, and consequently their families, are overexposed,” Ray writes. “In this regard, staying home during a quarantine is a privilege.”
Meanwhile, the pandemic continues to decimate the job market. As of July, unemployment stood at 9.2% for whites, 12% for Asians, 12.9% for Hispanics, and 14.6% for blacks. Black women have faced the largest job losses.
Struggling with education
A learning gap has long plagued U.S. K-12 schools, with Black and Hispanic students scoring, on average, two to three years behind white students on standardized tests, according to the McKinsey & Company, a research firm.
The gap will likely widen if schools rely solely on online learning, which is less effective, especially for low-income students who don’t have access to high-speed internet or parents available to offer academic supervision, the company concludes in a recent report.
Where classrooms and daycares do not open, essential workers are forced into impossible choices. Unlike schools, for-profit daycare centers are threatened with permanent closure, which will likely disproportionately affect people of color and the poor, and “also has important implications for income and educational inequality, racial equity, geographic equity, and a potentially significant decline in the number of mothers in the labor force,” according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress.
Trying to keep the lights on
People across the country are struggling to pay the bills right now. A survey of low-income households conducted in May by researchers at Indiana University found 13% were already unable to pay their energy bills the previous month, 9% had received an electricity utility shutoff notice, and 4% had had their electric utility service disconnected.
“Energy insecurity is already a widespread problem in the U.S.,” the researchers write. “It disproportionately affects those at or below the poverty line, Black and Hispanic households, families with young children, people with disabilities, and those who use electronic medical devices.”
They estimate that 800,000 low-income households may have recently had their electricity disconnected — based on data from this spring. The problem could get worse as the economy continues to struggle, the researchers say. And the impact could be deadly in summer heat, especially for older people, young children, people of color, and the poor.
Going hungry
Millions of Americans, particularly people of color live in “food deserts,” where a supermarket’s fresh produce and other healthy food are impractically far away, and local stores and fast-food chains are overloaded with junk food. The worst food deserts tend to be in dense, poor urban areas, contributing to “food insecurity,” defined as not having enough money to properly feed a family.
Before the pandemic, 37 million Americans suffered food insecurity, including 11 million children. Black and Hispanic families are twice as likely to suffer food insecurity compared to white families, multiple organizations have found. The nonprofit charity Feeding America says the crisis is most acute in Navajo County, Arizona, where 43% of the population are Native American.
By the end of April, food insecurity had doubled compared to previous levels, affecting more than 20% of U.S. households and 40% of households with mothers with children 12 and under, according to the Brookings Institution.
Food deserts and food insecurity have been linked directly to increased rates of diabetes and other chronic diseases — risk factors for worse outcomes from Covid-19 — again, particularly among people of color.
Lacking access to health care
People without health insurance are less likely to visit a doctor for any reason, including to get tested for Covid-19. While just 8% of white Americans under age 65 are uninsured, the figures are 11% for Blacks, 19% for Hispanics, and 22% for Indigenous people, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Increasingly, health experts say the U.S. health care system is broken and in need of structural fixes to better serve marginalized communities, which will ultimately serve all Americans.
“Covid-19 is a disease of communities and networks, a pathogen that floats along the infrastructures of human relations,” a small group of doctors and researchers wrote recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “Only by better strengthening networks and supporting all communities will anyone, and everyone, return to well-being.” They argue for everything from improving education of doctors to building community health centers that better serve local needs.
“Having single-payer universal healthcare would be a tremendous help in terms of Covid specifically.”
Others say the health inequities can only be properly remedied with a single-payer health care system, in which basic, essential health care is paid for by the government, similar to how Medicare works. That alone would not address all health inequities, but it would be a start.
“Having single-payer universal health care would be a tremendous help in terms of Covid specifically,” Sabrina Strings, PhD, a sociologist who studies race, gender, and the sociology of medicine at the University of California, Irvine, said. “But because health disparities are fundamentally rooted in racism and sexism, single-payer health care is not going to eradicate that. Only a willingness to address the structural forms of oppression in our society will improve those kinds of inequalities.”
So now what? Vigilance
The very systemic nature of the underlying problems means change, if it comes, will require not just awareness by marginalized groups, but a sustained investment of desire and effort by all Americans, on a level that’s unprecedented, Strings contends.
“There is a growing awareness of the many different types of ‘isms’ that are still plaguing America,” said Strings, author of Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia. “However, this is not the first generation to be awakened to this reality. I don’t have any evidence that the hippies of the 1960s and ’70s were less aware of these problems than Gen Z. So that gives me a little bit of pause. I want to feel hopeful, but I know we’ve been here before.”
Williams, the Harvard health school dean, agrees the task is tall, requiring “radical, large-scale investment” in public health, housing, and environmental justice, among other efforts. But she remains hopeful that the Covid-19 crisis can be a springboard for systemic change.
“If we remain vigilant about voting, if we hold our elected officials accountable, and if we each do our own part to help each other, hope can turn into reality,” Williams said. “It is up to us to keep pushing for social justice on scale.” | https://gen.medium.com/it-will-take-years-for-people-of-color-to-recover-from-the-covid-19-fallout-fd23282523cd | ['Robert Roy Britt'] | 2020-08-19 05:31:02.540000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Racism', 'Coronavirus', 'Race', 'Healthcare'] |
Joseph Lubin: “$4,000 is very high for Bitcoin” | It’s February 19th, 2019, and Joseph Lubin is holding a talk at the Lubin School of Business of Pace University in New York… No, they haven’t yet named the school after Ethereum’s co-founder and the founder of ConsenSys. It’s named after Joseph I. Lubin, an American accountant and businessman who passed away in 1983. The man was well-versed in ledgers, but not the decentralized kind. In this article we illustrate the most interesting topics that came up in discussion with the audience.
The event took place at the Schimmel Theatre, one of the biggest auditoriums in Lower Manhattan. There was quite a buzz in the lobby before the event began and it seemed like most of its 700+ seats were occupied. Mostly students, with the average age of an attendee being at around twenty-years-old. Just another testament that this new technology has been embraced by the young.
I entered the auditorium a few minutes early. Mr. Lubin was already onstage. I took the opportunity to introduce myself. Also, I mentioned the article that had been published just a few days before that was analyzing what typically happens to the price of ether after a fork. He seemed to be pleased with the findings — the price of ether tends to increase after a fork that was on the original roadmap.
I had a chance to ask Mr. Lubin a couple of questions. My first question was about the recent occurrence of what seems to be the most expensive Ethereum transactions ever. Mr. Lubin wasn’t aware of the situation, I explained it to him and asked about the rumor that maybe it was Mr. Buterin’s way of showing generosity towards the miners. He responded:
I don’t think it would be someone trying to give money into someone else’s hands because you don’t know which of the ten or fifteen thousand miners will win that actual block. So, I don’t’ think it was intentional. We have seen situations when someone actually paid too much money, more than they had to pay. When you have a transaction, you actually know the address it came from, so the mining person or the mining pool that actually validated that transaction, created the block with that transaction can send that money back. It will be interesting to see if that actually happens.
There has been a lot of news about the blockchain adoption, but mostly from the corporate sector involving private blockchain. When do you think we’ll see real adoption of public blockchains?
We have had that thing that people call a “crypto winter”, irrational exuberance, followed by a correction to a still a very high value for bitcoin, 4,000 is still a very high value for bitcoin (in my opinion); $150 for ether is still very high considering it started at $0.25. Crypto winter is that notion — we are just getting back to building software.
At our company ConsensSys — roughly 60% of activity focuses on public blockchain, 40% on enterprise solutions. We work with banks, central banks, and lots of corporations. On the corporate side, there was no crypto winter. There has been nothing but growth. We’ll roughly do five times more work in 2019 than in 2018. Last year wasn’t really a proof of concept year for us — for example, we launched Komgo with Citibank, a trade finance platform.
Blockchain Technology
Could you describe blockchain technology to the audience?
Blockchain is the next generation database technology. In my opinion, Satoshi invented three things:
- Blockchain database tech
- Cryptocurrency — there were digital currencies before, but Bitcoin is the first one without the need for the central clearing authority.
- Crypto-economics — it marries database technology to the token.
When I first read the whitepaper (around 2009), it was at the time of the financial crisis. Things were too centralized, banks, in particular, quantitative easing, too much money, too much debt. We were moving to what I call ‘a cascading collapse’.
Live Wires of Money Rails
I come from the corporate finance background. In our industry, when one mentions “cryptocurrency”, it is immediately associated with fraud.
Never in history have we had a technology revolution that was all about enabling people to access the live wires of the money rails, that has enabled people to create money for themselves. All those crypto tokens were too easily accessible, too easy to create, low barriers to entry. There was a lot of information asymmetry.
The fact that regulators are paying attention helps. We did a lot of legal work from the beginning. In the future, the projects will be much more likely to do the legal homework.
We created Trueset — eventually, we will it turn into a tokenized platform. It’s crowdsourcing, crowd wisdom to create Edgar like database.
What determines the price of a cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrencies are like commodities. Ether was the first crypto commodity. As with any commodity, the price is determined by supply and demand.
Journalism
What are your thoughts on blockchain governance? (Mr. Lubin first mentioned that governance may take on many forms and then focused his response on journalism.)
Journalism is just a terrible mess right now. It’s an industry that has been decimated, especially the local journalist sites. Lots of private equity, hedge funds are basically owning the journalistic infrastructure in our world pretty much and hailing the same superficial messages into lots of different political contexts. And the way the adtech industry is working has essentially turned Facebook into most people’s newspaper or newsfeed. What they are doing is basically is creating this binary approach to different issues where the dopamine slot machine gets involved to, so we are not seeing settle presentation of issues, so we are not seeing as intelligent discourse as we might have, it’s a lot yelling. We need to fix journalism first before we can really use governance.
Check out the platform called Civil for sustainable ethical journalism.
Civil will get real traction. We did a token launch for Civil, it was the most successful failed launch ever. Our legal team created too many barriers for potential investors.
Stablecoins
What do you think about cryptocurrencies and why most of them are based on Ethereum?
Joseph Lubin: Cryptocurrencies are volatile, the price changes a lot. So stablecoins are supposed to solve that problem. Typically, they are pegged to the dollar or some other asset. Like tether, for example. There are many of them now. The most interesting is DAI by Maker.
Postscriptum
Mr. Lubin’s talk was over after an hour. He left through the main entrance which allowed some of the students to pitch their projects and take selfies. There was no entourage or limo waiting outside. Mr. Lubin is a lucent speaker. Also, he is clearly someone who cares about this technology as much as he cares about its social impact.
LetKnow.News on Facebook, Twitter and Telegram | https://medium.com/letknownews/joseph-lubin-4-000-is-very-high-for-bitcoin-a23063e2b2d4 | [] | 2019-02-27 11:44:34.254000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Interview'] |
Netflix’s finest are from Europe | Netflix’s finest are from Europe
‘Broadchurch’, ‘Trapped’, ‘Deadwind’ and more
Photo by Samet Özer on Unsplash
I almost never watched any European content until the pandemic hit us. The pandemic situation changed everything from the way we live to the stuff we watch. It is quite natural to run out of stuff to do as you start spending more time indoors. How much can one sleep? One of my best friends would disagree; this person can sleep upward of 14 hours in one go! How much can we stay indoors and be indulged by the technology that we have bought? I recently bought a PlayStation 4 and I can vouch that this is one of the most exponential upgrades done by anyone. It can sound a bit exaggerating, but it isn’t. The last time I played any game( barring the mobile games) was when I was in the 8th grade or so. That is more than a decade back. But trust me, buying the PlayStation was one of the worst investments I have ever made. I find it boring. It has been a month since I bought it but I have hardly used it.
Anyways, I realized that the only thing that I do not get bored of is watching movies and series. And I thank the current scenario for just this, because I discovered some of the best content out there recently. I have always been a fan of American movies and series. I never bothered to watch anything outside that, especially when it comes to series. But recently I found myself in a situation where I ran out of stuff to watch.
And what do you do when you run out of things to do? You start something that is out of your comfort zone. So I started watching Kingdom in Netflix (not to be confused with the Asian martial arts stuff). It is an American series about an ex-MMA fighter and his gym that he operates with his girlfriend. I did not want to watch this. I did not even decide to watch this after I read about it or something. I was just randomly searching for new series to watch and I decided that I would give this one a chance because I love Frank Grillo. Trust me when I say this, because this show is the best series out there. And mind you, I am a Breaking Bad fanboy.
Kingdom is the perfect balance between action and emotions. I have never seen another series that has captured human emotions so beautifully. But I need to admit this- this show is also one of the most depressing ones I have ever watched. Every character is broken, just like the people we know. Deeply flawed. Real. Raw.
Once I finished watching Kingdom, I went into this state of denial for a week or so. I felt sad. I felt depressed. I wanted more. But hey, you cannot always get what you want. So another random search led me to a European series called The Forest. I highly recommend this show to anyone who doesn’t like watching lengthy stuff. This is a perfect short series for a thrilling weekend binge-watch. The acting is top-notch and the story is intriguing enough to keep you in the seat.
The Forest interested me in trying out more from Europe. I started watching Young Wallander. It is a noir detective crime thriller with great acting and a good enough story. I personally believe that it deserves a better rating in IMDB. I highly recommend this show to anyone who loves watching noir stuff.
After finishing Young Wallander, I started watching Broadchurch. Now this one is quite something. Incredible, I repeat, incredible performances throughout. It is a beautiful story with great cinematography as well. I highly recommend this one to all of you who want to watch some quality stuff.
I could not get enough of Broadchurch. I hope they come with more seasons. After Broadchurch, I finished watching Trapped, a crime series set in Iceland. This is very interesting, because most of us know Iceland as a small island nation with very little to no crime at all. Watching Trapped hence is an amazing experience. Iceland is my dream destination ever since I watched The Secret Life of Walter Mittie. Watching Trapped was however more informative. It was delighting to know more about my most favorite destination in the world.
Currently, I am watching Deadwind. It is a crime series set in Helsinki, Finland. I completed the first season and I must tell you that it is very interesting.
I have been binge-watching like crazy since the lockdown. I am glad I have stuff to watch from across the world. I like learning new things about other nations through the series and movies that I watch. And when all this madness is over, I hope to travel to all these beautiful nations that I fell in love with through these movies and series. | https://medium.com/illumination/broadchurch-trapped-deadwind-and-more-a29bf6f908d1 | [] | 2020-10-14 09:52:16.933000+00:00 | ['Europe', 'Netflix', 'Movies', 'Nordic Noir', 'Series'] |
Master the JavaScript Interview: What is a Closure? | “Master the JavaScript Interview” is a series of posts designed to prepare candidates for common questions they are likely to encounter when applying for a mid to senior-level JavaScript position. These are questions I frequently use in real interviews.
I’m launching the series with the $40k question. If you answer this question wrong, there’s a good chance you won’t get hired. If you do get hired, there’s a good chance you’ll be hired as a junior developer, regardless of how long you’ve been working as a software developer. On average, junior developers get paid $40k/year less USD than more experienced software engineers.
Closures are important because they control what is and isn’t in scope in a particular function, along with which variables are shared between sibling functions in the same containing scope. Understanding how variables and functions relate to each other is critical to understanding what’s going on in your code, in both functional and object oriented programming styles.
The reason that missing this question is so disadvantageous in an interview is that misunderstandings about how closures work are a pretty clear red flag that can reveal a lack of deep experience, not just in JavaScript, but in any language that relies a lot on closures (Haskell, C#, Python, etc…).
Coding in JavaScript without an understanding of closures is like trying to speak English without an understanding of grammar rules — you might be able to get your ideas across, but probably a bit awkwardly.
You’ll also be vulnerable to misunderstandings when you’re trying to understand what somebody else wrote.
Not only should you know what a closure is, you should know why it matters, and be able to easily answer several possible use-cases for closures.
Closures are frequently used in JavaScript for object data privacy, in event handlers and callback functions, and in partial applications, currying, and other functional programming patterns.
If you can’t answer this question, it could cost you the job, or ~$40k/year.
Be prepared for a quick follow-up: “Can you name two common uses for closures?”
What is a Closure?
A closure is the combination of a function bundled together (enclosed) with references to its surrounding state (the lexical environment). In other words, a closure gives you access to an outer function’s scope from an inner function. In JavaScript, closures are created every time a function is created, at function creation time.
To use a closure, define a function inside another function and expose it. To expose a function, return it or pass it to another function.
The inner function will have access to the variables in the outer function scope, even after the outer function has returned.
Using Closures (Examples)
Among other things, closures are commonly used to give objects data privacy. Data privacy is an essential property that helps us program to an interface, not an implementation. This is an important concept that helps us build more robust software because implementation details are more likely to change in breaking ways than interface contracts.
“Program to an interface, not an implementation.”
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object Oriented Software
In JavaScript, closures are the primary mechanism used to enable data privacy. When you use closures for data privacy, the enclosed variables are only in scope within the containing (outer) function. You can’t get at the data from an outside scope except through the object’s privileged methods. In JavaScript, any exposed method defined within the closure scope is privileged. For example:
Play with this in JSBin. (Don’t see any output? Copy and paste this HTML into the HTML pane.)
In the example above, the `.get()` method is defined inside the scope of `getSecret()`, which gives it access to any variables from `getSecret()`, and makes it a privileged method. In this case, the parameter, `secret`.
Objects are not the only way to produce data privacy. Closures can also be used to create stateful functions whose return values may be influenced by their internal state, e.g.:
const secret = msg => () => msg;
Available on JSBin. (Don’t see any output? Copy and paste this HTML into the HTML pane.)
In functional programming, closures are frequently used for partial application & currying. This requires some definitions:
Application: The process of applying a function to its arguments in order to produce a return value.
Partial Application: The process of applying a function to some of its arguments. The partially applied function gets returned for later use. Partial application fixes (partially applies the function to) one or more arguments inside the returned function, and the returned function takes the remaining parameters as arguments in order to complete the function application.
Partial application takes advantage of closure scope in order to fix parameters. You can write a generic function that will partially apply arguments to the target function. It will have the following signature:
partialApply(targetFunction: Function, ...fixedArgs: Any[]) =>
functionWithFewerParams(...remainingArgs: Any[])
If you need help reading the signature above, check out Rtype: Reading Function Signatures.
It will take a function that takes any number of arguments, followed by arguments we want to partially apply to the function, and returns a function that will take the remaining arguments.
An example will help. Say you have a function that adds two numbers:
const add = (a, b) => a + b;
Now you want a function that adds 10 to any number. We’ll call it `add10()`. The result of `add10(5)` should be `15`. Our `partialApply()` function can make that happen:
const add10 = partialApply(add, 10);
add10(5);
In this example, the argument, `10` becomes a fixed parameter remembered inside the `add10()` closure scope.
Let’s look at a possible `partialApply()` implementation:
Available on JSBin. (Don’t see any output? Copy and paste this HTML into the HTML pane.)
As you can see, it simply returns a function which retains access to the `fixedArgs` arguments that were passed into the `partialApply()` function.
Your Turn
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Explore the Series
Updates:
July 2019 — Clarified intro to explain why answering this question wrong could cost you a job or a lot of money in salary. | https://medium.com/javascript-scene/master-the-javascript-interview-what-is-a-closure-b2f0d2152b36 | ['Eric Elliott'] | 2020-08-26 01:12:04.085000+00:00 | ['Functional Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Programming', 'Technology'] |
To the edge and back: A soldier’s story | Six months ago, Corporal Jakob Ricketts of 16 Medical Regiment in the British Army, couldn’t imagine any future for himself. Now, he has earned a promotion while helping people in the Falklands deal with Covid-19. Here Jakob shares his personal mental health journey and how his Defence colleagues helped him through.
“My decline started around age 14. I was the sole witness to my father’s death and was unable to truly process what had happened. I bottled it up for the following thirteen years. During university, I had a large number of friends commit suicide in unlinked events, and I continued to keep those feelings bottled up.
Then, on a night out, I was attacked and left for dead in London. The attack left me scarred emotionally as I was unable to find a way to not blame myself for what happened.
I began to drink to silence my own thoughts and emotions. It led to the breakdown of relationships and eventually made me numb to other people.
Toward the end of 2019, I made an attempt on my life and was sent to Peterborough Hospital for treatment.
Jakob on a NATO deployment earlier in his career
Supported by colleagues
Initially, my decline was spotted by a close friend at work, who reported it to an officer I was working directly under. This officer went above and beyond to make sure I wasn’t drinking in the mornings and helped me start the process of getting myself back on track. She truly helped me unpick everything as well as getting me in front of the medical chain.
Once I was in hospital, I was immediately contacted by a friend from my unit, and within days of admission, my Staff Sergeant Major came to the ward to help me get back in touch with the outside world.
When I was discharged, my unit let me control my return to work. I could work reduced hours, not in uniform, and was able to walk away when I needed to.
They offered me Safe Spaces so if I had any triggering moments, I was able to hide, regroup, and come back or walk away. I was moved into a less stressful department and given no pressure to speed up at all.
DCMH (Department of Community Health) also offered fast and fantastic treatment. They gave me weekly face to face sessions when I was available, and phone consultations if I wasn’t. They gave me the tools to build myself back up, and carry back on a path of recovery.
Working back to normality
Earlier this year, I got a phone call that I was going to be deployed to the Falklands — 8000 miles away from everyone I knew. I was initially deployed as part of Op Broadshare, the UK Government’s response to Covid-19 in the Crown Dependencies amongst the Commonwealth.
We were sent out there as a team of six and I was deployed alongside an officer who was incredibly empathetic towards me. They had been through a very similar process themselves and having someone out there who I could relate to during this situation was a really big help.
When our quarantine ended and we were allowed to integrate more with the local population that we were working alongside, I put a lot of effort into working on logistics on the island and across the health service of the South Atlantic islands.
I worked for three months with the local government to try to modernise services. And that was when my unit recognised my work and promoted me to the acting rank of Corporal, which has now been made permanent.
After I got back to the UK I realised just how far I’d come in such a short period of time. I’ve been deployed 8000 miles away, my work has been celebrated, and my unit hierarchy seem to be really happy with my level of output. From start to finish, everything happened so quickly and I recently had my final session with DCMH to discuss the path I have taken, and where we hope I end up going.
To someone who is worried about speaking up: it’s hard, and easier said than done. But going from being unable to leave my flat due to fear of the outside world and what might happen to me, to deploying, happened because I took a leap of faith. | https://medium.com/voices-of-the-armed-forces/to-the-edge-and-back-a-soldiers-story-cc920d849814 | ['Ministry Of Defence'] | 2020-09-10 08:26:57.820000+00:00 | ['British Army', 'Armed Forces', 'Mental Health'] |
Why Craft Beer is a Scam | Pyramid schemes, Nigerian princes, timeshares and craft beer.
This is a list of industrial scams that I am acutely aware of.
Of that list, unsurprisingly, the most palatable and inoffensive is your local IPA.
It may not hurt quite as much as the fatal disappointment I suffered, aged 13, when realising that Prince Kwame of Lagos had not really bequeathed me the $400,000,000 he had promised in his kind email…but it is still a real annoyance.
There are many artisan industries that I could choose to aim at — but I have elected to aim fire at the craft breweries because I just hate them.
I hate the stupid names. “Heineken”, “Harp” are quaint antique names of the past seemingly; now, it has to be quirky nonsense or it is not drinkable.
“Whistlers Ballbag” or “Candid Antelope” is now the order of the day. I’m never quite sure if these names are coded Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy type references or characters in a game of Cluedo — but they certainly sell, now.
I hate the way they attempt to hoodwink the discerning boozer into thinking that the tepid, fizzy liquid actually has tasting notes. My brother sent me some cans of “Poachers Asshole” for my Birthday recently and the tasting notes referred to Gooseberry, Cedar and Hibiscus Jam.
Well played, Mr Poacher. I wouldn’t honestly know what Hibiscus Jam tastes like normally, let alone discern it in a can of lager. Even typing this fills me with rage — have we all lost our minds??
I would love, nay, crave, the opportunity to do a blindfold taste test with a couple of craft beer savants. Serve them up some of their beloved local IPA, in this case, “Pervert’s Buckle”, and intersperse it with faithful Pub stables like Heineken, Tennants and Coors.
Let them pick the difference. Let them also annunciate the tasting notes. If they start announcing that Tennants has highlights of glazed fig and parsnip veloute, then we know they are total bluffers, and we tar and feather them. If they can’t spot the difference at all, simple, they are publicly hanged.
Setting aside all that complete and utter pretentious drivel pertaining to be culture, we arrive at the dichotomy that lies at the heart of Craft Beer. Or indeed, craft anything…but as I said before, I am angry, and going after the beer crowd.
The word “craft” implies care and attention, images of a small pot of beer lovingly made in a cottage overlooking the sea. Most of all, it implies scarcity and a controlled supply.
My Nana used to make scones that were, I suppose, “craft scones”, but she wasn’t a fool and therefore they were just plain old scones.
Don’t be fooled by the term craft, though. These craft breweries are not modern-day Andrew Carnegie inspired philanthropic types. Their mission statement is not to enlighten and disrupt the world of brewing. These organisations have shareholders, like everyone else, and have a responsibility to make a profit.
With faced with a choice between a viable business and keeping beer snobs happy, the “craft” element rather goes out the window. Guffawing Hippo, for instance, may well have started off being in made in the flatshare kitchen of two friends. Fine, no problem. Somewhere along the way, however, the lads decided they wanted to make a bit of coin at this GH wheeze.
So, they hired marketers to paint a nice Hippo on the side of the cans. They partnered with a Hippo Sanctuary in Africa and post out a cuddly Hippo toy with all crates. Lovely stuff. They also quickly worked out that they couldn’t afford all the kit and lab space needed to brew their Budweiser knock-off at a profit-generating scale, and so, they outsourced their manufacturing to the same factory that makes Tesco Special Brew.
It was only ever “craft” for the first few weeks of their journey, and now, it’s just, well errr, beer in a fancy can. Which costs much more than a normal can.
If I could make any request to my fellow citizens in 2021, it is to stop fawning over craft beer. If you have ordered it in Wetherspoon’s, it is not craft. If it was genuinely “craft”, there would only be so many and therefore each can would be auctioned off in keeping with the principles of marginal utility. They would not be three bottles for a tenner.
The blackberry jam that you buy at your local farm shop probably Is craft, please (!!) buy that instead. | https://medium.com/@philpatterson-93699/why-craft-beer-is-a-scam-67a916051950 | ['Phil Patterson'] | 2020-12-17 20:07:14.847000+00:00 | ['Support Local', 'Scam', 'Pyramid Schemes', 'Alcohol', 'Craft Beer'] |
Take the Stress Out of Travelling with a Baby | Having only just learnt to drive at the ripe old age of 31, I have spent a lot of time travelling on trains and buses with my children. I have also taken both my children on long haul flights as babies and toddlers. Travelling with children can be a stressful experience, but with a little forethought, enjoyable travel is totally possible — it just takes a little planning.
I can’t promise tantrum-free travel, but here are some tips that can make your journey run that bit smoother.
PLAN TRIPS AROUND NAP TIME
This is not always possible but planning your trips around naptime can take a lot of stress out of travelling. When you get on the train, bus or plane and they fall asleep its bliss! You can sit back, relax and have a bit of me-time.
WEAR YOUR BABY
The best way to travel with a little one on public transport is to wear them in a sling. There is limited space on trains and buses for prams; wearing your baby in a sling means you can sit or stand wherever you wish. And if you are flying, a front carrier or baby sling is ideal when they are tiny.
Being carried close to you or your partner will make them feel safe and secure. Plus, your hands are free, so you can find the money for fares, eat your lunch and carry bags — all while you hold your baby snugly.
PREPARING FOR TRAVEL
Preparing for travel with a little one is essential. If you are just going out for a few hours, you only need to take the essentials, a few spare nappies, wipes, change of clothes, snack etc. If you are going on a long journey or on holiday, it pays to be organised. Discovering there is no cot when you arrive at your destination with a tired baby is not a good start to a holiday.
I have never been the type of person that makes lists, but I have become one when it comes to travel preparation as my propensity to pack last minute has caught me short and cost me money and stress on several occasions. At least a few days before you travel, make a list of everything you need for the journey and when you arrive at your destination. Think about travel time, the weather, sleeping arrangements and facilities and I would always advise packing a basic first-aid kit with plasters and infant paracetamol for relieving a fever. You may want to consider taking other items, such as colic drops, saline nose drops for stuffy noses, and teething gel. The last thing you want on a long flight is a teething baby and nothing to appease them!
DON’T PACK TOO MUCH BUT BRING MORE THAN YOU NEED
This tip and the previous go hand in hand. Lack of preparation, in my experience, results in either packing way too much or forgetting the essentials. When you are going on holiday you don’t want to get caught out, but you also don’t want to be dragging around a lifetime supply of nappies — just in case.
Find out if there are there going to be shops nearby to buy extra supplies or will you need to take everything with you? If you are going somewhere where there are shops, you may want to consider packing what you need for the journey and topping up the essentials when you arrive. That way, you can keep your luggage to a minimum which makes travelling with children so much easier.
SNACKS, SNACKS AND MORE SNACKS
Once your baby has been weaned and is eating solid food snacks are a travel essential. Snack is my toddler’s favourite word. If I run out of snacks and I don’t have anything to give him all hell breaks loose. Packing a variety of healthy snacks keeps them happy on a long journey.
TRASH CAN BE TOYS
Distractions are essential when travelling with children but taking a bag full of toys is not always very practical. To a baby, a plastic bottle is as good a toy as any. Plastic spoons make great drumsticks, and babies love crunching paper bags!
YOUTUBE
Parenting police — don’t shoot! When you’re on a long journey, YouTube or kids games apps are a godsend. When I can see my toddler, Isaac, is getting fed up and on the verge of a tantrum, I whip out my phone or tablet and put YouTube on. Most of the time, it works a treat and ensures my sanity and my dignity stays intact.
CHANGE NAPPIES ANYWHERE
Don’t be afraid to change your baby on the seat next to you, on the floor or even on a tray table. When you’re travelling there isn’t always going to be a baby change in your vicinity. Don’t worry what other people think, just get done what you need to get done, where you can. Take a travel changing mat or a blanket to provide a barrier between them and the surface and some antibacterial wipes so can quickly clean the surface before you lay down the mat.
MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE PEOPLE SITTING AROUND YOU
When you’re taking a flight with your little one or even going on a long train journey. I highly recommend trying to engage in conversation with those sat next to you, especially if you’re alone. If your child has a meltdown, they will be more understanding, and if you need to nip to the loo, they will be happy to keep an eye on your little one and or nurse them while you have a nap. I am not advising you just leave your child with total strangers, but there have been many times when I’ve been sat next to a lovely lady who has been cooing over my baby and was more than happy to have a cuddle when nature called.
read more articles on the first time mama blog | https://medium.com/first-time-mama/take-the-stress-out-of-travelling-with-a-baby-e7db5fcebfb0 | ['First Time Mama'] | 2020-01-05 07:51:01.149000+00:00 | ['Journey', 'Baby', 'Travel', 'Stress', 'Moms'] |
EDWARD BYRNE ASSOCIATES, BEDFORD: DR STEPHEN HENDERSON, RACIST FREEMASON, HEAD OF MDDUS, THEIR… | EDWARD BYRNE ASSOCIATES, BEDFORD: DR STEPHEN HENDERSON, RACIST FREEMASON, HEAD OF MDDUS, THEIR ORAL SURGEON, WITH ZERO POSTGRADUATE QUALIFICATION; THE CLOSETED RACIST, BRAINLESS FAKE EXPERT, IS ALSO THE ORAL SURGEON AT JOHN MILLER FENTAL PRACTICE IN OXFORD. Abiodun Bamgbelu Dec 23, 2020·7 min read
pt-br.facebook.com › Daringtruths01 › photos › district…
DISTRICT JUDGE AYERS OF BEDFORD COUNTY COURT: A BRAINLESS WHITE MAN; A RACIST DESCENDANT OF PROFESSIONAL THIEVES AND …
“A complaints such as Mrs Bishop’s could trigger an enquiry.” STEPHEN HENDERSON, RACIST FREEMASON, HEAD OF MDDUS.
A RACIST DUNCE.
“I don’t want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.” George Bernard Shaw.
NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW.
Nigerian babies with huge oil-wells and gas-fields near their houses eat only 1.5/day; a functional semi-illiterate closeted racist bastard whose mother ad father have never seen crude oil is the HEAD OF MDDUS.
The tail of MDDUS should be mentally subhuman. Putin sits on the largest gas reserve in the world; did he poison Bob Dudley.
Then, racist bastards carried and sold millions of stolen children of defenceless poor people (Kamala’s ancestors) — Habakkuk; now, they carry natural resources. Then, the highly luxuriant soil of Holborn yielded only food. Then, all the people of Holborn were fed like battery-hens with the yields of stolen children of defenceless poor people (Kamala’s ancestors) — Habakkuk.
SUBSTITUTION: FRAUDULENT EMANCIPATION.
“Moderation is a virtue only among those who are thought to have found alternatives.” HENRY KISSINGER.
WOLLASTON, ENGLAND: Based on available evidence, GDC-Witness, Ms Rachael Bishop, England’s Class Senior NHS Nurse, unrelentingly lied under oath — Habakkuk 1:4.
A RACIST CROOK.
A bastardised, unashamedly mediocre, indiscreetly dishonest, vindictive, potently weaponised, and institutionally racist system that is overseen by the FREEMASONS (Mediocre Mafia) — Habakkuk.
BEDFORD, ENGLAND: Based on available evidence, GDC-Witness, Freemason, Brother, Dr Richard Hill fabricated reports and unrelentingly lied under oath — Habakkuk 1:4.
A RACIST CROOK.
Deluded paper tigers; baseless superiority is their birthright. Their hairs stand on end when they’re challenged by our people (AFRICANS); we and or type are the only ones racist bastards will beat up without the support of the YANKS.
Those who need ethical fight (“ethical foreign policy.” Robin Cook), should forcibly evict Putin from Crimea; he stole it.
“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” Plato.
STEPHEN HENDERSON, A CLOSETED RACIST FREEMASON, AND FUNCTIONAL SEMI-ILLITERATE HEAD OF MDDUS.
https://www.facebook.com/rotimi.osunsan/videos/3088536551193798
STEPHEN HENDERSON, RACIST FREEMASON, HEAD OF MDDUS, AND THE ORAL SURGEON, WITH ZERO TANGIBLE POSTGRADUATE QUALIFICATION, AT EDWARD BYRNE ASSOCIATES, BEDFORD. OYINBO OLE: THIEVES — HABAKKUK.
STEPHEN HENDERSON, RACIST FREEMASON, HEAD OF MDDUS, AND THE ORAL SURGEON, WITH ZERO TANGIBLE POSTGRADUATE QUALIFICATION, AT JOHN MILLER DENTAL PRACTICE, OXFORD. OYINBO OLE: THIEVES — HABAKKUK.
“A complaints such as Mrs Bishop’s could trigger an enquiry.” STEPHEN HENDERSON, RACIST FREEMASON, HEAD OF MDDUS.
A RACIST DUNCE.
A sheep unnaturally shepherds sheep.
“Mediocrity weighing mediocrity in the balance, and incompetence applauding its brother ………..” Wilde.
They accurately foresaw that a functional semi-illiterate, waste of money fake expert who seemed to have nearly passed or just passed in everything and everywhere (Proverbs 17:16) would be the HEAD OF SCOTTISH MDDUS, they looted Africa. Whenever they killed, they dispossessed. Wherever they robbed, they took possession — Habakkuk.
NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW. Then, the highly luxuriant soil of Holborn yielded only food. Then, all the people of Holborn were fed like battery-hens with the yields of barbarously racist traffic in millions of stolen children of defenceless poor people (Kamala’s ancestors) — Habakkuk. HOLBORN MUST FALL!
Nigerian babies with huge oil-wells and gas-fields near their houses eat only 1.5/day; a closeted racist, functional semi-illiterate LLM, whose father and mother have never seen crude oil is the HEAD OF SCOTTISH MDDUS.
Putin sits on the largest gas reserve in the world; did he poison Bob Dudley?
Deluded paper tigers; baseless superiority is their birthright. Their hairs stand on end when they’re challenged by our people (AFRICANS); we and our type are the only ones racist bastards could beat up without the support of the YANKS.
If Racist Freemasons are as brave as they imply, they should forcibly evict Putin from Crimea; he stole it.
Then, racist bastards carried and sold millions of stolen children of defenceless poor people; now, they carry natural resources.
“We shall deal with the racist bastards when we get out of prison.” Robert Mugabe.
SUBSTITUTION: FRAUDULENT EMANCIPATION.
”Moderation is a virtue only among those who are thought to have found alternatives.” HENRY KISSINGER.
WOLLASTON, ENGLAND: Based on available evidence, GDC-Witness, Ms Rachael Bishop, Senior NHS Nurse, unrelentingly lied under oath -Habakkuk.
A RACIST CROOK.
FUNCTIONAL SEMI-ILLITERATE HEAD OF MDDUS: STEPHEN HENDERSON, A CLOSETED RACIST BRAINLESS PROTECTOR (MPS) WHO BECAME A DEFENDER (MDDUS). AN IGNORANT RACIST LEECH: A RIGHTEOUS DESCENDANY OF INDUSTRIAL-SCALE PROFESSIONAL THIEVES AND OWNERS OF STOLEN CHILDREN OF DEFENCELESS POOR PEOPLE (KAMALA’S ANCESTORS). OYINBO OLE: THIEVES — HABAKKUK. NIGERIA: SHELL’S DOCILE CASH COW. THE HIGHLY LUXURIANT SOIL OF LUTON YIELDS ONLY FOOD.
Our Empire of stolen affluence — Habakkuk.
To survive in Great Britain, we must bow to FREEMASONS (genetic aliens with fake English names), our irreconcilable enemies — even if they were thicker than a gross of planks. Why? Creeping North Korea.
“You will bow. You can’t beat the system.” Born again Christian. I shan’t; I know who can.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST: They will investigate the very serious allegations; when they find they are based on TRUTHS, they will cover up TRUTHS. Their public (sheep) must not know the evil they do to our people (NEGRITOS) — Habakkuk 1:4. Ignorant descendants of THIEVES; ultra-righteous owners of stolen children of defenceless poor people — Habakkuk
“Of black men, the numbers are too great who are now repining under English cruelty.” Dr Samuel Johnson
Bedford, England: Based on available evidence, Freemason, Brother, Dr Richard William Hill fabricated reports and unrelentingly lied under oath — Habakkuk 1:4.
Facts are sacred; they cannot be overstated. Based on available evidence, parts of the administration of English law have been FULLY DECODED. Seemingly a Negrophobic charade that is overseen by FREEMASON JUDGES — Habakkuk 1:4
Corby, England: Based on available evidence, Dr George Rothnie unrelentingly lied under implied oath — Habakkuk 1:4
Whites measure whites with a very different yardstick — Apartheid administration of the Law; the evillest method of propagating uneducated RACIAL HATRED. Facts are sacred.
Their objective is to kill, albeit hands-off. The only good Negro is a good Negro.
THE BRAIN IS NOT IN THE DISPUTABLY SUPERIOR SKIN COLOUR: THE CENTURIES-OLD UNSPOKEN SCAM NEEDS TO BE SHATTERED
There, it is a crime only if the BUILDERS (Mediocre Mafia) did not prior authorise it. The ruler of Builders rules our world. Whites measure whites with a very different yardstick. Only foolish NEGRITOS do not know that — APARTHEID ADMINISTRATION OF THE LAW — Habakkuk 1:4
Builders (White Supremacist Freemasons): Half-educated school dropouts and their superiors who have informal access to some very powerful white Judges — Habakkuk 1:4
Creeping North Korea: Builders (Mediocre Mafia) will inevitably use the Harassment Law to stifle the basic right to disclose true pictures painted by minds. When He disclosed the pictures His infinite mind painted, He was lynched and crucified. Reasoning and vision are unbounded. Weirdos who use expensive shiny aprons to decorate the temples of their powerless and useless fertility tools have a lot to hide; there are more skeletons in their cupboards than the millions of skulls at the doorstep of Comrade of Pol Pot. The cretins who sit before them think they are unassailable colour-blind Geniuses and Saints — Habakkuk 1:4. Ignorant fools; descendants of THIEVES and owners of stolen children of defenceless poor people — Habakkuk
What they want is intellectual superiority; they have only the indisputably superior skin colour that they neither made nor chose. Ignorant descendants of THIEVES and owners of stolen children of defenceless poor people — Habakkuk. | https://medium.com/@factsaresacred89/edward-byrne-associates-bedford-dr-stephen-henderson-racist-freemason-head-of-mddus-their-43d059b546f0 | ['Abiodun Bamgbelu'] | 2020-12-23 05:38:29.624000+00:00 | ['Law', 'America', 'Africa', 'Racism', 'Politics'] |
LastYearToday: The search for Me. | Another year has flown past in the blink of an eye and I find myself staring down the 14th of November once more. A hallowed date for me and no one else. If you’re new here — a preamble: on an uneventful day (the 15th of November) in the year 2017, I sat down and wrote a Medium article. It was an introspective piece that I wrote more for myself than anyone else. Penned in the hopes that I could put down the thoughts and emotions that are rattling inside my head on to something other than the prison walls of my mind; a final effort to keep the hounds of psychological and emotional perdition at bay. It seems to do me well, and I continue it annually. A reflection of my year’s accomplishments (and failures); the dramatic final look at the man in the mirror before stepping on to the ring once more.
This year is (has been) no different. As I write this in the pin-drop silence of my home I find myself grappling at possible ways to best illuminate to you, Dear Reader, all the things that have happened and have left a lasting impact on me this year past. After all, a write up MUST have a STYLE, should it not? This year, I think not. I have been the curator of my stories for far too long — and the stories I have told in the past have left a bloody after taste; the price of biting my tongue in the effort of holding back words lest I hurt someone close to me. But I ignored the cost to myself of bottling things that should’ve been let out before it festered. Now, for the first time, I write this fully conscient of the amputation I may be dealt as a result of this lengthy prognosis. In a world of curated Instagram grids, 4 million subscribers, and perfectly implemented Kanban boards, I have recently found solace in admiring the honest and brave few who would speak their truths fervently with steadfast composure like Atlas with the World on his shoulders. I, by no means, agree with all of their ‘truths’, but I admire their strength to stand by what they believe: I desire to be like that. After all these years of mimicry, I’d for once like to be me.
I notice that my armpits are drenched in sweat. It’s a dry and cool 10 Celcius at this moment — “the sweat appears to be a threat response?” I question.
Snap-judgment: I may be suffering from crippling anxiety.
“Meh, write it off, you’ll be fine”, I tell myself.
Let’s get on with the recap and then the eventual rant/self-mutilation at the end. For those returning, find that while my last two write-ups may carry a tone of hopeful naivety, this one will read longer and much, much darker.
This is a bit self-aggrandizing but if you are not in a good headspace right now, I suggest you read this at a different time. This is (in my non-medical, irrelevant opinion) the psychological equivalent of extracting blackheads or removing botfly larvae from the flesh. But, the endeavour at hand feels significant to me. Ye have been warned.
November and December 2018
The month of November in 2018 was a tough sonofabitch. I was going through some serious relationship problems and I was staring at the prospect of my relationship with my wife going thermonuclear. I went to a therapist and did the back and forth with him. You see, when my wife refused to go (to the therapist), I immediately inferred “yeah, she’s been right so far about most things. Maybe I’m the one in need of a fucking psych test”. I don’t know if it’s obvious but I somehow have a problem with WANTING to be a martyr for the ones I love. As I spoke to the counseller, being in that leatherette chair was the only thing that gave me ANY guidance — it must be the indents where the buttons are on the backrest or something similar of less import. I obviously only went for one visit. The ‘clinical questions’ that were (in essence) transposed variants of my own questions shot back toward me as a query aggravated me more. My thoughts were along the lines of “why the fuck am I paying you exactly?”.
Here’s an analogy: imagine a dehydrated person thirsty for a sip of water; their skin on the borderline of tanned leather. In front of said person, lays a canteen of pristine mineral water. However, the character in question is so dehydrated they barely have the capacity to move their own limbs to take a drink out of the canteen. A person appears near the canteen. “Would you like a drink of water?” they ask. The dried parchment of a man nods with great effort. The man leans in with a kind smile and says, “let’s explore why you think that you yourself can’t help yourself to some of this water”. The parchment man spontaneously combusts.
This is what it felt like to be speaking to a therapist. I am by no means, saying therapy doesn’t work. By Jove, if Mia Khalifa herself swears by the power of therapy and therapists, then who am I to express such baseless opinions, right? No. Fuck that prior sentiment, I express my opinion anyway. Long and the short of it is, I realised on my own that I had a nasty threat response when protecting my way of life. I could not fight the allure of LYING and making false promises to make myself seem ‘harder, better, faster, stronger’ when I spoke to save my own skin/lifestyle. Scary part? I believed the lies I spewed. But the lies that had initially instilled hope in my partner’s eyes were now starting to sound like a busted vinyl and she was on to the trick. So, I wrote out the truth, printed it out, and recited it word for word to my wife. Eliminated the use of ‘Wormtongue’*. The honesty plugged one hole in our metaphorical swiss cheese slice of a relationship. Ever since I broke that habit of immediately spewing a million words of lies, I’ve steadily gained the confidence to speak the truth coherently (with great difficulty) thus far even under pressure and I am proud of that. Happy with that bit of progress, I left it at that and moved on — after all, it takes TIME to restore lost faith.
[*Grima Wormtongue, for those unfamiliar, was a character from the Lord of the Rings that possessed the ability to convince and/or corrupt others by simply uttering words. Also to no one's surprise, the dude was a right c*nt.]
Meanwhile, on my work and passion ledger, I had finally found a banner to find shelter under: “A Filmmaker”, I called myself. After the short film that I made, I was proud of that title. To maintain that, I worked tirelessly on that front, and thankfully — the effort wasn't lost on my surroundings. Soon a friend (no longer) reached out to make his (and my) debut into the filmmaking world. He came to me with a request to record one of his live sets at a bar. I pounced on the opportunity. I thought what better way to showcase my work than to start my own brand and company that focused on filmmaking and photography and launch it alongside this video.
“I’ll call it LumaChroma Studios” I thought. The Art of Light and Colour.
The word ‘studios’ represented the grand scale I wanted it to operate at, one day. I have been a sucker for glory since I was young. Even today I try to cut out that cancerous itch that forever drives me to be unsated with anything that I have and will achieve. Some say if your goals don’t scare you, you’re not dreaming big enough. I don’t even know what I want anymore. I wished for contentment in the conclusion of my last write up; yet here I am one year later — more confused (and discontent) than ever.
Back to the story: everything travelled smoothly until the end portion of the video. I concluded the final touches and shot it out to him and his obvious lack of knowledge in the technicalities of filmmaking was… brow furling. I endured to try and get him on the same page and share some knowledge of the trade. Look, I’m not one to judge a person’s lack of experience in something. In fact, if I’ve learned anything over this year it is the fact that I am pretty shit at most things that I think I am bloody marvellous at. So in that spirit, I opted to show him and negotiate but he clearly took on none of it. “I don’t have the time to learn this stuff man,” he said; a sentiment I concurred with. He was playing gigs and working full time — his locus of experience (and passion) was not here. However, when I flagged that some of the things he was doing were reducing the quality of the work I had produced, I had to stand up for myself. With sweaty armpits in tow, I stood my ground and said that I will not stand for the reduction in quality when it concerned my brand that I was about to launch with this video. He took offence to this, I just didn’t realise how deeply at the time. I apologised as is customary and offered the olive branch first by offering him complete control of the video provided that my branding on it was removed. He was happy (or so I thought), and I met him for a drink and I believed it when he said that it was, and I quote “water under the bridge, mate”. The whole thing left a sour taste in the palette but I took his words as a statement from a sane adult and moved on posthaste. [Note: place a mental marker here because this will become relevant later on.]
Soon after, another friend reached out to work together on his debut music video and I jumped head-first into that challenge in order to cleanse my palette. I was so far out of my depth here as well but I figured if I were to drown, I’d do it in the ocean instead of the abandoned inflatable kiddies pool next to K-Mart. Thankfully, this friend was much more inclusive, understanding, and forgiving. I loved every moment of it: trials and tribulations, the lot. We scoped out locations, made plans and followed through — over and over and over. It was therapeutic. The end product would take shape to be a music video by the 31st of May 2019 (I’ll explain why it took this long). That’s downplaying its significance to me. This was the FIRST music video that I directed and co-produced EVER. I was proud, happy, and scared shitless for the obvious stream of “this is a steaming pile of faeces” from the world. Those words never came. It was surreal to see a bit of my work on other peoples’ screens. I was confused about why no one criticised it.
January 2019
After a pleasant holiday season and witnessing the final whimper of 2018 be smothered by the cacophony of fireworks, I was feeling rather accomplished for some inexplicable reason. It may have had something to do with getting permanency within the hospital where I work as a cleaner, but I will never know for sure. I mean, sure I had completed a short film and started work on a music video but this was no ‘Titanic’ and I, no James Cameron.
But, I could smell the complacency set in. Even though I could’ve very well started that music video at this stage, I kept pushing it forward citing “I don’t have the necessary gear to make this as good as it can look” or “we need x, y, and z — then we push ahead”. None of it was conceptual or planning issues, they were all hardware issues. Nothing I had was apparently ‘good enough’. Some called it GAS: Gear Acquisition Syndrome — the need to buy something so that you feel more confident, on the baseless basis that it will somehow circumvent the obvious lack of experience you possess as a creator.
As I watched the tidal wave of new year resolutions flow inland with great gusto and lose its vigour in the mangroves of mid-late January (not all of them mind you, but most); the ones that stuck to their goals inspired me. I thought, “You need to get into gear. You need to suit up and get ready to bitchslap this year into shape”; Right! So I recorded my first YouTube vlog on my phone and set myself some goals. I wanted to get out of my own head and stop giving myself excuses and I aspired to sell one photograph and one video by the end of the first quarter (March, not the financial quarter). I also committed to the #365challenge on the 16th of January, 2019. For the unfamiliar, that is when someone decides to (in good conscience), post a picture every day, consistently for 365 days. As it is, it’s a big goal to commit to. A year’s worth of work at ANYTHING is a lot of work; but in my infinite wisdom, I decided to do it WHILE editing all the photos that I put up in the hopes that it grows my following on Instagram and convert my grid into my portfolio (there’s that unquenchable thirst for fame and glory once more). I’m sure there is a proverb or an idiom about casting too many lines at once but I’m not a fishing man; so hopefully, you get the idea. I put up another vlog a week or two later, roughly reiterating the same points as the latter vlog. Both are quite an eyesore (IMHO) to watch, so do your best to refrain from clicking the links. I add them only for reference.
I made one more video a month later but that was all she wrote because the lines that had been cast and forgotten by yours truly had gotten the attention of some very big fish (projects, for those not following the metaphor). I was getting more offers for work than I could humanly keep up with at the time, and in my haste to live up to the #HUSTLECULTURE brand my generation romanticised and is so enamoured with, I said yes to all of them. Multiple paid photography shoots, multiple music videos, murmurings of corporate gigs, and all the other daily chores of adult life basically kicked YouTube to the curb and I went into DEFCON1:
“All hands on deck. A break is a word we do not have the luxury to use.” I told myself. You can sleep when you’re dead.
The life I wanted had finally arrived, but the sound it made when it arrived at my door was not the gentle pitter-patter to crescendo of a spring shower as I had imagined. It was more like the entrance of a tactical SWAT team: splintering wood, a flash and a bang, tinnitus and crunching of glass underfoot, tactical callsigns bellowed with odd flicks of the wrist — an orchestra of violence. At its busiest, I was easily clocking in 130 hours of work a week. Barely enough time left over to handle biological necessities let alone relationships. I endured anyway and with every passing day of that endurance, a workflow appeared. Some developers in the software industry suggest you plot your workflow and scope BEFORE you initiate implementation. “Who has the time for such (relative) inaction when your goal is so monumental?” I thought. Caution meet the wind.
March 2019
March can be equated to perhaps that final emotion a bug would feel before it hit the windscreen of an automobile travelling at a 110kmph. I was recording my friend’s music video, juggling multiple photography projects from portrait shoots, the Princess Theatre, and the Tasmanian Symphony orchestra. It doesn’t sound like much but, add to it the smaller scale gigs and the full-time job for my bills, the volleyball for my health, and the little bit of downtime here and there — and it becomes a ravenous, all-consuming beast. I was out of energy both physically, mentally, and emotionally. There was a silver lining though — I was getting paid for MOST of this. From my past failures in business, anyone and their favourite investor will tell you that “traction is everything”. Boy oh, boy did I have fucking traction. I was putting out so much content (on the photography front) that most friends and family thought that I had got a job at a big firm called LumaChroma. The guffaw that erupts when I think about it is almost as sudden and involuntary as a kick from a mule. That was a secret I held for a while. Somehow it gave me solace and affirmed my hard work (and my secret desire to be heralded from the highest tower). However, as I started concluding these photography projects, I arrived at the realisation that photography is not my calling. The seed of video that had started with my short film had turned into a malignant tumour — an incessant scratching right behind the left eye socket. I was slowly falling out of love with the saturation of the commercial photography market. Photography was a means to express myself and somehow, doing it for commercial purposes tainted it and the love I held for it.
Public Service Announcement: Please understand the photography industry and the commercial photography world isn’t as bad as I make it sound here. It truly is amazing to meet such passionate people and the places photography can take you are truly endless. This is just the honest emotions of MY experience. If you’re an aspiring photographer, do not let this write up convince you otherwise; because ultimately, neither you nor I know conclusively whether I am just a bipolar jackass that has other serious mental health issues such as not being able to commit. Don’t believe everyone and everything on the internet. If you have the unscratchable itch to follow your passion for photography, then do so with great gusto and never forget why and what you love about it!
I had achieved the goal I had set out to achieve (and beat it by a significant margin) by the end of the first quarter. By the end of March, I had stopped taking on photography projects unless they specifically piqued my interest (or paid ridiculously well. Yes, I am in fact a whore). Here’s the thing about making commitments before realising the scope of the undertaking — you run the risk of fucking shooting yourself in the foot by saying something stupid like “I will post a photo every day”. It took precious minutes out of my stupidly busy schedule that I could’ve used to take a nap or associate with the other human I have committed to living with. Never the kind of man to back down from a promise or a commitment (especially ones made to myself) I pushed forward with posting a photo a day while doing everything else. This is not to say there weren’t ANY positives from this commitment. You see, if you do something long enough the learning curve eventually plateaus and you enter a different stage of expertise; like a winding murky river that finally opens up into a turquoise blue ocean that is vastly more infinite. When the difficult becomes mundane, you achieve an almost zen-like flow state which allows you to express yourself creatively and develop your own style via the medium (*chuckles*) of choice: The subconscious guides the brush now. By this stage, I could operate Lightroom and pull out an edit in under 120 seconds, often while doing something else parallelly. Not just any edit either, a decent edit that’ll hit AT LEAST 20+ likes on my rather meagre Instagram account (there’s that need for fame and recognition once more) AND appease me in expressing a little story.
3/3 • Minute Motivation Series •
“Reach”
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Once you master both the ‘art of failing’ AND forever ready to pounce, the final step is the stuff you see on the motivation posts: “reach for the stars”.
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Set yourself obscenely impossible goals. Set yourself goals that when you look at what is to be done, you sit down and have an anxiety attack, but one rule. You should be able to achieve within the day. Keep doing this. Until one day the fires of the Forge become your new NORM, and at this moment, you are ready to sculpt yourself anew. Now, go get after it ❤️🤘🏾
Christ, someone give this man some Ketamine and put him to rest… The romanticism reeks to the high heavens.
The Accursed April of 2019
This April past is one of those months that could’ve just outright fucked off from the space-time continuum and no Sri Lankan (both at home or abroad) would’ve missed it. I call back to the witness stand the first-ever project with the ‘no-longer-friend’ I mentioned a few paragraphs back. On the 19th of April (a Friday) this whole situation that I had fully accepted was “water under the bridge, mate” went critical. Apparently this man had waited on a red carpet invitation to a FREE PUBLIC screening of the short film that happened on the 17th of April. Mind you, I threw out a generic event invite (because, you know — it was a free public screening) on my Facebook page and refused to spend the time or the energy to pursue sending individual invites to everyone that was involved or I cared for because I just had that much work to chew through. I just accepted that the people who could make it would make it, and those that couldn’t would have their reasons. Who the fuck am I to judge another’s life and workload? Less than a handful understood mine, so I expected others would be just as busy with their own lives. Alas, that’s not how this went — he went full mental on a Facebook post that rivalled the Tripitaka in length, shaming two people (myself and funnily enough the friend I made a music video with after the whole disagreement kerfuffle). I read through the post quite amused by his musings and was shocked at the degree of narcissism and entitlement he possessed. My first thought by the end of that Aesopian fable was: “how the fuck did you not see this guy for the raging lunatic he was?”. Believe it or not, I was more bummed about my own lack of ability to correctly gauge this delusional man than the fact that I, my friend, or my brand was being dragged through the coals. To me, this was a blatant breach of my internal character firewall. I accepted that I needed to cynic the fuck up to prevent further blindsided attacks which were quite frankly a distraction I did not need. I reached out to him directly and wanted to meet up and confront the whole situation like a normal human being but all I got were excuses and demands of a scared little manchild whose ego had been shattered by none other than his own expectations. I wished him the happiness he deserved and promptly redacted his existence from mine. In hindsight, this was such a good call because that same weekend, other cruel excuses for human beings were plotting and actioning something so vastly more diabolical that if this whole situation in my personal life could be equated to a ton of TNT going off, the other act was a G-type star reaching critical mass and going supernova.
I was at a photoshoot when I saw the first few messages trickle in via various Whatsapp groups about a potential bomb blast in Sri Lanka. I couldn’t focus on any of these messages while working so I remember saying in a confused Achchi amma (grandmotherly) tone to my wife: “some people are saying there was a bomb blast in Sri Lanka?”. We both shrugged it off and moved on with the shoot. I figured this was just another situation being blown out of proportion (pardon the pun) or some oversight on some half-wit’s part (at a factory or something). It’s funny how accurate that snap judgement was in hindsight; only the scale of the event was completely off and the half-wit in mention turned out to be none other than our illustrious leader President Sirisena. I came home after the shoot and sat down with the news. Every major outlet read the same death knoll in tuxedo colours: “Easter Sunday Terrorist Attack. Hundreds dead”. I want you to try and conjure the feeling you would get as you approached a very low balcony balustrade at full sprint if you were residing on the 76th floor of a building. As the horizon approaches and fills your vision, your body physically roots itself and drops your solar-plexus into the abyss like a frigate dropping anchor in the hopes of protecting the meat sack that contains you.
This was the landmark feeling of that day because it only got worse from there. As I scrolled through the hundreds of messages I had received by now on every conceivable platform, every headline and tweet I read shaved off a sliver of my faith in ALL religions and humankind as a whole. A little bit of the light inside me was extinguished forever that evening. You don’t come back the same from an act of violence so macabre, and I wasn’t even directly affected by any of the attacks. My family, extended family, and so on were fine. Some friends of friends had perished in the attack (may their families find peace) but if I’m being honest, I felt like a gull sitting on the mast of a sinking ship: cursed to witness with no voice or power. I can only imagine the damage done to those that were truly affected. One minute you’re an innocent fussing about going to Easter morning mass so early, the next minute your mother, father, and younger brother are no more and you are an orphan. The psychological trauma is incalculable. I wasn’t equipped to handle this physically, mentally, or emotionally with my workload and situation.
It’s not rewarding being an empath in the times we exist in. We exist in one of the most amazing periods of the Holocene Era but for some inexplicable reason, heartbreak and soul-crushing news is just a swipe and a tap away, however, the means to make a difference feel so far from reach. There’s never enough money, power, support, or influence it feels like. Thankfully, these feelings didn’t have much time to fester because the Founders of various startups (which I was once a part of) just rolled with punches much better than I. The tune of the messages on various platforms started to change from confusion, shock, and helplessness into a directed and focused action plan. I joined in and went to work helping cull fake news and build graphics and provide support however I could for a fundraising campaign: Sri Lanka United. The calamity that was taking place on my end with regard to the ‘no-longer-friend’ was a case of reckless abandon at this stage and my friend was dealing with his fair share of emotions that I could not assist with as much as I had liked. Sri Lanka United is an entire story by itself so I’ll summarise it to — we worked relentlessly and achieved our goals of raising a significant amount of money, and distributing it in a sensible manner via accountable organisations for those displaced and had truly lost in the hopes that they can make some kind of future for themselves against the odds they were facing.
This accomplishment would soon be overshadowed by the rage that burned white-hot when eventually the news started to arrive that the government that WE the PEOPLE employ, had LET THIS CALAMITY HAPPEN by way of NEGLIGENCE. Criminal negligence. The current president will have the most innocent blood on their hands by way of pure inaction. I prayed that this single act will taint his bloodline for generations but alas, Sri Lankans really do have very short memories. I wouldn’t be surprised if we vote in another of his bloodline 5 years down the line (after we vote in another idiot this coming election). Can you tell that I’ve lost faith in the Sri Lankan government yet? I focused my efforts back into my work and left the situation high and dry. There was nothing else left for me to do whilst sitting an entire hemisphere away besides being a keyboard patriot, and that I was not willing to be classified under because the ‘REAL PATRIOTS’ soon started to crawl out of the woodwork — rioting, burning, and destroying innocent Muslim lives. A typical Sri Lankan reaction: when you can’t take the humiliation from the world from your own mistakes and failures, you come home with egg on your face and you beat your innocent wife and child senseless in a drunken rage. At least that’s my take on it. Some others who are far more educated in politics than I suggest that it was another divisive campaign by The Rajapakses which focused on starting a racial war by leveraging the anger and sheer numbers of the uneducated majority vote.
A racial war (or at the very least a lynching), much akin to an avalanche being set off by the tiniest of sounds gathered momentum and soon the country was plunged into the dark ages, with internet and communication cut off to hinder further propagation of violence. This didn’t work as with all bandaid solutions the Sri Lankan government is capable of in its infinite wisdom but some people never lost faith in Sri Lanka and its humanity. To those people — I salute you. You know who you are. I wasn’t strong enough to be like you, but some even in the face of neighbours conspiring against them for simply being Muslim, they never lost faith. Sri Lanka doesn’t deserve you as its citizens, my friends. As the month drew to a close, things were getting back to business as usual, but the scars on my soul and heart — they remained, and forever they will remain. Don’t ask me why, but it’s very hard to explain patriotism without sounding like either a megalomaniacal dictator or a left-wing libertard these days. I told how distraught I was to my wife about the whole situation at home and she set me straight with cold, calculated logic: you did everything you could. No matter what YOU do, nothing will EVER make a difference for the better on that island. There was a physical pain to when my heart broke, and I no longer wanted to feel anything ever again.
May 2019
There was no time to stop regardless of emotion — the work that had been ignored for far too long beckoned (vociferously). Within the first few weeks, I had co-produced and directed my second music video for another talented local musician. She had an appetite for the great stage and a voracity to get shit done that honestly, was refreshing and exactly what I needed to move past my own thoughts of inevitability after recent events. This project turned into what is now my first ever crewed shoot: Cam ops, drone ops, WHS (work health and safety), and talent all on set for one single purpose — to shoot a music video. Sure it wasn’t a massive crew but it was a little victory for me and a life-altering glimpse into the grassroots of filmmaking. The whole thing was set in the rural west coast ghost town known as Lake Margaret and even though I would do none of it differently and enjoyed every moment of it, it was a downright calamity on set.
When you set out to drown, you most certainly will; an inexperienced crew, electromagnetic interference from the nearby hydropower plant, and weather fluctuations that turned on the dime made the 6 hour shoot day quite literally hell on Earth. We had gear failing, light fading, weather going from a manageable 16 degrees to an 8-degree freezing rain in a matter of hours. With my talent in a short dress, she was NOT a happy camper. The drone going AWOL was frying my drone pilot’s brains, and the delays were stressing me beyond comprehension. Add to all of this the looming anxiety of the light fading and the fact that we were AT LEAST 3 hours from the nearest hospital, a rolled ankle would’ve easily made this shoot, the worst EVER. Troubleshooting gear took up a huge chunk of time since no one had the foggiest idea that it was the EMP from the power plant that was messing with the gyros on the drone and other electronic conveniences like Bluetooth. EMP, thou art a callous wench! We got it all in the end, but we stayed there well past our welcome until the WHS officer had to literally drag us out by the ears in the pitch dark like petulant children. We had to ‘scuttlewrap’ (that’s now an official filmmaking term according to me) the shoot so quick that I left my Bluetooth speaker in one of the abandoned houses! She (the Bluetooth speaker) had a great adventure on her own and you’ll be happy to know she made it back to me a month later safe and sound having braved the world by herself. Ultimately we managed to put out this music video, which I am very proud to have directed and be a part of. To everyone involved in the project, I doff my hat to you. Couldn’t have done it without you all and your can-do attitudes.
June 2019
June brought with it another series of experiences of a different wavelength. A far cry from the creative/narrative work that I had been happily working on for the past few months: corporate gigs. The first-ever corporate gig couldn’t be an easy one (in my eyes. #HUSTLECULTURE bruh!) so thanks to one of my closest friends, I was able to secure a freelancing role in performing videography and photography for a major technology company’s analytics and cognitive team in Melbourne. I invested some of the money I had made into a new camera to allow me to perform the gig to a standard and this gig ran like an atomic clock. One minute I’m on a flight across the pond at dawn, the next minute I’m calling in sick at work while riding in an Uber to the event, the minute after I am neck-deep in the top brass of said technology company. “I was intimidated” is quite frankly the laziest description I can string together at 0342 in the morning and I’m certain deserves better, but it will have to suffice. I pushed through it and just like it all began 24 hours earlier, I was back on another early flight across the pond, getting changed in the car to go straight into my day job. Christ… thinking about it makes my bones ache. But the rush? The rush of fabricating illness while hopping on planes for secret missions that feed my soul and creativity — nothing comes close. I guess I never really lived out my rebellious years when I was younger because I was too busy being a holier-than-thou little shit vying for the ‘best son’ award. If you are young (and you are somehow miraculously reading this write up instead of blowing up a neighbour’s post box), then know that rebellion is the only gift left to give from the young to the ageing. Scratch that, that’s terrible advice to young people. Be rebellious in a healthy way? Fuck it. I haven’t figured it out myself so I’m not gonna pretend to be wise here.
Corporate gigs are a different beast as I voiced earlier. The events and people have a very Stockholm syndrome vibe and there’s almost always something off about said events. I’ve been to a few corporate events in my business life but I always felt like something was missing right up until the cocktails and mingling begins. The music is always too loud, there’s never enough meat-based food left, CAG (compounded annual growth) numbers always make the next fiscal year seem like it’s the next best thing since sliced bread, and the musk of frenemies in the air is overwhelming. Oh, and there’s always that team/duo that’s always way too ‘try-hard’. Where have I seen that before? Oh yeah, in high school. I’d say I’m pretty happy to be out of that world but you and I both know that once you break into the upper echelons of any sufficiently large industry, it has its fair share of the same. Coming back to the point, it’s always very difficult to make a corporate event look even mildly ‘interesting’ or ‘appealing’. It’s not impossible but it takes huge amounts of effort to make it not look as sterile as a surgical theatre. You have to employ the same techniques of ‘hoodwinkery’ as supermarkets, with the use of different temperature lighting for their red meat displays (seriously, go have a look the next time you’re at a supermarket). The only saving grace of doing such mind-numbing ‘creative work’ for corporates is the exorbitant amount of coin involved. So, although I don’t explicitly enjoy this kind of work, I foresee it certainly won’t be my last. The added benefit that most other corporate figures stand erect during negotiations when they hear the name of my prior corporate client (who is a big a one) is always a tactical advantage.
July to Present 2019
June also brought another opportunity (unpaid, this time around) to take up the role of Director of Photography (also known as a cinematographer) on a short film called ‘Three Guys’, written by Kryz Woodhouse and Directed by Shaun Hume.
Three Guys — Directed by Shaun Hume
What a fantastic experience! Just when I was starting to lose hope that this whole filmmaking thing might end up being a lonely job (mostly thanks to YouTube and the algorithm that dictates the process, which is widely accepted as a very lonely and burnout inducing workflow) this project restored and recharged my desire to be part of even more projects of this scale and pace. The feeling is akin to walking in the rain after the hottest day you’ve ever experienced, or that heaved sigh after a hot shower post extreme physical exhaustion. Even though I already knew that things took longer in the narrative and cinematic world of filmmaking (and quite literally everything else in life), I was staggered at exactly HOW much longer everything took in real life beyond the confines of YouTube. Prep and planning took a few weeks. Shooting the whole film took well over a month. Editing the whole thing, also well over a month. As I write this, we are still in the audio mastering and finalising stages. The golden master (a software dev term but works the same) may be another month away. This was the first instance that I started to look inwards and realised what everyone meant when they say “take your own time to achieve what you want to achieve” to creatives. It was also the first time I wondered whether this blind dedication to #HUSTLECULTURE was really advantageous to me as a creator.
With this thought, I went on to reboot my YouTube channel which offered me just the perfect amount of self-fellating in terms of the creative direction of the content but just rigid enough to present a routine. I also joined one more feature-length film thanks to one of the actors in the picture above. The man is young, passionate, and driven: everything I WAS NOT during those formative years of my youth. Instead of envy, I feel proud to have met him and been part of his grand undertaking (as baseless as that sounds. I mean, I did just meet the guy). Through him and his project, I met another amazing person — a Hollywood veteran and a producer. One thing about good humans of the world is that once they deem that you too are a worthy human, the cascade of amazing-people-introductions grows exponentially. There are so many things to say here regarding potential open doors and future opportunities but I will refrain from behaving in the typical naive and overzealous manner I usually do, and leave that for next year to be recounted, rather than predicted. I also wish I could’ve woven the word ‘titillating’ into this paragraph but alas, the irony is sweeter.
The result of those few weeks of introspection served me well because the realisation about myself that I came to shocked the hell out of me: I realised that I CRAVED (starving human craving for food kinda crave) fame and the influence. Now, I’m not really sure if that’s a bad thing, to be honest, but the more I watch my mentors, listen and work with others who had walked the gilded halls of Hollywood, and those that have completed a much larger body of work than I to paraphrase Ira Glass, I’m not so sure if being in it for the fame and influence is the way to move forward in enjoying this craft, and creating my own flavour of storytelling. As I waded through the streams of retrospect, I further distilled that fame and influence is a downright TERRIBLE reason to be in anything at all — after all, this sort of deep philosophical thoughts only occur to 0.1% of the purest, most brilliant minds this world has ever seen — such as myself. Add to this the fact that there’s no precedence of this statement being mentioned anywhere else: go on try it — paraphrase it to Google, there are only a measly 19 billion books, videos, and TED talks that express this same sentiment.
*Please insert facepalm here*
The Good:
The TL;DR: this year wasn’t all bad. I may have described whole year’s experiences through a thin veneer of internal conflict and resentment for self-aggrandization, but I am merely pouring the contents of my soul into this Medium-shaped container. Just because there’s a certain degree of sediment in the contents that makes it less potable, doesn’t necessarily change the nature of the content.
So for posterity’s sake, let’s boil and distil. In this instance, I achieved a lot: I found direction, ambition, and confidence in myself as a filmmaker. I started a massive undertaking as a photographer. I am still fit and healthy thanks to volleyball (which I didn’t mention much here since it has become part of my life and routine now). Started a brand of my own. Earned quite a bit of coin via something I thought I’d never be successful at. Made many new acquaintances, and added a few of those into the almost extinct ‘Friend’ category. Begun slowly undoing the virtual chains of social media on my life. Growing my YouTube channel at my own pace. Made some progress with regard to my relationship with my wife. Involved in three short films in some capacity. Directed and Co-produced two music videos. Got offered a public screening for my short film. Completed two (almost three very soon) corporate projects with a massive technology company*. Learnt important lessons regarding my biases and adjusted my moral compass. I became financially stable and self-sufficient. Trying my hand at writing scripts, with drafts for 3 shorts, 2 feature lengths, and 1 web series. Planning a feature-length documentary. Realised that I have some really fucked up issues from my upbringing and life thus far. And hopefully, by the end of this article, coming clean about myself with a willingness to finally accept responsibility for my own goddamn happiness.
Not too shabby then.
[*I wish I could say the tech company reached out to me via my own merit but this is just pure marketing BS right here — one of my best friends, she's the real talent. She and her company are the ones that were awarded the contract on her merit. It was SHE who thought I was brilliant and brought me onboard. Thank you.]
The Bad:
As with all good things, bad things go hand in hand:
For what is a life that is all good?
Without the spice of sadness and regret,
to make it all compute.
The relationship with my wife comes in at the top spot this year. As I mentioned earlier, we’ve made progress but our relationship is still well and truly fucked as it stands and I for one have no fucking idea how to BEGIN ‘fixing it’. Because it affects me and my mental health directly and on a daily basis, this has been one of the largest points of anguish in my life this year. I won’t go into too much detail as there are plot components of this narrative that are not mine to tell, but I will express a few of my emotions in the “The Ugly” segment below. Even though it wasn’t one of the first bad things to happen, the Easter bombings take spot number two in my list this year. The whole who, what, when, where, why, and how it all happened (now that the facts are straight) is mind-numbingly fucked up. I’m still not over it for some inexplicable reason and I’m beyond trying to explain it at this point. The rest in no particular order or weighting: I fell in and then out of love with commercial photography; I’ve been at my permanent job as a cleaner for a while and that’s getting pretty fucking annoying but I still NEED it to sustain my current lifestyle; I had a friend turn into a complete stranger; The more I learned about filmmaking, the more I realised that I didn’t really know anything and that I made up all of my beliefs regarding my capability; I found the direction, passion, and drive but now I struggle with an even more basic question of “why?”, as in “why am I still not content/happy?”; The 365 challenge is a real pain in my schedule; I’ve discovered some really fucked up things about myself and some of the trauma and baggage I carry from my past. Some of it truly scares me to the point where I am no longer confident in my own thoughts and convictions anymore. That’s as good a segway as any.
The Ugly:
I’ll put it into a short and sweet blanket statement: I have lost HOPE from my existence; but it goes deeper than just that.
To those that have read this far, thank you (and please forgive the casual tone in writing and the dramatics) BUT, I don’t know of a better way to describe what I feel right now than try and capture a raw snapshot of the thought-process inside my head about all of this. This stuff is hard enough to muster into thought, let alone weave into coherent sentences. I am tugging at the floss-like thread that sticks out from the most rotten and ugly core of myself, and it is downright scary. Especially so, when you’ve built a personality around these rotten foundations. Most people would look at me and my life from the surface and say something like: “Your life is pretty close to perfect brah! You’ve got a house, you’ve got a car, you’ve got a wife, you've got a permanent job, lovely friends, you’ve found passion, you’ve worked hard and seen the growth in your skill, your YouTube channel is growing, people that can take you places are noticing you, and your prospects are looking bright!”. To which I would respond (if I were brave enough to be honest) with, “yeah, for a dead man walking”. Trust me, I rolled my own eyes at that teenage-nihilistic response, but it’s true — that’s how I feel right now.
Look, it’s not that I don’t see the achievements of this year or of the past. If the start of this article (small book now) is anything to go by, it’s not that I do not appreciate what I’ve come to achieve. I truly do and I am super proud of myself and really thankful for every single person and experience this year, BUT there is a void of darkness that I cannot fill or overcome. With recent observations, finding out the root cause of the void has uprooted my entire view of Me as an individual. I’ve been through depression, so I recognise the signs better now but this is different: it is similar but not the same; like the difference between a wolf and a wolf-like dog. Like the black holes that exist in interstellar space, this void inside me behaves in a similar manner: the smaller the void gets, the denser the void becomes. The denser the void, stronger the gravity well surrounding it.
Note: I was in a flow-state and I wrote an additional 2500 words here about one of those rotten fundamental philosophies. As if a massive burden was just lifted off my soul, I feel much better after putting that into words; however, I have redacted that and moved it into a completely different project. It was distracting from the point of this write-up which is to retrospectively look at my past year in summary.
Now, as to WHY I’ve lost hope is a whole other article but I will try and summarise — I have certain core functions of my personality that are rooted off deeply unhealthy experiences and emotional trauma.
I began noticing it from the constant expectations I have from my relationship with my wife. Now that this has been revealed to me, I am now on the path to address these deep-seated issues to undo/mitigate/act despite them to become a better version of myself.
To use a metaphor, it’s like buying a house and then discovering (a few years after the fact) that there’s a blatantly obvious stink that you can’t seem to fix no matter what you do. Eventually, after much time performing trial and error experiments, you find the source of the stink: a goddamn hole in the basement where the wall and the foundation of the house meets. Upon examining the hole, you now realise there are signs of a haphazard brickwork job that isn’t on the plan that cordons off an entire area of the house: the plot thickens. At the start, you’re afraid of taking the wall down, so you try and pry in a tool to try and widen the hole just a hair to get a better glimpse of what lies on the other side. As you play around this hole (despite the stink) in the hopes of determining what's on the other side, the hole gradually gets larger and larger by the erosion caused by you meddling with it. One day the hole is large enough to let through something tangible: a human skull. The blatantly obvious now stares back at you with its two black pits embedded in bone.
At first, just like this person who accidentally discovered a human skull behind his basement wall, I discovered some of my rotten core and (understandably)— I freaked out. So I left it well alone, until one day I gather enough strength and courage to open the hole a little wider. Out flows more body parts and damning evidence. I, (like the metaphorical person above) freak out once more, retreat to safety, deals with the overwhelming evidence, and gains the courage to widen the hole further. And so it continues until the whole wall is undone, and the secrets lay bare.
These emotional wounds have a deeply troubling property to them: I have fully assimilated beliefs that stem from these wounds as ‘the norm’ and thus, a part of ME. I know I’m being vague here, but that is the best way I can explain this without resorting to writing 2500 words. With my newfound stability over the past two years on the fronts of finances and spirituality (through my creative endeavours), there was only one other primary area that was causing me grief: emotional stability. By reducing the search area, it let me hone in on the real dark shit, and now that I have found the metaphorical ‘hole in the basement wall’, I am actively unearthing the past and consolidating the damage.
All this time, I’ve been trying to ignore the void and just keep improving on the good stuff so that this little void of despair will get jostled and shuffled until eventually it got banished into the recycling pile in my brain; now I am BEGINNING to understand WHY that didn’t work out. I’d like to think I’m being empirical about this whole thing but, if I’m being honest — I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. A question I grapple with these days is: “Am I causing myself, relationships, and my personality more harm by not seeking out professional help to deal with these issues?” Perhaps. My mind poses a counter-question to the latter: “Could this just be your deep-seated issues defending itself by trying to avoid detection?” Perhaps. Whatever the case, I know for a fact that I must first uncover and catalogue the bones behind The Wall for myself at my own pace. Once I am satisfied that I have, I will seek out the necessary field experts for their professional prognosis.
So, in conclusion — this coming year is gonna be a shit show, but I look forward to it. Nay! I embrace it! I welcome this new knowledge (and the heartbreak that will surely follow) about myself and my issues. I am going to strive to be stronger for myself and do my level best to undo the damages within (and accept the consequences that may follow) so that at long last I might look at the man in the mirror and be content that regardless of what was, what is, and what will be, I — in the end, found and understood myself and acted despite it. | https://medium.com/@yoshiiiw/lastyeartoday-the-search-for-me-cb1842712a1a | ['Yosh Weerakoone'] | 2019-11-14 12:52:10.487000+00:00 | ['Adulthood', 'Year In Review', 'Life Lessons', 'Depression', 'Search For Meaning'] |
“ Only by studying your history and literature, especially literature, did we begin to, I don’t… | “ Only by studying your history and literature, especially literature, did we begin to, I don’t know if understand is the right word. Bear in mind that you are organic conscious beings of evolutionary origin while we are not. Only through such study did we learn to respond appropriately. You are so complex! No wonder we adore you.” | https://medium.com/@quasimodo/only-by-studying-your-history-and-literature-especially-literature-did-we-begin-to-i-dont-2e40adedf064 | [] | 2020-11-21 06:10:59.636000+00:00 | ['Computer Science', 'Digital Life', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Electronics', 'Technology'] |
What is Digital Marketing and Types of Digital Marketing | In this article, I try to describe to you actually what is digital marketing, and the user also searches like this what digital marketing is, and digital marketing what is? And also explain what is the role of digital marketing to a company, types of digital marketing, and how to find the best digital marketing company a little bit here:
What is digital marketing?
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that utilize an electronic device or the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to attach with current and prospective consumers.
A seasoned inbound marketer might say inbound marketing and digital marketing are essentially the same things, but there are some insignificant differences. And discussions with marketers and business owners in the U.S., U.K., Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, I’ve learned a lot about how those small variations are being observed across the globe.
What is the role of digital marketing in a company?
While traditional marketing might live in print ads, phone communication, or physical marketing, digital marketing can occur electronically and online. This indicates that there are far more chances for brands to influence buyers, including email, video, social media, and search engines.
At this stage, digital marketing is important for your business and brand awareness. It seems like all other brands have a website. And if they don’t, they at least have a social media appearance or digital ad strategy. Digital content and marketing are so popular that users now expect and rely on it as a way to learn about brands.
Long story short, to be competitive as a business owner, you’ll require to cover some aspects of digital marketing.
Because digital marketing has so numerous options and strategies connected with it, you can get imaginative and experiment with a diversity of marketing tactics on funds. With digital marketing, you can also apply tools like analytics dashboards to observe the achievement and ROI of your campaigns more than you could with traditional promotional content — such as a billboard or print ad.
How does a business define digital marketing?
Digital marketing is characterized by the usage of numerous digital tactics and channels to attach with clients where they contribute much of their time: online. From the website itself to a business’s online branding assets — digital advertising, email marketing, online brochures, and beyond — there’s a spectrum of tactics that fall under the sunshade of “digital marketing.”
The best digital marketers have a transparent view of how each digital marketing campaign helps their overarching goals. And depending on the goals of their marketing strategy, marketers can establish a larger campaign through the free and paid channels at their disposal.
A content marketer, for instance, can produce a series of blog posts that help to create leads from a new ebook the business freshly created. The company’s social media marketer might then help raise these blog posts through paid and organic posts on the business’s social media accounts. Possibly the email marketer generates an email campaign to convey to those who download the ebook more information on the company. We’ll talk extra about these specific digital marketers in a minute.
Types of Digital Marketing
Types of Digital Marketing
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Social Media Marketing Content Marketing Pay Per Click (PPC) Marketing Automation Affiliate Marketing Native Advertising Email Marketing Inbound Marketing Online PR Sponsored Content
Here’s a quick rundown of some of the most common digital marketing tactics and the channels involved in each one.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
This is the method of optimizing your website to “rank” higher in search engine outcomes pages, thereby improving the amount of organic (or free) traffic your website gets. The channels that benefit from SEO cover websites, blogs, and infographics.
There is a figure of ways to approach SEO in order to create adequate traffic to your website. These include:
On-page SEO: This kind of SEO concentrates on all of the content that lives “on the page” when viewing a website. By researching keywords for their search volume and intent (or meaning), you can answer inquiries for users and rank higher on the search engine results pages (SERPs) those questions produce. Off-page SEO: This kind of SEO concentrates on all of the action that takes place “off the page” when viewing to optimize your website. “What action not on my own website could change my ranking?” You might ask. The solution is inbound links, also known as backlinks. The number of publishers that associate with you, and the sibling “authority” of those publishers, affect how deeply you rank for the keywords you care about. By networking with other publishers, writing guest posts on these websites(and connecting back to your website), and generating outside attention, you can obtain the backlinks you require to move your website up on all the right SERPs. Technical SEO: This kind of SEO concentrates on the backend of your website, and how your pages are coded. Image compression, structured data, and CSS file optimization are all forms of technical SEO that can improve your website’s loading speed — an essential ranking factor in the hearts of search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and more.
Social Media Marketing
This practice raises your brand and your content on social media channels to raise brand recognition, drive traffic, and generate leads for your company. The channels you can use in social media marketing include:
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Snapchat Pinterest TikTok
If you’re fresh to social platforms, you can use tools like HubSpot, Buffer, much more to unite channels like LinkedIn and Facebook in one place or even you can hire us for your social media appearance. We help you to promote your business through organic and paid social platforms.
Content Marketing
Content Marketing
This phrase denotes the conception and rise of content assets for the goal of creating brand awareness, traffic growth, lead generation, and customers. The channels that can play a role in your content marketing strategy involve:
Blog posts: Writing and publishing articles to accompany blog support you describe your industry expertise and generates organic search traffic for your business. This eventually provides you more possibilities to turn website visitors into leads for your sales team. Ebooks and whitepapers: Ebooks, whitepapers, and related long-form content help additional educate website visitors. It also permits you to transfer content for a reader’s contact information, generating leads for your business and influencing people through the buyer’s journey. Infographics: Sometimes, readers desire you to show, not tell. Infographics are a sort of visual content that helps website visitors visualize a thought you need to encourage them to learn.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Pay Per Click (PPC)
PPC is a process of driving traffic to your website by paying a publisher each time your ad is clicked. One of the most popular types of PPC is Google Ads, which permits you to pay for prime slots on Google’s search engine results from pages at a charge “per click” of the links you place. Other channels where you can use PPC include:
Paid ads on Facebook: Here, users can pay to customize a video, image post, or slideshow, which Facebook will distribute to the news feeds of people who meet your business’s audience. Twitter Ads campaigns: Here, users can pay to spot a series of posts or profile badges to the news feeds of a particular audience, all committed to accomplishing a particular goal for your company. This object can be website traffic, more Twitter followers, tweet engagement, or even app downloads. Sponsored Messages on LinkedIn: Here, users can pay to send messages straight to the precise LinkedIn users based on their industry and background.
Marketing Automation
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation applies to the software that assists to automate your primary marketing methods. Many marketing agencies can automate repetitive tasks they would otherwise do manually, such as:
Email newsletters: Email automation doesn’t just enable you to automatically post emails to your subscribers. It can also assist you to shrink and grow your contact list as required so your newsletters are only going to the people who desire to see them in their inboxes. Social media post scheduling: If you desire to improve your organization’s appearance on a social network, you are required to post regularly. This performs manual posting a bit of an irrational process. Social media scheduling tools promote your content to your social media channels for you, so you can consume more time concentrating on content strategy. Lead-nurturing workflows: Generating leads, and turning those leads into clients, can be a long process. You can automate that method by sending leads precise emails and content once they meet certain guidelines, such as when they download and open an ebook. Campaign tracking and reporting: Marketing campaigns can add a ton of various people, emails, content, webpages, phone calls, and more. Marketing automation can assist you to sort everything you operate on by the campaign it’s serving, and then trace the achievement of that campaign based on the growth all of these elements make over time.
Affiliate Marketing
This is a kind of performance-based promotion where you earn a commission for advertising someone else’s goods or services on your website. Affiliate marketing channels include:
Hosting video ads through the YouTube Partner Program. Posting affiliate links from your social media accounts.
Native Advertising
Native advertising applies to advertisements that are essentially content-led and highlighted on a platform alongside another, non-paid content. BuzzFeed-sponsored posts are a great example, but many people also recognize social media promotion to be “native” — Facebook advertising and Instagram advertising, for instance.
Email Marketing
Email Marketing
Businesses use email marketing as a way of interacting with their readers. Email is often applied to promote content, discounts, and events, as well as to direct people toward the business’s website. The kinds of emails you might send in an email marketing campaign include:
Blog subscription newsletters. Follow-up emails to website visitors who downloaded something. Customer welcome emails. Holiday advertisements to loyalty program members. Tips or similar series of emails for consumer nurturing.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing refers to a marketing methodology wherein you attract, engage, and delight consumers at each stage of the buyer’s journey. You can utilize every digital marketing tactic noted above, throughout an inbound marketing plan, to build a consumer experience that works with the consumer, not against them. Here are some famous examples of inbound marketing versus traditional marketing:
Blogging vs. pop-up ads Video marketing vs. commercial advertising Email contact lists vs. email spam
Online PR
Online PR is the use of securing acquired online coverage with digital publications, blogs, and other content-based websites. It’s much like traditional PR but in the online space. The channels you can use to maximize your PR efforts cover:
Reporter outreach via social media: Communicating to announcers on Twitter, for example, is an excellent way to improve a relationship with the press that produces obtained media opportunities for your business. Engaging online reviews of your company: When someone reviews your business online, whether that review is great or poor, your instinct might be not to touch it. On the antithesis, engaging company reviews help you humanize your brand and deliver robust messaging that preserves your eminence. Engaging comments on your own website or blog: Related to the way you’d reply to reviews of your company, answering to the people who are seeing your content is the most reliable way to produce productive discussion around your industry.
Sponsored Content
With sponsored content, you as a brand pay different companies or entities to produce and develop content that considers your name or service in some way.
One familiar example of sponsored content is influencer marketing. With this kind of sponsored content, a name sponsors an influencer in its industry to issue posts or videos associated with the firm on social media. Another kind of sponsored content could be a blog post or article that is composed to highlight a topic, service, or brand.
How to find the best digital marketing company?
Frankly speaking, It’s hard to select the right digital marketing agency for your business. Because there are so many digital marketing companies around the world, even at your local numerous digital marketing agencies. So how to find the right digital marketing company for our business and they come on under budget. Let’s Start:
First, search for a digital marketing agency near me Select the digital marketing company you want to Hire Check The Portfolio Check The Clients Testimony and Reviews See Price List Check her further service and Case studies Ask so many questions about the digital marketing process Check her previous work before hiring Search more digital marketing services, provider Decide your Business Budget
Have a nice day and stay in touch with me for more info. | https://medium.com/@marketingspecial/what-is-digital-marketing-and-types-of-digital-marketing-1da8d1b13fc | ['Stefan Scott'] | 2020-11-20 12:36:18.981000+00:00 | ['SEO', 'Marketing', 'Digital Marketing', 'Business', 'PPC Marketing'] |
James Avery Odessa Texas | In the summer of 1954, James Avery began his jewelry company in a two-car garage with a capital of around $250. He designed a small workbench and then purchased a few hand tools and pieces of silver and copper. It was his passion to make jewelry that had meaning for him and his clients, as well as long-lasting appeal.
In 1957, he mailed his first catalog of Christian jewelry. It was 16 pages long and featured 39 pieces, all handmade. He has employed his first employee, Fred Garcia, this year.
The firm expanded and was integrated into James Avery Craftsman, Inc. in 1965. Two years later, with the aid of a modest loan from the Small Business Administration (SBA), the company’s headquarters was built on 20 acres in the heart of Texas Hill Country in Kerrville, not too far from the original garage.
James Avery Jewelry
Word traveled and people made their way to the craftsmen in the hills. Any one who has come will be welcomed directly and with cordial thanks. It was in this environment that deep and long-lasting consumer bonds formed, from which this business would expand and build for more than half a century.
James Avery Odessa Tx
In 2007, fifty-three years since the company was first formed, James Avery officially resigned as CEO and turned over the reins to his son, Chris.
James Avery Odessa
James Avery Handmade Jewelry is a vertically operated family-owned business now based in the heart of Texas Hill Country. We’re a multi-channel chain with 83 James Avery outlets in five continents. Our jewelry is now sold in more than 215 Dillard stores in Texas and 28 other states. Our jewelry is made in James Avery Odessa Tx workshops — one in Comfort, Fredericksburg, Hondo and Kerrville. | https://medium.com/@jewelrystoredirectorycom/james-avery-odessa-texas-6d0bbda4970b | ['Jewelry Store Directory'] | 2020-12-19 21:42:48.459000+00:00 | ['James Avery Odessa', 'James Avery', 'Texas', 'Odessa Texas', 'Jewelry'] |
Game as a service — A UX designer Perspective. | The problem as I see it is that the game company had gotten worse at hiding a fundamental fact that they are there to make money. Take the example of EA one of the most recognisable publisher in gaming which came under a crackdown after their release of ‘Star Wars Battlefront II’.
It got massive attention from every corner of the world and spark numerous discussions. in short, the thing that got them deep into the fire is their own greediness and the approach that they took in designing the game. From start it was designed as a Game as a Service in mind which should mean a long life span and a constant updates with new content and character been added to game eventually but what they did was create a game where there is scarcity of content and One of the worst progression system implemented in games that I have experienced.where player will have to grind for the loot boxes to get the content in the game which will help character progress. After being called for their practices EA didn’t admit straight on the problem that causing this game to bomb instead they shifted blame from one entity to another and it got attention of general media which spark debate about if we should consider Loot boxes as gambling and some countries had made some changes to their legal system.
“ As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other things, we’re looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily basis, and we’ll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay. We appreciate the candid feedback, and the passion the community has put forth around the current topics here on Reddit, our forums and across numerous social media outlets. ”
This is comment that EA made after initial rage from players comments on reddit which eventually become the most downvoted post on reddit.
Let’s break down why the game as a service, A necessary monster that the game industry need to slay or figure a way to make amends with it. | https://uxplanet.org/game-as-a-service-b379667b240c | [] | 2019-08-25 17:42:10.230000+00:00 | ['Game Development', 'Gaming', 'UX', 'Gamedesing', 'Service Design'] |
The key lessons from “Where Good Ideas Come From” by Steven Johnson | Lesson 1: Evolution and innovation usually happen in the realm of the adjacent possible.
Four billion years ago, carbon atoms mulled around the primordial soup. But as life began, those atoms did not spontaneously arrange themselves into complex life forms like sunflowers or squirrels.
First, they had to form simpler structures like molecules, polymers, proteins, cells, primitive organisms and so forth. Each step along the way opened up possibilities for new combinations, expanding the realm of what was possible, until finally a carbon atom could reside in a sunflower.
Similarly, eBay could not be created in the 1950s. First, someone had to invent computers, then a way to connect those computers, then a World Wide Web for people to browse and then a platform which supported online payments.
Both evolution and innovation tend to happen within the bounds of the adjacent possible, in other words the realm of possibilities available at any given moment.
Great leaps beyond the adjacent possible are rare and doomed to be short-term failures. The environment is simply not ready for them yet. Had YouTube been launched in the 1990s, it would have flopped, since neither the fast internet connections nor the software required to view videos was available then.
The predominance of multiples in innovation highlights how the adjacent possible is constrained by existing parts and knowledge. A multiple occurs when several people independently make the same discovery almost simultaneously.
Joseph Priestley and Carl Wilhelm Scheele isolated oxygen in 1772-1774, unaware of the other’s advancement. But they did share the same starting point, because their search for oxygen could not begin until the gaseous nature of air was first understood. Thus it was inevitable some scientists would reach their discoveries at around the same time. | https://medium.com/key-lessons-from-books/the-key-lessons-from-where-good-ideas-come-from-by-steven-johnson-1798e11becdb | [] | 2017-01-13 15:52:46.875000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Psychology'] |
THE FOOL RULES #1 | THE FOOL RULES #1
How methods that promise to help can make you sick.
There’s fools that rule, there’s foolish rules that we follow and there’s the fool rules. Fool Rules put dominant convictions upside down and offer a way out.
Education: large scale version of the confusion between method and need, and how method then overrules real needs.
THE TROUBLE: The method is not the answer.
“The only use left for hammer and saw on a finished cabinet is to destroy it.”
I just arrived a bit shocked home from a trip to a bookstore. Whole racks of self help and advancing self interest books, all focussed on selling you a method that will give you the advantage. That advantage may lie in leadership, weight, start-up, career, love making, relationships, etc. “Do this and you get on top.” And they’re disturbing, for the lack of depth, wisdom and reality. Just for fun compare any self development or management book with the Tao Te Tjing. The latter is the thinnest of them all, yet shows mastery beyond any method. Yes, these books full of promises may work for a bit and do make a difference, if not just make you feel better for a few weeks. And, admittingly, for some they may work…if you love following steps. The trust in methods and approaches is overrated, sometimes stupid or even outright misplaced. Let’s look at why.
3 Reasons why Great Methods are Flukes.
1. Following a formula kills the life within the program.
Would you ever play a game that told you all the moves you needed to take during every step of the way? Boring, deadly, sad. We like solutions with complex puzzles, but only after we frustrated the hell out of ourselves. That’s where the real pleasure and fun lies. I heard a story of someone visiting a therapist who followed the steps of a therapeutical method as an automaton. It killed the experience. This person felt not seen or taken serious at all. it had to follow a script to get to an expected outcome.
Thousands of people know how to facilitate family constellations. It’s awesome..at first. Same with Non Violent Communication, SCRUM, Agile Teams, etc. Then students who start to apply it, shift to performing the method as a trick. ‘Hey, why don’t we do a constellation about this question?That could be fun.’ They do everything ‘right’ and yet, somehow the magic is gone. Some students see it happening and create their own style out of the wreckage. Yet their raft may float, but the deep understanding, the original ship, is missing. The same gap we find between Jesus, and the watered down version of a Catholic priest, following orders of his bishop.
So what does work? True understanding. This is the authentic openhearted and open eyed you, giving a question and the one(s) asking it your full attention. Then answers and methods will come. Not as a trick, but as an inspiration of what is the right thing to do right now. And when you are well versed in a method, than yes, that method may be the route you take, but more deeply connected to purpose, rather than to the ‘script’. In the end the method is a hammer, and not a Swiss army knife with a heart ready to solve everything. In fact in education I found method (however new and better) can’t compete with the difference the quality of attention and intention from a loving teacher can make.
2. Focus on self benefits when applying methods misses the point.
What is wrong with books with titles like: ‘Productivity Ninja’, ‘the Art of not Giving a f#*k’, ‘How to get Rich/Beautiful/Successful/Happy/A Partner’? Oh, all those people who found an answer or trick, that barely needs more than a back cover, at most a magazine article, to tell everything it has to tell. Oh man, all those long talks with people who have so much discovered about themselves. Hours and hours of self discovery talk and little real world action to show for it. Don’t get me wrong, teenagers, early 20’s to mid thirties should be wonder who they truly are. Yet (fool rule) Reality is Ubuntu. We are only in relation to others. There’s no real (fixed & separate) me to find. We are fluid processes adjusting the whole day to new input; we all shift from parent, to professional, to friend or child in mere seconds.
We constantly act to please, get, control, enjoy, overcome, avoid. Tricks may help, but when the focus is on your success, your happiness, your lust, your interests, your leadership you’ll always feel poor. When you seek to give, enrich others, help, add, serve (yes, in a balanced healthy way) then you’ll find connecting to the world as a whole, that communities open up, that you become all those things you desired, without even trying. (fool rule) It is when we start to make a difference for others, that the magic begins. When the intention behind that is still self interest, however, such steps will disturb you and others.
3. When we start confusing method for ideology.
A method is a tool, not a solution. Using methods, rulebooks, lists may do as much damage as that they help. From placing authority outside of us ( governments love that), being self centered and wondering why we don’t find the real me (because your true me is an ever changing you among all of us) there’s a third reason to be hesitant. This one you’ll find with people who just finished ‘the right’ way method offered by the man who invented it. It’s like early Christians. They have found Jesus and now start to convert heathens, convinced Christianity is the only answer (Yes, I know, many still believe this.). They think having an approach, they now can deal with anything. And if you don’t understand them, man, it is you, they claim, who has still a lot to learn.
Having practiced yoga for 30 years doesn’t make you more spiritual, just more practiced at yoga and probably more healthy. But it doesn’t make you deeper and wiser, let alone more spiritual than others. I’ve seen facilitators of methods crack down on others for not following the rules in the right way. The method may be brilliant, but sometimes throwing away the script is the best next step. Often facilitators, trainers, managers freeze up or anger up because people question their answers. The people then feel often subconsciously, that said method man knows the steps, but not the foundation. When such happens, we feel method masters framing all problems and all solutions within that frame that they know. And all the reality outside that box, all the situations where this method doesn’t apply for the context or situation is lost. Thus many gifts of children at school remain unseen, unaccepted, unsupported and or forbidden.
Thus we see that those that give away their authority away to a method, demand that authority back from others, based upon their mastery of given method, religion, plan. Their approach becomes a banner we must follow to get where they promise to lead us. And we, those that follow, feel manipulated. Such authorities panic when we want to get out of their limiting box. We often see such people become (passive) aggressive to confine their flock within their own frame of understanding. They expect that the fullness they felt, when coming in touch with this method, book, training, would also enthrall you. When it doesn’t, they feel you’ve not done it right enough. Especially religious zealots seem often to believe in ‘happiness and liberation through force’.
To nuance a bit, I trust you’ll do more nuancing all by yourself, I must admit I have met masters who are almost one with the method. I once followed a weekend workshop by a woman on the ‘Natural Voice’. Whatever the issue was in a persons life, she could address it through her work with voice. A bad relationship, fear for a horrible boss, shame; these issues all return in breathing, in voicing, in attitude and willingness to be fully present. Such people are masters with the method as a tool, and don’t turn it into a sacred religion. A master carpenter can be a master at hammering, but he’ll use other tools if he needs to cook.
Here’s where we learned to believe in methods and forgot to think and feel for ourselves.
FOOL RULE: I stumble forward, true to myself.
I will make mistakes, but at the least their mine. I choose to seek understanding by trying our my own methods, staying open for criticisms, by giving it my full attention. I find that I live as if every training, every text, every new method (hahaha) I unfold is a journey I take with others. We find answers together and at times I have to say I’m sorry, or throw out my script.
Yes and I’ll still read such books or follow workshops at times. I learn from them as well. But never ever are they sanctified by me, or do I see them as the best solution. This choice costs me authority. People love titles, confirmed trainers in sigma six or lap dance tantra. But a title doesn’t say mastery. To many of the books and even trainings are as fluffy as your doctor having to use google to second guess what ails you.
“The Only Sacred Cow is Irreverence.”
Of course believing me isn’t fun at all. I bet you rather follow the new training on a method everybody speaks about, because this one promises to be ‘the answer’ (read: ‘everyone else speaks highly of it, so you better adapt to the crowd’) And while following the path of others, you become ever more blind to your inner wisdom, your authentic gift and the needs of the whole world. Consider; the ones most benefitting from the management methods are the owners of the companies you work for. They love you being ‘an agile scrum master in effective leadership through sigma six’. It raises profits. But really, is you being an awesome manager what the world as a whole needs? Does it serve nature? Does it make you feel alive and meaningful? Does your stress level benefit your children, if you know them at all? And all that self development? All these long hours talking about your discoveries and ‘steps still to take’ can just become a higher form of distraction.
What’s the way out? Become alive! Be with others in this world. Question believes. Stay curious. Wonder. Feel what your inner compass says. Love. Help others. Stay healthy, treat yourself and others with dignity and respect. And don’t think you’re the center of the universe. Place the well being of the whole in the middle. Help it to flourish. That will make you fly. | https://medium.com/the-gentle-revolution/the-fool-rules-1-9bed0038e23a | ['Floris Koot'] | 2017-08-22 23:09:49.144000+00:00 | ['Floris Koot', 'Training', 'Methodology', 'Books', 'Gentle Revolution'] |
V minus 17 days and counting | GRS Fast approaching!
I’ve been ramping up to have my gender reassignment surgery since January and now it’s almost here! July 19th!!!
Don’t care about my experience? Scroll to the bottom for a list of recommendations the nurse made for things to buy before recovery. 😃
I’ll be talking about the prep process throughout the next few weeks. Once it’s over and I’m through the haze of pain killers I’ll dive into the aftermath. For now, here’s the skinny on what got me here and where I’m at now.
Why
This is the hardest question to answer. Thankfully, I’ve already done a deep dive into what dysphoria feels like for me.
What
I’ll be having penile inversion vaginoplasty. Want to know more? Check out this animated video. For the record, I’ve never watched this or any of the other videos all of the way through. I know how things work and what the results should be.
Other than that, I don’t want to know how the sausage is unmade.
When
July 19th!!! I’ll wake up well before the crack of dawn and head to the surgical center. I’ll stay that night with the surgeon’s private nurse then go to a friend’s house where another nurse will stay for a bit, then visit at least once daily for a bit more.
Where
The American Institute for Plastic Surgery. They have two doctors with a lot of experience in this area. One of them takes my insurance. Bonus: the office is less than 15 minutes from my house and less than 10 minutes from my job.
Who
Dr. Alan Dulin. I’ve met with him a couple of times and really like his bedside manner. I’ve talked with a couple of ladies who had their surgeries with him and enjoy the results. My primary doctor has seen his work up close and personal. She’s the one who recommended him.
Bonus: Prep recommendations
I had a very long talk with the nurse who will be doing my aftercare. She has her own private agency now but has worked for Dr. Dulin in the past and has experience with GRS recovery. Here’s some of the things she recommended I get: | https://medium.com/transginger/grs-is-on-its-way-2f2066be58a7 | ['Ginger Mcmurray'] | 2018-07-03 00:18:15.713000+00:00 | ['Gender Identity', 'Plastic Surgery', 'Transgender'] |
Bringing Users or Building Product? | Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash
The Bullseye Framework
Insight number two finds the most effective marketing channel.
Specifically, I reference the bullseye framework, which comes from this book.
This is a four-step process that you can use to select and execute your business’s best marketing opportunities. And this is important because, in the grand scheme of things, all the different marketing channels out, there might be a handful of three or four far better than the rest. There might be one channel that is far more effective than two, three and four combined. You must do what you can to identify the best marketing opportunity for your business and the bullseye framework; it’s something that I reference. It’s a four-step process.
Brainstorm
The first step is to brainstorm marketing ideas for all the different marketing channels that seem interesting to you.
This book happens to cover 19 different marketing channels, and it covers in quite a detail. So, you’ll definitely want to read this book still if you want more detail on the 19 that they cover. But the idea behind the first step in the bullseye framework is to focus on each of these channels and pretend you live in an alternative universe where you have to use one specific channel, work your way down the list, and assume it is okay. If I had to use this one channel, let’s say hosting live events, how would you use that channel to promote your business?
Spend 10, 20 minutes coming up with a realistic scenario of how you would use that specific channel and work your way down the list and cover every channel you can think of. Brainstorm them, not because you’re going to pursue all these channels at once that would spread your efforts way too thin, but this is just an exploratory process. You want to see what you could develop if you were forced to use any one of these channels, just as an exercise to brainstorm interesting ideas.
Pick a few out of the many listed.
Step two in the framework is to select three to five of the most promising options, narrow down the list, and focus on the ones that seem most appropriate for your business.
And the name of the game here is speed.
Especially if you’re a start-up business and need to find the one channel that’s going to be hyper-effective for your business, you want to see the channel that can attract customers quickly, attract customers profitably, ideally enough customers to make an impact for you with your business.
Test Test Test: Inexpensively
So, select three to five of the most promising, and then you move to step three, which is to perform inexpensive tests. And this is the step that it’s straightforward to skip over as an entrepreneur. I know myself, it’s tempting to look at the list and say, okay, here are three or four that seem promising.
I’ll figure that out later; I’m going to go back to focusing on the product.
But the reality is that if we don’t test the marketing channels, A, we don’t know if they’re going to work. And if we’re going to be able to attract customers and B, we can’t identify which is the best opportunity.
So, the idea here is to perform inexpensive tests, depending on your project’s size, that might be 500 bucks, that might be 1000 dollars per channel. And let’s say one of the channels was running a Facebook ad campaign.
Well, you would perform an inexpensive campaign, test it over a few days. And the main thing you’re trying to identify is A, are there enough customers to make things exciting and to be worth your time and B, trying to get a sense of, are you confident that you could make this a profitable marketing channel if you were to focus on optimizing it, improving your ad copy, improving your website or landing page and just optimizing the whole marketing funnel in general.
You don’t have to obsess about optimization here.
You want to get a sense of, are there enough customers?
And if you were to spend more time and energy optimizing things, is it likely that you could be profitable in converting those prospects into customers? So that’s step three.
Finalize one of them
Step four is pretty simple.
You look at all your tests, and you choose the most promising channel that seems best for your business. And this is very important because you mustn’t spread your efforts too thin, especially as a start-up. You focus all of your time and energy and the time and energy of anybody else on your team around really mastering one marketing channel.
This is a massive differentiator for businesses.
If you can have a founder, a co-founder, or a lead marketer, that’s an absolute master at one marketing channel; it gives your business incredible strength and confidence. So, as quickly as possible, once you’ve identified an auspicious marketing opportunity, you want to hone in on that and focus all of your time and energy on maximizing the potential of that channel.
And eventually, once you hit diminishing returns or the point at which spending more time and energy wouldn’t necessarily give you more results, you can pull away from that channel, leave your efforts as is and restart the process and find the next marketing opportunity to expand your business. You’ll still support the original channel, and obviously, you try not to exhaust it.
Nevertheless, once you hit diminishing returns and it’s not worth ramping up your ad spend or ramping up your amount of time involved in trying to optimize it, then you find the next best marketing channel and restart the process. This is a compelling and straightforward framework, but one of my favorite insights from the book is that I strongly recommend using it. | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/bringing-users-or-building-product-874a9b4e2e9 | [] | 2020-12-25 09:39:53.435000+00:00 | ['Investment', 'Traction', 'Startup', 'Funding', 'Startup Lessons'] |
Liberal Arts Blog— Morgeh Sahar (Dawn Bird), Mara Beboos (Last Kiss), “Ey, Iran” (Oh! Iran) | Liberal Arts Blog — Thursday is Joy of Music Day
Today’s Topic — Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People XXXIV — In Search of the Best Persian Candidate — Morgeh Sahar (Dawn Bird), Mara Beboos (Last Kiss), “Ey, Iran” (Oh! Iran)
I have been searching for years for “the” Iranian song. But the response from Iranians has always been that there are too many to choose from. Finally, a new friend, Babak Adibi, proposed three. A few days later, I had the chance to run the list by two Iranians I met on my daily walk through the Minute Man National Park. The list won their approval so I checked out all three to pick the one that spoke to me most deeply. My choice: “Mara Beboos” (Last Kiss), the subject of today’s post. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
Mara Beboos Hassan Golnaraghi (www,WomanPsych.com)
LYRICS OF “MARA BEBUS” (Last Kiss) — English and Persian — opening lines
1. Kiss me, for the last time — marā bebus / barāy-e aḵarin bār
2. May God keep you safe, because I am going toward my fate — to-rā ḵodā negahdār / ke miravam ba-su-ye sarnevešt
3. Our spring is over / The past has gone — bahār-e mā goẕašta/ goẕaštahā goẕašta
THE STORY BEHIND THE SONG — composer, lyricist, singer
1. A father, in a prison cell, sentenced to be executed, is singing to his daughter.
2. The composer was Majid Vafadar (1913–1979) who went into exile after the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953.
3. The lyrics are by Haydar Reqabi, a friend of Vafadar’s, who dictated the lyrics over the phone to the composer.
NB: The singer is Hasan Golnaraqi whose father, a prominent merchant, was strongly opposed to his son becoming a professional musician (apparently for religious reasons). The song was recorded without Golnaraqi’s knowledge or consent. He never recorded another song.
BACKGROUND ON IRANIAN CULTURE
1. A country with a disproportionate share of the world’s greatest poets — including Ferdowsi (935–1020), Rumi (1207–1273), Shirazi (1210–1290) Hafez (1315–1390).
2. Magnificent architecture — most notably for me, the bridges of Isfahan.
3. Persian miniatures of the 15th and 16th centuries are among the most exquisite paintings in human history. They include the human figure despite the anti-iconism of other Islamic traditions.
NB: My favorite quote from Rumi: “Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there.”
GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY, LANGUAGE
1. “Much of Iran consists of a central desert plateau which is ringed on all sides by lofty mountain ranges that afford access to the interior through high passes. Most of the population lives on the edges of this forbidding, waterless waste.” (Britannica).
2. Unbelievably rich history dating back to the Achaemenid Empire of Cyrus the Great (600–530BC), through the Parthian Empire (247–224 BC), to the Sasanian (224–651 AD) before the Islamization of Iran.
3. The attempt by Arab conquerors to impose the Arabic language on the Persians failed.
The other two songs: “Ey, Iran” and “Morghe Sahar”
ای ایران — Ey Iran — آرش فولادوند، گروه کر بهار، وحید تاج، کیوان ساکت (Official)
Great Maestro Shajarian, Tasnif: Morghe Sahar
Background on “Ey Iran” and “Mara Bebus” and “Morg-e Sahar”
Ey Iran
MARĀ BEBUS — Encyclopaedia Iranica
MORḠ-E SAḤAR — Encyclopaedia Iranica
General background on Iran:
Iran
Persian literature
Iranian architecture
Persian miniature
Rumi
Rumi — Wikiquote
Bani Adam
APPENDIX: Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People — Past Posts in This Series
This is the list of songs with which, now masked and distanced, I greet tourists from around the world at the North Bridge in Concord or wherever I else I happened to meet them — eg. waiting in line at grocery stores, pharmacies, banks, or the Department of Motor Vehicles.
I feel strongly that the core humanities curriculum of every school in the world should consist of the most beloved songs of the world’s peoples. Music unites. The opportunity cost of any other texts is infinite. Why not give every 18 year old the keys to hearts of seven billion people? I am not sure this is the perfect list. But I have spent 10 years testing the hypothesis. And the results are not scientific but they are pretty convincing. Proposals welcome.
4/9/20 — Nkosi — South African National Anthem
4/16/20 — Sweet Mother — unofficial national Anthem of Nigeria
4/23/20 — Jambo — the Swahili equivalent — Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda
4/30/20 — Sakura — Japan — the cherry blossom song
5/7/20 — Arirang — Korea (North and South)
5/14/20 — Chuang Qian Ming Yue Guang” — China — Li Bai — Gong Linna
5/21/20 — Ode to Joy — German — Beethoven/Schiller
5/28/20 — La Marseillaise — French — France plus many more french-speaking nations
6/4/20 — Volare — Italian — Domenico Modugno
6/11/20 — Arrorro and Cielito Lindo — Spanish speakers
6/18/20 — La Garota de Ipanema — Brazil and other Portuguese speakers
6/22/20 — Gayatri Mantra — Hindus
7/2/20 — Pokarekare Ana — Maori — New Zealand
7/9/20 — Aseda Yede Ma Onyame — Ghana
7/16/20 — “Al Fatihah” — most sacred Islamic prayer (Arabic)
7/23/20 — “Tavaszi Szel” — Hungarian Folk Song
7/30/20 — “Modeh Ani” — the Jewish Waking Up Prayer
8/6/20 — “Stolat, Stolat” — Polish Birthday Song
8/20/20 — “Lang Zal Ze Leven” — Dutch Birthday Song
8/27/20 — “Oh Danny Boy” — Ireland
9/3/20 — “Mul Mantra” — most sacred Sikh prayer
9/10/20 — “Warwindar Friska” — Swedish song of spring
9/17/20 — “Desteapta-te Romane!” — Romanian national anthem
9/24/20 — “Kad Ja Podjoh Na Bembasu” — Bosnian folk song of lost love
10/1/20 — “Waltzing Matilda” — Australia
10/8/20 — “Calon Lan” — Wales
10/15/20 -”Ngoromera” — Zimbabwe — Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi
10/22/20 — “Holka Modrooka” — Czech Republic
10/29/20 — “Tis Dikaiosinis” — Mikiis Theodorakis — Greece
11/5/20 — “Finlandia” Sibelius — Finland
11/12/20 — “Karoun, Karoun, Karoon” — Armenia
11/19/20 — “Hubava si, Moya Goro” — Bulgaria
11/26/20 — “Kuda, Kuda, Kuda” — Russia, Tchaikovsky, Lensky’s Aria
12/3/20 — “Ochie Chernye” — Russia, folk tune
12/10/20 — “Mara Bebus” — Iran, “Last Kiss”
Here is a link to the last three years of posts organized by theme:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
YOUR TURN
Time to share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to music. Or the coolest thing you learned in your life related to music. Say your favorite song or songs. Or your favorite tips for breathing, posture, or relaxation. Or some insight into the history of music….Or just something random about music… like a joke about drummers. jazz, rock….or share an episode or chapter in your musical autobiography.
This is your chance to make some one else’s day. And perhaps to cement in your memory something important you would otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than you otherwise would about | https://medium.com/@john-muresianu/liberal-arts-blog-morgeh-sahar-dawn-bird-mara-beboos-last-kiss-ey-iran-oh-iran-1e1645e0c7fc | ['John Muresianu'] | 2020-12-10 21:15:42.251000+00:00 | ['Song', 'Iran', 'Music', 'Culture', 'Liberal Arts Blog'] |
What’s New in 2020 Volume 3: Flutter Charts | At Syncfusion, we are continuously reviewing the constructive questions and comments we receive from our customers, which include various feature requests. From these, we handpicked the most widely requested features and made them available in the Essential Studio 2020 Volume 3 release.
In this blog post, I’ll quickly review the new chart types and features included in the Flutter Charts widget for the 2020 Volume 3 release.
Let’s see them!
New chart types
We extended the Syncfusion Flutter Charts widget to support two more chart types:
Box and whisker chart
Waterfall chart
Box and whisker chart
The box and whisker chart is used to visualize a group of numerical data through its quartiles. It is also referred to as a box plot. Box plots may also have lines extending vertically from the boxes (whiskers) indicating variability outside the upper and lower quartiles.
Refer to the following code.
[Dart]
SfCartesianChart(
series: <BoxAndWhiskerSeries<ChartData, String>>[
BoxAndWhiskerSeries<ChartData, String>(
dataSource: <ChartData>[
ChartData('Development', [22, 22, 23, 25, 25, 25, 26, 27, 27]), ChartData('HR', [22, 24, 25, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 39, 41]),
//...
],
showMean: true,
xValueMapper: (ChartData data, _) => data.x,
yValueMapper: (ChartData data, _) => data.y
),
]
)
After executing this code example, we will get output like in the following screenshot.
Box and whisker chart
UG link: https://help.syncfusion.com/flutter/cartesian-charts/chart-types#box-and-whisker-chart
SB sample link: https://flutter.syncfusion.com/#/cartesian-charts/chart-types/box-and-whisker/box-and-whisker-chart
Waterfall chart
The waterfall chart shows gradual changes in the quantitative value of an entity that is subjected to changes by increments or decrements. Using the waterfall chart, you can quickly illustrate changes in revenue.
Refer to the following code.
[Dart]
SfCartesianChart(
series: <ChartSeries<ChartData, double>>[
WaterfallSeries<ChartData, double>(
dataSource: <ChartData>[
ChartData(2, 10),
ChartData(3, -3),
ChartData(4, 5, true),
//...
ChartData(13, -5, false, true),
],
xValueMapper: (ChartData data, _) => data.x,
yValueMapper: (ChartData data, _) => data.y, intermediateSumPredicate: (ChartData data, _) =>
data.isIntermediate,
totalSumPredicate: (ChartData data, _) => data.isTotal, negativePointsColor: const Color.fromRGBO(229, 101, 144, 1), intermediateSumColor: const Color.fromRGBO(79, 129, 188, 1), totalSumColor: const Color.fromRGBO(79, 129, 188, 1), connectorLineSettings: WaterfallConnectorLineSettings(
width: 2.5,
dashArray: <double>[3, 1]
)
)
]
)
After executing this code example, we will get output like in the following screenshot.
Waterfall chart
UG link: https://help.syncfusion.com/flutter/cartesian-charts/chart-types#waterfall-chart
SB sample link: https://flutter.syncfusion.com/#/cartesian-charts/chart-types/waterfall/default-waterfall-chart
Feature enhancements
Exporting
A rendered chart can be exported and saved locally as a PNG image or PDF document for future use. The following code snippet shows exporting a chart as a PNG image.
[Dart]
dart_ui.Image data = await
_cartesianKey.currentState.toImage(pixelRatio: 3.0);
final bytes = await data.toByteData(format:
dart_ui.ImageByteFormat.png);
if (data != null) {
await Navigator.of(context).push(
MaterialPageRoute(
builder: (BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
body: Center(
child: Container(
color: Colors.white,
child: Image.memory(bytes.buffer.asUint8List()),
)
)
);
}
)
);
}
UG link — https://help.syncfusion.com/flutter/cartesian-charts/export-cartesian-chart
Trackball features
The trackball has the following new feature enhancements in this release.
Marker for trackball
The newly introduced trackball marker feature helps you indicate an exact data point location. You can also add a shape to adorn each data point when the trackball is visible. The trackball marker can be shown or hidden independently and also displayed based on the series marker’s visibility.
Refer to the following code.
[Dart]
SfCartesianChart(
trackballBehavior: TrackballBehavior(
enable: true,
markerSettings: TrackballMarkerSettings(
markerVisibility: TrackballVisibilityMode.visible
)
)
)
Trackball marker
Trackball tooltip overlap
From this Volume 3 release onwards, if there are two or more series data points rendered close to each other, then the trackball tooltips of each data point will not overlap with each other. They will be repositioned automatically. No API is required to enable this feature.
Refer to the following screenshot.
UG link: https://help.syncfusion.com/flutter/cartesian-charts/trackball-crosshair#trackball
SB sample link: https://flutter.syncfusion.com/#/cartesian-charts/user-interactions/trackball/chart-with-trackball
Data label features
The data label feature has the following new enhancements in this release.
Padding for data labels
You can add padding to a data label to move it both vertically and horizontally from its initial position. Logical pixel value is provided as input.
Refer to the following code.
[Dart]
SfCartesianChart(
series: <CartesianSeries<ChartData,num>>[
SplineSeries<ChartData, num>(
dataLabelSettings: DataLabelSettings(
isVisible: true,
offset: Offset(0, 30)
)
)
]
)
Refer to the following screenshot.
Data label tap callback
This is a callback event. It will be triggered when you tap on a data label of a data point in the series.
Refer to the following code.
[Dart]
SfCartesianChart(
onDatalabelTapped: (DataLabelTapArgs args) {
print(args.seriesIndex);
},
series: <ChartSeries<ChartData, DateTime>>[
LineSeries<ChartData, DateTime>(
dataLabelSettings: DataLabelSettings(
isVisible: true
)
)
]
)
UG link: https://help.syncfusion.com/flutter/cartesian-charts/marker-datalabel#data-label
SB sample link: https://flutter.syncfusion.com/#/cartesian-charts/series-features/data-label/default-data-labels
Animate the series dynamically
You can perform initial rendering animation in an existing series by using this feature. On calling the animate method, a particular series will be animated based on the animationDuration property’s value in the series.
Refer to the following code.
[Dart]
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
ChartSeriesController _chartSeriesController;
return Column(
children: <Widget>[
Container(
child: SfCartesianChart(
series: <ChartSeries<ChartData, String>>[
ColumnSeries<ChartData, String>(
animationDuration: 2000,
onRendererCreated: (ChartSeriesController controller) { _chartSeriesController = controller;
}
)
],
)
),
Container(
child: RaisedButton(
onPressed: () {
_chartSeriesController?.animate();
},
child: Text('Animate'),
)
),
);
}
SB sample link : https://flutter.syncfusion.com/#/cartesian-charts/series-features/animation/series-animation
Select the data points dynamically
The data points in a chart can be selected programmatically by passing the point index and series index values to the selectDataPoints method.
Refer to the following code.
[Dart]
SfCartesianChart chart;
SelectionBehavior selection; @override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
selection = SelectionBehavior(enable: true);
chart = SfCartesianChart(
series: <CartesianSeries>[
ColumnSeries<ChartData, double>(
selectionBehavior: selection
)
]
); return Scaffold(
body: Column(
children: <Widget>[
FlatButton(
child: Text('Select'),
onPressed: select
),
Container(child: chart)
]
)
);
} void select() {
selection.selectDataPoints(1, 0);
}
SB sample link: https://flutter.syncfusion.com/#/cartesian-charts/user-interactions/selection/dynamic-selection
Anchor range to data points
This new feature is used to determine the value of the axis range, based on the visible data points or based on the overall data points available in the chart. The visible data points can be changed on performing interactions like pinch zooming, selection zooming, and panning, and also on specifying visibleMinimum and visibleMaximum values.
Refer to the following code.
[Dart]
SfCartesianChart(
primaryYAxis: NumericAxis(
anchorRangeToVisiblePoints: true
)
)
SB sample link: https://flutter.syncfusion.com/#/cartesian-charts/user-interactions/zooming-and-panning/pinch-zooming
Breaking changes
The selectionSettings property and the SelectionSettings class have been deprecated. Now, you can use the selectionBehavior property and SelectionBehavior class, respectively, instead of them.
Refer to the following code.
[Dart]
SfCartesianChart(
series: <CartesianSeries<ChartData, double>>[
ColumnSeries<ChartData, double>(
selectionBehavior: SelectionBehavior(
// Enables selection
enable: true
)
)
]
);
Conclusion
I hope you now have a clear idea of the various new features and enhancements available for the Syncfusion Flutter Charts widget in the 2020 Volume 3 release. For more details about the bug fixes and other enhancements, check out our release notes.
Browse our documentation to learn more about our Syncfusion Flutter widgets. You can also see Syncfusion’s Flutter app with many examples in this GitHub repo. Don’t miss our demo app in Google Play and the App Store.
If you aren’t a customer yet, you can try our 30-day free trial to check out these features.
Also, if you wish to send us feedback or would like to submit any questions, please feel free to post them in the comments section of this blog post. You can also contact us through our support forum, feedback portal, or Direct-Trac support system. We are always happy to assist you! | https://medium.com/syncfusion/whats-new-in-2020-volume-3-flutter-charts-e105bd6d0c9 | ['Rajeshwari Pandinagarajan'] | 2020-10-20 12:50:50.210000+00:00 | ['Flutter', 'Android App Development', 'Mobile App Development', 'Charts', 'iOS App Development'] |
Also, it will need a leader with foresight such as that of Eisenhower a hundred years ago. | …BMW i3 were all explicitly aimed at the narrow band of motorists seeking to make a green statement. The rest of the era — the one that attempts to bring EVs to the rest of the market — will only work if it’s not appealing to ideology, but to desires like “cool” and “savvy.” I t will be the same with Congress. Some members will respond to the clarion call of climate change. F… | https://medium.com/@arinbasu/also-it-will-need-a-leader-with-foresight-such-as-that-of-eisenhower-a-hundred-years-ago-167c39b7c412 | ['Arindam Basu'] | 2020-12-18 19:11:40.521000+00:00 | ['Biden', 'Electric Car', 'Ev'] |
#meetthementor — Heidrun Twesten. Mentor Interview and Top Tip | Mentor Interview and Top Tip
What does it take to make an accelerator unique?
What does it take to make its portfolio thrive? One essential pillar is a broad network of mentors, who dedicate their spare time in order to support the startups in their field of expertise. In our format #meetthementor we are introducing the faces who help our startups scale their businesses. First off is Heidrun Twesten — with her concept of STORYDISTILLING. But read for yourselves in the interview…
1.) Please introduce yourself — who are you and since when do you mentor at NMA?
I am a Storydistiller, Corporate & Startup Advisor and Founder & Managing Partner of Impacct GmbH. We focus on developing equity stories that drive company value. Since 1996, I have developed numerous (equity) stories for IPOs, private and public companies as well as startups and personalities. Back in 2015, I startet mentoring at NMA with their first batch.
2.) You got more than two decades of experience in the startup orbit — let us know, what does it take to become a founder?
Mainly, it takes guts to become a founder. The strong will to actively drive change — and take the personal risk to do so. Research came up with only one characteristic that’s more prominent/frequent in entrepreneurs than in employees: resilience. My personal experience shows that successful founders listen particularly well, accept advice and criticism constructively and implement what they have learned quickly. Last not least, it helps a lot to be a likeable person who loves selling.
3.) You met many startups so far. Did you see changes or a development into a certain direction over the past 5 years?
Professionalism of teams has increased over the last years — as has the support of a growing ecosystem. And I am very happy to see some more female founders and higher diversity (age, nationality) in tech startups here recently.
4.) Sourcing stories can be one of the hardest parts of storytelling — what is your approach? How do you tell a story right?
The key is to first distill and clearly define the core story — and use it as the content base of all communication. If this is done well it isn’t at all hard to source stories as they arise nearly automatically from an authentic foundation. A well told story engages its audience — so it’s key to know who exactly you want to listen and what they need.
5.)Your field of expertise is story development — in a nutshell — what is the number one thing every startup should know about it and why? What is the most important advice you have when it comes to storytelling?
Everyone and every organisation has a story. My most important advice is to take the time and effort to dig deep to find it and then work hard to tell it compellingly. Good startup stories are always rooted in the personal WHY of their founders — which fits well with the fact that investors’ main reason to invest is the quality of the team. | https://medium.com/next-media-accelerator/meetthementor-heidrun-twesten-5fe10cc76183 | ['Next Media Accelerator'] | 2019-11-18 10:48:08.096000+00:00 | ['Meet The Mentor', 'Startups', 'Storytelling', 'Next Media Acclerator', 'Heidrun Twesten'] |
Permission CEO Appears On CNN And News Stations Across The Country | Permission CEO Appears On CNN And News Stations Across The Country
The Permission Marketplace was featured in a story about blockchain innovators recognizing the value of data and compensating consumers who create it.
We’ve been receiving messages from people all over the country who are curious about the watch and earn experience on Permission.io.
“Data has tremendous value,” says Permission CEO Charles Silver. That is the understatement of the year.
General consumers are finally expanding their awareness to realize the unprecendented access that Silicon Valley has to their personal data. Collectively, people are fighting back by using blockchain backed platforms such as Steemit and Permission.io. These are platforms that recognize the value of trust and compensate users for contributing their data, content, or participation to the network.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me821HyAiVI
Click above to view the full segment from CNN and WDTN. | https://medium.com/permissionio/permission-ceo-appears-on-cnn-and-multiple-stations-across-the-country-1bf720adfde2 | [] | 2019-03-28 17:51:49.405000+00:00 | ['Privacy', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Advertising'] |
The Rise of Nostalgia, Is Today a Concern? | Sticker “Piye Kabare? Enak Jamanku To?” (Source: Hipwee.com)
STICKER depicts the former 2nd President of the Republic of Indonesia, Soeharto, waving his hand with the phrase “Piye kabare? Enak Jamanku To?”- How’s it going? Tasty for my time, right? — suddenly became popular among the people, especially Java. The sticker indirectly criticizes the post-New Order government, which is considered to have not experienced significant development, instead the post-New Order government is considered less assertive and more soft, which makes the country less respected.
The post-New Order era, which is also known as the Reformation period, which was marked by the resignation of Suharto from the presidency, the press that was increasingly free to voice its voice, and the development of science and technology such as the internet, the times have changed. These developments have made television and the internet the favorite consumption of Indonesians. TV stations began to appear, gadgets became more sophisticated, and the internet was increasingly rampant. It is undeniable that technological sophistication has positive and negative impacts. On the positive side, the public is increasingly facilitated by the speed of information, telecommunications, and convenience. On the negative side, the sophistication of this technology has made people increasingly autistic — less sociable and less mobile.
Today, we cannot possibly not be familiar with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and other social media. Social media is indeed a trend in today’s society. In the past, people who greeted each other and visited each other, have now turned into an elite society that exchanges greetings via the internet (indirectly); People who are in locked rooms can establish communication with people who are far away; People who are on the ship can see the graduation event via live streaming; etc. In other words, changes in people’s lifestyles, say the ’90s with today’s society, are very fast. In the ’90s we had to go to the house or telephone to talk long distance, now anywhere can establish long-distance communication.
Technology has made the phrase “meeting people” even less necessary. All this is now facilitated by technology which increasingly makes humans become “spoiled” creatures. And, even in the future, even robots could approach an almost human resemblance. So, perhaps because of the people’s anxiety, there is now a lot of access to nostalgic “doors” to, at least, remember that the past was pleasant for some or troublesome for some.
Recently, we can see how nostalgia rife in various media, from electronic media such as television, social media, to books. On television, we can see how many programs have nostalgia themes. On Trans TV there is ‘A Night to Remember’, a music program that specifically features artists and songs from 1990 to 2010. The program is matched by Indosiar, which broadcasts an almost similar and more old-fashioned program, namely ‘Golden Memories’.
AnTV, which recently skyrocketed due to Indian TV series, does not want to be outdone by the nostalgic grip. Several domestic TV series that were popular in the 2000s were re-broadcast, such as ‘Bidadari’ (2000–2005), ‘Tuyul and Mbak Yul’ (1997), ‘Jinny Oh Jinny’ (1997–2002) and ‘Putri Duyung’ (2001). What AnTV has done is quite successful. Some of these TV series attracted quite a lot of viewers. This can be seen by the proliferation of TV stations that also broadcast old series back. MNC TV broadcast the telenovela ‘Carita de Angel’ (2000–2001) which was successfully broadcast on RCTI in the 2000s. This was followed by Global TV broadcasting ‘Maria Mercedes’ (1992–1993), which was popular in the 1990s. And RCTI, which did not want to be outdone by re-broadcasting ‘Pernikahan Dini’ (2001–2002).
In the world of film, we are shocked by several films that are selling well in our own country. Starting from ‘Ada Apa dengan Cinta? 2’ (2016) until the most excited because it became the Indonesian film with the largest number of viewers, namely ‘Warkop DKI Reborn: Jangkrik Boss! — Part I’ (2016). Not only new films, old films have been restored to be re-shown in theaters. Is the film ‘Tiga Dara’ (1956) which became the second Indonesian film to be restored after ‘Lewat Djam Malam’ (1954) which was restored in 2012. In the world of books, ‘Raden Mandasia si Pencuri Daging Sapi’ by Yusi Avianto Pareanom, which recently won as the best prose Kusala Sastra Khatulistiwa 2016, is also not far from the grip of nostalgia. On social media, Generation 90s accounts are also very popular, featuring memes of 1990s objects or activities that can make their followers smile.
The rise of nostalgia in various media can indicate the current trend in society. This nostalgia can be assumed as a place to reminisce about the past or make fun of the present. The first, Today’s people begin to remember their life experiences, begin to think about their history. Second, today’s society is more critical by throwing nostalgic discourses to ridicule the “dilapidation” of today. Or, perhaps, today’s society makes fun of the present because they long for the “atmosphere” of the past? Was it really happy in the past? []
* First published in Indonesian titled “Marak Nostalgia, Zaman Sekarang Memprihatinkan?” on achmazing.wordpress.com, 2017. | https://medium.com/@achmadmuchtar/the-rise-of-nostalgia-is-today-a-concern-a2c034791a68 | ['Achmad Muchtar'] | 2020-12-22 08:14:15.253000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Tv Program', 'Film', 'Presiden Soeharto', 'Nostalgia'] |
Face your fears | “Sweetheart, just stop and stay still for a moment, yes, like that.” I flicked the spider crawling on the back of my son’s trousers.
“See that?” I whispered to my spouse, “I’m so proud of myself. I didn’t scream at all. And I touched the spider with my nail. That’s what motherhood does to mothers, devoids them of their wildest fears. The little ones always come first.”
“What spider?” My son jumped looking around in terror. | https://medium.com/weeds-wildflowers/face-your-fears-dbdf5b62ad4 | ['Georgia Lewitt'] | 2020-12-13 15:36:59.247000+00:00 | ['Fear', 'Writing On Medium', 'Motherhood', 'Creative Non Fiction'] |
17 Easy Ways to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions | Reflect
What went well in 2020? Think about the small successes before tackling the big challenges. What was one moment that made you smile? What was one moment that filled you with pride? And what was one moment that made you forget about the year’s disasters? By identifying the better moments of 2020, you can search for more of them in 2021.
2. Think big
Name your goals broadly. Improving organization, saving money, and being kinder are big, intangible goals. By creating lofty resolutions, there’s no way to quit early for quantifiable failure.
3. Start small
Search for goals you can meet in one minute or less. Instead of saying, “I’ll put it away later,” put it away now. It won’t take that long, and you’ll begin to feel more organized. Make your own coffee instead of waiting in line to overpay. Take the few seconds to hold the door for the person behind you. Small actions are easily repeated and can become habits. Good habits are the beginning of a successful resolution.
4. Talk about it
If you have trouble holding yourself accountable, tell your friends about your goals, post on social media, or even tell yourself in the mirror. When your friends ask about your progress, you’ll want to tell them you’ve been successful — not that you’ve quit.
5. Document it
Write about your resolutions and your progress. Write a sentence, take a selfie, or cross off the days on your calendar. Seeing your collection of memories grow will inspire continuity.
6. Use a calendar
If you have a deadline in sight, give yourself a sense of urgency. Enumerate your days of success and countdown the days until your deadline.
7. Take breaks
Give yourself a breather, but not too soon and not for too long. The sooner you revert to your old ways, the easier it is to forget your new ones. Treat yourself subtly as a reward — not an excuse.
8. Find good examples
Remind yourself of the feeling you’re chasing and surround yourself with others who exemplify success. Turn to Pinterest, YouTube, and blogs to find role models and proven methods to reach your goals. Trying to lose weight? Dig up a picture of you looking your best. Trying to study harder? Put one of your highest grades on your desk. The more you know you’re capable of achievement, the more likely you will be to follow through.
9. Reimagine your goals
Revisit the broad goals you made initially. Can you find another interpretation or approach it from a different angle? Instead of just trying to improve your organization, also strive to decrease your clutter. Don’t just try to save money — can you make more? Every resolution has a complementary resolution that can help you achieve your goals more effectively.
10. Seek advice
Resolutions are not solo endeavors. Friends and family want to see you succeed as well. Ask them about their paths to success — take the parts that suit you and personalize them.
11. Say “yes”
Be open to trying new approaches.
12. Say “no”
Know your limits. If you know saying “yes” will be detrimental to your progress, say “no.” Your friends will applaud your tenacity, and each time, holding your ground will become easier.
13. Increment your progress
Reevaluate as your go along. Was the first week easier than expected? Ask more of yourself the next week. Ready to give up? Lower the bar a bit and build up.
14. Make your goals tangible
Dig out the pair of jeans that used to fit and try them on. Buy a desk organizer that will work only after getting rid of the clutter. The closer you are to you reaching your goals, the more physical reinforcement will inspire completion.
15. Document your success
Keep writing about your new habits after they’ve become second-nature. Keep taking selfies, and keep looking for ways to save extra cash. When you start a new resolution process later, you’ll be glad to remind yourself of your previous successes.
16. Celebrate your success
When you revisit your broad goals, you’ll remember that there was no quantifiable way to fail — there’s also no quantifiable way to succeed. So, celebrate the smaller goals along the way. Rewarding yourself every so often will keep you going.
17. Keep setting goals
Self-improvement does not have to be limited to the start of the year. Whenever you feel ready to make a change, use these tactics to keep you motivated and on track. | https://medium.com/@mjbokhari/17-easy-ways-to-keep-your-new-years-resolutions-ca0aa0bba80c | ['Maya Bokhari'] | 2020-12-26 17:47:35.760000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'How To', 'Advice', 'New Year', 'Resolutions'] |
Mutual Funds mey kitna Risk hai? | How much Risks is there in Mutual Funds ?
From an investor’s perspective risk is defined as the unfortunate possibility of losing some or all of the original investment one makes. The good news is that risk is measurable and it would be one’s interest to use risk statistics when analyzing and selecting mutual funds.
Know about Mutual Funds
Risk Involved in Mutual Funds are given below:
BETA
Beta is a commonly used risk measure. and calculates the relative volatility of a stock or mutual fund’s returns as against its benchmark. the beta merely explains the relative riskiness of an asset and does not give us the inherent risk of the asset itself.
As an investor, you can use this information on the beta to align your mutual fund portfolio according to your risk appetite. For instance, if you are a conservative investor, you might want to focus on low beta portfolios. But remember what we said earlier beta is a relative measure and does not give us the inherent risk of an asset.
2. ALPHA
Alpha quite simply measures how much better a fund has performed as compared to its benchmark index. For instance, if the Nifty 50 delivered 10% this past year and your fund did 11% .. then the alpha is +1%. And if your fund underperformed and achieved only 8% .. then the alpha is -2%. Which means actively managed funds can have positive or negative alpha depending on how well the fund manager runs the fund. Infact, creating positive alpha is the entire essence behind someone investing in an actively managed fund
3. R-SQUARED
The R-Squared aims to measure a fund’s correlation to its benchmark performance. This is done on a scale of 100 which means if the R-Squared is a 100 then it shows that the performance of the mutual fund is perfectly correlated with the performance of the benchmark In this particularly the case when it comes to index funds which have an R-Squared of 99 or 100. On the other end, we typically see actively managed mutual funds which can have a range of R-squared values.
4. STANDARD DEVIATION
The standard deviation measures the dispersion of data from its mean and from a mutual fund perspective, it represents the volatility or riskiness of the fund. For instance, let’s say a mutual fund delivers 10% average returns over a period of time. But as expected, this fund has had some good months and also some bad months with returns vacillating between +20% and -15% This up and down trajectory of returns in the mutual fund NAV is what standard deviation captures and presents as an annualized number
5. SHARPE RATIO
The Sharpe ratio measures risk adjusted performance. and is calculated by subtracting the risk-free rate of return from the fund’s returns. and then dividing the result by the standard deviation. In other words, the Sharpe ratio indicates whether a mutual fund’s returns are due to the wise investment decisions taken by the fund manager … or was it the result of taking excessive risk Like many statistical tools the Sharpe ratio too can lead to some misleading inferences if used in isolation. For example: it’s commonly possible that a fund with low returns and low standard deviation might show a high Sharpe ratio
6. SORTINO RATIO
The Sharpe ratio uses the total volatility in its calculations in the form of standard deviation. This is where the Sortino ratio is different as it only uses only the fund’s downside standard deviation in its calculations So as a formula, the Sortino ratio is much like the Sharpe Ratio. subtracts the risk-free returns from the fund returns but instead of dividing it by the total standard deviation .. it divides the difference with the downside deviation This ratio is particularly useful for risk-averse or conservative investors and in the real sense, determines the success of a fund in capping its downside volatility. The Sortino ratio is a useful way for all kinds of investors, analysts and portfolio managers to evaluate a fund’s return for a given level of bad risk.
Thumb rule way of remembering:
A high Alpha, a high Sharpe ratio and a high Sortino indicate better potential performance for a fund A Low Beta and a low standard deviation indicates lower volatility for the fund A higher R-Squared indicates a better correlation with the benchmark.
Know about a Mutual Fund Investment Platform and before beginning your investment journey know which investment option is best for me. | https://medium.com/@vedantmitra/mutual-funds-mey-kitna-risk-hai-b5aac65e21ae | ['Vishal Kumar'] | 2021-06-17 06:01:39.405000+00:00 | ['Mutual Funds Risks', 'Risk Management', 'Risk Assessment', 'Mutual Fund Investment'] |
“What was your life for?” | Life is a short period of available time for taking creative actions. Being unique is essential for human existence. Although humans are mentally and physically different from each other, we share the same Universe simultaneously.
Thoughts become things
God created this Simulation so perfect that we call it Realty, so the current life is an illusion, and we need only one tool for getting into this dream: the human body!
Illness is the panic of the machine, so the physical death is the total pane of the tool we call body. This fantastic engine developed by God has one purpose: serving as a platform for the soul!
The short period we stay in the Matrix is supposed to be creative, different, unique and fruitful for both the Lord’s and Human’s intentions. We chose to be here! The Name created this “reality” for His and our advantage.
Life is a collective dream, and it’s co-creators are supposed to make it the most excellent place ever. The only way to make it happen is to act!
Nice to hear that all roads from your city lead home, however, it’s tragic to assume that most of the time we are at our comfort zone, not taking those streets that lead to incredible places, and wasting the precious time: the life. Only you can stop it!
Remember that any moment will never come back to you, so face now as a single opportunity for creating a new reality, or you’ll die having wasted your whole life having had the chance of utilizing it!
Once we are all going to die, we’ll arrive at heaven, then we may be asked there: “What was your life for?” We must be prepared to answer this! The only way to do it is to work in this World and rest on The Next World. | https://medium.com/@danielrapoport2003/what-was-your-life-for-a928b1fd9e5b | ['Daniel Rapoport'] | 2019-05-09 15:08:17.576000+00:00 | ['Universe', 'Life', 'Matrix', 'Self Improvement', 'Humanity'] |
3D Printing Takes off at Newark Academy | By Sherrie Negrea
Newark Academy students are learning to build sustainable cities, replicas of museum sculptures, and facilities to sustain human life on Mars without ever leaving their classrooms.
In the Upper School, a course on 3D printing has enrolled a total of 150 students since it was launched a decade ago during June Term — the last two weeks of the school year, when Upper School students immerse themselves in an intensive, experiential class. In the Middle School, a science course has long incorporated 3D printing to help students understand and propose solutions to major world problems, such as climate change.
When Upper School physics teacher Drew Kesler created his 3D Printing and Technical Drawing course in 2012, he didn’t know it would become one of the most popular June Term offerings. In the course, students produce a self-designed 3D object and also create a model of a sculpture they select during a field trip to the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, N.J.
Jonah Grossman '27 uses a dremel to clean up the 3D printing of his sustainable city model.
“As much as it is a course in 3D printing, which is pretty technical, it’s also a design course in learning how to use the software and creating something that is aesthetically pleasing or functional — or both,” Drew says.
For Drew’s students, the process of creating a three-dimensional object starts with determining what shapes comprise the piece they want to produce, measuring them, and then creating the forms and positioning them using two software programs, SketchUp and OpenSCAD. One important lesson they learn in the class is that 3D printing requires patience because their first attempt is likely to fail.
“You just do it again and again and it gets better and better,” Drew says. “I think that’s a valuable mindset, to know that you’re not going to get it right the first time.”
In her course, Interactive Investigations in Science, Middle School science teacher Debra Tavares uses 3D printing to empower students to tackle real- world problems, such as mitigating climate change and enabling human exploration of Mars.
Students in Debra Tavares’s sixth grade class clean up their 3D-printed sustainable city model.
The assignment for the course’s sustainability unit is to create a city that meets human needs while avoiding all waste. The students’ final projects, standing up to seven inches tall, are produced by the 3D printer on a plate the size of a piece of notebook paper.
Debra says she added 3D projects to the course when a parent donated a Makerbot printer to her about 15 years ago. “I immediately added 3D printing to my science course,” she says, “because I could see how it could be used to solve problems and inspire the innovative process.”
According to Drew, learning to operate 3D printers is particularly useful for students interested in engineering and architecture. In his June Term course, for example, students learn how to use computer-aided design (CAD) software, a standard professional tool, to create their projects.
Adrien Chouraqui ’22 was introduced to 3D printing when he took the June Term course two years ago. When he interned at a gallery in Paris this past summer, working on a team with designers and manufacturers to produce art for the space, he discovered that the technology is used extensively in the art world.
Adrien, who plans to study architecture in college, has continued working on 3D projects during the school year with Drew, sometimes spending up to 12 hours on a single design. “The 3D printers give us access to creative freedom,” Adrien says. “As a person who can’t live without creative projects, it brings unconditional fun to school.”
Because 3D printing has become an essential tool in a growing number of industries, Debra says it will remain part of her curriculum. “With computer- aided design software and 3D printing,” she says, “if you can think it, you can design it and you can 3D model it; essentially, you can make a new reality.” | https://medium.com/@nacomm/3d-printing-takes-off-at-newark-academy-70eb8b6d36cc | ['Newark Academy'] | 2021-12-16 21:01:48.156000+00:00 | ['3D Printing', 'Newark Academy', 'STEM'] |
10 Ridiculous Myths People Believe About Marriage | Aside from the myth that marriage is where great sex goes to die, we’ve also come up with other baffling myths about matrimony.
Marriage is a life sentence that takes no prisoners. These days, one can never be too sure of being together for life, and sometimes the word “forever” can mean just a few years. Sadly, many marriages never last, and some were doomed from the start.
So often, many couples are lured into marriage, and they rush into something they are never really prepared for. But then again, who really is prepared for marriage? A long and lasting marriage goes beyond an extravagant wedding ceremony. From what I have gathered, marriage is a long and arduous road couples have to take. And it comes as no surprise that many people have grown terrified of marriage and would never go down that road.
The long and winding road
Marriage has been overly romanticized in all forms of culture. We can’t help but swoon when we see those romantic proposals being shared all over social media. We can’t help but cry during the wedding ceremonies, especially when the couple exchanges their vows, promising to love and cherish each other until the end of time.
These days, marriage, like love, is a very fragile thing. Holding on to something can only bring the risk of losing it forever. Perhaps this is why the world is full of cynics — love has become so fleeting. Time has taught me to constantly be wary and on guard. The world, I have learned, can be cruel and is forever deceiving.
When I was younger, my dream was to marry the man I loved. But I have learned the hard way that to make a marriage work, it takes more than love. It takes a whole lot of patience, tolerance, and hard work to keep a marriage intact… and not everyone is cut out for that kind of work.
When I was younger, I wanted to marry the man I loved. We were together for quite some time, so naturally, I thought we would last forever and eventually get married. But I have never been so sadly wrong. As we grow older, we realize that sometimes our best laid plans in our youth aren’t the best plans for us. I was thankful that my plans were torn apart at the seams. It was the only way that I could see reality as it is, not how I wanted it to be.
Myths about marriage that we shouldn’t believe
Marriage can be a beautiful thing if one lets go of the myths surrounding it. In my youthful impulsiveness, I have so foolishly believed in some of these myths. As I grew older, I learned to separate myth from fact. It can take a lot of unlearning, but it is worth it.
#1 Being a couple for a long time means that you should get married. This is perhaps the myth that was the hardest to unlearn. When you have been with someone for the longest time, you start to believe that your investment in them will result in marriage.
However, your suitability to be married should not be determined by how long you have been together. The quality of your relationship and your willingness to overcome challenges should be taken into account as well. After all, there are lots of couples out there who dated for years and years before getting married, only for their marriage to end after a short while. [Read: How To Make Dealing With Your Partner During Quarantine Easier]
#2 Marriage makes your relationship better. It becomes ridiculous to think that marriage makes life better. Marriage isn’t some sort of magic spell where your problems will disappear in the blink of an eye. Bad attitudes, arguments, bills to pay, and the gnawing worm of reality just aren’t going to fix themselves.
The honeymoon period is only going to last for so short a time, and before you know it, your partner with all the adorable quirks and idiosyncrasies turns out to be a heavy drinker. It is true that partners bring their assets into a marriage, as well as their liabilities. It is up to you to take them as they are. Remember that change comes from within and that people will only change if they allow themselves to. [Read: 13 Signs A Married Man Is In Love With You & Wants Something More]
#3 Marriage will make you happy. Let’s get one thing straight: an unhappy single person will most likely have an unhappy marriage. Happiness is a choice, and should come from within. Even if you happen to marry somebody incredibly rich or drop-dead gorgeous or kind, if you find the dark cloud in every silver lining, you are going to have an unhappy marriage.
Remember not to burden your spouse with so many unrealistic expectations of the person you want them to be. Marriage will not cure your loneliness or your pessimism. As with everything else in life, your marriage is what you make it. [Read: 10 Memorable Things Couples Should Do Together To Deepen Their Bond]
#4 You won’t be lonely if you’re married. Sadly, this has become an all-too-familiar myth. Too many single people have wasted away, longing for the one who would save them from being lonely. While it is true that marriage can give you a sense of companionship, it doesn’t mean it will completely eradicate loneliness.
Too many married couples have felt the pang of not being alone but feeling lonely. Many have felt the pain of a distant spouse and the harsh reality of a marriage dying before their eyes. Sadly, many of these people insist on staying because they have already invested a lot or they have kids. Remember: an unfulfilling and dying marriage is far worse than being single. [Read: Friends Of Convenience: The Good Kind & The Bad Ones You Must Avoid]
#5 Having kids brings security to the relationship. It has become quite the common misconception that having kids brings a couple closer together. Fulfilling as parenthood may be, having children can ruin relationships if one or both of you turn out to be immature or unprepared for the responsibility of parenthood. Having children can be trying on one’s patience, and seeing to it that children are raised properly requires a harmonious relationship between the couple. [Read: Sugar Mom Remi Is Interested In You]
#6 Arguing will destroy the marriage. There is that persistent misconception that married couples who argue in the relationship are headed for disaster. What’s true is that everyone enters a marriage not really knowing what to expect. No matter how well you get along, there will be times when an argument will be inevitable.
The danger of married couples not arguing is that they tend to make emotional compromises, and this tends to erode the sense of trust between the two. Couples in healthy relationships do argue, but they never hit below the belt. They find a way to resolve conflict, and forgive each other once the conflict has been resolved. [Read: How To Beat The Quarantine Blues And Still Live Your Best Life]
#7 Your spouse should be your best friend. The truth is, you don’t have to force your spouse to be your best friend in order to make a marriage work. While marriage requires a certain level of friendship, you are still free to confide in a trusted friend who isn’t involved in your marriage. Your spouse may be your partner, your friend, your lover, your confidant, and your rock. But it’s perfectly fine if you want to share a certain level of closeness with someone you trust that isn’t your spouse.
#8 Marriage makes your life complete. Once again, marriage isn’t some sort of magic spell that will make your life complete all of a sudden. This is one of the saddest misconceptions about marriage, and this idea can ruin a marriage when the expectation to feel “complete” is not met. Your spouse should not complete you, so do not weigh them down with unrealistic expectations. If anything, your spouse should support you in your quest to feel complete, but they shouldn’t be responsible for it. [Read: 12 Really Sweet Ways To Show A Girl How Much You Love Her]
#9 Married sex is boring. Many people fear that getting married means an end to sex altogether, or having boring sex every single day of their lives. However, it’s not marriage itself that is to blame for a boring sex life. Other factors such as being busy with work or having children can also come into play. Sex, whether married or not, requires a few tweaks from time to time to keep it exciting. [Read: Letting Go Of People: Why It’s So Hard & The Right Way To Do It]
#10 Being a married couple will stress you out. It will, but only if you let it. Marriage may be difficult sometimes, but it’s not always about work. There are millions of couples out there who find it so easy to enjoy being married because, from the start, they already know that despite the difficult times, they’re confident in their bond and in their ability to work through rough patches. The more you look at marriage as “work,” the more you will resent it, and the less you will be able to enjoy it.
[Read: Sugar Mummy Armani Is Looking For A Husband]
Whatever tropes about marriage you see in movies and on TV aren’t always true. Your marriage is what you make it, and while it can certainly be difficult to handle at times, being able to stay married and happy is worth the effort. | https://medium.com/@cuzideas/10-ridiculous-myths-people-believe-about-marriage-5db8b728b092 | ['Gluck Umukoro'] | 2020-05-20 08:56:59.692000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Dating', 'Love And Sex', 'Awesomeness', 'Lovestory'] |
I Hate Baby Bellies, Newborn Photos and Mummy Slang | I Hate Baby Bellies, Newborn Photos and Mummy Slang
Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash
If you are pregnant, I will most probably empty my seat in a subway for you but don’t expect much more, please. I will immediately move to the completely opposite end of the carriage so that I don’t have to be looking at your sweet little baby bump as you call it. It makes me physically sick.
Yes, feel free to be mad at me already! Your emotions are correct even though you may have annoyingly irrational mood swings that make everybody else hate you. But the actual horrible person here is me as I successfully manage to transform my own insecurity into pitiful hatred which makes me wanna throw up from everything that reminds me of it.
I am at the age when many of my college classmates are spending their time at home, feeding a bunch of screaming kids and watching one fucking cartoon all over again until their last brain cell dies from the unbearably stupid pink face of Peppa Pig. And when that happens, in some cases even much earlier than that, a completely different mindset takes over the show and they start doing things I am unable to comprehend.
For example, why does everyone seem to forget the right kind of language? I mean, c’mon, what makes you think you can speak in plural now? The only two reasons why you may have my blessing to use we instead of I is if you suffer from a bipolar disorder or are royal in the middle ages. But I guess you aren’t either, am I right?
So shut the fuck up and don’t bother me with your miserable attempt to become one entity with your child. That is a privilege of mitochondria and I hope you are a bit more advanced that a collection of basic cells. However, I can understand that the nine months of pregnancy may make you feel like one for that time period. But when you let your significant other show off when saying to their friends: “We have delivered our little one under five hours!”, I have no respect for you or him. There is one advantage, though, he will be yours forever because no woman in the whole universe can possibly get attracted by this type of dirty talk.
Another sure way to scare people off is using baby talk when speaking with adults. I get it, you want to sound cute to make your brat love you so instead of normal vocabulary you opt for woo-woos, wee-wees, bum-bums and pee-pees. But everyone who is not wearing a diaper, including your grandparents that may have one again, doesn’t need to listen to it. Some of your non-native friends may even think you lost your ability to express yourself altogether. And if you really cannot let it go, make a new kink out of it, find a sub and talk to them like that.
Then we have the pictures. For some strange reason, you ditch all the smart-ass bullshit on how sensitive content should stay out of social media that you used to proclaim and start uploading very explicit photos right into the faces of your poor Facebook, Instagram followers and weirdos who rather check on your than all the other women on PornHub.
Starting with the terrible half-naked pics where you showcase your belly as if it was some sort of an achievement to get fat without any effort. I bet you were the one dispising all your female friends for posting selfies in tiny bikinis that you wear only in your dreams. But now, it’s your chance to legitly undress in front of the cameras and expect nothing but at least 100 likes. You may also attempt to increase the reach by tagging your partner with his hairy chest and back, holding your belly like a melon that he drank vodka from last night.
But the horror, unfortunately, doesn’t end there. As soon as the little wrinkled monkey gets born, another photo tsunami floods everybody’s stream. This time, displaying the tiny humans peacefully sleeping while being very unnaturally positioned in the middle of a basket, dressed up as a random animal or even a fruit. Or even worse, the idea of parental nudity strikes back when the happy couple lets shot themselves with the newborn resting on their unappealing bodies already totally exhausted from the first two sleepless nights.
For the love of God, please stop. There is literally nothing you can make better in the world by publishing such monstrosity. The only outcome is that you will lose a couple of virtual friends and the teenage version of your kid will hate you for a nonconsensual public humiliation which may even be a crime in fifteen years from now.
Last but not least, I would like to tell you about the absolutely horrific way women manage to describe all the physical challenges of motherhood. Every time I am forced to listen to some of the very disturbing stories, I keep asking myself whether it is better to get a lepra than a bear a child. And I suppose I am not the only one struggling with such a dilemma as it is statistically proven that the birth rate has significantly decreased over the past decade in the most developed countries that also happen to host websites like scarymommy.com.
So what’s the point of destroying the future of mankind by sharing the awful truth with the potential carriers of the next world leaders? You are doing no good when you openly speak about a fourth-grade vaginal tearing to all of us, women who are still trying to accept the unfair destiny of being the only sex with ovaries and a womb. There is no point in learning in advance about never-ending nausea, haemorrhoids and constipation, breast infections, urinal and faecal incontinence, hair loss, postpartum depression, vaginal discharge, painful sex, stretch marks, hormonal inbalance, extensive sweating, and all the other 5,973 other serious issues every mother may encounter. I am only writing about it and I feel like my eggs are committing suicide as we speak.
Sure, you may argue that every baby is a miracle hence all these inevitable challenges should be embraced and accepted as a natural part of the life’s changing journey. But I know that deep inside you regret the one night you forgot to take your pill. I am calling it #fateslap, bitch. Because out of the two of us, I am the one just on my way to a spontaneous meeting my childless friends that may turn into a crazy sex party now while you are stuck at home alone with your T-shirt covered with vomit, greasy hair you haven’t had time to wash in the whole week and the only desperate wish to be me at least for one fucking night. | https://medium.com/@digitalbitch/i-hate-baby-bellies-newborn-photos-and-mummy-slang-f7b7a9f95032 | ['Digital Bitch'] | 2020-01-11 12:40:09.629000+00:00 | ['Parenthood', 'Fear', 'Motherhood', 'Children', 'Pregnancy'] |
4 Things Every Programmer Should Aspire to Be | What makes your career as a developer a great one.
Do you still ask yourself what you want to be when you grow up? Even if you’ve already grown into a full adult?
I do that daily. And as a junior developer, most of my answers are related to what type of programmer I aspire to be one day.
Every coder has different inspirations for the future, but I believe that the secret ingredient for a career made of gratification is made of just 4 principles.
Let’s see them in details.
Be Very Skilled On A Niche Of Technologies
You can’t master every discipline in the coding world. You probably won’t be the next master of self-driving cars, lunar module software engineer and top JavaScript developer all at once. Yet, you can still find something you’re truly passionate about and become a master of that, whether the discipline is mobile-development or writing code for the missions on Mars.
Mastering a set of skills is a beautiful thing, which can bring you a lot of satisfaction in the world of developers, from becoming a CTO or tech lead, to getting recognized as an authority in your field.
In going deep into something you are passionate about in this world, I’m sure you will find a renewed passion every day and a lot of career achievements along the way.
Speaking about coding for space programs: | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/4-things-every-programmer-should-aspire-to-be-7372a7ac7fbe | ['Piero Borrelli'] | 2020-12-05 06:32:59.035000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Programming', 'Software Engineering', 'Web Development', 'Technology'] |
Using quantum machine learning to analyze data in infinite-dimensional spaces | The latest Xanadu research paper proposes a novel perspective on quantum machine learning that sounds crazy at first sight. The core idea is to use the Hilbert space of a quantum system to analyze data. The Hilbert space is the place where the states that describe a quantum systems live, and it is a very large place indeed. For a 50-qubit quantum computer, we are talking about a 1,125,899,907,000,000-dimensional space, and for a single mode of a continuous-variable quantum computer, the Hilbert space has an infinite number of dimensions. So how can we analyze data in such a Hilbert space if we have no chance to ever visit it, let alone to perform computations in it?
Kernel methods implicitly embed data into a higher dimensional feature space, where we can hope that it gets easier to analyze.
In fact, machine learning practitioners have been doing this kind of thing for decades when using the beautiful mathematical theory of kernel methods [1]. Kernels are functions that compute a distance measure between two data points, for example between two images or text documents. We can build machine learning models from kernels, the most famous being the support vector machine or Gaussian processes. It turns out that every kernel is related to a large — and sometimes infinite-dimensional — feature space. Computing the distance measure of two data points is equivalent to embedding these data points into the feature space and computing the inner product of the embedded vectors. In a sense, this is the opposite to neural networks, where we compress the data to extract a few features. Here, we effectively ‘blow up’ the data to make it potentially easier to analyze.
Mapping inputs into a large space and computing inner products is something that quantum computers can do rather easily. And any device that can encode a data point into a quantum state (which is really almost any quantum device), and which can estimate the overlap of two quantum states, can compute a kernel. Kernel methods are therefore a strikingly elegant approach to quantum machine learning. What is more, if the data encoding strategy is complex enough, we might even find cases where no classical computer could ever compute that same kernel. If we can show that our “quantum kernel” is useful for learning, we have a recipe for a quantum-assisted machine learning algorithm that is impossible to do classically: use the quantum device as a special-purpose estimator for kernel functions, and feed these estimates into a classical computer where a kernel method is trained and used for predictions. Voila!
A quantum-assisted support vector machine finds useful decision boundaries for small datasets. The kernel of the support vector machine is the inner product of 2-mode squeezed states, where the phase of the squeezing depends on the input data.
But the story does not end there. Quantum computing can actually be used to analyze data directly in feature space, without relying on the convenient detour via kernels. This idea has been successfully used for quantum-inspired machine learning with tensor networks (check out this great paper [2] and its successors), and now we want real quantum systems to do the job. For this, we use a variational circuit to define a linear model in Hilbert space.
To explain this in more detail, consider as an example the binary classification problem of the figure above, where we have to draw a line — a decision boundary — between two classes of data. We can encode data points x into a quantum state |ϕ(x)>, which effectively maps it to a vector in Hilbert space. In a continuous-variable system, this vector is an infinite dimensional Fock state. A unitary transformation W applied to the quantum state is nothing else than a linear model with regards to that vector. With a bit of post-processing, W defines a linear decision boundary, or hyperplane, to separate the data in Hilbert space. From support vector machines, we know that a linear model is very well suited to analyze data in a feature space.
We can make the circuit depend on a set of parameters, W=W(θ) and train it to find the best linear decision boundary. These variational circuits have recently become a booming area of research in quantum machine learning [3,4,5]. With the theory of kernel methods, the approach of training circuits is enriched by a theoretical interpretation that can be used to guide our attempts of building powerful classifiers.
A quantum circuit (top) and its graphical representation as a neural network (bottom). Encoding a data point into optical modes maps it to an infinite-dimensional vector which can be interpreted as the hidden layer of a neural network. A variational quantum circuit together with measurements can then be used to extract two outputs from this layer, which are further processed to a binary prediction.
To summarize, using the Hilbert space of a quantum system for data analysis gives us a theoretical framework that can guide the development of quantum machine learning algorithms. It defines a potential road to show so-called “quantum supremacy’’ for real-life applications. Whether we can find cases in which this approach leads to useful classifiers is an exciting open question.
[1] B. Schoelkopf and A. Smola, Learning with Kernels, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (2002).
[2] M. Stoudenmire and D. Schwab, Advances In Neural
Information Processing Systems, pp. 4799–4807 (2016).
[3] G. Verdon, M. Broughton, and J. Biamonte, arXiv:1712.05304 (2017).
[4] E. Farhi and H. Neven, arXiv:1802.06002 (2018).
[5] K. Mitarai, M. Negoro, M. Kitagawa, and K. Fujii, arXiv:1803.00745 (2018). | https://medium.com/xanaduai/analyzing-data-in-infinite-dimensional-spaces-4887717be3d2 | ['Maria Schuld'] | 2018-03-28 16:53:40.225000+00:00 | ['Deep Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'Quantum Physics', 'Quantum Computing', 'Physics'] |
Wedy releases the first social marketplace targeting the Brazilian wedding market | Brazil, August 6, 2019. Wedy has released its wedding social-marketplace. For the first time ever, it is now possible to find a real online one-stop-shopping for weddings. The marketplace allows couples to access a transparent, confident, diverse and secure environment to transact products and services related to a wedding. Each transaction between buyers and sellers is securely audited and certified by Wedy Platform.
A digital one-stop-shop for weddings
It is well-known that a company’s digital product could become more valuable as usage increases. For that purpose, the experimentation of product strategies that increases the user value delivering according to the number of others using it is mandatory. In the classical business game of marketplaces, sellers benefit from more buyers; buyers benefit from more sellers. It gets harder and harder to compete with who makes this wheel spin. Sellers want to be where buyers are and vice versa.
Wedy Marketplace
Although Wedy already has a strong community of couples, vendors, and guests, a business pivot just releasing new e-commerce or even a 2-sided marketplace should not be enough to get traction. Alright, there isn’t yet a company only focused on all things related to weddings. But there are great companies doing that job very well job for craftsmanship products, used dresses, new brand & cheaper dresses or even cataloging wedding vendors on digital yellow pages. Delivering ways to simplify or shorten that process for customers respecting the Wedy core-principles as transparency, credibility, and diversity could be its competitive advantage.
Many startups are doing very well on disrupting the way we shop for goods in the last years. Also, there are startups managing great marketplaces for simple services where the transactions are quick and low-valued. However, there aren’t many successful service marketplaces because those offerings have a lack of standardization and other issues. Evidently, services are complex and defining their success and quality in them is subjective. In addition, there is a lot of fragmentation, this means that vendors have no time to stay online and there is still a lot of customization and differentiation in similar services. And to further complicate, service transactions usually result in real-world interaction, making it difficult to make the transaction 100% digital. Even with all these difficulties and still in a slow progression, it is undeniable that the software will eat the service economy. Wedy is working hard on it.
Long and high-value transactions such as those found in the wedding market are not viable in the traditional marketplace model. For example, no one goes to a website and hires a wedding venue on the first online interactions. It is so complicated and meaningful. Because of that, the most frequent business model currently used by digital companies are the classical advertising strategies, where these companies limit themselves to just selling leads to wedding vendors. It means no transactions management and fees for those companies.
Wedy is now a one-stop platform for wedding planning, with solutions for all steps:
Discovering: research prices, get inspired, get vendors quotes, talk with specialists, interact with other couples and more! Figuring out the perfect wedding can be as simple as saying “I do”.
research prices, get inspired, get vendors quotes, talk with specialists, interact with other couples and more! Figuring out the perfect wedding can be as simple as saying “I do”. Planning: the ideal planning tools for an unforgettable wedding. Keep track of the budget, select the best vendors, prepare the honeymoon, make the to-do list and enjoy every step of the journey with a customized step-by-step guide. Live every moment like it’s the big day;
the ideal planning tools for an unforgettable wedding. Keep track of the budget, select the best vendors, prepare the honeymoon, make the to-do list and enjoy every step of the journey with a customized step-by-step guide. Live every moment like it’s the big day; Organizing: It’s time to get organized! Hire pre-selected vendors, create your gift registry, customize your wedding website and decide who will be present on this special date. The couples’ stories in every choice, their love in every detail.
It’s time to get organized! Hire pre-selected vendors, create your gift registry, customize your wedding website and decide who will be present on this special date. The couples’ stories in every choice, their love in every detail. Sharing: Spread the love with a fully customized wedding website, send invitations and save the dates, get attendance confirmations and receive the gifts you really want.
Spread the love with a fully customized wedding website, send invitations and save the dates, get attendance confirmations and receive the gifts you really want. Just-married: Help to build new successful wedding stories, evaluating the vendors, selling wedding items, and accessing exclusive offers and content for the newlyweds.
Right now, it is all possible at Wedy. All in one place, no headache.
From a social network to a market network
Weddings events are complex. Usually who is getting married has no previous experience with organizing events. These events require high coordination of multiple supply-side parties to provide a great experience for a single buyer, the couple. Because of that, wedding planners are a very important professional in that context. Market networks are platforms that combine elements of an n-sided marketplace as weddings, a network, and workflow solutions.
A Market Network combines the main elements of both networks and marketplaces. Also, it uses a SaaS workflow software to focus action around longer-term projects, not just a quick transaction, promoting the service provider [NFX]
Starting from a platform vision that put the couples on the center of the product, with strong identities in a social network, creating valuable-niche content from their users about inspirations, planning, vendor hiring and building a long-term relationship with the company, Wedy is planning to create defensive moats from network effects on a market network.
The last two quarters at Wedy were about releasing social features on our product moving from a single-player to a multi-player game, improving user retention and engagement and decreasing the consumer cost acquisition, before a premature scale. It means every new customer acquired at Wedy, increases the platform value for the next and gets the company away from the addiction of paid marketing.
Photo by Artsy Vibes on Unsplash
Features such as wedding real content (as inspirations and questions & answers) delivered on an infinite timeline and social profiles that project a couple’s identity and their weddings journeys allowing them to communicate in a 360-degree pattern with others on the Wedy network. At this moment, Wedy is plugging a marketplace to provide transactions between multiple buyers and multiple sellers, combining key elements of social networks, marketplaces, and the already successfully Wedy SaaS solutions for couples and soon for wedding business.
Market networks are also unique from a monetization standpoint. For example, a wedding vendor hiring is mostly made up of a long-term relationship. For that, the Wedy SaaS workflow software is the key resource to not just transacting quick and low-value products or services, but also getting the highest-value transactions inside the platform. Helping to build long-term relationships and creating habit-forming solutions, Wedy will combine the strong defensibility of network effects and the scalability of direct networks like LinkedIn or Facebook, along with lucrative SaaS revenue models.
There are 7 attributes that define successful market networks:
Target more complex services; ✅
People are the center of everything; ✅
Collaboration happens around a project; ✅
Unique profiles of the people involved; ✅
Help build long term relationships; ✅
Recommendations flow freely; ✅
Increase transaction speed and satisfaction. Over time, almost all independent professionals and their clients will conduct business through their industry’s network of markets. ⏰
How does it work in practice?
When we talk about weddings, we are talking about very personal dreams. Every new customer acquisition on Wedy has very specific desires to get a successful wedding event. However, modern real-life gets couples increasingly busy and stressed. Wondering about those nuances, Wedy Platform automatically creates a wedding project for each couple, where vendors compete to participate in each project. Couples in the same tool manage the budgets, finances, and hiring of these services.
Vendors could request to join on those events, sending their availability and quoting their contribution to the project. They send the payment stream inside a Wedy SaaS tool (Wedy Business) and manage the event’s participation in a single communication channel, collaborating with all other event vendors.
Digital Wedding Stationery
All those long-term relationships are backed by a strong community of couples. The community is already sharing real inspiration every day helping the decision-making of the buyers. Also, things like reviews and warranties make buyers trust they’ll get what they pay for, and sellers know they’ll get paid if they deliver the service.
Also, network effects are one of the most important concepts for business in general and especially for tech businesses, as it’s the key dynamic behind many successful software-based companies. Understanding network effects not only help us to build a better product, but it will help us to build moats and protect our company against competitors’. Each couple in the network is both a producer and a consumer. A popular strategy for bootstrapping networks is "come for the tool, stay for the network". That’s what’s happening at Wedy.
Wedy Network Effects
Wedding Market Issues
According to a report from WeddingWire, 83 percent of couples plan their wedding online rather than with a wedding planner; the top three sources millennials use to search for vendors are wedding-related websites and online searches. Pinterest says 40 million of engaged people are getting inspiration every year on its platform. Also, no two weddings are alike. This is even more true for millennials — who account for 80% of today’s marrying couples, doing a lot of guest experience customization on food, music, and digital stuff.
Finding a “good price” for a wedding vendor is a huge challenge. Daily, thousands of couples are searching the Internet for how much it really costs to get married and what is the average price of each of the dozens of services available in the wedding market. It’s a sad reality, but wedding parties have a separate pricing table, whose costs first-time couples only figure out after long research. As a company goal, in addition to delivering greater decision-making power in the hands of our users and helping them discover their perfect marriage, we believe in the strategy of using engineering as a marketing engine. The project How Much Does a Wedding Cost on Average by Wedy is the first step in that direction, giving decision-power to couples to understand the costs of every vendor potentially present on the wedding day. It will be connected with that Wedy Marketplace release, sending actionable insights on couples hiring process.
Wedy Actionable Insights
It is not just on the consumer viewpoint that issues are found in the wedding market. Despite the built-in virality on wedding events and its huge market size — $72 billion a year in the US, R$20 billion in Brazil, and $300 billion globally, the Wedtech is facing so many challenges to disrupt the wedding industry. Beyond the average one year between someone getting engaged and their wedding event — a long-journey with rarely repeated actions, the couples move on with their lives abandoning the digital weddings platforms.
As a lesson learned, Wedy understood this market is not just about unit economics; a core purpose is mandatory. Credibility, transparency & diversity are the Wedy core values to deliver great solutions in this context. Planning on a mobile app, searching for vendors, sharing RSVPs & digital gift registries is all possible at Wedy, where couples still rely on the power of a social network for wedding discovering and emotional support.
The Wedy Shop 🛍
In our busy world, why waste time waiting for vendors quotes? Real-time pricing and availability could be accessible in the easiest way. Moreover, why not book an entire wedding online? Wedy is turning the wedding planning an easy and affordable journey by connecting couples with the best wedding vendors around. And, of course, experienced couples selling used items or even category specific business partners with the best product inventories.
Wedy Shop (pt-BR)
These are the highlight features of "The Wedy Shop":
🏢 Vendor services transactions : Our market network makes it significantly easier for vendors to operate their businesses and helps customers get better service with the free-market competition. Options as vendor rating, availability and pricing transparency are one of the main sub-features here;
: Our market network makes it significantly easier for vendors to operate their businesses and helps customers get better service with the free-market competition. Options as vendor rating, availability and pricing transparency are one of the main sub-features here; 👰 Peer-to-peer : Organically, just-married couples are already publishing used items from their wedding as dresses, accessories and general wedding stuff on Wedy timeline. We’re just easing the conversation and the deal of each item sold on the platform from couple to couples;
: Organically, just-married couples are already publishing used items from their wedding as dresses, accessories and general wedding stuff on Wedy timeline. We’re just easing the conversation and the deal of each item sold on the platform from couple to couples; 👗 Business partners: Big product catalogs from partners as Enjoei. Where Wedy community could boost sales on their specific wedding categories.
Big product catalogs from partners as Enjoei. Where Wedy community could boost sales on their specific wedding categories. 💌 Wedding Stationery: Wedy loves wedding stationery. It is our big opportunity to express our taste closer to the couple’s styles. A high-tech solution offered in partnership with the startup Trakto will create thousands of full-customize stationery options to weddings as greeting cards, save the dates, invites and others beautiful items created by our designers and the community;
Wedy loves wedding stationery. It is our big opportunity to express our taste closer to the couple’s styles. A high-tech solution offered in partnership with the startup Trakto will create thousands of full-customize stationery options to weddings as greeting cards, save the dates, invites and others beautiful items created by our designers and the community; 💜 Brand products : Mugs, funny t-shirts, bridesmaid or best man gifts. The item itself does not matter, the main message here is: Wedy branded products will be released on the marketplace, prioritized by the customer’s requests;
: Mugs, funny t-shirts, bridesmaid or best man gifts. The item itself does not matter, the main message here is: Wedy branded products will be released on the marketplace, prioritized by the customer’s requests; 👍 Social network built-in: All those transactions will be empowered by a complete feature-set already launched on the previous versions of Wedy: profiles, likes, comments, claps, inspirations, related products and, planning tools.
Pure transactional marketplaces generally need to grow both demand and offer carefully together to solve the inherent chicken and egg problem. Wedy is following the strategy of SaaS-enabled Marketplace. It means providing a kick-ass tool for one side and then grow the other side. That is, the Wedy SaaS-enabled marketplace is a business which combines the characteristics of both models:
A marketplace component that connects two or more parties of weddings to conclude a transaction and thus can generate and benefit from real network effects;
A SaaS component that offers software features to one of the parties, able to be used as standalone software.
However, we realized that a transaction fee model is hard to pull off when transactions are made online, but the service is delivered offline. That makes charging by transaction fees tricky. So stay tunned, the Wedy team will share their hypothesis validations on that topic in the next chapters.
Every day is a new beginning | https://medium.com/wedybr/wedy-releases-the-first-social-marketplace-targeting-the-brazilian-wedding-market-db3854ae0ec4 | ['Daniel Tamiosso'] | 2019-08-06 17:08:41.877000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Market Network', 'Marketplaces', 'Weddings', 'Network Effect'] |
12 (+Bonus) amazing Youtube Channels To Learn Python Programming for Free | Photo by CardMapr on Unsplash
12 (+Bonus) amazing Youtube Channels To Learn Python Programming for Free
Here you have a great list of Youtube channels if you want to dig into Python programming and learn from the best.
A few days ago, I published an article with 21 of the best channels on Youtube where you can learn Data Science, AI, and Machine Learning for free and... Boom! It was a great success; many people wrote to me that the article was handy and helped them find great content!
If you are looking for the best Youtube channels to dig into Python programming and learn from the best, you have a great list with 12 (my lucky number) amazing programmers who share tips and secrets that will help you to become a master! | https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/21-great-youtube-channels-for-you-to-learn-python-programming-for-free-d6470c444f7d | ['Jair Ribeiro'] | 2020-12-08 19:37:18.811000+00:00 | ['Python Programming', 'Programming Languages', 'Programming', 'Python', 'Learning To Code'] |
Shawn Mendes’ New Album and Documentary: A Hit and a Miss | Shawn Mendes’ New Album and Documentary: A Hit and a Miss
Graphic by author.
On his new album, Wonder, Shawn Mendes tells a cinematic, grandiose love story through songs that sound different from those of his last three albums. On the other hand, the documentary of the singer’s life, released around the same time, is a heartfelt watch for Mendes’ fans, but not quite exciting enough to capture a casual audience.
Released just weeks before his most recent LP, Shawn Mendes: In Wonder, directed by Grant Singer, added another artist documentary to Netflix’s collection. As a fan of Mendes, I couldn’t wait to see this film once I saw the trailer; getting to see inside one of your favorite artists’ life is every fan’s dream. I loved every second of it. This movie, at its core, is fan service. It doesn’t cater to the average viewer’s interest, but to those of fans who want to know more about Mendes’ personal life.
Given that framework, Singer does everything that he is supposed to do. In Wonder has everything that fans could ask for: clips from his 2019 world tour, teasers for songs on Mendes’ upcoming album, glimpses of Mendes’ personal life, from sweet moments with his little sister, Aaliyah, to joking around with his family and best friends from home, and the story of his romance with Camila Cabello. However, it lacks a serious conflict — something that other viewers might be left craving.
The climax of the film occurs when Mendes gets a sinus infection, loses his voice, and is forced to cancel a stadium show in Brazil. He becomes overwhelmed and laments disappointing fans. In one of the most emotional moments in the film, he cries while on FaceTime with his mom, barely able to speak.
The film is strongest when Mendes is vulnerable and acting like nobody’s watching, like when he walks over to his sister to give her a big hug as they stand in their high school’s field, when he runs up his parents’ driveway to greet his mom for the first time in three months, or when he sings with Camila Cabello in a bathroom before their 2019 MTV VMA’s performance.
The same is true for Wonder, which, by comparison, is much more interesting. He sounds best when he sings and plays from the heart. Some songs are stronger than others, but for an album with such an experimental sound, it’s only natural that a few tracks would fall short.
One of the high points of the album is the dreamy “24 Hours.” If there is any song that sounds like being in the heaven-like honeymoon phase of a relationship, this is it. Other highs include “Teach Me How To Love,” where synths and a funk-style production back fun, contagious, and dynamic vocals, “Dream,” where the layers of synths and harmonies transport the listener to a different world, and “Always Been You,” which boasts some of the best production and choruses on the entire album.
All of the songs sound like they were made to be played live. “Look Up at the Stars” is a dedication to the fans who keep coming back to the shows. The first verse echoes one of Mendes’ earliest songs, “Never Be Alone,” but after the first minute, the track transitions to a classic rock sound that pulls from sonic influences of the 1960s.
“Call My Friends” is a very different song in comparison, but it brings balance to the positive, puppy love tone of the rest of the album. The songwriting and production channel the angst that any young adult would feel after missing out on youth for so long. “Piece of You” is similar, showing the darker side of love, infested with jealousy and frustration.
One of the weaker songs on the album, “Higher,” falls lyrically short. Some would say that “Can’t Imagine” does as well, but it sounds like more of an outro, a final testament to the importance of Mendes’ love, than a whole song. It’s also the only song on the album that sounds like his older work–acoustic, simple, and stripped down.
Mendes’ two lead singles, “Wonder” and “Monster” (with Justin Bieber) both hold their own as two of the best songs from the album, lyrically and production-wise. “Monster” doesn’t fit in with the soundscape of the rest of the album in a lot of ways, but it’s still a strong track on its own.
Overall, Wonder is a more experimental and interesting album than anything Mendes has released before, and it shatters the stereotype that all of his songs sound the same. The documentary may be less compelling for non-Mendes fans, but the album more than makes up for it. Mendes encompasses such diverse sounds and messages in his fourth LP that it has something for everyone. | https://nyulocal.com/shawn-mendes-new-album-and-documentary-a-hit-and-a-miss-2e808d3e5d47 | ['Usha Sookai'] | 2020-12-07 17:27:08.974000+00:00 | ['Shawn Mendes', 'Entertainment', 'Album Review', 'Wonder', 'Music'] |
Thoughts on the Walmart Layoffs. I can’t even begin to understand how… | I can’t even begin to understand how tough it must be for those impacted by the Walmart news. I’m sure if you’re reading this by now, you’ve likely heard the numbers, but according to a Bloomberg article:
“A person familiar with the decision said the pharmacy cuts will represent less than 3% of all health and wellness staffers in the U.S. According to posts on LinkedIn and independent message boards frequented by Walmart employees, that could include as many as 40% of senior pharmacists, along with cuts for some new hires and reductions in part-time staffers.”
I spent some time over the past two days reading comments on the Rx Radio Instagram and Facebook page as well as a few reddit threads to get a feel for the reactions of the industry and people impacted. I am writing this article to provide some of my thoughts on what happened, what I would do if this happened to me, and what I think the future looks like going forward.
Should we have expected this?
Walmart has widely been touted as a great place to work for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. Among other things, this is likely because they’ve always had ample coverage (pharmacy overlap) and plenty of tech hours. I don’t, nor have I ever worked for Walmart, so this is purely an assumption. But it reminds me of my days working at Target Pharmacy prior to the CVS acquisition. At Target, the phone lines closed for lunch, we had pharmacist overlap at some of the busier stores, and we usually had enough tech coverage where we didn’t feel like every day was a complete failure. This, in addition to a great culture focused on the patient and developing leaders, were the reasons Target people were known to have sipped the “Target Kool-aid.”
But as we saw, this came to an abrupt end with CVS’s acquisition of Target’s Pharmacy business. Then, that overlap…gone. Tech hours? Much lower. Some pharmacists who had less then 40 hours a week had their benefits at risk. See, companies like CVS and Walgreens appear to operate extremely thin with their payroll. After transitioning my store from a Target to a CVS, I changed companies and went to Publix Pharmacy. Another pharmacy that was touted as a great place to work, and because of similar reasons as Target. But, boom. Sometime between 2016 and 2017, they had a large change to the way they allocated tech hours, and some stores were left with less than 50% of their usual tech count. It is my understanding they brought in a company to evaluate their productivity and how they were allocating human resources against those, resulting in drastic cuts to tech hours. While this didn't make major headlines and there were no layoffs, this had a major impact to many Publix employees. Some technicians were forced to pick up store side hours to try to get to 40 hours a week. In worse scenarios, some were forced to find work elsewhere because their store didn’t have hours even outside the pharmacy to lend, and those technicians had families to feed and bills to pay.
With my above experiences, unfortunately, hearing about the massive Walmart layoff doesn’t seem like a shock, but more of a “oh it happened to them too,” feeling. Now, don’t get me wrong, this Walmart news is definitely different. Especially if the allegations are true that 40% of those let go were in fact “senior” pharmacists. That indicates not only the potential to run a lot leaner with human resources at the pharmacy level, but they also may be looking to lower the standard wage of a pharmacist, or at least lower than what those senior pharmacists were making.
Pharmacy ain’t what it used to be: No S%*#
Two of the common comments I read were “stay away from pharmacy” or “quit now while you can” directed at current pharmacy students. Yes, pharmacy is definitely different now. It’s no longer a career where you go to school and can be guaranteed a six-figure job at graduation. That’s gone, and there’s no secret those days are gone. Now, you have to work for it. You have to network, specialize, become selfaware of your skills and double down. If not, it may not turn out well for your career in pharmacy. But that being said, what’s the alternative if you want to be a healthcare provider? Nursing? That’s a tough job, their market saturation isn’t getting any better, and sometimes they’re paid half of what a pharmacist makes today. Physician? There has been a huge decrease in the quality of life of physicians due to increasing CMS pressures and other market drivers making it a very difficult career to pursue and enjoy. PA? Yeah, that’s a nice shiny object now, but what happens when they too get oversaturated? My point is here is that, most careers in healthcare are going through difficult times. So for these online Twitter/Reddit warriors that say “stay away,” I think it’s bad advice if there’s no context. If someone wants to be a pharmacist, that’s what they should be. Looking for a stable six-figure guaranteed job, then no, this ain’t it chief. But there are so many reasons why pharmacy is still an awesome career! I recorded a podcast episode explaining my reasons why, you can listen to that here.
Pharmacy Organizations
A lot of the other comments I have read have been around how pharmacy organizations don’t do anything for us. Mainly directed at APhA and their lack of “caring.” I’d like to point out a few things. First and foremost, APhA operates as a business. A business that people have proudly said they haven’t contributed a dime to. It’s hard to hear people say they’ve never spent a dime on dues yet complain the organization hasn't done anything for them. If you’re not happy with what they do, then…do something about it. Every organization is a system made up of people, people that could include you. Get involved, work your way to the leaders to express your opinion or concern. OR, become one of the leaders and make the change happen yourself. OR, create your own organization to gather a group of like-minded individuals to create change. OR, continue to complain about it on Facebook while taking no action. The choice is yours.
Understanding that every organization and business is made up of individuals, there isn’t a soul in the pharmacy industry that doesn’t feel for those impacted, even the decision makers at Walmart who had to make this call. But let’s say APhA was like, “guys, we have to do something.” What would they do? Walk down to Walmart’s headquarters and demand change? Organize a protest outside the office where only a handful of pharmacists would likely show up? What immediate action do you expect? And these are not rhetorical questions, I would literally like to hear from you and see these ideas presented in a way that’s actionable. What happened at Walmart, and previously Target and Publix as I explained, is not any one of these organization’s fault. While this is an absolute tragedy, we can’t waste time on pointing fingers and figuring out who’s fault it is. Stop complaining. TAKE ACTION. Don’t want to take action with a national organization? Try your State Board of Pharmacy.
On a separate note, would it kill APhA to draft a response, no it wouldn’t. But I also understand that companies this large have many policies and procedures in place on how to handle political and other PR matters. We really don’t know the exact reason why there hasn’t been a response and it could be a combination of a few things. Hopefully, we’ll hear something soon. |Update: see APhA’s response here.|
What would I do?
Again, this did not happen to me, so I truly can’t begin to imagine what people and their families must be going through. However, I tried to put myself in the shoes of someone who was let go, and while everyone’s circumstance is likely different, I tried to think about what I would do if I was in a certain situation and immediately needed to find work and make money to ensure bills are paid.
First thing I would do is post on LinkedIn. Especially being that the news is so widespread it likely wouldn’t be a shock to anyone. I’d try to reach out to my network there (and other social media platforms) to see if I can get any leads. I’d do a typical online search for open jobs in my area and apply for hours, days at a time, until I felt as though I covered my area. I’d drive to independent pharmacies to see if I could support them in anyway, whether it be PRN, part-time, or MTM services. Who knows, you may run into an independent who was looking for a pharmacist. I would apply to staffing companies that provide relief to organizations with PRN staffing needs. In the case that I needed money ASAP and I may need to buy myself another month, I would start selling things I don’t need on eBay. You’d be surprised at the preowned things people actually buy on there. I actually believe the average person has about $1-$2K of stuff that can sell over a month on ebay that would be able to buy you sometime in landing a new job. Don’t have an ebay account? Create one. Don’t know how much your stuff is worth? Go to ebay, search your item and once you find it, or the closest thing to it, filter your results to see what has sold in the past 3 months and set your price using the prices you see people actually paying. Use your phone to take a picture of the item and post. Rinse and repeat. If my situation was not heavily dependent on the need to pay bills and find a new job immediately, I’d take the time to reflect on if pharmacy is something I’m still passionate about. With the way things are now with social media and the internet, someone could make a living literally doing anything they are passionate about doing. Passionate about baking? Create a personal brand around baking cookies and if you do it right, you could create a sustainable business that could replace your pharmacist salary (or more) by just, you guessed it, baking.
I’m sure the above are what most people would likely expect to do, but even if it helps one person, that’s all that matters to me.
Some responses to other comments:
“Will other Retail Pharmacies follow?”
Like I mentioned before, I think other companies, especially CVS and Walgreens, were already running pretty lean with their payroll expenses. But, pharmacies downsizing and closing stores is not a new trend. I think that will continue. One thing I think may start to happen is salaries will begin to fall close to or under $100K. It’s important to note many staff pharmacists in a hospital don’t make over $100K.
“Will Pharmacy techs take over?”
I think this is a legitimate question and I’d say the answer is…probably. There are many states exploring regulations allowing techs to check techs, increasing tech to pharmacist ratio, and tele-pharmacy services allowing pharmacists to verify from remote locations. I think this is really the future of the profession, alongside automations in dispensing. And while, yes, this decreases the need for pharmacists, I think it makes sense. I mean, c’mon… Some pharmacies don’t even have technicians at the pharmacy on most days. Which means a highly trained medication expert is typing a prescription, filling that prescription, and ringing up patients. That’s not why we went to school. And I think the market is starting to catch up to the fact that the majority of work that happens in a pharmacy doesn’t require a PharmD to perform them.
“I’m a pharmacy student and this is terrifying.”
There’s been a lot of students who have posted their reactions making it known it’s a scary time. And that is completely justified. However, I wrote an article over a year ago explaining why I think it’s an exciting time to be in pharmacy and why I would go to pharmacy all over again if I had to. You can read that article here. If I was in pharmacy school, and my goal was to be a pharmacist, I wouldn’t take the advice of most who say “run away.” I would take note of the current landscape and start to see how the profession is changing and figure out how I’d be able to have the most impact. I’d also realize that focusing on a niche would likely increase my chances of having a successful career and that the cutting of “senior pharmacists” actually favors new grads to openings. While it may be at a lower salary, it’s still an opportunity.
“How do we change the profession to ensure this doesn’t happen.”
I honestly don’t know how you can ensure this situation at Walmart doesn’t happen. But what I can say is that just talking about it in forums alone won’t help, every one of us needs to do something to advance our profession, in one way or another. Everyone has their own set of unique skills and passions to be able to do it. It is important to note that while retailers are streamlining, there are many other companies led by pharmacists that are raising millions of dollars to innovate and advance the profession of pharmacy. For example: AspenRx Health
“We need to unionize!”
A lot of people have mentioned the answer to preventing this to continue is unionizing. I will not get into a discussion here about wether that is the best remedy or not, but I would say to those who think it will help, please also take the time to research all of the negative things that come along with unionizing and then make a decision. Often times people only hear about the positive things unions can bring, but also don’t realize the negative impacts it can also have. Plus, as some have mentioned on social media, corporations usually have “union police” that shut down union-like activities by their employees REAL fast. So, attempting to unionize can likely put your reputation, and sometimes your job, at risk.
“The $4 Generic list killed Pharmacy.”
While this may have really been a sign that things were not heading in the right direction, I really don’t think it “killed” retail. This was the beginning of the realization that generic drugs are cheap as hell and the margin on them are extremely high. Consumers being offered medications at an extremely low price was going to happen in the industry one way or another. Walmart was just the first to do it. If you think a company like amazon or Honeybee Health wasn’t going to come along and disrupt drug pricing, you’d be confused.
The Future of the Market
Bottom line is, pharmacy schools and large retailers overshot the demand and what we are seeing over the last 5–10 years is the market starting to level. We are already seeing schools see a decrease in applicants. We’re also seeing it has become easier to get into pharmacy schools. And I do believe there will be a decrease in the rate/quality of graduates to come.
What should the industry do?
I would say let’s welcome the automations and increased trainings for technicians to allow pharmacists to provide and solely focus on clinical services and designing technologies to improve outcomes. I’d advise every pharmacist to find a niche in anything they are passionate about and see how pharmacists can play a better/bigger role. If what you imagine is something pharmacists can/should be doing and it doesn’t exist, create it. | https://medium.com/rxradio/thoughts-on-walmart-layoffs-8d66b0fa7b1d | ['Richard Waithe'] | 2019-07-05 02:06:03.605000+00:00 | ['Layoffs', 'Pharmacist', 'Walmart', 'Healthcare', 'Pharmacy'] |
Understanding body mass index chart? | The body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body weight in relation to height, and it’s calculated by dividing the person’s weight in kilograms by the square of their height in meters.
Understanding body mass index chart?
The body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body weight in relation to height, and it’s calculated by dividing the person’s weight in kilograms by the square of their height in meters. A high BMI indicates that you’re at risk for various health problems like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, gallstones, and more.
On the other hand. people with lower BMI are at increased risk for osteoporosis. So keep your diet under control! Remember this too- women have smaller bones than men because they have different levels of estrogen so while adults should not let their BMI get below 18 or above 24 there are certain teens who need to stay at 18 or below to avoid becoming obese).
A body mass index chart is a graphical comparison of an individual’s height and weight. It also takes into account the sex of the person to generate a number that helps approximate their body fat percentage. BMI is the ratio of height to weight (weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared). A person’s BMI is considered “overweight” when the number falls between 25 and 29; “obese” when it exceeds 30.
Maintaining a healthy body weight is associated with length of life and the prevention of chronic illness. Excessive weight is associated with increased risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, type 2 diabetes, gallstones, and certain cancers. A general rule of thumb is that if you have been maintaining your current body weight or losing more than two pounds per week on most diets for two months without any signs that your weight is stable at a lower level then it is time to go on a different diet program to avoid excessive loss rates.
Body Mass Index or BMI is the weight in kilograms divided by the square of his height in meters. Using this chart, you can determine how close your BMI is to being overweight. If your body mass index is 25–29.9, you are overweight. If it falls between 30–39.9, you are obese and if it falls at 40 or over, then you have morbid obesity, which is an extreme increase in body fat with the potential of leading to health complications down the line due to excess carrying of food weight on your frame.”
The body mass index chart ranges from underweight to morbidly obese. It is based on the same number line as height, so you can see how weight increases at different heights. Although it is not an accurate measure of fatness due to body composition discrepancies, if your BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9 then you are a generally healthy weight for that height classification.
BMI Chart, which is also called the Quetelet Body Mass Index chart, was created by the Belgian scientist Adolphe Quetelet in 1832. It can be used to measure relative weight under idealized conditions for height for various populations. But it has been criticized as an appropriate measure of obesity because it does not take into account variations in body fat distributions (android versus gynoid). The BMI is defined as one’s weight divided by their height squared, or generally written as kg/m2.
This chart is very accurate, but it’s difficult to find a BMI that fits your situation. Most people fall between 23–27.5 for Women and 27–30 for Men. But if you are research shows you are an athlete with low body fat, or someone who has gained weight due to metabolic syndrome, chronic conditions or pregnancy — the BMI will not be accurate enough.
It’s important to know what’s happening with your weight so you can have a better understanding of how much excess fat blood sugar levels have on how you feel every day just by looking at the mirror. The BMI chart below can be used to find a healthy body weight. If your height and weight don’t match the closest standard height and weight, adjust the height and weight until they align with one of the symbols. Height should be measured in feet and inches (preferred) or simply in centimeters (feet?3; x 0.0254 = meters; pounds/inches?2; x 0.0254= kilograms).
A lot of people who don’t have good diets tend to be heavier. When you’re heavy, your hormone levels are often imbalanced, which can cause you to stop producing enough insulin or produce too much for the body’s needs. That can lead to type 2 diabetes if left untreated and is one reason why it might seem like people who eat junk food age faster than those with healthy appetites.” What is BMI? BMI stands for Body Mass Index; it’s used as an indication of total body fatness for most men and women above 20 years old (this varies).
The BMI chart was originally created to classify people in various ranges of weight. There are many different variations of the classification chart. They were not specifically designed for athletes, although an athlete weighing 200 lbs would be considered overweight by some calculations, while others would consider them healthy. | https://medium.com/@secondmedicseo/understanding-body-mass-index-chart-97bbbeb9169a | ['Second Medic'] | 2021-11-29 07:23:29.632000+00:00 | ['Health Foods', 'Diet', 'Health', 'Healthy Lifestyle', 'Fat Burning Foods'] |
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Also See : Bates Method — A Natural Way Of Vision Correction
Australia Must Invest in Defence Now — We Must Not Outsource Security | https://medium.com/@davidpetersonaw/unique-fiverr-gig-for-getting-your-business-noticed-3be1ecf6cd15 | ['David Peterson'] | 2021-03-12 18:03:52.100000+00:00 | ['Job Hunting', 'Jobs', 'Freelancers', 'Online', 'Fiverr'] |
Remembering Kai, Meeting Addiction With Empathy | Remembering Kai, Meeting Addiction With Empathy
What comes to mind when you picture an addict? What thoughts fill your head when you hear about the opioid epidemic? How distant are those thoughts from your day-to-day existence?
Four years ago I lost my brother Kai, another casualty in the opioid epidemic. Before Kai’s death, I was blissfully naive about addiction. I knew it was a disease that impacted millions, but somehow up until that fateful October day in 2015 it never impacted anyone I knew or loved — or so I thought.
In the years since Kai’s death, I’ve grappled with understanding addiction. I struggled with processing my own feelings of grief and loss. Both of our parents had passed away. Kai was all that was left of my immediate family. Now he was gone. Why?
I turned to writing to try and cope with the maelstrom of emotions and feelings that swirled inside of me. I wrote Kai a letter on the one-year anniversary of his death, hoping it would provide a cathartic release to the feelings of loss I still couldn’t process. Naive perhaps, but something else was happening.
In my quest to understand addiction and chip away at some of the societal stigmas that make it so difficult for addicts to get the help they need, I discovered how widespread addiction really is — and how difficult of a struggle it is for those battling the disease.
I heard from friends, family, colleagues, clients, executives, and strangers — all opening up to me about their own struggles. They shared how Kai’s story, and my story, touched them. Through their stories I learned how difficult this disease of addiction is to overcome — and how the struggle for sobriety is a daily battle.
My blissful ignorance towards addictions has been replaced by a deep empathy — for both addicts and those who love them.
I had to come to this place of understanding in the hardest way imaginable. The truth is I’ll never fully heal from Kai’s loss. That’s the reality of grief — and I know that. What I can and will do is to try and use this grief and honor Kai by telling his story, and hopefully in doing so change perceptions around addiction.
I recorded the podcast below is a tribute to my brother, Kai. Like all addicts, Kai was so much more than his addiction. In this episode, his friends and family share stories of the man Kai was — and the impact he had on their lives.
If his story resonates with you, please considering sharing so others may reconsider their views on addiction.
Rest in peace, sweet brother. | https://medium.com/@lars/remembering-kai-meeting-addiction-with-empathy-439a0d5177a7 | ['Lars Schmidt'] | 2019-10-15 19:13:16.493000+00:00 | ['Opioid Epidemic', 'Addiction', 'Empathy', 'Mental Health', 'Grief And Loss'] |
Explanation of 42Mark ADAS Test Score | For more information, please visit: https://www.42how.com/en/42mark
In July this year, we released 42Mark ADAS test system. In the V1.0 version of the system, we have tested the usability of ADAS in 8 items, including congestion, special cases, night condition, rainy condition, lane change assist, curve test, human-machine interaction and automatic parking.
These 8 items and 51 sub-items cover the scenes that affect the experience of ADAS, which come from the long-term use of those models with ADAS systems by the employees of 42HOW.
So far, we have tested the ADAS usability of 11 models. You can find the version number of the tested vehicle below. The scores of these 11 models in 42Mark ADAS test system are as follows.
The Tesla Model 3 equipped with HW 3.0 hardware and FSD software scored the highest, and the BMW X5 with the Driving Assistant Pro package ranked second, but its score is 75 points lower than that of the Model 3.
Ranked third, fourth, and fifth are NEV startups from China, NIO, Li Auto and Xpeng. Legacy automakers Volvo XC60 and Cadillac CT6 ranked sixth and seventh, and the rest were models from Chinese self-owned brands.
Model 3, which is the best performer in the test, won 6 championships in 8 sub-scenes. The only two scenes in which it failed to get the first place are the congestion and automatic parking.
Congestion Scene
In terms of congestion, the shortest stopping and following distance of Tesla Model 3 reached 5m. With frequent cut-ins under the road conditions in China, the experience of Model 3 in congestion is not good enough.
The top 1 in this part is the Cadillac CT6. After the Super Cruise function is turned on, the CT6 can be hands-free, with the shortest following and stopping distance of only 2.2 meters, which is not easy to be cut in line. The acceleration and deceleration of the car are very linear and comfortable.
Therefore in the congestion, the experience of Cadillac CT6 and the efficiency of its ADAS system are better than Tesla Model 3.
The BMW X5 can enable the hands-free, low-speed following function when the speed is lower than 60 km/h. With this function on, it still can be hands-free. The experience is very close to that of Cadillac’s Super Cruise.
However, due to district restrictions, this function of the BMW X5 cannot be turned on in our test section.
On the roads where the function cannot be turned on, the X5 can only achieve basic driver assistance functions. If the car is parked for over 5 seconds in a traffic jam, the driver needs to intervene to reactivate the system. The experience in congestion is not good enough. Tesla Model 3, Cadillac XT6, Li One and Xpeng G3 all exceeded 60 seconds. Therefore, the score of the X5 is not high in the congestion scene.
Automatic Parking
Automatic parking is also a scene with Chinese features. In first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, parking spaces are very limited and narrow, so a useful driver assistance can help rookie drivers save a lot of trouble.
For the parking with Chinese features, we set test indicators such as the feasible types of parking space, minimum parking space required, and the parking time.
For the type of available parking spaces, both the Xpeng G3 and the NIO ES6 adopt a visual fusion parking system, which can detect not only the parking spaces with cars on both sides, but also those with only parking lines.
However, in the actual test, we found out that the “detection speed” and “detection accuracy” of the Xpeng G3 are much higher than those of NIO ES6, and the Xpeng G3 does not need to specifically turn on this function before automatic parking and drive the car to the proper place. It is very convenient, all you need to do is switch to the reverse gear to choose the parking slot directly.
Although the size of X5 is very large, automatic parking can be used as long as the parking slot is 87cm larger than the body. 42 seconds for parallel parking and 38 seconds for vertical parking, which are also very fast, not only far exceeding other test models, but also faster than many skilled drivers.
Tesla Model 3 and Cadillac CT6 are not very good at automatic parking.
Tesla Model 3 not only needs a large space to detect the parking slot, but also not as standard as BMW in terms of parking posture.
With the rear-wheel steering technology, the automatic parking of the Cadillac CT6 can be adopted if the parking slot is 100cm longer than the body. However, the CT6 parking is not very automated. You need to manually turn on the automatic parking function for it to detect the slot. It is very troublesome for the driver to switch gears back and forth during the parking process.
Special Cases
Special cases include unconventional road conditions that may occur when using ADAS, such as unclear lanes, tunnels, backlighting, traffic light intersections, etc.
The higher the model scored in the special scene, the better the continuity of the ADAS.
Tesla Model 3 has successfully passed most of the scenes set in our special road conditions thanks to its strong perception and lane prediction capabilities. It only failed in the extremely difficult lane change guided by the traffic cone. But the Model 3 is also the only one that can detect the traffic cone among all the models we have tested.
We also believe that if the FSD Beta is released in China, Tesla can easily pass all our tests.
Cadillac CT6’s Super Cruise can only be used on the sections covered by high-precision maps. Unfortunately, most of the test sections in our special scenes are on urban ground roads and are not covered by the high-precision maps, so we can’t test the Super Cruise.
This also reflects the limited availability of the Cadillac Super Cruise.
Curve Test
Curve test is also a very important item for ADAS. The better it is driving on the curve, the stronger the vehicle’s lateral control is.
Although the Model 3 we tested is not equipped with the FSD Beta, it still passed the most difficult curve A stably.
When I saw that the model with FSD Beta is launched in the US, and it is able to pass the U-shaped curve, I wondered whether we should make the test more difficult?
The BMW X5 and NIO ES6, which use the Mobileye EyeQ4 chip and the front trinocular camera, also perform well on the curve.
The NIO ES6 also passed the most difficult one, the Curve A. But the whole process was not very smooth, and the steering control was not as delicate as Tesla.
The BMW X5 did not pass the Curve A test. However, during the test, we also found out that the BMW X5 has a very strong ability to follow the car at low speeds. It can pass the curve with high curvature following the car in front, but cannot pass without the front car.
What’s more regrettable is that, the Cadillac CT6 is equipped with a high-precision map that predicts the curvature of the road. In theory, it can pass curves with large curvatures smoothly. However, due to the relatively conservative strategy of GM, Super Cruise will remind the driver in advance to take over the car when it’s close to curves with large curvatures.
Night and Rainy Condition
Rain and night are two extreme conditions that ADAS must face. In these two conditions, Tesla’s strong perception also brings a very stable experience.
Lane Change Assist
With the improvement of ADAS, we hope that the degree of automation of vehicles will become higher. Therefore, the lane change assist is also an indispensable part of it.
Tesla Model 3, which is the first to launch the automatic lane change with indicator, provided the best experience. Not only is the available speed very low, but also with acceleration and deceleration during the lane change process. The experience is very similar to the driving of a skilled driver.
Although BMW X5 also carries the function of lane change with indicator, it can only be used when the speed is higher than 70 km/h. This means that we cannot use this function on most urban ring roads.
Cadillac CT6 does not carry this function, but GM also said that the enhanced Super Cruise, which will be released in the second half of 2021, will have the automatic lane change with indicator.
The NEV startups from China, NIO, Li Auto, and Xpeng, also released the automatic lane change function with indicator for the first time, but still not as good as Tesla in terms of user experience.
Human-Machine Interaction
In our opinion, interaction is of crucial importance. It is the only way of communication between people and cars. An excellent interaction allows the driver and the car to work together in a better way.
A good interaction requires the car to tell the driver what it sees on the road. The more detailed, the better. It should be able to offer clear feedback in the case of road conditions that it cannot handle.
From these two perspectives, Tesla’s visualization is the best. It not only displays a rich amount of information, but is also very good in terms of fluency.
NIO, Li Auto, and Xpeng from China also provide visualization, but the effect is still slightly inferior to Tesla.
BMW X5 and Cadillac CT6 have no visual display at all. Fortunately, these two cars have clear light strip displays under working conditions. This is also the difference in the practices of the two automakers.
42HOW’s Take
After testing these 11 models, we have good reasons to believe that the Tesla Model 3 is definitely the best. The experience in most road sections is very good. More importantly, Tesla’s Autopilot is very reliable under working conditions. It helps to make driving easy.
Of course the BMW X5 is not a weak one. The control of the car shows BMW’s rich experience as a legacy automaker. However, there is still a gap compared to the Tesla Model 3.
Among the NEV startups from China, NIO ES6 and Li One are also very good. These two basically carry the same functions as Tesla. However, there is still room for improvement in terms of functional stability and tuning.
The experience of Cadillac CT6 with Super Cruise is comparable to that of Tesla Model 3. In some road conditions, it even exceeds Model 3. But due to the limited coverage of high-precision map, we cannot test it under most of the road conditions. The scenes are also limited in daily life, and can only be used under high-speed road conditions, which is the main reason for its low score. | https://medium.com/@42how/explanation-of-42mark-adas-test-score-3371a038ddb8 | [] | 2020-12-15 02:28:51.305000+00:00 | ['Self Driving Cars', 'Adas', 'Tesla', 'Xpeng', 'Nio'] |
Networking Tricks For the Shy on LinkedIn | Because of how everything and everyone is moving into the online space, networking through LinkedIn and other online platforms have become more prevalent.
Online networking, while obviously being important to one’s professional career, may feel like a difficult task for others who are shy and struggle with social interactions with people, even in an online setting.
Photo by Kane Reinholdtsen on Unsplash
Normally, the advice you would get when it comes to networking is to put yourself out there, but that ignores some emotional struggles other people face like feeling embarrassed or shy during certain situations.
However, online networking doesn’t have to feel like this. Once your emotional barriers are lowered, the actual networking part becomes a lot easier for you.
Here are some networking tricks that for the shy professionals on LinkedIn:
1. Reach Out and Interact
When trying to connect with people on LinkedIn, always try to send them a message and make sure that you personalize your message as well, don’t just send something scripted.
If you view their profile before sending a message and find something interesting about their past experience or work, you can include that in your message so it becomes more personalized.
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
Since people are always looking for positive interactions in websites like LinkedIn, they will likely respond to you and even remember you as a notable connection.
While this may cause some anxious feelings, the absolute worst thing that can happen is that they will just ignore your message. Nothing will really change if you aren’t connected in the first place.
However, if it does pan out well for you and your invite gets accepted, the connections you will build with these people will feel great since they start out pleasantly.
2. Don’t Forget to Give
It can be difficult to instill the mindset of wanting to give something to others when you’re looking for a job or worrying about your own career.
However, you have to reiterate to yourself that you have the ability to give things like your knowledge, attention, and generosity even if you have your own worries about your career.
You can give your knowledge by sharing insightful and informative content with your network and also sharing relevant experiences you’ve gone through either through your posts or private messages.
Photo by Sergey Zolkin on Unsplash
You can give your attention to your network connections by tagging them on relevant posts, commenting on their own posts, and messaging them about certain topics or issues that they’re more familiar with.
You can give your generosity by liking someone’s post on your feed because you thought it was valuable, introducing them to your other connections they may find relevant, or messaging them an article that is relevant to their industry and career.
3. Offer Valuable Content
Lastly, the best thing you can do as someone who is more introverted or shy online, is to post valuable and interesting content on your LinkedIn feed.
Posting content is great for LinkedIn and for nurturing your networks because it adds value to your connections and also allows you to indirectly share more about yourself and your interests.
Offering this valuable content helps you communicate who you are, what you like, and what you do to you to your network without even having conversations with them.
You can post different types of content to your feed. You can share text posts that have stories or anecdotes, online articles, photos, and videos as well.
Photo by Christina on Unsplash
You should mix up your content to avoid looking stale and to avoid having your content look too similar or repetitive for your network.
If you’re looking for content that will give the most value to your connections, then you should focus on creating informative and entertaining video content.
Posting videos on LinkedIn is an effective way for you to gather engagement and create conversations within your network about your company or your industry.
You don’t even have to be in these videos to make them effective as long as your video contains elements that are interesting, relevant and entertaining to your connections.
Our team at VideoBlast can help create these videos for you which you can post on your LinkedIn profile and feed.
With VideoBlast, you can have videos that don’t even need your presence as we have everything that you need to show the value that you or your company adds to your networks.
Our videos fit all of LinkedIn’s specific video requirements and formats and also include subtitles which makes them more accessible and viewable to your connections. Let us help you nurture your LinkedIn network with interesting and engaging videos.
Lucky for you, you can avail of our limited time offer of receiving a free video that you can use for your LinkedIn feed. | https://medium.com/@videoblastcontent/networking-tricks-for-the-shy-on-linkedin-4780dd2afe4a | ['Jc Bougle'] | 2020-12-15 02:03:10.859000+00:00 | ['LinkedIn', 'Corporate Culture', 'Networking', 'Video Marketing', 'Network Marketing'] |
What if Trump Orders the Military to Overturn the Election? | Politics |Election 2020
What if Trump Orders the Military to Overturn the Election?
Shutterstock
An ominous feeling has set in for many Americans, even in light of the good news that the second COVID-19 vaccine made by Moderna has been approved. The stock market has picked up accordingly in light of new revelations that another vaccine is coming to the rescue. President-Elect Joe Biden announced yesterday that the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic are ahead of us and not behind us, reminding us Americans to be vigilant.
Nonetheless, there’s an atmosphere of relief pertaining to the COVID pandemic that’s already claimed more than 300,000 American lives. Science has come through. The dedicated teams of researchers have worked tirelessly to deliver a modern miracle of science and many (though not all) of us are deeply grateful.
But looming on the horizon is the question: will President Trump cross the proverbial Rubicon? Will Trump heed to the advice of disgraced National Security Advisor Mike Flynn and conspiracy theorist lawyer Sidney Powell and try to undo the election using the full force of the United States military?
Time will tell.
But reports are coming from the White House that are painting a deeply concerning picture of a Trump administration in the throes of chaos, and a president who’s mental state is unstable. Trump’s taking his election loss especially badly and it seems like a child who’s never been told no is finally realizing for the first time, the world isn’t his through birthright and privilege alone.
Everyone has tried to tell Trump, in recent weeks, that he’s lost the election. Some have politely suggested it, others, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell congratulating President-Elect Joe Biden on his electoral college victory, the only victory that matters in the United States election, unfortunately, but Trump seems to not be able to accept the reality: it’s over; he’s lost.
He’s increasingly pushing away anyone who won’t agree with him that he did, in fact, win the election and that he can overturn the results through some nefarious means yet to be discovered. His inner circle is increasingly filled with crazy conspiracy mongers. This all culminated in Friday’s meeting where a reportedly “heated” discussion took place where Trump, Flynn, and Powell weighed the options of actually using military force as a last-ditch effort to maintain a grasp on the power he’s come to love so much.
Part of me wonders if it’s the power that motivates Trump most, or if it’s the fear of being prosecuted once he steps out of office, or perhaps even the fact that a fragile and boyish ego like his simply can’t accept that he lost at something, that he isn’t the best, that he’s less-than.
For people like Trump, coming in second place is a stain on what he believes are his “superior genes”; if you read the racist undertones in that statement, relax, a lot of us did and you’re not alone.
And to make matters worse, the Republican Party is fracturing and devolving into two warring factions as we speak, meaning that any sense of cohesive leadership that might otherwise talk Trump down from his seething anger is busy trying to hold the failing party together.
Not to mention, the massive cybersecurity breach believed to have been carried out by Russia, a breach that Trump will neither acknowledge or speak about.
All of this points to the overarching question of who will do something if Trump actually has the audacity to order the United States military to overturn the election and hold a new one — one where he wins? He’s reportedly already asked about doing so, meaning he’s taken the initiative to enquire about it. Reports to which he replied a very predictable, “Fake news.”
For what it’s worth, even my most Trump-loving military and ex-military friends say there’s not a chance the U.S. military would ever go for such a thing. It would be the end of the Republic as we know it and it makes virtually no sense for career brass, hardened military generals who’ve dedicated themselves to the defense of our nation and constitution, to unanimously do as disgraced general Michael Flynn has done and suggest we scrap the American democratic experiment.
It’s notable that The Oath Keepers, a pro-Trump militia group has outspokenly said that they feel Trump should overturn the election. And just like that, half of the Republican Party finally outed themselves as the full-blown fascists that they are, unable to accept the outcome of a democratic election.
Similarly, OAN, America One News, a far-right Trump-supporting news site, has suggested Trump use the insurrection act to overturn the election. The fact that Trump and his merry band of close conspirators aren’t alone in this quest is startling.
They’re terrifyingly willing to trash and dispose of the Republic because this particular sect is filled to the brim with Trumpian man-babies willing to burn it all to the ground because they didn’t get their ways. Like children throwing a tantrum.
On the other side of the fence, you have retired four-star general Barry McCaffrey said, “If I was a CIA officer trying to understand what was going on in a third-world country and I saw this pattern of behavior, I would say the strong man’s trying to take over the government and defy an election.”
McCaffrey continued, stating that he believes Republicans in Congress need to speak up and speak out against Trump’s toying with such dangerous ideas. He called plots to use the military to overturn the election “thuggery.”
Source: MSNBC; YouTube
It’s important to note, McCaffrey says he’s incredibly doubtful that the military would actually ever disregard the constitution in favor of a draft dodger who avoided the military through a series of deferments.
It’s a proposition that’s as laughable as it sounds, Trump and his clown show of conspiracy mongers overtaking the most powerful nation in the world, a nation with a very serious, long, rich military tradition. It’s hard to envision the entire U.S. military suddenly coming under the Trumpian spell. Especially considering Trump’s former Defense Secretary and military star, General James Mattis, has spoken out against Trump’s antics in the past.
I breathe a sigh of relief when I think about the fact that important people in our military culture aren’t on-board with such an idea and military leaders are alert to the fact that they may have to push back against Trump, refusing to carry out any illegal orders asked of them.
Though it is chilling to think that we’ve come this close, that Trump’s actually considering trying this hellishly unthinkable sends the signal that we’ve come so close to American Fascism it’s worrisome; or, at the very least, we’ve embraced autocracy.
We’ve come so close that, when the dust settles, the only thing that will have stopped us from losing our Republic was the military, supposing they refuse to execute such brazenly anti-American orders.
It would be the death of America and it makes me wonder how we came this close and what we can do to make sure that Trump or someone like Trump, never gets this close to power again. We must never let this happen again. | https://medium.com/@joemduncan/what-if-trump-orders-the-military-to-overturn-the-election-76f1ccc6644d | ['Joe Duncan'] | 2020-12-23 20:27:50.776000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Military', 'Election 2020', 'Coronavirus', 'Politics'] |
Four Retail Trends for 2021 | Four Retail Trends for 2021
Photo by Moritz Knöringer on Unsplash
2020 shook things up.
While it’s easy to focus on the negative, 2020 also brought with it a flood of positive innovations and advancements for the retail industry. As the proverb goes, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” To quote Trendwatching, “Disruption allows new ideas to take hold.” This year, consumers had new needs and it became necessary for brands to consider how to meet those evolving needs in new ways.
In 2020, brands made their experiences more seamless, intuitive, and delightful. They considered how to deliver additional value to customers at every stage of the purchase process. Brands became more purposeful and more practical in ways that customers appreciated and affirmed.
So, as retail executives look towards 2021, what trends will stay and which will go? How should leaders orient their business strategy?
Here are four (tactical) retail trend predictions for 2021:
Photo by Super Straho on Unsplash
Delivery is here to stay.
Consumers have latched onto delivery options and aren’t letting go. Since the pandemic began, demand for retail deliveries has more than doubled. Grocery and food delivery companies like UberEats, GrubHub and Instacart have forever changed the way that people shop for necessities. Amazon Prime has redefined customers’ retail expectations — and traditional delivery services like USPS, FedEx, and UPS are straining to meet demand this holiday season. As a result, many retailers are partnering with last-mile delivery services that leverage gig workers to make local deliveries. This is beneficial on multiple fronts. For traditional delivery companies who partner with last-mile delivery services, this presents a highly-scalable opportunity. Anyone with extra room in their trunk or backseat can deliver merchandise. This expands the capacity of delivery companies while providing people with another way to earn income in this season and allowing customers to get their deliveries faster than ever before.
It also allows local stores to compete with eCommerce behemoths like Amazon, as they can offer same-day delivery too. For example, Bed, Bath and Beyond recently announced a partnership with last-mile delivery company Shipt to offer same-day deliveries at a flat rate of $4.99 for orders over $39. Shipt already has similar delivery agreements in place with other retailers, including Costco, CVS, and Target.
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
Alternative business models offer greater value.
In the traditional sales model, a one-time transaction took place in which customers paid a set price for value (e.g., a product or service). In today’s environment, customers are becoming more comfortable with paying for value over time. A growing number of companies are now making products available — and even automatically refillable — with subscription models. Buy-now-pay-later options are also more popular than ever. Popular pay-over-time company, Affirm is now valued at $2.9B and launched a new app “that enables current and new users to make purchases and pay over time at nearly any online retailer and in-store location where Apple Pay and Google Pay are accepted.”
In addition, retail is seeing the rise of the sell / return / resell model in which returned items can be resold individually to consumers or resold in bulk to other wholesalers. Nordstrom, Macy’s, and Patagonia are already embracing this model. It makes sense for retailers, as nearly 25% of all online purchases are sent back and would just be counted as a loss without the opportunity to resell. Customers appreciate the ability to purchase high-quality, hardly-used (or not-at-all used) items for a lower price.
Brick-and-mortar stores aren’t going away — they’re just evolving.
In-store experiences are being redesigned to capitalize on what consumers appreciate about online shopping. For example, Walmart recently announced that it will start overhauling its stores to offer a more ‘airport-style’ experience with bolder signage, in-store checkout, and app usage for navigation and inspiration. These mirror consumers’ favorite elements of online shopping — the ability to search for inspiration, apply filters and navigate easily (e.g., clear signage), and checkout in a contactless way.
Other brands are pivoting to make their in-store experience more, well, experiential. For example, Canada Goose is building an “Arctic Room” demo environment for consumers to try out their products in-person before perhaps purchasing online.
Companies are also finding ways to leverage their brick-and-mortar stores as additional fulfillment centers. This allows them to leverage space that they are already leasing instead of paying additional costs, and cuts down on delivery times to customers by leveraging local stores for shipments.
Customer service goes digital.
For years, eCommerce stores have been increasingly embracing virtual assistants and chatbots as ways to cut down on service costs while offering customers a more personalized online experience.
With the rise of video conferencing tools like Zoom, retailers are now starting to offer sales consultations and customer service offerings over video. This allows for a personalized, one-on-one experience while allowing customers the flexibility to call in from anywhere. This allows customers to speak with specialists, view virtual demos, and receive individualized specs and pricing.
Ecommerce retailers are employing recommendation engines — or, AI-led tools that offer recommendations to customers based on their data. Data includes available information on customers’ behaviors, experiences, preferences, and interests in addition to the behavior of similar users. Netflix’s recommendation engine is a great example. Instead of requiring customers to search through the thousands of titles available, Netflix distills recommendations into categories like “Suggested for You” that saves viewers time and delivers a better experience.
About What’s Next Labs: What’s Next Labs is a publication of INTO, an agency that empowers businesses to transform their aspirational goals into actual growth. Learn more about INTO at into.agency. | https://medium.com/whats-next-labs/four-retail-trends-for-2021-56119dcd07b7 | ['Mackenzie Caudill'] | 2020-12-15 15:57:36.895000+00:00 | ['Planning', 'Trends', 'Strategy', 'Ecommerce', 'Retail'] |
Our Shared Vision of the Future | It’s time to start being honest with ourselves. Blockchains are confusing, and kind of scary. They’re not easy to understand. People use words like “trustless” and “consensus” and “incentive structure” when describing them. Like what does that even mean?
Photo by Andreas P. on Unsplash
Well, society is evolving. Right now, we’re going through a rebirth of trust and values.
We started out trusting each other using facial expressions, body language, and eventually spoken language. Trust was based on social reputation.
As technology continued to grow, trust became “institutionalized” through the rise of centralized entities, like Facebook, Google, or the Federal Reserve. This was the natural evolution.
This new global, institutionalized trust model allowed strangers all over the world to communicate, share knowledge, participate in markets, and do business. That is, so long as we trusted the institutions in the middle to properly handle our data and money.
Things are good until they aren’t. But the shift is happening. I can sense it. Can you?
Public blockchain systems, beginning with Bitcoin, use our common interest — money — to incentivize immutability and finality of cryptographically-pure data.
That’s at the core of what’s happening. This a beautiful base on which to build new trust models. In fact, the builders among us are doing just that: hard at work designing, prototyping, and creating new businesses and industries based on a provably better way to participate in self-sovereign digital activities.
And with these new systems, the world is figuring out what it means to continue participating in a global digital economy like we’re used to, but without that traditional centralized institutional elephant in the room that we’re currently begrudgingly using to power our digital lives and businesses.
Like all good movements, this one happens from the bottom -> up. These new systems have been important since their ideas began to form over a decade ago. But they only truly matter once integrating with them is the norm. When the fabric of secured blockchain systems underpin our digital activities, considering the alternative will be ludicrous.
It’s time for us, as individuals, as businesses, as a community, as a species, to demand better for ourselves. We’re entrenched in our current ways, but don’t have to stay here. Let’s walk down this path together. | https://medium.com/decentlabs/our-shared-vision-of-the-future-d518791f1a26 | ['Adam Gall'] | 2018-12-18 17:20:03.190000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Future', 'Trust', 'Evolution', 'Bitcoin'] |
Top 4 advantages of having an Enterprise Quality Management System on the Salesforce.com platform | What difference does it make to build and run an Enterprise Quality Management System (EQMS) on Salesforce.com (Force.com) platform?
In brief? A lot.
You see, as in Genetics, the qualities of the parent platform are bound to reflect on the apps built on it. That is why an EQMS built on Force.com will deliver to its users all the advantages of the parent platform which, incidentally, are the very same benefits that EQMS providers aim to offer their users.
What are the characteristics of a good EQMS?
While the market is full of tools that promise to manage quality, very few manage to do so effectively. They are either technologically behind, expensive or resource intensive. Buying such a solution adds to the complexities rather than simplifying the operational challenges. A good EQMS, on the other hand, will turn each and every member of the organization a stakeholder in the organization’s quality through an intuitive interface that facilitates collaboration and delivers insights for continual growth.
1. It should be technologically advanced
Those investing in technology should be aware of the risk of increasingly short lifecycles of technological innovations. That is why it is critical to invest in technologies that not only address the current challenges but have the inherent scalability to adjust to the requirements of the future.
Greg Goodwin, on his post on LNS Research says: “Increased automation, mobility, Cloud solutions, the Internet of Things (IoT), enterprise manufacturing solutions, etc. — as these trends and technologies take hold, manufacturers are able to collaborate more effectively, forecast and respond to demand more accurately, gain better visibility into internal and external processes, and measure their performance more precisely.”
The Salesforce Edge: The Salesforce® platform is built using some of the most advanced technologies, including the ones mentioned above. In fact, Salesforce is the cloud platform of choice for over 4 Million businesses worldwide. Salesforce1, its mobile app, makes solutions accessible to everyone at any time, at any place and on any device. Salesforce rolls out at least three updates every year without causing any downtime to its customers so that latest technological developments and innovations integrate seamlessly into their operations, without causing a single blip.
The Salesforce® platform is built using some of the most advanced technologies, including the ones mentioned above. In fact, Salesforce is the cloud platform of choice for over 4 Million businesses worldwide. Salesforce1, its mobile app, makes solutions accessible to everyone at any time, at any place and on any device. Salesforce rolls out at least three updates every year without causing any downtime to its customers so that latest technological developments and innovations integrate seamlessly into their operations, without causing a single blip. An EQMS platform built and run on Salesforce would therefore not become obsolete in near future. It would be supported by some of the most robust and relevant technologies around. It would also be supported by one of the most dependable support teams in the world.
2. It should not be resource intensive:
An effective EQMS is one that incorporates measures to integrate quality in all organizational operations without making great demands on organizational resources, namely: the IT Team and of course, the organizational budget. It should also be able to operate in the background without interfering in any operations and without causing any downtime. An effective EQMS would help the organization become leaner and more efficient instead of acting as another hurdle to be overcome or another box to be tick-marked.
The Salesforce Edge: Any EQMS built and run on Salesforce would, by default, be on a modern cloud and hence be much more scalable and cost-effective as compared to an on-premise solution. The drag and drop functionality of Salesforce Force.com enables even non-coders to take ownership of process flows. As a result, people driving the business on the ground are able to translate their requirements and their vision into process flows themselves instead of depending upon the IT Team. Reduced cycle time, greater ownership and reduced workload create a win-win situation for all.
3. It should be pocket-friendly
Quality is a mandate for organizations of all sizes. Then why should quality management tools be priced such that they can be afforded only by large enterprises? Labels such as ‘enterprise-level security and scalability’ are somewhat misleading because any business, irrespective of size, would want to secure its data and need the comfort of scaling up or down as directed by the market.
The Salesforce Edge: An EQMS platform built on Salesforce is a highly configurable set of solutions that can be implemented at once or as the company grows per business’ requirements. This results in three kinds of cost benefits. First, cloud infrastructure drastically cuts down investment for in-house infrastructure and its maintenance. Second, the legendary support of Salesforce ensures that your business does not suffer any downtime. Third, customers can pay on a monthly subscription basis. By not having to commit to a pay for all user licenses and modules upfront businesses using an EQMS built on Salesforce can justify their total cost of ownership each year.
4. It should be highly flexible
A good EQMS adapts itself to the business in question rather than forcing the organization to alter its processes in order to implement it successfully. It should also be able to get integrated with legacy or any modern cloud-based ERP solutions so that it may draw relevant data for analysis. In other words, the EQMS would be an asset, not an obstacle, on the route to achieving quality objectives. That is why it is imperative for an EQMS to be easily configurable.
The Salesforce Edge: An EQMS built and run on Salesforce, would make use of the drag and drop functionality of the Salesforce platform. While such an EQMS would have pre-developed processes for common functions such as Audit, CAPA, Change Management, Document Control, etc., it would also encourage users to go several steps further by configuring the solution to solve their unique problems. For instance, it would enable users to tailor the interface to their liking, define the metadata that must be captured, configure workflows, personalize language translations and deliver useful insights that propel business growth. It would also give users the freedom to explore more applications through Salesforce AppExchange, the world’s leading business application marketplace.
Salesforce has been recognized as a leader in the Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Application Platform as a Service, Worldwide 2016. In fact, industry experts are of the opinion that Salesforce doesn’t really have competition in its league. With organizations and manufacturers, especially the ones operating in highly regulated industries, conducting their business across geopolitical regions, the management of quality demands a platform as nimble, reliable and cost-effective as Salesforce. In fact, I don’t think there are any drawbacks whatsoever to having an EQMS on Salesforce. Can you think of any? Do comment below!
The vision at ComplianceQuest is to transform quality and compliance into a strategic advantage for our customers through experience, expertise and passion. ComplianceQuest is an innovative, 100% cloud based Enterprise Quality Management System solution company. We provide an enterprise grade solution that streamlines quality, compliance, content and collaboration management initiatives and strategies across diverse, globally based supply chain networks.
For more information, or to request a demo with a ComplianceQuest expert, contact ComplianceQuest today. | https://medium.com/@compliancequesteqms/top-4-advantages-of-having-an-enterprise-quality-management-system-on-the-salesforce-com-platform-86ed94960457 | [] | 2020-12-21 18:31:14.209000+00:00 | ['Salesforce', 'Quality Management', 'Change Management', 'Document Control'] |
Burnout, imagination and hope: some reflections | Illustration by Maurice Sendak, from “Open House for Butterflies” by Ruth Krauss
Burnout and bold thinking
I had intended to write this post a month after stepping down from my leadership position at Little Village. But that date came, and I still felt broken and exhausted. So I left it. Another month passed. Still, the cursor winked at me from the blank page around it. God, I must be really burnt out, I thought. I’d never been stuck for words before like that.
Until I stopped work in mid-February, I don’t think I’d realised how profoundly exhausted I was. I’d been in the job for five years, having launched Little Village when my youngest child was 3 weeks old. I juggled work with three small children and a partner who suffered a major breakdown 18 months ago.
Then the pandemic hit. Guiding a frontline organisation through a global crisis is not for the faint hearted. I felt a huge weight of responsibility for looking after our team, ensuring that they felt safe, and had the space to care for family, and in some cases to grieve for loved ones. Together we carried the fears and profound anxieties of the thousands of families we supported. Every day we navigated other people’s terrible situations and did what we could, while also coming to terms with the fact that it would never be enough.
I’m not sharing this in a bid for sympathy. I’m aware that I’m enormously privileged to be able to budget to take some time out of paid work right now, before I start my new job in September. And I know that many, many people are working harder than I have been, with less security, fewer prospects and an absence of support from a social network. So yes, I am lucky — I feel that more deeply than ever after five years of working up close to poverty.
So the reason I want to talk about this stuff is because I’m worried. Unhelpful systems and structures get perpetuated when we only have the energy for tweaks and small improvements. And when people are in burnout mode, they lose perspective and confidence — which for me at least, made me doubtful I could ever pull the radical stuff off, even if I’d had the energy for anything so big or exhausting in the first place.
If our leaders are so caught up in the work that they can’t reflect, dream, and hope for a better world, then we’re gambling our capacity to bring about the scale of change we need now.
‘Imagination is a form of planning’
I love this quote, from Gloria Steinham. I take from it that all the most radical ideas start in the same place — our imaginations. We have to allow a space for dreams to happen, in order for new ideas to take shape.
I worry that there is such a dysfunctional working culture in civil society organisations that this simply isn’t happening. It’s disarmingly easy to get caught up with keeping the show on the road in the charity world. In a tough and unforgiving funding environment, sustaining our organisations is often a challenging enough job (and let’s face it, the funding application forms almost always force us into a narrow organisational mindset — the subject of another blog/rant). All the incentives drive us towards a focus on keeping our organisations alive, rather than changing the world, as an end goal.
“Designing policy or strategy without an imaginative sense of where you are going means your best efforts will land you toward the front of the status quo, but not ahead of it.” — Al Etmanski
But keeping the show on the road simply is not enough for the scale of the challenges we now face. Enormous holes are appearing in our social fabric as poverty and inequality continue to rise, and as we hurtle towards catastrophic environmental destruction at an alarming speed. Our current democratic and economic frameworks seem ill-equipped to handle any of this.
A response that’s proportionate to these challenges will require deep change and action on many levels. We will need reorient ourselves towards a way of living together that’s grounded in shared prosperity rather than growth alone; to shift towards regeneration as an organising principle, rather than extraction. That means we’ll need to re-imagine the way we work, for example, and the way we care; we will need to think again about how we look after our shared resources like land and public spaces, and how we choose to distribute assets between generations.
I do not believe we’ll be able to make any of this happen if our leaders are so up against the wall that they can’t engage their own imaginations in how to tackle the change that’s needed. Because if as leaders we can’t imagine, how on earth are we going to ignite our collective imagination about the world we want to create?
Geoff Mulgan has written persuasively about the need to address our social imagination deficit here. It feels like there’s a growing energy around this work. See Rob Hopkins’ book, and his podcast with Panthea Lee and Cassie Robinson. for starters. You could also check out Ann Pendleton Julian’s work, or listen to the lovely soundcasts of New Constellations. I’m very excited about emerging work around what an ‘imagination infrastructure’ might look like to embed the sort of leadership qualities I’m talking about here.
“What if what we see of the world around us is really just what we’ve been told to see?… when we start to let our curiosity wander, we start to see there are other ways things can be” — Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan
The bottom line is that imagination needs time, space and stimulation to come alive. We need leaders who are curious and who like to dream. Leaders who love to cultivate an expansive hinterland of ideas and influences, and who assemble diverse teams who bring with a breadth of experience and thought to the task. Leaders who are able to think boldly, inclusively and with a scale of ambition that matches the challenges we now face. We will not get any of that if we can’t design leadership roles that allow for space to breathe.
The patterning of hope
Burnout crowded out my space to dream; it also killed my hope. I lost my joy, and with it my belief that things could change for the better. The awfulness of pandemic didn’t help, as we saw again and again how unfairly it hit the families we support. As 2020 unfolded, I felt impotent — raging and impotent. Existing for any period of time in these energetically negative emotions is an exhausting experience. I started to feel that we can never solve poverty, that there will always be children whose lives don’t start in the way they deserve. I’m not usually a person who carries round that kind of fatalism: I felt out of place in my own mind.
“Despair is thinking tomorrow will be the same as today” — Rob Bell
Over the last three months I’ve been taking steps to recover from this place. I learnt to meditate and have done so daily since February. For the last month or so, I’ve exercised regularly (I was too knackered before then to contemplate running, even when I knew it would be good for me). I’ve been doing a lot of creative writing; I’ve walked miles and miles with friends, or in the company of podcasts and great music. I’ve devoured books, often having two or three on the go at once (an annoying habit, I know). I’ve actually enjoyed playing with my children. I feel less brittle and more connected.
And I’m struck by how different the world looks from here.
Yes, of course, the scale of the problems are the same. My increase in joy and connection hasn’t changed the world. But what’s different is my response. I feel the glimmer of hope warming me up again, despite the fact I really don’t know if we have what it takes to tackle the interconnected crises we’re now facing. I like Rebecca Solnit’s description of what hope is in this context:
“Hope … means another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed. Hope calls for action; action is not possible without hope.”
Hope is a gamble. We don’t know that our work will make the difference that’s needed. But in recognising that uncertainty, we are also able to see that our actions — our choice to take action — has the potential to make a difference. As a historian, I love this. Things have changed. And so we can change them again. This is the message we need all our civil society leaders need to truly believe, in their hearts as well as their heads. It is from here they can convey the possibility of a better world, and the potential we all carry to act in ways that move us towards that world.
My personal experience is that hope is harder to summon when you’re buried in the overwhelm of burn-out. To be able to “throw ourselves actively into what is becoming” — in Ernst Bloch’s words — requires energy and bravery. We need leaders who have the space and support for these qualities.
One final reflection on this. I am a white, middle class, educated woman. I have enjoyed privilege all my life. I am not carrying with me the weight of years of discimination or oppression — and yet I still feel all of this. To nurture leaders from a more diverse set of backgrounds and experiences, then the task of creating space to ignite their imaginations, dreams and power to hope becomes even more important — and it needs to be coupled with time and space for healing and recovery (check out the work of Black Thrive and Healing Justice for more on this agenda).
The beginning of the next chapter
I’m doing a LOT of thinking about the culture and behaviours we need to grow at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation when I start work there in September, in order for us to play a role in moving towards a more regenerative, socially just world. I suspect I’ll be writing lots more about this in the months to come so please treat this blog as some personal reflections. I’d love to hear from others about their experiences too.
I also want to acknowledge that while I’m writing here about leadership, I fully believe we need to scaffold that leadership with better institutions that are also geared towards nurturing more collective imagination and the development of plausible alternative futures. There’s lots of work going on about this and in fact you can join a webinar on the subject of ‘imagination infrastructure’ with an incredible line up of speakers in a couple of weeks’ time — see here for more.
There are many other leadership qualities that really matter (and no one has summed them up more beautifully than Graham Leicester here, in my view). But I see a capacity to imagine, and a deeply-held sense of hope, as pretty foundational to everything else. At their heart, they are both expressions of the belief that another world is possible. And surely, after the year we’ve had, we should be able to see just how vital that kind of visionary energy is going to be, as we tackle the enormous global challenges of this next decade. | https://medium.com/@sophiaparker-241/burnout-imagination-and-hope-some-reflections-9d29267b61e1 | ['Sophia Parker'] | 2021-05-13 10:35:27.593000+00:00 | ['Imagination', 'Hope', 'Charity', 'Civil Society'] |
How Did The Aus Market Perform in March? | Despite ongoing concerns that the market is overheating, share markets continued to perform strongly during March. The Australian market jumped higher for a sixth consecutive month after economic growth and employment numbers both came in better than expected. The rapid rollout of vaccinations in the US, combined with the approval of President Biden’s stimulus package, led to a bumper month in Global Developed Markets. While policy tightening in China was influential to the lower relative performance in Emerging Markets.
Vaccination rollout off to a slow start
Australia has now had its first full month of COVID vaccinations, and fair to say, the rollout rates have been somewhat disappointing so far. Having initially promised to deliver 4 million doses by the end of March, Australia only managed 700 thousand, which equates to just 2.8% of the population.
Israel has been the global frontrunner and is currently vaccinating its people faster than any other nation. While the US and the UK have both made impressive inroads with their rollout programs as well.
Although Australia’s rollout has been plagued by supply and distribution issues, it could be argued that there just hasn’t been the same urgency compared to countries like the US and the UK, whose situations have been far more desperate.
However, as we saw in Brisbane prior to Easter, until an overwhelming majority of the population has been vaccinated, countries will continue to be at risk of additional virus outbreaks and further lockdowns. Additionally, any subsequent disruptions are likely to have an adverse impact on share market performance, given economic recoveries are already largely priced into markets.
Unemployment continues to fall
On a more positive note, Australia’s employment numbers have been really encouraging in recent months. As of the end of February, 99.8% of the jobs lost between March and May at the height of the pandemic, have now been regained.
A key metric that is often observed by the RBA when setting its target interest rate is the level of underutilisation or spare capacity in the labour market. Spare capacity is typically measured by summing together those that are unemployed, with those that are underemployed and would like to be working more hours.
When spare capacity is reduced to a low enough level, it tends to force upward pressure on wage growth and inflation, and this is exactly what the RBA will be wanting to see before it considers raising interest rates. However, with JobKeeper terminating at the end of March it’s expected that up to 150,000 jobs might soon be lost. Meaning that this downward trend in unemployment may begin to track sideways, at least for the next few months.
Family office sting
Family office firm, Archegos Capital Management sent shock waves through the market during March, after they were forced to sell down highly leveraged positions worth billions of dollars. In the aftermath, Archegos is said to have lost approximately $US20 billion dollars in just a few days. While the firm’s lenders, Credit Suisse and Nomura, could be facing losses of $US5 billion.
The case study highlights several underlying themes that are present in today’s market environment. Firstly, with interest rates at record lows, there is an increasing temptation for investors to take on greater risk in pursuit of higher returns. The return for holding cash is negligible today, while borrowing rates have never been cheaper. The enticement for investors is to borrow, or leverage up, and put their money into growth assets, so long as they can afford the additional risk.
This leads us to the second key takeaway, being the absence of prudent risk management by all parties involved. It is absolutely essential that all investors, big or small, make appropriate risk assessments when formulating their investment plans. At a minimum, the following two points should always be addressed:
How much risk is required to achieve the desired return; and How much risk can you afford, should market conditions become unfavourable.
As with the GameStop episode earlier this year, the fall of Archegos will certainly cause some big losses for individuals, however, the impact on the broader market should be less significant. As always, investors can best limit their exposures to such instances by remaining diversified across multiple regions and sectors, with an appropriate allocation to both growth and defensive assets. | https://medium.com/@capital-partners/march-market-update-559f18a0dc85 | ['Capital Partners Private Wealth Advisers'] | 2021-04-09 04:23:54.123000+00:00 | ['Stock Market', 'Asx', 'Investing', 'Asset Clas', 'Market'] |
Top Vue Packages for Adding Avatar, Slides, and Tooltips | Photo by David Clode on Unsplash
Vue.js is an easy to use web app framework that we can use to develop interactive front end apps.
In this article, we’ll look at how the best packages for adding avatars, swiping, and tooltips.
vue-avatar
vue-avatar lets us add an avatar to our Vue app easily.
To use it, we run:
npm i vue-avatar
Then we can use it by importing the Avatar component:
<template>
<div class="demo">
<avatar username="Jane Smith"></avatar>
</div>
</template>
<script>
import Avatar from "vue-avatar"; export default {
name: "app",
components: {
Avatar
}
};
</script>
We just set the name as the value of the username property to display a circle with the initials.
To add an image, we can use the src prop:
<template>
<div class="demo">
<avatar src="http://placekitten.com/200/200"></avatar>
</div>
</template>
<script>
import Avatar from "vue-avatar"; export default {
name: "app",
components: {
Avatar
}
};
</script>
It also supports changing many other options like color, background, size, roundedness, custom styling, and more.
vue-awesome-swiper
The vue-awesome-swiper component lets us add a slider to add that we can swipe to our Vue app.
It’s great for creating carousels and slide shows.
To install it, we run:
npm i vue-awesome-swiper
Then we can use it by registering the plugin and importing the styles:
main.js
import Vue from "vue";
import App from "./App.vue";
import "swiper/css/swiper.css";
import VueAwesomeSwiper from "vue-awesome-swiper";
Vue.use(VueAwesomeSwiper); Vue.config.productionTip = false; new Vue({
render: h => h(App)
}).$mount("#app");
Then we can use it in our component by writing:
<template>
<swiper ref="mySwiper" :options="swiperOptions">
<swiper-slide v-for="n in 10" :key="n">Slide {{n}}</swiper-slide>
<div class="swiper-pagination" slot="pagination"></div>
</swiper>
</template>
<script>
export default {
name: "carrousel",
data() {
return {
swiperOptions: {
pagination: {
el: ".swiper-pagination"
}
}
};
},
computed: {
swiper() {
return this.$refs.mySwiper.$swiper;
}
},
mounted() {
this.swiper.slideTo(3, 1000, false);
}
};
</script>
swiper-slide has the slides.
swiperOptions has the options. We set the button for changing slide to have the class swiper-pagination .
The swiper object is available in the this.$refs.mySwiper.$swiper property.
Then we can call methods on it like the slideTo method to slide to the slide with the given index.
1000 is the delay.
The 3rd argument indicates that we don’t want to run callbacks.
Alternatively, we can use it as a directive.
For instance, we can write:
<template>
<div v-swiper:mySwiper="swiperOptions">
<div class="swiper-wrapper">
<div class="swiper-slide" :key="n" v-for="n in 10">
<img src="http://placekitten.com/200/200">
<p>slide {{n}}</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="swiper-pagination"></div>
</div>
</template>
<script>
export default {
name: "carrousel",
data() {
return {
swiperOptions: {
pagination: {
el: ".swiper-pagination"
}
}
};
}
};
</script>
We used the v-swiper:mySwiper directive to create our swiper with the swiperOptions object.
Now we get the same slider, but without sliding automatically to the given slide.
The classes must be set so that we get the right items on the slide.
It can handle many events like clicking sides, transitions, and more.
v-tooltip
To add a tooltip to our Vue app, we can use the v-tooltip component.
To install it, we run:
npm i v-tooltip
Then we can use it by writing:
import Vue from "vue";
import App from "./App.vue";
import VTooltip from "v-tooltip"; Vue.use(VTooltip); Vue.config.productionTip = false; new Vue({
render: h => h(App)
}).$mount("#app");
to register the components and directives.
Then in our component, we can write:
<template>
<div>
<button v-tooltip="`You have ${count} messages`">click me</button>
</div>
</template>
<script>
export default {
data() {
return { count: 100 };
}
};
</script>
to see a tooltip when we hover over the button.
The v-tooltip component lets us add the tooltip.
We can also change the position with some modifiers:
<template>
<div>
<button v-tooltip.right="`You have ${count} messages`">click me</button>
</div>
</template>
<script>
export default {
data() {
return { count: 100 };
}
};
</script>
We can also add classes so that we can style the tooltip:
<template>
<div>
<button
v-tooltip.right="{ content: `You have ${count} messages`, classes: ['a', 'b'] }"
>click me</button>
</div>
</template>
<script>
export default {
data() {
return { count: 100 };
}
};
</script>
We have the classes property in the object. content has the content.
Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash
Conclusion
The vue-avatar package lets us add an avatar easily.
The v-tooltip package is a great package for adding tooltips into our app.
vue-awesome-swiper lets us add slides to our app.
JavaScript In Plain English
Did you know that we have four publications and a YouTube channel? Find them all at plainenglish.io and subscribe to our YouTube channel! | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/top-vue-packages-for-adding-avatar-slides-and-tooltips-2d2f04a90410 | ['John Au-Yeung'] | 2020-06-25 16:24:10.859000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Web Development', 'Technology'] |
The Agile values 20 years later | Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
The manifesto was done by software people, and every piece of software is a tool!
Also Agilists keep selling you processes!
because tools and processes are AWESOME, until they are not.
We are but the ape that discovered tools first.
Every object around you? Clothes? Chair? Table? Device you are using to read this? Roof over your head? Language I am using to write this? Electricity?
All tools.
We are the ape of instrumentalisation. It is our very identity.
We are also an ape ridiculously bad doing many small boring and repetitive steps many times without adding mistakes.
Also bad at accepting this deep down.
So there is always an ape within us telling us “you got this, small boring step is easy”.
This is why we need processes!
This is why we have flight checklists because it saves lots of lives:
This is why so much care and effort went into creating surgery checklists because, again, it saves lots of lives:
A process will not make you good at any given task, no checklist will make you a good pilot or a good surgeon.
What they will do is helping you put a lot of little repetitive boring stuff out of your ape brain and into the environment, reducing mistakes:
So process are AWESOME!
IF we see what we are getting out of following the process
IF we own the process and the evolution of the process
IF we care
And people WILL complain about having a process!
In part because deep down our ape is telling us we do not need one.
In part because processes are often forced down our throats and we do not see what we get out of following the process beyond “my boss/compliance told me I ought”.
But also in part because “What is done for us without us is done against us” a process over my work that is decided without my input is hostile and feels infantilising.
Surgeons complained about surgery checklists because: it felt infantilising.
Process and tools are awesome UP AND UNTIL they are detrimental to people and interactions.
Until your colleague is asking you to get a paper receipt and a ticket number before they will talk to you at all.
Up and until your colleague is telling you that they will not help you until the Jira ticket has the information in the format that was convened.
Up and until you feel you need to create/join an underworld within your company just to get your job done at all.
Up and until the system of oppression starts using the process and the tool to bludgeon people.
Come and see the violence inherent in the system!
So we have all seen it right? the point where the process and the tool helps, and the point in which it becomes toxic?
And maybe you have seen that in most big companies we enter deeply into the toxic territory? Why does that happen? And what to do?
For the “why that happens” my answer is :
Every big corporation fetishises control even if nobody within the corporation does
I have a talk about how does that happen recent versions are in french but here is an old version:
For the “What to do?” erm this will come up a lot but it does involve being a pain in the ass:
See, the manifesto invitation is not one of an easy solution in as much that it is a call to arms.
It is inviting the workers of the world to rebel against bureaucracy really.
In a world inviting you to treat anything as a reason to control your peers, you rebel by “Connect before Correct”.
You take the time to interact with people and understand what they need and be understood in your needs.
You ask the eternal spice girls question: Tell me what you want, what you really really want?
This is only possible with safety so you start out by conspiring for safety with your peers, by caring.
And, together, you understand what do you get if anything out of your process and tool, and how could you get something out of it.
Of course taking the time to figure that out is time you are not on the short term producing, is time you are investing in you and your peers, in your health, in understanding the process and the company.
and your enemy becomes then the short sighted lens of productivism:
And that is why you will be a pain when you push towards connection, the system gets you under a state where you are always behind, always late, always not having the time to improve things, always measured by your production on the short term.
taking time to connect feels like wasting time then and it is hence suffered an the first step is to connect to that suffering. | https://medium.com/@Romeu/the-agile-values-20-years-later-63279a067d80 | ['Romeu Moura'] | 2021-02-12 14:25:04.364000+00:00 | ['Manifesto', 'Agility', 'Agile Manifesto', 'Agile Methodology', 'Agile'] |
Incremental Data Delivery with GraphQL defer and stream | Quramy/graphql-streaming-example
You can't perform that action at this time. You signed in with another tab or window. You signed out in another tab or… | https://medium.com/@quramy/incremental-data-delivery-with-graphql-defer-and-stream-d779b5e38833 | ['Yosuke Kurami'] | 2020-12-16 03:31:26.655000+00:00 | ['Typescript', 'GraphQL'] |
Frightening New Christmas Specials | Every year TV programmers subject innocent viewers to thousands of hours of horrendous Christmas specials.
These terrible programs feature bad animation, stupid plots, corny dialogue, silly sentiment, and overacting. However, frightening Christmas specials attract good ratings and lots of advertising. Therefore, programmers will subject us to unlimited numbers of such specials.
Image by monicore from Pixabay
To make your holiday TV viewing more miserable. Lists of Doom will offer a list of suggestions for terrible new holiday TV specials.
Some Frightening New Christmas Specials Coming your way include:
Christmas with Dracula A Vampire Christmas A Zombie Christmas Christmas in Hell A Gangster Christmas Frankenstein saves Christmas The Doom Christmas Special A Vigilante Christmas Ronald McDonald Saves Christmas The Burger King’s Christmas Romance KFC Presents Colonel Sanders Home for the Holidays E.T. Saves Christmas Christmas with the Manson Family A Werewolf Christmas Assassin’s Christmas Special Mafia Christmas The Christmas Terrorist Slasher’s Christmas Cujo’s Christmas Super Villains’ Christmas Nazi Christmas Bibleman Wages War on Christmas A Slasher Christmas Axe Murderer’s Christmas Hercules Saves Christmas The Christmas Cult Bad Santa’s Animated Christmas Special The Toxic Avenger Saves Christmas Jesus Saves Christmas A Trump Christmas Christmas at Mar-a-Lago Evil Elf’s Christmas Special Elves Gone Bad Elves Gone Wild Slaughterhouse Christmas 2020 The Hallmark Channel Presents White People’s Christmas 2020 White Santa Black Santa Chrisley Does Christmas Christmas with the Miz World Wrestling Entertainment Presents Mick Foley’s Hardore Christmas Santa Saves Hanukkah Secret Santa Christmas Special The Masked Singer Presents Masked Santa’s Christmas Carols The Grim Reaper’s Christmas Special
So please watch old movies or binge watch some good shows on Netflix (NFLX) this Christmas and avoid Christmas specials. The Christmas Specials will get worse every year. | https://medium.com/lists-of-doom/frightening-new-christmas-specials-e4780264d1d6 | ['Daniel G. Jennings'] | 2020-12-21 00:12:07.905000+00:00 | ['Satire', 'Humor', 'Comedy', 'Humour', 'Comedy Writing'] |
Ubuntu, Our Culture’s Operating System | Just like computers, ecosystems require a foundation or system software that provides and embraces common values and goals amongst its inhabitants.
We identify as a learning ecosystem that encourages and supports continuous growth of our professionals by providing the necessary tools for development within a culture which is cultivated on a daily basis by our Team through collective collaboration.
Ubuntu is an African concept that promotes the idea of a collective working towards a goal rather than an individual.
“I am because you are” is pretty much self-explanatory when it comes to trying to understand the ideology behind this proverb. Co-creating and working together is how we are able to work towards and achieve our common goals.
As Agile Actors, our values identify greatly with this outlook.
From close interpersonal relationships, like those built through our Coaching model, to our internal communities, or Chapters as we call them, where all professionals of the same expertise work together to promote and evolve their technologies, all the way to Agile Actors as a whole, we respect, empower and support each other.
“A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are.” -Desmond Tutu, Human Rights Activist
Through peer support and self accountability towards our team and mutual goals, we are able to accomplish more.
Join us! | https://medium.com/agileactors/ubuntu-our-cultures-operating-system-98c3c7e3bfa7 | ['Agile Actors'] | 2020-12-02 08:25:46.962000+00:00 | ['System Software', 'Growth Mindset', 'Ubuntu'] |
Create your first ETL Pipeline in Apache Beam | In this post, I am going to introduce another ETL tool for your Python applications, called Apache Beam.
What is Apache Beam?
According to Wikipedia:
Apache Beam is an open source unified programming model to define and execute data processing pipelines, including ETL, batch and stream (continuous) processing..
Unlike Airflow and Luigi, Apache Beam is not a server. It is rather a programming model that contains a set of APIs. Currently, they are available for Java, Python and Go programming languages. A typical Apache Beam based pipeline looks like below:
(Image Source: https://beam.apache.org/images/design-your-pipeline-linear.svg)
From the left, the data is being acquired( extract) from a database then it goes through the multiple steps of transformation and finally it is stored( load) into the database.
Let’s discuss a few of terminologies used in Apache Beam:
Pipeline :- A pipeline encapsulates the entire data processing experience; from data, acquisition to load it up into a datastore.
:- A pipeline encapsulates the entire data processing experience; from data, acquisition to load it up into a datastore. PCollection :- It is a collection of data. Data could be bounded, that is coming from a fixed source or unbounded that is coming from single or multiple streams.
:- It is a collection of data. Data could be bounded, that is coming from a fixed source or unbounded that is coming from single or multiple streams. PTransform:- It is a process that works on each element within a PCollection.
It is a process that works on each element within a PCollection. :- A portable API Layer that helps to create pipelines executed on different engines or runners. Currently, it supports Direct Runner(for local development or testing purpose), Apache Apex, Apache Flink, Gearpump, Apache Spark and Google DataFlow.
Development
Use pip to install the Python SDK:
pip install apache-beam
The Apache Beam SDK is now installed and now we will create a simple pipeline that will read lines from text fields and convert the case and then reverse it.
Below is the complete program for the pipeline:
After importing the necessary libraries, we will call PipelineOptions for configuring purposes. For instance, if you are using Google Cloud DataFlow then you'd pass necessary options like project name or cloud name etc. You can also pass command line arguments in the flag parameter of it, for instance, input and output file names.
The very first step is data ingestion or acquisition, we will call ReadFromText to read the data from a text file. The pipe sign (|) is an overloading operator which applies PTransform to PCollection . If you have used Linux pipes than it should not be difficult for you to understand. In our case, the collection was produced via ReadFromText and then passed to the ToLower() via ParDo a function. Pardo applies a function to each element of PCollection . In our case, it runs on each line of the file. If you add a print() command in ToLower() function, you will see that it will iterate over the collection and print each line that is stored in element variable. We construct a JSON object and store the content of each element in it. After that, it goes thru another PTransform , this time via ToReverse to reverse the content. In the end, the data is stored in a text file by calling WriteToText function. When you use file_name_suffix parameter it creates output files with a proper extension, for instance for us it created as processed-00000-of-00001.txt . By default Apache Beam create multiple output files as it is a practice while working on distributed systems. The original content of the files are:
Coronavirus cases in Pakistan doubled in one day with total tally at 106 on MondayDubai: Coronavirus cases in Pakistan has risen to 106 on Monday after the Sindh Provincial authorities confirmed 53 new cases.Sindh is now the worst-hit province in Pakistan with 88 out of 106 total coronavirus cases reported until Monday afternoon. This is the single largest increase in novel coronavirus cases in the country as of today.Murtaza Wahab, Advisor to Sindh Chief Minister on Law, Anti-Corruption Establishment, and Information, tweeted on Monday that 50 people who returned from the quarantine at Taftan border with Iran had tested positive for COVID-19
Upon the first transformation, it will convert all characters to lowercase. For instance like below:
coronavirus cases in pakistan doubled in one day with total tally at 106 on mondaydubai: coronavirus cases in pakistan has risen to 106 on monday after the sindh provincial authorities confirmed 53 new cases.
As you can see I have returned a list of dictionaries. The reason for doing it that it if I do not do this it returns one character at a line so coronavirus will become:
c
o
r
o
n
a
v
i
r
u
s
which is undesirable. I don’t know yet why this is happening and dividing a line of words in individual characters but for now, the way out I found was to return a list of dictionaries. In the last transformation, I am returning without any dictionary. Upon running, there will be a file created with the name processed-00000-of-00001.txt which will contain the following content:
yadnom no 601 ta yllat latot htiw yad eno ni delbuod natsikap ni sesac surivanoroc .sesac wen 35 demrifnoc seitirohtua laicnivorp hdnis eht retfa yadnom no 601 ot nesir sah natsikap ni sesac surivanoroc :iabud .yadot fo sa yrtnuoc eht ni sesac surivanoroc levon ni esaercni tsegral elgnis eht si siht .noonretfa yadnom litnu detroper sesac surivanoroc latot 601 fo tuo 88 htiw natsikap ni ecnivorp tih-tsrow eht won si hdnis 91-divoc rof evitisop detset dah nari htiw redrob natfat ta enitnarauq eht morf denruter ohw elpoep 05 taht yadnom no deteewt ,noitamrofni dna ,tnemhsilbatse noitpurroc-itna ,wal no retsinim feihc hdnis ot rosivda ,bahaw azatrum
As you can see the file now contains the same content but in the reverse order.
Conclusion
Apache Beam is a nice tool for writing your ETL based applications. I just discussed the basics of it. You can integrate it with cloud solutions as well as store the data into a typical database. I hope you will find it useful and will try it in your next application.
As always, the code is available on Github. | https://towardsdatascience.com/create-your-first-etl-pipeline-in-apache-beam-767b62a38489 | ['Adnan Siddiqi'] | 2020-03-27 15:08:27.278000+00:00 | ['Apache Beam', 'Pipeline', 'Etl', 'Data Pipeline'] |
Why There’s a Secret Tiny Wire Above Manhattan | Why There’s a Secret Tiny Wire Above Manhattan
Photo by Monika Kozub on Unsplash
I’ve lived outside New York City for 20 years. I had my first kiss in the city, my first beer, and many eidetic memories I’ll never forget.
All that time, however, I never knew an 18-mile translucent wire hung above my head and encircled the entire Manhattan isle. If you squint really really hard, you won’t find it. But if you know the right places to look — you probably still won’t find it.
It’s called an eruv (ay-roov) and it’s that secretive.
The Manhattan eruv costs $100,000 a year to maintain and without it, thousands of Jews wouldn’t be able to live in the city.
Let’s Talk a Little Bit About Jewish Law
In order to understand the importance of the eruv, you need to know a little bit about Jewish law.
Friday night into Saturday is considered the Sabbath by Jewish people. The Sabbath is a day of rest and means observant Jewish people can not do “Melachah” which means work.
This rule is listed in the Jewish code of law, called the Talmud, but stems all the way back from when Moses received the Ten Commandments:
“Six days shall work be done; but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD; whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel for ever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He ceased from work and rested.”— Exodus 31:12–17
Breaking the rule doesn’t lead to death, anymore, thankfully, but it can get you kicked out of your synagogue. Furthermore, following these rules is what makes the Jewish community so tight-knit in the first place.
When I was working as a reporter I’d never seen anything like the comradery of Jewish communities in New Jersey. Once when a fire broke out in a densely populated Jewish area, the whole town converged to support the family whose house burnt down and gave firefighters snacks and water bottles.
It was awesome stuff to watch. But this leads us to an important question regarding the Sabbath:
What Constitutes Work?
Good question. Interestingly enough, many things constitute work that might not seem obvious to non-Jewish people.
According to the Talmud, here are a few of the 39 things you cannot do:
Planting flowers;
Filtering undrinkable water to make it drinkable;
Picking small bones from fish;
Cooking or baking;
Carrying anything, including groceries, books, keys, and even children.
If that last rule seems impossible it’s because it is. Jewish law, however, allows you to bypass this part of the rule by allowing Jewish people to carry items inside of private places like their homes.
This amendment would later extend to small towns as well. It was agreed upon that building a wall around a town — called an eruv — would transform it into a private sector.
The Evolution of the Eruv
Walls aren’t easy things to manage. Just ask Pink Floyd or Berlin.
So the head Rabbis in the Jewish community decided it was time to evolve the eruv. They decided a symbolic wall was good enough to turn an area into a private domain. A symbol as simple as a translucent wire.
The largest and most expensive eruv in the world is in New York City. It’s been in place since 1999 and is hotly debated in the Jewish community.
Many argue that considering the entire island of Manhattan as a private area is ridiculous. It’s possible for more than 600,000 people to pass through certain roads in New York City in a single day. Any NYC native will tell you Manhattan is a nightmare to navigate if you hate crowds.
But the eruv stands regardless, making the Sabbath much easier to adhere to for the hundreds of thousands of Jewish people that live there.
Meanwhile, every Thursday before dawn a Rabbi drives the entire island of Manhattan inspecting the eruv. The eruv has survived Macy Day’s Thanksgiving Parades and even 2012’s hurricane Sandy. But there are times when it breaks.
Most notably, in 2011 a wire broke near the United Nations building, which caused a problem when repair crews couldn’t get past security to fix it. It was eventually resolved, but not before a load of panic set in.
Final Thoughts
New York isn’t the only metropolis with an eruv. You can find them in New Jersey, Atlanta, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Dallas, and numerous other cities and suburbs across the U.S. In fact, there are more than 200 across North America.
In Manhattan, there’s even a community-run website with a status indicator that displays if the eruv is intact. As of this article, the eruv was last checked on May 13 and is up and roaring.
For six days of the week, the eruv is pretty much useless. But during the Sabbath, it’s a symbol for one of the most important rules in Judaism. And this respect for tradition is one of the reasons why the Jewish community excels so much today. | https://historyofyesterday.com/why-theres-a-secret-tiny-wire-above-manhattan-4dc3f364330e | ['Isaiah Mccall'] | 2021-05-19 15:03:07.190000+00:00 | ['New York', 'Israel', 'History', 'Jewish', 'Politics'] |
DeAnna Green Speaks At The Click-In Virtual Women’s Empowerment Summit | W.O.W! (Women.Of.Wealth) — Building Your Own Table
As we prepare ourselves for the new year, we seek to transition our thinking from pivot to launch. We are taking it a step further than the vision board, and we are developing a vision network. By joining forces with inspiring and innovative women from all walks of life, we equip ourselves to pioneer the unknown. The Click-In Women’s empowerment summit is your place to connect and grow. Join us as we speak with proven leaders in industries surrounding fitness, personal development, business and funding, and financial stability. All of these factors are essential if we are going to level up, no matter what stage. There is a cliché that says, “Information is Power” and we vow to share our sources. This full-day event will feature prominent women speakers and virtual networking opportunities. The focus of this summit is to empower women to live healthier, wealthier, and wiser lives by providing a platform where women can network, interact, learn and support small businesses. Our line-up of speakers include best-selling authors, multi-millionaires, financial experts, and so many other great women eager to share their experiences, advice, and wisdom. We’ll be closing out with a performance from the Grammy award-winning R&B group, 112. As we prepare for this epic event, I got the chance to pick the brain of one of our featured speakers, CEO and Realtor, DeAnna Green.
Dove: What is the hardest obstacle that you’ve ever had to overcome?DeAnna: Being a teenage mother at 16 and giving up (what I thought at that time) my biggest dreams and goals of being an Entertainment Attorney. That was the 1st time I had to learn what “pivoting” really meant. Taking lemons and making lemonade! I’m proud to call myself a teenage mother and show other young women that life doesn’t stop and how “cream” always rises to the top! Keep pushing, keep fighting, keep focused sis, YOU GOT THIS! And what hell of a testimony I have now — THANK YOU, GOD!
Just hearing the wisdom and strength in her response makes me so much more excited for the big day. DeAnna Green is the CEO and Founder of Nydan, LLC. dba Nydan Real Estate Group. She is also a licensed Texas Realtor. DeAnna hails from North Carolina but has called Texas home since 2008. DeAnna spent the first 15 years of her career in the Property Management industry with the last 10 being focused on Corporate Housing and Real Estate. DeAnna has served in roles ranging from Property Manager, Regional Property Supervisor to President for several national companies. As a wife and proud mother of three beautiful and gifted children, DeAnna’s professional passion and drive for excellence is the catalyst behind the success of Nydan Real Estate Group. Founded in 2016, Nydan Real Estate Group is a boutique-style firm that offers BIG business services. NRG provides temporary housing to significant corporations, medical professionals, entertainment professionals, and individuals that are relocating to Texas whether temporarily or permanently. Nydan also provides residential real estate and apartment locator services to its clients. With the success of NRG, DeAnna has expanded her business portfolio by creating a new company, Nydan Investment Properties, LLC. This company is an independently owned franchise of HomeVestors of America — WeBuyUglyHouses.com. DeAnna’s personal passion is also deeply rooted in Women’s Empowerment, which is why her Let’s Be R.A.W (Real.Authentic.Women) platform was developed in 2018. DeAnna uses her years of Coaching and Mentoring skills to guide women into getting out of their “own way” by becoming the most authentic version of themselves. DeAnna is a national speaker and continues to give back to her community by volunteering at the local Women’s Center and with her campaign “Purses with a Purpose”.
When asked what women’s empowerment meant to her, DeAnna stated “It means offering my knowledge and experiences to any woman in need or that seeks my advice for the betterment of her! I also feel that if you are truly a woman that wants to empower women, you would empower them even IF it meant that they outshine you, elevate higher than you, and are blessed more than you! This is what I feel lacks in the purest form of Women’s Empowerment. I am comfortable in seeing another woman’s goals and dreams be met before mine, even if I help them happen.”
To learn more about DeAnna and hear her speak, you can visit here. Businesses may apply for a vendor slot here. | https://medium.com/@dovepr/deanna-green-speaks-at-the-click-in-virtual-womens-empowerment-group-c272be15c3d | ['Dove Bennett'] | 2020-12-09 17:57:07.953000+00:00 | ['Empowerment', 'Empowering Women', 'Women Empowerment', 'Empowerment Of Women', 'Women In Business'] |
A short story of randomness (I) | I have always been fascinated by the above comic strip. A discussion on randomness and determinism becomes as much a philosophical issue as it is a practical one. They are used in a variety of applications: from the obvious cryptography, gaming or gambling to the less evident politics or arts.
How can we be sure that a number is random? Will observing the process mine our efforts on generating the random number, similar to the observation of a cat inside a box with a decaying radioactive atom? Despite the potential complexity of generating random numbers, we can provide an initially simple method to generate them.
When I participate in meetups or conferences as an organizer, there is one simple game I like to practice at the end of the session, and it is developing a script together with the audience that selects a random participant eligible for a gift (a cup, a t-shirt, etc… any swag generally provided by the hosting organization). The list of participants usually comes in a .CSV file, and coming from the Java world live-coding this can be a daunting task: opening streams, closing them… Damn, I am myself scared of even trying this on stage. However, in Kotlin the solution is rather simple:
(except the part of guessing how to specify the path, which is impossible to get right at the first try).
While playing this little game, very often the name of a participant comes up twice, so we jokingly express our doubts on whether the process is being truly random, or the randomness algorithm has been tweaked to favor one individual and let him/her go back home with all the swag. Developing on stage an algorithm that is able to provide a random number might require more time than using java.util.Random. However, we can dive into it before the stage event, and understand how randomness is implemented in Java.
OpenJDK provides the open-source code of java.util.Random, and it is quite interesting to see how it works. It uses a 48-bit LCG generator, based on the chapter of The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth. An LCG generator uses a formula similar to the following one:
LCG generation formula
Let’s take a look at each component in this formula:
Xn is our starting seed, which should be unpredictable enough. For instance, it could be the amount of time that has passed since our system started, or the amount of RAM currently being used, or a XOR of the current Date.
a is a multiplier — randomly selected
c is an increment- randomly selected
m is the number we use to execute the modulo operation- fixed and randomly selected
The selection of the previous values may affect the quality or randomness of the output, so we can go down the rabbit hole and increase the entropy for those selected values (by either making them random as well or using a more convoluted process to generate them). In fact, Java generates the above parameters from rand48, so they get as random as it is acceptable for most usages.
The following code excerpt is an implementation in Kotlin of a linear congruential generator:
LCG is fast and apt for most computers to be used. Require minimal memory, and it can execute fast. However, its usage is not intended in every field (for instance, cryptographic applications should use secure pseudorandom number generators for salt and key generation).
Summary
Most of the randomness generators created since the early computing days use some sort of variation of the abovementioned mechanism. However, its usage is not apt for all systems. In the upcoming article, we will see which systems should use a different random numbers generator, and which algorithms are currently available for that.
I write my thoughts about Software Engineering and life in general on my Twitter account. If you have liked this article or it did help you, feel free to share, 👏 it and/or leave a comment. This is the currency that fuels amateur writers. | https://medium.com/google-developer-experts/a-short-story-of-randomness-i-17ca0718ae52 | ['Enrique López-Mañas'] | 2021-04-14 05:01:21.977000+00:00 | ['Kotlin', 'Random', 'Determinism', 'Randomness'] |
What is the best way to get a newborn baby to sleep? | What is the best way to get a newborn baby to sleep?
Scientifically Proven Solution That Gets Your Baby to Sleep like Clockwork and makes you enjoy a restful sleep. Amlanjyoti Mohanta Jul 15·3 min read
Sleep Issues
If your baby has problems sleeping, there are things you can try to get him to sleep longer. Here you’ll learn about common sleep problems that parents encounter, and ways to fix them. We’ll even show you how to get your baby to sleep through the night.
Mary-Ann Schuler is a child psychologist and parenting expert with over 20 years of experience
She and her program Baby Sleep Miracle have been featured in publications such as “Parenting Magazine”, “Easy Parenting”, “Parents” and many more
Baby Sleep Miracle is a scientifically proven program that helps your baby to sleep like clockwork. This program is proven to work for anyone who is struggling to parent.
Sleep: what babies and toddlers need
Babies and children need sleep to grow and develop well. Good sleep is also important for their health and immunity.
But babies and toddlers can have trouble settling to sleep by themselves, so they cry. This can happen for many different reasons:
Some babies or toddlers cry when they’re tired or overtired and can’t settle to sleep.
Many babies or toddlers cry when they need help to settle back to sleep after waking in the night.
Many babies or toddlers cry when they’re getting used to a new or different way of going to sleep.
Sometimes happy, healthy babies or toddlers develop rapidly, which means they find it harder than usual to settle.
Babies and toddlers who are crying while trying to settle also need comfort.
It’s important to respond to your baby’s or toddler’s needs for:
sleep — for example, by putting a baby to sleep when you see baby’s tired signs
comfort — for example, by not leaving a crying baby alone for long periods.
Consistently responding to your baby’s or toddler’s needs for both sleep and comfort is an important part of bonding with your baby and helping your child grow up feeling safe, secure and cared for.
(from — raisingchildren)
What Is Exactly Baby Sleep Miracle?
Baby Sleep Miracle is a scientifically proven program that helps your baby to sleep like clockwork. This program is proven to work for anyone who is struggling to parent.
It is a perfect program created by “Mary-Ann Schuler,” a child psychologist and parenting expert with over 20 years of experience. This program can literally save your sanity and even your child’s life.
Baby Sleep Miracle shows you the scientifically proven way to have your child that makes you enjoy a restful sleep.
It reveals you exactly on reducing your anxiety disorders and even panic attacks in your life. This proven method makes your baby sleep peacefully, where it is entirely based on ground-breaking research.
program is the perfect one to finally enjoy the restful sleep that you have been craving, where thousands of mothers tried it already.
Baby Sleep Miracle works for anyone for almost every child. The tips given in this program are completely life-saving in which it helps regulate your child’s sleeping patterns holistically.
Baby Sleep Miracle is a completely effective program that makes you enjoy a happier, more relaxed, and easier parent-child.
It makes you fall asleep in a healthy way, and all kids can easily learn it without matter their age. This proven solution makes you feel even more confident where the advice is simple, easy to follow.
It shows you the exact way to restore your child’s sleep, where the response is completely overwhelming. This program is an easy to follow sleep program that works effectively for any mother facing difficulty.
It offers you a sleep trick that will instantly calm down your baby without facing much more effort.
(from — wboc)
GET ACCESS NOW | https://medium.com/@amlanmohanta2000/what-is-the-best-way-to-get-a-newborn-baby-to-sleep-2d1b9d2e1232 | ['Amlanjyoti Mohanta'] | 2021-07-15 07:18:36.763000+00:00 | ['Baby Sleep Training', 'Baby Products', 'Baby', 'Baby Care', 'Baby Sleep'] |
Modern Mysticism in the Mad Mundi: An Antidote to Meaninglessness | Rationality is one of the greatest gifts of our existence. Our ability to apprehend beyond the world of immediate sensation has endowed us with capabilities and luxuries that our ancestors could not have dreamed of. It is also our greatest weakness, as we can rationalize our way into any mode of being. The intellect is proficient at mitigating fear, and we can tell ourselves whatever story that keeps us in line with our current selves or adopt ones that moves us ostensibly forward. However, it can also become drunk on its own power and leave the world of immediate experience completely behind. In the age of modernity, the subject has been left entirely out of the discourse as, more and more, our cultures and belief systems have adopted material reductionism, the idea that we are nothing more than a random propagation within an incomprehensibly vast timeline; that meaning, purpose, and divinity are nothing more than mere “rationalizations” used to assuage the fact of our inevitable demise.
There is good reason for this phenomenon. A millennium ago, the church demonized everything that was in nature, that was material, and proclaimed that anything that was spirit could not be manifest within the physical world. One of the core truths of humanity, however, is to look where we are told not to, and so the minds of the day set about trying to discover spirit hidden within materia, a practice we now refer to as alchemy. Alchemy is the prototype of our modern scientific tradition, i.e. the scientific method. Interesting to note how the views of our modern scientific culture and archaic religiosity overlap despite the two wanting nothing to do with one another. Both make the claim that there is no spirit to be found in the physical world or through direct experience, with the exception of the church’s chosen members that would have the direct experience of the divine for all that were “beneath” them. Science has thrown out the idea of spirit altogether, favoring only the physical.
Hyperrationalism is the foundation for the postmodern condition, which makes a claim worth examining: that all human experience is idiosyncratic to the individual and that such interpretations of reality are heavily influenced if not inseparable from arbitrary systems of culture. It fails to acknowledge, however, any real shared human experience, and some of the systems it claims as arbitrary are in fact hard-wired, as can be observed by the ways in which we are embodied. We need only look at our five senses to understand that there are limited ways of apprehending reality.
Particularly over the 20th century, rationalism boiled to a head. This is what led Nietzsche to proclaim the death of God. Humanity had become drunk upon its own powers of perception and doggedly fought to remove any irrational influence. The 20th century saw the most horrific consequences of hyperrationalism (eugenics in Nazi Germany, communism and genocide in the USSR, China, etc.) stemming from our confusion of humanity with the divine. The Enlightenment was equally important in altering this human-divinity relationship, however the pendulum had only swung in the opposite direction — another core truth of humanity. Until we began apprehending the physical and not just the phenomenological truth of the Universe, e.g. heliocentricity and the rise of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology, humanity and all other manifestations of the physical world were considered profane or unholy, to be denied and distrusted. Hyperrationalism did away with the idea of divinity altogether, holding Humankind as most high. Now we have the opportunity to balance the scales and solidify our species’ plane within the cosmic order. No one is right in this argument that chooses a side. It requires an examination of our conceptions of what is divine and profane, what is sacred and what is secular. Humanity, like God, is neither divine nor profane, good nor evil, but both. God is within the motion of all things seen and unseen, and we are integral to that process of being. The development of self-awareness offers us the ability to envision alternatives. As a result we can (and have emphatically) divorced ourselves from the rule of Nature though we are still motivated by Her drives in every moment. It is difficult to be satisfied when we continually imagine more luxurious lives with more fun, more engagement, more sex, more wealth, etc.
Mysticism can be expressed as a redirection of the intellect to attend to inner experience and to admit humility in the face of what it cannot know, to develop a faith in the infinite connections that link our existence with that of the whole Universe. It does not seek to explain away the phenomena common to all of us such as dreams, intuitions, synchronicities, or direct mystical experience. Neither does it reject the power of the intellect to discern and understand the nature of physical reality. The heart of science is observation, but how does one observe the observer?
Modern mysticism, then, can be a powerful antidote in this world gone mad. The plethora of competing narratives has made the apprehension of truth impossible, and few are willing to admit their incapability of understanding the problem. In the eyes of the modern mystic, there is appreciation and constructive criticism and debate, not this panacea of hatred and derision so endemic in this pandemic. It fully appreciates the wisdom and arrogance of scientific inquiry while savoring and investigating the mystery of existence. Heart and mind need not be opposed, they can exist in harmony. Terrence McKenna referred to this phenomenon as the Archaic Revival, the union of our modern skill and expertise with the rites and experiences of our ancestors. He certainly had a preference for the sacred medicine/psychedelic components of our antiquity, and it is apparent why. There are few things as powerful as a psilocybin or dimethyltryptamine experience to awaken us to the realities beyond the ones that we can immediately apprehend.
The virtue of mysticism is that it validates and relies upon the subjective experience, the phenomenon of being alive and self-aware. This is the component our modern worldview eschews and ridicules, rationalizing deities and worlds beyond the physical as mere stories to comfort our fear of death. Mysticism does not ask that we sacrifice our doubt or reason, in fact it asks we exercise them while remaining open to the mystery. It asks that we become disciplined but makes no distinction to the path. Because mysticism is concerned with direct experience, the only one that holds sway on the path is the individual that takes it. Any of the traditions of antiquity, many of which survive to the present day, are helpful. In my own experience each offers their own wisdom and are best approach as an amalgam. There are certain areas of overlap, of course, such as engagement with the breath, methods of observing and honing awareness, etc.
Mysticism does require a degree of faith in the beginning, as our modern minds are so distracted and enfeebled that it can take a great deal of practice and patience before anything becomes palpable. However, this faith is rewarded by bolstering awareness of direct encounters with the divine. I will argue that we encounter the divine more or less constantly, and in moments of our deepest despairs and greatest losses it overwhelms us, but often we do not recognize the nature of it. As one continues along the path, faith is rewarded by direct encounter which promotes greater awareness of the mystical all around us, creating a generative positive feedback loop that helps us to hear the messages more clearly in their many varieties. If any of this has resonated, there is a truth that is being spoken to you. I will not attempt to persuade anyone to take any one particular path or suggest ways to approach mystical practice — these I leave to the individual. I will, however, offer some of my direct experiences with the divine to elucidate the subtleties in which they approach us, and the dangers of rationalizing them away. | https://medium.com/@augustmayne/rationality-is-one-of-the-greatest-gifts-of-our-existence-1d43ea729f43 | ['August Mayne'] | 2020-12-22 17:58:57.663000+00:00 | ['Religion', 'Psychology', 'Consciousness', 'Mysticism', 'Science'] |
Thanksgiving | Gratitude is Magick,
a spell cast against
despair and doom.
It makes whatever
you have enough.
Miracles abound
in even the
least of lives.
Cherish the time
that is given you;
it will run out
before you know it.
Be thankful to sit
and laugh among
those you love.
It might be otherwise.
Know that each
breath is a gift.
Welcome the
uncertain future.
Time destroys
all that lives.
Material things
decay and fall away.
Spirit is life.
Open your heart
to what remains.
Take what you have
and make something new.
Do not fear death;
it is only the
beginning of wonder.
Live like today
is the last day.
Practice resurrection. | https://medium.com/geezer-speaks/thanksgiving-6a305f20f543 | ['Mike Essig'] | 2020-11-26 11:57:56.531000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Gratitude', 'Living With Purpose', 'Thanksgiving', 'Art'] |
Tobacco farmer supports enactment of Universal Health Care | By: Lottie Salarda
Candon City, Ilocos Sur — Clarito Raganit has been trained to check, maintain, and fix electrical systems that help keep modern ships running.
But the marine electrical technology graduate has chosen to stay on land to pursue his vocation.
Now 46-years old, Raganit is a tobacco farmer, just like his father and his father’s father before him.
However, it wasn’t just family tradition that made him want to plant, harvest, and sell tobacco. It was also because tobacco farming pays well.
Raganit is one of the 700 tobacco growers and farmers in 27 of 42 barangays in Candon City. He is also the vice-president of the Candon City Tobacco Farmers Cooperative, which has 100 members.
However, unlike other tobacco farmers, Raganit is in favor of increasing taxes on the very same product that he grows on his farm in Candon City, Ilocos Sur.
With higher tobacco taxes, the government will be able to bankroll the Universal Health Care (UHC) Law, a piece of legislation that has just been signed by President Rodrigo R. Duterte.
As a result, Filipinos will soon be able to enjoy free medical consultation, hospital confinement, laboratory tests, out-patient services, and even medicine, among others, all because of higher tobacco taxes.
These additional health services will be funded by taxes that will be collected under separate Senate bills that will increase taxes by either P60 or P90 per pack of cigarettes under SB 1605 of Senator JV Ejercito or SB 1599 authored by Senator Manny Pacquiao, respectively.
Raganit wants free and quality health care coverage in his province, not only for his fellow tobacco farmers but for all the residents.
Other tobacco farmers refuse to support tobacco excise tax as they believed that it would only give additional burden to them without realizing the fact that such measure would help improve the health services of the government and lessen the prevalence of smoking in the next generation.
“Mas maigi yan para sa mga tao lalo na sa aming maliliit na magsasaka. Problema din kasi naming dito ang access para sa medical na serbisyo. Yan lang naman ang aming kagustuhan,”[It will be better for poor people, especially the farmers. After all, access to medical services has been our problem. That is just what we want.] Raganit said.
As expected, Raganit’s sentiments is shared by several health advocates who have lobbied for significant provisions for a people-centered UHC.
Based on his contract with Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Corporation (PMFTC) Inc., Raganit is required to produce 1,800 kilos of processed tobacco on each hectare of his two-hectare plantation.
Every crop season, PMFTC lends him P100,000 for his two-hectare tobacco farm or P50,000 per hectare. He pays for the loan without interest after selling the tobacco leaves to the company.
Besides tobacco, Raganit also plants corn and peanuts, if only to cover his family’s daily needs as he waits to harvest tobacco
“Ganun lang naman ang buhay ng magsasaka, kailangan mag-survive habang hindi pa panahon ng anihan,” [That’s how the life of a farmer goes. You need to survive while you wait for harvest season.] he said.
But in 2016, his life as well as the lives of his fellow tobacco farmers began to get better.
Excise tax share
During that year, the national government started to release the share of excise taxes belonging to local governments, as indicated by Republic Act №10351. Enacted in 2012, the law restructured and amended excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco. These fund releases were also intended to later help farmers adjust to higher tobacco taxes and take steps to move to alternative crops.
Just for 2016 alone, the national government released P41 billion for the share of excise taxes of all LGUs, Candon City included.
Department of Budget and Management records during that year showed that Candon City received P1.04 billion as its share of tobacco taxes.
From 2016 to 2017, the bulk of the tobacco excise tax share releases — more than P36 billion — went to Ilocos Sur, La Union, Ilocos Norte and Abra, provinces producing Virginia tobacco.
Seventy percent of the shares went to cities and municipalities, allotted using a formula based on volume of production, while the remaining 30 percent went to provincial governments.
Programs for tobacco farmers
Candon City is one of the top ten local government units in Ilocos Sur that receives tobacco taxes as stipulated under Republic Act 7171 (An Act to Promote The Development Of The Farmer in The Virginia Tobacco Producing Provinces).
Based on Candon City’s official website, Mayor Ericson Singson spent P12.3 million for financial assistance to the 700 tobacco growers in 2018. The money helped subsidize costs of gasoline and oil, wood for fuel, seedlings, tobacco barn repair and maintenance, and other needs of the tobacco growers.
Candon City also provides a P15,000 subsidy per hectare every cropping season, excluding other inputs like fertilizers and others farming needs.
“Yung sa RA 7171, bale ang epekto sa amin nun ay gumaan,” [RA 7171 helped make our lives easier.] said Raganit.
Since 2010, the value of production increased from P2.54 billion pesos to P3.80 billion pesos in 2017 while the earmark of RA 7171 increased from P4.73 billion in 2010 to P14.40 billion in 2017.
Data from General Appropriations Act shows that tobacco excise tax collection allocated for tobacco-growing regions for farmers’ support is more than four times bigger than the value of tobacco production in 2017.
Excise taxes also funded the construction of farm-to-market roads and multi-purpose buildings, the farmers said, adding that these infrastructure projects helped their city’s economic development.
LGUs from Region 1 and 2 proposed 3,173 infrastructure projects to the Department of Budget and Management which 573 was dedicated for Multi-purpose halls/buildings.
Recommendations from farmers
The infrastructure projects aside, the tobacco farmers still felt that there could be more that government can do for them even as they acknowledge the positive developments.
“Gusto sana namin ng mga proyekto o programa na direkta sa amin. Katulad ng maayos na health services, oo may Philhealth nga kami pero hindi naman sapat iyon. At sana magkaroon ng SSS ang aming mga farmers dito,” [We wish there could be more programs directly for us. There is PhilHealth medical insurance but it is not adequate. And we hope there can be coverage under the Social Security System] Raganit said.
“Saan naman manggagaling ang mataas na kita nila [cigarette companies] kundi sa aming mga farmers diba? Natatakot din kami baka ipapasan sa amin ang dagdag na buwis ng mga kumpanya,” [Where would their profits come from if not for us farmers? We’re just afraid the added tax burden doesn’t get passed on to us] Raganit added.
Despite the higher prices of basic commodities due to inflation over the years, the cigarette companies have not improved their buying price at P93.00 per kilo for the past three to four years, thus tending to distort status of living: “Dati okay pa kasi hindi pa ganun ka mahal ang bilihin, ngayon mahal na ang lahat.” [Before it was not as bad, but living costs have gone up]
Meanwhile, Raganit and his fellow farmers have one suggestion: Instead of cigarette companies buying their produce directly, it should be the government takes over the selling of the tobacco for better economic leverage. ### | https://medium.com/@lottiethevolunteer/tobacco-farmer-supports-enactment-of-universal-health-care-6ce25f41cf88 | ['Lottie Salarda'] | 2019-03-03 11:36:22.326000+00:00 | ['Philippines'] |
Presale SOLD OUT! MasterNode contest, Unicash expansion and more! | The first funding goal was reached! Presale got sold out almost 24 hours before the regular token sales’ deadline. Main sale to wait till the market stabilize. Unicash expansion, MasterNode contest winners and more!
Dear Foxers!
We are excited, proud and happy to officially announce that our first token sale round was successfully finished before the regular deadline and our goal of $2,500,000 USD was hit!
We perceive this milestone as a huge success as the market conditions have been very bad for several months in a row, new projects raise less money every month (according to a tracking report) and so on.
Despite all of the above depicted, UniFox proved everyone that has great, strong and wide community support that is highly appreciated by the whole organisation!
MasterNode competition
As promised in the presale announcement earlier, everyone who invested $1000 or more during the presale was automatically registred to the MasterNode contest. The prizes as follows:
1st place: 200 000 FOX + Trezor T
2nd place: 100 000 FOX + Trezor T
3rd place: 75 000 FOX + Trezor T
4th place: 60 000 FOX
5th place: 50 000 FOX
6th place: 40 000 FOX
7th place: 30 000 FOX
8th place: 20 000 FOX
9th place: 15 000 FOX
10th place: 10 000 FOX
We randomly chose 10 winners of the special contest straight after hitting the presale hard cap. The winners will be notified via email within 24 hours after this blog post release to confirm their identity.
The winners of the contest:
1. Nikolay Puschin (Russia)
2. Tran Nguyen (Vietnam)
3. Tereza Patková (Czech Republic)
4. Gunner Hansen (Danemark)
5. Peter Skolil (Slovakia)
6. Sergey Andreichenko (Ukraine)
7. Chuan Pedro (Spain)
8. Agata Bartkowska (Poland)
9. Edin Aurnautovič (Czech Republic)
10. Maria Popova (Russia)
Congratulations!
Next Steps
Right now we are counting last bounty tasks, analyzing airdrop entries. This unexpectedly longer analyzing time has occurred due to many fake and fraudulent entries that have been hindering the entire process.
Also, we are organising all needed stuff to distribute FOX coins to everyone who used a bank transfer method during the sale.
Unicash (UXC)
Right now, the biggest focus has been expanding Unicash (stable token) to physical ATMs, online/offline exchanges and build the infrastructure around it. There is a new website in progress (unicash.io) that will be presented soon. Also, we are working on a detailed timeline for first half of 2019 so our community can assured what things are planned, what goals we are working on and so on!
Main sale
We are well aware that you all have been waiting for the Main Sale dates announcement. We are also sure that you understand that under the current market conditions we are not prepared to launch the main sale yet and want to wait for the market to stabilize first. Meanwhile we will work hard to deliver our promises.
Appreciation
We would like to honestly express deepest appreciation to the whole community that has been supporting us all along. Your feedback is truly appreciated therefore if you have some suggestions, ideas or feedback that you would like to share with us then write us to [email protected] | https://medium.com/unifox/presale-sold-out-the-soonest-goals-plans-and-targets-a9677b241fd9 | ['Unifox Official'] | 2018-12-01 20:06:00.688000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Unifox', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Fox', 'Unicash'] |
Grab a slice of security for Pizza Day! | Pizza Day is celebrated by Bitcoin enthusiasts worldwide, as a fun way to commemorate the moment Bitcoin first showed its true potential as a global, permissionless and uncensorable money. At SatoshiLabs, we have long celebrated the day to highlight the community’s irreplaceable role in Bitcoin’s unprecedented success.
This year’s Trezor promotion gives customers the chance to pick up a double pack of hardware wallets and get a 10% discount. This Pizza Day offer is valid from May 20 through May 23 so don’t miss out on grabbing a pair of Trezor Model T or Trezor Model One hardware wallets for a great price.
Please note that the 10% discount has already been applied to the list price shown on our e-shop, for both bundles.
Why Pizza Day matters
Money is a tool used to assign value to things which are different from one-another. Before 2010, Bitcoin’s value was still a point of speculation. Then a Bitcointalk forum user Laszlo Hanyecz made an open offer to the community: he would pay ten thousand bitcoin to anyone who ordered him two large pizzas. When a fellow user accepted the request and had the pizzas delivered to Laszlo, history was made — the first documented transaction for a real-world service had been completed using Bitcoin.
A quarter-billion dollar pizza?
Laszlo’s critics are quick to point out that, had he simply held onto the coins, he would be incredibly wealthy today. But that’s not necessarily true. At the time, those Bitcoin were worth whatever someone was willing to pay for them — there were few exchanges and none as sophisticated as we have nowadays, so transactions were made between individuals, often in private.
The growth of Bitcoin’s value is largely due to people like Laszlo assigning it a value of their own, and others following suit. Had they not spent their Bitcoin, it may never have achieved the global following it now enjoys. Looking ahead, it is probable that we will see incredulous comments about this month’s sell-off but, in the long-term, Bitcoin makes sense no matter the price.
What can I do with two hardware wallets?
Having access to two wallets is a good idea to offset potential crises that may come in future. Trezors can be enjoyed cold or warm, so consider the advantages of having one device for long-term hodling and a second for everyday spending and authentication.
Freeze funds for later
Slice up your savings and split them across two wallets, one for hodling, one for more frequent use. If you like to trade cryptocurrencies, this can help you stay disciplined about taking profit. Deposit your savings in a wallet stored safely in a vault with limited access, and keep the funds you use more often on the other. This way your funds are kept secure even from your own impulses.
A backup of your backup
If you plan to use your Trezor everyday for authentication and easy access to funds, it’s a good idea to load a second wallet with the same seed. That way, if you lose your main device you can quickly access your funds, generate a new seed and move your savings to safety.
Introduce a friend
Like pizza, Bitcoin is best enjoyed with someone you care about. Hot wallets are great for everyday use, but security is best served cold. With a Trezor hardware wallet, you can safely introduce a friend to the concept of hodling and negate the risks of using exchange or mobile wallets for a long-term investment. Get started with the most user-friendly cold storage solution and savor the peace of mind a Trezor brings you.
Stack safely, store securely
Bitcoin is a long-term investment. Keeping it secure and accessible is the most important thing to do to take advantage of its strong monetary policy. While it is tempting to trade, especially in turbulent markets like we have recently experienced, the likelihood is that a slow, measured growth of bitcoin holdings will be enough to offset inflation and ensure your purchasing power is not eroded over the coming years or decades.
Whether you have ten thousand or one ten-thousandth of a bitcoin, make sure you will be able to access it in the future. Keep your coins safe by using a Trezor hardware wallet. Thanks to our new Trezor Suite desktop app, it has never been easier to manage your investment, enhance your privacy, and ensure any coins you purchase are sent directly into your custody.
Pick up a double pack today and you’ll be able to use Trezor Suite to compare rates from trusted exchanges, buy cryptocurrency, and have any purchase immediately secured by a wallet only you have the keys to. | https://blog.trezor.io/grab-a-slice-of-security-for-pizza-day-202eaa291175 | [] | 2021-05-20 13:00:28.573000+00:00 | ['Hardware Wallet', 'Discount', 'Product', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
"is" & "==" in Python. Speed up string comparison | Speed up your string comparisons
Many programmers and beginners love python. Python is one of the languages that is witnessing incredible growth and popularity year by year.
In 2017, Stack overflow calculated that python would beat all other programming languages by 2020 as it has become the fastest-growing programming language in the world.
Python language is one of the most accessible programming languages available because of its Readability, tons of libraries, Vibrant Community, can be used for Web Programming, Desktop Applications, Big data, Cloud Computing, Machine Learning, and so on.
It’s very important for every Pythonista to understand the difference between == (equality operator ) and is ( identity operator ) before you use it.
But, many of us are confused about which one to use in which situation. Let’s understand it clearly.
In this article, I will discuss
What is equality and identity operators When to use equality and identity operators Which one is best.
1. What is == and is operators
When var1 & var2 variables are created, Memory will be allocated as above
The ‘is’ operator may seem like the same as the == (equality operator) but they are not the same. The ‘is’ is an identity operator used to checks whether two variables point to the same object in memory or to compare the identity of two objects. It returns True if the operands are identical (refer to the same object).
Let’s see with an example,
Above code returned False because the two variables pointing to the different objects i.e. different memory addresses (0x7fce1afef330 & 0x7fce1afef050). To get the memory addresses of var1 & var2 use hex(id(var1)) and hex(id(var2)).
On the other hand, the == operator checks if the values for the two variables are the same. It returns True if both operands are equal.
As expected, the above code returned True because the contents of the two variables are equal.
2. When to use == and is operators
As a rule of thumb, Use the == operator when your primary objective is to compare the contents/values of two objects and you don’t care about where they’re stored in memory. Use the is operator only when you want to check whether two variables are pointing to the same memory address. When you perform a string comparison operation with the ‘==’ operator, python compares character by character.
The string(‘Abc’) used in the above example is very small. But what if we have a long string? Python still compares character by character. Won’t it be a slow process? Instead of comparing content, we can compare their memory addresses which are just integers. So, comparing integers are far better than comparing two long strings character by character. This is much faster and less CPU utilization than comparing character by character.
NOTE: Python points variables to the same memory address when they hold the same content. Not all strings are automatically interned in python. But, we can force strings to be interned by using the sys.intern().
So, Use ‘is’ (identity) operator than ‘==’ (equality) operator to speed up your heavy string comparison operations.
3. Which one is best
This is definitely an individual’s choice, but if you talk about speed ‘is’ (identity) beats ‘==’ (equality) operator.
Let’s check with code which one is actually best in terms of speed.
== operator execution time :
import time def equality_operator(n):
a = ‘Which one is best? identity or equality ?’ * 1000
b = ‘Which one is best? identity or equality ?’ * 1000
for i in range(n):
if a == b :
pass start = time.perf_counter()
equality_operator(10000000)
end = time.perf_counter()
print('Total time :',end - start) -------------------------------------
Total time 14.075116038999113
is operator execution time :
import sys def identity_operator(n):
a = sys.intern(‘Which one is best? identity or equality ?’ * 1000)
b = sys.intern(‘Which one is best? identity or equality ?’ * 1000)
for i in range(n):
if a is b :
pass
# print(True) start = time.perf_counter()
identity_operator(10000000)
end = time.perf_counter()
print(‘Total time :’,end — start) -----------------------------------------
Total time : 0.3351166579996061
The above results show ‘is’ beats ‘==’ operator in execution time.
Thank you for reading!
Any feedback and comments are, greatly appreciated! | https://medium.com/swlh/is-and-in-python-f084f36cbc0e | ['Sivasai Yadav Mudugandla'] | 2020-09-24 11:07:55.709000+00:00 | ['Python Programming', 'Python3', 'Coding', 'Programming', 'Python'] |
Gamification in learning app — Binar Academy (Ch 7) | In this modern era, everything’s accessible through our smartphones. That includes learning app. We all can learn something new everyday, without even realising, even from apps that we don’t perceive as learning platform, like Instagram or Youtube. However, for people who take learning more seriously, they go further. Nowadays, we are being offered to many apps that will teach you literally anything. Language? Duolingo. New skills in creative industry? Skill share. Coding? Udemy. We name it and there will always be an answer.
Starting the course could be easy, what’s harder is to stay committed to a journey of learning that requires more of our time.
The stats don’t lie, online courses have a 10% to 20% higher failed retention rate than traditional classroom environments (Herbert, 2006). Totally, 40% to 80% online students drop out of online classes (B. Smith, 2010). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244015621777#:~:text=Online%20courses%20have%20a%2010,Smith%2C%202010).
To make people more motivated and stay in their course (as long as possible), app like Duolingo gamifies their users’ learning journey. Features like leagues & leaderboard, lingot as currency, crowns, streaks are the main parts of their gamification. With all these features, users might feel that learning is not the sole purpose of using the app, but also to play a game, where they can be competitive and rewarded for being good at it. | https://medium.com/@diandraerdi/gamification-in-learning-app-binar-academy-7b4d7b01a742 | ['Diandra Erdiputra'] | 2021-05-07 03:22:42.332000+00:00 | ['User Interface', 'Ui Ux Design', 'User Experience', 'Gamification', 'Mobile Apps'] |
Cassava Leaf Disease Classification: Blog Post #1 | The Team
The Problem + Dataset
This is the first of three blog posts that documents our group’s experience solving an image recognition problem using ML/DL methods.
Our dataset, drawn from the Cassava Leaf Disease Classification Kaggle competition, is comprised of over 20,000 images of cassava leaves taken from relatively inexpensive cameras. In addition, the dataset also provide mappings of each image to a disease/health status. These mappings include:
Cassava Bacterial Blight (CBB)
Cassava Brown Streak Disease (CBSD)
Cassava Green Mottle (CGM)
Cassava Mosaic Disease (CMD)
Healthy
Naturally, the goal of this project is to successfully distinguish multiple diseases visually present in cassava leaves, making this a multi-class classification problem. Cassava is an important staple in Africa, so the ability to ascertain the health status of its leaves can incur significant benefits with regards to its agricultural management.
Healthy Cassava Leaves (Source: Health Benefits Times)
Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA)
Our EDA was largely inspired by Yaroslav Isaienkov’s EDA for this same dataset. Given our data source, the first line of action was to programmatically map the labels contained in a csv file to the images in our training directory. We did this by creating a dictionary mapping an integer value from 0–4 to a disease/health status. We then added the map as a new column of a pandas dataframe, which contained columns for image_id, label, and disease_name.
We then determined a discrepancy between the number of labels in the csv file and number of images in our directory, so we had to identify which images were missing in our labels file and remove those images from our training directory. Around 50 out of 21400 images were removed from our training set. To ensure that our labels and images were properly mapped, we printed a batch of the mapped images and labels, seen below:
Batch of cassava leaf images
Of the mapped images, we examined the distribution of disease types in the training images. The figure below depicts exactly that. Interestingly, most of the cassava leaves in our dataset have Cassava Mosaic Disease (CMD), 61.5% of them to be exact. The remaining labels are more/less evenly distributed in our dataset.
Over 13,000 of 21,400 images of cassava leaves contained cassava mosaic disease, and just over 12% of them contained healthy cassava leaves.
Baseline Model Identification + Performance
Our next line of action was to create a baseline model to serve as a reference point as we develop more complex models. Considering the properties of our data and the fact that we’re working on a classification problem, we believed that logistic regression was an appropriate baseline model for its simplicity. Using the simplest algorithm possible should establish a true minimum standard for our future models’ performances. This allows us to start small and build up from there.
In the interest of RAM, we fitted logistic regression on a subset of 2000 images and conducted a 70/30 train-test split, so our training set contained 1400 images and our validation set, 600. This is in accordance with Siddhant Sadangi’s notebook for a baseline classifier on Kaggle. The baseline accuracy score was 0.50. We’re aware that the model was fit on a very small sample of data, so we’re also curious whether increasing our sample size would improve performance to something closer to 0.61, the proportion of the most populous class.
We provide a confusion matrix outlining the model’s exact choices below. Notably, we observe that most diseased plants are commonly mistaken as having CMD.
Confusion matrix from logistic regression
Overall, this score is less than the proportion of the most populous class in the data, so logistic regression in this case would perform worse than a model that always predicted CMD. Nonetheless, there is much room for improvement for our future models.
Next Steps
After EDA and establishing a baseline model, we will now focus on the development of a convolutional neural network to distinguish the diseases in these images. Our approach will be iterative — we’ll start with a fairly shallow network and build up from there, assessing different models with hyperparameter tuning. Stay tuned for more! Catch you next time.
References + Relevant Links
Kaggle Documentation | https://medium.com/@kevin-j-le/cassava-leaf-disease-classification-blog-post-1-b9f3ba73bcea | ['Kevin Le'] | 2021-02-23 04:49:29.842000+00:00 | ['Neural Networks', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning', 'Exploratory Data Analysis', 'Deep Learning'] |
Testing Boundaries at the Burchfield Penney Art Center | In an attempt to put some of my newfound knowledge of engaging museum audiences to the test, my family and I visited a local art museum. Here’s how it went…
Friday morning, my family all attended the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, NY to test a new concept. After sharing one of my blog posts on Facebook, my family and I discussed how different museum layouts and features of an exhibit further audience engagement. By prompting people to take pictures and “vibe” with the exhibit in their own way, the idea that everyone interacts with exhibits differently is reinforced.
My mom, taking an interest in my future career field, suggested that we “try to do both”, meaning we divide the exhibit into 2 sections and behave differently in each. In the first stages of the exhibit, we walk through the museum as we most likely were expected to do: quietly, slowly, with discussion about the art in the room. Then for the second half of the exhibit, we take pictures of our favorite parts of the art, have open discussion about whatever the art evokes in us, and zig-zag back and forth in the exhibit to make connections between pieces in different areas.
And so, we walked through the museum in this way. What we found was that there was little interaction among ourselves to discuss the art, and even less interaction between us and the art! None of us there were professional art critics, and after speaking with my family members on the car ride home, we all felt that we did not feel experienced enough in this field to make meaningful comments on the art, so the result was that we didn’t make any comments on the art! Of course, the curation of the exhibit was amazing, and the topic of the exhibit was important, so it was unfortunate that we didn’t get as much out of it as we could have.
Some of our favorite pieces. Artist: Bill Stewart (2005). Photo Credit Jordan Anthony
I think that it’s such a simple idea: take interesting photos of the art(ifacts) — moreover, participate in the exhibit! My family and I followed this idea for our second half of the exhibit. Outside of hugging the installations, I think we did everything in the exhibit we wanted to do. Let me express how much more we got out of the exhibit! A few of the pieces sparked conversation with laughter that caused a security guard to give us a glare. We had memorable conversations throughout the rest of the exhibit, and the result was that we were excited to attend the Burchfield Penney’s next exhibition. That museum is interesting already from an architectural standpoint. Now that we are learning how to create our own meaningful experiences with these exhibitions, I think my family and I will become more frequent patrons. | https://medium.com/@jma44/testing-boundaries-at-the-burchfield-penney-art-center-aea42a696762 | ['Jordan Anthony'] | 2020-10-07 03:53:43.715000+00:00 | ['Burchfield Penney', 'Museums', 'Audience Engagement'] |
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14 Seasonal Responsibilities For The Self-Reliant | For every season there is beauty. Its something that comes to mind immediately at the thought of that season. Even the cold of winter is highlighted by warm drinks, roaring fires and the holidays. Maybe it’s a means of making the mundane a little more magic or maybe its an appreciation for this life.
If you are a person that lives a prepared lifestyle chances are these seasons mean other things, too. Vital tasks and responsibilities must be handled throughout the year and many are season specific.
What helps more than anything is a schedule for it all! How on earth are we supposed to keep up with all the stuff that we need to keep up with. Its just so much and when you add a full time LIFE on top of that, it gets overwhelming.
Let’s have a high level look at the four seasons and what responsibilities you should prioritize for each.
Spring
1. Home Maintenance and Inspection
After a long winter of being trapped in the house its time to get out, under and around the home. Now is the time to inspect your home for things like:
Of course, spring is a time for planting! This is when the ornery gardener can finally get out and put seeds and seedlings into the soil. Its an exciting time and most gardeners are hungry for that first taste of fresh produce from the garden.
Things like English peas and radish are great candidates to get in the soil early.
Spring is also a time for fishing. A great skill to practice, fishing is both fun and a great way to fill your bell with protein! The big bass come out in spring, when the water is warm enough, but it can be just as fun to spend the day catching bluegills.
4. Baby Animals
Depending on what you have on your property you might also be dealing with chicks, kids, calves and piglets. The spring is a special time that might require extra work for baby animal care.
Summer
5. Hunting Prep
The summer is a good time to spread out your hunting gear and get ready for the coming fall season. Its also a great time to get out and scout hunting areas. Find out where the deer are going to be and where you are going to set up to take that shot!
6. Processing Wood
Its never too early to start splitting wood for the fireplace. The winter will be upon you before you know it and cool summer nights are also great for burning wood. Splitting wood is also a great workout!
7. Managing Pests
If you keep chickens or other small animals, you might find that this time of year you are managing larger and more dangerous pests. Things like opossum and racoon can wreak havoc on your flock. It might be worth investing in some steel traps or a good .22 rifle to keep your chickens safe.
Fall
8. Insulation
Fall is the time to check home insulation. You are going to be combating the cold and you want to be sure your home is up to the task. Good insulation makes all the difference in this. Consider things like pipes doors and windows.
You will also want to bring out cold weather gear like sweaters, boots and coats. Don’t forget your gloves and hats. Get them out and ready because the cold is on its way. This will also give you time to react if you find you need something new.
10. Harvest/Canning
By this point you are going to be consistently harvesting food. You have probably already been canning and preserving at this point, too!
When it comes to this game you might also be thinking about extra storage. Have you ever considered the old root cellar as a means of increasing storage? It could be just what you are looking for. These root cellars are simple to build and if you know how, you can make them very cheap!
Timothy Griffith created a book called The Easy Cellar that describes the whole process from start to finish using affordable earthbags as the base. It’s a must read if you are interested in an underground shelter or root cellar.
Winter
12. Deep Food Storage
Winter always seems like a good time to put up more food. Long term food storage, in particular. You need a good place with a consistent temperature. This is another perk of having a root cellar. You can get that kind of consistent temp underground and it takes some of the food storage out of your home!
13. Organizational Preps
The cold winter days can be depressing. However, organizational projects are a great way to pass the time. Maybe you want to store things differently or in a new area. Its also a great time to clean out old space for new items.
14. Prepare Garden Areas (late winter)
Removing debris and waste from growing areas is one of those late winter tasks that can give you a jump on the growing season. Don’t leave this out of your plans.
Conclusion
A little bit of organization can go a long way. In the wide world of prepping, homesteading and the self-reliant lifestyle, there is a lot to consider. Hopefully we have offered you a few seasonal tasks that will make a difference in what you can accomplish.
You don’t wanna wind up funneling all the hard stuff to the end of the year and must rush through it all.
Also, consider adding a root cellar to your property. Even something small can go a long way. I really like the earthbag design laid out in The Easy Cellar. It might be just the storage answer you have been dreaming of! | https://medium.com/final-prepper/14-seasonal-responsibilities-for-the-self-reliant-118c564e5087 | ['Kevin Doyle'] | 2019-06-17 20:13:07.128000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'How To', 'Home', 'Responsibility', 'Gardening'] |
Can You Autorun RxJS? | It’s a sweetened countdown
Our first example! A simple mapping
Say, we want to prettify each value on a timer stream. So we’ll write such an expression:
Explanation: computed takes a function that uses some streams and re-evaluates it when those streams update. It returns an observable that you can manipulate further. And $(a) indicates that a is a stream and its updates should be listened to.
So technically this expression is equivalent to a.pipe( map(x => x + '🍰') )
But let’s keep discovering what else this tiny lib can do: | https://medium.com/swlh/can-you-autorun-rxjs-246822f8b757 | ['Kostia Palchyk'] | 2020-11-23 15:07:43.749000+00:00 | ['Typescript', 'Angular', 'JavaScript', 'React', 'Rxjs'] |
Dear FitPros: Your Coaching is Causing Eating Disorders | As we come to the end of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, I want to share my perspective around the industry I work in, as someone with a history of an eating disorder and a full time fitness professional. Everything I write is my own opinion, and I encourage any reader — especially my fellow fitpros — to engage with curiosity and an open mind.
Because your fitness coaching is likely causing eating disorders in your clientele.
Let me start by saying that I believe most people are good and want to leave a positive impact on this world, so I am not saying this is a deliberate choice or that my fellow fitpros are causing harm intentionally. Most fitness professionals I know would be horrified to realize their good intentions could lead to something so negative as an eating disorder. It’s important to point out that the wider culture normalizes so many harmful behaviors that many of us engage with them without realizing the harm being caused. I myself have absolutely used coaching methods throughout my career that have been harmful, and at the time I had no idea that what I was doing was hurting people, including myself. Most of us are taught and encouraged to use these methods, and told it is the right way to engage with fitness. But just because something is common does not mean it is right, healthy, or ok.
First, let’s establish what causes an eating disorder. Like most things human, it is complicated. Risk factors include genetic factors, a history of trauma, a history of anxiety disorders, a history of dieting, a history of intentional weight loss, perfectionism, body image dissatisfaction, weight stigma, experiences with teasing or bullying, and appearance ideal internalization. Speaking from my own experience, I definitely have a personality that was built for an eating disorder — high perfectionism, high achiever, wanting to control all I could to make sure things were done just right. This was tied to a yearning for acceptance and a false belief that if I was perfect, I wouldn’t be rejected or hurt. What triggered my eating disorder into action, though, was not my demanding academic schedule or the desire to win affection through perfection. It was the messaging I got, seemingly everywhere I turned, that to be perfect, to be worthy, to be accepted, I must be thin.
I started working in the fitness industry at a young age—my parents opened their gym on my 12th birthday and I have been involved with fitness as a certified professional since I was 16. I am profoundly grateful to my parents for introducing me to my love of movement and the joy of exercise; I found my passion young and this means that I have been involved in the industry for over 20 years, have earned countless certifications and a degree in Exercise Science, and have spent my entire professional life engaging in fitness. I also developed an eating disorder in my teens and actively struggled with it through my 20s. So I feel confident speaking to the culture of the fitness industry and how what we are taught and what we teach encourages eating disorders.
Diet culture is the overarching societal structure that encourages this focus of thinness. It is the fact that the average model weighs 23% less than the average woman, that the the top body editing app has more than 100 million users, that upwards of 80% of women and 40% of men are dissatisfied with their bodies, that kids as young as three show signs of body dissatisfaction. It is the fact that children in the USA are 242 more times likely to have an eating disorder than type 2 diabetes, yet dieting in children is so encouraged that by the age of 10, 80% of girls have dieted at least once. The messaging is everywhere — books, movies, TV, social media, advertisements, in conversations with family and friends, at the doctor’s office, in government agencies, and absolutely within and throughout the fitness industry. Thin is held up as the best thing a body can be. And the metrics that define thinness are amplified in the fitness industry. Speaking from experience, my own body is seen as thin in most places, but in the fitness industry I have been told I am too big and that I need to lean out multiple times throughout the years, including at the height of my eating disorder.
The reality is, fitness is deeply entrenched in diet culture. There are absolutely exceptions to this rule, and it seems that more and more fitpros are pushing back against the status quo. But for now, the state of the nation is diet culture. And diet culture creates environments for eating disorders to thrive. What does this look like for fitness professionals? Much of what we commonly practice is fertilizer for our clientele to nourish eating disorder risk factors (dieting, intentional weight loss, perfectionism, body image dissatisfaction, weight stigma, and appearance ideal internalization, for starters). But there is hope. We can reject diet culture and reframe our coaching to be rooted in body liberation and radical self acceptance, which are frameworks where healing can thrive.
Here are some specific ideas to engage with. Again, I ask you to approach this with curiosity and an open mind. Changing the world isn’t easy, and asking ourselves to challenge the way that things have always been done is uncomfortable. But we are brave and we are capable, and we can do hard and uncomfortable things.
Motivation based in body image. Giving coaching that speaks to extrinsic motivation is not good motivation. Not only is it short lived, but it increases feelings of shame, body dissatisfaction, and weight stigma. But clients love it, you say! My classes react positively to my cues of beach bodies and 6 packs! Here’s the thing: we humans sometimes like things that are not good for us. At the peak of my eating disorder, I loved this type of coaching. I told my peers it was great motivation. I taught other fitpros that it was a great way to coach. And I definitely was committed to exercising for hours a day. I also was throwing up after every meal and was completely at war with myself. And my peers had no idea. As fitness professionals, we don’t know who in our classes or amongst our clientele might be struggling. Eating disorders thrive in isolation, so those of us that have them get very good at hiding them. You may never know that someone close to you currently has or has had an eating disorder. I only started publically discussing mine in the last year, despite being in recovery for almost a decade. And because eating disorders affect at least 30 million people in the USA, there is a good chance someone you work with has struggled with one. It is best to assume that your words and actions could affect someone in this space. (Although as an aside, I do not recommend trying to diagnose those you work with — leave that conversation to eating disorder specialists.)
Rooting out diet culture from our coaching is a great way to ensure we are not triggering the most vulnerable among us, and it benefits everyone else, too. You don’t have to have a full blown DSM-5 eating disorder to be affected negatively by diet culture. And if changing our coaching could help everyone have a better relationship with their bodies and fitness, why wouldn’t we do this? A great first step is to notice your coaching. If you teach classes, try recording your coaching on your phone and play it back to yourself. If you work with clients, take mental note throughout session. When does body image focused coaching show up for you? What does it sound like? Write it down and reflect on it. If you see shame based coaching (ex. we work triceps so we don’t have chicken wings, we squeeze our butt so someone else will want to), take note and make a commitment to stop saying those cues. Be gentle with yourself; if it is something you have said for years, you won’t likely change it overnight. Keep noticing it and challenging yourself to shift. If you see body image coaching that seems positive (ex. we are excited to get ready for summer, we love this burn because the results are worth it), ask yourself how that might sound to someone with an eating disorder. Sure, saying, “the results are worth it,” could mean any number of things, but in a culture entrenched in diet culture, most people —especially those struggling with body image — will interpret results to mean thinness. Is your good intention worth fighting for if the impact could be reinforcing diet culture? Could you shift your coaching slightly to make it clear you are not encouraging thinness at all costs?
I find coaching focused on intrinsic motivators significantly more powerful. Speaking to how great we feel and how awesome it is to see what we are capable of creates a sense of empowerment and celebration. All bodies can fit into this space of motivation and all people can find connection to fitness through this perspective. Allowing our clients to be proud of their here-and-now body by speaking to intrinsic motivators (ex. how great does it feel to get our heart rates up? we love the challenge of seeing how high we can jump, we know this workout is giving us energy to carry throughout our day) creates a space that encouarges connection to fitness that is liberatory and expansive. It challenges weight stigma and negative body image and creates opportunity for our clients to engage with their bodies without shame. Shifting my own coaching and connection to fitness has been integral in my own recovery, and when I motivate my classes in this way, I can see a difference. Their faces light up, the feeling in the room is joyful, and we all find ways to move our bodies that results in confidence and compassion for the state we are in, today.
Shift our nutrition advice. There is another conversation here about scope of practice, but as a fitness industry veteran, I know we offer nutrition advice even if we shouldn’t. Our class members or clients ask, and so we share because we want to help. Even if this is offered with the caveat of, “you should really talk to a specialist, but here is what I do,” it is still a fitness professional offering nutrition advice, and we should acknowledge the potential impact this can have. The amount of diet culture nonsense that shows up in this space is astronomical. So again, first thing to do is to bring awareness. Do you offer nutrition advice through your services? Even if it is high level, or offered casually in one-off conversations? Chatting before or after class or session counts. What kind of advice do you offer in these spaces? Diet culture is sneaky because it is the status quo, so we don’t often recognize that our own nutrition behaviors may be a form of disordered eating, so even sharing what we do to eat can have unintentional consequences. Here are some common eating disorder symptoms and how they might show up in the fitness industry:
Skipping meals or making excuses for not eating — intermittent fasting anyone?
Adopting an overly restrictive vegetarian diet — yes you can be vegetarian or vegan in very healthy ways, and these diets are commonly used to restrict and hide eating disorders
these diets are commonly used to restrict and hide eating disorders Excessive focus on healthy eating — clean eating, going gluten-free or dairy-free or whatever-free without a legitimate allergy or sensitivity
Making own meals rather than eating what the family eats — meal prep
Withdrawing from normal social activities — talking with clients about ways to avoid being tempted during the holidays
Persistent worry or complaining about being fat and talk of losing weight —this happens at literally every gym or fitness center everywhere
Frequent checking in the mirror for perceived flaws — *stares in weight floor and fitness studio*
Repeatedly eating large amounts of sweets or high-fat foods — cheat days
Use of dietary supplements, laxatives or herbal products for weight loss — how often have you encouraged a client to try a supplement to help support their goals?
Excessive exercise — are we celebrating our regulars for doing two-a-days and missing a sign of something wrong?
Eating much more food in a meal or snack than is considered normal — how often have you had a client binge and told them that is common when we are trying to lose weight?
Expressing depression, disgust, shame or guilt about eating habits — again, this type of talk is common at every fitness business I have worked at
Eating in secret — how often have clients seemed to hide eating habits? Have you ever accused a client of lying about their eating habits?
Once you notice how nutrition talk shows up for you, the next step is to work to change it. I highly encourage all fitpros to become familiar with Intuitive Eating and implement that philosophy into your coaching. I would also encourage us to challenge the way we talk about food and nutrition, even and especially in casual conversation. Sometimes this means changing what we are saying and how we are saying it, and sometimes this means not saying anything at all. That may seem like an extreme bit of advice, but if my choice is between saying something that could cause harm and not saying anything, I would rather enjoy my silence.
Change how we talk about bodies. The last area I encourage fitpros to reflect on is our language around bodies. This can show up in our coaching, in casual conversations, on social media, and in our personal lives. As fitness professionals, we need to recognize that the way we talk about bodies carries more weight than your average person. We are seen as experts on bodies, and especialy as experts on body image, so our opinions can land heavier than someone outside of our industry. We have a responsiblity to talk about bodies in a way that builds those around us up and contributes to positive relationships with bodies and fitness. And too often, we are the worst offenders of diet culture.
Again, the first place to start is with curiosity and awareness building. How do you talk about bodies? How do you talk about your own body? What words do you use? Which bodies do you praise? Which bodies do you pity? Which bodies do you personally want to avoid — meaning, is there a body type that you would be unhapy to inhabit? Take some time to reflect on these questions. Journaling is always a good way to dig into our own thoughts and feelings. Once you have clarity on how you talk about bodies, can you acknowledge where diet culture shows up? It could be something like celebrating weight loss whenever you see it. Or giving compliments that are predominately body aesthetic driven, ex. you look so skinny today! What words do you use around larger bodies? If you see someone in a larger body working out, do you assume they are trying to lose weight and offer encouragement? What message is that sending to them and anyone within earshot? How do you talk about health? It is common for fitpros to equate thinness with health (thanks diet culture) and I often see fitpros concern trolling fat people online. Can you challenge your definition of healthy and expand it to include more than thin people? This is a space where often what we are taught is not the whole story, so maybe you can make a goal to explore the Health at Every Size movement and read the research in this space. Lindo Bacon’s books are a great place to start. What we assume to be true is not the full picture, and using our expertise as a weapon only upholds the ugliness of diet culture. Get curious and challenge what you think you know.
Try to shift your language around bodies to release judgement and make space for all bodies. Can we celebrate every body type? Can we describe any body as beautiful, attractive, and wanted? Can any body be capable and strong? Can we honor each body we encounter and focus on empowering every body?
As fitness professionals, we have an opportunity to be the change. We can be a force for good in the world and help shift our society away from diet culture and away from a place where eating disorders are rampant. Or we can keep doing what we are doing and cause harm in those we work with. The choice is our own, and we get to make it every day. I have hope that more and more of us will wake up and choose body liberation. | https://medium.com/@rachaelbabs/dear-fitpros-your-coaching-is-causing-eating-disorders-f8a4c1d4a4c8 | ['Rachael Babiracki'] | 2021-02-27 20:31:09.419000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Body Liberation', 'Eating Disorders', 'Fitness', 'Wellness'] |
Why We Follow Web Design Conventions, Not Trends | Web Design Trends Vs. Web Design Conventions
First, we wanted to point out that there is a grave difference between web design trends and website conventions. Web design trends and fads, are elements that change over time and are influenced by several different factors. Some are fantastic and long-lasting, while others are terrible and should be tossed out.
On the other hand, web design conventions are standards. They do not change and should never be altered because they are universally understood. While we are a web design agency that advocates differentiation in order to stand out from your competition, web design conventions are the one area where we don’t deviate.
Examples of Tried & True Web Design Conventions
Navigation Item Titles: For instance, if you were a developer it might be fun to label your About section “Brick by Brick” or your Testimonial section “Truth Be Told” in your navigation. This language isn’t the pre-established convention that most users on the internet are familiar with. They are more familiar with the simplest of terms “About” and “Testimonials.” A primary goal of any website is to allow users to easily find an item. Using conventions assists this effort greatly. Clear, simple language in this case is unmistakable and appreciated to new users on your site. Clever wording is best used as headlines. Home: It’s widely accepted that clicking a company logo in the header will bring you back to the homepage. Therefore, it’s unnecessary to create a “Home” button in your navigation. Contact Info: Another web design convention that positively impacts user experience is the location of your contact information. People typically look for a phone number at the top of a page, while they expect to find the rest of the company’s contact info on the bottom of every page as well as the dedicated contact page.
Why You Shouldn’t Blindly Follow Trends
As we’ve established, conventions are great! They support a positive user experience. Web design trends can transform your website, but if you select the wrong ones, they could conversely drag it down. That’s why, web design trends should be evaluated by an experienced web designer to determine their validity and shelf life before they are implemented.
Imagine basing your website around a certain fad that ends up fizzling out faster than it came onto the scene. Once it fades, you are left with a dated site and a huge bill. Figuring out how to best design your website for your target audience is definitely best left to the professionals.
Where Web Design is Headed in 2019
Lform-Approved “Trends”
Over the last two years, we’ve noticed some broad sweeping web design trends that we feel are relevant, look great, and therefore will be sticking around for a bit. Because they are so general, we like to consider them more of web design movements rather than trends. These movements include brutalist web design, Swiss style typography, and minimalist copy with in-your-face imagery that tells a brand’s story for it.
These movements will be-well-trendy, for a few more years to come and help further influence the web design movements that follow. Based on our experience, good trends tend to be en vogue in about five-year cycles. However, it’s important to mention that these trends to play off of each other and evolve over time. It’s not like fashion where one day something is in and then the next day it’s out. With these trends, we feel confident recommending them to our clients for this very reason.
So, we encourage your to be bold with your web design choices-as long as they have been researched and vetted to be effective-and to remember to use conventions. Coupling conventions with bold design is a recipe for an awesome user experience and successful website. | https://medium.com/lform/why-we-follow-web-design-conventions-not-trends-b7666a6d9c4f | ['Lform Design'] | 2020-11-04 19:31:02.513000+00:00 | ['Website Design', 'Web Design', 'Typography', 'Trends', 'Minimalism'] |
The Secret Agenda of Fulanis for Nigeria Revealed, War Will Soon Break Out In Nigeria. Mark My Words | “WAR WILL SOON BREAK OUT IN NIGERIA. MARK MY WORDS”
-Olusegun Obasanjo (GCFR) former President of Nigeria.
Another civil war in Nigeria has become imminent and inevitable. The reason for its inevitability is simply because Muhammadu Buhari, the Northern Nigeria Fulani oligarchs and the wider network of Fulani in Sub-Saharan Africa have concluded plans to adopt Nigeria as the homeland for all Fulani in Africa.
Fulani have realised that the wandering and rootless lifestyle of cattle herding is no longer tenable in the twenty-first century. Fulani need to have land to call home and rear cattle and that land should be Nigeria. The indigenous peoples of Nigeria have clearly, vehemently and stridently opposed this diabolic plan and both sides are mobilizing for war.
The Fulani won’t relent and the indigenous people will not give up their land.
The same Fulani Project, having failed so shamelessly and woefully in the Central African Republic, will not be allowed to fail this time as the Nigerian Fulani project is better funded with the massive [stealing] of the sovereign wealth of Nigeria through nationwide kidnapping for ransom by lower class Fulani and the seizure of the reigns of Government and wealth by the elite Fulani.
Kidnapping and the seizure of the institutions of Government are all for the purpose of implanting Fulani into the mainstream and control of politics and the economy of Nigeria for the objective of funding the Fulani Project in Nigeria.
The Central African Republic (CAR) has gone through exact same experience that Nigeria is going through right now in the hands of the Fulani. The country has been run down by the killings and destitution wrought by rival gangs in the fight to destroy the chokehold the Fulani had on the politics and economy of their country. Although the Fulani hegemony over the CAR has been defeated, the street gangs that defeated the armed forces have turned on one another and themselves, unable to rise above petty gang warfare to rebuild their nation.
The Fulani have become a blight on Africa and it’s biggest country Nigeria. Unable to break out of its centuries old cow herding and wandering culture, it continues to pull down every nation wherever it has any populations. Some countries in West Africa, Ghana and their ancestral home Guinea, have mastered the brutal tactics of dealing with Fulani and the Fulani have learnt the bitter lesson by staying away from these countries.
In the CAR, the Fulani following the pattern of their ethnocentric politics, had seized control of the commanding heights of the country’s military and financial institutions, the foreign exchange trade, the mining and export of gold and above all the governing structures of Government.
Mitchel Djotodia, a hare brained military officer and his Fulani faction seized power in a brazen coup by a demographic minority. All the non-Fulani military officers were flushed out of the forces, all the mineral deposits in the country were seized by Fulani merchants, non-Fulani traders were barred from trading in foreign exchange and the entire top echelon of the Civil Service were occupied by Fulani by as much as 83%.
France, the former colonial masters of CAR watched them do all these over the years and did not raise a protest. As in Nigeria, the Fulani were just 3% of the population of CAR, tucked in the desert recesses of the nation’s Northwest. No world or regional power raised a whimper even though the ethnic groups of the rich southern forest regions roiled.
In CAR the Fulani went even beyond the provocative as they are doing now in Nigeria.
They started seizing ethnic lands, raiding churches and killing worshipers, the most brazen being the attack on Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church in a town near Bangui the capital, where dozens of Catholic faithful were massacred during mass. The Fulani used their cattle bases allotted by Government to launch attacks and gun fights on the surrounding communities for robberies and ransom paying kidnaps as is happening now in Nigeria.
Miyetti Allah is one of their many module for executing this evil agenda of taking over Nigeria
Again, as is happening in Nigeria today, the purpose of all the action of the Fulani was simple; to transfer all wealth available in the CAR by all and every means and place it in the hands and control of the Fulani.
FULANI REPEATING IN NIGERIA WHAT THEY DID IN C.A.R.
The same play book used in Central African Republic is guiding the actions and policies of the Buhari Government in Nigeria.
1). The Fulani elite are raiding the Central Bank, buying dollars and other currencies at heavily discounted rates.
2). Other Fulani are raiding the NNPC, ploughing through the vaults and trading Nigerian crude for personal gain.
3). The educated wing are mowing down governing structures, taking forceful charge and control of all commanding heights of Government and the armed forces.
4). The uneducated Fulani herdsmen are engaged in kidnapping for ransom and now primed to take over ethnic lands, spreading themselves across the nation in settlements acquired with public funds to terrorise indigenous populations.
HOW THE YOUTH OF C.A.R. DESTROYED THE FULANI PROJECT:
It will be of great use to retell the story of Central African Republic so as to have the understanding of how the youth of the country removed the yoke of unremitting oppression by the Fulani. The youth formed street gangs and committed to take on the army with all their vaunted training and intimidating and deadly weaponry. The youth had locally fabricated flint guns and machetes, while the army was menacing with their machine guns, grenade throwers and rocket launchers.
When the fight started on that fateful day in 2013 in Bangui, everyone expected a complete annihilation of youth on the streets but the youth took the fight straight to the Guard Brigade near the Presidential Palace.
By evening of the same day, soldiers bodies were seen littering the streets while some were cut to pieces. By night fall, the streets of Bangui had become the play ground and the killing field of the youth of Bangui. In 3 days of street fighting, the entire Presidential Guards of the army of the CAR was decimated, in disarray running to their ethnic base in the far north and President Djotodia, the Fulani tyrant had abdicated and run away from the Presidential Palace and Capital, Bangui.
Tyrants survive for only as long as the people live in fear and choose to tolerate them. The Buhari Government is counting on deploying the Nigerian armed forces against the many ethnicities where the RUGA will be sited, beginning with the minority groups.
Buhari’s plan is to deploy Nigerian troops to subdue Nigerian people for the benefit of Fulani. Central African Republic provides a veritable lesson on how to deal with the unrelenting Fulani menace. The Niger Delta and Boko Haram if anything, have shown that the Nigeria army is not invincible in a fight with local forces. If anything, the Nigeria Army will likely disintegrate if made to fight in many fronts at once.
It is a known truth that the Fulani will not relent in their quest for the conquest of Nigeria until they have seized all sources of income and made everyone else subservient to their rule and hegemony.
The Fulani in Nigeria, in nearly a century of political and economic ascendancy have acquired so much power and money that it will defeat the purpose of such acquisition if they don’t deploy it for the very purpose for the grasp for power, which is the conquest of Nigeria for the overlordship of the Fulani.
The final stage of the grand plan to subdue Nigeria for Fulani overlordship are afoot and Buhari and his people cannot back out now. So a war has to be fought to resolve matters.
Our people say that you don’t strip a woman naked just to start looking. Nigeria has been stripped naked and with the RUGA monstrosity on the works, the next thing is to start the deployment of troops to protect RUGA in their various locations of development.
It was bound to happen that the Fulani who have been taking so much out of Nigeria and have succeeded in binding Nigeria hand and foot politically and economically, will take the wrong step into the abyss one day. The logical culmination of all the rapaciousness would be the last ditch attempt at the ultimate land grab, to seize the lands belonging to indigenous communities and hand it over to Fulani.
Internecine war in different RUGA locations and different fronts is therefore inevitable. Communities will rage to keep their land or lose it to their eternal shame and regret. Communities, particularly in Igboland will rather choose to be annihilated than lose their land to a hostile and predatory People.
Fulani have no land in Nigeria because they are not indigenous to Nigeria. They are migrants into Nigeria.
The decision by the Fulani to seize land by force in Nigeria can only lead to war in the many places where this seizure will happen. The people must resist as of necessity. They have done so in the Central Africa Republic and reduced the country to rubble and they will do it again in Nigeria.
Buhari will be compelled to deploy police and soldiers to defend the settlements and war will be declared everywhere there is a RUGA settlement in Nigeria. Fulani have no land to hold dear and protect in Nigeria. In fact, Fulani have no stake or investment in the project called Nigeria and will not care if Nigeria burns, in fact Fulani will be very willing to let Nigeria burn if the people are not willing to submit to their overlordship.
So they are minded to adopt a scorched earth policy to obliterate Nigeria. They have nothing to lose. They did it in CAR and they will do same in Nigeria. It will be the responsibility of the indigenous people of Nigeria to find common grounds to protect the land of their ancestral inheritance and prevent the Fulani from putting a knife on their unity and their need to bind themselves together in one nation, but they cannot do this without first containing the Fulani. Fulani will try to divide them.
Buhari and the Fulani oligarchs are counting strongly on deploying the armed forces to quell insurrections that will arise from this massive land grab, but that will be the Achilles heel of their grand plan. Once soldiers are armed to put down these insurrections, they will turn against their commanders to defend their communities. Nigerians should therefore await the great unraveling of their armed forces.
Do the Fulani have the firepower, the men and the capacity to fight? In the entire history of the Nigerian armed forces, the Hausa/Fulani officers and enlisted men have always been promoted far beyond their qualifications and competencies. The capacity to fight and man the different departments of modern warfare will be put to overwhelming test in any ensuing encounter.
Continue Reading | https://medium.com/@juliaadammarobert/the-secret-agenda-of-fulanis-for-nigeria-revealed-war-will-soon-break-out-in-nigeria-32ba2adc34a9 | ['Julia Adamma Robert'] | 2020-12-21 07:10:32.844000+00:00 | ['Nigeria', 'War In Nigeria', 'Nigerian Politics', 'Fulani'] |
WHAT HAVE I LEARNED? | After one hundred and four reflections, it might be timely to consider how my smaller cup has changed — what have I learned?
I was not aware that gratitude and kindness were such essential ingredients to well-being. Being mindfully grateful at least three times a day and doing three random acts of kindness a week is the best vitamin remedy available.
Consciously re-framing your present moment to have a (more) positive perspective is often self-fulfilling.
Letting go of judgement sure makes your life easier (but letting go is not easy or automatic).
40% of our well-being is determined by our intentions. We have significant control over our intentions so we can materially improve our sense of wellness.
Meditation, even when done poorly, does help you control your thoughts and emotions. This improved thought control empowers a lot of intentional well-being behavior and habits.
The ten positive emotions (love, joy, gratitude, pride, serenity, hope, awe, amusement, inspiration, interest). I like to regularly take an inventory to see which I am neglecting and which are rewarding me.
Money has limited influence on well-being, unless you are in difficult financial circumstances.
Having a smaller cup that grows and is reasonably full gets me through my day.
Pushing your risk taking appetite is empowering, and being too easily frightened runs counter to your well-being.
The peak-end rule. When we remember an experience (holiday, friendship, diner party, course), it is the best (or worst) moment and the last moment that most influences our re-collection. Knowing this, plan your upcoming experiences accordingly, especially the end.
Be a human being not a human doing. This is helpful to your well-being — seek to be in the present moment more, and avoid multi-tasking wherever possible.
Being kind, compassionate and generous to others richly rewards your spirits and wellness.
Pleasure (now, short term) and purpose (later, long term) are opposite ends of the happiness spectrum. Make sure that you attend to both, as you are likely biased towards one or the other.
The five second rule: count backwards from five and then GO — do whatever you are hesitating or being pensive about.
And, similarly you might wonder how your well-being journey has changed — what have you learned? Rather than a New Year’s resolution, do a last year’s self-reflection and be grateful for how you have improved your well-being.
And if I might recommend something to read, it would be The Chimp Paradox: what an amusing, well-being eye-opener it is.
Physically distance (when appropriate), never socially distance.
Reflection Source: www.Smallercup.org
Please freely share and widely, there are no copyright concerns. | https://medium.com/@smallercup/what-have-i-learned-d39712ff7c11 | [] | 2020-10-23 19:47:43.423000+00:00 | ['Learning', 'Career Advice', 'Learn', 'Resolutions', 'Careers'] |
So This Is Why People Believe in God | So This Is Why People Believe in God
I may not be there myself yet, but I’m beginning to understand.
Photo by Thomas Vitali via Unsplash
I have struggled with faith my entire life. Beyond being baptized by Pastor Wells at the Hollis Ave. Congregational Church when I was a baby, my upbringing did not involve church or religion.
I had that one Italian grandma who was a devout Catholic that would tell me what saint she was praying to and why. She had a crucifix by the door and would make the sign of the cross and then touch it upon entry.
We had one Bible in my house and I think I was more fascinated as a kid with the film-like pages than the actual contents.
Beyond its absence from my life growing up, my religious issues have mostly been cerebral. I think it comes from two things: an inherently analytical mind and a degree in English.
The former makes me question everything, the latter instilled in me the tendency to see The Bible as nothing more than allegory. Tell me you truly believe that there was actually a talking snake, an ark, and a parted sea and you will lose me forever.
Sometimes, it’s best not to think about everything all the time. Nonstop. This is especially hard for someone who is a recovering overthinker.
When you’ve come from that place, letting things be and letting some kind of higher power do what it does is freeing. And terrifying.
Things happen that we just can’t understand. The statement I find most infuriating is when something awful happens and someone says it’s God’s will. I can’t stomach this and it will make me flash angry at God whether I believe in him or not. How dare you exert your will over mine?
I found this especially true when I lost one of my best friends last year to a brain aneurysm. She was a believer and had many people in her life that were churchgoers. I braced myself for the moment someone told me her leaving this world was God’s will. I saw it as nothing more than a travesty.
Still, in quiet moments when the world seems heavy and I can’t make sense of life, I feel compelled to seek direction from something beyond me. Recently, I see this need increasing.
What I’m looking for is comfort and the need to trust in something bigger than me. The hard part is figuring out who or what that is.
In those moments, I understand why people believe in God. It makes sense to me that people pray. There are moments we all feel lost and confused. We’re looking for an outcome in our lives that leads us to the life we know we’re supposed to be living but can’t always see the path there.
Having faith in something is beautiful. There’s a sweet surrender there that holds the letting go that I’m searching for. We find that where we can. For a lot of people, that letting go is called God.
For other people, they assign a vaguer spiritual idea. The Universe. The Power. The Divine. The Source. The Presence. This works but I understand that people want to know exactly who they're talking to and call it by a proper name. God.
I have friends that pray and they’ve told me the sense of relief they get from it. They put what they want and need out there to God and ask God to direct back to them what that is. They give up control of what that looks like and have faith that what comes is what they’re meant to have.
This, to me, is a liberation I’ve never known. I understand why people call it glory.
I’m on the cusp of something spiritual and I don’t know what it is. I’m not ready to call that God. I don’t know if I’ll ever be there. It’s going to take a heavy amount of thought and learning but it’s about time I did some of that work.
Perhaps if I could move beyond the fire and brimstone and the large groups of people saying God hates my gay daughter and she’s going to Hell, I could actually give this thing a shot. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/so-this-is-why-people-believe-in-god-4e99f8876247 | ['Vanessa Torre'] | 2020-08-22 22:32:31.850000+00:00 | ['Self', 'Philosophy', 'Religion', 'Spirituality', 'Christianity'] |
7 Reasons Most Diets Fail — How To Lose 14 Pounds In 2 Weeks | People are continually on and off diets of various types. Few people achieve success, while the majority experience failures. The fact is that the way we approach diets is destined to fail. This is why:
1. Diets rob you of essential nutrients.
Most diets are quite restricted in terms of calories and anything containing saturated fat, so much so that they demand you to consume less or, in some cases, no meals that provide vitamins and nutrients that are vital to our daily nutrition. Although such a restrictive diet might result in weight reduction, it can also be damaging in other ways.
2. When you quit dieting, the weight returns.
Sure, you can go on a diet and lose the weight you desire, but after you’ve reached your goal weight, you have two options: either continue on that diet eternally to maintain that weight or revert to your old eating habits and the weight will return. Most people ultimately revert to their previous eating habits and beginning weight.
3. Weight is a hereditary predisposition.
Numerous studies have revealed that weight is mostly inherited and secondary to environmental factors. In other words, not everyone will react the same way to a diet. Even if they are on the same diet, some people find it more difficult to lose weight than others.
4. You won’t feel full on a diet.
People are accustomed to having a full feeling in their tummies after eating. If you restrict your meals while on a diet, you will most likely not reach that threshold. You will not feel satisfied, and they want to consume more will become an unpleasant continual hindrance.
5. Calorie counting turns into an addiction.
Many individuals believe that limiting calories and carbohydrates as much as possible is the key to losing weight. While it is important, there is much more to it than that. Counting and limiting calories is a simple way to become preoccupied with consuming and weight reduction, which can lead to disordered eating.
6. The misconception of a healthy BMI.
The diet industry tells us that we should aim for a healthy BMI range. The fact is that your BMI does not reflect your overall health. Sure, they might state that being below or beyond a specific BMI number increases your chances of developing health problems, but just because someone is in a healthy range doesn’t guarantee they are healthy. Healthy people come in a variety of forms, sizes, and BMIs.
7. Changing one’s behavior is really difficult.
Food limitations and eating habits are difficult to modify and sustain once they exist. Many people revert to their more comfortable routines, which frequently result in a higher number on the scale. It takes a lot of dedication and mental fortitude to persevere with changes that we don’t enjoy.
Remember that eating properly is more essential than being a specific weight.
ONE MORE THING… TRY THIS 10-SECOND “Fat Burning Coffee Trick” THAT BURNS UP TO 2 POUNDS OF BELLY FAT PER DAY…
Affiliate Disclosure:
This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a commission. Thanks.” | https://medium.com/@nikhilkumar./7-reasons-most-diets-fail-how-to-lose-14-pounds-in-2-weeks-ce24db263fb2 | [] | 2021-12-26 05:21:32.408000+00:00 | ['Diet', 'Weight Loss', 'Weightloss Foods', 'Weight Loss Tips', 'Lose Weight'] |
Let’s “eradicate” the water crisis in India, together | Dear friends,
This World Water Day, I thought to share my thoughts on the issues of water in India — what have I understood regarding this? Have we really reached the point of crisis in the urban water supply? What are the underlying factors or root causes for this? How can we address these? What role does FluxGen play in being part of the solution?
Understanding Water
The sources of water include seawater, and freshwater, which includes surface water — like lakes and rivers, and groundwater — like that extracted from borewells. Only freshwater, which accounts for 2% of the world’s water, is suitable for human consumption and production needs. Seawater is highly saline and needs desalination to be fit for human needs. This is a very expensive process and results in serious ecological imbalances as highly concentrated saltwater re-enters marine ecosystems. So, for all practical purposes, we are dependent on the 2% fresh water for human needs.
Agriculture in India is the largest user of water overall — over 80 percent — but we should not allow this fact to blind us to the urban water crisis. The human population is not distributed uniformly — it is concentrated in cities. Water for human use and consumption is further not identical to agricultural water, and requires several treatment processes — sedimentation, filtration, disinfection and storage to name a few. It also has a higher energy “cost” than agricultural water. Water consumption in cities must therefore be seen through this lens. We must clearly understand that available water in cities is limited despite it being a fraction of the total water used in India.
The unfolding climate crisis further exacerbates water-related issues. As a consequence of carbon-intensive industrialization, global temperatures have steadily increased at their fastest rates in millions of years, leading to a disturbance of normal water cycles of evaporation and condensation. This results, paradoxically, in both droughts and flooding, as well as other extreme events. With fewer rainy days in a year, and a greater concentration of rainfall on those days, there is less percolation of water into the ground in cities, leading to dropping groundwater levels. Further, climate change is causing glaciers to melt, leading to concerns that meltwater volume will abruptly decrease after a few decades once glacial storage is reduced.
Water is also a shared resource. Everyone, no matter their wealth or status, deserves an equitable share of available water for reasonable human consumption and needs. Water, therefore, has a very strong linkage to issues of social equity, especially so in a country like India that strives to adhere to democratic norms. Equity is also a key principle of sustainable development.
Industrial Water Use
The ‘cost’ associated with water to the economy and industries has increased drastically over the past decade. It has been estimated that water insecurities could reduce between 2–4 percent of GDP in developing countries.
In India, utility water typically costs more than Rs. 70 (US$ 1) per kilolitre. With Zero-Liquid Discharge (ZLD) regulations, the costs of water recycling can increase by a factor of 3. There is further a cost associated with pumping, purifying, and safely disposing of water in industrial processes. When water acts as an industrial process “carrier” (of chemicals, recoverable products and energy), there are further costs associated with thermal energy, electrical energy in processes, chemicals and other materials. This means that considered holistically, saving a litre of water can have an economic benefit to the industry that can reach up to dozens of times the nominal utility cost. This precisely quantified cost of water varies by industry and is currently ‘under the radar’ in corporate water governance in India.
Industries are huge guzzlers of water in Indian cities. Some industries have very good water-related practices; and some have room for improvement. To bring in transparency, the government has recently (since early 2021) made it mandatory to monitor groundwater extraction and further cost it, and mandated that audits be performed in order to measure and reduce water consumption by up to 20 percent within three years. Failure to do so will attract stiff penalties, including the possibility of revoking the license to operate.
From the perspective of water as a shared resource in Indian cities, it is great that the government has brought in these new norms. The new Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) guidelines will improve accountability for groundwater extraction. What used to be a matter of industrial responsibility has now been converted into regulation, creating a level playing field. Further, with the ‘true’ cost of water drastically increasing when various factors are considered, there is an excellent opportunity for industries to become compliant while making financial gains.
FluxGen’s Role
As an entrepreneur in the field of sustainability, I had long sensed that regulation would become inevitable to ensure the country’s water security. Further, the cost of water in water-stressed regions is becoming a prime concern for industries. With these considerations, FluxGen entered the water tracking and conservation business nearly four years ago. We were fortunate to work with industries and commercial entities who were responsible, willing to be transparent and who wanted to be socially responsible leaders in their fields. Companies — including Titan, Britannia, AFDL, Amazon and Microsoft among others — were cognizant of the “true” cost of water — and chose to track their water extraction and usage and reduce wastage, even before the current regulation was introduced. Thanks to these early adopters of our solution, FluxGen has developed a well-proven water tracking and conservation system.
One of our esteemed customers is GKNM Hospital in Coimbatore. Established in 1952, this is one of the city’s most reputed hospitals. The senior management of the hospital reached out to us after a referral to deploy a digital water management system to track their entire water infrastructure and reduce water consumption. We worked closely with the hospital water management team to deploy our IoT and data analytics based water management system, AquaGen. The hospital was consequently able to reduce water consumption by more than 50,000 liters of water per day using AquaGen. The hospital also won the CII National Water Award for Excellence in Water Management (‘within the fence’ category) after deploying our solution.
The solution we provided GKNM Hospital with (in addition to 30+ other clients across 50+ sites) is exactly what the new regulation by Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) and Jal Shakti Ministry has imposed on the nation at large today. With the introduction of this regulation, you might see new companies working in other sectors striving to enter — but it will take them time to build reliable tracking and proven water conservation technology. It took us nearly two years to perfect our own solution. The water crisis, however, cannot wait.
FluxGen as a company is ready to scale the AquaGen water management solution across the country in no time.
There are more than 70,000 hospitals in India alone. If we could deploy the GKNM Hospital solution in all of these we could save nearly 4 billion litres of water every day — equivalent to 3 times the daily water consumed by the whole of Bangalore city.
While FluxGen has a proven, reliable, solution and a strong, passionate team to solve the problem, we are looking for support. This could be through investment, adopting our solution, or partnering with us. As an Indian company, we would strive to face our water challenges by solving in India, for India. That being said, the water crisis is not a problem for India alone, and we see ourselves expanding into other water-stressed markets and geographies, including the Middle East and the US.
It is said that the word “eradicate” comes from the Latin phrase which means “to pull up by the roots”. Let us work together to “eradicate” — remove from the root causes — the water crisis in Indian cities!
~~~
Please do go through this three minute documentary as part of Evolution of Solutions series by The Better India, in association with Accenture in India, on FluxGen’s work towards Building a Water Positive World. Contact me at [email protected] to learn more about AquaGen.in and how you can support FluxGen’s mission to enable industries to measure, analyze and strategize to save water!
(Thanks to @Hari Dilip Kumar for working with me to craft this article from idea inception to research to cocreation! You can reach Hari on: [email protected])
Stay tuned for follow-on articles! | https://medium.com/@fluxgentech/lets-eradicate-the-water-crisis-in-india-together-d8d1ea6d68e4 | ['Fluxgen Technologies'] | 2021-03-22 14:48:07.994000+00:00 | ['Sustainability', 'Sdgs', 'Sustainable Development', 'Climate Crisis', 'Water'] |
I came to this page with darkness… | I came to this page
with darkness to spill —
almost bloodied
my vocal cords with hate,
like crude oil billows
black over coral.
Instead I reach out —
tracing my body in soft words,
I envelope my fear,
the way fog swallows
tankers in a shipping lane,
I build a lighthouse
for the others,
hailing their boats —
I know some of them
are sharpening their pens
to harpoon ideas
passing by in the deep.
I know how far
those lines can pull. | https://medium.com/@bipolar-greg/i-came-to-this-page-with-darkness-85f44674a10e | ['Gregory M. Brooks'] | 2020-12-18 18:01:32.502000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Poet', 'Poems On Medium', 'Poetry Writing', 'Poetry On Medium'] |
UX Design Resources | Twitter | Twitter is a great place to stay up to date with companies and individuals within the design community, but it’s tough to know who to follow.
Recently I decided to formalize how I use Twitter partially to make a method to my madness, but also to make it easier for all of you. Check out the Twitter Lists for easy following in addition to calling out a few individuals I love to follow the most.
Lists
Here are a few lists where you can follow multiple users under a specific topic all at once. Fortunately, these lists will continue to change after you follow them so it’s a great way to follow a specific topic.
A global movement to make web content and computer systems more accessible.
Partnering with civic institutions to improve public life.
Building sustainable, equitable public life through a balance of human capital & IT infrastructure.
Following Automation, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Autonomous, IoT, & Data Management.
Organizing people, infrastructure, communication, and material components to improve interactions.
Focusing on the interactions between users and everyday products and services.
The systematic study of users and their requirements to add realistic insights to design processes.
Crafting the communication between users and a digital product or service.
Planning and mapping all the possible interactions between a voice assistant and an end-user.
Individuals
These are just a few of the design folks I love to follow on Twitter. I often find their content to be insightful, challenging, and informative.
ux, product, civic tech, haiku. consulting @CalCourts; fmr Chief of Staff @18F; alum @codeforamerica @boltpeters. she/her #civictech book: http://cydharrell.com/book.
Founder @uenodotco. i play a ceo on twitter
Design leader, community cultivator, speaker, mentor, & advisor. Founder at @CraftAndRigor. Curator of http://UXSeattle.org. Formerly design leadership FB & AWS.
Solving problems through design, tech, & common sense. Currently @BeeckCenter @ColumbiaSIPA @PublicDigitalHQ. Formerly @usds @ashoka
Sr. Product Designer @InVisionapp 1000+ years experience. Designing design tools — Socialising at @designsocialclb ♡ #design
UX Designer. Mentor. Boston native. Corgis. Bookworm. Drag queens. Photography. Puns. Whiskey. Forever serving fresh gradient brow.
This is a personal account and does not reflect the opinions of my boss, who is an asshole.
former baby • designer, writer, #a11y advocate, very online • bi+ queer, brasileira-texan latinx, immigrants’ kid, scorpio • tweets autodelete • she/they
Author, speaker, UX designer. My tweets. She/her IG: @katvellos_author Work: http://katvellos.com Books: http://weshouldgettogether.com Formerly @slackHQ @pandoramusic | https://medium.com/@chelseacase/ux-design-resources-twitter-37111158a9aa | ['Chelsea Case'] | 2021-01-05 08:55:20.915000+00:00 | ['UX Design', 'UX Research', 'Ux Strategy', 'Service Design', 'Twitter'] |
I created the exact same app in React and Vue. Here are the differences. [2020 Edition] | I created the exact same app in React and Vue. Here are the differences. [2020 Edition]
React vs Vue: Now with React Hooks Vue 3 Composition API!
React vs Vue: the saga continues
A few years ago, I decided to try and build a fairly standard To Do App in React and Vue. Both apps were built using the default CLIs (create-react-app for React, and vue-cli for Vue). My aim was to write something that was unbiased and simply provided a snapshot of how you would perform certain tasks with both technologies.
When React Hooks were released, I followed up the original article with a ‘2019 Edition’ which replaced the use of Class Components with Functional Hooks. With the release of Vue version 3 and its Composition API, now is the time to one again update this article with a ‘2020 Edition’.
Let’s take a quick look at how the two apps look:
The CSS code for both apps are exactly the same, but there are differences in where these are located. With that in mind, let’s next have a look at the file structure of both apps:
You’ll see that their structures are similar as well. The key difference so far is that the React app has two CSS files, whereas the Vue app doesn’t have any. The reason for this is because create-react-app creates its default React components with a separate CSS file for its styles, whereas Vue CLI creates single files that contain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for its default Vue components.
Ultimately, they both achieve the same thing, and there is nothing to say that you can’t go ahead and structure your files differently in React or Vue. It really comes down to personal preference. You will hear plenty of discussion from the dev community over how CSS should be structured, especially with regard to React, as there are a number of CSS-in-JS solutions such as styled-components, and emotion. CSS-in-JS is literally what it sounds like by the way. While these are useful, for now, we will just follow the structure laid out in both CLIs.
But before we go any further, let’s take a quick look at what a typical Vue and React component look like:
A typical React file:
A typical Vue file:
Now that’s out of the way, let’s get into the nitty gritty detail!
How do we mutate data?
But first, what do we even mean by “mutate data”? Sounds a bit technical doesn’t it? It basically just means changing the data that we have stored. So if we wanted to change the value of a person’s name from John to Mark, we would be ‘mutating the data’. So this is where a key difference between React and Vue lies. While Vue essentially creates a data object, where data can freely be updated, React handles this through what is known as a state hook.
Let’s take a look at the set up for both in the images below, then we will explain what is going on after:
React state:
Vue state:
So you can see that we have passed the same data into both, but the structure is a bit different.
With React — or at least since 2019 — we would typically handle state through a series of Hooks. These might look a bit strange at first if you haven’t seen this type of concept before. Basically, it works as follows:
Let’s say we want to create a list of todos. We would likely need to create a variable called list and it would likely take an array of either strings or maybe objects (if say we want to give each todo string an ID and maybe some other things. We would set this up by writing const [list, setList] = useState([]) . Here we are using what React calls a Hook — called useState . This basically lets us keep local state within our components.
Also, you may have noticed that we passed in an empty array [] inside of useState() . What we put inside there is what we want list to initially be set to, which in our case, we want to be an empty array. However, you will see from the image above that we passed in some data inside of the array, which ends up being the initialised data for list. Wondering what setList does? There will be more on this later!
In Vue, you would typically place all of your mutable data for a component inside of a setup() function that returns an object with the data and functions you want to expose (which basically just means the things you want to be able to make available for use in your app). You will notice that each piece of state (aka the data we want to be able to mutate) data in our app is wrapped inside of a ref() function. This ref() function is something that we import from Vue and makes it possible for our app to update whenever any of those pieces of data are changed/updated. In short, if you want to make mutable data in Vue, assign a variable to the ref() function and place any default data inside of it.
So how would we reference mutable data in our app?
Well, let’s say that we have some piece of data called name that has been assigned a value of Sunil .
In React, as we have our smaller pieces of state that we created with useState() , it is likely that we would have created something along the lines of const [name, setName] = useState('Sunil') . In our app, we would reference the same piece of data by calling simply calling name. Now the key difference here is that we cannot simply write name = 'John' , because React has restrictions in place to prevent this kind of easy, care-free mutation-making. So in React, we would write setName('John') . This is where the setName bit comes into play. Basically, in const [name, setName] = useState('Sunil') , it creates two variables, one which becomes const name = 'Sunil' , while the second const setName is assigned a function that enables name to be recreated with a new value.
In Vue, this would be sitting inside of the setup() function and would have been called const name = ref(‘Sunil') . In our app, we would reference this by calling name.value . With Vue, if we want to use the value created inside of a ref() function, we look for .value on the variable rather than simply calling the variable. In other words, if we want the value of a variable that holds state, we look for name.value , not name . If you want to update the value of name , you would do so by updating name.value . For example, let's say that I want to change my name from Sunil to John. I'd do this by writing name.value = "John" . I’m not sure how I feel about being called John, but hey ho, things happen! 😅
Effectively React and Vue are doing the same thing here, which is creating data that can be updated. Vue essentially combines its own version of name and setName by default whenever a piece of data wrappeed inside of a ref() function gets updated. React requires that you call setName() with the value inside in order to update state, Vue makes an assumption that you’d want to do this if you were ever trying to update values inside the data object. So Why does React even bother with separating the value from the function, and why is useState() even needed? Essentially, React wants to be able to re-run certain life cycle hooks whenever state changes. In our example, if setName() is called, React will know that some state has changed and can, therefore, run those lifecycle hooks. If you directly mutated state, React would have to do more work to keep track of changes and what lifecycle hooks to run etc.
Now that we have mutations out of the way, let’s get into the nitty, gritty by looking at how we would go about adding new items to both of our To Do Apps.
How do we create new To Do Items?
React:
const createNewToDoItem = () => {
const newId = generateId();
const newToDo = { id: newId, text: toDo };
setList([...list, newToDo]);
setToDo("");
};
How did React do that?
In React, our input field has an attribute on it called value. This value gets automatically updated every time its value changes through what is known as an onChange event listener. The JSX (which is basically a variant of HTML), looks like this:
<input
type="text"
placeholder="I need to..."
value={toDo}
onChange={handleInput}
onKeyPress={handleKeyPress}
/>
So every time the value is changed, it updates state. The handleInput function looks like this:
const handleInput = (e) => {
setToDo(e.target.value);
};
Now, whenever a user presses the + button on the page to add a new item, the createNewToDoItem function is triggered. Let’s take a look at that function again to break down what is going on:
const createNewToDoItem = () => {
const newId = generateId();
const newToDo = { id: newId, text: toDo };
setList([...list, newToDo]);
setToDo("");
};
Essentially the newId function is basically creating a new ID that we will give to our new toDo item. The newToDo variable is an object that takes that has an id key that is given the value from newId. It also has a text key which takes the value from toDo as its value. That is the same toDo that was being updated whenever the input value changed.
We then run out setList function and we pass in an array that includes our entire list as well as the newly created newToDo .
If the ...list , bit seems strange, the three dots at the beginning is something known as a spread operator, which basically passes in all of the values from the list but as separate items, rather than simply passing in an entire array of items as an array. Confused? If so, I highly recommend reading up on spread because it’s great!
Anyway, finally we run setToDo() and pass in an empty string. This is so that our input value is empty, ready for new toDos to be typed in.
Vue:
function createNewToDoItem() {
const newId = generateId();
list.value.push({ id: newId, text: todo.value });
todo.value = "";
}
How did Vue do that?
In Vue, our input field has a handle on it called v-model. This allows us to do something known as two-way binding. Let’s just quickly look at our input field, then we’ll explain what is going on:
<input
type="text"
placeholder="I need to..."
v-model="todo"
v-on:keyup.enter="createNewToDoItem"
/>
V-Model ties the input of this field to a variable we created at the top of our setup() function and then exposed as a key inside of the object we returned. We haven't covered what is returned from the object much so far, so for your info, here is what we have returned from our setup() function inside of ToDo.vue:
return {
list,
todo,
showError,
generateId,
createNewToDoItem,
onDeleteItem,
displayError
};
Here, list , todo , and showError are our stateful values, while everything else are functions we want to be able to call in other places of our app. Okay, coming back out from our tangent, when the page loads, we have todo set to an empty string, as such: const todo = ref("") . If this had some data already in there, such as const todo = ref("add some text here"): our input field would load with add some text here already inside the input field. Anyway, going back to having it as an empty string, whatever text we type inside the input field gets bound to todo.value . This is effectively two-way binding - the input field can update the ref() value and the ref() value can update the input field.
So looking back at the createNewToDoItem() code block from earlier, we see that we push the contents of todo.value into the list array - by pushing todo.value into list.value - and then update todo.value to an empty string.
We also used the same newId() function as used in the React example.
How do we delete from the list?
React:
const deleteItem = (id) => {
setList(list.filter((item) => item.id !== id));
};
How did React do that?
So whilst the deleteItem() function is located inside ToDo.js, I was very easily able to make reference to it inside ToDoItem.js by firstly, passing the deleteItem() function as a prop on as such:
<ToDoItem key={item.id} item={item} deleteItem={deleteItem} />
This firstly passes the function down to make it accessible to the child. Then, inside the ToDoItem component, we do the following:
<button className="ToDoItem-Delete" onClick={() => deleteItem(item.id)}>
-
</button>
All I had to do to reference a function that sat inside the parent component was to reference props.deleteItem. Now you may have noticed that in the code example, we just wrote deleteItem instead of props.deleteItem. This is because we used a technique known as destructuring which allows us to take parts of the props object and assign them to variables. So in our ToDoItem.js file, we have the following:
const ToDoItem = (props) => {
const { item, deleteItem } = props;
}
This created two variables for us, one called item, which gets assigned the same value as props.item, and deleteItem, which gets assigned the value from props.deleteItem. We could have avoided this whole destructuring thing by simply using props.item and props.deleteItem, but I thought it was worth mentioning!
Vue:
function onDeleteItem(id) {
list.value = list.value.filter(item => item.id !== id);
}
How did Vue do that?
A slightly different approach is required in Vue. We essentially have to do three things here:
Firstly, on the element we want to call the function:
<button class="ToDoItem-Delete" @click="deleteItem(item.id)">
-
</button>
Then we have to create an emit function as a method inside the child component (in this case, ToDoItem.vue), which looks like this:
function deleteItem(id) {
emit("delete", id);
}
Along with this, you’ll notice that we actually reference a function when we add ToDoItem.vue inside of ToDo.vue:
<ToDoItem v-for="item in list" :item="item" @delete="onDeleteItem" :key="item.id" />
This is what is known as a custom event-listener. It listens out for any occasion where an emit is triggered with the string of ‘delete’. If it hears this, it triggers a function called onDeleteItem. This function sits inside of ToDo.vue, rather than ToDoItem.vue. This function, as listed earlier, simply filters the id from the list.value array.
It’s also worth noting here that in the Vue example, I could have simply written the $emit part inside of the @click listener, as such:
<button class="ToDoItem-Delete" @click="emit("delete", item.id)">
-
</button>
This would have reduced the number of steps down from 3 to 2, and this is simply down to personal preference.
In short, child components in React will have access to parent functions via props (providing you are passing props down, which is fairly standard practice and you’ll come across this loads of times in other React examples), whilst in Vue, you have to emit events from the child that will usually be collected inside the parent component.
How do we pass event listeners?
React:
Event listeners for simple things such as click events are straight forward. Here is an example of how we created a click event for a button that creates a new ToDo item:
<button className="ToDo-Add" onClick={createNewToDoItem}>
+
</button>
Super easy here and pretty much looks like how we would handle an in-line onClick with vanilla JS. As mentioned in the Vue section, it took a little bit longer to set up an event listener to handle whenever the enter button was pressed. This essentially required an onKeyPress event to be handled by the input tag, as such:
<input
type="text"
placeholder="I need to..."
value={toDo}
onChange={handleInput}
onKeyPress={handleKeyPress}
/>
This function essentially triggered the createNewToDoItem function whenever it recognised that the ‘enter’ key had been pressed, as such:
const handleKeyPress = (e) => {
if (e.key === "Enter") {
createNewToDoItem();
}
};
Vue:
In Vue it is super straight-forward. We simply use the @ symbol, and then the type of event-listener we want to do. So for example, to add a click event listener, we could write the following:
<button class="ToDo-Add" @click="createNewToDoItem">
+
</button>
Note: @click is actually shorthand for writing v-on:click . The cool thing with Vue event listeners is that there are also a bunch of things that you can chain on to them, such as .once which prevents the event listener from being triggered more than once. There are also a bunch of shortcuts when it comes to writing specific event listeners for handling key strokes. I found that it took quite a bit longer to create an event listener in React to create new ToDo items whenever the enter button was pressed. In Vue, I was able to simply write:
<input type=”text” v-on:keyup.enter=”createNewToDoItem”/>
How do we pass data through to a child component?
React:
In react, we pass props onto the child component at the point where it is created. Such as:
<ToDoItem key={item.id} item={item} deleteItem={deleteItem} />;
Here we see two props passed to the ToDoItem component. From this point on, we can now reference them in the child component via this.props. So to access the item.todo prop, we simply call props.item . You may have noticed that there's also a key prop (so technically we're actually passing three props). This is mainly for React's internals, as it makes things easier when it comes to making updates and tracking changes among multiple versions of the same component (which we have here because each todo is a copy of the ToDoItem component). It's also important to ensure your components have unique keys, otherwise React will warn you about it in the console.
Vue:
In Vue, we pass props onto the child component at the point where it is created. Such as:
<ToDoItem v-for="item in list" :item="item" @delete="onDeleteItem" :key="item.id" />
Once this is done, we then pass them into the props array in the child component, as such: props: [ "todo" ] . These can then be referenced in the child by their name — so in our case, todo . If you're unsure about where to place that prop key, here is what the entire export default object looks like in our child component:
export default {
name: "ToDoItem",
props: ["item"],
setup(props, { emit }) {
function deleteItem(id) {
emit("delete", id);
}
return {
deleteItem,
};
},
};
One thing you may have noticed is that when looping through data in Vue, we actually just looped through list rather than list.value . Trying to loop through list.value won't work here
How do we emit data back to a parent component?
React:
We firstly pass the function down to the child component by referencing it as a prop in the place where we call the child component. We then add the call to function on the child by whatever means, such as an onClick, by referencing props.whateverTheFunctionIsCalled — or whateverTheFunctionIsCalled if we have used destructuring. This will then trigger the function that sits in the parent component. We can see an example of this entire process in the section ‘How do we delete from the list’.
Vue:
In our child component, we simply write a function that emits a value back to the parent function. In our parent component, we write a function that listens for when that value is emitted, which can then trigger a function call. We can see an example of this entire process in the section ‘How do we delete from the list’.
And there we have it! 🎉
We’ve looked at how we add, remove and change data, pass data in the form of props from parent to child, and send data from the child to the parent in the form of event listeners. There are, of course, lots of other little differences and quirks between React and Vue, but hopefully the contents of this article has helped to serve as a bit of a foundation for understanding how both frameworks handle stuff.
If you’re interested in forking the styles used in this article and want to make your own equivalent piece, please feel free to do so! 👍
Github links to both apps:
Vue ToDo: https://github.com/sunil-sandhu/vue-todo-2020
React ToDo: https://github.com/sunil-sandhu/react-todo-2020
The 2019 version of this article
https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/i-created-the-exact-same-app-in-react-and-vue-here-are-the-differences-2019-edition-42ba2cab9e56
The 2018 version of this article
https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/i-created-the-exact-same-app-in-react-and-vue-here-are-the-differences-e9a1ae8077fd
If you would like to translate this article into another language, please go ahead and do so — let me know when it is complete so that I can add it to the list of translations above.
JavaScript In Plain English
Enjoyed this article? If so, get more similar content by subscribing to Decoded, our YouTube channel!
Originally posted at: sunilsandhu.com | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/i-created-the-exact-same-app-in-react-and-vue-here-are-the-differences-2020-edition-36657f5aafdc | ['Sunil Sandhu'] | 2020-08-09 17:30:21.608000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Web Development', 'React', 'Vuejs', 'Programming'] |
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Scope creep, and how to deal with it | Another friend is a truly brilliant scriptwriter. Which is why he was asked to rework the first episode of a six-part TV drama. He made it clear that he had another big project immediately after, and that this was all he would be able to do. Then he worked his magic, turning wooden characters into real people, creating a stronger story arc, and bringing the series to life.
He has a great agent, who issued a watertight contract. None of which stopped the producer calling my friend at home and saying, “We’ll never get the rest of it as good as this. So could you also just sketch out what you’d do with the other five episodes?”
There’s a name for this: scope creep.
And it’s becoming epidemic.
Partly it’s that the clients really don’t understand the extent of the extra work they’re asking you to do.
So it’s up to you to educate them.
Partly, it’s that clients have begun to take freelancers for granted. We are always there, 24/7, ready and willing to serve their wants and needs.
Except we all need to sleep, sometimes. Or even have a life.
Mainly, it’s that we are afraid to set firm boundaries, to risk losing clients.
Yet that’s what we need to do.
How to stop scope creep
1. Always agree the work in detail, before you begin
I ask for an email outlining the brief, before starting on any big writing project. So with the actor profile, I could go back to the commissioning editor’s brief and point out that no secondary interviews were mentioned when I agreed to do the feature.
The web-site designer has started issuing a detailed list of what is included in her starter website package — and what is not. One round of corrections/alterations is included. In clear, bold type, her contract states that any extra work would incur additional charges.
For the scriptwriter, it was simply a case of calmly restating that he’d made it clear that he had other commitments, and there was no extra time to work on this. If they could wait, he said, he’d be happy to pick it up again next year. And the producer could call his agent to schedule that in — and negotiate the fee.
“I used to feel guilty if I couldn't do everything people wanted,” he says. “But I’ve come to realise that I just can’t work the hours I was, and produce work to a standard I am happy with. Something had to give — and I decided it wouldn’t be me.”
2. Get paid upfront, whenever possible
And if not, at least half. This stops the fear that if you don’t do the extra work asked of you, you won’t get paid for any of the hours you’ve put in.
Clear contracts will also help ensure you will get paid for the work agreed. If you’re just starting out, at least confirm the fee and the scope of the work in writing. You can also often find templates for basic contracts in your field, online.
Once you’re more established, or start taking on jobs that entail a big outlay of time or money — get legal help. It’s one of the best investments you’ll make.
3. If you want to do the extra work, negotiate a fee
It doesn’t have to be difficult: “I’d love to do that for you! It wasn’t included in our original schedule of work, so would you like me to send you a quote?”
You might be surprised how often the client simply says yes.
4. Or, push the work back to them
I agreed to do the new interviews, for a small extra fee. But only if the magazine’s staff actually organised it all for me. Weirdly, it turned out that big Hollywood names and world-class fashion designers aren’t available to hop on the phone with 24 hours notice.
Surprisingly, however, they did get one person on their list to talk to me. We chatted for 15 minutes. I got a great anecdote to add to the profile. And £150 extra on my fee.
The website designer now sends new clients a list of things they need to get together before she starts work, including a logo, all of the copy and some photographs that the client feels they can live with for a while.
There are clear deadlines for all of this, and a warning that if these are missed, the project could be delayed. This stopped her having to chase the client for every single component of the website, reducing her workload considerably.
5. Set clear boundaries
Make it clear that you only respond to emails or accept work call during certain hours. Train your clients to understand that you have other clients, and a schedule of your own; when they miss deadlines or add extra work, it is likely to affect your completion date. Try and do this calmly, without apology, guilt or drama.
If you’ve been endlessly available in the past, it’s absolutely fine to say, for example: “Now that I’m more busy, I’m reassessing how I work. Moving forward, I’m no longer taking work calls after 5pm, or over the weekend.”
6. Get comfortable with losing clients
No one likes to lose a customer. But if they won’t accept that asking for extra work means paying out extra money for your time, the scope creep will quickly turn into a scope stampede.
Soon you’ll be dreading their calls or their emails, and staying up late into the night doing extra, unpaid work on every single job they give you.
Or — you could invest that time connecting with people and creating new clients who respect your work, and your boundaries. Then spend your evenings doing whatever you like. Because freedom is part of the reason you went freelance in the first place, no? | https://medium.com/swlh/scope-creep-and-how-to-deal-with-it-bd02b1e9f44d | ['Sheryl Garratt'] | 2019-09-06 17:39:58.908000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Work Life Balance', 'Freelancing', 'Boundaries', 'Creativity'] |
Parsing post data 3 different ways in Node.js without third-party libraries | 3. multipart/form-data
This one was the trickiest one of all, this is not close to being a one liner; if it’s so complicated why bother? The simple answer is transferring files with form data in a single request.
There are different approached how to parse this data, but for the purpose of this example I’m loading all data to memory, then storing the given file to the server and then of course as the previous examples also returning the request data as response data, I remove the binaries from the response because I’m showing the data on the website and loading binary takes a long time. The HTML form is simpler than application/json , it’s basically the same as application/x-www-form-urlencoded but with different encoding (enctype)
<form method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input id="username3" type="text" name="username">
<input id="password3" type="password" name="password">
<input id="picture3" type="file" name="picture">
<input type="submit">
</form>
What’s different from x-www-form-urlencoded is that we not explicitly assign enctype to multipart/form-data and add a file input type named picture to the mix.
I use the same data and end emit event callbacks as the previous methods, but this time, before we register the callbacks we change the request encoding to latin1 so that it reads the binary data correctly.
if (request.headers['content-type'] === 'multipart/form-data') {
// Use latin1 encoding to parse binary files correctly
request.setEncoding('latin1')
}
The data sent by multipart/form-data is separated in parts divided by a boundary specified in the content-type header sent by the browser, an example below:
------WebKitFormBoundaryxJi9AgGdxx83BunR
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="username" sal
------WebKitFormBoundaryxJi9AgGdxx83BunR
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="password" pass
------WebKitFormBoundaryxJi9AgGdxx83BunR
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="picture"; filename="Chromium_11_Logo.svg"
Content-Type: image/svg+xml
<!-- Created with Inkscape ( <svg>
...
</svg> ------WebKitFormBoundaryxJi9AgGdxx83BunR--
The boundary in the above example is ------WebKitFormBoundaryxJi9AgGdxx83BunR , I created a helper function to extract the boundary from the request header as follows:
function getBoundary(request) {
let contentType = request.headers['content-type']
const contentTypeArray = contentType.split(';').map(item => item.trim())
const boundaryPrefix = 'boundary='
let boundary = contentTypeArray.find(item => item.startsWith(boundaryPrefix))
if (!boundary) return null
boundary = boundary.slice(boundaryPrefix.length)
if (boundary) boundary = boundary.trim()
return boundary
}
In the above method, I read the information from the content-type header, then I split it by ; , then I trim whitespaces from each entry in the content-type, then I get the boundary by running the find() method on the array by checking the boundary= as prefix, I then return the string after this prefix.
Now that we know how to get the boundary, we’re going to use it to split the request post body as follows:
const boundary = getBoundary(request)
let result = {}
const rawDataArray = rawData.split(boundary)
for (let item of rawDataArray) {
...
}
Within the for loop the first thing I check is for the name:
// Use non-matching groups to exclude part of the result
let name = getMatching(item, /(?:name=")(.+?)(?:")/)
if (!name || !(name = name.trim())) continue
I use non-matching groups regex search to exclude part of the matching string so that it returns just the data I’m looking to get, which is just the name matched with (.+?) , if no name was found continue to the next item.
Next up I get the value for the given named input with a kinda complicated regex search, also using non-matching groups:
let value = getMatching(item, /(?:\r
\r
)([\S\s]*)(?:\r
--$)/)
if (!value) continue
The above matches all characters including spaces, newlines and tabs, the value is matched with ([\S\s]*) , and if no value was found we continue to the next item in the array.
Next up is to check if this entry is a file, and we find that out if we find a filename as follows:
let filename = getMatching(item, /(?:filename=")(.*?)(?:")/)
if (filename && (filename = filename.trim())) {
...
}
Filename can be empty, If the user didn’t select any file and presses the submit button, that’s why I match the filename using (.*?) to match 0 or more characters.
If the filename if valid I also search for content-type as follows:
let contentType = getMatching(item, /(?:Content-Type:)(.*?)(?:\r
)/)
the above regex string matches the content type with (.*?) .
Because there can be several files in a post request in the example I store all the files in a resulting array and to store the files in the server I do the following:
for (let file of data.files) {
const stream = fs.createWriteStream(file.filename)
stream.write(file.picture, 'binary')
stream.close()
file.picture = 'bin'
} | https://javascript.plainenglish.io/parsing-post-data-3-different-ways-in-node-js-e39d9d11ba8 | ['Salvador Guerrero'] | 2020-05-20 08:16:21.636000+00:00 | ['Coding', 'Nodejs', 'JavaScript', 'Programming', 'Json'] |
Recommended Publications and Guidance for New Writers | Photo by LinkedIn Sales Navigator on Unsplash
I have been a writing for Medium for six weeks. Within the first week of me starting, I had absolutely no idea how to work this platform. I had no idea what I was doing and had absolutely no idea about publications.
In order for me to spread my work, I joined numerous Facebook groups and had come across talks about different publications. I had self-published three pieces by this point.
Upon this decision, I did not have many views at all and had not made a penny.
As a new starter on Medium, below is some guidance and recommendations on publications;
Join publications straight away.
You need to build your fan base. The best way to connect with other writers, aside from social media, is to get your work noticed and join a publication.
I do not recommend self-publishing until you have build a fan base, however small or big. This is because if you find you are not receiving any attention for your work, you can become easily demotivated and even decide to give up altogether.
2. Do not just submit to one publication.
There are so many publications out there. Just because the one you have submitted to have accepted your work does not mean you need to continuously publish to that one alone.
It is good to experiment with more than one publication so you can connect to new writers. Obviously, some publications have more followers than others, so potentially you can get more views, claps, reads, highlights, whatever with some publications in comparison to others.
3. Join smaller publications to build your confidence up for the larger ones.
The Ascent, The Start Up and all the major ones that everyone gets excited about. Become a writer but I wouldn’t publish to them straight away as it’s highly likely you’ll be rejected.
In addition, the bigger the publication, the longer it will take for them to review your work. We are talking around a week. However, smaller publications take around 48 hours maximum.
Smaller publications are more likely to be less picky about what they want published on their page, so you’re more likely to get accepted.
Over time you’ll find your writing feet, be able to practice and build your confidence up when it comes to being rejected by the big boy publications.
There is also the myth that submitting to smaller publications can actually increase your interactions a bit more than if you published to a bigger publication. This is because the writers who submit to the small publication are more likely to be dedicated to it and are more likely to read your work.
4. Medium Editioral Group Publications
These are the publications that you cannot just ask to become a writer for. You must pitch pieces of work to them and they will base your article a base rate (usually $500) as well as it be eligible to earn via Medium Partner Programme.
Be prepared to not receive a response when you pitch the first time. Many people have had to pitch a good 3/4 times until they are successful.
A list of these publications are available here.
5. Be prepared for rejection!
Ultimately, no matter what, be prepared to have your work rejected. It doesn’t really bother me at all, but it does still hurt a bit.
Rejection is something that many really can’t deal with. So if you fall into this category, especially with writing, I’m sorry my friend, but it is inevitable to happen eventually.
6. Read the submission guidelines!
If you are aiming to write for a specific publication, there’s no point wasting time writing for a particular publication and then it being rejected because of it not meeting the submission guidelines.
READ THEM FIRST! | https://medium.com/illumination/recommended-publications-and-guidance-for-new-writers-1ca50e6aa8f4 | ['Shamar M'] | 2020-12-16 03:37:12.729000+00:00 | ['Advice', 'Writing Tips', 'Writing Life', 'Recommendations', 'Writing'] |
Running a .NET Project. C# From Scratch Part 2.2 | We know that the application is working since it produces the default output, but what exactly is happening when we use the dotnet run command?
Behind the Scenes
When you use the dotnet run command, .NET automatically does several things to make your project ready to run. In this section, we’ll look at the steps .NET takes behind the scenes to run your application.
Restore
The first thing that happens is .NET implicitly runs the command ‘dotnet restore’. The dotnet restore command tells .NET to go out and get the correct version of any packages used by your application.
Packages are pieces of codes that other developers have written and you can use in your application. In the world of .NET, the package system is called NUGET.
All of the packages being used by your application are recorded in the .csproj file, along with the version of the package being used. When the dotnet restore command is executed, .NET goes out and gets each package listed in your .csproj file from the internet.
The packages that are used in your application are called external dependencies.
In our basic project, we don’t have any external dependencies so nothing happens when .NET runs this command.
Build
Next, .NET runs the ‘dotnet build’ command implicitly.
This command tells .NET to compile your source code files into a binary file that can execute on your machine.
The tool that does this is the C# compiler. The C# compiler takes all of the source code files in your project as an input and outputs a single binary representation of your source code. This binary format is faster to execute on your machine.
The output file is a dll file.
Dll stands for Dynamic Linked Library. In .NET, this is referred to as an assembly.
Run
Finally, the dotnet run command is executed.
This command tells .NET to bring the application to life using the .NET Core Runtime and to execute the instructions in the dll file.
It’s important to note that if you want to run your application, you need to use the .NET Core Runtime. It’s not possible to run the application via the dll file directly.
This is because it’s the .NET Core Runtime that knows how to launch your application, manage memory, convert the instructions in the dll file into instructions that your processor understands and tear down the application when it’s finished running.
What’s Next?
In this part of the series, we learned how to run a .NET application using the dotnet run command. We also learned what .NET is doing in the background to convert our project into an application that can be run on our machine.
In the next part of the series, we’ll learn how to open the project in Visual Studio Code and look at the most important parts of our code editor. You can find that part of the series here. | https://kenbourke.medium.com/running-a-net-project-6d18b840b607 | ['Ken Bourke'] | 2020-12-16 15:23:07.453000+00:00 | ['Dotnet', 'Csharp', 'Software Development', 'Learn To Code', 'Programming'] |
Connect Your Cluster with Node | Hi, hope you have read my previous article in which i have write down the steps to make your cluster on MongoDb Atlas, if not then you can check it i.e Create your Cluster on MongoDb Atlas
In this article I will show you to connect your cluster and list down all the databases on Node JS application.
I am using MongoDb javascript driver.
const { MongoClient } = require(‘mongodb’);
You have to update username, password and your cluster url
const uri = “mongodb+srv://<username>:<password>@<your-cluster-url>/test?retryWrites=true&w=majority”;
Here is an MongoClient to interact with our database
const client = new MongoClient(uri);
For more detail about MongoClient check it out
Type your .js file name with node in my case it is like this node main.js
Here is all the complete code.
const { MongoClient } = require(‘mongodb’); const main = async () => { const uri = “mongodb+srv://<username>:<password>@<your-cluster-url>/test?retryWrites=true&w=majority”; const client = new MongoClient(uri); try { await client.connect(); await listDatabases(client); } catch (e) { console.error(e); } finally { await client.close(); } } main().catch(console.error); const listDatabases = async (client) => { databasesList = await client.db().admin().listDatabases(); databasesList.databases.map(db => console.log(` — ${db.name}`)); };
Output
I hope that you liked this article and if you do , don’t forget about commenting!!! See ya! : 😊 | https://medium.com/@naxir-sheikh/connect-your-cluster-with-node-3c96127bef64 | ['Naxir Sheikh'] | 2020-12-12 18:16:45.886000+00:00 | ['Node', 'Mongodb'] |
Millennials As Romantics (Not Postmodernists) | How do you think you would have reacted born into a world where these were the recent intellectual developments? Where so much knowledge and learning was on display, and humans were using it to master the natural world and philosophy as well as create sublime art? Well, let’s see what the Romantics thought.
Science and Civilization Suck — Rousseau
Let’s begin our tour of the Romantics with Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). The awkwardness of intellectual history is evident here since he’s been called both a proto-Romantic as well as an influence on the Enlightenment, but regardless of what we call him his voice is, perhaps more than any other, one that chimes with ours.
One could be forgiven, surveying the 17th century, for feeling good about humankind, thinking that our achievements in science, philosophy, and art, were to be celebrated. Rousseau kinda disagreed. Here’s what he has to say in any essay about whether the progress in the arts and sciences was good for morality:
Astronomy was born of superstition, eloquence of ambition, hatred, falsehood and flattery; geometry of avarice; physics of an idle curiosity; and even moral philosophy of human pride. Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth to our vices; we should be less doubtful of their advantages, if they had sprung from our virtues…where is the man who sincerely desires to find [scientific truth]? … who among us will know how to make right use of it? …. If our sciences are futile in the objects they propose, they are no less dangerous in the effects they produce (‘A Discourse On The Moral Effects Of The Arts And Sciences’, here)
Let’s just emphasize this: this isn’t Foucault or Derrida or some other postmodernist, calling into questions our motives (calling into question the idea that we are disinterested truth speakers, as opposed to, say, people attempting to wield power as the Foucaultian would have it), or questioning whether science will know how to deal with the effects they produce (which one might imagine Foucault saying of the Manhattan project, or a contemporary leftist about AI in light of its racist biases).
No — this is Rousseau, writing almost three hundred years ago. A mistrust of science isn’t new — it’s been around since science really started picking up steam, and the thought that it’s definitive of our age is just wrong. Noticing that we should be skeptical of the thought that we are going through some particularly new and baleful moment in the history of ideas. We’re not: we’re just retracing arguments that humans seem, perhaps just as a matter of temperament, to be inclined to trace. The contemporary leftist who responds to those who want to use, e.g. blockchains for social good by pointing out bitcoin’s ecological cost, or who responds cynically to data about how fewer people are living in extreme poverty thanks to capitalism by pointing out that, well, thanks to capitalism, in not so long, fewer people will be living full stop thanks to climate change can, I think, be viewed as giving voice to the same sort of anti-progress viewpoint as Rousseau. It didn’t take Derridean differance to enable people to wonder about the negative effects that progress entrains.
In another early and major work, Rousseau also rails against what he calls ‘moral or political inequality’, the inequality that arises when people come to live together in cities. He seems to think, in particular, that civilization is a big scam instituted by the rich to protect their wealth from the more powerful — because more numerous — poor people, and attributes a lot of the problems of modern life to the institution of private property. It should scarcely need to be said that this is something that would resonate with the modern leftist, and so even if Peterson’s (nonsensical) postmodern neoMarxism hadn’t come along, it’s plausible they’d still have the same attitudes towards capitalism.
Perhaps more than anyone, Rousseau’s perspective chimes with that of millennial leftists (public domain image from wikipedia)
Wordworth and Other Voices
Recall Milton’s epic canvas and fancy verbiage. One way to look at that — although it sounds a bit anachronistic and weird — is that he is speaking with the weight of tradition and power behind him, using privileged-people language to discuss things of interest only to people with great swathes of education.
Much contemporary leftist agitation is concerned with letting speak voices other than those traditionally heard, and portraying the lives of people other than straight white people. Again, some think this can be explained in terms of postmodernism with its leveling of different ways of speaking in combination with its views about how power has malignly influenced who gets to speak.
But, again, we can see something like this concern with opening up at least what gets spoken of in the Romantics. William Wordsworth (1770–1850) famously wrote a preface to a collection of poems he and Coleridge wrote, Lyrical Ballads, in which he defended his use of normal language and his speaking of normal people in normal situations (as opposed to, literally, making up words based on Latin to talk about God and the devil). The passage is a bit long — feel free to skim:
Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because, in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings, and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and, lastly, because in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. The language, too, of these men has been adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust) because such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived; and because, from their rank in society and the sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse, being less under the influence of social vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. Accordingly, such a language, arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more permanent, and a far more philosophical language, than that which is frequently substituted for it by Poets, who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves and their art, in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression. (available here)
Although he didn’t really do much in terms of diversifying the cannon — it’s not as if he enlisted livers of ‘humble’ life to speak for themselves — at least one could argue that he was concerned with changing the shape of poetry to more evenly represent life in its varieties, a goal that many on the left, concerned with representation, could agree with. Here again, then, we arguably see the precursor to today’s young people in the Romantics.
Everyone:
Rousseau: I have a spanking fetish!, or, why millennials talk about private things publicly
One thing that people have noted about the millennial generation is their tendency to speak freely (often right there in their social media bios) about things older generations wouldn’t speak about in public, or at all. (I don’t have any article to link to back up that people have noted this, and can’t be bothered googling to find one, but I’m sure they have.)
Thus it’s not unusual to see people talk about their sexual preferences or physical or mental health conditions on public-facing platforms like twitter, and, moreover, for most people there’s no stigma attached to it.
Can we explain this feature of contemporary habits? Well, I guess one could try to say that the perspectivalism encouraged by postmodernism, by determining one’s capacity to speak to an issue by one’s position with regard to it, mandates such disclosures.
But I think we can do better. We’re just a generation that is open about talking about feelings and related things. And again we can note that this is something we find in the Romantics. Thus, to return to our old friend Rousseau, he wrote what some consider the first autobiography. And one might think, you know, to the extent that talking about oneself was this new thing, that he would be circumspect.
But … no. After a bit about his childhood and reading preferences, it doesn’t take too long to get to this passage (both from here):
I found the reality [of being spanked] much less terrible than the idea, and what is still more unaccountable, this punishment increased my affection for the person who had inflicted it. All this affection, aided by my natural mildness, was scarcely sufficient to prevent my seeking, by fresh offences, a return of the same chastisement; for a degree of sensuality had mingled with the smart and shame, which left more desire than fear of a repetition.
He goes on to mention how his kink, in addition to his shyness, made it difficult to meet women:
This folly, joined to a natural timidity, has always prevented my being very enterprising with women, so that I have passed my days in languishing in silence for those I most admired, without daring to disclose my wishes. To fall at the feet of an imperious mistress, obey her mandates, or implore pardon, were for me the most exquisite enjoyments, and the more my blood was inflamed by the efforts of a lively imagination the more I acquired the appearance of a whining lover.
If you think that self-disclosure is a typically millennial thing, I recommend skimming through The Confessions.
I think — though I’m somewhat less sure about this — that a concern with mental health can also be seen in the Romantics. No less an authority than Goethe tells us that ‘classicism is health, romanticism sickness’, and there is often a concern in Romantics with what we would now call depression (wiki backs me up here). Thus consider the first lines of Keats’s (1795–1821) ‘Ode To Melancholy’, where the poet considers — in fancy speak — suicide:
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul
Or, you might take a look at this article that lists some of Shelley’s ‘super-emo’ poem titles.
In general, there’s something about the Romantics that makes them more open to the darker aspects of life. My tentative suggestion is that a similar tendency in millennials explains mental health talk.
(It’s kind of important to note, I think, that this willingness to talk about mental health and more generally feelings openly seems like an unambiguously good feature of the modern era, so that even were one entirely on board with the enlightenment criticism of the contemporary left it would still be worth wondering whether this good is outweighed by the other bads.) | https://mittmattmutt.medium.com/millennials-as-romantics-not-postmodernists-b678818d84ad | ['Matthew Mckeever'] | 2019-04-13 09:22:18.752000+00:00 | ['Literature', 'Culture', 'Postmodernism', 'Philosophy', 'Politics'] |
Versionar sua base de dados com Spring Boot e Flyway | 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/cwi-software/versionar-sua-base-de-dados-com-spring-boot-e-flyway-be4081ddc7e5 | ['Nataniel Paiva'] | 2021-03-18 17:43:29.054000+00:00 | ['Spring Boot', 'Flyway', 'Database', 'Spring'] |
Tables UI design in Figma: data grid by a single component | Building a table of components is a task that sooner or later arises for every design systems developer in Figma ❤. There are three approaches to table design to create a data grid with a flexible architecture. In each case, either a row component, a column component or a cell component is used. Each of the cases will be discussed in detail below.
What is all that for?
Why put everything in one box? Does a medium-sized project really need this flexibility? Do I need a component architecture for a regular table? Within a large team project, it`s the only true way to create new data grids — through a component. This helps to generate more options and validate new ideas faster.
My observations show that not all figma-designers train themselves to work with components from the earliest stages of a new project. According to a recent survey in Figma chat, just under half of designers use components. Most part just uses frames and copy-paste. But those who managed to switch their workflow to component one will most likely never take a step back, because this approach gives more flexibility and is in demand among organizations with their own design staff. If you want to maintain interest in your vacancy, if you’re thinking of joining a cool organization where they are already working in the Figma — work with components.
However, I would also recommend that freelance designers use pre-designed UI library in Figma. You can make a duplicate for a new client and quickly stylize it for specific tasks through the master components. I`ve recently helped my partner, who failed to win the tender, and in a day and a half I`ve made 30 application screens + a dozen slides for the presentation, using my own product iOS Figma design kit. By the way, we finally used that chance and won the tender. Now the models are already in the development department. I guarantee the case will be interesting.
Table styles
When I created my design-systems in Figma which were not the first, I reviewed hundreds of tables and I managed to categorize the most commonly used styles
Classics
Horizontal and vertical borders are clearly visible, headings are bold and separated from the cells with content. Literally, the Excel-style
Contrast heading
There may not be separators or they may only be horizontal. Thanks to intensive headings, such data grid is quickly separated by a glance if there are many of them on one dashboard
Material table
Data-first approach. Such tables can be found in material design. A more intense upper separator and single-pixel internal ones qualitatively separate the data
Patchwork
These tables are straight from the past, but to this day the use of alternating gray and white rows is often found in modern products. Maybe they just know that their audience is older and such tables are more familiar to them?
Minimalism
Nothing but data! This is justified on thick desktop interfaces where each pixel counts.
Using components to create a table
All 5 styles I`ve shown above are collected from one cell-component, the difference is only in content and all they will refer on one and the only chief component. I consider this method to be the most flexible and I will tell you about it in detail soon, but first I will list two other approaches:
Row-component
Use a row with cells of a predefined quantity. Thus, the table is quickly made by simply cloning from top to bottom. Then the width and height of each row are adjusted.
Cons: low degree of flexibility, the cells are always proportionally scaled. You will have to keep many components in the system with a different set of cells, and then create new states for each set, which can complicate the organization.
Pros: Row height is convenient to adjust. Ideal for dashboard projects where the horizontal states in the project often change: onhover, selected, focused and so on, and the development specifics require frequent switching between them:
An example of switching the horizontal states via the Instances menu
Column-component
This idea came to my mind for the first time a little more than a year ago and I implemented it in later versions of Material Design System. It would be convenient to make the table from the component-columns, inside of which the number of rows is predetermined and multiplied, and all the extra ones would be cut off outside the frame through the Clip Content option. Then it would be enough to pull the frame down by the bottom border to show more additional cells in the column:
Cons: inside a component, you cannot adjust the height of each cell (horizontal step), because otherwise you can`t hide the excess outside the instance.
Pros: enough flexibility to make tables in a design system with different column widths, for example, to fit a different data type.
Tip: you can keep three of these components in different increments: S-32px / M-48px / XL-64px, for example, and solve the cell density problem to some extent. This is especially useful when creating both mobile and desktop templates within the same project/team library.
Cell component
The use of a cell-component gives maximum flexibility in styling the table. Of course, such a project rarely requires the use of both Material-style and classic one. But if you’re a freelancer who regularly creates new dashboards for your customers from your own or commercial component base, then you’d better start with the cell from which you’ll create tables brick-by-brick. Then it will be enough to enclose 4 lines, press them on the sides of the cell, place constraints and generate new styles.
Uber-feature: in my iOS design kit for Figma, I can turn everything upside down through a component :) By the way, it is on the basis of templates from this product that the materials for this article were made
Cons: there are almost none, except that this approach requires more time and system design skills
Pros: maximum flexibility, ability to control the grid with a single component, adjust separators, background, nested icons and more.
I`ll consider the detailed composition of such a super-cell in the next issue. Follow me, there is so much tasty UI news ahead!
⭐ Figma source file with cell-components
Happy prototyping, folks!
Follow me everywhere: Dribbble, Behance, YouTube, Uplabs, Twitter, Reddit, Telegram, Instagram | https://medium.com/@kamushken/tables-ui-design-in-figma-data-grid-by-a-single-component-5d2c76c16f8 | ['Roman Kamushken'] | 2020-11-08 20:22:13.039000+00:00 | ['Figma', 'UI', 'Product Design', 'Prototyping', 'UX'] |
Take The First Step | Mostly, this will be a place where I nerd out about cool Tableau stuff, but since this is my inaugural post, I’m not going to deep-dive anything. Of course, I’ll splash some Tableau magic at the bottom of this post, but I want to give a brief introduction/inspiration session first. I can’t quantify how many years I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a blog, but every time I start, I always end up in one of the following places:
There are already plenty of Tableau blogs out there, what makes me think my voice and perspective are unique and different enough to stand out?
It’s probably a lot of work to start a blog…which platform would I use, what would I write about, and who would even care?
I’d rather spend (and typically waste) my time doing other things, I’ll get started on that whole blog thing later…
Analysis paralysis, imposter syndrome, dopamine deficiency, you name it. The amount of time that elapsed between when I decided “I’m actually doing the blog” and I hit “Publish” on this first post is longer than I care to admit, but the mantra that helped me get there stayed the same: “Take the first step.” Then later, “Take another step.” Even if it’s something as simple as opening a tab with Medium on it in my Chrome. Eventually, taking the next step becomes easier and easier, and eventually, you’re on a roll and in hyperfocus rabbit hole mode (at least, if you’re like me). If you’re thinking “starting a blog is easy, I could start a hundred blogs on the average day before lunch,” then use your imagination and apply this to whatever it is you do find hard to do. And also, read this comic. It’s for you.
If you didn’t already know, I’m unapologetically Type B. Speaking of, enough fluff, time for Tableau. | https://medium.com/mattalytics/take-the-first-step-1a759eb135ee | ['Matt Peterson'] | 2020-10-23 22:23:14.161000+00:00 | ['Tableau Desktop', 'Visual Analytics', 'Tableau', 'Spotify', 'Data Visualization'] |
Creating tables in SQL | First, let’s cover creating a table of data for a toy example. Suppose you want to recreate the black_holes table I have used in many of my SQL posts, one of which is Classifying black holes with SQL. Let’s use the same data, which I have provided again, here.
Now create a table with the data columns specified. Here, the columns are:
name — the name associated with the black hole (a record); this is recorded as TEXT data type.
— the name associated with the black hole (a record); this is recorded as data type. base_mass and power — the mass of the record, each recorded as an INT (integer). To understand this, use scientific notation: base_mass x 10^ power . The unit of mass for these black holes is in solar masses, or “the mass of the Sun”. For example, the Sombrero galaxy supermassive black hole is 1x10⁹ times the mass of the Sun.
And, we will include one more column:
num — the unique number of the record, which is recorded as an INT .
To create a table in the database, we need to create a table object with the CREATE TABLE statement. There is a simple syntax for creating a SQL Server table —
CREATE TABLE table_name (
column_name data_type [NULL|NOT NULL]
);
where data_type is what kind of data that is in the column (for example, INT , TEXT , CHAR , etc.). The [NULL|NOT NULL] option specifies if the column needs a value when a record is inserted.
If a column is defined to be NOT NULL then we cannot create a record without an actual value in the column.
then we create a record without an actual value in the column. If a column is defined to be NULL then we can create a row without an actual value in the column.
Here is an example.
CREATE TABLE black_holes (
num INT NOT NULL,
name TEXT NOT NULL,
base_mass INT NOT NULL,
power INT NOT NULL
);
Finally, we can insert the data for the four records into the table with the INSERT INTO statement. | https://medium.com/swlh/creating-tables-in-sql-a3c5995da5f7 | ['Karen Warmbein'] | 2020-06-22 08:10:37.541000+00:00 | ['Postgres', 'Sql', 'Postgresql'] |
ทำไมถึงควรใช้ google ads | We are a full-scale digital agency based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, specializing in software development, design, and digital marketing consulting.
Follow | https://medium.com/artisan-digital-agency/%E0%B8%97%E0%B8%B3%E0%B9%84%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%96%E0%B8%B6%E0%B8%87%E0%B8%84%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%A3%E0%B9%83%E0%B8%8A%E0%B9%89-google-ads-51f4b712b6d1 | ['Benjawan Jitpreecha'] | 2020-03-11 04:47:41.642000+00:00 | ['Artisan', 'Google', 'Google Adwords', 'Google Ads', 'Digital Marketing'] |
Miss Myler has a dream and needs to find peace with it | Miss Myler has a dream and needs to find peace with it
Miss Myler befriends a group of paraplegics vets who help her bring her dream to an end Tom Jacobson Follow Jun 23, 2020 · 16 min read
Photo by Ruth Caron on Unsplash
The wheels fell away from the secure platform and as Miss Myler fell earthward her mind reviewed in one flash parts of her life. In fact, the instantaneous memory pictures that paraded through her mind with such impossible speed referred to the events which had led her to this terrible predicament.
It had all begun near her two-room home in Cassadaga, Florida. Miss Myler, a sixty-five-year-old, had never married; from birth, her legs were malformed and withered; she’d learned to care for most of her needs from a wheelchair. After cancer took her husband she found the necessity of moving out of her sizeable house near Orlando. For many years she’d worked as a quality inspector at one of the larger orange groves that cover most of central Florida. There were things she couldn’t do for herself such as trim the overgrown rose bush that grew up one side of her small, wooden home. Once, while on a visit, Miss Mylers’ nephew surprised her with a green parakeet, “to keep you company,” he said. She’d named him Frito after her favorite snack.
Miss Mylers’ nephew also built wood ramps that allowed her to climb the four steps up to her front door. In several of her rooms, her nephew removed the doors which allowed easier access for her wheelchair. Her living room and other spaces were free of furniture and this way she had almost free rein of the floor. Despite a sparseness and a feel of never-ending transition the space was fresh as the soft breeze pushed and swayed sheer light blue window curtains. She preferred leaving windows open, allowing a gentle air moving through that carried the essence of roses from her garden.
The little old house was in what some people would say was a forgotten neighborhood. By most standards, they considered her town small. She loved her beautiful wood home. She loved living in a small town, which Cassadaga was, grocery nearby, the church down the street, children often raced their bikes up and down the sidewalks that lined with old and tall Florida Maples and Bald Cypresses and ubiquitous Sand Pines most hung with long wisps of softly swaying Spanish moss. Several years back she turned the upstairs into a rental apartment and a war veteran named Peter lived there.
During a visit shortly after he moved in she asked him what the tattoo on his forearm meant. He said it was his Special Forces unit. He said he’d lost his leg in the war. Peter turned out to be a gem and whenever Miss Myler needed repair work or maintenance, her renter got it done and refused to reduce his rent for his service. Miss Myler saw that he drove a very fancy car and guessed that he really didn’t need the financial help. As a consequence, a friendship was formed. Often the young man, a Systems Software Engineer, joined her for an early breakfast before he set out to work to the nearby industrial complex in Orlando.
The parakeet and Miss Myler became close friends and they would talk at one another incessantly in the house’s privacy. At first, she was a touch hesitant to break into a serious conversation with Frito. She overcame this as Frito responded with voluminous screeching and soft clucking, stressing his speech with a gentle back-and-forth rocking of his green, feathery head and jabbing the space around him with his wings; one wing to make a light suggestion, both wings to stress a point.
Miss Myler had eyes of blued steel and rosy cheeks; she kept her gray-brown hair done in braids wrapped up around the top of her head. Her wide shoulders were her most notable features along with arms which, through the years of working the wheelchair, had developed into efficient pistons of power. Visitors coming to visit with Miss Myler were at first surprised, then became used to the fact that their host rarely sat still. Using her wood plank flooring throughout as a runway of sorts, she’d whip around from the living room to the kitchen to the entry foyer. The floors sounded much like an old bowling alley as the balls rumbled down the aisle. The muscles that moved and worked the arms were taut and as strong as steel bands. She imagined herself to be like a steam locomotive, her arms were the drive shafts that connected from the engine to the outside of the wheels and as she rolled along she whispered, “chug, chug, chug, chug, whoo, whoo, chug, chug, chug.” Frito meanwhile hung onto the top of her head and screeched with delight.
Peter often joined her on her walk, to the neighborhood club of wheelchair-bound paraplegic vets at the outdoors basketball court wheeling swiftly after the basketball; one vet knocked the ball off the court. Miss Myler was just arriving as the ball rolled off in her direction, showing great deftness she scooped the ball up and with one quick movement flung it back to the men. Every Friday Miss Myler went to watch them play basketball and soon she came to know them by their names. Amazed and impressed by their tanned, muscled arms and handsome faces, Miss Myler was most thrilled when they’d stop playing to do wheelies. Ray was her favorite rider of them all. He’d been the first to notice her watching them six months back.
“Miss Myler, Peter.” Ray called as he rolled in her direction, “how are you guys today?” Peter entered the middle of the circle of players and began talking up next weeks’ game.
“Oh just fine Ray, thank you. Looks as though you boys are working up quite a sweat today.”
“Just the usual. You should get out there with us some-time, whew!” He smiled and winked as he caught his breath. They watched as the men did wheelies; several could maintain their balance on two rear wheels for several minutes. As she saw the men raise up their front wheels as if they were weightless she was reminded of the dream she’d been having for the past few months, a flying dream of sorts.
Each dream had stripes, they seemed to dominate everything, she thought they were green and white and then another time green and red. Amidst the stripes she flew; the first time as she gained altitude and the sense of weightlessness filled her body she awoke frightened, catching her breath; her pillow was damp from perspiration. But as the dream persisted, she felt good about it; the dream clarified a little more with each experience. Although she flew she didn’t flap her arms as in some peoples’ flying dreams, and she didn’t become airborne through the more sophisticated means of levitation and propulsion; she felt anchored to something. Even though the dream became a welcome routine for her, its meaning remained a total mystery. She told Ray about it.
Unless one has a keen interest in dreams, listening to another person recount their dreams can rate as one of the most tedious exercises in the refined art of listening. Ray, much to his own sense of guilt, was getting bored until she compared her dream to a lock.
“A lock? Miss Myler, why a lock?”
“Well yes, you see the lock on my front door opens with great difficulty, I have to work this way and that with the key until it opens. So the other day as I was working with the key I realized this was like my dream.” Frito, still on top of her head, flapped his wings and chortled. “You see, Ray, I’m missing the key to unlocking my dream.”
“Well Miss Myler that sure is interesting; I’d say that you’re lacking something, like-“
“Ray I’ve been lacking something for years!” She said pointing to her head; Frito leaned back hanging onto hair and chattered excitedly, he almost fell off; Ray and Miss Tyler joined in laughing.
“No, no, I meant no such thing; heck, especially us,” Ray gestured towards Miss Myler, then to himself and with a sweep of his arm taking in the group of shouting men on the court, “we have to be a little loose up here to get along. But what I meant is that I bet you’d like to learn how to do a wheelie!”
“Well I guess- “Miss Myler had raised eyebrows and the start of a smile, “I guess so, why not? Right?”
“Maybe this will help you find the key you’re talking about.”
So that day she took her first lesson from Ray as the men formed a protective circle around her in case she flipped backward. They shouted encouragement as she, with Frito hanging onto her hair, tried to execute the powerful hand thrust and at the same instant jerk back with head and shoulders this to provide the counterbalance to lift the heavy front wheels.
“Okay Miss Myler, try it again, and let’s see if you can get the front wheels off the ground,” Ray said, coaxing softly.
“Oh! I’m scared of this, boys, I just don’t know.” She went on with light protests but realized that more than anything else she wanted to succeed.
Once at home, she continued to work at shoving back against the backrest, trying to coordinate this move with a firm forward move on the wheel handrails.
Taken up by this new excitement and once while Miss Myler shoved back hard, Frito was thrown from his place on her head. Frito’s wings had were clipped when he was first brought to her, but now his wings were full-grown, and with a burst of chirping and beating wings he flew freely about the room.
“Of Frito, yes, you’re beautiful, I think you know that don’t you!?”
The bird responded with fancy loops, flying so fast that to Miss Myler, Frito looked like a little green comet that left a trail of green. She understood the bird to say: “Now it’s your turn, yes you can fly, you can do it, you can’t quit!”
“All right Frito, here it goes again.” And with a mighty shove backward she jammed down hard on the handrails and she lifted and saw the room go around in front of her. ‘Wham!’
“Ooh, my God, ooh it hurts, ooh my back.” She thought she heard birds chirping and realized it was Frito beside himself chirping wildly in despair. He held one wing out then the other as he perched on one of the front wheels that were now high in the air; the other wheel was spinning slowly. Reaching behind her on the floor, she grasped a table leg and pulled free of the wheelchair. The pain was sharp, low on her spine. With great determination she pulled herself to the telephone; Frito walked forlornly in a goose-like waddle alongside her. His beak made a fretful clicking, and he ruffled his little green head.
The doctor came as fast as he could and after giving Miss Myler a thorough check-up and saw that she had suffered no serious injury, he reprimanded her. He left her with pills for the pain in her back. Her recovery was swift. Frito helped get her started with each day, bringing her toothbrush into her bedroom and dropping it from a close distance on her face. This woke her. The pills created a loss of sharpness.
“Well good morning Frito!” At this the bird would go through his aerial acrobatics, fluttering here and there and chirping away. She understood him to say; “It’s time to get up, time to get going, can’t quit, time to practice, time to learn how to fly!” In the next room, the cuckoo clock cuckooed seven times.
“Okay, Frito, I suppose it is time to get up.” That night her flying dream had returned, additional details appeared this time although the stripes remained a mystery. Last night she noticed that there was a key, a gold key that hung about her neck on which were inscribed the initials R.P.; the burden of the mystery lessened just a little as if the unseen tumblers in this dream lock were jostling promisingly. She’d awakened as the toothbrush touched her cheek and the rustling wind from Fritos’ wings fanned her to a new resolve to continue on with her wheelie training.
That day Frito swallowed one of Miss Mylers’ pain pills and dropped dead in the middle of a wondrously inspired aerial flourish. It had landed with a gentle thud with both feet sticking straight up. Miss Myler called out once. “Oh Frito!” She was not disposed to crying. Picking up the small feathery bundle, she nuzzled the warm body, breathing in the honey-sweet aroma of Fritos’ feathers for the last time.
“Can’t quit, can’t quit, can’t quit.” Fritos’ encouraging chirp rang in her inner ear, the singing now a plaintive cry. Miss Myler looked across her compact living room and her steel-blue eyes hardened. Taking her sharpest apple-coring knife, she cut open the dead bird and replaced its little, multi-colored intestines with paper. After she sewed him up, she wheeled over to the cuckoo clock which hung within her reach, and with a touch of crazy glue replaced the plastic cuckoo bird with Frito. She noticed that a small bunch of Fritos’ bright green feathers stuck with the crazy glue to the tops of her hands. She dismissed it with a smile thinking: Frito will help me fly.
Now with each hour came Fritos’ exhortation to excellence, for instance, at three o’clock he’d go: “can’t quit! Can’t quit! Can’t quit!!”
A year passed since Fritos’ death. Every day she worked at learning the wheelie until she had mastered it, the timing and subtle body coordination needed for staying up on two wheels for extended times. Much to the delight of the vets, she could stay aloft longer than all of them. With great respect and camaraderie, they dubbed her ‘the little old lady from Cassadaga’. She provided quite a spectacle as she flew up and down the sidewalk to and from the basketball court or to the grocery store on two back wheels. Two arms, flailing up and down, her cheeks red and puffy; her now unkempt hair and white silk scarf the vets had gifted her she’d taken to wearing flew in the wind. The entire town came to know her and they were fond of her.
The children delighted in riding their bicycles alongside her and she dazzled them with backward wheelies and her very own ‘slip on a dime’ trick.
Ray worked with her and often visited her at home. The vets invited her to their barbecue gatherings every several months. They awarded her an honorary place on their wheelchair basketball team and got to throw the first ball during games; the crowds cheered.
“Yes, well; I had my doubts too you know, thanks to you, thanks to you, Ray, and all the boys. It’s meant so much to me.” She poured Ray a small glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. The cuckoo clock struck four and seemed to chant: Can’t quit! Can’t quit! Can’t quit! Can’t quit!” Ray noticed for the first time that the cuckoo bird was Frito.
“Did you,” pointing up to the bird, “how did you, my gosh that’s Frito isn’t it?” Ray was smiling.
“Oh yes, after Frito died you could say I resurrected the little bird,” she looked up at the clock. “He still provides me with company; or sort of, anyway. Oh, Ray, now you are surely wondering about me a little, you know, my mind…” she chuckled.
“Oh, not in the least Miss Myler, not in the least. Some of our veteran friends when they lose their service dogs have them preserved, it brings them peace and happy memories.
“Miss Myler, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that flying dream. Do you still have it?”
“Yes, I do, Ray. I must say that I look forward to it every night now, or almost every night. I’m still puzzled by it, though.”
“Is it still the same dream each time?” Ray asked.
“The green and red stripes are still there. Where there once used to be a roaring noise, now it’s more like people talking, and the flying seems so much better. It’s as though I fly with less effort. Oh, and then there are the gold plaques with the clear initials R. B.s, the B has a small s after it; this is still a question to me.” They sat for several minutes. Ray finished his orange juice and put the glass on the kitchen counter. Ray went about rinsing his glass as though in thought.
“Oh Ray, there you go again, leave it, haha.”
He stopped what he was doing and looked at Miss Myler. “You’re dreaming about a circus Miss Myler.”
The key fit and something shifted in her mind. The picture was clear.
“My God,’ she thought, ‘of course it’s a circus!’ Then she said: “! You’re right, the gold plaques with the R.B.s initials are on the poles supporting the green and red, striped canvas top!” She placed her hands to the sides of her face as she flushed from the sudden rush of revelation. The roar, the people in the dream were the audience, and they were watching her do a stunt.
These were the pictures and memories that flashed through her mind as she fell toward the floor of the ring circus, these pictures and more she reviewed with the suddenness of a bolt of electricity.
The Rolando Brothers’ circus was a dilapidated place and was unscrupulously operated, and the owners used the initials R.B.s for advertising along the Florida highways for miles leading into the Orlando. They used the initials R. B. s as an obvious effort to pick up some tourists there to visit the world-famous Ringling Brothers’ circus with the same initials. During the early seventies after Disney got started in the Orlando area many secondary, fly-by-night diversion parks tried to cash in on the Disney rush. Ringling Brothers had in a slow, legal battle tried to have Rolando Brothers remove the initials without success.
A letter from Social Security advising Miss Myler of a ten-year miscalculation they had made in her favor went to the wrong address. Enclosed was a check for five thousand dollars payable to Miss Myler. A senile man named Mick Myler in Tallahassee received the letter. Property taxes had risen so steeply that Miss Mylers’ food purchases had become difficult. She discovered the tastiness of canned cat food fried in a saucepan with a bit of mustard and ketchup, except for the mysterious solid bits of white and purple debris that she had to spit out as she chewed.
That was ten months ago, and the money had long gone to pay off overdue debts. Her Social check barely covered her expenses.
The chubby and sweaty talent scout from Roland Brothers circus had at first kept his hat on in her house; she felt an annoyance towards him. A lousy peddler, she thought. He lit up a smoke and given some changes would have said nothing, instead, she asked him to extinguish the smoke. She noticed his irked reluctance, though momentarily. Her thoughts were more or less: what an unsavory person lacking in manners and common consideration, she thought of wonderful Ray and his equally compassionate veteran friends. When Sal, the circus man, removed his heat moistened Panama hat and placed it on her coffee table she couldn’t resist and quickly told him to remove it.
She smiled to herself as she recalled one of her vets' friend's favorite terms for one another: asshole. But in this case, she didn’t feel it in a friendly way.
“Yes ma’am, we hear you’re just supm’ wonderful in that wheelchair. See, ma’am, we got what we at Rolando Brothers’ call ‘the satellite’. Now the fella that used to ride the wheel made twenty-five dollars each ride;” the talent scout, or so that’s how he presented himself, waited for a reaction but Miss Myler didn’t budge other than lightly dusting a side table next to her. “So we’d like to offer you fifty dollars each time you ride ‘the satellite’ on that wheelchair! And if that ain’t a bargain, I-“
She nodded, barely noticeably in the affirmative. “Okay, I’ll do it for seventy-five dollars, but I’ll need my first payment now, I’ve some bills to pay if you don’t mind.” There was nothing to sign, just an agreement. The circus employee knew there was little purpose in trying to get her to come down, pulled out a wad of bills and peeled off seventy-five, then handed them to her. They made ride arrangements, as the circus was nearby she could go from her house and back again after her show.
They drove her to the stripe-topped circus each day for three days before show day. The first time she rode ’the satellite’ she was terrified but thoroughly exhilarated. It was outside for the time being but they’ ed roll it into the huge tent for the show. ‘The satellite’ was a wood circle ramp covered in bright, blinking lights which reached twenty-five feet at its highest point. Sitting beneath and to one side of the wooden ramp it didn’t impress her as being very high, but going through on the wheelchair was something entirely different.
With the help of two muscular men as part of the routine, she was pushed up the ramp to a take-off point; its height was equal to that of the circle. The initial terror convulsed her, caused her at first to shudder for a moment as several circus hands hollered encouragement, and shouted frightening catcalls. The circus crew since took an immediate liking to Miss Myler, admiring her guts and showed her every kindness. They secretly advised her to ask for more, which after several shows she did and was now making a hundred per flight.
She closed her eyes and Frito was popping in and out of the cuckoo clock, ‘Can’t quit! Can’t quit! Can’t quit!’ and with a forward thrust, she was off and rolling. It all went so fast; she felt she would fly right out of her chair as the centrifugal force played its wrenching mischief on her frail body. In what seemed a blurry instant the sky appeared and disappeared. The grass was there once again as she rolled out of the circle and came to a stop a short distance away. She loved it.
“Hooray for the little old lady from Cassadaga!” The cheering and raucous words of congratulations from the circus hands felt gratifying.
The day of the big show was here, ‘the satellite’ was under the big top and the ringleader was now introducing Miss Myler to the large circus audience, a skinny lion in a nearby cage roared as though part of the show, the circus was a packed house, excited children eating popcorn and hot dogs, parents calling out encouragement. The tent was full of the old classic ‘Little old lady from Pasadena’, sung by Jan and Dean, the volume at that moment being turned down.
“Here now, ladies and gentlemen…” under the glaring, white spotlight the ringleaders’ tuxedo and top hat shimmered and the tall mans’ smile showed gleaming, white teeth as he gestured grandly up to Miss Myler, now poised at the top of the take-off ramp. “I know you’ve all heard of the little old lady from Pasadena; please allow me to introduce our very own little old lady from Cassadaga!” A good part of the circus goers present knew that not far from where they were was a small town of that name.
The muffled applause grew silent in anticipation as the drum roll began and she was off! As a last-minute detail, a yellow silk cape was tied about her thin neck. “You’ll look fancier with this.” They’d told her. At the very top of the circle, the anchored feeling she’d had in all her flying dreams suddenly broke away and as the wheels lifted off the solidity of the ramp she lived her dream, the key was in, the lock went snap and there was only coolness, unfettered weightlessness.
The rustle of small wings close by… | https://medium.com/an-idea/miss-tyler-has-a-dream-and-needs-to-find-peace-with-it-8d2563dae4ea | ['Tom Jacobson'] | 2020-10-15 07:33:08.286000+00:00 | ['Veterans', 'Life', 'Parrots', 'Hope', 'Dreams'] |
How to Secure Your GraphQL API From Malicious Queries | Query Cost Analysis
In depth limit, we’re limiting the execution of queries to n th level but it might not be suitable for all cases. Sometimes the depth can be a lot less but the cost to compute that query can be high. This might happen when we’re fetching a lot of data in a single query and it’s putting a lot of load on our back end server or database server. These queries might look something like this:
Even though this query is only two levels deep, you can understand the level of complexity — the amount of data it will be requesting from the database server and computation happening on the backend server.
This issue will not be resolved by either depth limiting or size limiting, so we need something robust that can handle this kind of query. Often in these cases, we need to perform a query cost analysis, where our server computes the cost of each query and decides whether to allow this query or reject it.
To do this, we need to analyze each query before running them on our server. If they’re too complex or too expensive, we need to block them. There are numerous open-source libraries which have been built by some really smart people — one of those libraries is graphql-validation-complexity . You can separately define complexity for each field, like different complexity for scalar types and objects. There is also graphql-query-complexity which calculates the complexity based on each field, unlike graphql-validation-complexity which calculates it based on the types. Adding query cost analysis using either of these libraries is pretty straightforward:
Before you start implementing query cost analysis on your server, just make sure your server really needs it. Otherwise, it will just be another overhead for your server and you’ll just end up wasting resources and time. If your server doesn’t any complex relations fetching you might be better off without query cost analysis — just add size limiting and depth limiting. | https://medium.com/better-programming/how-to-secure-your-graphql-api-from-malicious-queries-d5f71f74795e | ['Sachin Thakur'] | 2020-05-20 14:30:34.288000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Nodejs', 'JavaScript', 'Database', 'GraphQL'] |
Interview Question — JavaScript this keyword with apply method | Browser JavaScript and Event Loop Course is available at http://bit.ly/39eDgEA
The code is available at https://bonsaiilabs.com/js-interview-this-keyword/
Here is some JavaScript code and we want to get its output.
In this piece of code, you will need an understanding of `this` keyword
in JavaScript and use it in conjunction with `apply` method available on all functions. | https://medium.com/@deeksha.sharma25/interview-question-javascript-this-keyword-with-apply-method-9f06359615ad | ['Deeksha Sharma'] | 2020-12-17 21:22:51.327000+00:00 | ['Javascript Tips', 'JavaScript'] |
Renovating Your Place? Maybe It’s Time For You To Invest In Carrara Marbles | One of the most unnaturalized building materials, Carrara marble comes in the premium segment. Carrara marble got its name from Italy, where it is exacted most commonly. The marble became instantly popular among builders, architects, engineers, and property owners for its greyish blue or white hue.
Atlas Tile & Stone, being the largest and promising marble supplier in Melbourne import a wide variety of this marble including Dramatic, Bianco and whiter Carrara Marbles in Melbourne.
Carrara Tile has a history for sculpting, is nowadays usually used in homes as countertops and floor tiles. The stone is principally valued for its clean and aesthetic features.
We modernize our house in distinct ways and sometimes the redecorations make the house something different from the others. Carrara marble is awesome and ideal to embellish both residential as well as commercial buildings.
However, there are some features or factors, one should consider before investing in tiles for the decoration.
● The refined and graceful white marble tile balances the look of both modern as well as conservative buildings.
● Reverse the aging of your building. It becomes quite tedious to compute the age of the building once decorated with marbles or tiles.
● Ideal for office and home beautification, Carrara marbles comes in different design and colour. They are also available in dark or transparent shade with a little touch of vein and twisted design.
We, Atlas Tile & Stone are the largest importer and supplier of natural stones In Melbourne.
Being one of the largest, prominent, and reliable marble suppliers in Melbourne, we supply attractive, strong, and stunning marble carving and patterns to our clients. Our marbles are ideal for your kitchen, dining hall, portico, floors, and passages. These marbles also resist the heat and help in keeping your surroundings cool, especially during the summer.
Our Dandenong showroom represents all the unique visuals of our stone tiles and stone slabs collections. Our professional and dedicated staff is always ready to deliver the best of their services and transverse you through the showroom for you to select the stone best suited to your pocket and requirement. | https://medium.com/@atlastilestone/renovating-your-place-maybe-its-time-for-you-to-invest-in-carrara-marbles-57fc8458368 | ['Atlas Tile'] | 2019-11-21 12:10:47.771000+00:00 | ['Home Decor', 'Home Improvement', 'Carrara Marble', 'Carrara Marble Melbourne', 'Marble Suppliers'] |
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